Follow the Money ch-36

by Peter Corris

  I mumbled something, said I'd see her that night and walked on in a sort of daze. Fatherhood had been sprung on me; I hadn't known of Megan's existence until she was eighteen. Now this. I didn't know what a grandfather's credentials were, but I was pretty sure they didn't include bankruptcy. I thought about it as I moved on. Megan was young, who knew how many kids she might have and what help she might need? The stakes just climbed higher.

  3

  The happy couple were so involved in what they were doing-and they behaved as though they'd achieved something no one else in the world had ever done-that they didn't ask me what I was up to. That suited me. Like them, I wanted to be sure before making any announcements. I was happy for them and myself: I'd missed out on the real experience of fatherhood, a big thing to miss out on, and now I was getting a second chance at a version of it.

  I went home from their flat with two-thirds of a bottle of champagne inside me. Megan wasn't drinking and Hank was almost too excited to drink. The walk from Newtown to Glebe sobered me and it wasn't late. Time to work.

  I transferred Standish's list and his brief comments on the people on it into a notebook. I had names-Stefan Nordlung, Felicity Standish, Rosemary Malouf, Prospero Sabatini, Clive Finn and Selim Houli. Sabatini was the journalist who'd written on the Malouf matter; Finn and Houli were gamblers. Finn was the manager of a casino at Parramatta and Houli ran a nightclub and a high stakes card game at Kings Cross. Both men had told police that Malouf had lost heavily but both denied having anything to do with his disappearance. I had addresses and phone numbers for some of them. I spread the clippings, printouts and emails on the desk in the room I used as an office-now given over mainly to paying bills-and immersed myself in the life and times of Richard Malouf.

  Perry Hassan had sent Standish a copy of the CV Malouf had provided when applying successfully for a job in his firm. This, with Sabatini's published articles, provided a detailed portrait. Richard Malouf was thirty-five, the only son of immigrant Lebanese parents who'd come to Australia in the early 1970s. Malouf senior was a veterinarian not qualified to practise in Australia but who acquired a great reputation among the Brisbane horse racing fraternity. He did well and his son attended private schools. Both parents were now dead. Richard Malouf played soccer for the school and was scouted by professional clubs. Instead, after stellar HSC results, he went to the University of Western Australia where he got a degree in economics. He followed with a master's in computer science and worked for IBM and other firms in Perth before coming east and joining Perry Hassan's outfit.

  In 2003 he married Rosemary Bruce, an airline flight attendant. They had no children, lived in Balmain with a water view and a mortgage, and shared a Beemer. Malouf played golf at Kogarah, amateur soccer briefly, and collected wine. He was found in his car at the Sydney airport parking station. He'd been shot once through the head.

  Several photographs accompanied Sabatini's articles- schoolboy Malouf with his near perfect HSC score, Malouf with the soccer ball on a string and later receiving an award at IBM. I worked through the material, highlighting various points and making notes. I put the stuff together neatly and got up to take the medications I'd be taking for the rest of my life for blood pressure, heart rhythm regulation, cholesterol control. I swallowed them down with the dregs of the red wine I'd been drinking as an aid to concentration. It was a life sentence, but not to do it was a death sentence.

  Always get up from your studies with a question, someone had said. I had one: why would a high flyer like Maloufjoin a firm like Perry Hassan's? It was big, but not the biggest.

  In the morning I phoned Nordlung at his home address. A woman with a faint American accent answered and I told her what I wanted.

  'I'm his wife. You'll find him at the marina by the Spit Bridge, working on his boat.'

  'Can you tell me the name of the boat, Mrs Nordlung?'

  'It's the Gretchen III -that's Stefan's little joke. Gretchen's my name and I'm his third wife.'

  I couldn't be sure but she sounded drunk. At that time in the morning? Well, it happens.

  It was a perfect day with a blue sky and light wind. Coming down Spit Road towards the water gave me a multi-million dollar view of Middle Harbour-no house with that view would be worth under a million and the boats would add many, many noughts. It was Wednesday mid-morning and the traffic was light, but there was plenty of activity around the launching ramps and at the marina and not much parking space. I squeezed in between two massive SUVs and remembered to watch my shins on their towing attachments. Tough for some-if you couldn't afford a marina berth you had to keep your boat in the garage and tow it here.

