by Andres Kabel
They stood in front of a photocopying whiteboard, half-covered with Peter’s scrawled notes on the theory developed by Kantor Keppel and Stan Friedman. Mick sat behind a table, arms crossed, almost as if he was following the discussion.
“What do you mean, aha?” Peter asked.
“I’ve done some work since you rang.” Carlo drew a large chart, referring to notes. “This is the All Ords index since the Scientific Money Quant Fund started.” He drew the trough at the start of 1995 and the continuous ascent since then. He then drew another line and labeled it “Quant Fund Performance.”
“What stands out?” Carlo asked.
“The Quant Fund has done bloody well,” Peter said.
“Too well. Notice that it’s never taken a large dive. Even at the worst point of the market it stayed almost level. Now, from what we know about Kantor’s theory, it’s based on broad economic factors and historic stock volatility, so whenever there are major shifts in the economy it should track them. In other words his theory doesn’t know enough about the detailed world to skip major market downturns.”
Peter’s fingers flitted. “You’re right, Carlo. The fund might do better than the All Ords on average, it might move more or less quickly, but over a longer period it should show the same general peaks and troughs. So what that means is…”
“Yes.” Carlo smiled, a shy upturn of his thin lips. “Manual intervention, Skull. Bet you.”
Peter stood back, stunned.
“So what?” Mick said. Peter had forgotten he was there.
“The whole point of the Quant Fund is that it’s a product of the formula, that it’s mechanical.” Carlo rubbed out his chart. “If there are any human decisions made, it might as well be all of them, because one decision can make or break five years’ worth of investment performance. In other words, if they knew, investors would be greatly upset.”
“But as you showed,” Mick said, “the performance has been great. Who the hell would care?”
Peter felt a savage thrill. Hadn’t he sensed something all along? “The regulator, for one thing. This would be major misrepresentation, maybe even fraud.”
“And investors would be uncertain about future performance,” Carlo said. “They trust Kantor’s formula, not the Scientific Money investment team.”
Peter and Carlo attacked the whiteboard again, Peter carving out symbols as he went through modern portfolio theory and Kantor Keppel’s take on it, Carlo parrying with his own observations.
While Carlo popped out to arrange coffee, Peter remembered to ring Imogen. She was in yet another foul mood.
“Oh, what’s the use?” she said. “You’re useless, all of you. Straw—come down now!” A pause. “What does that witch say about me?”
Peter was mystified. “Who?”
Imogen hung up.
Peter and Carlo kept working. At the end of a frenetic hour, Peter scratched his head in frustration.
“There’s just not enough information on Kantor’s theory to prove it one way or another,” he said.
“Let’s confront Rollo with it,” Mick said.
“It might not be Rollo,” Peter said. “In fact I’m sure it’s not.”
Mick snorted. “He’s got you ’round his fucking finger.”
“You think the rich are to blame for everything.”
“Next thing, he’ll be giving you a blow job.”
“Where did you get that concept from? Bella?”
Carlo had an odd smile on his face. “You two are partners?”
***
“Your friend,” Giuseppe Marino whispered in Peter’s ear. “Can he wait here?”
Cordoned off by velvet ropes, a large crowd milled around tables of coffee and biscuits outside the Hotel Sofitel Grand Ballroom. Peter could smell his friend’s tart aftershave. With his vivid black hair, five o’clock shadow, and brisk movements, Giuseppe looked anything but a tax bloodhound.
Peter signaled for Mick to stay put and headed down the floral-carpeted corridor with Giuseppe.
“First things first,” Giuseppe said, stopping next to the hedge of plants overlooking the noisy plaza. “My colleague in charge of Scientific Money’s tax audit won’t be quoted, capiche? His team has found nothing wrong with the company, but he said he wouldn’t be surprised to see skeletons in the closet. The management team is very smart and sly. That’s my friend’s word: sly.”
“Anything specific?”
“Afraid not, Skull.”
In a small meeting room, Peter shook hands with Helen Chen, a stern woman in her forties with black hair tied in a ponytail. She introduced herself as an APRA department head.
