by Peter Ralph
“Hello, Mick, I’m Charles Adderley.”
McHugh did not immediately reply, instead he took a mouthful of beer, and eyed Aspine carefully. “Take ya gloves off,” he growled.
Aspine had got used to wearing black leather gloves to hide the severe scarring on his hands. He felt McHugh staring as he removed them. “Give me a look.”
Aspine held out his hands, palms up. “Fuck, it’s true you removed your fingerprints. When Chin told me I thought he was bullshitting. Pull up a stool. I don’t need you two,” he said, addressing the men next to him, “I’ll see you back at headquarters. What are you drinking, Charles?”
“Jack Daniels neat, thanks.”
McHugh snapped his fingers and a barman came running.
“Tell me what I can do to help ya.”
Aspine’s explanation was lengthy and covered all of the people that he saw as having crossed him and his plans for revenge. When he had finished McHugh studied him closely. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard hate like that and I know of guys who’ve hated their wives and partners so badly that they paid huge money to have them hit. Yar worse, ya don’t want to kill any of them; ya’d rather they suffer a living hell.”
“I thought of killing them all right and some days it was only that thought that kept me alive. After I got out I was devising ways how I could get rid of them. I even learned how to make remote controlled bombs. Then it hit me, they’re getting off too easy. You mightn’t believe this, but if they’d hanged me in Singapore it would’ve been a lot easier than the years I did in Changi. The bastards who framed me knew that, and they planted just enough heroin to ensure that I didn’t get the death penalty. Do you have the resources to help me?”
“Charles, if ya have the money there is nothing that can’t be arranged. Some of what ya want is novel but presents no difficulty. What you have planned for the old lady will cost you thirty thousand. Send her pics to this number,” he said, handing Aspine a piece of paper. “It’s a prepaid mobile. Make sure ya buy one too and replace it regularly. Jeczik will be very difficult and the others will be a little trickier but providing ya have the money, I can provide the services. Speaking of money, I’ll need one hundred and thirty thousand to get me started. When can ya get it to me?”
If only you knew, Mick. I am the king of using prepaid mobiles.
“It’ll take three weeks. If I draw more than ten thousand cash a day the bank will report it to Austrac and I don’t want that.”
“You don’t have to worry about that crap. I’ll give you the details of an account I have in Liechtenstein, and ya can transfer directly into it from wherever yar hiding your stash overseas. I try to make it easy for my clients.”
“You have a Liechtenstein bank account?” Aspine grinned, shaking his head.
“What? Ya think they’re confined to big shot businessmen like you? Get fucking real. I run an international business.”
“Sorry, Mick.”
“Yeah, yeah. Let’s eat. The porterhouse here is great.”
When Aspine got back to the Hyatt he threw a T-shirt and trackies on and headed to the gym. He’d put on five kilograms since the escape and while his body was still scrawny, the surgery and food had made a difference. His sexual urge was slowly returning but he still had nagging doubts about whether he could perform. If it were not for this and his vanity, he would’ve visited one of Melbourne’s many brothels. His favourite had been the Daily Planet and he had spent many pleasant afternoons and evenings there – when the time was right he would again. On the weekend he would move into the apartment that he had leased on the beautiful wide tree lined boulevard that was St Kilda Road. It was close to the city, superbly located and backed onto the Albert Park Lake and golf course. He felt good, the weights in the gym seemed lighter, and his endurance and muscle tone were starting to improve albeit from a very low base. He missed his Grecian nose and the hawkishness of his old face but he could not fault Sonchai’s work. The face that stared back at him from the gym mirrors was youthful, handsome and relaxed – only the dark brooding eyes of his former self remained.
Chapter 19
MARY DENTON REVERSED HER blue Corolla out of the driveway at 9 A.M. She silently cursed when she saw the fuel gauge was just below one-quarter knowing that she’d have to stop and fill up. The huge Chadstone shopping centre was only seven kilometres away but that was not the point. Mary liked to be prepared, and the gauge was far too close to empty for comfort. Fifteen minutes later she pulled into one of the shopping centre’s upper level car parks and drove into a space next to a light pole and directly opposite the stairs, as she always did. A silver Audi followed her up the ramp. She liked shopping early before the shops got busy later in the day. She’d barely entered the mall when a hooded man got out of the Audi and within seconds was inside the Corolla. Strangely, all he did was move it, parking it in the same row next to another light pole that was a further twenty spaces away from the stairs. He climbed out thinking it was the easiest money he’d ever made.
When Mary left the mall overladen with shopping bags nearly ninety minutes later, the car park was full, but when she reached her space a red Ford occupied it.
My God, someone has stolen my car.
She was shaken and fumbled in her handbag for her rarely used mobile and phoned Harry to tell him what had happened. “I just filled it up, so it could be miles away by now.”
“I’ll come and get you and then we’ll report it to the police. Don’t worry, it’s insured.”
“I’m not concerned about that. I love that little car. Don’t you remember giving it to me when I turned sixty?”
“As if I’d forget.” Harry laughed. “I’ll be there in ten minutes. Don’t stress.”
