The Ambulance Chaser

by Richard Beasley

  ‘Your Honour, all that . . . it’s all inadmissible.’

  ‘Mr Blake,’ Merv Holland continued, still sounding dazed. ‘Just out of interest. The interviews. Where were they conducted? And what was all that . . . ?’

  ‘Don’t worry, Your Honour. Not human. Just some offal and some . . . some sweetbreads.’

  ‘I see. And, in front of . . .’

  ‘A lawn clipper. But no one was clipped.’

  ‘A lawn clipper.’

  ‘A Scorpion.’

  ‘And the man with what appeared to be a hole in his head?’

  ‘That injury was incurred prior to the interview. While he was holding my head underwater. We gave him some Panadol.’

  Merv Holland suddenly snapped out of his daze. He looked along the Bar table at all of us. ‘Chambers,’ he bellowed. ‘Now.’ And with that he stormed off the bench.

  Forty-Two

  The associate led us out to the judge’s entrance to the courtroom, down a back corridor, and into the chambers that had been allocated to Acting Judge Holland.

  I poked my head into the room. ‘Check your Scorpion at the door,’ His Honour barked. I was followed closely by Humphries, his junior, the President of the Bar Association and his junior. Somehow or other, the IT expert from the very illustrious law firm thought that he’d been invited, and trailed us all into the room.

  ‘Who are you?’ Holland snapped at IT.

  ‘Oh . . . I’m the . . . the IT . . . I thought . . .’

  ‘Get out!’ Holland shouted.

  He did.

  It was hard to see Merv Holland at first. The upper levels of the eastern side of the Supreme Court building have sweeping views over Sydney Harbour, and Holland was sitting at his desk as we walked in, his back to the panorama of the glittering water stretching out to the Heads. The sun was starting to get low, and Holland was a silhouette, a shadow against blue sky and blue water. Only when I got close to him could I see how pissed off he was.

  ‘Would somebody please tell me,’ he began, ‘in simple language that even an old man can understand, what the fucking hell is going on here.’

  I looked to the President of the Bar Association to take the lead. He looked at me. We both looked at Humphries. He started. ‘Your Honour, I really must –’

  ‘Shut up,’ Holland screamed. ‘Not you.’ He looked up at me, almost despairingly. ‘You,’ he said. ‘Slowly. All of it.’

  I took a deep breath and began. Almost everything I knew, from the beginning. Brian Humphries tried to interrupt twice. The second time Holland AJ threw a book at him. MacGregor on Damages. Possibly the heaviest legal textbook in history. It nearly splattered one of the Equity Bar’s greatest stars against the wall.

  When I was finished, there was silence. For at least twenty seconds. Even Humphries kept his mouth shut. Then again, he had just had thirty kilograms of jurisprudence tossed at him. Finally I decided to break the silence.

  ‘Your Honour?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My tender?’

  ‘Let’s mark it for identification for now,’ the judge said, almost sadly, looking at his desk. Then he looked up at me again. ‘The police?’ he said.

  ‘Detective Dixon from Eastern Suburbs Local Area Command is in court now,’ I said. ‘He’s being brought up to speed as we speak. I think Homicide might –’

  ‘And these people, from the DVD, are where now?’

  ‘In custody. Citizen’s arrest. Being guarded by a highly respected Vietnam veteran.’

  ‘Oh,’ Merv Holland said. ‘That’s good.’ There was another lengthy pause before he said: ‘Go. We’ll adjourn until ten tomorrow. Detective Dixon can deal with it till then. Out.’ We started to turn and leave. ‘Not you,’ he said, pointing at me.

  He sat quietly in front of me while the others filed out.

  ‘Do you know how many years in jail you could get for all this?’

  ‘I’ll seek a pardon,’ I said. ‘I think the public will be on my side. I’m providing a community service.’

  Holland appeared shattered. He looked up at me and shook his head. ‘What the hell has happened to this country?’ he asked. ‘What the hell has happened to this town?’ I shrugged. ‘Years ago,’ he continued, ‘in the seventies . . . we were moving forward.’

