Insider

By Peter Corris

C

liff, how d’you feel about Melbourne and Brisbane?’

‘They’re great,’ I said, ‘compared, say, to Adelaide and Hobart.’

The man putting the question was Stuart Mackenzie of Mackenzie, McLaren and Sinclair, a legal firm I occasionally did some work for. My Irish grandmother said never work for a Scotsman, but my Scots grandfather said never work for an Irishman, so there you are.

‘You’re so parochial,’ Stuart said. ‘Adelaide has beautiful churches and Hobart has all that convict heritage.’

‘We’ve got both in Sydney, plus the harbour and more work for private enquiry agents. What’s up, Stu?’

Stuart Mackenzie is younger than me but likes to pretend he’s older, wiser and more mature. He’s richer, so mostly I let him pretend, but occasionally I like to take the piss. I’ll bet no one else in those plush Martin Place offices calls him Stu. He adjusted his horn-rimmed half glasses and shuffled the papers on his desk.

‘We have a client, one Thomas Whitney, who’s looking to get himself out of a spot of bother.’

‘What’s he done? How much? What’s her name? How old is she, or he?’

‘Stop it, Cliff. This is serious. Whitney’s a partner in a firm of investment advisers based in Melbourne. Naturally they have branches elsewhere.’

‘Like in Sydney and Brisbane?’

Stuart smiled. He’s a bland-looking man with regular features, thinning blond hair and a Scottish chin. What I like about him, apart from the fact that his cheques don’t bounce, is that he likes to take the piss as well. ‘No,’ he said. ‘In Vanuatu and the Cook Islands.’

‘Ah,’ I said, which meant I didn’t have to say, ‘ Touché’.

‘Yes, it seems that several of his partners have been siphoning off money from their accounts, routing it through Vanuatu arrangements and tucking it away. Mr Whitney suspects that an audit is going to cause the shit to hit the fan. He wants to—’

‘Get in first. Blow the whistle.’

‘Not exactly. Call it distance himself, get on the record…’

I put my fingers to my mouth and produced a surprisingly good taxi-calling whistle.

‘You’re a hooligan, Hardy’

‘I know. What d’you want me to do?’

Stuart’s door opened and a uniformed security man poked his head inside. ‘Anything wrong, Mr Mackenzie?’

Stuart flapped his fingers in one of the few gay gestures he ever made. ‘No, Douglas. Everything’s fine.’

The guard withdrew.

‘Douglas,’ I said. ‘Don’t you employ anyone but Scots here? I could report you to the anti-whatever-it-is.’

‘We have a Lebanese receptionist, a Cypriot secretary and an Italian junior partner.’

‘That’s all right then. So?’

‘I know this’ll all sound a bit cloak and dagger, but Mr Whitney wants to, as it were, disappear from Melbourne under suspicious circumstances. He believes this will provoke his partners into making mistakes. He wants to come to Sydney to be, ah, debriefed by ASIC . . .’

The Australian Securities and Investments Commission was the regulatory body that licensed the operators, investigated the shonks.

Anyway, they’ll talk to Whitney and we’ll relocate him to Brisbane until such time as he has to give evidence. If it so works out. I want you to facilitate these things.’

‘You mean you want me to be a kidnapper, a nursemaid and a witness protection agent?’

‘You could put it like that.’

‘What’s he like, this Whitney?’

‘I’ve no idea. I’ve never met him. This was proposed by a friend of Whitney’s in Melbourne. Someone who knows you, apparently. And knows of your reputation for discretion and competence in these matters.’

‘And who would that be?’

‘I don’t know. Whitney didn’t tell me.’

I looked around Stuart’s office, noting the paintings, the furniture, the books. Nothing so vulgar as degree certificates or photographs of Stuart with Bob Carr. I thought of my office above St Peter’s Lane in Darlinghurst with its dirty windows and exhausted fittings. A lawyer like Stuart worked for big money, especially on something with the dodgy sound of this. Things were tough in my game and getting tougher. The big agencies hugged the business. I needed a fat fee like a surfer needs a point break. But it never does to look too eager.

‘That makes four people who know about this. At a guess, that’s at least one too many. How’ve you and Whitney communicated?’

‘By email.’

‘Great. Add on a busload.’

‘Encrypted email. Totally secure.’

‘It’s going to cost a lot, Stuart.’

He nodded. ‘Mr Whitney has provided adequate funds.’

Yeah, I thought. Probably from his share of the take.

‘Five hundred dollars a day plus expenses until I get him relocated. Negotiable after that.’

‘Agreed.’

‘With a contract.’

‘Ah.’

‘C’mon, Stuart. The story’s got more holes in it than a cyclone fence. I’ll need some protection.’

‘We’ll work something out.’

‘I’ll need your dossier on Whitney and a couple of grand up front to get American Express off my back.’

One of his pale eyebrows shot up. ‘How do you know I have a dossier?’

Well, its sink or swim and we all have to swim in it, so I smarmed him. ‘Because you’d be stupid if you didn’t and I know you’re not stupid, Stu.’

I left with a cheque, which I deposited immediately, and a folder containing printouts of the emails Mackenzie and Whitney had exchanged, brochures and directors reports from Metropolitan Investment Advisers Ltd and photocopies of items from newspapers and magazines about Whitney and his partners. At a quick glance it looked like the sort of stuff Mackenzie could have accumulated himself without needing to enlist the services of his Lebanese secretary or Cypriot receptionist, so maybe he was telling the truth about how many people were in on the act.

I took the file back to my office and began to work through it. The emails gave me Whitney’s address, the make and licence number of his car and his domestic details. All essential to the operation. He wrote a nice, terse email, Mr Whitney. The information about Metropolitan Investment Advisers suggested that the company was rock solid with major clients in the insurance business, superannuation funds and ‘off-shore capital placement bodies’. The language was ugly but it all sounded like money making more money.

The stuff on Thomas Whitney was very thin, limited to a couple of minimalist entries in business directories and a few newspaper clippings. Our Tom was no high-flier, no racehorse owner or champagne sipper. He was born in Melbourne in 1952, educated in the right schools and had an MBA from Stanford University. He was on the board of several companies but his chief position was as senior partner in MIA. The chairmanship of the board circulated among the three senior partners and Tom was due to take his turn again next year.