That evening the local police phoned and when Harry answered he was told Mary’s car had been found in the car park. “I think your wife might’ve have forgotten where she parked, sir. It happens you know. We haven’t moved it, and the car park is nearly empty now, so you can’t miss it.”
“Yes, yes, I understand. We’ll come down now.”
When Harry told Mary what the policeman had said she became extremely angry. “I know where I parked. I’m not senile and I’m not suffering dementia. How dare he say that.”
There were very few cars left in the car park and Harry pulled up next to Mary’s Corolla. “I better make sure everything’s okay before you drive it, darling. Let me have the keys.”
He quickly glanced through the windows and saw nothing untoward before climbing behind the steering wheel and starting the engine. His eyes focused on the fuel gauge as the needle slowly went from empty to full. No one had driven the car and the likelihood was that Mary had simply forgotten where she parked.
“Is it all right?” Mary asked.
“It’s fine. I’ll follow you home just in case there’s something I’ve missed.”
The following day Mary received a phone call from the police asking her and Harry to could come down to Murrumbeena police station. As Harry drove out of his street, a United Energy van that had been parked in front of the house pulled up in the driveway. The house was old with no deadlocks or security cameras. The man and woman in the van were soon in the house. The man hid eight thousand dollars in cash in the back of the freezer and bugged the phone handsets and the kitchen. The woman diligently rifled through documents until she found what she was looking for. Within five minutes they were reversing out of the driveway.
“You heard the phone ring,” Mary snapped, as Harry drove slowly away from the police station. “The police said they wanted to talk to us about my car.”
“Funny, no one at the station knew about it.”
“What’s that mean? I did get the call. I did!”
“Are you sure the call wasn’t from Oakleigh police station?”
“Yes, I’m sure. Stop talking to me like I’m a five year old.”
Mick McHugh’s associates had planted a bug in the kitchen so that recorded conversations could be g
iven to Aspine that would enable him to monitor his plan. The bugs in the phones were so they would know Harry’s and Mary’s movements without having to wait out in the street for them to go out.
Two days later and not long after Harry had gone out a uniformed Multinet Gas maintenance man knocked on the Dentons’ door and told Mary that he was performing a routine maintenance check on the meter. She asked him if he would like a cup of coffee or tea but he declined saying that he was on a tight deadline. A few minutes later he knocked on the door with a large pad in his hand. “Can I get your signature? It just acknowledges that I checked your meter and proves to my bosses that I was here.” He laughed. “I have so many meters to check and so little time to do it.”
“Certainly,” Mary said, taking a pen from him and signing the bottom of the form where he was pointing.
Sir Edwin Philby had no idea he was being followed. Why would he? Prior to the near collapse of Mercury Properties Limited, a company of which he had been chairman, he was a significant figure in the Melbourne establishment. After the debacle he was blamed for appointing Douglas Aspine as the company’s CEO and lost more than ten directorships of major Australian and international companies. He’d also lost powerful political connections who now refused to take his calls or acknowledge him. Yes, he had been important, but that was before Douglas Aspine had entered his life. The board might have sacked Aspine but the damage had already been done and the business community was unforgiving. Now Philby’s only remaining claim to power was as chairman of a charitable trust created to give away his late father’s vast wealth. He parked his Jaguar, put his notebook-tablet under his arm and strode across Collins Street toward his office.
Chapter 20
PHILBY’S TOORAK MANSION WAS surrounded by a high brick fence. Security lights and cameras were affixed just below the roof line. Street lights cast long shadows along the street and hid the black sedan in which two men were engaged in animated discussion.
“Look at the security system. How are we going to get in?”
The other man laughed. “It’s so old, I doubt it even works. If it does, it’ll only take a few minutes to deactivate. How long will you need with the computers?”
“Thirty minutes max.”
“Have ya ever had a job like this before? I mean what type of sick fuck plants kiddie porn on someone else’s computers?”
“Never. Dunno, the boss also gave me a couple of hundred pics to hide in the poor prick’s study. I wonder what he did to the sicko who’s out to get him.”
“Ya know he’s a knight don’t you? Sir Edwin Philby.”
“He won’t be after this. Does it worry you?”
“Nah, it’ll be the easiest ten grand I’ve ever picked up.”
“So when do we move?”
“The boss is gonna organize for him to get called away this Friday night. We’ll do it then.”
“Doesn’t anyone else live here? Christ, the place is bloody gigantic.”
“He’s got a live-in cook, but he’s off on Friday night and he always goes to the footy. I wish every job was this easy.”
Ten minutes after Harry and Mary Denton left their house to go to a charity fund-raiser, a large truck pulled into their driveway and three men wearing khaki overalls got out. Soon they were clearing one of Harry’s prized rose beds and digging up the pavers that formed the driveway. The pavers had been laid on a thick base of concrete and did not come away easily but the men toiled hard and soon had more than half removed. The boss told his men to keep going while he took a jackhammer from the back of the truck and started breaking up the concrete. He’d just started when a white Holden stopped in the street and a furious Harry Denton jumped out and charged up the driveway.
“What are you doing? What are you doing?” He shouted. “What have you done to my roses? No, no, no!”
