Cyanide Games: A Peter Tanner Thriller

by Richard Beasley

  ‘A court order?’

  ‘That’s our clients’ property on the hard drive, Melissa. I’m sure Joe would hate it if BBK had to get a court order to retrieve it from your computer. We’ll have it back to you in no time.’

  She looked at him, still uncertain. In the doorway she saw the other man, who was already carrying her iMac. ‘Let me call my lawyer,’ she said. ‘Can you talk to him?’

  ‘I’m not authorised to talk to your lawyer,’ Irwin said. ‘We’d have to get our own lawyers to talk to him.’ His tone had remained friendly until then. Now it was colder, final.

  ‘It will only –’

  ‘This can’t wait, Melissa.’

  ‘Just let me call Peter Tanner. He’s my lawyer. I just want to –’

  ‘We can’t leave our clients’ property here, Melissa.’

  She started to dial Tanner’s number, but the men were already walking down the corridor to the front door.

  ‘Wait, please, just let me call Peter.’

  The door shut before Tanner answered the phone.

  7

  It was a ten-minute walk from BBK’s offices to the building where Tanner shared chambers with forty other criminal lawyers. The building was Art Deco; the lifts were not glass boxes that glided effortlessly up a sky-high atrium. They had mass that struggled to defy gravity; their doors could hold out armies.

  As he said good morning to the receptionist, he felt his mobile phone vibrating in his jacket pocket.

  Melissa was hysterical. When she managed to tell him what had happened, he told her to write it all down, and that he’d be there in fifteen minutes.

  When he arrived, Melissa had managed to compose herself. She had Lily sitting in a high chair in the kitchen, eating macaroni cheese straight off the chair’s plastic table.

  ‘Sorry, this looks so disgusting,’ Melissa said.

  ‘I see worse at chambers lunches.’

  She made tea, and took him through what had happened, using the note she’d made.

  ‘This man Irwin,’ Tanner said when she was done, ‘did he say he was a partner at BBK?’

  ‘He said he was one of Joe’s colleagues.’

  ‘Has Joe ever mentioned him?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘And the other guy?’

  ‘He said nothing,’ she said. ‘I can’t recall his name. He didn’t look like –’ she paused.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I don’t think he was a lawyer.’

  Tanner nodded. ‘And you didn’t say they could take the computer?’

  ‘They just took it,’ she said, starting to lose composure again. ‘I wanted to ring you. I asked them to wait.’

  ‘Listen to me. Did you say no?’

  ‘They said they could get a court order. I didn’t –’ She started crying again.

  ‘I’ll go and see Jackson again,’ he said. ‘I’ll get it back. Okay? Melissa?’

  ‘Okay.’

  He told her not to worry, but it didn’t seem like BBK’s motive was to help Joe Cheung. They’d be putting their own interests first, the clients’ second. Joe would be a long last.

  When she composed herself, Melissa told him she’d called the consulate that morning, but there was no further news. ‘Tell me what Dennis Jackson said,’ she asked. ‘He must know something?’

  ‘This trip to China. Did Joe say it was for Citadel Resources?’

  ‘I know the name. Joe doesn’t talk much about work.’ She shook her head, a look of frustration on her face. ‘Half the time I’m not listening, Pete. You know, if he comes home early, the kids are making noise, talking to me, talking to him, yelling . . . it’s that time of the day. If he comes home late, I’m often asleep. He had to go for a meeting with a client he said was being difficult. He was – I don’t know if this is to do with anything, but he was worried about something recently.’

  ‘Worried about what?’

  ‘It was more – I’ve been thinking about this – something was bothering him for a while now, but when I asked him, he said it was nothing. It was worse recently. Since he came back from New Guinea.’

  ‘New Guinea?’

  She nodded. ‘About six weeks ago. There was some kind of meeting at a mine site with the owners or operators. Some government approval had to be sorted out. That’s all he told me.’

  ‘Was this also to do with going to China?’

  She shrugged. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Where’s the mine?’

  ‘They had to fly to a small island.’

