Prodigal

by T M Heron

  “Who’re with Simpson Grierson,” I mutter. It’s not my personal loss. But I always hate Bakers losing to a company represented by another of the big greats.

  “Mel oversaw the due diligence,” says Frederick. “But just about everything Jo typed or did on that job came from me. William Foster was the other solicitor on it but he was more involved with technical aspects.”

  “Foster would no sooner murder someone than a flea swallow a goat,” I say flatly. “What about the other job? Neptune?”

  Frederick hesitates. “There was a lot less documentation on that file. It was a straight acquisition, as far as I can see. But Mel did everything right down to prepping the Sale and Purchase agreement. There’s even file work done by Gordon Nesbitt.”

  “File work by a partner.” I chew the thought over in my brain. “And what did Jo do?”

  “All the normal stuff. But not on her own computer. I asked Eliza to try and bring it up and there’s nothing.”

  I decide not to tell Frederick of Eliza’s ability to procure information from just about anyone’s PC in the entire firm. But I will certainly have her pull up what Jo did on that client.

  I flick through the file again. Frederick’s right. There’s nothing in it.

  “This was everything?”

  “Yeah.”

  Frederick looks miserable to have failed, despite having had no control over the process — a dynamic that is easily created among the high-achieving folk here at Bakers. “I’ve even included the fee arrangements and cost estimate,” he says. “They’re bloody high, even for us.”

  I examine both documents. “That’s one hell of a quick job. It looks like he’d have to have dropped everything.”

  “They both did,” says Frederick. “They both worked on nothing but Neptune for two weeks. I checked their timesheets. I knew anyway because that’s why I did so much on JNL.”

  I purse my lips. I’ve already reviewed JNL. What a debacle. JNL was a large client of Gordon’s that had desperately needed to sell off a huge chunk of their business.

  “The indicated price to market was $500 million,” says Frederick. “We had an interested buyer. Then they lost all interest. In the end JNL had to settle for $280 mill. Gordon was gutted.”

  “Gordon didn’t deserve the job if that’s the best he could do for them,” I say, feeling justifiably sanctimonious. Having reviewed the file I’m not the slightest bit interested in hearing any more about JNL. But I have a high degree of contempt for a partner who could let a sale go so wrong. “He was distracted by the acquisition of Neptune, from the look of things. We need more information on that.”

  “There has to be, I guess,” says Frederick. “But I don’t know where. I went through everything in his office.”

  It’s too early in the day to enlist Frederick’s help further. But I’m guessing all the extra information on Neptune will be in Gordon’s study at home. Trying to look at it from the Caymans end would be futile.

  It would appear, as if I didn’t have enough on my plate, that I now need to break into Gordon’s home. It looks like I will be attending his stupid cocktail party after all.

  ◆◆◆

  I spend the rest of Saturday reviewing the summary schedule of the hotline transcripts. Many of them are little more than gossip. Jo wasn’t getting on with her husband — small wonder. Jo wasn’t happy at work — good. Jo’s daughter was only scraping through at St Andrews. Hmm.

  From nowhere the thought of Ingrid in bed with the dean of St Andrews is back in my head. I don’t know where it went from lunch to the bedroom, but it has and she looks sensational naked and I’m both turned on and angry.

  St Andrews school website is only a click on my keyboard away and normally I wouldn’t look at school websites on a computer that can be traced to me. But this time I have a genuine excuse. The dean’s name is Scott Turlington. A small version of his picture is on the section that talks about the school mission of developing girls into well-rounded young women ready to conquer the world. I have seen many such mission statements while perusing school websites just like this.

  A much larger version of the same picture is on the page that invites visitors to “Meet the Team”. Scott is wearing an academic robe and looks as if he has just been disturbed mid-lecture. He smiles out to the world with a mixture of self-confidence and cerebral inscrutability. His brown hair is almost blond at the ends and he has a tanned face and great teeth. Their lunch could definitely end in the bedroom, if there’s indeed any lunch at all. There is no way I can allow it to happen.