  An illusion, I thought to myself. A confidence trick. ‘Over four million people in this city,’ Merv Holland said to me, ‘over four million. And what have we got?’ I shook my head. ‘Nothing but four million fucking home renovators, that’s what. What happened to justice? Equality? What the hell happened? Doesn’t anyone believe in causes anymore?’

  I sympathised with Merv Holland. Causes were out. It was the taking care of me era. The era of the aspirationals and home renovators. The poor, the starving, the oppressed, those behind bars without trial – forget them. Forget the billions of people the corporate giants who run the world force to subsist on a dollar a day. Who cares how often we are lied to, or who’s on the take? Causes are for losers. They are the domain of the misfit elitist minority. And, in Sydney, several million proud homosexuals.

  ‘I’m sick of it,’ he continued. ‘This case is the last straw. I’m retiring somewhere civilised. Like Auckland. Or Havana. I’ve had it.’

  I didn’t have the heart to tell Merv Holland that the Cuban revolution hadn’t really involved the working class. Corrupt capitalists got the chop, sure, but it wasn’t really what Karl or Fred or Leon had in mind. I decided not to recommend Beijing, on the same basis. Still, New Zealand is nice.

  I left Merv Holland and his dream of retirement smoking cigars with Fidel. I knew where he was coming from, but I was still young, and I wasn’t ready to give up on Sydney, or Australia. Well, Bankruptcy Man wasn’t, anyway. The place has potential. Once we get rid of the convicts. I still believe one day we can live in a just and fair land where we can all have an equal say as to what extreme right-wing bastards are sent from this country, and the means by which they are sent. By leaky boat, if it’s up to me. Yes, Bankruptcy Man has duties. Obligations. Scores to settle.

  I handed out copies of the DVD when I went back to the courtroom. Every member of the Fourth Estate got one. Some members of the public. They were being sold on eBay within hours. Dixon got two. I even had one left for my very learned friend.

  ‘Here, Brian, this is for you,’ I said, giving him the last copy.

  He told me to piss off. I told him to drop dead. The F word got a run. Perhaps three or four runs. He used the C word. Other cordial Latin pleasantries were exchanged.

  Which made it nice. It was nice to be back at the Bar. Friendly exchanges between professional colleagues sworn to uphold the law and whose highest duty was to the courts. It reminded me of that special thing about being a lawyer. It’s a game like politics. A game in which, even if all your friends are transitory, you can take comfort in knowing that your enemies are forever.

  Getus Fuctiae, Brian.

  Forty-Three

  Brian Humphries QC had a point about that DVD. The admissibility of a confession induced by having a Scorpion lawn clipper waved in front of your groin was not one previously tested in Australian courts. A search through the law reports of other common law countries did not assist the Director of Public Prosecutions.

  It sure gave the cops and the DPP something to work on, though. Shane Simpson and Joe Dimato – aka MG and CV – were the first ones charged. Break and enter, kidnapping, assault, and three counts of murder. Naturally, they were a little surprised to find each other alive when Col Dixon and crew arrived at Lang Road. Shane Simpson was even more surprised when Bill Doyle had walked out of the kitchen eating a medium-rare piece of what he had thought was part of Dimato’s left buttock. He fainted again, and was still out cold when the cops made the arrest.

  In the end, they both pleaded. To knock a few years off their sentences, they struck a deal with the DPP to cough up all they knew about what was now called the ‘South Pacific Profit Motive Serial Killings’. />
  Hardcastle, Jarrett, De Luca and four members of the Board of South Pacific were charged with, amongst other things, manipulating the stock market, money laundering, and conspiracy to murder. They denied it all, and said the DVD confession was given only because they were being tortured. Which was an argument that had some merit, but the DVD itself, once out on the Internet, wasn’t great PR for the company. A provisional liquidator was appointed within a week.

  It never rains, it pours, and it was pouring on Barry Hardcastle and James Jarrett. In the same week I took them to court, the Baldarno brothers were arrested. Nothing to do with me. Not at first. The Asian Organised Crime Unit within the Federal Police had been investigating them for over a year. It turns out the Baldarnos were attempting a merger of their own, with some of the Mr Bigs of the drug world in Chinatown. Their phones were tapped, there was covert filming and even undercover work. It was their biggest bust ever. Customs were involved, the Hong Kong police, and the International Narcotics Control Board offered some assistance.