The clippings all said more or less the same things but one brought me up short. It included a grainy photograph of Whitney taken at a fundraising function. He was a tall, broad-shouldered type who probably rowed in the eight at his school. It was the image of the skinny, balding man standing next to him that arrested my attention. They were talking, apparently amiably. If this was the friend who’d recommended me I knew him, or thought I did. He looked a lot like Darren Metcalf, who’d run an illegal casino and a brothel and pushed drugs in Sydney quite a few years back before dropping out of sight. I’d thought he was dead.

* * * *

I considered my position on the plane to Melbourne. But of course if I’d really been considering my position I wouldn’t have been on the plane. Darren Metcalf had never done an honest act in his life. I’d run up against him when he’d had the idea of hooking a couple of apprentice jockeys on coke. A trainer I knew got wind of it and hired me to step in and discourage Metcalf. I looked into his various operations, got some people talking on tape and then told Metcalf which particular policemen I’d play the tapes to unless he lost interest in the Sport of Kings. He was scum, but he got the point. It was a neat, civilised bit of business, and it must have made an impression on Metcalf, assuming he was Whitney’s ‘friend’.

But I couldn’t see why Whitney would associate with Metcalf, unless he was even more of a crook than I’d begun to think he was. Stuart Mackenzie was operating within the accepted ethics of the legal profession by advising and providing protection and other services for a whistleblower, I had no doubt of that. It might even be considered performing a public duty until you looked at the amount of the fee and its source. Even then, these matters aren’t precisely laid down. My position was shaky, particularly without a contract, but only if I got caught doing something illegal. So what else was new?

Since the firm was paying I was travelling business class. I ordered a scotch, stretched my legs and settled into my copy of Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I was thinking things could be a lot worse—the job had its tricky elements but it was well paid and interesting, and the presence of Metcalf, if it was Metcalf, added spice.

I picked up an Avis Nissan Pulsar at the airport and drove in to Melbourne along the freeway that always looks to me to be congratulating itself. Hey, Sydney, it seems to say, bet you wish you’d arranged things like this. Mackenzie had told me to play everything by ear and I’d decided to scout Whitney’s place of business and residence, get a candid camera look at him and then figure out what to do about snatching him. It couldn’t be done completely spontaneously; presumably he had things he’d want to take with him. But I couldn’t just ring him up and tell him we had seats on the three thirty to Sydney either.

I’d abducted people before—kids from cults, a bride from an arranged marriage, a patient from a fraudulent loony bin. Each case is different in detail but the principles are the same: get out, avoid pursuit, get clear. It was four thirty when I pulled up outside MIA’s offices in South Yarra. An old factory of some kind converted to what they liked to call suites. The sweet life—landscaping, fountain in the forecourt, tinted glass. The factory yard had been converted into a car park, every parking spot with its own little roof. Whitney’s car was a modest white Mercedes, nothing flashy like a personalised numberplate. Just a plain old fifty grand Merc. I walked to a smart coffee shop and bought a takeaway long black as big as a bucket. I sat outside the MIA building waiting for the Mercedes to slide out.

Tom may have been planning to dump on his mates, but he was still putting in the hours expected of the executive. The Mercedes was one of the last to leave the car park at almost 7 pm. Time was when bosses knocked off at four to get in nine holes before cocktails. No more, apparently.

I followed the car back to the city and through to Port Melbourne. When I’d last spent any length of time in Melbourne—in the seventies—Port Melbourne wasn’t a place a Thomas Whitney would go near. Now it was. Gentrification had gone on at a great pace and old warehouses, factories and light industrial buildings had been converted to apartments and condominiums. The original terrace houses that would once have been sailors’ flops had been toned up to the half million dollar mark. Whitney lived in one of these; one at the end of a row with some space at the side as well as in front—three-storeyed with enough iron lace to do my Glebe job three times over. It was a big house for a divorced man with two non-resident kids. Maybe he had a lot of stay-over guests.

The house had a garage with an automatic opening door so I still hadn’t got a look at Whitney. He was inside now with lights going on at ground floor level and then one floor up. Changing into his smoking jacket. Stuart had provided me with a notebook computer and given me Whitney’s home email address and a password I could use. I fired it up, logged on and tapped out the message that I was outside his house and ready to see him. I’m not an emailer myself, but Stuart assured me that those who are check in first thing and constantly thereafter. I logged out, put the computer on the passenger seat and waited. It was one of those classic cigarette moments, but not these days. The anti-smoking brigade should come up with a suggestion as to how to fill in those moments. I’ve never found one. Nowadays a wait is just a wait.

Another light went on upstairs, stayed on for a while and then went out. Long enough for Tom to have tapped away for a bit in his study. I logged on and the inbox showed a message. Mr Whitney would be at home to his caller. I hoped he’d have a drink and a few snacks laid out. I was starving.

I went through the gate and up the steps, knocked on the door. Whitney opened it and waved me in. He looked like his photograph—big, solid, reliable right across the board. Just what you’d want in an investment adviser. He showed me into a living room that had been made bigger by the removal of a wall or two.

‘Drink, Mr Hardy?’

‘Please.’

‘Scotch?’

The bottle had a label I’d never seen, which only meant that it wasn’t the kind that goes on special in my local bottle shop. He made a generous drink, inclining me to like him, even if he apparently didn’t have any club sandwiches to hand. We raised our glasses and I mentioned Darren Metcalf.

‘Who?’

‘You told Stuart Mackenzie I was recommended by a friend of yours. I thought

‘Oh, friend might be putting it a bit strongly. I was referring to a golfing partner, John Jupp. He used to be a policeman in Sydney.’

I knew Jupp vaguely, an at least semi-honest cop from a time when there weren’t all that many around. I sipped the smooth scotch and tried not to look puzzled but curiosity got the better of me. ‘I saw a press photograph of you talking to a man at a fundraising do. Something for a football club down here, I think it was. Tall, thin bloke, balding. I thought I recognised him as someone I used to know in Sydney.’

