Peter Corris - Follow the Money

I felt a sharp prick of anxiety. Being short of money was one thing, and something I knew a bit about. But bankruptcy was something else. And if what Standish said was true, Malouf hadn't just taken me for a ride like the others but had got personal. When someone gets personal with me I get personal back.

He gave me a Hollywood smile. 'I thought that'd get your attention. To answer your question, there's your motivation. Catch Malouf and some very serious charges can be brought against him. You might be able to make a case of fraudulent dealing on his part that could get you off the hook in respect of the shares. I could help you with that, really help. Worst case scenario-if you can recover the money from Malouf, you could pay the call. The shares will have value in time, although not quite yet, given the GFC.'

'And would you help me with that?'

'What?'

'Recovering the money from Malouf.'

The smile again, broader. 'I wouldn't stand in your way.'

'How do I know you're not lying about the shares?'

He opened a drawer in the desk and slid a sheet of paper across to me. 'I got in touch with Perry Hassan, your trusted friend. He confirmed what I've just told you.'

I read Perry's email to Standish. Somehow Malouf's purchase of the shares, on the positive side of the ledger, hadn't cost enough initially to make a difference to my balance sheet, but Perry conceded that I was facing bankruptcy. We civilians imagine that information about clients held by financial advisers is private and protected, but these days nothing is. At a guess, Standish had some leverage on Perry.

'I have a few questions,' I said.

'Of course.'

'I don't have an investigator's licence.'

'From what I've heard of your conduct as a PEA, the rules you broke and the lines you stepped over, that hardly matters.'

'That's a fair point. OK, the real question. You've got a million-dollar office and a secretary who's probably as efficient as she is glamorous. You know Mel Gibson and Bob Carr and Greg Norman; but you strike me as just a bit worried. What's your motivation, Mr Standish?'

Suddenly Standish looked closer to forty than thirty. His face seemed to clench and lines radiated out from his eyes.

'Did you ever meet Malouf?' he said.

'Two or three times.'

'What did you think of him?'

I didn't want to talk about Malouf. I'd tried to forget him. 'As I said, I found all that money management stuff boring and I tended not to take much notice of the people who spouted it.'

He persisted. 'Good-looking?'

'Certainly not ugly, anyway.'

'He had… has a fatal attraction for women, including my wife.'

You want to say 'Ah' at times like that but you don't.

'I discovered that they'd been having a long-running affair.'

'How did you discover that?'

'She told me.'

It hurt him to say it; Standish was the sort of man who liked to put a personal-positive spin on anything. 'Why?'

'It was after he disappeared with your money and other people's as well, as I suppose you know. She seemed upset at the news about Malouf but not distraught. But it was a sort of catalyst. We hadn't been getting along for some time, the usual things… and she told me, shouted it to me. She said she loved him.'

Saying this had taken a lot out of him. He got up and the athletic bounce had left him as he crossed to where his bar fridge and a cupboard were tucked away. 'I'm going to have a drink. You?'

It was about three hours before my usual drinking time, but I didn't want him to feel any worse than he already did. 'Sure, what've you got?'

'Everything.'

'Scotch, a bit of ice.'

I didn't recognise the bottle; that doesn't mean much; I don't see enough single malts to get well acquainted. He made the drinks and brought the bottle back to the desk. The whisky was smooth-about as far as my capacity for appreciation goes. Standish downed half of his in a swallow and topped up his glass.

'I'm not a drunk,' he said.

'No.'

'Just that it's hard to… relive it all.'

'Yes.'

'Are you making fun of me?'

I sipped the drink. 'No, I'm not. But you've only scratched the surface of what you want to tell me about all this, and I'm wondering how much you're going to have to drink to get through it.'

He pushed the glass away. 'They told me you were a hard man to deal with, but that if I was straight with you you'd give me a hearing and might be willing to help.'

'I wouldn't exactly call what you've been doing up to now being straight.'

'No, you're right. I'm sorry. I'm manipulative-force of habit. Let's start again.'

Standish said his wife, Felicity, had met Malouf at a dinner for people in what he called the finance industry where he was the keynote speaker.

'I was swamped by commitments, clients, prospective clients, offers of various kinds.' He pointed to his glass. 'I'd had a few too many.'

'It happens,' I said.

'Yeah. I tell myself if not that night, then sometime, and if not him, someone else. I sort of believe it. Anyway, the point is, it became an affair. I was busy and didn't know until she hit me with it.'

'You said she was only upset when Malouf was killed, not devastated.'

'You'll think me paranoid, but I suspect her and Malouf's wife and Christ knows who else of being involved in a conspiracy. There's a lot of money involved, but more than that…'

For a man like Standish that was a big admission. What could be 'more' than money? I sipped whisky and waited for him to tell me.

'Word got around about Felicity's involvement with Malouf. Confidence is everything in this business. Trust is nothing. A few clients have… withdrawn; a few are cooling off and it's not just the GFC. I'm facing a personal fucking financial crisis.'

So it was about reputation but still about money. He was serious, no question. He'd drawn up a list of names-the person who claimed to have seen Malouf, Malouf's wife, his own wife, gamblers the police had interviewed, a journalist who'd covered the case, a lawyer representing a client who was suing Perry Hassan's firm and another who was processing Perry's application to the insurance company covering him against precisely this kind of disaster. For someone who didn't particularly care for lawyers, it looked as though I was going to be spending some time with them. If I agreed to work for Standish.

'Well?' he said after handing over the list and some supporting information-newspaper clippings, web page printouts, emails. 'Will you help me, and yourself?'

I finished the drink and ran my eye over the list. The alleged sighting had been in Middle Harbour, at a marina by the Spit Bridge. That helped me to decide. It'd be hard enough tracking people down and questioning them with no credentials whatsoever in Sydney, but impossible in Liechtenstein or the Bahamas. Standish saw me focusing on that entry.

'He's still in Sydney. That means there's a reason, probably an associate. He had to have someone help him mount this operation.'

'From what you've said it could be a woman looking after him, giving him sanctuary. That's if the sighting's genuine.'

'The names are there. Felicity and I are separated. You can approach her.'

'The helpful associate and the woman could be one and the same,' I said.

'Does that mean you're in?'

'I'm thinking about it.'

'Let's talk money.'

Standish began by mentioning a contract, a daily rate and expenses but I stopped him.

'First off, I'll go and see this yachtsman, the one who says he saw Malouf. If he doesn't convince me then it's all off and I won't charge you anything. If I'm convinced I'll follow up the other leads and see where I get. I'll charge you what I think the work's worth.'

'That's not businesslike.'