Maybe the Horse Will Talk

by Elliot Perlman

  Mr Radhakrishnan smiled. ‘Has a young lawyer, in the vicinity of, say, a Second Year, found evidence of an allocation of resources described as a marketing budget?’

  ‘Young lawyers age rapidly these days so they’re not so young anymore but other than that, the assumption in your question, sir, might be correct.’

  ‘I see.’ Mr Radhakrishnan smiled again.

  ‘Another question occurs to me, Mr Radhakrishnan, a completely unrelated one.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Is it illegal for a company, say a construction company, to bribe officials, bureaucrats or even members of a foreign government in order to win a contract?’

  ‘Oh yes, most certainly. It is in this country.’

  ‘That’s what I thought. Thank you, Mr Radhakrishnan. I don’t want to take up any more of your time.’

  And with that Maserov got up and began to walk towards the closed door of Radhakrishnan’s office.

  ‘Just a moment, Stephen. I have a question for you. Is it really true that you made an offer to Malcolm Torrent to clean up his sexual harassment problems?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘And it’s this that has you working out of Torrent Industries HQ?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  ‘And how are you getting along with that?’

  ‘I’d think Mr Torrent would be pleased with my progress on that front.’

  The older man smiled in appreciation of Maserov’s audacity and gently nodded his head as if he’d just tasted the perfect example of his favourite dish, indicating unequivocally that he was no supporter of Hamilton’s. Yet he hadn’t said a word to that effect.

  Maserov went back to his office at Torrent Industries headquarters and called Betga to tell him what he’d learned and what he suspected, namely that Mike Mercer was in some way involved in bribery in order to guarantee the Torrent Industries tender for various construction projects was successful and that this was illegal.

  ‘I knew it was illegal,’ said Betga. ‘You didn’t need a partner to tell you that. Bribery is illegal.’

  ‘I wanted to hear it from a partner, okay! So sue me! Additionally, I wanted a partner to hear it from me,’ Maserov said in his own defence.

  ‘If that’s supposed to mean what I think it’s supposed to mean —’

  ‘What do you think it’s supposed to mean?’ Maserov interrupted Betga.

  ‘You mean that somehow by having one of the partners know that you suspect that someone at Torrent Industries has engaged in the bribery of a foreign government that your position at Freely Savage is somehow safer.’

  ‘Yeah, when you put it that way, I guess it sounds kind of hopeless.’

  ‘Hopeless? It’s utterly stupid to the point of stretching the meaning of stupid towards “sad”, after which it shatters into tiny pieces detectable only with a microscope. It’s so sad it’s not even wrong. Forget trying to find protection from any of the partners at Freely Savage. Wipe that possibility out of your mind. They’re as scared of Hamilton as you are. And no one on their letterhead is going to stick their neck out to save your sorry arse. What you need to do is go to Malcolm Torrent with all this. Go and see him and tell him everything we discussed and now this too, about the bribery.’

  ‘But I don’t actually have any evidence of the bribery. I merely suspect it because Carla said that Mike Mercer and Frank Cardigan had a marketing budget. That’s not enough to go Malcolm Torrent with.’

  ‘No, it is enough. Just ask him a few questions that suggest you’re suspicious. That will buy you time.’

  ‘I’m always trying to buy time. But I’m never safe.’

  ‘Safety is relative, Maserov. It’s a construct. It’s no longer anyone’s lived reality.’

  ‘Hamilton’s safe. Malcolm Torrent’s safe.’

  ‘Two people are not statistically significant, Maserov, not even those two. You should know that. Anyway, Tsar Nicholas II once thought he was safe.’

  ‘Once he was safe.’

  ‘Yes, that’s true. Then a moment later he was overthrown and, before you could say “Felix Dzerzhinsky”, he was shot and thrown down a mineshaft. Look, you’re safer than Featherby. Go and see Malcolm Torrent. Bring him all that you know and all your unfounded suspicions. It will buy you time. Buying time is the new safe.’

