‘Disraeli will get the message late in the evening.’ Ivan raised his left thumb.
‘What makes you think she’ll check for messages?’
‘Assuming she does—she’ll either send a reply or phone Compic. Or someone. We’ll be logged into her computer and save her reply. If she uses the phone, the call will be recorded.’
‘And you’re sure Brook can handle all that? He’ll get someone to fix it up with the shadow Minister’s office? There’ll be a real question in the system?’
‘I think we have to trust him. It gives the poor bastard something to think about.’
‘I thought he was getting better.’
Ivan put his arm around me, and we walked out the automatic doors.
‘We’ll look after our bald copper when he comes out of hospital this time,’ I said. ‘No matter what, we won’t leave him on his own.’
. . .
When I next saw Brook, he was sitting in state, propped against four pillows in his private hospital room, directing proceedings like Jean Paul Marat in his bath. The recording and computer equipment surrounding him gave the room the shiny solemnity of an operating theatre.
It was dark outside. The curtains were open behind Brook’s bed. Lights seemed to climb along the building opposite in a carefree way, dancing and splashing down the Woden Valley. I moved my chair right up against the windows and sat staring out at them.
A long table held reel-to-reel-tapes, and black and chrome boxes of different shapes and sizes, a red light flashing intermittently on the side of one.
The policeman talking to Brook in a low voice wasn’t one I’d seen before. He was blond, with the round smooth face and neutral manner of a man used to being taken for younger than he was. It was obvious that he didn’t want Ivan and me to be there.
A shallow cardboard box on a bedside table held the remains of a McDonald’s meal. There was a smell of oil that goes with four Big Macs and fries. I hadn’t had any. My stomach was empty, but I felt too tense to eat. Brook’s clammy white skin was drawn together in anticipation, his bare arms steady on either side of the green blanket. He looked as though he was preparing for some test of physical endurance, which in a way he was.
For some reason, Ivan had appointed himself on guard outside the door. He’d been reading the same newspaper, propped out there, since six-thirty. Was he sulking? Ashamed of the crudeness, the obviousness of our trick? Sting in the tail of a caterpillar, rather than a scorpion?
It was after ten when the red flashing light on one of the black boxes turned to green. We listened to Claire Disraeli pick up her telephone and dial. Five double rings, then someone answered it. I strained after the voice on the other end, as though by willpower I could attach a head and body to whoever replied.
Claire’s voice said, ‘There’s something really weird going on.’
There was a pause, then she read our message straight off her computer screen. It gained a life of its own as she spoke. I could scarcely believe that Ivan and I had invented it. My heart gave a little leap and I thought, it’s working.
‘I’ll see to it.’ A male voice. A familiar one.
‘What the hell does it mean, all this?’
‘Nothing. I said I’ll deal with it.’
‘I’m frightened.’
‘Don’t be,’ said the voice. It sounded like Guy Harmer. I glanced at Ivan, and he nodded.
‘It’s nothing. Some stupid joke. A hoax. Don’t touch it. Get yourself a glass of whisky. Go to—’
‘But I’m scared!’ A pause, then Claire asked, ‘What’s the matter?’
‘Nothing, a noise. I thought it might be Miranda. I’ll talk to you in the morning.’
‘When?’
‘As soon as I can manage.’
Miranda? Miranda Harmer. Guy’s long-forgotten wife.
Things happened quickly after that. In less than ten minutes, we were all out of the ward, except, of course, for Brook. The blond policeman had played the tape back, then made a phone call. My guess was right. Claire had phoned Guy. It was Brook who shooed us out, winked and told us he needed his beauty sleep, and kissed me goodnight.
In spite of his baldness, his doughy pallor and scarecrow bones, he looked dignified and brave.
Ivan came back to my place. He sat on the sofa, leaning forward, elbows on his knees, big hands hanging loose between them. We talked about Guy, and what would happen now. We hadn’t questioned Brook about this and now, of course, the whole thing was out of our hands. When I thought about Guy, all that came into my mind was his kindness to Peter that day he was sick, and to me the night in Brisbane after Ivan had gone off with Lauren. At the same time, I was worried that our trick had been enough to warn Guy, that in the time it would take to get a search warrant, he’d get rid of anything that might incriminate him.
