Peter Corris - Follow the Money

'The police are interested in a deal,' I said, 'under certain conditions, naturally.'

'Naturally, and you're authorised to speak for them? I find that hard to believe.'

'Just at this initial stage, to set the rules, then it'll be out of my hands.'

'Okay, what're the conditions?'

I'd thrashed this out thoroughly with Chang and Ali, trying to guess not only what Malouf/Habib would accept, but what he'd anticipate in a negotiation. I wanted to avoid police-speak, but still get the flavour of a police arrangement across.

'First, the name of the man identified as you, and some evidence that you didn't kill him.'

'Go on, I'm jotting this down.'

So to speak, I thought. I could hear his fingers on a keyboard.

'A solid indication of what this is all about. Some explanation of the word you used-cancerous.'

'Mmm, and…?'

'That's all for now. They'll want hard evidence, documents, emails, banking details, photographs, whatever, to back up what you say. Hard evidence against Selim Houli.'

The self-satisfied chuckle again. 'Not against Freddy Wong?'

I had to be careful that he didn't lead me into places I wasn't prepared for.

'The police assume you're talking about organisations. They know Freddy Wong had connections far and wide. They assume you'll have.. . relevant information about others.'

'Who killed Freddy?'

The question caught me off-guard and I almost answered. I stopped myself and simply said that I wasn't at liberty to say, but he got something out of my hesitation.

'I'm guessing you were there and that's why nutty Lester came after you. I'm guessing May or Sun Ling.'

'Guess away.'

That was a nugget for me-he didn't know where Sun Ling was, but he did know something about them. The more I heard from him the more I formed the opinion that he was a very dangerous man. There was something objective, analytical, about everything he said, as if he were attempting to anticipate two or three moves ahead and come out on top.

'I assume you're recording this, Hardy?'

I was. Chang had given me the equipment, but I didn't respond.

'You would be. That's good. There's no point in trying to trace the call though. This phone'll soon be…'

'At the bottom of the harbour?'

He laughed. 'Good try. I'll be brief and try to satisfy your conditions. The dead man was what you might call an undocumented person. He was a Lebanese relative of mine I… introduced into the country. He was working with me on this project until about the time I decided to go, as it were, freelance. Lester Wong killed him thinking he was me.'

'That's hard to prove, given that Lester's dead.'

'I can back it up, at least part of the way.'

Slippery, I thought, very slippery.

'As for the other conditions, I'll give you some names and let your… principals make what they will of them: Harvey Dong, Ah Pin, Mustafa Khalid and… let's say, Grant Simmonds.'

I said, 'That's not much to go on,' but I was talking to myself. He'd hung up.

I met Chang in Burton Place, the square down a level from Oxford Street. I had Googled the names and got results for three of them, not Grant Simmonds. I told him about the call and passed my printouts to him.

He stirred sugar into the long black he'd ordered and ignored the papers. 'You didn't get a hint about his source of information… locally?'

'Not a clue. He's very smart. You heard the recording, the one time I tried to trick him he was onto it like a shot.'

'He says Lester killed the mystery man?'

'Yeah, and that he can back it up. To use his words, in part."

'I found it hard to listen to; it sounded as if he played you like a fish.'

'I doubt you'd have done any better.'

He pulled the sheets towards him and looked through them as he stirred his coffee. He was seeing that Harvey Dong and Ah Pin were Hong Kong criminals, the heads of gangs within the Triad structure. Mustafa Khalid was the leader of a Lebanese militia group involved in the intricacies of Middle Eastern politics. The governments of several states had declared him an outlaw and he and his followers were now best described as bandits with terrorist tendencies.

Chang looked up. 'Nothing on Simmonds?'

'No. I'm assuming your magnificent databases will turn up something.'

'Sarcasm,' he said, 'a sign of insecurity, our profilers tell us. I'll check on him.'

'What do I tell Sabatini?'

'Tell him nothing.'

'What will you tell Ali?'

Chang shook his head, drained his coffee, got up and walked away.

I guessed that we were allies in deceiving our comrades and I remembered what Megan said I had told her about allies.

I didn't have to do anything about Sabatini. Rosemary flew back into Sydney and took all his attention. Perhaps he was tired of the waiting game, and he had my assurance that I'd give him everything I had when it came time for him to write a full story. If it became time; the international flavour of the names I'd passed on to Chang had me worried that the whole case might move out of state police hands and be taken on by the feds or the intelligence agencies.

I needn't have worried.

'This Simmonds is a consular official in Hong Kong,' Chang told me at our next meeting. We were in Sydney Park in St Peters, walking the paths. The four towers, the lungs of the old brick factory, were casting long shadows and the wind was chill.

'Consular. That means he deals with immigration matters, visas and such.'

'Right. Authorises visas and these days has a role in monitoring applications from skilled people and those with investment capabilities.'

'Passports?'

'Probably has a drawer full of 'em.'

'Does this mean you're going to hand this over to the feds or the spooks?'

Chang, who had a long stride, stopped abruptly. 'Shit, no! Certainly not at this stage. Doesn't take much to put it together, does it? Chinese and Lebanese criminals getting entry to this country through corrupt DFAT officials. They get set up in already existing businesses which have been compromised in some way by Malouf's dealings, and have had pressure put on them by Freddy Wong and Houli. Those two were looking to be part of the ongoing action.'

I said, 'He's a crafty bastard, this guy, only gives us one of the officials and a couple of names. You have to wonder how widespread it is-how many crooks, how many businesses and how big.'

'And how much money.'

We were walking again. 'Cancerous,' I said.

Chang stepped off the path to pick up a soft drink can. He tossed it at a bin; it bounced on the rim but went in. 'It could be. Business is the lifeblood of ethnic communities in this city. It affects everything-family, religion, schools, politics, sport, the lot. If criminal organisations get control of big Chinese and Lebanese businesses-I mean in terms of money and personnel-it'd be a nightmare.'

'It's big, as he said. But you're not going to pass it on higher?'

Chang didn't reply. We reached the pond, took a turn and headed back towards the towers. There was a dog exercise area away to our left and the sounds of the dogs and the children had a calming, normalising effect on me and apparently on Chang, who stopped and looked.

'My people have been here for a hundred and fifty years,' he said. 'They were on the Victorian goldfields and then had the good sense to come to Sydney. They were market gardeners, laundrymen and shopkeepers. My great-great-grandfather fought in World War I. A couple of my great uncles fought in the next war.' He laughed. 'Mind you, a few members of my family were mistaken for Japs and interned. This place isn't perfect, but I love it and I'm fucked if I'm going to let a bunch of foreign sleazebags come in and bugger it up.'

At home, I punched the buttons to disable the alarm and put my key in the lock. I heard a soft footfall and felt something hard and cold in the nape of my neck.