by Peter Corris
'On what sort of charge?'
'Conspiracy's a big net with fine mesh. As witness the judge presently not getting out and about and having a jolly good time on his pension with his pals.'
I nodded. 'Terrorism'll stretch a bit, too.'
Caulfield glanced at Manning. 'That's a thought. All unnecessary if you tell us what you were doing there.'
'Maybe later,' I said. 'Leave me your card.'
Caulfield slapped a card down on the table and they trooped out, not slamming the door. This kind of thing had happened quite a few times since I'd lost my licence. I suppose the cops couldn't be blamed. There were always rogues in the profession; I wasn't the worst but, as Caulfield said, I had a habit of getting under police skins. For tough guys, police skins are thin.
I was upstairs at the computer, working through Sabatini's articles, when he rang.
'You didn't put all your cards on the table,' he said.
'How's that?'
'I saw the news. You were there when they fished Nordlung out.'
'Yes, I was just sticking to our no-names policy.'
'I'm not sure I buy that, but it's blown now. I bet I can guess who hired you.'
'Guess away.'
'Miles Standish, right?'
'Let's say you're right. How did you get there?'
'I'm not sure I can trust you. You're economical with the facts.'
I laughed. 'Nice one. Aren't we all? OK, well I'll give you something that might interest you. Two cops came to see me when I got home. Like you, they'd seen the news coverage and they warned me off. Obviously Nordlung meant something to them or why would they bother?'
There was a long pause and I thought I knew what was going through his head. I'd discussed this sort of thing with Lily a few times. Names, information, connections are the lifeblood of investigative journalism and private investigation alike. They're also the currency, to be hoarded or traded. Sabatini thought I'd hoarded a bit. He had something to trade, but was it worth his while? The other thing about information is that its value drops the more people share it. It has a use-by date. Sabatini made his decision.
'OK, you'd find out something about it sooner or later so you're getting it from me now: the real stuff. I'm investing in you, Hardy.'
I smiled. I'd read him correctly and he was even using the appropriate language. I didn't say anything.
'Nordlung and Standish were hand in glove. Standish brokered the deal that enabled Nordlung to buy the Southern Star. Are you with me?'
I was. The Southern Star was a cruise ship that was being fitted out for luxury voyages to the Antarctic. The work was being done in Hobart. The ship had exploded and was a total loss.
'Nordlung had it insured to the hilt and beyond,' Sabatini said. 'Massive premium. Standish raised the money and arranged the terms for that as well. Nordlung got a whacking great payout. If Nordlung's the one who's supposed to have seen Malouf you could be chasing shadows. Nordlung'd do anything Standish wanted him to.'
'So it wouldn't be in Standish's interest to kill him.'
'No; but there'd be plenty of candidates. Nordlung was a specialist in marine fraud of one kind or another. He started small and had some trouble, got bigger and honed his act. So are you investigating an alleged death or a real one, or both?'
'I wish I knew. Maybe nothing. Standish has made himself unavailable.'
'I could be wasting my time talking to you.'
'You could be.'
'I'm glad I did anyway. Know why?'
'Tell me.'
'Lily,' he said and hung up.
5
Common sense said to give it up as a bad job-too little substance, too many uncertainties, no focus. But common sense wouldn't pay the bills or help me out of the fix I was in with the option shares. That's if I really was in a fix. I'd been reading lately about fake emails, so I paid a call on Perry Hassan to make sure he had sent Standish the email I'd seen. We'd got together a few times since the Malouf scam and he'd been apologetic. He still was.
'I'm sorry, Cliff,' he said, 'but that's right. Dick Malouf had the management of the portfolio and that's what he did to you with those shares, probably just because he could. I know I was out of line telling Standish but he said he was thinking of employing you. I thought I was putting work your way.'
