The CEO

by Peter Ralph

  “No, I’m a businessman but, as you know; business and government are closely linked in Singapore.”

  “I wish you could stay,” Jasmine begged.

  “I’ll come back down again just as soon as I can.”

  “I should be going,” Aspine said. “I don’t want to intrude on what little time you have. It was nice meeting you, Raj. Jasmine, if there’s anything I can do, please call me.”

  Two weeks after Kerry’s funeral, Aspine received a phone call from Ken Sturt, an ASIC investigator. “We’d like to talk to you about the affairs of Mercury Properties Limited, Mr Aspine.”

  “Will I need a lawyer?”

  “Only if you think you’ll need one, but yes, if you’d like representation, feel free to bring your lawyer.”

  “I have nothing to hide,” Aspine said. “I’ll come alone.”

  “Do you know where we are?”

  “You’re in La Trobe Street from memory.”

  “That’s right. Is ten o’clock tomorrow morning convenient?”

  “Yes, I’ll be there.”

  Aspine received two phone calls from Jasmine. The first was quite formal, and she’d sought his help and advice regarding the administration of Kerry’s estate. He had wondered why she hadn’t asked her lawyer. Perhaps she was still distraught and confused. The second call was very late at night. She seemed stronger, more in control, and not at all cold or formal. She talked about the boys, their school, how they missed their father, and not knowing what the future held. Aspine let her talk, only occasionally participating in the conversation. He was surprised, and pleased that she was using him as a strong shoulder to cry on. Two hours later she apologized for taking so much of his time. “Any time, Jasmine,” he said. “Would you like to catch up for coffee?”

  “I’d like that.”

  “Would Saturday morning be convenient? There’s a nice little place on the corner of Mathoura and Toorak Roads.”

  “That’d be nice. Eleven o’clock?”

  “I’ll see you then.”

  The irony of her turning to him in her moment of need was not lost on him. Perhaps they could satisfy each other’s needs, he thought, the sides of his mouth turning up in a wicked smirk.

  Mercury was a hive of activity for all the wrong reasons. The auditors were still trying to ascertain the exact size of the discrepancy, the investigators from the ACCC were looking at pricing of apartments sold in the Docklands, and investigators from ASIC were looking at false reporting, insider trading and fraud. Harry knew who the perpetrator of all the company’s sins was, and he didn’t hold back. He intended to make sure that Douglas Aspine went to jail for a long time.

  Aspine was shown into a small room at ASIC, equipped with extensive audio- visual equipment. A few minutes later, a small young man with striking red hair introduced himself. “Mr Aspine, I’m Ken Sturt. We spoke on the phone, and this is my assistant, Karen Lacey. We’ll be recording,” he said, in a matter of fact way.

  “That’s fine,” Aspine said, eyeing the girl up and down. She was pretty in a mousy sort of way, and he guessed that she wasn’t long out of university.

  “Mr Aspine, Mercury’s auditors have detected large scale accounting falsifications. What do you know about them?”

  Aspine gasped. “Was Kerry embezzling the company? God, I can’t believe it. Is that why he took his life?”

  “No, to the best of our knowledge he wasn’t an embezzler. Now please answer my question.”

  “I don’t know anything,” Aspine scowled.

  “Are you sure of that?”

  “Of course I am.”

  “Why would Mr Bartlett do it?” Karen asked.

  “I don’t know. I have no idea what he did. This has come as quite a shock.”

  “Some of the accounting falsifications related to shifting costs from completed buildings to uncompleted buildings. Did you know that was occurring?”

  “Christ, Ken, I’m not an accountant. How could I have known?”

  “You did benefit from it though,” Karen said.

  “I knew nothing about any false accounting until I walked into this room.”

  “You received very large bonuses based on the profitability of the company, didn’t you?” Sturt asked.

  “And it also increased the value of your options,” Karen chimed in.

  Aspine looked at the ceiling and sighed in exasperation. “You’re not listening to me.”

  “You signed the company’s accounts didn’t you?”

