by T M Heron
A split second after that there’s an explosion to the right side of my head. Then everything momentarily goes black. Mel has punched me. I stagger back, giddy and nauseated. I’ve never been punched in my life. It’s not as recoverable as it looks in movies. Of their own accord my legs continue to walk me backwards until something solid prevents me from moving any further. It must be the wall.
Before I see it coming, he hits me again. He hits me front-on this time. Follows it up with another. There must be a punching bag at the firm gym, and no amount of climbing real stairs could have prepared me for this. Blood gushes from my nose like a faucet. I feel it flowing down the back of my throat as well. Do a small, involuntary gag reaction, half-cough half-regurgitation. Feel it spray over my face.
It’s probably time to retaliate while I can still see. Even now things look a little lop-sided. I can barely believe this is happening. He’s only hit me three times and I already feel like dying. He doesn’t look like the normal Mel any more, although how much of this altered perception is my impaired vision is anyone’s guess.
Mel swings at me again. This time I duck sideways. I’m suddenly very aware there’s a chance I could end up like Jo. Another wave of nausea surges through me. But this time it’s followed by adrenaline.
I take a swing at his face. My judgement is poor, and my fist brushes the side of his cheek. If I don’t do something soon, I’m screwed.
Bracing myself against the wall, I tense my right leg, and as he moves forward, I swivel my left sideways and smash my foot into his right knee with every bit of strength I have, which courtesy of my religious stair climbing is substantial.
There is a gratifying popping sound. Mel comes to a slow halt right in front of me. He grabs my arms tightly. But it’s not an assault, it’s an automatic reaction to intense pain. The guy’s in agony. I shake loose of his grip and watch him fall to the floor. He lies there in my blood, writhing. Holding his knee and screaming.
I jump on top of him, ignoring his bad knee, and pin his shoulders back with my good knees like a wrestler. “You were going to let me take the fall for this, you prick.”
I’d like to sound clearer but my nose, which I think is broken, has me sounding like a queer.
Mel barely acknowledges me. He’s rather preoccupied with his knee.
I grab his hand, for reasons I can’t explain, and bite it. “You’re going down for this.”
Mel’s screaming stops. “I didn’t kill her,” he says, panting with pain. “Get me some ice for my knee and I’ll tell you what happened. It’s got really fucked up. But it’s not what you think.”
“Fucked up doesn’t begin to describe it,” I tell him. “But fortunately for you it’s a priority that Bakers’ name stays clear.”
“Ice,” whimpers Mel, his thoughts returning to his knee. He hasn’t registered his bitten hand yet.
He attempts to shoulder me off and a wave of pain washes over my face. More blood drips out of my nose. “If you go with the Lily’s version you get to keep the money,” I say persuasively. I force a jovial tone into my voice. “We can hardly tell JNL about everything and give the money back now, can we? So you’ll go away for murder. But you’ll be out in ten, actually more like five, with the money there waiting for you.”
Mel’s panting becomes ragged. He’s definitely heard me.
“If you say what you really did, you’ll get murder and embezzlement. You know how judges feel about white-collar crime. They’ll bury you. You won’t see daylight again. And you sure as hell won’t get to keep the money.”
“I didn’t do it.”
“Don’t you realize the opportunity I’m giving you here?” I yell, pain wearing away at my patience. I lean back and give his bad knee a slap. He screams.
“The opportunity to lose my wife,” he yells back, “is what you’re giving me.” Then his face goes slack and his eyes dull.
God almighty, what’s wrong with the man? He’s facing an eternal jail sentence and he’s worried about his marriage.
Suddenly Mel comes back to life again and I realize he was faking the resignation part. He prizes free a shoulder, belts me forwards with his good knee and head-butts me in the face.
I pass out.
When I come to Mel’s hands are closing in around my throat and I sense my return to consciousness may be brief. I pivot my free leg in the direction of his damaged knee, his weakest point, which isn’t that inventive I know, and once again jam the heel of my shoe in as hard as I can go.
Mel lets out a blood-curdling scream that can probably be heard by every resident at Kilbirnie Centre for the Deaf and closes in protectively around his knee like a fetus. Although things are hazy, I leap on him, or in his general direction, grab a large handful of hair and wrench his head off the floor.
I lean down. My mouth has never been this close to another man’s ear, but necessity dictates. “Think about it, think about it.” I sound like I’ve swallowed a cheese-grater. “Twenty mill will always be twenty mill. She’s only going to get older and less attractive.”
“She’s my wife,” says Mel again, although new threads of desperation are laced through his voice.
“She’s just one woman, for God’s sake. Think how many others there’ll be with twenty million in your bank account.”
“. . . not going to . . .”
“Let me make this easy for you.” I’m still speaking in a rasp. “I’ll tell her myself. Tara is going to know about bloody Lily’s, okay? So delete her from your equation.”
Then frustration takes over, at least that’s what I assume it is, and I bang his head back against the floor, and that feels good and I end up doing it again and again and again.
From somewhere in the depths of my fury I hear a door slam. There’s someone else in the room.
I adjust myself so I’m not bleeding all over the white fur rug we’re lying on.