We were in his office in Five Dock, a large suite of rooms above a sprawling DVD rental joint. It used to be a relatively pleasant place to go the few times I went there-young, energetic accountants of both sexes working away in apparent open-plan harmony. Perry was a cynic who'd worked for the tax office in earlier days and was thought to know all the angles. He'd complained about executive lunches and desk-sitting piling on the kilos and I'd suggested he join my gym. He did and became an enthusiast. Now there was an air of despondency about the office and many fewer bodies.
'Well, you have, I think,' I said. 'What d'you make of Standish?'
'An operator. He put some people my way and then leaned on me to do certain favours. He says he's going to help me with the insurance people and I'm going to need all the help I can get. That's another reason why I gave him the details of your situation when he asked. Sorry.'
'It's all right. Is there any way to head off the margin call?'
Perry shrugged. 'A very good lawyer might be able to stall it for a while.'
'What about a conviction of Malouf for fraud?'
'He's dead.'
'Say he isn't.'
'Cliff, I'm up to my neck in lawyers, aggrieved clients and auditors. I can't sleep for worry. I can't find the will to go to the gym. I can't play games.'
'OK. One question: can Standish be trusted?'
He threw back his head and laughed. Then he looked astonished and pleased that he was still able to laugh. So I'd done him some good.
Like Perry, I hadn't been to the gym for a while. I decided to have a workout and see if a spell on the treadmill gave me any ideas. It's been known to happen. Late afternoon and not many about. I stripped, stretched less thoroughly than I should have, and started the treadmill at a brisk walk. If I felt good I'd increase it to a trot. I was warmed up, considering increasing the rate, when I heard a door crash and a shrill voice cut through the doof doof musical fug.
'Where is that bastard? I'll kill him.'
I heard a crash of metal on metal and hit the off button. A large man in a suit had picked up a short bar and slammed it against one of the machines. A couple of people were doing floor exercises on the mezzanine level. A man and a woman leaned over the rail to look down. The intruder saw them and rushed towards the stairs.
'You bastard, you cunt. I'll kill you both.'
He threw the short bar away. It clattered against a wall and he picked up a longer, heavier one. That slowed him down long enough for me to get between him and the stairs.
'Take it easy, mate.'
'Fuck you!'
He was big and strong and swung the bar with one hand, but it wasn't made for swinging-too long, too heavy. The movement put him off-balance. I grabbed the bar with both hands and twisted it out of his grasp. He roared and made a grab at me but I re-gripped and prodded him in the chest with the end of the bar and he stumbled and fell. I pinned him with the bar across his chest while Wesley, the gym manager and instructor, and two others came in to help. The would-be attacker glared up at us, swearing and spitting, but the fight went out of him.
We got him calmed down and convinced him that the two people he was after had left by the back exit.
'Just as well for you Cliff here stopped you,' Wesley said. 'You were on the way to assault with a deadly weapon grief.'
The man shrugged and brushed down his clothes. 'Who cares?'
He pushed us aside and made his way to the door.
'Cliff, my man, you've still got some moves,' Wesley said.
'He'd have done better with the short bar.'
'Don't even think it. I need a murder in here like I need swine flu. Haven't seen you for a while, man.'
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'I've had some bad luck money-wise and other worries. In fact I'm probably going to be late paying my membership.'
Wesley laid his big dark hand on my shoulder. 'After what you did for me a while back, you've got a free pass as far as I'm concerned.'
I got back on the treadmill but my heart wasn't in it and I did the minimum amount of work on the machines and with the free weights. Although it was kind of Wesley to make the gesture (I'd got his son out of trouble a few years before), the idea of being a charity case didn't sit well with me. The Standish job, if it could be firmed up, gave me the prospect of recovering some money and earning some more. It was worth the effort, and I'd worked for less than honest people before.
I slept on it and decided that the first thing to do was get a stronger grip on Standish. I phoned the office but got nothing new from May Ling. I imagined her sitting there, able to cope with whatever came up, immaculate, carrying out her instructions to the letter.