  The Baldarnos were just another version of South Pacific. They wanted to get bigger, muscle in on some of the big drug profits being made out of Chinatown. First, though, they decided on a few joint ventures. Then, customs intercepted a ship in Coffs Harbour that had 300 kilograms of heroin on board, and a combined 460 kilograms of methylenedioxymethamphetine, methylenedioxyphenyl-2-butanamine and methaphetamine crystals. That’s Ecstacy, Eden and Ice for anyone who went to the International Bar Association conference in Ibiza.

  The drugs were hidden in tinned vegetables, packets of rice noodles, cans of sliced water chestnuts and bottles of soy, oyster and sweet chilli sauce. Customs had a drug bust and yum cha at the same time. Arrests were made, immunities given, deals were done and it all led back to the Baldarnos. Who promptly blamed the whole thing on Hardcastle and Jarrett.

  Talk about an insurance company diversifying. This company had really jumped the shark.

  The whole mess is still in the process of being investigated and unravelled. There’s some doubt as to whether the DVD confessions will be admissible as evidence in Jarrett and Hardcastle’s trials. If it does get in, you can bet your life their lawyers will appeal it all the way to the High Court. Which is as it should be. That’s the judicial process in this country. We have rights of appeal for everyone. Except refugees from the Taliban, Saddam, and other tyrants.

  The good news is that if Hardcastle and Jarrett are convicted on even some of the charges, they will get out of prison about the same time that the daily average temperature on planet earth is 600 degrees C. Of course, as Gabby keeps telling me, if the capitalists stay in charge that temperature might be reached sooner than anticipated.

  The police flirted with charging Bill, Jack and me with various offences, but a huge public outcry put paid to that. There was even talk of a Private Member’s Bill specifically pardoning us. Col Dixon helped out too. He told senior police on the SP Profit Motive Serial Killings Task Force and the DPP that I was an invaluable informant, vital to the task force that had been set up to investigate South Pacific just prior to the Centennial Park pseudo-massacre. I had almost certainly saved the lives of people that he could only identify as plaintiffs in claims 04150 and 061247.

  Bill’s business boomed even more after the arrests, and he and Jack have branched off into the private security business. I let them take most of the credit as the masterminds behind the South Pacific sting operation. I’d had enough of publicity the year before. Besides, Bankruptcy Man has to keep a low profile.

  Half the gardeners in Sydney now want Bill Doyle franchises, and there’s also nothing wrong with the rumour mill. Bill is still getting about three hundred résumés a week from university students applying for part-time positions as pool cleaners.

  Bill got so big so quickly that one of the commercial networks offered him his own prime-time gardening show, but we talked him into a lower budget thing on the ABC that went into production almost straight away. It’s called Chainsaw Bill. It’s rating its arse off. Soon after it first went to air, Eddie painted Bill’s portrait for the Archibald. It won the packing room prize, and the People’s Choice award, but dipped out for the main prize.

  No one put their hand up or fingered anyone over Clarrie Gerton. MG and CV denied even knowing him, and the Baldarnos described him as an ‘Australian treasure’. The liquidator of South Pacific found out that companies associated with Clarrie Gerton had received three previous payments in relation to properties destroyed or damaged by fire. All insured, naturally, way above value. At the time these claims were paid, Clarrie became a firm advocate of tort reform and a vocal critic of plaintiffs’ lawyers.

  As strange as it seemed, it’s likely that Clarrie was simply the victim of an unfortunate spider bite. Which makes you wonder. The main political parties in this country are even sending the thinking arachnids to the left.

  Greg Stewart was murdered. He was in on the deal, then got greedy. Decided he wanted more than his house paid off. MG said the Baldarnos did it, but they said Barry Hardcastle did the job himself. The authorities are having the body exhumed to run some forensic tests. They’ve put in a request to do the same with Clarrie Gerton’s penis, just to make sure. The Socialist Party of Australia and the hard left faction of the Labor Party put out their first ever joint statement saying they supported this move, and hoped that Clarrie’s venom-filled member would subsequently be put on mounted display in the Australian Museum next to Phar Lap’s heart as a symbol of the contribution to the country by right-wing politicians.

