Taking Care of Business ch-28

by Peter Corris

  Taking Care of Business

  ( Cliff Hardy - 28 )

  Peter Corris

  Peter Corris

  Taking Care of Business

  A GIFT HORSE

  Never look a gift horse in the mouth,’ my old grandma used to say. When I’d asked her why not she didn’t know, and she also didn’t seem to know what a gift horse was. She was an Irish gypsy but more Irish than gypsy, and it must have been a generation or two since her branch of the family had had anything to do with horses.

  Grandma Lee’s phrase came to mind when I got a call from Sentinel Insurance offering me a surveillance job. A couple of things about that call: one, it almost certainly wasn’t intended for me. The Hartley Investigation agency, a Californian outfit, had recently begun operations in Sydney and their Yellow Pages listing came in immediately behind mine. I’d had a couple of mistaken calls and corrected the caller; but, point two, I couldn’t afford to turn this job down. Things were crook.

  The GST hadn’t helped. Clients resent the investigator’s expenses as it is, and the ten percent on top of the fee and the expenses was a significant deterrent. A second factor was the advertising and respectable profile of the big agencies. In these times of corporate high power they looked more and more like merchant bankers or stockbrokers and less and less the way those of us in the caper used to look-that is, somewhat dodgy failures or retirees from other things.

  ‘It’s a simple surveillance matter,’ Bryce Carter, who announced himself as claims manager of Sentinel, said. ‘The subject has an income protection policy with us. She’s a landscape gardener who claims that a railway sleeper fell on her foot.’

  ‘Ouch,’ I said.

  ‘That’s as may be. By the way, who am I talking to?’

  ‘Hardy here.’

  ‘The Hartley Agency comes recommended.’

  I cleared my throat. I must have misheard him. ‘I’m sure we can handle it.’

  ‘I’ll email you the details.’

  ‘We prefer fax for these matters, Mr Carter. More secure. Security is our watchword. I’ll give you the number.’

  He swallowed it. I haven’t got around to email yet but I’ve found that everyone who uses it is aware that someone, somewhere could be reading them. Doesn’t stop them being indiscreet with their boyfriends, girlfriends or both.

  I gave him the number and said I’d fax him a contract when I received his fax. My contract was headed Hardy Investigations, but with any luck he wouldn’t worry about it. Subcontracting, outsourcing, subsidiaries-who knows who’s doing what these days?

  I read the ten-minute news summary and did the quick crossword in the Sydney Morning Herald then twiddled my thumbs, an indication of how slow things were, until the fax came through.

  Rosanne Carroll had a couple of degrees in science and horticulture and she ran a business called Natural Landscaping from an address in Epping. In support of her insurance claims she’d submitted documents showing that her income over the past two tax years had averaged out at around eight hundred dollars a week. Not bad, I thought, but not vast wealth by any means, particularly because I suspected that some hard physical work was probably involved.

  Her premiums were paid up and she was invoking the policy to claim her usual level of income for the six months it was estimated it would take her to recover from the injury. She’d provided a battery of doctor’s certificates to the effect that her left fibula had been fractured and there was damage to the tendons in the foot. Her lower leg was in a cast as of the day after the accident, now three weeks ago, and was expected to stay there for another three weeks. To quote the medico: ‘… some atrophy of the muscles in the foot can be expected and extensive physiotherapy will be required to restore full mobility.’

  Ms Carroll also had an accident policy with the company and, with medical expenses thrown in, Sentinel was looking at a payout of more than twenty grand. As I looked through the papers I couldn’t help it-my sympathies were with Ms Carroll. For one thing I knew the injury was a nasty one, having broken a fibula a couple of years back- or rather, having had it broken for me by a baseball bat. For another, I carried similar insurance myself, resented the premiums and expected the company to come good if required. So far, on the couple of occasions I had needed to make a claim, everything had been sweet, if slow.