In my experience, most separated wives keep pretty close tabs on their husbands for various reasons, some considerate, some not. I had a Vaucluse address for Felicity Standish.
I drove there in the usual sluggish traffic. The water to my left had a dull, gun-metal gleam under a heavy grey sky. Cars turned off New South Head Road towards Royal Sydney golf course, but I doubted that the players would get a full round in. What the Americans call a storm cell seemed to be building away to the east. I'm told they have leaf blowers on the tees and greens at Royal Sydney and people to immediately repair the fairway divots, but a flash of lightning and everyone heads for shelter just as at the roughest council course.
The Standish house was in a street that overlooked Nielsen Park out towards Shark Bay. Living there you were gazing out from one millionaire's enclave across the water to another at Mosman.
The squattocracy that established the tone of Vaucluse included some honest men but not all, just as the present nabobs have some decent people among them. The address I had was a sandstone pile. There were pillars, a high wrought iron security gate and an electronic driveway gate in a high wall. Through the grille I could see a sweeping driveway and a fountain. It failed elegance, qualified as pretentious.
I buzzed at the gate.
'Yes.'
'I'd like to see Mrs Standish.'
'What about?'
'My name's Hardy. I was hired yesterday by Mr Standish to do a job. You could check on that by calling his office. I need to talk to him and I don't know where he is.'
'This is Felicity Standish. Are you saying Miles is missing?'
'I don't know. Maybe.'
'What does Rose Petal say?'
'Rose Petal?'
'May Ling.'
'She won't tell me anything. I'm not sure she knows where he is.'
'She knows. Have you got any ID?'
I held my cancelled PEA licence and driver's licence up to where I guessed the camera was.
'Thanks. Hang on, I'll make that call.'
I waited for no more than a minute before hearing a click and seeing the gate move a centimetre. I pushed and I was in. There was a two-car garage beside the house with a white Saab slotted in. A couple of colourful and expensive-looking children's tricycles occupied the other space. There were plastic toys around the fountain. So Standish was a family man. I'd never have guessed. Where was the profit?
I went up the wide steps to the front door, which opened at my approach. The woman who stood there was tall and slim, her figure displayed to best advantage in tight black jeans and a loose blue denim shirt. She wore ankle boots with medium heels and her dark hair and makeup had a perfect but unstudied look. She wasn't beautiful; she was almost plain, but she presented as if she were beautiful and it worked.
Her hand shot out and I took it. It was warm. The house would be warm inside so the shirt was adequate. She shook my hand and kept hold of it just long enough to make me feel as if I was being drawn inside.
'Come in, Mr Hardy. I've heard of you, of course. I believe we have things to talk about.'
She conducted me down a wide hallway past several doors on either side to a sitting room with a view out to a large garden and a swimming pool. The pool had a cover over it. Tall trees around the perimeter made the area totally private. There was a children's swing near the end of the yard and what looked like a cubby house in a tree. She waved to a chair.
'I've made coffee. Would you like some?'
'I would, thank you. Black, no sugar.'
She smiled and her face didn't look plain anymore. 'Of course. Just a minute.'
I stood and wandered around the room. The furniture was simple but expensive. A photograph of two children, a boy and girl, stood on top of a bookcase. A couple of paintings on the walls could have been originals and could have been good, but they were abstracts so how can you tell? Flowers in a vase were dropping their petals.
Felicity Standish came back in with two solid mugs. She handed me one. She invited me to sit and dropped down into one of the leather armchairs. I sat and tried the coffee. Hot and strong.
'You said you'd heard of me. From your husband?'
'Oh, no. Haven't seen him for weeks. No, I read the papers. I'm a crime junkie. Did you look at the books?'
I hadn't, but now I swivelled around to look. Crime novels and true crime-hardbacks and trade paperbacks.
'I read about you, and your partner being killed, and you losing your licence. You were in the news there for a while.'
