Turn A Blind Eye

by Neil A. White

  ***

  The trail funnelled under the bridge at Darebin Road. The darkness a brief, yet welcome, respite from the scorching sunlight drilling into my brain. The stark contrast left me momentarily blinded.

  Beyond the shadows, the blinding sunlight awaited my re-emergence. Though, not more than 100 metres further on tall willows and scraggly gum trees formed a tunnel diffusing the sun’s brilliance. Dappled sunlight shone through the leaves turning them into a shimmering canopy of silver and gold.

  Through my earbuds, David Bridie gave way to Augie March. Lead vocalist, Glenn Richards, sung of just passing through. Though what they were “passing through” was somewhat nebulous. Town? Life? I’d always found it hard to interpret.

  Nevertheless, I forged ahead. Out of the shadows and into the light.

  ***

  Steve Slattery was knocking loudly on the front door of the last known address of Craig Walters when the call came over the radio.

  Sir, you need to hear this.

  The junior constable standing beside the patrol car quickly relayed the original message to his superior.

  We have a report of shots fired on Darebin Road.

  Epilogue

  Melbourne, Australia

  May 14, 2016

  Steve Slattery rocked back in his favourite patio chair and rested his feet on the handrail. He basked in the waning sunlight of a glorious autumn day. And as he watched the sun begin its slow-motion dip into Bass Strait, the first hint of a freshening breeze ruffled the spinifex below on the dunes.

  Reaching down, he lifted the glass of Munari Schoolhouse Red from the gnarled wooden boards of the veranda, rested the stem on his stomach and closed his eyes.

  The intoxicating aroma of lamb chops searing on the barbeque began to drive his taste buds insane with anticipation. He opened his eyes and followed the smoke spirally skywards from the barbeque to where two seagulls circled in hope.

  Now six weeks removed, he’d come to terms with most of the events from that hectic week ushering in the month of April. He didn’t yet have all the answers but felt sure, with time, he’d know enough to satisfy his curiosity.

  Thom Lewis, released on bail and confined to his South Yarra home, faced a conspiracy to commit murder charge, among a handful of other lesser crimes. Within hours of his arrest, he was begging to plea bargain in exchange for testimony implicating Ambrose Sinclair.

  The Federal Police continued their investigation of the pension fraud scheme, as well as O’Neal’s work with his law firm. However, untangling the Gordian knot of offshore accounts and shell companies O’Neal established during his partnership with Mullane, not to mention those on behalf of the clients for Williams & Teacher, may take them years. And help with regards to O’Neal’s handiwork was going to be extremely difficult to obtain. Ambrose Sinclair hadn’t spoken a word since his arrest; Garth O’Neal was dead and Eric Mullane missing.

  Homicide detectives missed Mullane by minutes on the day they’d arrested Lewis. Two days later, the Captain of a passing freighter reported Eric’s twelve-meter boat, Matilda, adrift two kilometres east of Swan Island. Whether he’d managed to pull off an elaborate escape, or simply drowned, was still just speculation. A body hadn’t surfaced, and with the tides in that section of the bay notoriously powerful, chances of doing so were slim. And, of course, sharks do eat their own. Adding to the mystery, all bank accounts discovered by the forensics team in Mullane’s name were emptied via wire transfers the day before his disappearance.

  Investigators traced the initial transfers to an HSBC branch in Hong Kong, but by the time formal requests for information landed on the bank’s desk, the money was long gone and the account closed. All other questions were met with stoic silence and a recital of bank privacy laws.

  Slattery sipped the last of his wine and rose for a refill. A quick check on the lamb chops showed they were close to perfection. In the kitchen, he sliced fresh tomatoes, cucumber and avocado and dropped them into a bowl. He mixed in a dash of olive oil and lemon juice and carried the creation, along with his wine, back to the veranda.

  One item still baffling him was the connection of Dayne Wallingham to a group known as Plutus 7. As part of the investigation into his death, the Digital Forensics department conducted an inspection of his computer hard drive. However, a virus implanted in the system, named Plutus, destroyed the contents before police technicians could retrieve a scrap of data. The name of the virus meant nothing to the investigators until the morning of April 4.

  That morning a group calling itself Plutus 7 transferred an enormous amount of data to WikiLeaks – the whistle-blower website – who subsequently uploaded it to the internet. Within hours, the documents – collectively known as the Panama Papers – exploded across newswires worldwide, exposing the use of offshore shell companies as tax shelters for the rich and famous. Strangely, the name of the law firm in Panama whose data was stolen also appeared in an internal email discovered in the files of Ambrose Sinclair. The coincidence impossible to ignore.

  The fallout from the release of the Panama Papers continued to reverberate worldwide. Implicated were business people, entertainment figures and politicians from every continent. Among them, the Prime Minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull. Within days, the call for a Royal Commission to investigate echoed through the halls of Parliament House in Canberra. Slattery contemplated if the hastily called election, announced the first of week May, had anything to do with the matter.

