My Muse

"What? How is it that I didn't know this? How is it that you neglected to tell me that bit of news?"

"Because my Cherie, he is a bad man, a very bad man who has had men killed for looking at me. When he finds out that you want to marry me he will not think twice about killing you, and I cannot have that."

"I think that you had better tell me all." I didn't know whether I really wanted to hear this but it would be better knowing than not.

"When I was much younger, in Paris, I meet this man. My mother and father lived at Toulouse, he worked in a Chateau making wine. My mother was not happy with this life, for she was a Parisienne, a singer. She married my father because of me. He had been in Paris and they met and fell in love and she found herself pregnant with me and they married. They moved to Toulouse, which is where he was living, and I was born, but she was not happy. My father died when I was fifteen, so she moved back to Paris and found work again, singing in clubs and restaurants."

"I would go with her to listen to her singing, and one day a few years later, I was out the back singing one of her songs, and the owner of the restaurant hear me and ask me if I would like to sing for him. I said no, but he kept asking me until I said yes. My mother was angry that I was offered this work, but happy for me because she saw my passion for singing."

"I worked hard and soon people were coming to the restaurant to hear me sing. This was when Louis began to be interested in me. It was usual for men patrons to approach me to entice me to be with them. I was afraid but Louis saw what was happening and would tell these men to not be interested in me as I was his girlfriend. After a short while no men approached me and Louis wanted me to be his girl. I spoke with Maman and she say to me that I should allow this because Louis was a very important man. So, at eighteen I became his lover and then his wife. I thought that I had everything that I desired, but alors, I soon realise that I am wrong. He is important bad man, he has prostitutes working for him, he deals in drugs, he is a leader of a very bad gang that beats people and, I am told, kills people. I think that I will have to escape from him but how?"

"And then things between us changed. He ask me to entertain men, his colleagues, or men that he want to gain advantage over, he want me to make love with them so that he can hold this over them to get what he want. I do not like to do this, I do not want to do this, but he frighten me and I do this. I think that he no longer cares for me, so I want to leave him, but this is not possible. For me to leave him will show his friends he have no control over me, and his enemies that he has the weakness, so he will not let me go."

"Then one of the other singers tell me of this engagement to sing in Australie, and I see this is my chance. I plead with Louis to let me go. At first he is angry that I should want to do this, but then he say to me, 'you can go'. I find out later, after the end of the engagement, that he has another girl with him and that the reason that he allow me to come here was to be with her. With another woman with him he gains face with his friends, but he still will not allow me a divorce. You have to know him to understand this."

"So I contact Maman and ask her to find a lawyer and get a divorce. This is when I find that he will not let me go. It is, for him all right to have the girlfriend, but it is not all right for me to want a divorce, even though I do not have another man in my life. He tell Maman that if I do this he will kill me, he will come here to kill me. He say that I bring shame to him, and that he will lose face with his friends and associates, and this he will not allow. So I am afraid for me, and I am afraid for you because I know that he has been told about us. I don't know who tell him this, but he knows. I am afraid for you, I am afraid for us and that is why we cannot marry."

"But he is in Paris and you are here."

"That will not stop him. He does not care if I live with someone, if I love someone, he just will not allow me to marry. So, Cherie, I will live with you, I will have your child, your children, but we cannot marry."

"In this country that will be no big deal, many, many couples love each other and live with each other, have children, all as if they are married. The relationship, our relationship, will have the same status as a marriage. What I will settle for is for us to exchange vows as if we were in front of a Priest or whatever, a Celebrant, we just won't mention the slight impediment of your husband in this scenario. I love you Monique, and I will always love you, I will spend the rest of my life with you, care for you when you are unwell and when you are well, I will love no other for the rest of my days."

"I love you Cherie, I love no other forever, and I will be by your side till the end of time. This thing we say to each other is all I need from you, to me you are my husband." She kissed me, softly, longingly, lovingly.

"You have shown me the love that I cannot live without, you are indeed my wife for life." I returned her kiss, softly, longingly, lovingly. Monique and I were a family and the child inside her will know love from before birth. There was no way that I would allow a child of mine to grow up without the full and open expression of love. He or she will never suffer the social awkwardness that has blighted my life until I met Monique.

We couldn't have been happier than we were now, our lives would now be complete, but for a couple of things.

Monique was sitting in a chair in my office reading the newspaper while I tidied up a few things before we went to lunch. I heard a gasp, and when I looked at her, her face was fixed with a horrified gaze. "What is it?"

"Oh Cherie, they cannot do this, they cannot allow this to happen."

"What's the problem and who is 'they'?"

"Your Immigration Department. Louis, my husband, is appealing the decision to ban him from entering the country on the basis of his criminal record."

"Seems fair enough to me. Why, what reason has he given for wanting to come here?"

"Let me see. His reasons are that he wants to visit a close family member who, he says, has suffered a mental breakdown, he says that he wants to take her home. He means me, he wants to take me home. Ben, we must not allow this to happen."

"Don't worry about a thing, I'll make a few enquiries to find out as much as I can about his appeal. Now let's put this behind us and go to lunch."

"I do not think that I am hungry."