“I’m a private investigator,” he told her when they sat down.
“So Giuseppe said.” She clasped her hands together. “This can only be an informal meeting.”
“I’m looking into the death of Kantor Keppel.” Peter’s mind was racing so fast, he had to force himself to speak slowly. “It may have something to do with Scientific Money, although I can’t be sure yet. What I’d like to know is, how does the firm stack up in APRA’s eyes? Is it spotless? Or are there blemishes in their record that would help my understanding?”
“Mr. Gentle, I’m afraid I’m not much help.” Her eyes studied him, and he realized this meeting fascinated her. He could imagine her regaling colleagues about the private investigator. “Scientific Money has never infringed any of the applicable regulations.”
“What about behind the scenes? What do you really think about the company?”
“As I said, Scientific Money has complied with all applicable regulations.”
After all he’d gone through in the last three days… “Applicable regulations? Two of the company’s execs are murdered within a week, I’m helping the police solve this, and all you can do is spout the official record? Excuse me, but that’s bloody useless.”
She stood up, back straight. “I agreed to this meeting because Mr. Marino and I have been colleagues for many years. I didn’t come to be insulted. Mr. Gentle, if you know anything about Scientific Money which should be of concern to APRA, it’s your duty to divulge it.”
Peter sighed. He had nothing. If he laid out what two actuaries postulated, based on some old papers of Kantor Keppel and a rough chart on a whiteboard, she would think him mad.
“No, not yet,” he said. “But I will find out the truth.”
“In that case, it’s been a pleasure to meet you.” Helen Chen swept out.
Giuseppe pulled a long face.
Peter yawned, suddenly swept by exhaustion. “Sorry.”
“Hey, no problem, my friend.” Giuseppe placed his hands on Peter’s shoulders. “Skull, are you serious, I mean, working with that Neanderthal outside?”
***
If Peter could have bottled and sold his nervousness at that moment, he’d have been a rich man.
“You know, I’ve never met a writer before,” he said, draining his wine glass.
“Would-be writer,” Mandy said.
Peter couldn’t believe she was finally sitting opposite him, staring so intently over her glass. He watched her long, bony fingers play with the chopsticks.
His senses were flooded. Flooded by Mandy, by the aromas of garlic and jasmine tea, by the surrounding cacophony. He rubbed his chopsticks together and gazed at the waiters weaving through a maze of closely packed tables, overflowing with animated people, Asians and Westerners in equal numbers. Dumpling King had built up its reputation the hard way, through years of low profile persistence. The front door and walls were papered with rave reviews, not for high-priced gourmet food, but for tasty meals at modest prices. Peter loved the spicy Sichuan cuisine and the dumplings, a dozen varieties of glorious steamed and fried dumplings using recipes from all over China.
“Writing must be so interesting,” he said.
“Interesting, interesting. That’s what everyone says. And, when can we read your book? As if publication is a foregone thing. Especially businessmen, they wri
te memos, so they assume they could switch to other writing just like that.”
“That’s exactly what I thought.” Peter smiled to show he was joking.
But Mandy wasn’t about to smile, hadn’t smiled since he’d picked her up at Merrill Lynch. The taxi ride, Mick in the front with the driver, Peter and Mandy in the back, had been awkward. If Mick hadn’t started a conversation about movies, it would have been disastrous.
“In fact it’s hard, bloody hard,” she said. “I did a half-day adult education seminar with Max Polkovsky last Sunday, you know him? We had to read our pieces out loud. I was terrified.”
“How do you fit it all in?”
“What—a job, raise a kid, study, and write? Lots of people do it. Not everyone adopts the Merrill Lynch model, husband always on shift, faithful wife holding the fort in the mortgaged mansion. But it does feel tough sometimes. I only start writing or studying once Elle is in bed, nine o’clock or so.”
She was in full flight, waving her hands. Peter saw her breasts shift under her blouse. An erection sprang up.