. . .
Next day turned out to be infuriatingly ordinary. I chose the colours for the cover of the outwork report while I waited to hear that Guy and Claire had been arrested.
It wasn’t until late that afternoon that we got any news. The police had found a copy of the original leak to the Canberra Times on Guy’s home computer, filed with his home-loan correspondence. They also found details of a bank account in the Cayman Islands, and a building society account in Brisbane under Guy’s mother’s name, over which he had a power of attorney. He’d withdrawn $150,000 from the building society on 7 August. The Friday of the computer show. That evening, when Guy was wining and dining me, he’d had a reason to feel pleased. I remembered his barbed question about Rae visiting Brisbane to check on her investment. He’d been recouping the profits of his own.
The police also found codes for the viruses that had hit DIR, plus records of our department’s software purchases and Compic’s sales to government departments.
Ivan’s virtual-reality helmet was stashed in a hat box at the back of Guy’s garage. It was the kind of weirdo thing Ivan would have done himself. The garage was a double one, Brook told me, bigger than the living area of my house. Hidden under an old carpet, the police had found Ivan’s Harvard and his new PowerMac, his poster of Bell and his laser printer, still with a rather dusty Garfield stuck on top.
It seemed peculiar that Guy hadn’t got rid of Ivan’s things. He’d always been so neat and careful. What had prevented him from dumping Ivan’s computers at the tip? Had he planned to return them all one day with a note saying ‘Thanks for the loan’?
The police had a warrant, and Guy hadn’t been able to stop them. But, according to Brook, he’d barred his door and tried to fight them off.
. . .
With the outwork report at the printers, Bambi and Dianne had taken leave from DIR, Di to take care of Tony, whose university tribunal hearing was coming up in a few days. I’d been told that my contract with DIR wouldn’t be renewed, and I suspected that Di and Bambi had been told the same.
I missed Bambi’s flit of nervous colour, the after-smell of Dianne’s cigarettes. Next door, Ivan was on his own too, spending a lot of time on job applications and lining up for interviews.
‘You know, I finished the horse for our constabulary friend,’ Ivan told me. ‘He’ll like it.’
‘If he gets to see it.’
‘Of course he’ll see it. I’ll set it up in that bloody ward if I have to.’
I spent a couple of hours clearing out my filing cabinet and packing up my things. I could have done it all in half an hour, but I dawdled. Then I walked across to the magistrate’s court for Guy’s committal hearing. Guy’s lawyers were joined by barristers representing Allison Edgeware, Compic and Access Computing. The reading out of the charges and the responses of not guilty took only a few minutes. Isobel Merewether’s lawyer surprised everyone by pleading guilty to the charge of misuse of confidential information. Then the magistrate announced that the more serious charges against Isobel—conspiracy to defraud and conspiracy to steal from a Commonwealth department—had been dropped. There could only be one reason for this
. Isobel had decided to give evidence against Allison and Guy.
Claire Disraeli had also not been charged.
. . .
After the hearing was over, I caught the bus out to Woden Valley Hospital to visit Brook.
Sitting up in his room, propped on three pillows, looking tired but pleased with himself, Brook told me how Isobel had confessed with very little prompting.
She’d described how Access Computing had been Guy’s idea. He’d taken care to have her establish a genuine membership, run a bulletin board service, and generally do everything Access Computing claimed to do in their brochure.
‘Did she know why?’ I asked.
‘Oh, yes.’
‘What about the money?’
‘Merewether had never heard of Rae Evans until she filed that grant application.’
‘Now she’s getting off scot-free,’ I said.
‘Harmer’s the one we want, and he’s hired the best QC in the business. We need the girl’s co-operation.’ Brook didn’t sound a bit apologetic.