‘Oh, I know the picture you mean. Yes, a fundraiser for Hawthorn. I played a few games for them before I did my knee. No, that’s Kenneth Bates, Melbourne man through and through. I mean the football team and the city. He’s one of the partners in our firm.’

Darren Metcalf had always been a slippery type, but to reconstitute himself as an old Melburnian and become a senior partner in a Collins Street financial operation was a stretch even for him. Still, it looked as if that’s what he’d done and it gave me still more to think about. Not now, though. Thomas Whitney and I got down to business.

‘Do your partners suspect you of. . . jumping ship?’

‘They’ve no reason to. Not specifically. But what’s been happening is so dangerous, so fragile, that they must be nervous. I can explain it to you. They—’

I held up my glass, partly to stop him, partly to show him it was empty. ‘Don’t bother,’ I said. ‘I wouldn’t understand. The highest finance I deal with is when I go over my Mastercard limit.’

He looked puzzled in a well-bred way, but he still got smoothly to his feet and gave me a refill. He seemed to have lost interest in his own drink. ‘You’re in a high-risk profession. You mean you don’t have a trust fund, investments?’

I shook my head. ‘My accountant tells me I have to contribute to my own superannuation fund since I’m incorporated. I send him a blank cheque near the end of the financial year and that’s all I know about funds.’

Now Whitney reached for his drink as if he needed it. ‘My God, I begin to see how they got away with what they’ve done. If there’s a lot of people like you out there . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to patronise you.’

‘That’s all right,’ I said. ‘I’m a financial ignoramus but I know about getting people from point A to point B when either they don’t want to do it or someone else doesn’t want them to. What time do you get to work in the morning?’

‘No later than seven forty-five.’

‘Jesus, why?’

Whitney shrugged. ‘There’s the financial press to read, the overseas markets to study.’

‘Okay, when would the alarm bells start ringing in the office if you didn’t show?’

‘Certainly by eight thirty—there’s always traffic to consider, family crises. You know.’

‘Yeah.’ Happily, I didn’t know, at least about family crises. ‘You’ve got a passport?’

‘Of course.’

‘Can’t leave that behind. I imagine there’s stuff you’d want to take with you, papers, documents.’

He shook his head. ‘Not really. All I need I have on the hard drive. A laptop and I’m set.’

I was getting out of my technological depth but tried not to show it. As things stood, I couldn’t see any reason why we couldn’t swing it pretty much over the next twelve hours. I asked him if he could set up some sort of meeting with his wife or children for the following day, a meeting he wouldn’t make.

He frowned. ‘I’d hate to do that.’

‘If that’s the way you feel, all the better.’

‘I’m beginning to dislike you, Hardy.’

Well, shit, I thought, that’s a pity, just when I was beginning to like you. I reminded myself that this guy was more or less a rat deserting a sinking ship and as likely to be as infected with the plague as the rats that were due to be drowned. I grinned at him. ‘I’m not being paid to be liked, just to be efficient.’

‘Paid,’ he said wearily. ‘Yes, of course. I suppose I can do what you ask. What do you propose after that?’

‘Ransack this place, make it hard to tell what’s been taken. Perhaps splash a bit of your blood about. Dump your car at the airport and hey, presto.’

Whitney finished his drink and cradled the glass in his hands. ‘That won’t work,’ he said.

‘I know it isn’t subtle but I thought it didn’t need to be. You’re gone under suspicious circumstances. Could be you went of your own accord after you had a run-in with someone, could be that someone took you. What’s the difference?’

‘I don’t fly. Never. I have an absolute phobia about it. No one who knew me would believe that I’d flown out of here, willingly or unwillingly.’

I stared at him. ‘You, an international money man, and you don’t fly?’

‘The money moves with the touch of a key. Have you ever been in a plane crash?’

‘No.’

‘I have. In Europe. It’s worse than you imagine, much worse. I still have nightmares about it. It’s not that I won’t fly, I just can’t. I’ve tried. I go catatonic.’

I thought about it. The advantage of the airport is that you could have left for anywhere on the globe, as close as the nearest country airport or as far as Stockholm. In Europe or the States a train station can have a similar effect, but not from Melbourne. Where could you go? Adelaide or Sydney. No mystery.

‘Sorry to make it hard for you,’ Whitney said.

He seemed to mean it. He wasn’t a bad bloke as far as I could judge and I’m always well disposed to people with weaknesses, having so many myself.

‘Have you got anything to eat here, Mr Whitney? An interrupted meal’d be a nice touch and I’m starving.’

He got his frozen packaged meals from some top-of-the-line place and I had a wider choice than in my local Glebe eatery. I decided on lasagne. He bunged it in the microwave and I settled into it. It was a shame to leave it half eaten and not to drink more of the bottle of red he opened. He phoned his ex and arranged to call around to see his kids the following evening. That pained him and he took it out on his study where he made quite a mess.

He hadn’t changed out of his business clothes other than to loosen his tie and hang up his jacket. We left it there with his wallet in the pocket and his loose money and keys spilled out on the desk in his study.

‘You said something about blood.’

I’d established that Whitney wasn’t a smoker. I ran some water on two butts I’d picked up at the airport and left them in the sink. ‘Too melodramatic,’ I said. ‘This looks all right. Let’s go.’

I carried his laptop and manhandled him out to my car. I wasn’t gentle and the resistance he put up should have looked genuine. He took a look back at the house where we’d left a few lights burning.

‘No regrets?’ I said and gave him a moderate belt in the kidneys.

He grunted but still shook his head as I shoved him into the car. Once we got going he was quiet apart from giving me some help getting onto Sydney Road. I had a feeling he wasn’t going to be very stimulating company. Pity about the return business class seat, I thought. Must keep the petrol receipts.

* * * *

On the outskirts Whitney sensed that I’d tensed up.

‘What’s wrong?’

‘We’re being followed,’ I said.

Whitney shivered as if he was cold, although the night was mild and he should have been comfortable enough in his shirt sleeves. ‘Can you see who it is?’

‘I’m not looking,’ I said. ‘A good driver can tell if someone he’s following is looking back. The trick is to pretend you haven’t noticed. That is if you want to get away.’