  Sadly, Brian Humphries QC is no longer with us. He had a slow cerebral haemorrhage while he was arguing an equity appeal in the High Court in Canberra a few months ago. Most people would have recognised something was wrong immediately, with Brian saying words backwards and slurring his speech. It took half an hour, though, before one of the tipstaffs realised he wasn’t mumbling Latin. He died before the court handed down its decision. His client lost.

  Vale, Brian.

  The provisional liquidator is now winding up South Pacific’s business. This collapse, following only a few years after HIH and FAI burnt a huge hole in the economy, put the insurance regulator, the Australian Prudential Insurance Authority, under enormous pressure again. They have announced a review of the definition of what is a ‘fit and proper person’ to operate in the insurance industry under the Insurance Act. More than twenty million Australians wait anxiously to find out if the new definition will exclude serial killers, money launderers, and homicidal multiple-ex-bankrupts with passions for Lycra and Lear jets.

  The Bar Association gave me my practising certificate back. It was a tight vote and Humphries’ proxy would have seen my application fail by one, but he died the day before the meeting, and Harry, who was acting for me, successfully applied for the proxy to be left out. I’m a civilised and forgiving man, and I went to the funeral to pay my last respects to a fallen colleague. It was a complete accident that I dropped the proxy form in the grave.

  A fortuitous series of events went Toffee and Kava’s way after the collapse of South Pacific. Barry Hardcastle immediately filed for bankruptcy, and investigators soon discovered that all his assets were in his wife’s name. But he’d forgotten about his horses. It turned out they were actually owned by South Pacific Consolidated Cinema Pty Ltd. Toffee and Kava were able to pick up the modestly bred mare Indemnity for $9000 in the fire sale. Having listened to a certain CD over and over during their brief stay at Laura Green’s, the Samoans immediately changed the name of the mare.

  Dusty Springfield swept all before her during the Melbourne spring racing carnival, winning a unique treble of the Caulfield Cup, Cox Plate and Melbourne Cup. The mighty mare is being set for the Prix de L’Arc de Triomphe next European autumn, where she will no doubt be cheered on in the Longchamps grandstand by several Australian state politicians on study tours investigating whether Paris’s ring road is better signposted than our toll roads. Hopefully, the French racing stewa
rds will be sensible enough to keep the politicians away from Dusty lest they bring on a fatal bout of colic. The enlarged heart of one giant of the turf in the national museum is enough for any country. Besides, the spot’s been reserved for Clarrie Gerton’s penis.

  Toffee and Kava still don’t have visas to stay in Australia. They are currently taking advice as to how to structure their political donations.

  The federal government was forced to call a Royal Commission of Inquiry into the collapse of the South Pacific Group. I sought leave to appear as an independent counsel on the first day of the hearing. The commissioner was a newly appointed judge, and by coincidence had also sat on the Professional Conduct Committee that decided I should be struck off. He refused to let me appear. I guess it may have been a breach of decorum when the commissioner started talking over the top of me to rev up the weed-whacker I’d brought. I’d promised security it was an exhibit only, but the commissioner really irritated me and I got carried away. These newly appointed judges lose all sense of humour.

  I’m still bankrupt. Which is how I want to keep it for a while. Bankruptcy Man likes his immunity from suit. He likes having no assets anyone can take. It makes him dangerous. And he wants to be dangerous.

  I’m currently hiding my identity as Bankruptcy Man by lecturing part-time at one of the law schools. I’m teaching a class in law, commerce and ethics – my three specialties. The theme of the course I teach is that it’s okay to work in the financial markets, or for large multinational corporations, or banks, or big law or accounting firms, as long as you accept that by doing so you’re playing your role in ensuring that several billion people in the world continue to live on less than one US dollar per day.

  My classes are full, and we’re even getting some disillusioned banking executives attending. They usually sit in the back rows and weep silently. At the end of my last lecture, one became so distressed he slashed his wrists. Fortunately, a quick-thinking Marxist–Leninist–Trot next to him tore off his Che Lives! T-shirt and managed to stem the blood flow.