  Hurriedly I dig through the file until I find the transcript relating to St Andrews. I’m not sure where we were going with the St Andrews angle anyway. Jo’s daughter Charlotte attending such a prestigious school has always been a thorn in my side. And Jo flaunting it with the photo of her daughter in uniform taking pride of place on her desk never failed to wipe the shine off whatever I was feeling good about. But I’m not sure, however, how Jo’s daughter failing to make grades could have resulted in having her mother murdered.

  On the other side of that coin it is odd though, an anomaly, that Jo had a daughter at St Andrews. Explainable by the scholarship — if the daughter was exceptionally bright. But one look at her was enough to collapse that theory. Again, though, the link between this and Jo’s murder is tenuous at best.

  When I read the transcript it’s clear that the hotline person who took the call shares my opinion. There is very little prompting, merely a strict collection of facts. The caller, a girl named Hilary, was a tutor at St Andrews and stated that Charlotte was an unmotivated, slow girl, for whom no amount of tutoring was going to get her through her senior year. In fact, she had only just scraped through the previous year.

  I’m not sure Ingrid would approve but she’s forced my hand really, so I key the caller’s number into my phone and hit enter.

  “Yeah, hello?” The kid answering sounds about fourteen.

  “Can I speak to Hilary?” I step outside my office as I say this. No need to give the cops a helping hand in their investigation via my bugged office.

  “Yeah, this is Hilary.” She also sounds like she’s chewing something. Gum?

  “Hilary, it’s Robert, from the hotline. I was hoping to ask you some follow-up questions.”

  Hilary chews for what feels like a solid minute, then she spits whatever it is out. “Have I won?”

  “I’m sorry?” I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve got the right person.

  “The $50,000. Have I won the $50,000?”

  “It’s not a contest,” I snap, before I can help myself. “A woman has been murdered.”

  “Yeah, I know. I tutor Charlotte.”

  “That’s what I was wanting to discuss.”

  “So what happens if they catch him, then? When do I get the money?”

  “Do you really think Jo was murdered because her daughter was failing her grades?” I say, trying to rein in the sarcasm.

  “Well you must think it’s a possibility or you wouldn’t be calling me.” The kid isn’t as stupid as she sounds.

  “I’m wondering, if her grades were as average as you claim, why she’d have been allowed to continue on at the school on a scholarship?”

  ‘Hang on,” she says. And I hear the sound of her lighting a cigarette. What the fuck is wrong with kids these days? I thought private schools protected against things like this.

  “Yeah, she definitely doesn’t have a scholarship.” Hilary exhales loudly on the other end. I can only imagine what her skin will look like in ten years’ time and refrain from pointing out that an education is all but pointless to a woman if she doesn’t look good.

  “How can you be so sure?”

  “St Andrews only gives one scholarship a year. It covers academics and sports. And Imogen Besso has it in Charlotte’s year. Imogen’s captain of the hockey team and she’ll be first in form as well. Charlotte’s a nobody.” Hilary takes another puff. “So if this works, when do I get the mon
ey?”

  “When someone is convicted of Jo’s murder,” I say. “But it would have to have directly related to the information you’ve just given me.”

  “Well, I’ve recorded this whole conversation. So you’d better not try to shaft me.”

  “We are recording this whole conversation as well,” I lie, and hang up on her. What a truly dreadful kid.

  I phone Ingrid straight away to let her know that I have the information on Charlotte and there is no need for lunch with Scott the dean. She doesn’t answer so I leave a detailed message.

  ◆◆◆

  On Saturday night I put on my tux and take an Uber to Nesbitt’s apartment on Oriental Parade. I feel chagrined that I have to do this. The Neptune job was completed over a month ago. Why is most of it still in Nesbitt’s home office?

  Nesbitt’s guests are an arty crowd, which I loathe only slightly less than a simpering crowd of Left Wings. The dress code is layered clothing, pseudo-intellectual glasses and middle age.