  Maserov did immediately try to get an appointment with Malcolm Torrent to do all that Betga advised but the tsar of Torrent Industries had gone to Lizard Island, off the coast of Far North Queensland, to repose, strategise, and look at fish the size of Mike Tyson, which, if no one was watching, he would kill, and he wouldn’t be back for another two days. As things transpired this helped Maserov enormously because of a discovery he and Betga made in the interim. Carla, after the attack but before she left the company, had surreptitiously downloaded a trove of documents, including private emails from Mike Mercer’s desktop computer.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d done this?’ Betga implored her.

  ‘I did it in anger, on the sly, but then I worried I could get in trouble for doing it. I didn’t really know what use it would be or even why I’d done it. It was like stealing something of his, a kind of revenge, not very well thought out, a spur of the moment type thing. Look, I thought I could get into trouble.’

  ‘Not from me and I’m your lawyer,’ Betga replied.

  ‘I didn’t think to tell you because what relevance can documents have in a sexual assault case? I’m the evidence, my testimony, right? If people don’t believe me, how can some document help? And anyway, he wasn’t likely to have made a diary entry, “Attempted rape on Carla Monterosso last night. Try again Wednesday. Remember to buy wife flowers in re anniversary. Likes saffron crocus. Have rape victim place order.”’

  ‘Carla, I can’t believe you did this. It’s absolutely brilliant!’

  ‘You sound surprised, like I wasn’t capable of something so brilliant. Is that it?’

  ‘Not at all! Although that’s an entirely permissible inference to make and no one, least of all me, could fairly blame you for making it. But still, I can’t believe you didn’t tell me.’

  ‘It is illegal, isn’t it?’

  ‘Absolutely! Especially given what we want to use it for. How did you do it?’

  ‘It’s not that hard. He always left his computer on so I just went into his office while he was at lunch. Remember, I used to do his banking sometimes. I knew he pretty much always used one of three passwords; MercyMike, MercyMike1 or MercyMikeMike1. I got lucky on the second try and then, as though it were a dagger, stuck a 128-gig USB stick into his computer, right clicked on Documents, clicked Copy and then pasted them to the USB. Did a similar thing again with his email and contacts via Microsoft Outlook. As far as I know, I got everything he had on his computer at the time I did it, which was within an hour of me leaving.’

  There were so many documents to go through that, even working late into the night over two nights, the combined efforts of Maserov and Betga were insufficient to make anything but a dent in the quantity of documents to be read before Maserov’s appointment with Malcolm Torrent. They hadn’t been able to find Mike Mercer’s banking records even though Carla assured them that she got everything from Mercer’s computer.

  ‘Now I know how the FBI felt with the clock ticking down in the days before Brett Kavanaugh was confirmed to the US Supreme Court,’ commented Maserov, late into the second night at Carla’s place.

  ‘Yeah, but they had it much easier than us,’ said Betga. ‘They knew exactly what they were looking for and were expressly forbidden to speak to anyone who could help them find it.’

  Maserov was shown into Malcolm Torrent’s office without the smoking gun he wanted. In the previous hour he had rehearsed his strategy, which was to present himself as Malcolm Torrent’s protector, an ever-vigilant professional who was looking out for the man, his company, its reputation and its value as perceived by the stock market, a sort of new-generation consigliere.

  He
opened with, ‘In my capacity as your lawyer,’ which was in itself audacious since Maserov was only a Second Year clinging precariously to his employment by a thread no stronger than that which secures a child’s first baby tooth to its gum in the menacing presence of an arrogant, coked-up tooth fairy, whereas Torrent Industries had a division of in-house lawyers and an entire army of out-house lawyers at Freely Savage, led by the omnipotent Hamilton who, more than any other individual, was the one most aptly described as Malcolm Torrent’s lawyer.

  But when Maserov saw that Malcolm Torrent had neither flinched nor sought to correct his description of their relationship, he felt emboldened enough to convey to him that he perceived a danger to the company if word got out to the media that anyone at Torrent Industries had tried to bury an employee’s written account of her sexual assault at the hands of a co-worker, a superior, a male, and notwithstanding the confidentiality clause that was part of the settlement agreement with the plaintiff Carla Monterosso, he, Maserov, would advise keeping others with knowledge of the ‘burying’ inside the tent, specifically Aileen van der Westhuizen and the Freely Savage lawyer, Featherby.