“Sometimes I think, why not settle down, remarry. But then I remember how lucky I am. Five years ago I was in the country, marriage a living hell, hardly ever saw a movie, let alone imagined writing.”
“How old is your daughter?” Peter asked.
“Eleven. I’ve also got a son, but he’s with his father.”
She’d left her husband in Ballarat, that much Peter knew from Harvey.
“He must be young.”
“Why do you say that?”
He twisted his hands together. “You’re too young for kids.”
“My God, you’re a romantic, Peter. No, I’m three years older than you.”
How did Mandy know his age? He wished he could force himself to gaze into her searching eyes more often. And her hair… she had this way of twirling the ends in her fingers when distracted that made him want to reach over.
“Sometimes I can’t believe it myself,” she said. “Christian will turn nineteen soon. Us country girls tend to marry young.”
“That must be tough, being separated from him. Didn’t you gain custody from the divorce?”
“I’m not divorced. Yet. Hopefully the papers will come through soon. And Christian? Yes, I miss him. But we haven’t got on over the last few years.”
“I…”
“Shit happens, Peter.” She scowled and tossed her hair. “Marriage is the pits. What about you? Never thought of tying the knot?”
What could he say? That he liked women, but shyness was his curse if he got keen on someone? That anyone he fancied turned out to be completely different to what he imagined? That the one time… he couldn’t even bear to think about that.
“I agree,” he said. “Marriage is an overrated institution.”
Piled bamboo baskets, hot to the touch, arrived full of succulent dumplings. The first one seared his lips. Wolfing them down, he noticed that Mandy only nibbled.
“Not hungry?”
“I’m a light eater.” She talked about her exercise program, regular gym sessions, long walks. “You should exercise, I think it would help to reduce the stress.”
What stress? Did he look stressed out?
“I don’t believe in exercise,” Peter said. “All that mumbo jumbo, it’s just zealots and marketers peddling dangerous ideas. The body doesn’t like all that strained puffing.”
It was the wrong thing to say. Fine for a boozy Skulk Club meeting but simply wrong tonight. He saw amusement in her eyes.
“But I like walking,” he lied, trying to recover ground. “Maybe we can go for a walk together some day.”
She smiled—at last—that smile that opened up her eyes. A flame bloomed in his chest.
He found out that she read books, though her tastes were more literary than his. They joked about Harvey’s idiosyncratic style at Merrill Lynch. Peter admired the way she spoke about her work with grave affection.
The main courses arrived: smoked duck, spicy pork and tofu, shiny Chinese greens, and steaming rice in a plastic tub.
“How is the case going?” she asked.
His least favorite question. “Not well, that’s the honest assessment. Mick and I have done so much good work, yet I can’t see an elegant solution. It’s so complex, Mandy, unbelievably complex.”
He hunched forward and breathlessly recapped the events of the last few days. Everything, every last detail, poured from him.
“Should you be telling me all this?” she said after some time. “You hardly know me.”
He grinned madly. “Hey, I can trust you.”
“Harvey just can’t understand why you’ve gone into this detective business. Yet you make it sound so interesting.”
Peter dabbed his forehead with a napkin. The chili really kicked. “Yes, well, it is. Interesting. The intellectual content is surprisingly high. But I’m struggling with the operational side of it.”
His thoughts drifted. Carlo’s stargazing look came back to him. He was sure his friend was correct—someone at Scientific Money was cheating, augmenting Kantor’s secret formula with human judgment. He shook his head. How could that have led to murder? Had Kantor threatened to tell the world about it? Why would he have? His mind began to go over the permutations of the case yet again.
“Peter?”
“Sorry.” His chopsticks held a piece of bok choy. How long had it been suspended there? “This case…”
“Actually, I need to go,” she said.
Shit, he thought, she hasn’t enjoyed herself. I should have listened more, prattled on less.
Maybe she read his expression. “I’d love to stay. This is a great place. But I’m exhausted.”
He felt wild desperation. Only once, all night, had she smiled that smile.
“I’ll ask Francis to order you a taxi,” he said, nearly knocking over the table as he jumped up. Too much wine—his head swam.