  The marina was T-shaped and the boats varied from modest little numbers to monsters with lofty flagpoles and garden boxes on the decks. I paused to take in the scene and when I thought of the insurance premiums and the upkeep and all the fees involved, it suddenly seemed that I wasn't looking at boats but at huge, floating bundles of money. I asked at the office where the Gretchen III was and the woman pointed and then looked closely at me.

  'Are you from the police?'

  'No, why?'

  'I just thought…'

  Looking in the direction she'd indicated, about halfway down the jetty, I could see people gathered around, staring down at a moored boat. I heard sirens wailing and I hurried. Attracting all the attention was a sleek boat with Gretchen III painted in blue on its white hull. Two men were bending over a man lying on the deck. One of the men had a mobile phone to his ear. The man on the deck was still; water was dribbling from his clothes and his head was cocked at an odd angle. There was a tangle of rope around his left leg.

  The crowd was murmuring and one man swore as he saw another taking pictures with his mobile phone.

  'What happened?' I asked the picture snapper as he backed away.

  'Looks like he got caught up somehow, fell in and drowned. I've gotta get this off to the media.'

  The sirens screamed, people jumped aside, and an ambulance and a police vehicle drove down the jetty. There was an eerie silence as the sirens died, broken only by the slapping of the water against the boats and the pylons and the flapping of the flags on the masts. The paramedics jumped down onto the deck and the men who'd been attending the victim moved aside. I got a good look at him -long-limbed, long-headed with pale blonde hair matted against his skull. His pale eyes stared sightlessly at the sky.

  I hung around picking up snippets of information. Nordlung had been found by the owner of the boat berthed alongside his, about twenty minutes before I got there.

  He'd noticed how untidy the deck of the Gretchen III was and had gone aboard to investigate. Nordlung was famous for keeping his boat in pristine condition. He found the rope running from where it had caught on the hatch door over the side. When he hauled on it, the body came into view. Nordlung was a big man and it had taken two to get him on the deck. They tried to resuscitate him but failed.

  The police spoke to the two yachtsmen who were both smoking and looking shaken. Then there was a flurry of activity as the police used their mobile phones and pushed the onlookers further away. Another car arrived with plainclothes detectives and the chequered tape came out indicating that this was a crime scene. The detectives began taking names and addresses and I drifted away to the edge of the growing crowd. Eventually, I was able to walk away with others whose interest had been satisfied.

  I bought a coffee at a stall outside the marina and drank it leaning against my car in the sunshine. More official vehicles arrived-SOC people, water police with, at a guess, a frogman, and there was probably a pathologist in the mix. A television camera crew swept in.

  Shit happens, as they say, and there was no necessary connection between Nordlung's death and my visit. For all I knew he could've had a hundred enemies, but it seemed more than likely there was a connection. The question then was, who knew of my intention? Standish, but not the precise time. Nordlung's wife. The other possibility was that Nordlung's phone was tapped a
nd that can never be ruled out with the surveillance equipment around now. That idea opened up other questions. If Malouf had faked his death, someone had died to provide the body. And now Nordlung. They must be playing for higher stakes here than just ripping off some middle-range investors.

  Thinking hard, I drove back to the city to a car park near the building where Prospero Sabatini worked. He wrote for a weekly called The Investor, which prided itself on its investigative journalism. I'd Googled him and got the essential details-aged thirty-two, ex-army with service in Timor and the Solomon Islands, master's degree in economics, keen rock climber. He'd published two books-one on corporate fraud, one on rock climbing. I phoned Sabatini and he agreed to meet me for lunch in a pub close by.

  I called Standish's mobile and was told that it was either switched off or out of range. He was living in a serviced apartment in Potts Point. I called the direct line to his flat and got the standard Telstra voice message. I asked him to call me as soon as possible. Then I phoned Standish's office and got May Ling.