  Against that, I knew that phoney insurance claims made the premiums higher for all concerned and that this kind of scamming was dead selfish. The amount of money involved was sufficient for Sentinel to insist on verification. Fair enough, I thought, although it wasn’t the sort of work I liked. But I disliked it less than I disliked the bills that were mounting up. Beggars can’t be choosers. Did Grandma Lee ever say that? I doubted it; when in need she could always slip into the gear and read a palm or two. I filled out the contract form, faxed it off and had it back, signed, within the hour. Licensed to snoop.

  I rented a video camera, drove out to Epping and located Ms Carroll’s place of business. Natural Landscaping consisted of an old weatherboard house located on a double block of land adjoining what looked like a ten-hectare plant nursery. There were a couple of newish sheds on the land and a three-slot carport sheltering a late model Holden ute and a bobcat. One of the sheds was open and I got an impression of cement bags and tools. There were a couple of piles of sand and gravel with plastic sheets drawn over them. The operation looked, at an ignorant glance, neat and efficient.

  I gathered this information from a slow cruise-by. I parked a hundred metres away and used my mobile to call the business number Sentinel had supplied along with some details on ‘the subject’. I scanned the details while the phone rang: age thirty-two, single, 177 centimetres, 75 kilos…

  ‘This call is being diverted to another number.’ More ringing.

  ‘You’ve called Rosanne Carroll at Natural Landscaping. If that’s Kay Fisher, Kay, I’m on the Morrissey job at 76 Ramsay Street, Baulkham Hills. Anyone else, please leave a message.’

  Did someone drawing income support announce that they were ‘on the job’? Curious. My trusty Gregory’s told me the address wasn’t far away and I was there inside fifteen minutes. Number 76 in Ramsay Street was a corner block backing onto the Cumberland State Forest. Great views if you like trees and hills. By parking higher up I could look down into the back of the property where some work was going on. With the naked eye I could see two figures. My Zeiss glasses revealed them as two women, one in overalls laying turf, the other with a foot in plaster and supporting herself on crutches standing by, watching.

  I cruised twenty metres closer, unshipped the video camera, adjusted the zoom lens and filmed the action, such as it was. Looked okay to me-injured boss supervising subcontractor. Increased overhead, income support needed and justified. All kosher, as long as she didn’t jump up and start helping to lay the sod or unload the truck drawn up near the job. I clicked off after a couple of minutes and lowered the camera. The work went on with the injured woman occasionally pointing and looking up at the sky. Rain was threatening. Did you want rain when laying turf? I didn’t know. Presumably she did know.

  As I watched a white Toyota pulled up beside the back gate to the block. A woman got out, signalled to the woman on crutches, opened the gate and joined her. Had to be Kay Fisher. She helped the woman on crutches collect her belongings-shoulder bag, clipboard. The injured woman spoke to the worker and then, with the new arrival close by, made her way on the crutches to the car. She apparently needed help to get into the car and I could see what a difficult operation that was going to be so I filmed it. The car drove off and I followed. It stopped at a shopping centre and Kay got out and returned after a short time with some shopping bags. Back to Epping.
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br />   More help to get out of the car and up the steps to the house. It was three o’clock in the afternoon but the injured woman was visibly drooping with tiredness. She was helped inside. I didn’t bother filming any of this. I was convinced. Ten minutes later Kay emerged and took off. I jotted down the number of her car. I stayed where I was for an hour in case Ms Carroll came out in her tracksuit and took off up the hill. No show.

  I was out at the Epping address the following day at 8 am on a cold May morning. Kay arrived in the Toyota and took Ms Carroll to two landscaping jobs, one in Lane Cove and one in Warrawee. She hobbled about and supervised, looking unhappy. I had the feeling she wanted to be at the controls of the bobcat or at the business end of the shovel. I did a bit of filming but also used the mobile to ring my contact in the RTA to get a make on the Toyota. It was registered to a home help company in Pymble.

  The day warmed up and I left Ms Carroll in the late morning, sweating in skimpy shade, cajoling her subcontractor and arguing with her client in Warrawee. I drove to my office in Darlinghurst and looked up the home help mob in the phone book. Called them and got their rates. Pricey. Ms Carroll needed her income support if ever anyone did.