  ‘If they did the wrong thing,’ Malcolm Torrent asked with concern, ‘why should I keep them “inside the tent”, as you say?’

  ‘Because if you don’t, here’s how it’s going to go down,’ Maserov began, surprising himself with his sudden unpremeditated immersion into a character more usually identified with Humphrey Bogart. But here he was, a latter-day Paul Muni look-alike, adopting the role with the same almost reckless gusto that had got him into Malcolm Torrent’s consciousness in the first place.

  ‘Your Aileen van der Westhuizen is going to say Featherby told her to do it. Featherby’s either going to deny it or place the blame on Hamilton. Hamilton’s going to deny it and then you’ve got an aggrieved Featherby, out of work, and thirsty for revenge.’

  ‘Revenge? Revenge on who?’

  ‘On Hamilton. So then he’s a chance to go rogue, to go public with the allegation that Hamilton ordered him to bury evidence unfavourable to Torrent Industries. It might all be on Freely Savage, on Hamilton in particular, or those in the know, but it’s going to stain Torrent Industries. Already Featherby’s gone to ground.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘Officially he’s on stress leave for a mental health issue. Clearly he’s dodging Hamilton but Betga says he can find him.’

  ‘Find him!’ said Malcolm Torrent sternly.

  ‘Betga’s on it right now. But when we do find him, we need to be able to tell him that he’s got a nice soft landing as an in-house lawyer at Torrent Industries but only if he remembers who his friends are, only if he plays nice. Mr Torrent, we don’t know how many people inside Torrent Industries or Freely Savage know about this. We need, as soon as possible, to get those two indebted to the good graces of the company and find out how many people know and who those people are because those people are a danger to your share price. In fact,’ continued Maserov, now about to take a step that was potentially too far, a Betga kind of step, ‘anyone,’ he said with slow emphasis, ‘anyone who knows about this and has a grievance against Hamilton should be looked after.’

  He let his words hang in the air to see if he’d actually said them. He’d come this far in the service of a job to pay the mortgage to save his house to resurrect his marriage and be with his children. Maybe he’d just blown everything he’d been working for. So he decided to say more.

  ‘Sir, you probably need to know why Mr Hamilton told Featherby to tell your Aileen to bury the document.’

  ‘You’re believing Featherby over Hamilton, are you?’

  ‘Are you, Mr Torrent?’

  ‘Let me ask the questions, Maserov. Do you believe that Hamilton ordered Featherby to hide the secretary’s report?’

  ‘Sir, no one at Freely Savage willingly, knowingly, does anything that goes against the orders, instructions or even the assumed predilections of Mike Hamilton.’

  ‘You did.’

  ‘Yes sir, I did.’

  ‘Okay, so let’s assume Hamilton ordered Featherby to bury the document. What’s really so wrong with that, at least as far as I’m concerned? I didn’t know anything about it and had the document stayed buried we would have been able to settle with the young lady at a much lower price. So he was trying to help me.’

  ‘Yes, he was trying to help you, like he was trying to help you with all the sexual harassment cases. Your best-case scenario in terms of your bottom line would have been that no one in your employ rapes or sexually assaults anyone else. That’s the gold standard. That’s what we’re aiming for. Next best case, if there is an attack and the victim reports it, the company employs an accredited outside arms-length body to investigate the matter. If the evidence is there, the company offers counselling to the victim, offers compensation from the company’s insurance, sanctions the culprit and considers supporting the victim to take it to the police. Then you’re morally, legally and financially covered.

  ‘If you bury the report, however, you find yourself paying a premium to keep it out of court, out of the media and out of the consideration of investors. The premium isn’t just the extra offered in settlement to the victim. It’s also the cost of, say, buying the co-operation of Freely Savage’s Featherby who’s gone into hiding from Hamilton and even Betga’s fee for finding him.