‘What else would you want to do?’

‘Confront them.’

He massaged his back where I’d hit him, maybe harder than I’d intended. ‘And what’s our strategy?’

I liked that. He wasn’t scared of a fight. ‘I haven’t decided yet,’ I said. ‘We’ll string along for a bit and see if they make a move.’

‘What sort of a car is it? Who’s got the power?’

‘I only caught a glimpse—Falcon or Commodore, maybe.’

‘They can outrun this.’

‘In my experience, Mr Whitney, it doesn’t come down to that. It comes down to manoeuvrability and who’s the most serious.’

‘Have you got a gun?’

‘You can’t take a firearm on domestic flights without a lot of paperwork.’

‘So, you don’t?’

‘I’ve got one. They don’t check the baggage the way they say they do. But come on, this is white collar crime, isn’t it?’

‘Oh, I don’t think anyone would come after me with a gun. I was thinking it’d look good if you displayed one.’

I kept my eye on the road and the traffic, drove and didn’t say anything. This Whitney was no fool and, while I didn’t mind him getting into the spirit of the thing, I didn’t want him taking over.

We went through Seymour and were between Euroa and Benalla when I noticed that the petrol gauge was showing half full, or half empty depending how you like to look at it. Two sly checks had told me the tail was still with us and I was getting tired of it.

‘D’you know this road?’ I asked Whitney.

‘I’ve driven it often enough.’

‘What’s at Violet Town?’

‘Nothing much. The highway bypasses it.’

‘What if you need to stop for petrol?’

He drew a deep breath. ‘Yeah, I’ve done that. Self-serve. Nothing open.’

‘Good. We’ll pull in there and see what gives.’

I took the exit to Violet Town and went slowly along the quiet, dark road that looked to be headed to nowhere. A set of headlights appeared behind me, not as far back as before and gaining. I pulled into a petrol station that had a self-serve sign glowing faintly with the third ‘e’ missing. I told Whitney to stay where he was, got out and tossed the car keys casually from hand to hand before making a show of feeling for coins in my pocket. I slipped the Smith & Wesson .38 from the underarm holster and held it close to my body while I unscrewed the petrol cap.

A dark blue Commodore slid up behind the Pulsar and two men got out. I recognised them, not as individuals but as types. Muscle but not crude muscle; talking muscle, persuading muscle, convincing muscle. I mimed putting coins in the machine, unhooked the hose and stuck the nozzle in the opening. One car went by while this was happening and the nearest lights were some distance away through trees.

The men approached and stood a metre or so from me. Both about my size, one younger—dark shirt and pants, no tie; one the same vintage as me—blue shirt with loosened tie, cream trousers, lower half of a suit.

‘We’d like a word with Mr Whitney,’ the older one said.

I said, ‘No.’

The younger one took a step forward. ‘He’s telling, not asking.’

I pulled the nozzle out, gripped the hose and swung the metal end against the side of his head. He yelped and went down on one knee. The older one moved quickly, seeing me encumbered by the hose. He charged with his shoulder lowered, attempting to crowd me against the bowser. I took a bit of the shoulder but not enough to move me. I kicked at the back of his knee as he went past and made a lucky connection. He fell hard, bumping his head on the bitumen. The other man looked ready to have another go until I showed him the gun.

‘I said no and I meant it. Help your father back to the car and then you can compare notes on what went wrong.’

The trousers of that cream suit were going to need a good dry-clean and its owner looked shaken. I marched them back to their car. They didn’t resist and in a way I admired them. They hadn’t been briefed or paid for the heavy stuff and in their game you have to know exactly how far to go. They got in and I stood a little to one side with the pistol trained on the driver, the younger one. I pocketed the gun, took out my Swiss army knife and drove the long blade into the front passenger side tyre. A quick skip across and ditto on the other side. I took the gun out again and waved it at them before going back to my car, putting the petrol cap back and driving off.

Whitney was slumped in his seat looking drained, as if he’d done the work. ‘They’re going to wonder why I didn’t drive off,’ he said.

‘I showed them I had the keys. Have to hope they noticed.’

He glanced at me. ‘You thought of that?’

‘It’s not all just biff, Mr Whitney.’

‘How badly did you hurt them?’

‘Hardly touched ‘em. Hurt their pride more than anything. Still, it should do us some good. You keeping such poor company.’

As we headed up to the border I asked Whitney to tell me how the scam had worked. He seemed to be sliding into depression which wouldn’t do either of us any good and I thought that talking about the sort of stuff he knew might pick him up a bit. It worked. He sparked up.

‘They picked their marks—companies and individuals who’re happy to make losses for tax purposes. They paid enormous commissions and handling fees without a blink. When they did make losses the losses were inflated, when they made gains the money was swallowed up by the losses. The big money was made by using the clients’ money to trade successfully and then falsifying the results. They were shrewd, looked after the clients who were careful and played fast and loose with the careless ones. I know what you’re thinking—who cares if people with too much money get taken?’

I shrugged as best you can when you’re driving. We were back on the highway, moving smoothly with the usual mix of traffic—cars, trucks, caravans—and nothing suspicious in sight.

Whitney sighed. ‘They’ve got into bed with some of these companies that’re stripping their assets and not paying redundant workers their due. There’s a lot of that going on at a fairly low level. Doesn’t attract media attention. But if you’re getting a good cut it mounts up.’

He had my interest now. I’d tried to nail an operation of this kind for some unionists and failed. The shields thrown up by lawyers and accountants were just too solid. Whitney fell silent and I had to jog him by telling him about my experience.

‘Yes, that’s the sort of thing. Look, it’s not so hard to steal money inside the system. Insider trading goes on every day. The real trick is to avoid tax and launder it. That’s where they’ve been extraordinarily clever.’

By the time we got to Wodonga I was tired. Rest stop in Albury, I thought. I’d had enough of financial shenanigans for now. ‘Just tell me one thing. Is Kenneth Bates the prime mover in this thing?’

I could feel the surprise and outrage run through him. ‘Good God, no. He’s the one who suggested that I take the steps I’m taking.’