“Jackson, get off him. What the hell’s going on?”
It’s Tara. And although my vision isn’t the best, I can see she’s furious.
“Get off my husband,” she says heatedly. “I’m calling the police.”
“Call them,” I say. “Go right ahead.”
I put my lips to Mel’s ear and whisper, “So help me God I’ll tell her right now.”
“Don’t call them,” mumbles Mel. He turns his head to the side and spits out phlegm and gore and what looks to be part of a tooth.
“Oh my God,” says Tara.
“Call them,” I say again. I bash his head against the floor and more blood sprays out, unfortunately over the rug. “Call them before I give your cheating prick of a husband permanent brain damage.”
Mel’s body suddenly goes limp and he makes a sickening gurgling sound. I shake him gently. He doesn’t respond. I put my hand over his mouth and feel breath on it, let go of him and start arranging him into the recovery position. Who’d have known that first-aid course would come in so handy?
“Tara, you need to call an ambulance,” I say. “Then, please, call the goddamn police.”
52
The mighty Bakers is collectively numb. Jo was largely unknown and those who knew her struggled to tolerate her. But Mel was an up-and-coming star and occupied the remarkable position of being liked by everyone. There is a disconcerting lack of productivity. No one here ever believed one of their own would be capable of this. And none of them know anything about the pay-off and the pre-negotiated undersell of an influential client.
As with the Park Rape Team escapades I walk among them, the only person with full knowledge.
The national partnership conference that, under different circumstances, would have catalyzed my forced resignation, has been cancelled.
Although Mel has been behind bars since Wednesday night nothing has yet been made public. But the press have been camped outside on the street since early morning. Bernadette has gone into round-the-clock damage control, trying to put a better spin on things. But even she is not privy to the information
dispelled in Friday evening’s meeting.
The meeting is held after hours behind closed doors. The room has no windows and no adjoining rooms. Two security guards stand at the lift entrance and if you are not me or on the Bakers’ management team you won’t even get a chance to exit.
With the exception of Finch everyone on the team seems to have taken extra care with their appearance today. We’re facing the largest scandal known to any law firm in the country. These people aren’t partners for nothing, however, and everyone offers up a cool unruffled front.
But the untouched dinner trolley tells another story. No one has any appetite. And the distinguished members of the Bakers management team are currently in need of a stronger beverage than coffee, tea or orange juice. I’m looking forward to seeing what becomes of the cool unruffled front when the real motive behind Jo’s murder is disclosed.
“The police are releasing nothing to the public,” says Anthony, whose upper-echelon contacts remain intact.
“It would interfere with their investigation,” says Giles Davis.
“What investigation? He confessed,” says Warwick Brand.
Then he does what everyone else wants to do and pours himself a straight vodka from the drinks trolley. Ryan Debrett quickly follows suit.
“He confessed,” repeats Warwick, in antagonistic tones.
“Shut up,” says Giles. “He did it and that’s that. It’s not what this meeting is about.” As a litigation partner he’s far more concerned with what I told Anthony and him this morning. Which was the whole story.
“We have a much larger problem to deal with,” says Giles. “The details of which don’t leave this room.”
“What details?” Warwick doesn’t hide his frustration. “And if it’s that confidential, no offense, but why is Jackson here?”
They all look at Giles who looks at me.
“Mel set up a deal with someone at Galaxy Investments to undersell JNL,” I say. “He made a huge commission out of it. Jo found out and was blackmailing him. That’s why he killed her.”
I don’t tell anyone about the $1.5 million or anything else from Jo’s bank statements. They’re going to have a hard-enough time buying my idea of allowing Mel to keep what he stole.
Every face around the table turns a shade whiter.
“Nonsense,” says Jude Zimmerman finally, his disbelief obvious.
“How do we know all this?” says Melanie. “How did we find out?”
“Jo used my phone to video an incriminating conversation between Mel and Galaxy. I only discovered it Friday night.”
“I’d like to see that right away.” Jude is normally polite but now he sounds loud-mouthed and aggressive. His dispute-resolution skills can only be stretched so far, and this final piece of news has discovered their limits.
“Not going to happen,” says Giles. “It’s been destroyed.” He gives Jude a look one usually reserves for amateurs.
Finch is furious. “Why did you have to go around and confront him? Why didn’t you call Anthony or me?”
Jude is too. “Why didn’t you call the police?”
“As if he could call the police,” snaps Ryan. “Like we want JNL knowing — if it’s true. It’s bloody lucky it wasn’t you who found it.”
“Of course they have to know, they’re—”
“That’s enough!” Anthony’s voice cuts through the dogfight. “We need to come to a decision.”
He says this as if there is a decision to be made but in reality it was already made by him and Giles earlier today and endorses my actions of Friday night. The meeting we’re in now is nothing more really than an announcement.
Ryan turns to Anthony. “This is why we have indemnity insurance,” he says. “JNL can be compensated. We’ll keep it confidential. How much did Mel make?”
“Twenty million,” I say.
“You’re fucking kidding me, right?” says Ryan.
“He has to pay it back. He can’t get away with that,” bawls Jude. Everyone else looks on in total disbelief.