  I’ve met the well-rounded Marjorie before and given she’s the mistress Nesbitt takes wherever he goes, I’m bracing myself in anticipation of just how bad the wife will be. A streak of self-pity runs through me at the thought of what I’m about to do. Like a lamb to the slaughter.

  Nesbitt spots me and waves me over to join an assemblage of the most boorish-looking individuals I’ve ever had the misfortune of laying my eyes on. They’ll all have names like Edie and be on committees to restore heritage buildings and not be ashamed that their kids are doing things like learning the tuba.

  I accept some kind of sparkling beverage in a flute, make a tasteful joke and smile congenially at no one in particular. I’m high but not high enough and I took a Viagra earlier and who knows how that’s interfering with anything.

  Then I spot what can only be the wife. She’s standing by herself like a glaring beacon of satiny flesh and youth and sequins. Alone, alienated and completely used to it by her air of casual indifference. I mindlessly sip champagne as my conceptual framework of Nesbitt’s domestic relations makes a major re-adjustment. The wife is the trophy. Yes, the wife is clearly the trophy and the mistress has been brought on board at a later stage to appease Nesbitt’s need for mental stimulation and same-generational understanding.

  It’s Marjorie the mistress who is Gordon’s soulmate.

  This is a wonderful thing, Gordon’s emotional well-being aside. It means I don’t have to work myself up into seducing someone worse than Marjorie. Tonight is not going to be quite as repugnant as I’d anticipated.

  The wife is sipping what looks to be straight Scotch and watching a jet-black Aborigine in native costume playing a didgeridoo. The Abo has mini-dreadlocks and is appropriately covered in a layer of dust. I’m hoping Customs de-loused him.

  Detaching myself from the coven I uplift two more champagnes from a passing waiter and make a beeline for the wife. I’ve finished both by the time she sees me and they’re mixing nicely with the amphetamines in my system.

  “Do you realize the cost of importing him was more than the amount they need to raise to finance the exhibition?” I say, nodding at the Aborigine. “I hope he’s tame.”

  Rita Nesbitt looks straight ahead but she smiles. “His handler’s out the back,” she says.

  I offer her the hand that isn’t holding two empty glasses. “Jacks—”

  “Ray,” she says. “I know who you are.” Her voice is low and husky and there’s an undercurrent of some Middle Eastern accent I don’t care about enough to specifically pinpoint.

  “Should I be flattered?”

  “Only if the need exists.” Rita shrugs. “So, Jackson Ray, tell me why you’ve shelled out fifteen hundred to mingle with this lot?”

  “I happen to care deeply about getting the Getty exhibition to our fine city,” I say. “But mainly I just wanted to see him.” I nod at the Aborigine. “I hear they’re at risk of extinction.”

  Rita laughs, and I instinctively know if I was any man other than myself that laugh would have me working myself into a lather and calculating the fastest way to get her away from this crowd so I could bed her. Ironically, I’m asking myself the same question, only I’m not in a lather.

  “Do you like coke?” I say. “Because I guarantee I can turn this party on its head for you.”

  ◆◆◆

  Rita knows the entry code to her husband’s office. I run a hand over her toned derrière as she keys it in. Not a move that comes naturally to me, but the kind of thing I’m sure I’m expected to do in the given situation.

  Nesbitt’s office is messy, and I hope the Viagra is going to be able to overcome my unease at being in the center of this rabble. We kneel on the carpet, snort a few lines off his coffee table, and Rita makes a small gasp as the heavenly alkaloids make their presence known.

  I’m openly proud of my coke. It’s diamond-white and so pure it’s literally dust. I pay Chang a fortune for it and it would hold its own anywhere in the world, but especially here in Wellington where most of the stuff around is more inositol than anything that originated from the coca plant.

  We sit saying nothing for a few moments, just savoring, then Rita reaches across and holds my hand, and I don’t know whether it’s the coke, the Viagra, or because it’s something a schoolgirl would do, but I start feeling like I’m definitely going to be up to managing this.