  “Yes I did, but I told you, I’m not an accountant. I would’ve signed anything, and don’t forget, the chairman, Sir Edwin Philby, signed them as well.”

  “You sold most of the shares that you acquired by way of conversion of your options almost immediately.”

  “Yes, with the full knowledge of the board. I had to repay loans I’d taken out to acquire the shares, and I needed to set aside my tax.”

  “And your wife sold the rest.”

  “Ex-wife, and I told her not to sell.”

  “Knowing that she had no choice but to sell, because she had no money,” Karen sneered.”

  “Did you tip Blayloch & Fitch off, prior to making the negative announcement to the market about the Melton land?”

  “No, I had no knowledge or information until the Minister made his announcement.”

  “You do understand that you can go to jail for insider trading?” Sturt snapped.

  Aspine didn’t respond, instead he tapped his fingers on the table while blowing air through his lips in a silent whistle.

  “What do you know about Balmoral Finance Company Proprietary Limited?” Karen asked.

  “It’s a company we deposited surplus monies with at a nice interest rate.”

  “Is that all you know?”

  “Yes. What does this have to do with the false accounting entries?”

  “We’re not sure. Did you ever talk to, or have dealings with, anyone from Balmoral?”

  “No, Kerry, handled the investing of our surplus cash.”

  “Let me tell you about Balmoral,” Sturt said. “Its registered office is at the bottom of the ocean, its sole director is mentally retarded, and the monies deposited with it have been used to finance the acquisition of apartments previously sold by Mercury in the Docklands.”

  Aspine’s mouth was agape. “I’m staggered, I had no idea.”

  “Your sales manager, Brad Hooper, set up a number of companies to buy the apartments on his behalf.”

  “Brad did that,” Aspine said, gazing at Sturt in amazement. “Why?”

  “We thought you might be able to tell us.”

  “Well, I can’t.”

  “Hooper was running advertisements for Mercury, stating that its pre-owned apartments were increasing in value or, at worst holding their own. Would that have anything to do with it?” Sturt asked.

  “I don’t know,” Aspine said, holding his head in his hands. “Maybe Brad was just building a property portfolio. Is that illegal?”

  “Every transaction on the bank account of Balmoral was made over the internet. Don’t you think that’s strange?” Karen asked.

  “Everything you’ve told me has been strange. I can’t believe it. Have you asked Brad about Balmoral?”

  “We’re trying, but it seems that he’s travelling in Paraguay, and we’ve been unable to contact him. Do you still insist that you don’t know anything?” Sturt asked, not trying to hide his sarcasm.

  “How many times do I have to tell you?”

  “It’s funny, you’re the main beneficiary, but you don’t know anything.” Karen said.

  Aspine didn’t respond for nearly a minute. He frowned, then he looked enlightened, then deep in thought, and finally unsure. “There are others who benefited. Kerry and Brad also received performance bonuses and were granted options. I just wonder ...” he stopped.

  “Go on,” Sturt said.

  “Well I don’t want to speak ill of the dead, but Kerry suicided, and Brad’s disa
ppeared in South America.”

  “Are you saying they put this scam together?”

  “I don’t know. You seem to be accusing me, but I haven’t committed suicide or disappeared into another country that doesn’t have an extradition policy with Australia,” Aspine said, staring directly into Sturt’s eyes.

  “We’ll need to talk to you again, Mr Aspine. You’re not planning to leave the country are you?”

  “No, but if I do you’ll be the first to know,” Aspine said, as he stood to leave.

  “What a liar,” Karen said.

  “Yeah, but it’s not going to be easy to prove. He’s exactly what Harry Denton said he was. We need to find Brad Hooper.”

  “But even if we do, Ken, it’ll only be his word against Aspine’s.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t miss anything with Balmoral?”

  “The agreement’s signed by Kerry Bartlett and the transfers were authorized by him. There’s not one piece of paper bearing Aspine’s signature.”

  “What about that shifty accountant, Norman Pell?”