  Slattery placed the salad bowl on the small wooden table and retrieved the lamb chops from the grill. He set the tray of meat in the centre of the table and divided up the salad into two bowls. Once seated in his favourite chair facing the water he speared two of the succulent chops onto his plate.

  So, are you ready to eat?

  Sure, all this cooking has made me hungry.

  Need a beer?

  I’m good.

  And are you ready to talk?

  Yeah… I guess I have some explaining to do.

  ***

  The moment I’d been dreading.

  Acting Chief Commissioner Slattery – he’d since told me to call him Steve – met my flight at Tullamarine Airport two days earlier, then whisked me away to his bungalow at Rye. I reluctantly agreed to board the flight based on his assurance there was no further threat to my life. But a lingering doubt still remained.

  First up. How in the hell did you manage to disappear?

  Actually, it was Dayne setting it all up. You probably know by now he was an accomplished hacker. Well, the group he worked with…

  Plutus 7?

  … I never knew the name, but it could be. He’d put systems in place in case his work came under attack. Part of which involved having fake identification to go underground if necessary. He had the photo changed out in one of his fake passports with mine. He already had a credit card issued under the same name, which is what I used while I was gone.

  We know you went for a run the day you disappeared.

  That was the plan. I’d picked up a rental car using my fake passport the day before and parked it on Clarendon Street just a few metres from the parklands trail. I’d also packed a bag with everything I’d need and stowed it in the boot. The idea was to go out for a run and disappear. It was only two kilometres to the car; the keys were in a pocket of my running shorts. Once on the road, I changed clothes at a McDonalds in Preston, then continued on to the airport. My flight left not long after I arrived.

  And the email you sent to me? Why not just hand me the files?

  I was in danger and we weren’t sure how seriously you’d take the information. Dayne thought it would expedite matters if you discovered me missing.

  Steve smiled and shook his head back and forth, I assumed, in disbelief. I finished chewing a piece of lamb before continuing.

  Dayne set up an email account to which we both had the password. We were to communicate through saved draft messages. Totally invisible to anyone looking for an electronic
footprint. The plan was to stay out of sight until he told me it was safe to return. I wondered why he wasn’t answering my messages but thought nothing of it at first.

  I paused to get another beer from the kitchen. Talking about Dayne was still very raw. I’d caused his death, and no amount of soul-searching or justifying actions or looking at the big picture would ever change that. He was dead, and it was because of me.

  It was a couple of days later before I read of Dayne’s murder on the internet. It left me numb and totally at a loss for where to turn for help. For the next two weeks I hid in my hotel room afraid to be seen in public. Knowing I couldn’t live that way forever, I took a chance and emailed Steve. It took a week to get a reply and a further week before he cajoled me into returning home.

  The cold lager helped to soothe the fire of emotion in my throat. I sat back down at the table and cut into another lamb chop and concentrated on the simple exercise of sawing into the meat, using it as an alibi until I could find my voice.

  Steve took note and picked up the conversation.

  You want to hear about the bloke who was trying to kill you?

  With a mouthful of succulent lamb, I reluctantly nodded yes. Steve seemed happy to tell the story, though I wasn’t too thrilled to hear how close I came to dying.

  Fella’ by the name of Sean Costello. Medium to small time criminal, he’s been on our radar for over 30 years. In fact, I worked the case which first put him away back in 1980. Way before your time, but it was back then when I met your great-Uncle Bert. Small world, eh!

  Steve paused to stab the last chop off of the tray and dropped it onto his plate.

  Anyway. I was on my way to your home in Alphington – knocking on your door in fact – when a call came over the radio of shots fired on Darebin Road. One of our patrols spotted a car running a stop sign and began to give pursuit when the vehicle pulled over to the side of the road. The passenger fled, running towards the parklands. So, while one officer ticketed the driver, the other took off after the other bloke. Scared the hell out of him, he said, when the bloke spun around and pulled a pistol on him, but he held his nerve and dropped him with two shots.

  The third lamb chop of Steve’s disappeared, the L-shaped bone remaining he pushed to the side of his plate to join its two friends.

  Costello died at the scene. His gun, we later determined, matched the one used on Garth O’Neal and Dayne. We couldn’t find a direct link between Costello to either Lewis or Sinclair, but we’re certain Lewis’s testimony against Sinclair will be sufficient. We’ll more than likely give the slimy bastard immunity from the conspiracy charge, but he’s still in deep for what Mullane was up to right under his nose. Sometimes, unfortunately, you have to make a deal with the devil.

  I cleared the plates from the table and took them inside. The last sliver of sun succumbed to the sea, and the sky to the west turned a wondrous shade of orange, auburn and fuchsia.

  Can you bring out another bottle of Adrian’s Shiraz while you’re in there?

  Steve continued his story as I unscrewed the Schoolhouse Red’s cap and refilled his glass. He slowly swirled the deep purple liquid, releasing a heady aroma of dark berries with a hint of aniseed. Steve’s favoured wine came courtesy of his good friend, Adrian Munari, who plied his craft amongst the fertile Cambrian soil of Central Victoria. Steve told me he worked a murder case near Heathcote once, and after solving the case spent a few extra days in town exploring the local wineries. He’d kept close contact with the Munari family ever since.