"Monique, my love, there is no way that he will be able to harm you, I'll not allow it. We can't let this upset us at this time. Please, try to put this out of your mind and get something to eat."

"I try, but it will be hard for me for I know this man." I took her in my arms and held her to me. "I think it best for me to leave you and go away."

"You can get those thoughts out of your head for a start. We are in this together, and together we can beat this. Look, while the Immigration Department won't allow him entry we are safe, so, unless they change their mind, and I can't see that happening, we are safe from him." I took her hand and we walked out of the office.

Our lunch was a subdued affair, neither of us feeling much like idle chit chat but relishing our closeness. As we left the restaurant I took her in my arms. "Darling, I don't think that you should be left alone, why don't you come back to work with me. You and Sandra can chat amongst yourselves while I tidy up a few things and then we'll go home.

While she and Sandra were working on something that Sandra found for them to do together, I rang Henry. "Sir, something has come up concerning Monique, I wonder if I could have a couple of weeks' vacation to get away from everything?"

"Sure, take all the time you like, we can cover for you, I might even like going out and chatting with your contacts."

"Thanks Henry, I owe you."

"No Ben, you're just getting some of what I owe you. Enjoy yourselves."

We did, as much as our thoughts would allow. We headed up the North Coast and found a quite spot where we could relax. There was a beach that stretched for kilometres and was usually devoid of people and along which we walked, allowing the beauty and serenity of nature wash the cares from our minds. At night we ate in one of the several restaurants whose menus featured fresh seafood and good wines. After dinner we went to bed. At first it was difficult to get in the mood for love, but as our time progressed we found it easier. Monique and I had truly come together.

"There is one thing that I've meant to ask you." I said as I kissed her.

"What is it?" She returned my kiss.

"That first night, the night we met and all of this began, why did you come over to me, not that I'm complaining mind you."

"It was you. At first when I see you watching me I think that you are jealous of the man I speak with, and that you were one of those, how you say, stalkers. This I did not like but you do not approach me. Then I see that you are telling me that you feel sorry for me having to listen to these men say how good they are and that I should feel honour that they talk to me. I also see that you are a shy man and not comfortable at this party, so I come to you. As I talk with you I think that I can help you and you can help me."

"I didn't think that you needed help, you looked perfectly capable of taking care of yourself."

"That is not so. All of my life I have been told to obey men and what they want for me to do. This I do not like but think that I will never be free of this. You I think, will not want that from me. I also think that you do not have the confidence in self, so I think that if I were to become your Muse we can help each other."

"I don't know that I have helped you all that much, but as my Muse you have certainly helped me improve my writing, and you have helped me as a person by giving me the self-confidence I needed to stand up to Grant and his lies. Before I met you I would just have slunk off into my office and stewed over it."

"But you have helped me Cherie, you have shown me how a man should love a woman, you have shown me love. Without you I would not have known true love."

All too soon it was time to return to the real world. The nearer we got to home the more tense I felt. I tried not to show it, but my Monique sensed my tension.

Appropriately enough, night was closing in when I drove into my driveway. For some reason the garage door didn't open when I pressed the button on my dashboard, so I got out to open it manually. As I was about to insert the key in the lock all hell broke loose. Cars appeared from no-where, all flashing red and blue lights. They converged on a parked car and there was a lot of yelling. "Get out of the car, now!" "On the ground!" "Cuff him!" "Get to your feet!" "You and you, search his car, look for a detonator of some description while I go and have a chat to these two." A man approached, a big man with a determined look on his face. "Sorry to bother you sir, my name is Detective Inspector Browning, we can't let you into your house, you have a surprise waiting for you inside, and not a pleasant surprise."

"Monique got out of the car with a look of fear on her face. "What is wrong here?"

"Nothing to worry about miss, at least not now. But we cannot allow you to go inside just yet, we have a lot of work to do before we can allow that. We need to ask both of you some questions and, rather than take you to the station, I thought that we should find you a hotel room and conduct the interview there. It will give you somewhere to stay until we clear up this mess."

"Do we have a choice?" I asked. The last thing I wanted was to spend another night in a hotel. I was just about hotelled out.

"In a word, no. No harm can come to you there, we will have you under police guard the whole time and not allow you to come back here until we are certain that it is completely safe."

To say that I was confused was not entirely true, my worst fears had just been realised, but, I rationalised, if that was the worst and it had been taken care of, we would have nothing more to worry about. I took Monique in my arms. "Everything's going to be fine."

"How do you know this?" She was afraid and her mumbled speech conveyed this.

"These men have obviously stopped something bad that was going to happen to us, and arrested whoever it was that wanted that something bad to happen. I don't know who that is, and frankly I don't care, just as long as he doesn't get another chance."

There was a procession of sorts as we were driven to a hotel. There was a smaller procession, just one delivery van, when we were driven from that hotel to another.

"You're taking incredible precautions for us, aren't you?"

"Yes, and with good reason. We have arrested a man in connection with a plot to blow you up, and there will be another arrest in connection with this plot, someone known to Miss Lefleur."

"Mon Dieu, Louis!"