“Settle down, we’re putting in a new brick driveway and a small hard-standing area where the rose bed was.”
“You fool. You’ve got the wrong house. We don’t want a new driveway.”
Mary hadn’t been as fast as Harry but now she was next to him.
“Hello, Mrs Denton.” The man smiled. “Can you please set your husband straight?”
“Do I know you?”
“What is this? You order a new driveway from me and now you can’t remember me?”
“You’re mistaken. I’ve never set eyes on you before today,” Mary snapped.
“Show me the paper work.” Harry growled. “Then you’ll realize you’ve got the wrong property and the wrong woman.”
The man rifled around in his overalls before producing a printed contract for a new driveway and hard-standing area for ten thousand dollars. At the bottom of the form above the printed word acceptance was Mary’s unmistakeable signature and a receipt for a deposit of two thousand dollars.
“Darling, what have you done?”
“I didn’t do anything. As if I’d do anything in the garden without talking to you.”
“That’s your signature.”
“I know. I’m confused as you. It must be a forgery.”
“Hey, what is this? Are you trying to pull a swifty or something? I’ve got a contract.” The man scowled.
“Watch what you say, young fella.”
The man beckoned Harry a few metres away from the other two men and Mary. “Look, I can prove I’m on the up and up. I didn’t want to say anything in front of my guys, but when your wife gave me the two thousand dollar deposit it nearly froze my leg off. I know for a fact that you hide your cash in the freezer, right?”
Harry was nonplussed. What is this guy talking about? We don’t have any cash in the freezer and never have. “Look, there’s been a mistake. I don’t know whose. I don’t want a new driveway. I liked everything the way it was. Can I have the contract and I’ll contact you when I get it sorted out?”
“That’s the original. I left your wife copies in triplicate. What is this? You want me to leave the only proof I have. Forget it.”
Harry sighed. “Leave me your phone number then.”
After the men had left, Mary asked, “What did you sort out?”
“I told him that someone was playing a nasty prank on us.” Harry lied.
“Who’d do something like that? It’s more than a prank, it’s malicious.”
“Don’t worry I’ll get to the bottom of it. It won’t take much to put the driveway back to what it was.”
“But you lost your roses.”
“I’ll grow more. Don’t fuss, my darling. Everything will be all right.
When Mary drifted off to sleep later in the night, Harry tiptoed down to the kitchen, opened the freezer and felt around at the back until he found the thick wad of one hundred dollar notes. He separated them and counted exactly eight thousand dollars.
God, what was Mary doing? Where did the cash come from? Was she losing it, or worse, has she already lost it? Poor thing.
Chapter 21
ASPINE SPENT AGES LOOKING for Fiona Jeczik’s weaknesses. He knew she was smart, street savvy and a vindictive bitch. Unfortunately her father died while Aspine had been in jail, and to his knowledge she had no living relatives, so he couldn’t hurt her via that avenue. He also knew from his own experience that, despite her success, she clung to her working class roots, and was always far more severe when interviewing conservative politicians than she was with their socialist counterparts. This, and something he recollected from a luncheon with establishment stockbrokers, Blayloch & Fitch, about the New South Wales Minister for Education, William Elmhurst, sowed the seeds of his plan: The senior partner of Blayloch and Fitch had had a little too much to drink when he said that William Elmhurst had gifted an incredibly rich coal mine to charity in 1996. Elmhurst had gone to extraordinary lengths to hide the gift. The Elmhurst family were philanthropic but also paranoid about privacy. They didn’t seek any publicity or credit for their generous donations; they actually shunned it. Aspine had tucked it away in his memory bank. People
with secrets, even philanthropic secrets, are always vulnerable.
In the years that Craig Chisholm had been Fiona’s producer he had received countless anonymous phone calls about corrupt politicians and businessmen that rarely resulted in a televised exposé. However, in rare instances some resulted in stories that had rated off the radar.
The voice on the other end of the phone was a hoarse whisper. “The Crime Commission is investigating William Elmhurst and I have the story. Are you interested?”
The Right Honourable William Elmhurst had been the member for Swanton for over thirty years and was squeaky clean. “I could be,” Craig replied, without any enthusiasm. “Tell me more.”
“It’s top secret. The heavies in the Crime Commission are so fearful of leaks they’ve leased separate offices in a Melbourne building. They’re investigating a Sydney politician out of Melbourne! Doesn’t that tell you something? There’s no signage on the doors to the offices, and there’s a special team holed up there. It’s real KGB stuff.”
Craig fought back the urge to laugh. “Really? What’s their interest in Elmhurst?”
“The government issued mining licences to companies his son had an interest in at the time, or which he later became entitled to.”
“Rubbish! It would’ve been obvious. The opposition would’ve been all over it. Besides William Elmhurst is Minister for Education and those licences are under the Minister for Mining’s watch.”
“What if it wasn’t so obvious? Outside of the Premier, William Elmhurst is the senior sitting member in the house. He is very powerful, very influential and has a lot of favours owed to him.”
“What are you getting at?”
“You can do a lot with companies and trusts and sometimes you have to dig through a maze before you find the real beneficiaries.”