  ‘Do you know its name?’

  She sighed, and smiled lightly. ‘I’d remember it if you said it.’

  ‘We’ll check later. I’ll get someone to do a search.’

  ‘I remember he couldn’t call us. I mean, not on his phone. The mobile communications were down. He had to use a phone that was in an office building.’

  ‘How long was he there?’

  ‘Three days.’

  ‘You must have talked to him about it when he got back?’

  ‘He said that he’d had his meetings, and it all went okay.’

  ‘Meetings with who?’

  ‘I don’t recall, Pete,’ she said. ‘If Joe was dealing with a particular bank, he’d just call it “the bank”. Same with mining companies. They were usually just “the mining company”.’

  ‘Did he go with anyone else from BBK?’

  She shook her head. ‘I know it sounds vague, but we only had general discussions about these things. It was urgent, though. He only got about twenty-four hours’ notice.’

  Tanner nodded.

  ‘You’re not telling me what Dennis Jackson said, Pete,’ she said.

  Tanner leant forwards in his chair. ‘Nothing is confirmed.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘A client of BBK’s won a tender for an exploration licence from the government a few years back. That’s a licence given to a mining company to explore for minerals in an area, you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘These licences are expensive if it’s already known that minerals are in a particular area. They’re often bought in a public tender. The miners submit confidential bids to the government. The bids can be pretty high, because if they’re confident mining will be viable, almost always the company granted the licence will be granted an approval to build a mine. Jackson suggested Joe’s part of an investigation about whether someone tried to sell his client’s tender bid to another company.’

  Melissa straightened in her chair and looked at Tanner coldly. ‘Joe would never, ever do that.’

  Tanner nodded. ‘That’s what I told Jackson.’

  ‘Jesus, Pete. He’s the most honest man I’ve ever met. It drives me nuts sometimes he’s so – shit.’ She’d sounded firm while defending her husband, but now her voice cracked again, and she started to cry.

  Tanner pushed her glass of water closer to her, and waited while she drank.

  ‘Sorry,’ she said.

  ‘All my clients cry the first time I see them.’

  She sniffed back a small laugh. ‘Really?’

  ‘Both corrupt politicians cried like babies.’

  She smiled and took a deep breath. ‘He wouldn’t do that, Pete. This has to be some misunderstanding, some . . . I don’t know.’ She stood and walked to the sink and poured herself another glass of water. She sipped it, then sat down, trying to calm herself. ‘When will I be able to see him?’

  ‘I’ll speak to the consulate for you.’

  ‘Will BBK get him a lawyer?’

  ‘I’m hopeful they’ll sort that out.’

  ‘You’re hopeful?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How can they just – ?’

  ‘The client involved is obviously a big one. Jackson said they’re going to need to find out more information first. I understand their position about wanting to know the facts.’

  ‘Do you?’

  Tanner hesitated. He wanted her to think – for the time bei
ng, at least – that BBK hadn’t just hung her husband out to dry. ‘I’m sure Jackson will get him a lawyer, Mel. What they’ll do beyond that, I don’t know. It’ll depend on what’s alleged.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  ‘I’ll do everything I can to help.’

  ‘They can’t just abandon him. I know he hasn’t done anything wrong. They can’t just –’ She broke down again.

  ‘I’m sure –’

  ‘If he’s convicted, Pete –’ she said through tears. ‘It’s China, for Christ’s sake. It will be years. The children won’t have a father. They won’t even be able to see him.’

  ‘It’s a long way from –’

  ‘He would not have done anything wrong,’ she said, her eyes gleaming, tears streaming down her check.

  She cried for a long time. Tanner hesitated to touch her, but in the end took her hand, while she wiped her wrecked face with the other. She went to the bathroom. When she came back she was flushed, her eyes puffy, but the tears had gone.

  ‘Keep calling the consulate,’ he said when she sat down. ‘Every morning, every afternoon. I’ll call too. And I’ll get your computer back, okay?’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said softly.