"The one and the same. The Sureté have been monitoring his phones for some time, and when they intercepted text messages to someone here they alerted us so that we could investigate. The local contact had contracted with your Louis to kill you. For some reason known only to him, Louis considered it preferable to kill you rather than have you divorce him."

"But how, why, who made the first approach?"

"That came from this end. It would seem that the article in the papers about Louis wanting to come to Australia to save a close relative who had suffered a breakdown, included a photo of Miss Lefleur. The person here recognised her from this photo, and contacted Louis, telling him that he knew of her location and offering assistance. When Louis contacted him and told him that he wanted her dead, negotiations began in earnest. A lot of money was involved."

"Who is the local contact?" I had already worked that out for myself, I just needed confirmation.

"I believe Mr Symonds, that you know this man. His name is Grant Anderson."

"I thought that might be who it was, I know that he didn't like me much, but to hate me to the extent of wanting to kill me, that surprises even me."

"Since he was asked to resign from his last job, and apparently you had some involvement in that decision, he has been unable to find work. He had been running a scam that I don't think that your company knew about, involving second hand car parts."

"Tell me more."

"Through a parts recycling company he was able to set up a lucrative market for 'hot' parts. The way that it worked was, a young lad would go to the recyclers looking for something like an STi spec WRX motor to replace the standard motor, which they were only too happy to sell to him at a good price. What they didn't tell him was, that matching a STi spec motor to a standard drive-train resulted in the gearbox self-destructing, creating a market for the upgraded transmission at an inflated price, knowing that he had to get his pride and joy back on the road as quickly as possible. He was told that the fitting would take time, and that he would also have to re-chip the ECU computer, which of course was an additional cost. The exercise ended up costing the young lad a lot more than if he had gone to a reputable tuner in the first place. Grant was able, through the insurance company, source performance parts from written off cars."

"How does this tie-in with his contacting Louis?"

"It seems that the principles behind the scam were also involved in drugs, and had contacts around the world. It was through this network that they knew Louis. Grant had apparently mentioned to one of his local contacts that he knew Monique and Louis was approached with the information."

"That doesn't explain how it was that Grant was able to set explosives to blow us up."

"You can thank his friends for that. They provided him with the necessaries and even broke into your house and showed him the best places to set the explosives. We have seen the results of their efforts and, believe me, if we hadn't stopped him when we did, you would not be here now."

"But why did you let it go as far as it did? Surely you could have arrested him well before we got home?"

"We could have, but it was a matter of the charges that we could have laid. If we had arrested him before the act we could only charge him with setting the explosives, he could have argued that it was an insurance scam that you and he were perpetrating to profit from the destruction of your house. But by arresting him actually pushing the button while you were in the immediate vicinity, raises the charge to one of attempted murder."

"Okay, next question, how was it that you were alerted to this attempt to kill us?"

"You can thank your secretary for that. Before the two of you went away, Sandra and Monique had been discussing the reasons for the holiday. Monique mentioned that she was afraid of this Louis character, and that she wasn't feeling safe, even thousands of kilometres away. We alerted the Sureté, and when that first contact was made between him and Grant, we were alerted. So, we put a tail on him. That was how we could map his association with the parts scam, we had been searching for a tie-in with an insurance company for some time. Once we were aware of his plans it was a simple matter of keeping your house under very close surveillance, there were complaints from a neighbour of yours about the toy helicopter that seemed to be always hovering around. It was one of ours, fitted with a camera, we sent it up when a suspicious vehicle was parked in the vicinity, we saw them break in, we even have pictures, a little fuzzy admittedly, but clear enough, of them setting charges. So you see, we had every contingency covered."

"So what happens now?"

"We have teams going around arresting other members of the gang. There will be court appearances, and we will be opposing bail on each case. In Paris the Sureté will be making arrests based on information provided by us, your friend Louis will be charged with attempted murder and a whole bunch of other charges. With any sort of luck, he will be put away for a long spell."

"When will we be able to go home?"

"It should be in a couple of days, we need to tie up any loose ends before we can allow you to go home. Don't worry about your job, we have spoken to your boss and he told us to tell you that he doesn't want you anywhere near work until this is sorted. You are still on paid leave."

In the usual scheme of things, a man and a woman who love each other as Monique and I do, on finding themselves confined to a hotel room for even a couple of days, would be forgiven for allowing unbridled lust to take over their lives and spend all of their time making love. After what we had been through, neither of us could gain much enthusiasm for making love, but we did spend a lot of our time in bed, naked, just holding each other and allowing our feelings for each other to merge. On the third day we had eventually found the need for love-making stronger than our reticence and were just reaching that climactic moment when the phone rang. "This had better be good." I mumbled into it.

"Get you gear on, you're going home." It was Browning.

"So, it's all over, is it?"

"Yes, all neatly tied up. Your friend Grant is being very helpful, probably hoping that we'll go easy on him for shopping his friends. He's going to be a tad upset when we charge him with attempted murder as well as his involvement in the scam operation. It's a very big book that we're throwing at him, one that he won't be able to duck."

"Thanks for that."

"There's a car downstairs waiting to take you home."

Browning had a smile on his face as we emerged into the foyer. He led us to his car and actually drove us home. "You two take care, won't you?"