I nodded. 'Unfortunately. I won't beat about the bush, Mrs Standish. I was hired to look for Richard Malouf.'
Her hands tightened around the coffee mug. 'He's dead.'
'He may not be.'
'I'd know if he were alive; he was my lover. Oh, but I can see you already knew that. Miles told you. Hated to do it, but he did, right?'
I nodded.
'Did he tell you that he was screwing his secretary? No? But you're not surprised. Well, you wouldn't be-she's very beautiful and with a heart like a block of ice.'
I drank the coffee while she told me that after she became aware of Standish's infidelity she was easy meat for Malouf, who caught her in a down cycle and lifted her out of it. For a while.
'I don't know why I'm telling you all this,' she said. 'I don't know you.'
'I've got a trustworthy face.'
Her laugh was an embarrassed snort. 'I wouldn't say that, but I would say it isn't judgemental.'
'Thank you.'
'But you're being led up the garden path, Mr Hardy. You see, I think Miles Standish had Richard Malouf murdered.'
6
'That surprised you, didn't it?' Felicity Standish said.
I said, 'Yes. Are you serious?'
'I'm deadly serious. Although Miles was a serial adulterer, he couldn't handle it when I made one misstep. He can't bear to lose anything. That's why he's creating so much difficulty about our divorce.'
I looked around the room and out to the garden. 'Well, it's a lot to give up.'
She laughed. 'No, no, this is all mine. I inherited it. I put that badly. What I mean is that he can't bear not to win. He was good at a whole range of sports and his legal studies and at business. He married a rich woman and has a son and a daughter. A winner all the way until this happened. He was ruthless at everything, swept opposition aside. He beat up a man I was seeing before we got together. He had some cause, but it cost him money to avoid an assault charge. I think he was capable of killing Richard or having it done. He was certainly a police suspect, probably still is.'
The implication of what she was saying was clear. Maybe Standish had hired me to divert attention away from him, to muddy the waters. Felicity Standish drank the last of her coffee and sat, looking composed. I thought about the shelf of books and wondered whether she had overstimulated her imagination. I still had enough police contacts to establish whether Standish was a suspect in Malouf's death, but I urgently needed to talk to Standish, otherwise I was stumbling around in the dark.
&nbs
p; 'Where are the kids?' I said.
'At school. Why?'
'Does your husband have access, visiting rights, picking up arrangements?'
'Hah, I see where you're going. He has those rights but he hasn't exercised them for weeks. You need to contact him and I need to know where he is. How about I hire you to find him?'
I shook my head.
'Why not? Not ethical? You're de-licensed. You couldn't have a contract with Miles and you don't need one with me. What d'you say?'
'No, too much conflict of interest. I need to find him for my own reasons.'
'Fair enough, but the offer remains open. I'll give you the clue I would've given you if you'd accepted. If you want to find Miles Standish, keep tabs on May Ling. That shouldn't be too hard for a man like you. Should be a pleasure.'
The storm swept in and dumped water on the city and then departed as if satisfied. The sun shone through a thin cloud cover but a wind kept the temperature low. I did some scouting. A lane runs behind the buildings that front New South Head Road in Edgecliff. At the end of the lane was a small, undercover car park, electronically controlled. The only alternative all-day parking for anyone working in the area was the huge, multi-level operation on the opposite side of the road over the railway station. Somehow I didn't think May Ling was the type to battle with the plebs in the concrete jungle. That's where I put my car while I had a slow lunch in a restaurant nearby, read the morning paper from cover to cover and took a one-hour walk up to Darling Point and back.
At four forty-five I was sitting in my car in the lane where parking was illegal and keeping my eye out for inspectors. Eventually they'll install cameras in these places, sack the inspectors and reap greater rewards, but just for now human beings were still useful. The afternoon had turned cold; parking inspectors are like everyone else- given the choice they'll do their job in greater comfort and there were ample opportunities to work under cover along the main road.