While they waited for the cab, they watched a team of waiters frantically whip the tablecloth off a round table as new customers looked on. The conversation turned to travel. Mandy was saving to take Elle to Europe. Her eyes sparkled when she spoke about her preparatory reading on Paris, Berlin, London.
“Travel’s okay,” Peter said. “But I can’t understand why all my friends are obsessed by it. What’s wrong with Melbourne?”
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong with it.” Mandy’s eyes flashed. “Why are Melburnians such big travelers? Because Melbourne is the arse end of the universe. Everyone’s so parochial.”
I don’t know about that, Peter wanted to say. But Francis was signaling.
Outside, they stood under the lights, the street alive with people, looking up at the clear black sky. The cool air prickled Peter’s sweaty scalp. He longed to hold her, to kiss her.
“Fitzgibbon?” called a taxi driver.
Mandy swung her handbag over her shoulder and startled Peter by grabbing an elbow to draw him close. Her perfume, something summery, turned his thighs to rubber.
“Thanks, Peter. Lovely night.”
“Tomorrow?” he stammered.
She hesitated. He tried to read her look, failed miserably.
“Why not?”
And then she was in the taxi, and it was leaving, and he waved and kept waving till its rear lights had long gone. He kicked a lamppost next to an isolated palm tree.
That was when he noticed Mick, standing motionless farther down Station Street.
“How was it?” Mick fell in beside Peter’s savage stride.
“Have you been a statue for two hours?”
“No. I actually popped in to chat with your dad.”
“You’re joking. What about?”
“Ah, copper nostalgia. Your mum even fed me.”
“Jesus, sorry about that.”
“Better than my memory of my mum’s cooking.”
They turned into the street of Peter’s childhood, the very street he had been ambushed in just two days ago. He looked down th
e familiar footpath, the pools of yellow under the streetlights, the dark cars on the curbs, the bushes overflowing onto the footpath, and he shuddered. As if in warning, his broken finger began to throb. He couldn’t help it, his mind fantasized a lean figure, nose sharp as a stiletto, reaching out for him from behind a lamppost, and his teeth chattered.
“It’s clear,” Mick said. “How was the date?”
Peter plodded into the middle of the street and strode homeward.
CHAPTER 31
Bella Keppel’s handshake was strong and hot. Nothing like Mandy’s touch… Peter shied away from the thought.
“Nice to meet you,” he said.
Bella’s upper lip curled. “The pleasure’s mine.”
Her voice mail on his mobile last night had been tantalizing, just a snarl: “Tell the wrestler to meet me on the riverbank at nine.”
Mick acknowledged Bella with a curt nod. He wore jeans, a plaid shirt, and brown boots. A light jacket hung over a shoulder. With his sunglasses on, his face looked like marble in the early morning sun.
Peter knew it was unprofessional to gawk, but how could he not? His brief glimpse yesterday had only hinted at Bella’s beauty. Her fragile face captivated him. She wore skimpy shorts, showcasing slender legs down to trainers and ankle socks. A black and red tracksuit top was partly unzipped to show a black training top. Shiny black hair was pinned back with a gold clasp.
Wan sunlight bathed the banks of the Yarra, although scudding gray smudges of cloud promised rain. Acrid smoke rose from the chimney of a moored cruise boat. The Southbank cafes were full of couples, young and old, reading bulky Saturday morning newspapers. Dismounting cyclists, a riot of color, puffed.
Peter scratched his hair. There was so much on the go today, he could hardly contain himself. Bella, Marcia Brindle, Mandy… even stiffening bruises and heated words from his parents last night couldn’t dampen anticipation of the meetings. Mick, too, had been in a fine mood on the drive in, pointing to a photo in The Age of Rollo and Bella, radiant last night, attending an arts award sponsored by Scientific Money. The All Ords was down again, a drop of 4% over the week… Peter wondered how Scientific Money had fared. Apparently Mick the fitness freak had been up for hours, running and playing with his children.