  The day after that followed a similar pattern except that Kay waited for an hour while her client checked in at a physiotherapy clinic at the North Shore hospital. I scooted up there and took a chance by asking a white coat how a person in a cast could benefit from seeing a physiotherapist.

  He was a man interested in his work. ‘Woman?’ he said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Young?’

  ‘Youngish, yeah.’

  ‘Dead keen. Pre-therapy. Looking for accelerated healing advice. What’s the prob?’

  ‘Aw, broken fibula.’

  ‘Comfrey,’ he said, and whipped away with his clipboard.

  I returned the video camera, carefully pocketing the rental invoice. Back in the office, I tapped out a report on the last electric typewriter left in Sydney. My professional opinion was that Ms Carroll was genuinely injured, virtually incapacitated, and incurring considerable expenses in rehabilitation therapy and other areas to keep her business running. I provided details about the home help she employed and their rates. I included the video tape and totted up and documented my own expenses-mileage, payment to unstated informant, cost of video tape and recorder hire with standard fee plus GST. A nice, neat package to send off by courier (cost also included) to Mr Bryce Carter at Sentinel Insurance.

  Two nights later I was having a drink with Charlie Underwood, a fellow investigator who has an office in Bondi Junction. Most of his work is in the eastern suburbs but he likes to slum it in the inner west when he drinks. We talked shop naturally, and I admitted that I’d taken on an insurance job against my own inclinations. Charlie has no such scruples.

  ‘Growth area,’ he said. ‘I’m up to my ears in ‘em. Bit strange really.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Get you another?’ We were drinking scotch and I’d only had two. Three was safe enough, four meant a hangover.

  ‘Be my last,’ I said. ‘I’ll buy.’

  We were in the Toxteth on a Friday night and it was busy, smoky and loud with the trots on the TV, the pool tables in operation and voices getting louder because the voices were getting louder. Charlie and I had snagged a table near the door and defended it so far against all comers.

  I brought the drinks over. ‘You were saying?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something strange about insurance jobs.’

  ‘Yeah, well, no names, no pack drill, but I’ve done a few jobs for this one mob and the subjects are as clean as a whistle. Not a suspicion of a fiddle and there was really no reason to think there would be. You don’t know much about this side of the game, do you, Cliff?’

  ‘Too pure,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah, three suspensions and a stretch for obstructing justice. Real pure. Well, insurance companies keep pretty good tabs on their clients and they only investigate claims when they smell something. Otherwise it’s just more overheads. But these squeaky clean ones.. ’ He shook his head. ‘I dunno. What was yours like?’

  I sipped some scotch, making it last. ‘Squeaky clean.’

  ‘Would you like to give me the initials of the company?’

  ‘S-I,’ I said.

  ‘Fuck. Same here. I bet it’s the same crowd. Sentinel, right?’

  ‘I’m not saying you’re wrong.’

  ‘Look, I was talking with Colin Hart the other day, you know him. Been in the game a while. Does nearly as much of this kind of work as me. He was cagey about the client but I’m bloody sure it’s the same mob. Weird.’

  I shrugged. ‘As long as they pay up.’

  Charlie looked sour. ‘That’s the problem. I thought I was on a good thing when this stuff came my way but they’re dragging the chain about paying. I put in the hours and the miles and that. I’m not well pleased.’

  I finished my drink less happy than when I’d started it. I’d been counting on the Sentinel payment to take care of some bills. Still, sometimes the richer the client the slower the payment. I told Charlie I’d let him know if the account remained unpaid for too long. He nodded, looked worried, and I got the feeling that Charlie might need the money even more than I did. If so, I knew the reason why-the four-legged animals that ran around in Randwick with little men on their backs.

  ‘How much are you owed?’

  ‘A lot. Proving the subject’s clean takes just as long and as much effort as the reverse, sometimes more because you have to be dead sure. Colin’s probably into them for more than me and he’s got big problems.’

  Normally, I didn’t bother too much about the doings of my fellow workers, but this was getting interesting. ‘Like what?’