Compic was Guy’s company. The police were confident they had the paperwork pretty well sorted out. It was remarkable how much information you could gather in a short time when you put the resources of a healthy police department into it, Brook said drily.
‘I hope they’re giving you a gold watch,’ I told him.
Brook grinned. ‘A wig, perhaps?’
‘And Access Computing was just Isobel? No-one else?’
‘They needed another signature on the account,’ Brook said, ‘so they invented Angela Carlishaw. Must have got some fake ID.’
‘That was a mistake.’
Brook nodded. ‘A thoroughly bad move.’
‘Why?’ I asked him. ‘Surely they knew that people would start asking questions as soon as the missing money was discovered?’
‘Maybe Harmer thought we’d just assume that the imaginary Angela had left the country with the money and the trail had gone cold. Maybe he thought he was God.’
‘Did he set up Access Computing to frame Rae Evans?’
‘Harmer could never be sure they’d get the grant. That was a gamble. He started Access Computing because he saw a way to make a few extra quid. Then, when that complaint about Compic turned up, he dreamed up a way to knock Evans out of the game. Harmer likes to gamble, and my guess is the more strings he’s pulling at any one time the more he likes it.’
‘Until they came unstuck.’
We shared a grin of self-congratulation.
‘You know what makes me sickest in a way?’ I said. ‘Harmer would never have gotten away with anything, not even halfway there, if Rae Evans hadn’t been so isolated, if so many other people hadn’t had it in for her.’
I thought about Isobel Merewether, how she’d looked when she’d opened the door to that office in Brisbane, high and light as an air balloon, how she and Claire Disraeli could have been sisters.
The answer had been there, that afternoon, if only I’d been able to see it. Isobel and Claire were the same type—Guy’s. Claire was Guy’s girlfriend. I bet Isobel and Allison had been too; for all I knew, they still were. One man at the centre of a female wheel.
A Modest Celebration
‘Guy would never do anything like that,’ Claire Disraeli told me icily. ‘I know Guy. You don’t.’
I stared at Claire while she made this statement through tight lips, her face pale and for once unpowdered.
I’d run into her by accident while I was in Civic buying a welcome-home present for Peter. To my surprise, Claire hadn’t brushed past, ignoring me. She seemed to want to talk.
‘How did it start?’ I asked her.
‘Guy’s going to claim that warrant was obtained unlawfully.’ Claire looked down her nose at me. ‘All that junk in his garage, someone planted it there to make it look like Guy had stolen it.’
Claire studied me from under her thick blonde eyelashes. I was struck by the falseness of her self-control, and reminded myself that I’d only ever seen the surface of this woman, and not very much of that. Probably what Claire really thought about Guy, Rae Evans, myself, would remain forever unknown to me, hidden behind the veneer of a woman so well-groomed that it was difficult to imagine her sleeping without make-up.
‘Who asked you to do it?’ I said. ‘That work for Compic?’
Claire said nothing, so I answered for her. ‘It was Guy.’
‘There was nothing wrong with it. They’re a good company. Their work’s original.’
‘Guy’s company,’ I said. ‘He owns it. And nothing but a breach of public service regulations.’
I thought of Claire moonlighting, doing a favour for her lover—had that been how she’d seen it?—and of Ivan, that box with the distinctive logo housing one of his creations. Clever of Guy to get them to compromise themselves.
‘He had a one-night stand with that Edgeware woman,’ Claire said. ‘That was all it was—one night. Didn’t mean anything. He told me all about it.’
I guessed Claire had done what I probably would have tried to do in her place, push the knowledge of Guy’s other women to the back of her mind and leave it there.
‘It was over by the time he met me, well and truly over. You don’t know Guy. None of you do,’ she repeated. ‘He’s got the country’s hottest computer lawyer. He’ll make mincemeat of them, you’ll see.’
‘It was you who left that disk in the first-aid room wasn’t it?’ I said. ‘You left it there by mistake. That’s why you were waiting outside the door. You’d gone to get it back, but you heard someone inside.’