  He called a taxi to take him back to the city. When it arrived, she stood in the doorway, watching him leave.

  He turned to her when he reached the front gate. ‘If they won’t get him a good lawyer,’ he called out, ‘then I will.’

  8

  Nikki Richter paused in the apartment’s entry hall before putting her handbag on the console. She held her breath for a moment and listened. Six hundred square metres of space with just her to fill it. ‘Resort living in the heart of the city,’ Jack had said of the residential tower he’d built next to Hyde Park. The seed money had been his father’s. It had been Jack’s first business venture away from the mining empire.

  ‘Jack?’ Silence. ‘Are you there, Jack?’

  In the seven weeks since they’d separated, she was certain he hadn’t returned to the apartment, except once to collect his belongings. That time he’d been supervised. She still felt a sense of dread that he might be there, though. On the last night that he’d lived with her, his hands had been around her neck, squeezing hard to stop her breathing. She had felt, for a moment, the unbearable fear that he might crush her throat. The power in his hands had been terrifying. ‘I could kill you easily,’ he’d said. ‘And I’d get away with it just as easily.’ Apart from some vulgarities, those were the last words he’d said to her that night.

  She waited a moment longer, heard nothing, then walked to the kitchen.

  She poured herself a glass of water, and drank it quickly. For the last two hours she’d been at a Paddington salon. Some error in bookings meant the usual cutter was late. When it was at last her turn, the cutter sang out a flippant apology before asking (emphasising, darling, that he didn’t want to pry) whether the gossip columns about her and JR were correct. She was more annoyed by the half-arsed apology than by the question, and for being made to wait. But she knew the wives of millionaires were highly valued by the salon’s owner. She was sure that would apply to the soon-to-be ex-wife of an heir to a billionaire.

  ‘None of it’s true,’ she told her cutter. ‘Except for the part that I’m keeping the apartment, and we’re getting divorced.’

  She’d been a client at the salon for fifteen years, sent there by her agent when she was a few weeks short of her seventeenth birthday. Her modelling career had involved mainly swimwear; she was a rung below supermodel. It was enough to win Nikki Perovic the attention of John Richter, but it was not a suitable pursuit for Mrs Nikki Richter. The first time he’d been rough with her, they’d only just started dating. He took her to a friend’s party, and got drunk. He started dancing with an old girlfriend. Their bodies entwined, his hands were everywhere. They were almost having sex on the dance floor.

  Nikki called a cab, and was waiting for it on the footpath outside the the house when he reached her. He wanted to know what she thought she was doing.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ she said. She was flushed with humiliation. She could feel an intense heat on her cheeks.

  ‘Come back inside.’

  She turned and started to walk off. He grabbed the collar of her dress and yanked it back. She heard the fabric tear, and then she was on the ground. She felt a sharp pain as her elbows hit the footpath. He pulled her to her feet. He looked as shocked as she felt – as though, for a moment, he’d been stunned by the ferocity of his rage, incredulous that it wasn’t something he could control. She ran down the street and met the taxi at the bottom of the hill. That should have been it.

  Every time they’d fought, Jack found a way of blaming her. Now, looking back, she blamed herself too – she should have known. She understood some of his anger, the idea that he was not a chip off the old block. Sometimes she’d just want to say to him, ‘You have so much money. Can’t you just be happy?’ And who’d want to be like Hendrik? Who’d want to be like that cold bastard, with that voice that frayed her hair?

  She opened a door of the double-sided fridge and took out a bottle of wine. It was from somewhere called Meursault. Jack’s wine was bought for him by a broker, but he bought his cocaine from his lawyer.

  She was going out later, the thirtieth birthday of her personal trainer’s fiancé, at a private club in Bondi. One of the haunts Jack liked to go when he wasn’t sleazing around at his own club. She found a bottle opener and poured herself a glass. She was supposed to be detoxing, but felt the need to loosen up. She took a sip, and tried to remember if she’d told her trainer to leave the name Perovic at the door. She was going back to Nikki Perovic.