“Twenty million,” says Ryan.
They sit there in silence digesting the news. Every partner at the table thinking hard about Mel getting rewarded for his transgressions to the tune of $20 million.
“He can’t get to keep it,” says Jude. “It’s indecent. We’re going to have to tell JNL.”
“It can’t come out,” says Giles, as if he’s speaking to a retard.
“We’d have them sign a confidentiality—”
“Don’t be naïve. No one honors those things. It would eventually get out.”
Melanie pours herself another vodka. This time she doesn’t bother with ice. “I don’t think we have an option, ethically,” she says. She’s probably the only one of those present who stayed awake during the ethics lectures at law school.
“You realize what would happen, right?” says Giles. “Everyone who’s anyone would close in on us like sharks. They’d steal our clients. They’d head-hunt our top people. It wouldn’t just be JNL we’d lose. We’d be dead.” He licks his lips, as if he is already tasting the blood of our wounded firm, floundering gamely as the other firms circle us.
Melanie opens her mouth then shuts it. I imagine she’s just thought about her twin sons who attend a private school and drive Mustangs. Or all the holidays her family have had in their Bali villa.
“There’s no option. It’s a disaster and it has to be contained,” says Anthony. “Personally, I don’t want to ever have to refer to it again.”
The management team look at one another around the table, varying internal struggles written across their faces. Finch is the most agitated person in the room.
“He would’ve made partner in a few years,” says Finch, staring directly at me, as if he and I are the only people in the room. “We need a better process for vetting partners.”
“How do we know Mel won’t say anything?” asks Melanie abruptly.
Anthony claps me on the shoulder, which hurts, but I don’t wince. “Jackson talked it through with him Friday night. He’s got twenty million reasons to be quiet.” He claps me on the arm this time, which hurts even more.
The management team sits in silence as, member by member, they resign themselves to the inevitable.
◆◆◆
I ride the lift back up to the twenty-eighth floor with Anthony. “Do you really think Mel did it?” he asks. He’s a clever man. I’m still asking myself that same question.
“I don’t care who did it,” I say. “It’s over now, for me. That’s all I care about.”
We ride in silence for a moment.
“You get that should I ever be asked to resign as a partner, what was just discussed in there will make front-page news,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Every one of you has just made the decision to cover up a major fraud. The whole management team is complicit.”
“Yes.”
“But not me. I’m not on the management team. I’m the only person who can safely disseminate that information.”
The lift has reached our floor and Anthony walks off to his office. He thinks our conversation is over. I follow him in, shut the door and half-sit on his desk.
“There’s something else no one is yet aware of,” I say quietly.
Anthony takes off his jacket, hangs it in his wardrobe and pours himself a Scotch. He turns his back to me and looks out the window, over the city lights.
“I know why Bakers employed Jo,” I say. “I know who pays for her daughter’s education, and I know what happened with your kid.”
Of course I’m bluffing. I’m basing this all on a little bit of evidence and a whole lot of deductions.
What I do know is that Anthony got Jo’s daughter into private school. A girl with no intelligence, nothing to offer and no fit for the school. And I’m guessing he financed the whole thing. And at the same time he got Jo a job at Bakers. Jo, a woman with no qualifications, no skill and no fit with the firm. And that all of this
took place at the same time Anthony’s eldest daughter was in a car accident and was subsequently yanked out of university and hidden in a private drug rehabilitation center. I also know that Jo was meant to be a witness in a trial that never made it court and is now sealed. Possibly because the defendant was a minor. I have a warm moment thinking about Ingrid and her superior investigative skills.
Anthony’s silhouette remains proud against the city lights. “What do you want?” he says.
“What I’ve always wanted. Your backing. This firm’s backing. I’m a bad person. I sometimes do bad things. From time to time I may need a little protection.”
We both say nothing for a moment. Anthony walks back to the drinks cabinet and pours me a Scotch. “Time we looked at making a harassment complaint against that cop who made your life a misery,” he says.
“You know, I was thinking that. He had a surveillance team on me.”
“Outrageous.”
53
It’s a bracing Saturday morning and Savannah cuts a mean streak down the hockey field, matching her opponent, lean and low. I’m standing beside her stepfather, Kenneth, watching.
My disguise is genius. A possum-fur hat pulled down over a wig of tightly curled, caramel-blonde hair. The lower half of my face is covered by a possum scarf that matches the hat. I’m wearing designer-style reading glasses over blue contact lenses. The left lens has been engineered to make my eye appear slightly irregular. Not freak-show material, but certainly noticeable. The kind of feature people remember.
Kenneth is snapping pictures of the game on his phone. Savannah’s sports bag is at his feet alongside a bag of oranges. He looks every bit a team supporter and dedicated stepfather. But I’ve seen his darker side. And although technically I’m okay with duplicity, comfortable with it even, the golden rule is not to get caught. And not to mess with someone else who has a darker side.
Some sweaty member from the opposing team with a badger face and sturdy legs scores a goal and Kenneth swears under his breath. “Defense,” he says, as if this concept has somehow eluded everyone else. He glances over at me, spots my defective eye and proceeds to ignore me.