  Rita takes her dress off. She’s tanned all over and has zero body hair. Theoretically this makes women more appealing to men, but I find the thought of sex with a pre-pubescent depraved and I’m probably going to need more coke to get this thought out of my mind.

  I push Rita down on the coffee table and tap out a line of coke on her stomach. I once saw this in a movie. She slowly sits up, smiling. She kneels down, unzips my fly, and lowers her head but I push her back up — too much willingness on Rita’s behalf will immediately destroy what I’m working so hard to maintain.

  Instead I feed her more coke. Best to have her so high she barely remembers it.

  My plan works because there is a lot of yelling and flailing of arms on Rita’s behalf, and luckily the office is on a different floor from the party, and I close my eyes and try to imagine Rita’s screaming is fearful and eventually I close the deal.

  “What’s with the sequins?” I ask while she is putting her dress back on. I know her well enough by now to make the judgement call she’s not normally a trashy dresser.

  “They annoy him,” she says. “As will this. I’m going back now. Wait maybe fifteen or so before you follow.”

  Fifteen or so minutes in Nesbitt’s office to locate the Neptune work. Perfect.

  As it happens, despite the mess, I need only ten. It’s yet another woefully slim file and I tuck it into my jacket. With no incentive to go back to the party I let myself out a side door. The Aborigine is there on his break, wearing a white fluffy robe, smoking a joint and talking on a cell phone. He has an English accent.

  40

  I awake Sunday with a heavy heart. Having reviewed the Neptune file the moment I got home I already know it contains nothing contentious. All that hard work last night, for nothing.

  My review of Neptune signals the end of the file reviews for me. All of them an utter waste of time. And in less than two weeks the partners’ conference will signal the end for my partnership. Another glorious win for my father, from the grave no less.

  I console myself that he would be furious to know I am spending today with my mother. I’m hoping Helena won’t be there. I’m too weak today to counter her cruel nature.

  At ten-thirty my surveillance team and I drive out to Plimmerton. I can’t see them, but I know they’re there. The weather has turned particularly nasty and I know there is very little chance that Brent will have taken my sister out for a Sunday drive in this.

  Mother is ecstatic to see me. We’ve seen very little of each other in the last two weeks thanks to the investigation. She’s missed me an awful lot, she says; I’ve missed her more than I expe
cted to.

  We settle on oversized leather chairs in front of a roaring fire. Kylie serves the best hot chocolate I’ve ever tasted. The warmth from the flames washes over me. I start to unwind. Somewhere at the back of my mind I wish Ingrid was here with us. Then Brent wheels Helena into the room and parks her directly between my chair and the fire. Instantly I’m tense again. In addition, I don’t want to share Mother with her. Helena gets to see Mother all the time. Why should she steal my time as well?

  It quickly becomes clear that Helena is not here to spend time with Mother. She’s here for me. She is beyond delighted to see me and it immediately makes me uneasy. She’s looking at me like a cat might look at a plaything. I’m not sure I can cope with any more difficulty or adversity right now.

  As I continue to fill Mother in on the investigation Helena sits smirking in her wheelchair. Mother is oblivious. She’s just pleased to have her two children in the same place at one time.

  “Is there any way I can help?” she keeps saying.

  “You’ve done more than enough with paying for the hotline,” I tell her. “I’d love to be spending more time out here with you, but I’m run ragged at the moment.”

  I’m actually starting to feel anxious. My sister with her dark set of skills adds such an unpredictable element to the mix. It is a relief when my phone goes, and I have to excuse myself.

  “I’m sorry to call you on your cell,” says Ingrid. She sounds excited. “I couldn’t reach you the other way,” she adds obliquely.

  I realize I’ve left my burner phone at home. That’s stress for you — although I didn’t expect to be talking to Ingrid today. “We can’t talk like this,” I say. But it’s great to hear her voice.