  Funny thing. We discovered Costello was employed by a mob called Howarth Investigations. Incorporated in the Channel Islands of all places. We reached out to the UK authorities and, lo and behold; they were investigating the same company.

  Why?

  Well, it so happens two other employees of Howarth Investigations were murdered in Dublin a week earlier. Irish police have no leads in the case, but it makes you wonder.

  Steve held up his glass and inspected the contents.

  And get this, thanks to the lead we shared. Our friends at Interpol placed the Dublin office of Williams & Teacher under surveillance and began digging a little deeper into their affairs. The same week we arrested Sinclair, the senior partner in Dublin was copied in on a frantic email to their London headquarters from the Rome office.

  About?

  Their client in Rome – all they had was an initial “V” – wanted the investigation in Dublin dropped immediately.

  V?

  Steve sipped his wine then placed the glass on the wooden boards of the veranda before answering.

  Interpol decided to get the Italian Carabinieri involved. A clandestine investigation into the law firm’s taxation records showed their largest client being the Institute for the Works of Religion.

  Steve paused for effect but seeing I was totally dumbfounded continued.

  More commonly known as the Vatican Bank. “V” for Vatican? Coincidental perhaps, but I don’t believe in coincidences. Especially with their tawdry history involving money laundering.

  Could all this be happening? Contract killers working around the globe. Money Laundering. The Vatican? The layers associated with this mess were impossible to fathom.

  Money Laundering? You think they and Garth were somehow working together?

  Hold that thought. Remember the two Howarth employees in Dublin?

  Sure. So, who else turned up dead?

  The comment came out a touch more blasé than I intended. The stony gaze on Steve’s face immediately made me want to stuff the words back down my throat.

  Funny you should ask. A man by the name of Eamonn Mahoney. Murdered in a McDonald’s toilet in Longford about 120 kilometres west of Dublin. Mahoney was a nondescript fellow, no record to speak of. The Gardaí wouldn’t have deemed it relevant to our case other than his home address happened to be across the road from where the two employees of Howarth were shot.

  Coincidences were beginning to leave the same unsavoury taste in my mouth as they did Steve’s.

  And care to guess what a cursory search of Mahoney’s home uncovered?

  Steve was wound-up and not about to let me get a word in.

  A notebook full of details about bank locations and procedures dating back to the first of the Euro bandit robberies. And to tie the whole thing up in a nice little conspiratorial bow. That same week, an Irish politician was found hanging from a tree limb by a farmer out walking his dogs. And the politician, man by the name of Clancy, just happened to be one of those implicated in the Panama Papers.

  He stabbed a slice of cucumber and slipped it into his mouth. Then while pointing the fork in my direction continued.

  You would think suicide except for two small problems. He was found dead a week before the leak hit the news. And, he’d been shot in both kneecaps. The old calling card of the IRA. Clancy was a known member back in the day.

  I’d lost my appetite.

  Now, I may be adding two and two and getting twelve. But I believe by you uncovering the hospice fraud, you unwittingly exposed Williams & Teacher’s shady practices worldwide. Plus, a money laundering scheme involving Sinn Fein, the bank robberies, and the Vatican. Thanks to you, half of Europe’s police forces will be plenty busy for the foreseeable future.

  Steve pushed back from the table, stood and stretched. I followed his gaze out towards the water, and we both watched in silence the waves rising then collapsing upon the shore. The sea, in the darkness, was a dense mass of roiling energy. In the pale moonlight, the foam of the breaking waves produced a phosphorescent glow.

  You never did tell me where you went?

  The point-blank question caught me off guard. I chewed over the implications of how much to tell.

  I don’t have to know if you’re not comfortable in saying.

  We both continued staring out to sea. Steve content with the silence, leaving me alone to fight my inner-demons.

  ***

  Dayne, with assistance from his associates, worke
d furiously during the last week before our worlds came crashing down. It turned out Garth O’Neal wasn’t the only expert at setting up shell companies offshore. And with a little help from myself in accessing the Southern Cross intranet, well, it took no time at all for Dayne to move a little travelling money for me around the globe.

  I arrived in Singapore still with a headache from my hangover. The frenetic taxi ride from Changi Airport to the Clover 7 Hotel on Hong Kong Street helped not in the least. After sleeping for much of the weekend, Monday morning I made my way to the United Overseas Bank at Raffles Place.

  There, I produced identification and signed a signature card allowing me access to the account of D&C Investments. The registered owners of D&C Investments? Two brothers of New Zealand descent with the last name of Caterpaul.

  Dayne’s homage to our tenth-grade computer science teacher.

  And the funding of the account? After a circuitous trip around the globe propelled by untraceable IP addresses, through a labyrinth of shell corporations dissolving just as quickly as they formed, appeared an amount of cash Dayne secreted away from the accounts of Eric Mullane and Garth O’Neal.

  The young female associate, after verifying my identity and updating a signature card, asked if I needed any further assistance.

  Yes, I need to make a fairly large withdrawal.

  Absolutely, sir. How much would you like?