* * * *

I installed Whitney in Morgan’s Hotel in Victoria Street, Darlinghurst. It’s a small, low-key place—no mini-bar, help yourself breakfast, like that—but it has good security. You have to buzz from outside to get in, a touch Whitney appreciated.

The following morning I escorted him to the ASIC offices in King Street. Stuart Mackenzie was waiting for us.

I kept my distance while they were talking and looked about for things or people that shouldn’t be there. Everything appeared to be kosher; the men in the good suits were presumably lawyers. There were also a few in bad suits, bitter-looking types who I took to be ex-cops. Me in my linen jacket, open-neck shirt and slacks and the men in bad suits eyed each other suspiciously.

Overnight, Mackenzie had supplied Whitney with a suit, toilet gear and a briefcase. He was looking appropriately executive as he was led away with Mackenzie tagging along to be ‘debriefed’, whatever that meant. I sat down in a Swedish style armchair in pleasant surroundings and went over the notes on my expenses. They were mounting up— plane fare, Avis rental (with a penalty for not delivering it back in Melbourne), hotel bill on my card, at least initially. I was on my second day, therefore a thousand bucks to the good. In theory. I still didn’t have my contract with Mackenzie. I’d faxed my standard contract to him before leaving for Melbourne. I hadn’t been into the office since getting back. Maybe it was sitting in front of my fax machine (or, more likely, scattered over the floor), all signed and sealed. Maybe.

Waiting around is a big part of this game and you learn to find ways of filling in the time. A bit like acting. What was it Gary Cooper said? ‘I spent twenty years acting—one year acting, nineteen years waiting to act.’ Some do cryptic crosswords, some play cards, some play pocket billiards. I read. I settled into the comfortable chair and got on with Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil. I was carried away by it and feeling that Savannah heat when I saw Mackenzie and Whitney approaching.

‘How’s it going?’ I said.

‘Not bad,’ Mackenzie said. ‘We’re continuing over lunch. They’re getting some food in. I thought I should let you know so you can take a break. I expect we’ll be finished by about three and we can decide what to do next then.’

Stuart was looking pretty pleased; Whitney was looking professionally neutral. He nodded at me, friendly enough for someone you’ve punched in the kidneys.

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘I’ll be back here at two thirty.’

That gave me the better part of two hours; plenty of time to check the faxes in the office and have a salad sandwich and a glass of wine somewhere, maybe two glasses. I left the building and was taking the steps to the street level when my right arm was gripped solidly.

‘Police, Mr Hardy,’ a voice said in my ear. ‘Let’s take it nice and quietly, shall we?’

A big body loomed up in front of me and I was wedged between the two of them. The one holding me flashed his card and the other one helped himself to my pistol. They were both big and very good; their bodies concealed what was happening from the passers-by and then we were moving in unison towards the kerb as if this was as much my idea as theirs. I was bundled into a police car and off down King Street in one smooth movement and I knew I could forget about my quiet lunch.

I settled back against the seat and tried to relax. ‘How about some names and a hint as to what this’s all about?’

Two cards came out. ‘I’m Detective Constable Masters and this is DC Quist,’ the one who’d applied the expert arm grip said. ‘A serious charge may be laid against you, Mr Hardy. We’re going to Darlinghurst to talk about it.’

‘One of my favourite places. I’ve got some good friends there.’

‘You might need them,’ Quist said.

‘Quist,’ I said. ‘Any relation to Adrian, the tennis player?’

He looked at me as if I’d spat on his shoes and didn’t reply. No sense of history.

* * * *

They took me to a room I’d been in before, or the one next to it or one across the passage. They’re all the same, nothing like the old sweat and smoke smelling holes with rising damp and flaking paint. Your modern interview room, while not exactly designed to make you feel comfortable isn’t set up to put the fear of God into you. It’s austerely appointed and efficient-looking with practical chairs and tables and recording equipment that works without needing to be kicked. In a way, it’s worse. In the old days the cowboy cops could lose it and, although it might cost you a few bruises, you could sometimes get the better of them when cooler heads prevailed. Not so now—you feel processed.

‘According to our information,’ Masters began, ‘you assaulted two men near Violet Town in Victoria last night. You caused physical injuries and menaced them with a firearm.’

‘No,’ I said.

‘You deny you were in Violet Town?’

‘I want to lay a counter complaint against two men who followed me from Melbourne and when I stopped for petrol attempted to abduct my passenger. I used a controlled amount of force to prevent that happening.’

Quist looked at his notebook. ‘You call bashing a guy with a petrol pump and dislocating a knee controlled force?’

‘Under the circumstances, yes.’

‘What about the gun?’ Masters said.

‘I’m licensed to carry it.’

‘How did you get it to Victoria?’

‘It flew.’

‘Unless we can see the paperwork, that’s a serious breach of the regulations. Your PEA licence looks shaky, Hardy. I assume your passenger was a client?’

‘In a way.’

‘Would there be a contract for your services?’

Trying not to show any undue concern, I leaned back in the chair and studied them. They weren’t the old-style knuckleduster, brown paper bag cops. They were players by the rules, obeyers of orders. The trouble was the people giving the orders were often obeying orders themselves and so on along a chain that ended up with someone who didn’t give a shit about the rules. It was pretty clear that this was some kind of diversionary tactic, designed to separate me from Whitney for a period. Someone with influence was taking an interest in the matter, and that interest was hostile to mine.

‘Viv Garner,’ I said.

Masters looked at Quist and Quist looked at Masters. ‘What?’ Masters said.

‘My solicitor.’ I fished out my wallet and handed over a card. ‘I’m not saying a word until he gets here, and probably not then.’

Masters nodded and took the card. They both got up and left the room. They’d done what they’d been told to do and now they had to ask what to do next. I knew what I had to do—worry about what might happen to Whitney when I didn’t turn up to nursemaid him at two thirty. Thank God for mobile phones, I thought. I took mine off my belt intending to call Mackenzie’s office number. They’d have Stuart’s mobile number and I could instruct him what to do—more importantly, what not to do, like go boozing with a nice chap from ASIC. The phone was useless. Rundown batteries. Human error. One of my specialties.