  ‘Clearly Mr Hamilton’s strategy was seriously flawed and is costing you, if indeed it was his idea to bury Carla Monterosso’s report.’

  There was silence and Maserov waited to see the older man’s response but he didn’t have to wait long. Malcolm Torrent was smiling. ‘You have been doing your work, haven’t you, Maserov?’ he asked rhetorically.

  ‘Thank you, Mr Torrent. Can I ask you a question on a separate but related topic?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘The firm obviously has a marketing department which would have a marketing budget, right?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does the urban infrastructure department have access to the marketing department’s budget?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘So if someone from the urban infrastructure department was spending big on marketing, say, marketing to officials of a foreign government, that would surprise you?’

  ‘What are you getting at, Maserov?’ Torrent’s brow was furrowed now and Maserov thought he should have quit while he was ahead.

  ‘Is there a reason why . . .?’ Maserov stopped. He had one foot over a ledge and was about to jump. A voice in his head was telling him to stop talking.

  ‘What country are you referring to?’

  Maserov almost whispered the answer and with the upward inflection often associated with a question. ‘Iraq.’

  Malcolm Torrent got up from his seat behind his desk and walked over towards the Second Year. Maserov thought he was going to be hit. Well, how much could it hurt? But then, sun-tanned and full of vigour, perhaps the old man could indeed pack a wallop. He didn’t though but kept walking towards the door, leaving Maserov to wonder if he was simply going to walk out of the room. Should he say something? Should he apologise perhaps? But the old man didn’t leave the room. He simply closed the door to his office and walked calmly back to his side of the desk and sat down again.

  ‘As you might imagine, Maserov, this is a huge, sprawling company. I can’t stay on top of everything, as much as I’d like to. I have to give my people a certain amount of autonomy otherwise nothing would ever get done. Now the boys in Urban Infrastructure, leaving aside this sexual assault business, they do a tremendous job. They don’t market. They have to prepare tenders to the new government of Iraq. They’re very good at it. They win the contracts. And I let them do whatever they need to do to get the job done. But I don’t trouble myself with the nuts and bolts, the mechanics of how they go about things. One hears, from time to time, stories about the requirements of these governments, apparently they do try some outrageous stunts. But I’m sure they’re often just cloak-and-
dagger type stories to keep the chaps amused, war stories perhaps. Are you with me, Maserov? Just stories for the troops, I suppose. But I don’t actually know anything about it, myself. You’re certainly a hard worker, Maserov. I like that about you but don’t work yourself too hard. You’ll exhaust yourself and your judgment might suffer. You could see problems that aren’t there. And neither of us would want that.’

  VI

  ‘They’re bribing the Iraqis and Malcolm Torrent knows all about it,’ Maserov told Betga when he returned to Carla’s house.

  ‘Shit! He told you that?’

  ‘He did, not in so many words but there was no ambiguity in what he was and was not saying.’

  ‘Well, if he knows all about it then we can’t use this information to keep you safe but it sounds like you’re already —’

  ‘I thought nobody’s safe anymore?’ Maserov interrupted.

  ‘Well, it sounds like certain members of the Iraqi government are safe, which is, you know, kind of ironic in its way, don’t you think?’

  ‘If buying time is the new safe,’ continued Maserov unperturbed, ‘I probably am a bit safer than I was before the meeting but when will that bought time run out? What’s it really worth?’

  ‘It would have helped if we could have found some irregularity in Mike Mercer’s banking records,’ Betga mused.

  ‘Yes, but that would have required us finding his banking records, which don’t appear to be in our possession.’

  ‘Of course they are,’ said Carla. ‘I told you, I got everything.’

  ‘Well, show me a file labelled “banking”,’ Betga implored her.

  ‘He didn’t have a file labelled “banking”. He labelled his banking file something else.’

  ‘What?’ shouted Betga and Maserov in unison.

  ‘Do you know what he labelled it?’ Betga asked.

  ‘Yes, I think so. I’d recognise it. I used to do his banking sometimes.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell us?’ Betga asked.

  ‘I didn’t know you were looking for his banking details. You didn’t tell me that nor did you ask for my help in finding it.’