  After she was married, no longer working, there was a lot of time to fill. Jack wanted to go out every night. He could get in anywhere. He had a key to every room in every city where the young and the rich met. They fitted that billing. They were young, beautiful and obscenely rich. She got bored. Not straight away, but quickly enough that it surprised her. And there were times when he looked bored too. Alcohol was not enough. Not even coke. ‘Jack loves smack,’ he’d say to his dealers. The Jack loves smack period lasted nearly two years.

  It wasn’t long before she worked out he was fucking other women. He flirted with them in front of her at clubs, half fucked them in booths and on dance floors. He wanted threesomes. He wanted her to watch. He wanted to watch her. On candy and H, she went along. She was now a rich, rich girl, wife of the heir, doing what his fantasies demanded, taking drugs to cover the sadness. She thought she was pathetic.

  One night in a bar, after a few lines of coke, she called him Jack the Richter. He slapped her hard across the face. When she got outside, she threw her engagement ring across the street. She went into rehab. Jack claimed seven hundred and fifty K from an insurer for the ‘stolen’ ring.

  She came out of rehab for the second time on Valentine’s Day; they were going to dinner. He rang in the afternoon and said he had to work late. They were buying a stake in a mine in South America. ‘The deal isn’t going to be placed on hold for fucking Valentine’s Day,’ he’d said when she complained. She knew he was lying. He didn’t come home that night. The mine deal fell through.

  She hired someone after that. She felt stupid about it, but wanted to be sure. He used an apartment she didn’t know he owned. He took women there three or four times a week.

  She went to a lawyer, who told her to get anything that might loosen the strict terms of her pre-nup. So when they went out to nightclubs or to parties, she would sometimes pretend to make a phone call to friends. She filmed him doing lines of coke, and talking about how good it was, how pure. Heroin was no longer chic, he said one night. It was for the plebs. Like he’d fucking know.

  She got into his computer at home, and his laptop. His password was ‘black gold’. He’d told her that once, never thinking it would matter. She read stuff about Citadel she thought she could leverage against him later. She was not going to be fobbed off
with seven million – she was taking more than that. She’d give half to charity. All those starving kids in Africa. It was their minerals that had made the Richters rich.

  When she told him she knew about the other girls, and that she wanted a divorce, he’d laughed, but soon flew into a rage. She’d got her timing wrong. He was agitated and aggressive with coke. He must have been doing lines in the office with that weasel of a lawyer.

  He’d slapped her across the face as hard as he ever had, but wasn’t satisfied with that. Not when she screamed that she’d seen a lawyer, and told him how many zeros the cheque would need to have. He’d grabbed her hair and dragged her into the bedroom. That’s when he’d started to strangle her. He must have thought better about what he’d do then, because he stopped. ‘Pack your fucking clothes,’ he’d said. ‘Or I’ll throw you in the street.’

  She’d contemplated calling the police, but then called her lawyer. She sent a text to her father-in-law. Your son just assaulted me, it said. I’m calling the police. She took a selfie of a reddening eye, which she sent to Lady Richter as well. My lawyer has these, she said in another text. She took more photos of the marks around her neck.

  It seemed like only twenty minutes before the men arrived. There were two of them. Jack knew them. He buzzed them up. The older one took Jack into his wine cellar, and shut the door. When they came out, Jack left with the younger man.

  The older man walked over to where she was standing in the doorway of the bedroom. ‘He did this,’ she said, pointing to the left side of her face, which was blotched pink and white, and to her neck, his fingerprints almost glowing on it.

  The man nodded. He said his name was Steve. He was in a blue suit. She knew it was expensive. A white shirt, a white kerchief in the breast pocket. He had a shaved head, a goatee in a mix of rust and grey. He looked kind, she thought. He had sad eyes.

  ‘Mr Richter asked me to tell you this is your home,’ he said. It was one of those accents you could have two or three guesses at and still be wrong. ‘There’s no need for the police.’

  She said nothing.

  He stood there, looking at her, smiling faintly. ‘Ma’am? There’s no need for the police?’