Peter Corris - Follow the Money

'I heard about your misfortune,' Miles Standish said. 'That's why I asked to see you.'

'I've had a few misfortunes in my time,' I said. 'Which one d'you mean?'

'Losing all your money.'

'Oh, that one.'

Standish was a lawyer. His secretary had rung me at home that morning asking me to meet him at his office at two in the afternoon. When I asked what about she said Mr Standish would explain. He'd told her to tell me that the matter was important, urgent and the meeting would be of mutual benefit.

I had nothing better to do and since I didn't have a private investigator's licence anymore and the money I'd inherited from Lily Truscott-and there was a lot left of it even after some house fixing and gifts and loans here and there-had all gone, 'mutual benefit' had an appealing ring.

Standish's office was in Edgecliff and I travelled there from Glebe by bus, two buses. Driving in Sydney had become an exercise in frustration. Since my heart attack and bypass, I'd been advised to avoid stress and I found off-peak bus travel restful. I was early and I sat in the park on a cool late autumn day looking around at things that had changed and were going to change more. The boxing stadium where Freddie Dawson had cast a pall over Sydney's sporting community by knocking out Vic Patrick had long gone, and the White City tennis courts were no longer grass. Boats bobbed on the water as they had since 1788 and always would, but if the climate change gurus were right, where I was sitting would be underwater later this century. How much later?

Standish's office was one level up in a building on New South Head Road. The fagade was nineteenth century but the interior was twentieth, even twenty-first-carpet, pastel walls, air-conditioning, pot plants. The secretary who'd summoned me was there to greet me. Obviously head honcho of a group of three women, all busy in the open-plan office, she was Asian, elegant and with a private school accent.

'Thank you for being so prompt, Mr Hardy. Mr Standish is anxious to see you.'

Anxious didn't seem quite the right word for these surroundings. Back when I had a low-rent office in Newtown, anxious was just the right word-my clients were anxious and so was I. Here, comfortable seemed more the go, but comfort is easily disturbed.

She showed me into a room that almost made the outer office look shabby. It was all teak and glass and set up for both work and relaxation-a huge desk holding electronic equipment reminiscent of NASA, and a cosy arrangement of armchairs, discreet wet bar and coffee table tucked away in a corner. The waist- to almost ceiling-high windows looked out onto the main road but the double-glazing muted the traffic noise to an agreeable hum.

Standish sprang from behind the desk, rounded it athletically, and almost bounded towards me. He was tall, well built, and looked about thirty, which could have meant he was older trying to look younger or younger trying to look older. He wore the regulation blue shirt and burgundy tie, dark trousers. We shook hands-firm grip, a golfer maybe.

'Have a seat. Coffee?'

'No. Thanks. Nice place. Did someone refer you to me?'

'Not exactly.'

Standish liked to talk, especially about himself. He told me he wasn't a courtroom lawyer. He hadn't been in one since moot court in his student days. He was a money lawyer. I already knew that. You don't turn up for a meeting like this without doing some checking.

'I put together people,' he said. 'And then I put together deals. I help the money to be found and placed where it's needed to the benefit of all parties including myself. You must know the movie Chinatown.'

'I do.'

'One of our… one of my favourites. You'll remember Jake Gittes says divorce work is his metier. Deals are mine. I got first class honours in contract law and graduated magna cum laude from the Yale MBA course. I know the Cayman Islands, Cook Islands, Isle of Man, Jersey and Australian tax acts off by heart.'

I said, 'Can't leave you much room to know anything else.'

He leaned back. 'You'd be surprised. I know you failed contract law at the University of New South Wales and abandoned your studies. I know that you are banned for life from holding a private enquiry agent's licence in New South Wales and, by extension, anywhere in Australia. I know you had investments worth several hundred thousand dollars and it has all gone.'

I shrugged. 'I never felt good about being rich anyway.'

'How do you feel about being bankrupt?'

'It's not that bad.'

'It will be, and soon.'

He brought a computer to life and tapped the keys. 'Let me see if I've got this right. Richard Malouf was a partner in the very honest and upright firm that controlled your financial affairs. Unhappily, he was neither honest nor upright. Because of your, shall I say, careless attitude to your assets, he was able, over time, to liquidate the majority of your shares and hive off the money to accounts he controlled.'

I sighed. 'I don't really want to hear this. Malouf gambled the money away and got himself shot when he ran up a tab with someone who got impatient first and then got angry. You're right; when I inherited some money I took my business to an accounting firm someone had recommended: a big firm.'

Standish smiled. 'A mistake as it turned out. You should've come to me.'

Not likely, I thought, but he was accurate. I met the boss of the accounting firm-a Lebanese Australian named Perry Hassan-and liked him. He introduced me to Malouf. We talked; he seemed to understand my diffidence about being a capitalist investor. I trusted him. Financial matters bore me. I signed things I shouldn't have and put things away in a drawer unopened.

'Spilt milk,' I said. 'The money's gone.'

'What if I told you it isn't, not necessarily.'

'There was a thorough investigation.'

'How many thorough investigations have you known that were all complete bullshit?'

He had my interest now, not because I believed him, but because the smooth unflappability was fraying. Despite the air-conditioning, he looked a little damp around the edges.

'You've got a point, but Malouf's dead. He was identified by his wife.'

'Dental records? DNA? Did they bring in the Bali ID unit?'

'I don't know.'

'They didn't. There was a big stink on about a murdered family and they were preoccupied. He's not dead. He's been spotted.'

'So has Lord Lucan. So has Elvis.'

'This is reliable information. I want to hire you to catch him.'

'Why would I do that? The money's gone.'

'I don't believe it. I think the gambling was a cover story to help convince the authorities that he was dead. He's still got your money, or some of it. Plus that of a lot of other people who could be very grateful to you.'

I looked around the room-the framed certificates, the photographs in the company of celebrities in politics, sport and show business, the gleaming surfaces. Standish was the living embodiment of a business and lifestyle I disliked. He was right about me failing contract law. I'd detested the subject and wrote rude things about the questions and teachers before walking out. It had been a catalyst for my giving up university and doing other things. I didn't want to work for this man.

Standish tapped some more keys. 'Following on from what I said about your finances, it'll interest you to learn that Malouf left you a little legacy. More of a time bomb really. He bought, in your name, a parcel of shares at what seemed bargain rates. You OK'd the purchase. It was peanuts as things stood in your portfolio then. However, those are what's called option shares and holders are liable for a very substantial margin call on them. In about a month's time you're looking at a bill for three hundred thousand dollars, give or take.'