  “He said he knows nothing. He has hundreds of companies using his premises as their registered office. He doesn’t remember Balmoral, says he has no responsibility for it, and doesn’t know why the company changed its registered office. Balmoral paid his invoices over the net.”

  “Keep digging, Karen.”

  “Stan,” Harry shouted down the phone. “I want you to sue him. Let’s force him to repay those bonuses that he stole off us, and get the profit that he made on those options off him.”

  “Slow down, Harry. There’s nothing we can do until we’ve got restated financial accounts. Until then we won’t know what the profit really was. And we won’t be able to do anything about the profit on the options until we know if Aspine was behind those falsified accounts.”

  “We know.”

  “Knowing and proving are two different things.”

  “I’m desperate to nail this guy, Stan.”

  - 41 -

  IT WAS A sultry Saturday morning, and Aspine arrived early at the coffee shop to make sure he could get an outside table. He spread the Financial Review out in front of him and gloated about the article on page three. The principals of Apartco and Urban had confessed to entering into a price fixing arrangement with Vicland. Vic Garland continued to deny any involvement in the scheme, but he was now isolated and, even better, was without credibility. You done me over you old bastard, but you’re really paying for it now.

  “What’s so amusing?”

  He looked up and gasped. Even dressed in the most casual clothes she was stunning. She was dressed in a white, short sleeved top, black jeans and wedge heeled sandles. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and she was wearing oversized sunglasses, which she removed and placed on the table. “Hello, Jasmine,” he said, standing and kissing her on the cheek. “No, there’s nothing funny in the paper. I was miles away. What are you having?”

  “Cappuccino, please.”

  “You look tired. Aren’t you sleeping?”

  “I’ve been tossing and turning most nights. I still don’t understand why Kerry did it, and I’ve had so many people wanting to talk to me.”

  “Like who?”

  “A young girl, Karen Lacey, from ASIC, came to see me and asked a lot of questions.”

  “What about?”

  “She wanted to know if Kerry had been having problems at Mercury. I told her that he never discussed his concerns with me. I wish he had, but he just used to clam up. He was having problems though, wasn’t he?”

  “I didn’t know it at the time but, yes, he must have been. ASIC told me they’ve found some anomalies in the financial accounts,” Aspine said, looking concerned.

  “Are you sure it has nothing to do with the seven hundred thousand dollars?”

  “I was positive, but I’m not so sure now. What am I saying? Of course I’m sure. Sorry. Who else has wanted to talk to you?”

  “Fiona Jeczik came and saw me yesterday.”

  Aspine tensed but kept his voice calm. “What did she want?”

  “She wanted to know what Kerry had said about you. I told her that he idolized you, and she didn’t like it. Why does she hate you so much?”

  “I don’t know. She uses her television show to attack me at every opportunity.”

  “She said that the pressure you put on Kerry was the reason that he took his life. I asked her to leave,” Jasmine said, placing her hand over his. “I know it wasn’t you.”

  That Jeczik bitch! “I’d give or do anything to bring Kerry back.”

  “I know you would.”

  “How are the boys holding up?”

  “It’s hard to tell, but they seem to have blocked the pain out. They didn’t see much of their Dad in the past two years, and in some ways that’s cushioned their suffering,” she said, glancing at her watch. “I’m sorry, I have to pick them up, but I’d like to stay in touch, at least until this dreadful business is sorted out and I know why Kerry did it.”

  “I’d like that. Feel free to call me anytime.”

  “You’re very kind,” she said, standing on tip toes to kiss him on the cheek.

  As she walked away he focused on her tight, curved butt, and felt a familiar stirring in his groin. He’d never wanted a woman so much. He knew what others were saying about him and he didn’t completely trust Jasmine. Maybe she wasn’t as smart as he’d first thought, or perhaps Kerry had spoken so highly of him that she’d become a convert.