  Charlie drained his glass and looked ready for another one. He was fidgeting, stressed. ‘Contested divorce, threatened suspension…’

  ‘For?’

  ‘Entrapment.’

  ‘Colin always was a wide boy. Well, I hope it works out, Charlie. Gotta go.’

  He looked at his glass again, then at the bar. ‘I might be giving you a call.’

  As I left I reflected that his last remark was odd. Charlie always drank in the Toxteth on a Friday night and I mostly did. Why would he need to call me?

  The call came five days later. I snatched up the phone hoping it was a client.

  ‘Cliff, Charlie Underwood. You free tonight?’

  ‘It’s Wednesday.’

  ‘Not for a piss-up, this is business.’

  ‘I could be free. Business between who and who?’

  ‘You, me, Colin Hart, Darcy Travers, Scott di Maggio.’

  I sifted through the names. ‘I know the rest, who’s di Maggio?’

  ‘Yank. He’s with the Hartley Agency.’

  ‘What is this? Are we forming a union?’

  ‘We’re trying to protect our interests. Eight tonight in the Superbowl.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s a Chinese restaurant in Goulburn Street, just over George. Great food. Quiet, least it will be on a Wednesday night. It’s to your advantage.’

  I had nothing else to do so I said I’d be there.

  The place had an authentic look and feel with laminex tables, Chinese posters on the walls. More importantly, Asian people were eating there. I was late and the others already had food in front of them as well as open wine bottles and glasses. Charlie Underwood introduced me to the only man I didn’t know.

  ‘Scott di Maggio, this is Cliff Hardy.’

  Di Maggio was a heavy-set individual with hooded eyes, greying crinkly hair and a square jaw. Quick nod, brief handshake. All his movements were impatient, as if he was in a hurry to be out of this backwater and home in the US of A.

  ‘Have the shredded chicken and salty fish, Cliff,’ Charlie said. ‘It’s great.’

  ‘Okay.’ I gave the order to a hovering waiter and reached for one of the wine bottles, poured.

  Charlie la
ughed. ‘That’s Cliff,’ he said to di Maggio. ‘Doesn’t care what he eats as long as it’s hot or what he drinks as long as it’s wet.’

  ‘And cheap,’ I said, looking at the American. ‘Who’s this on? The Hartley Agency?’

  Di Maggio grinned and shook his head. ‘Dutch. This whole thing’s been Dutch, at least to this point. Right, guys?’

  Not their first meeting then. Three heads nodded. I found it hard to imagine Charlie Underwood, Colin Hart and Darcy Travers agreeing about anything. It made me suspicious and inclined to dissent. ‘Just what is this thing?’ I pointed to their glasses and bowls. ‘You’re ahead of me.’

  ‘I like this guy,’ di Maggio said.

  Underwood emptied his glass, poured more. ‘I told you, Scott. I said you would.’

  ‘Cut the bullshit, Charlie,’ I said. ‘What’s going on?’

  At a nod from di Maggio, Underwood laid it out with occasional interventions from the others. They believed that Sentinel Insurance was in big trouble, probably insuring bad risks and incurring heavy payouts. The rash of investigations was a sign of panic, an attempt to stop the haemorrhaging.

  ‘I don’t mind telling you,’ di Maggio said, ‘Hartley’s owed a big pile of dough and it’s not just for claims investigation. They had us in as consultants on a couple of mergers they were considering. We looked into the bona fides of some of the principals, you know.’

  Underwood and Travers nodded.

  ‘That kinda work attracts big fees and we hit them. So far, no payment. Just the runaround.’

  ‘Like what?’ I said.

  He shrugged. ‘Reorganisation of the accounts department, computer problems, personnel changes. Bullshit.’

  ‘I’m still not clear what this meeting’s about.’

  Darcy Travers, a florid fatty who’d been eating as well as listening, put down his chopsticks and leaned forward just as my food arrived. As the one in the group holding the best hand for a coronary, he upped his chances by lighting a cigarette. ‘Sentinel could go bottom up.’