  'It's Cliff Hardy. Mr Standish, please.'

  'I'm afraid Mr Standish isn't available, Mr Hardy.'

  She made it sound as if she was doing me a favour giving me this information.

  'Why?'

  'He's away on business.'

  'Where? For how long?'

  'I'm not at liberty to say.'

  'It's important. How can I reach him?'

  'I can't help you. I'm sorry. I'll tell him you called.'

  'When?'

  'When he returns.'

  'I hope you can keep everything running smoothly until then.'

  'I think so. Goodbye.'

  I just bet you can, I thought.

  A frustrating morning, requiring a relaxation of a rule. I went to the pub Sabatini had nominated, the John Curtin, and ordered a middy of Pure Blonde-low carb, nothing you couldn't work off in a gym session. Sabatini's photograph, postage stamp-size, had appeared at the top of his articles and I had no trouble recognising him when he strolled into the pub. The surprise was that he seemed to recognise me. We shook hands.

  'We've met, sort of,' he said.

  He was short-medium, neatly put together, with dark hair and a beard. He wore the clothes favoured by some in his profession-suit, dark shirt, dark tie loosely knotted. I couldn't place him.

  'I worked with Lily Truscott on a few things a while back. I was at the wake.'

  I nodded. 'It's a bit of a blur to me now. What're you drinking?'

  He ordered red wine and I had one as well to go with the pasta. We ate at an outside table in Liverpool Street. I told Sabatini more or less the truth-that I'd been hired by someone who believed that Richard Malouf was still alive and wanted redress. No name, of course. I said that the person who'd claimed to have seen Malouf after his reported death was also dead. I said I'd read his articles and thought he'd be interested if any of this turned out to be true.

  'You bet I'd be interested.'

  'Did you have any reason to think the death might've been faked?'

  'No, he was a notorious gambler and womaniser. Any number of people could've been out to get him.'

  'But an execution seems a bit… extreme.'

  'I did think that at the time, and I did wonder why he hadn't taken the Qantas option when he'd got hold of the money. You can gamble and fuck in comfort just about anywhere.'

  'If you were at the wake you must know about me. They took away my PEA licence. I've got no standing. Malouf stripped me of a fair bit of money, but here's something in your line-he left me with a bunch of shares that have a big call on them. I'm facing bankruptcy. That's my interest, plus it was Lily's money, really. I was trying to do a bit of good with it here and there. I'm angry.'

  That was coming it a bit strong, but I needed his help and I can be manipulative when I have to be. We both worked on the pasta and the wine for a few minutes while the foot traffic drifted past us.

  I said, 'If this thing takes shape you'll get whatever I have to give.'

  He scooped up the last of his ravioli and took a sip of the wine. 'Thanks. I can understand where you're coming from. But how can I help now?'

  'We've got two dead people connected to this-possibly. I've got the feeling that there's much more to the Malouf thing than meets the eye.'

  He drained his glass. 'You're right there, Cliff. Much more.'

  4

  Sabatini stretched, easing a back that spent too long rigid in front of a computer screen. 'What happened at Hassan and Associates isn't an isolated incident. The Malouf case has… tentacles. I get whispers that quite a lot of small and medium range businesses are in trouble. There's been a lot of borrowing and shoring up, which is expensive in the current climate. There's also been a fair bit of apparent cyber fraud. Disappearing money. Mostly, it's kept quiet and insurance covers the losses. The firms compensate over and above the lost amount on the proviso that the details don't get out. The servers and the credit company people don't want publicity. The Malouf case made an exception because it was too big to be dealt with in house, as it were, and he turned up dead, but believe me, there's a collection of Malouf types floating about playing games with other people's money.'

  'The insurance companies must be getting shitty.'

  'Yes, and no. In most cases, in real terms the amounts aren't that big, and the legal insurers lay off against insurers and spread the pain down the line and pretty thin. They know they're being taken advantage of but what can they do? They want to keep the lid on it and stay in business. No one who's ever been broken into, had a car damaged or lost anything has any sympathy for insurance companies. They use the excess clause to cover their arses and they make millions by investing the policy premiums, most of which they never have to pay out on. Insurance is a legal racket.'