* * * *

They held me for three hours, long enough. Viv Garner came and did his stuff but there wasn’t a lot to it. The complainant couldn’t be contacted and the whole thing was obviously a put-up job. Masters didn’t show again. I got a warning from Quist about the use of my pistol, which was returned to me, but his heart wasn’t in it.

‘What was all that about?’ Viv asked as we passed the smokers and walked down the steps.

‘Harassment,’ I said. ‘Can you give me a lift to the ASIC office in King Street?’

He raised an eyebrow. ‘You’re moving in exalted company.’

‘Not really. Just bodyguarding, or trying to.’

He dropped me off and I charged into the building and up to the level where I’d left Mackenzie and Whitney. Mackenzie was sitting where I’d sat but he wasn’t quietly reading, he was talking into his mobile and looking agitated. When he saw me he cut off the call and looked as if he’d like to cut off my balls.

‘Where the hell have you been?’

I told him. ‘Where’s Whitney?’

‘Gone to the toilet. He’s been shitting himself, literally, ever since you didn’t show. Somebody’s got to him, put the fear of God into him.’

‘When?’

‘When we were frigging about waiting for you.’

‘What?’

‘I don’t know. He won’t tell me. He made a couple of phone calls. Calmed him down a bit. But basically he won’t be happy till he sees you. Christ knows why after this fuck-up.’

‘Knock it off, Stu. There’s more players in this game than we reckoned on. How’d the meetings here go?’

‘Not bad. It’s big. They’re going to look into it.’

‘Has he got immunity?’

Mackenzie shook his head. ‘Not quite yet.’

‘Maybe that’s what freaked him.’

‘No.’

Whitney came towards us. From the look of him his confidence level had dropped about four notches. Mackenzie stepped straight in and explained what had happened.

Whitney just nodded as if this piece of bad news was par for the course. ‘Can we get on with it?’

We left Mackenzie and went to the York Street car park where I’d left my Falcon. Long overdue. Another item on the expense account along with Viv Garner’s bill.

‘What happened?’ I said as we got moving.

‘I need a drink. I’ll tell you then.’

We went into the bar of the Hyatt and Whitney ordered a double scotch. I had a light beer although I could’ve done with something stronger. He bought a packet of cigarillos, lit one and drew on it like a cigarette. I recognised the signs—the ex-smoker telling himself he’s not back on them. The scotch wasn’t going to last long from the way he was getting stuck into it.

‘While we were milling about looking for you, a man came up to me. He looked like one of the ASIC investigators and he might’ve been for all I know. All he said was I should think about my wife and children.’

‘Shit, what did you do?’

‘I got on to Ken Bates. He’s setting up protection for them. What’s wrong?’

I said, ‘Nothing,’ and started on my beer. What was the point of telling him I thought he’d set the fox to watch the henhouse? It seemed to have put his mind at rest and that’d have to do for now.

He smoked a couple of cigarillos and had another double while he told me about how the partners in MIA had relayed their skimmings back to themselves through loans that would never have to be repaid from companies that were here today although not yesterday and wouldn’t be here tomorrow.

He bought a bottle of scotch and started in on it as soon as we got back to the hotel.

‘Book us a couple of seats on the first flight to Brisbane,’ he said.

‘Flight?’

He held up his glass. ‘Enough of this and I guess I can do it.’

* * * *

It’s worrying when a man starts changing his habits—getting back on the weed, defying a phobia—especially an apparently disciplined guy like Whitney. The next step can be a breakdown and you’re left as not so much a nursemaid as a nurse, period. I’ve had it happen to me. But Whitney held himself pretty well together on the drive to the airport and through the boarding procedure which I expected to freak him. The big load of whisky he had inside him no doubt helped. He gripped the seat arm a bit during take-off but seemed okay about being airborne. It was time for me to have a real drink or two and I ordered a scotch and had one of those little bottles of red wine with the meal. Whitney didn’t have anything. Once we’d levelled out and he’d flicked through the in-flight magazine he nodded off.

That left me trying not to drop food in my lap and pondering the ins and outs of the case. I didn’t ponder too long; the intricacies of the financial fiddles were beyond me and my only concern was keeping Whitney safe until it was time for him to sing his song. I felt sure there’d be attempts to stop him and it was my job to prevent that, but exactly who was likely to do the stopping didn’t matter. So far the intervention had been both crude, as at Violet Town, and subtle, as with Masters and Quist. With white collar crime you have to expect that. Not all the collars are white.

Whitney woke up as I was working on the dregs of the red and I asked him why Brisbane.

‘I’ve set up a little business there. A sort of sideline. Consulting. I’ve got a hole-in-the-corner office in Eagle Street and a little flat in West End. I’ve taken short breaks up there and done some business. I’d like to build it up a bit while I’m waiting for ASIC to get moving. No one in Melbourne knows about it.’

A secret life, I thought. Something a lot of men hanker for—most men probably. I wondered if it included a secret woman, usually part of the fantasy.

By the time we landed in Brisbane Whitney was close to sober. I watched him carefully to see how familiar he was with the airport. If he knew it well I’d know he’d been lying about his flying phobia and that would be interesting. He didn’t; he followed the signs as if he’d never been there before. We collected our bags and went out to the taxi stand. I breathed in some of that warm, scented air and felt good. Some of the scent is petrol and aviation fuel, I guess, but some of it is to do with latitude. One of these days I’ll go north.

I’ve worked in Brisbane a few times but I’m not really familiar with it. West End, I seemed to remember, was something like Glebe in character, and near the river. Whitney gave the address to the driver and settled down to his own thoughts. He had his laptop with him as well as the briefcase Mackenzie had given him plus an overnight bag, probably from the same source.

The taxi pulled up outside a big Queenslander that backed onto the river. Whitney opened the front gate and pointed to a path leading around the house.

‘Divided up into flats. Mine’s at the back. Good view of the river, particularly from the dunny.’

‘Nothing wrong with that,’ I said.

At the back the block fell away to the river, gleaming under a clear sky. A big catamaran with lights blazing surged by as Whitney put his key in the lock.

‘City cat,’ he said over his shoulder. ‘Good town, Brisbane. I might move here when all this is over. Jesus Christ!’