Claire curled her top lip in contempt. ‘I heard you and that grease ball having it off in there, Sandra. How could you?’
‘You were taking the disk to Rae Evans’s office,’ I persisted. ‘Guy asked you to. He told you to leave it there. He was going to ring the police, or maybe the Canberra Times, and tell them about our viruses, and where they came from.’
I saw by Claire’s expression that my guess was at least partly right.
‘Did Guy bother to tell you what was on the disk? Did you bother to ask?’
Claire’s pale face had gone even paler. She blinked as if her eyes were hurting.
‘I was feeling so rotten that day. I wasn’t thinking straight. My period was two weeks late. I was scared. I thought if I just lay down with my eyes shut for ten minutes, then I’d be OK. It was dark in there, and private. No-one would know where I was. But I stayed too long, and then I left that stupid folder sitting on the cupboard.’
I saw Claire, ill and wretched, trying to explain to Guy that Ivan had got hold of the disk and taken it to Felix Wenborn. I could imagine Guy’s reaction. Had Claire been pregnant? Had she had an abortion? I didn’t feel that I could ask.
Claire had never looked coerced, or as though Guy was pressuring her. She’d looked as though she was living well and enjoying every minute of it. She’d hidden her misery well. But then, for someone who fancied herself as an investigator, perhaps I hadn’t been very observant where Claire was concerned. I bet Guy had talked to her about Allison, tortured her every now and again with images of Allison’s beauty. Further than that, Claire hadn’t wanted to look, and so she hadn’t.
I said goodbye and turned around to leave. But I felt Claire staring at my back, and stopped after taking a few steps. What was keeping her there? Was it something simple, something it had never occurred to me to wonder about before? Did Claire suspect Guy of having slept with me in Brisbane? Had Guy, in order to demonstrate his irresistibility, hinted that he had? Was she thinking I might say something that would tell her?
I turned again to face her. But she shook her head and murmured ‘bye’, in a voice almost too soft to hear.
And I was left there in Alinga Street, knowing I should get a move on, but unable to put one foot in front of the other, struck by a feeling of incompleteness, of incomprehensible regret. No more stumbling over pronouns, speculating about ladies’ high-heeled shoes. My invisible hacker had be
en so much more protean and various than Guy Harmer with his perfect suits and mistresses to match. It occurred to me that greed, when you thought about it, was a pretty boring motive.
I opened my newly painted car door and prepared to back out of the carpark, wondering what had got Guy started in the first place.
I’d had my plaster off for five days, and yesterday I’d picked up my car from the smash repairers. My wrist felt strong and good. I was exercising it carefully, following instructions. I’d asked about driving, half-hoping to be told to leave that for a while. But my doctor had smiled at me and said, ‘Why not?’ He was a cheerful man. ‘Get right back on the horse.’
‘I could always try a bicycle,’ I’d told him. ‘If someone buggers the brakes, I can just throw myself on the footpath and knock down a pedestrian.’
‘Sounds fine to me,’ he’d chuckled, knowing I was dependent on my car.
I braced myself, head over left shoulder, hands and wrists rigid with tension.
But once safely out on Northbourne Avenue, the straight run home ahead, my mind returned to Guy. How had he started? What had made him greedy? Had the good life become more than his public servant’s salary could handle? Satisfying his various lovers and ex-lovers, placating his family, his lawful wife? Or had his business plans come first? Had he selected his women with these plans in mind? Not for the first time, I wondered how much Miranda Harmer knew.
Guy hadn’t allowed even a letter of complaint to set back his plans for Compic. Had it been a partnership, or had Allison simply been carrying out Guy’s instructions? Guy, or Guy and Allison together, had opted to get rid of Rae Evans rather than run the risk that she might ask too many questions. He must have been supremely confident that he could make the charge against Rae stick, while keeping the relationship between Access Computing and Compic a secret. He’d been willing to sacrifice Isobel Merewether, feed her to the press. Isobel was getting her own back now.
The Trojan Dog Page 28