  Mercury’s shares finally stabilized at $1.20. Harry Denton reluctantly made some presentations and, while the brokers didn’t like what they heard, they trusted him, and when he said that the company was getting back on its feet, they believed him. Sir Edwin Philby’s reputation was in tatters, and he’d been asked to resign from two other public company boards. The institutions were baying for his blood. He phoned Jeremy Smythe and castigated him for recommending Aspine. “You didn’t do a very good job, Jeremy.”

  “Ed, it wasn’t my f...”

  “Sir Edwin to you,” Philby interrupted. “It’s not good enough. We paid you a lot of money, and you obviously didn’t do the checking that you should have. The man has no character.”

  Jeremy was as annoyed as Sir Edwin. He’d lost Mercury’s business and Aspine had cheated him out of fifty thousand dollars. “It’s easy to be wise with hindsight. If I remember rightly, you were singing his praises only three months ago.”

  “I despise the man. I’ll be lucky to retain any board seats after this.”

  “I’m not in love with him myself. I’ve lost a lot of very good clients.”

  “And so you should have,” Sir Edwin retorted, slamming down the phone.

  It took Aspine less than two hours to enter half a dozen chat rooms, using the pseudonym ‘good guy’, and spill the beans on Channel Sixteen’s CEO, Barry Seymour. He raised everything from how Seymour ignored the families of his employees who’d perished in a helicopter crash, to disowning and committing his drug-afflicted daughter to a rehabilitation clinic. Seymour was a low-profile CEO, but was known to be extremely wealthy, and the ferals on the internet picked up the story and ran with it. Aspine embellished and added to what Tom Donegan had told him, suggesting that Seymour had unnatural sexual desires. When Aspine clicked off, the chat rooms were running hot. In the morning, the story had taken on a life of its own and was the prime topic on talkback rasio. Barry Seymour was belittled, and big business and its owners were chastised. Maybe this will slow the bitch down, but, if it doesn’t, what I have planned next, definitely will, Aspine gloated.

  Hamish Gidley-Baird was evasive when Aspine phoned him. “No, Douglas, you can’t start with Philmont on the 1 November. We think it would be better if your commencement date was pushed out to the 2 January. You know, give the heat about you in the media a chance to cool down.”

  “Fuck that! I have an executed contract. Make no mistake, Hamish, I’ll sue you, your firm and Philmont, if you try and blow me
off.”

  “That would be most unwise on your part. Once this matter becomes public, the family will have no reason not to sue you. You conned me and you conned them, but you’re in no position to be making threats. Now, be patient, and the appointment will go ahead, albeit that it’ll be a little delayed,” Gidley-Baird drawled, apparently unaffected by the threats.

  “I’m going to want three month’s back pay on the 2 January.”

  No-one crossed Vic Garland and got away with it, and he was determined to have his revenge. Despite his troubles with the ACCC, he continued to lobby state and federal members of parliament to ensure that Aspine was prosecuted under the Corporations Act. He’d been pleasantly surprised to receive a phone call from Helen Philmont and, when she’d mentioned Douglas Aspine, he’d had no hesitation in agreeing to meet with her. His chauffer came around to the rear door of the Bentley and he gingerly alighted and shuffled toward the front door of the large Toorak mansion, tapping on it with his newly acquired walking stick. “Mr Garland,” the young girl said, “it’s so good of you to come.”

  “Helen?”

  “That’s me,” she said, taking him by the arm, and leading him to the sun room.

  “You were a baby the last time I saw you. Your family and I go back a long way, and your deceased grandfather, Eric, was a great friend of mine.”

  “Yes, I know. Would you like coffee or tea?”

  “No, thank you. I’m running short of time in more ways than one,” he laughed. “What is it you wanted to tell me about that scum, Douglas Aspine?”

  Helen explained everything that had occurred with Aspine, including the job offer and the five million.

  “You’re not a very good judge of character, are you?” Garland said, his eyes twinkling.

  “It’s not funny.”

  “I didn’t say it was. You wish you’d never laid eyes on Aspine, don’t you? And of course, you’d like your five million back.”

  “Can you help?”

  “I’m sure I can,” Garland smiled.

  “Can you keep it confidential?”