He’d opened the door and turned on the light. I peered around him into a small living room that looked as if the Rolling Stones, the Who and the Sex Pistols had occupied it for a month.

* * * *

And that was just about it for a while for Mr Thomas Whitney, Esq., Old Grammarian and stroke of the eight. He fell to pieces and I had to get him settled in a habitable corner, clean the place up and consider what to do next. From the way he behaved I concluded that he’d been under immense strain for some time and all his apparent control had been a facade. When he collapsed he really went down. He wept a bit, chewed his fingernails, muttered to himself and kept saying ‘How? How? How?’ over and over again.

I couldn’t answer him because I was finding it hard to understand myself. Clearly, Whitney hadn’t kept his secret life nearly as much to himself as he’d imagined and it seemed to be terribly important to him. The flat had two small bedrooms, a sitting room, a kitchenette and a bathroom that required you to keep your elbows tucked in. It was too small a space for two large men to occupy and Whitney’s moping made it seem smaller still.

But after a few days he began to pull himself together. He was still smoking his cigarillos and looking for the whisky pretty early in the day, but he’d begun to tap away at his computer and to take an interest in the business news. Too much of an interest—he bought, or rather sent me out to buy because he slept in until about 10 am—all the papers and business magazines and he went through them minutely, paying particular attention to cases of bankers and brokers and others being caught at embezzlement, money laundering and insider trading. There was plenty to read in that field. I accompanied him the couple of times he went into his office in Eagle Street.

Brisbane still has a small town feel to me, but the financial district was starting to look like the real thing— high-rise, polished stone, shining steel, tinted glass and the dubious gold tower. We used a Merc he hired to get around and no one followed us. We ate in little below-street-level places off the Queen Street Mall and no one watched us consuming our Moreton Bay bugs.

He got on the phone to Stuart Mackenzie most days and I didn’t exactly hang around listening but he seemed to be getting no satisfaction. I gathered no action had been taken against his partners in MIA and I wasn’t surprised. You can blow the whistle but you can’t dictate the pace of play. He was in a volatile mood, swinging from relief when he got good news on his computer to depression after a talk with Mackenzie. He got an assurance from Melbourne that his kids were all right but for some reason there were obstacles to his talking to them—they were away for the night, or studying, or the phone was on the blink. This began to worry him. But after we’d been there a week and I was starting to wonder when I might think about cutting loose, the reason for his attachment to his secret life in Brisbane showed up.

She was about 180 centimetres tall with the body of a stripper and the face of a photographic model. Long dark hair, creamy skin, perfect teeth and a serious expression that made the whole package all the more alluring. She walked into the flat having used her own key and Whitney almost gave himself a hernia getting across the room to grab hold of her.

‘Jacqui, thank God you’re all right. I’ve been so worried.’

‘Why, darling? What’s wrong?’ Jacqui’s whole attention was riveted on him, even though the place was a mess and there was a strange man in the room. Some women can do that and most men lap it up.

Whitney went into a long, barely coherent explanation while he fussed over getting her a drink and finding her a chair to sit on that wasn’t covered with newspapers, magazines and dirty clothes. He minimised the seriousness of what he was doing, accelerated the time of the likely outcome and described me as a ‘security consultant’.

Jacqui let him fuss for a bit but then she took over and before long she was lighting the cigarillos and fetching the drinks. I judged her to be in her early thirties and everything about her—her quiet voice, body language, the looks she shot me when she thought I wasn’t watching—told me that she’d been around and was an expert in the business of manipulating people, especially men. She said she was ‘in PR, working out of Melbourne and Brisbane’.

Jacqui had been away on a promotional tour with a developer who had plans for a string of coastal golf courses and the arrangement she and Whitney had was that they didn’t contact each other while they were working. When they weren’t working they apparently met up here and in Melbourne and made as much contact with as many body parts as often as they could. I left them to it and did one of my periodic tours of the environs to see if there was anyone taking an undue interest in the flat. It was a pleasant afternoon for the stroll which took me past some handsome houses, down a few side streets and along by the river. I use the words of the Kathy Klein song to guide me in this little bit of business, and the only thing different, the only thing new, was Jacqui’s silver Saab parked outside the house.

They went out to eat that night and I tailed them in the Merc—no easy thing because Jacqui was a lead-footed driver—and ate some pizza slices in the car while they pigged out at E’cco Bistro in Fortitude Valley. Again, no unwanted interest. The way Jacqui was marching him around I began to think that with a Beretta in her handbag she could do my job.

I started to worry when I saw how Whitney was behaving when they left the restaurant. He looked distressed. At first I thought he might be drunk, then that someone had got to him with bad news, but after a minute it became clear that his trouble was with Jacqui. She was stiff and keeping her distance, nothing like the compliant handmaiden she’d been. They got into the car and drove through the city and then the Saab stopped. Whitney lurched from the car and was sick in the gutter. I pulled in behind them, got out and approached the retching Whitney. Jacqui was in the driver’s seat with her hands on the wheel.

‘What’s wrong?’ I said to both of them.

When Jacqui saw me she reached over, pulled the passenger door shut, gunned the motor and drove off.

I went to Whitney, who was wiping his mouth with a handkerchief and pulling himself together. He looked up at me and he seemed to have aged ten years.

‘She’s dumped me,’ he said.

We drove back to the flat and Whitney told me how he’d met Jacqui in Melbourne and that she was the reason for him splitting up with his wife. They’d done all the usual things and said all the usual things. Over coffee, Whitney told me that he’d taken Jacqui into his confidence about his problem with the partners and she’d been very supportive of his decision to jump ship.

‘She was with me all the way,’ he said.

I nodded. ‘The thing is, who else was she with?’

He saw what I meant and he was realistic enough to appreciate it. Someone had assigned Jacqui to him—as good as having him wired up and broadcasting his intentions.

I added a little scotch to our second cups of coffee. ‘What did you talk about before she gave you the news?’

‘Everything.’

‘Then what did she do?’

‘Went to the ladies.’

I nodded. ‘Reported in. How was the food?’

He glared at me. ‘Is that supposed to be funny?’

‘Sorry. Let’s get some sleep. We’ll see how it all looks in the morning.’