  'I wouldn't argue with you, but…'

  'When you contacted me just now I thought you might have been hired by one of the insurers to investigate, break the code of silence, but unless you're bullshitting me this is all new to you.'

  'It is. I started in at a very small scale. I thought it was just a rip-off missing person scam with a twist-the missing party apparently dead. But it seems to be growing hour by hour. How do you know as much as you do?'

  'Sealed containers leak.'

  'Do you have names for these other embezzlers?'

  A waiter cleared our table and asked if we wanted anything else.

  'No,' Sabatini said. 'I mean yes.'

  'Sir?'

  'Sorry. Coffee-long black, please. You, Cliff?'

  'The same.'

  As the waiter left I leaned across the table as if we had a secret: we didn't, just a question. 'What's behind it all, then? You make it sound like a conspiracy.'

  'You said it, not me. That's why I'm talking to you and letting you buy me lunch. If Malouf's still alive and you can grab him, there're two possibilities.'

  A guessing game, I thought. 'One is that if I can grab him we might find out what's going on. What's the other possibility?'

  Sabatini stroked his beard. 'Malouf was one of the smartest hackers and cyber fraudsters we've seen. If he's alive he'd still be at it. This stuff's an addictive game for someone like him. All this might just be him! And remember, you said I'd get first bite.'

  The person I most wanted to talk to next was Gretchen Nordlung but it wasn't the time. I went home. Sabatini had given me references to several other articles he'd written where he skirmished around the question of dodgy financial advisers and managers without getting himself into trouble. We have new libel laws allowing greater freedom for journalists, and judges are awarding lower damages than juries once did, but caution is still the keynote.

  It was a familiar scene: I pulled up by my house and the door of a car parked on the opposite side of the street opened and the men who stepped out could only have been police. Not that they wore suits and hats; they favour leather jackets these days and a casual but clean look. Neat beards are in rather than moustaches. I st
ood by the front gate as they approached, the taller and older of the two showing his warrant card.

  'Detective Sergeant Caulfield and DC Manning, Mr Hardy. We'd like a word with you.'

  'What about?'

  'Could we go inside?'

  I looked up at the clear sky. 'Why? It's not raining.'

  Caulfield sighed. 'They warned me about you. Here or at the station.'

  'Could rain,' I said. 'Come on in.'

  We went in and down the hall to the kitchen at the back where I set about making coffee. I spent a fair bit of money on the house a while back, but somehow its essential shabbiness had reasserted itself and it didn't look much different from what it was before the makeover.

  Manning leaned back against the sink; Caulfield sat down at the breakfast nook and took out a notebook. The water boiled and I filled the glass jug and set the plunger.

  'Black or white?'

  'Nothing for us. What's your interest in Stefan Nordlung?'

  'Who says I have one?'

  'Photographs and footage taken by a bystander at the Spit marina where Nordlung was found dead this morning show you to have been present. You were also caught on a sweep shot taken by a TV news crew when they arrived. All this went to air on the midday news and one of our analysts identified you. So here we are, being nice.'

  'Not very nice. You've refused my hospitality.'

  Caulfield glanced at Manning. 'This is what they told us about, Ken. He wears you down with this sort of stuff until you lose your temper and do and say things you shouldn't. He's a past master at it, especially when he had a PEA licence, which he doesn't anymore.'

  'Years of experience,' I said.

  Caulfield closed his notebook and stood. He stacked up to about 185 centimetres, but I'm 188 and these days pushing 90 kilos. Not that it was going to get physical, not like in the days of DS 'Bumper' Flanagan, when physical was the name of the game. But it helps to stand your ground on an equal or better level.

  'You're in our books, Hardy. First time we catch you putting your nose into police business you're in serious trouble. You're not licensed to do anything except pick your fucking nose. Any hint of harassment, a speeding violation, a nine thousand dollar deposit in a bank account, any sign of a gun and you're gone.'