But we didn’t get the chance to do that. We both slept late and were in need of coffee when there was a heavy knock on the door. Whitney opened it and backed away in front of two men who produced their credentials and arrested him for embezzlement, tax evasion and money laundering. They were from Victoria and they had an extradition order.

* * * *

It was Darren Metcalf aka Kenneth Bates who’d set it all up, of course. Or rather, the true identities were the other way around. The man I’d known in Sydney as Metcalf was in fact born Bates into an establishment family in Melbourne. He was the very black sheep. He’d been sent off to Britain after some youthful indiscretions and resurfaced in Sydney as a louche low-life, exploiting the vulnerable. He’d gone back to Melbourne well-heeled after some successful drug deals, rehabilitated himself as Kenneth Bates in the eyes of the people who mattered and become a partner in MIA.

I got this information through Stuart Mackenzie, whose firm was going to represent Whitney at his trial. Mackenzie wasn’t a trial lawyer himself, but he’d briefed Cary Michaels QC, who was one of the best, and he also briefed me. We were in his office drinking excellent coffee—encouraging, but I was concerned about my standing. I couldn’t see that I’d failed anywhere, except in not telling Whitney or Mackenzie what I knew about Bates. Whitney wouldn’t have believed me and Mackenzie probably couldn’t have done anything about it. Still, for me, having the person you were supposed to be minding brought back from interstate under arrest wasn’t exactly my finest hour.

‘It was a brilliant scheme,’ Stuart said. ‘Bates and the others must’ve planned it in detail well in advance. They needed a patsy and they had one ready-made in Whitney. Would you say he was less than bright?’

I spread my hands noncommitally, not feeling that bright myself.

‘Anyway,’ Stuart went on. ‘They did everything Whitney said they did and more but they structured the arrangements and the paper trail so that it leads straight to him. The prosecution has him squirrelling away millions in accounts only he can touch.’

‘What about Whitney’s documentation and his approach to ASIC?’

‘Apparently that can all be made to look like tactics. The solid evidence says Whitney’s got the dough.’

I’d talked to Whitney while they were waiting to put him on a plane. We were both depressed. Everything I’d done—the exit from Melbourne, the confrontation at Violet Town, the supervision in Brisbane—could be construed as criminally damaging. ‘That’ll be a surprise to Tom,’ I said to Mackenzie. ‘He claims he’s close to broke.’

Mackenzie nodded. ‘He’ll have to sell his house to pay for his counsel and he won’t get all that much out of it. His wife’s going in strong.’

‘Bates again?’

‘Right. He got her ear and maybe other parts.’

‘Jesus, that poor bastard’s really been screwed. What can we do?’

Mackenzie shrugged. ‘Not much. MIA is being wound up. They’ve got some kind of insurance and most of the big losers’ll be compensated up to a point. Whitney goes down for the fraud. End of story.’

I couldn’t cop that. ‘Come on, Stu. We’ve got stuff on Bates that Michaels can use. He can construct an argument that Whitney was a fall guy. He can…’

Mackenzie shook his head. ‘Whitney’s going to plead guilty.’

‘What?’

‘That’s it. He’s going to cop it sweet. Michaels’ job will be to get him off with as light a sentence as possible.’

I sat back in my chair. ‘I can’t believe it.’

Mackenzie shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s white collar crime. Speaking of which, you can collect your cheque at the desk. Oh, by the way, Whitney wants to see you again, asap.’

* * * *

Whitney was temporarily on remand in Melbourne. Having been unable to provide sufficient sureties for bail and reporting his passport as lost, he’d been judged likely to flee the jurisdiction. I flew down there and arranged to see him, taking in a couple of books I thought he might be interested in, but not Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil—not quite the right tone.

The place was a big biscuit box near Spencer Street railway station. Modern, brightly painted, plenty of light and a minimum of restraint. Whitney shared a wing with about thirty other men and they had the run of a small inside recreation area and a yard where they could walk or sit in the sun, play handball or shoot hoops. I’d expected to find him downcast but he was quite the reverse. When I entered the wing he was engaged in a fierce ping-pong battle with another remandee which he won 21-19. He approached me with a smile on his face, wiping sweat away. For a minute I thought he was going to give me a high five.

‘Hello, Cliff. Good to see you.’

‘You too. Like it here, do you?’

‘Hardly, but it could be worse.’

I did my bad Bogart impression. ‘I hear you’re copping a plea.’

He nodded. ‘Come back to my room and I’ll tell you all about it.’

His room, shared with three others, was spartan—beds, chests of drawers, one desk, three chairs. We sat with our knees almost touching.

‘They fixed me up good and proper. My passport’s been nicked just for starters, but there’s no way a jury could understand my side of the whole thing.’

I shrugged. ‘If you say so. I’m in the same boat. You should’ve done it to them first. That’s if I believe you.’

‘Do you?’

‘Does it matter?’

‘Yes.’

I looked at him and thought back over what we’d been through. I should’ve seen that he had victim written all over him from the start. ‘How’s the family?’ I said.

That brought him down a notch but didn’t deflate him. ‘Good question. Ken Bates has got to Jasmine—that’s my wife. She’s bought the whole package. I can’t use the house as surety to post bail. I’ll get there some other way but I’m in here for a bit. It’s mostly the way he’s worked on Jasmine that’s got me to ask you down here.’

‘I don’t follow.’

He leaned closer and instead of cigars and whisky, the last smells I’d associated with him, I got sweat and sincerity. ‘I’m going to do three, maybe five years. Minimum security. I’ll be able to run that Brisbane business and make some money.’

‘Good for you.’

He shook his head. ‘No, you don’t get it. What I’ll really be doing is putting together deals that’ll expose Bates and the others and prove that they’re the worst kind of corporate crooks. It’ll take time but I’ll screw them to the wall. I’ll clear my name and get back my kids’ respect. I know I can do it, but I’ll need help. I’ll need you, Cliff. What d’you think?’

I thought about Bates/Metcalf and his slimy ways. The heavies he’d sent to stand over dumb kids whose only wish in life was to ride horses. His recommending me to Whitney had been a payback. ‘You’re on,’ I said.