Maybe the Horse Will Talk

by Elliot Perlman

  ‘We thought he’d file his banking file under “banking”.’

  ‘Yeah, when we couldn’t find it we just assumed you hadn’t got it.’

  ‘No, I’m pretty sure I got it. I do remember he had some really annoying, masturbatory, juvenile, self-referential name for his banking file. Most self-respecting people would have been ashamed to let another person know the name but . . . Let me have a look.’ Carla came over to Betga’s laptop and started scrolling through the names of Mike Mercer’s files, files she had copied before she left the employ of Torrent Industries. ‘Yeah, there it is, “MercyMikeMike’s swag”. Such an arsehole!’

  Betga took Carla’s cheeks in his hands, kissed her, and began combing through the folder labelled ‘MercyMikeMike’s swag’ to see Mike Mercer’s banking history.

  ‘You’re right! This is the bastard’s banking file, seems to be all his statements, everything.’ He went all the way to the beginning and began reading just as Maserov called for his and Carla’s attention.

  ‘Hey, listen to this. There’s a chain of emails between Mike Mercer and Frank Cardigan that sounds suspicious as all hell.’

  Maserov read the email chain aloud. ‘This is Cardigan: “You’re right, $500 million worth of steel doesn’t just disappear. It becomes worth a little bit more so it’s not $500 mill of steel anymore.” Then he’s got a smiley face. Then Mike Mercer writes, “Where is it?” Cardigan replies, “It’s been sold.” Mercer asks, “For how much? To whom?” Cardigan writes, “Nothing outrageous. To the Iraqis. Don’t worry. It’s not missing, it’s sold. You’ll get your taste.” Mercer replies, “Well don’t fuck with me. I want the same percentage I get from your TOI deals.”’

  ‘What’s TOI?’ Betga asked.

  ‘That’s probably Torrent Offshore Industries,’ said Carla.

  ‘What’s Torrent Offshore Industries?’ Betga asked again.

  ‘Don’t know yet but I’ll keep looking,’ said Maserov, continuing to read.

  ‘Torrent Offshore Industries,’ said Carla, matter-of-factly, ‘is a marketing company. It’s the company Mercer and Cardigan use to market to places like Iraq.’

  ‘But neither of those guys are either authorised or required to do any marketing,’ Betga quizzed her.

  ‘No,’ said Maserov slowly, slower than any penny could ever drop. ‘But they might well be authorised to engage in bribery!’

  ‘This, I think,’ said Betga, ‘is a eureka moment. You really think Torrent Offshore Industries might be the vehicle they used to bribe the Iraqis? That’s very clever, Maserov . . . if you’re right.’

  ‘Why are we even doing this?’ Maserov asked in exhaustion. ‘If Malcolm Torrent knows and even authorised and funded the bribery to win the tender, what do we gain by showing him that I know they’ve been bribing people? On the contrary, he seems to pay people for not telling him things. He’s willing to pay top dollar for plausible deniability.’

  ‘Maserov, you’re tired and overwrought. We’re looking for information that Malcolm Torrent would want to know. Find this and you buy yourself even more time. Do it long enough and it’s called a career. You need to go and see him again and give him some information that he didn’t have but wants to have. Be brave. And yea, though you walk through the valley of the shadows of Collins Street, you’ll fear no evil.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Because I’ll be right with you, perhaps a little behind.’

  ‘He’ll be right there on your coat-tails, Stephen,’ Carla explained.

  ‘Hang on a second,’ said Maserov, ignoring Betga. ‘Carla, isn’t Frank Cardigan senior to Mike Mercer?’

  ‘Yes, Frank Cardigan is his boss, his manager, at least technically,’ said Carla. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Because Mercer is pretty casual, almost rude to Cardigan. Even in totally banal emails he’s pretty dismissive of him, the tone leaps out at you off the emails.’

  ‘Yeah, that would be right. He thinks Cardigan’s an idiot.’

  ‘Yes, maybe but . . .’ said Betga, thinking. ‘This is hardly uncommon. Most people think their manager is an idiot. The contempt in which you hold them is what allows you to continue working for them day after day. Do it long enough and you might just get to be someone else’s manager and have them bottle up their contempt for you. It’s all part of the life cycle of an employee. But most people don’t make their contempt as obvious as Mercer does. You’re right, Maserov, it does drip off his emails.’

  ‘What can I say?’ said Carla. ‘His arrogance knows no bounds. It’s like a wave that washes over all he sees, including Frank Cardigan.’

  ‘Yet they seem to do an awful lot of work together,’ said Maserov, thinking aloud.

  ‘Well, you know what they say,’ said Betga. ‘“Proximity to your manager breeds contempt.” You heard that? It doesn’t have the same fluency as, say, “absence makes the heart grow fonder” but it’s actually more statistically reliable. Kasimir says a lot of his associates report that absence is directly responsible for the end of romance, even when it’s an absence enforced by the state and so beyond the control of the absent loved one.’

  Maserov looked up at his fellow lawyer with bewilderment. ‘This is futile,’ he lamented.

  ‘No, well, possibly, but it’s much too early for you to know that with confidence. I’ve had a thought, a new one, one that you haven’t yet had. We’re not getting the full story. We need to go back to his bank statements.’

  VII

  Within half an hour Betga had been proved right. An interesting pattern had emerged as far as Maserov could see. ‘Mike Mercer seems to email Frank Cardigan whenever he feels he’s owed money by Torrent Offshore Industries for “marketing services”. It’s not even a proper invoice. But it seems to work. Within twenty-four hours of asking Frank Cardigan for money allegedly owed by Torrent Offshore Industries for unspecified, un-itemised “marketing services”, the money comes without fail and to the dollar. They’re often substantial amounts, too. But they always come directly from Frank Cardigan’s personal account.’

  ‘Why,’ Maserov asked, both out loud to Betga and rhetorically of himself, ‘is Mike Mercer using Frank Cardigan as his personal banker —’

  ‘Not his banker, his personal ATM,’ Betga corrected.

  ‘Okay, why is Mike Mercer using Frank Cardigan as his personal ATM, ostensibly for a “marketing service” he’s performed for Torrent Offshore Industries, and expecting to be paid at the drop of a hat —’

  ‘And getting paid in full by Frank Cardigan before the hat has dropped?’ Betga interjected. ‘He doesn’t hide his contempt for Cardigan yet Cardigan always pays promptly.’

  ‘Maybe they’re the only two who know about the bribery, other than Malcolm Torrent himself?’

  ‘Maybe they’re skimming some of that bribery money off the top?’ Betga suggested.

  ‘Really? Do you really think they’d try something like that?’ Carla asked, flabbergasted.

  ‘He tried to rape you. This is a smaller leap of the imagination.’

  ‘Yeah, I guess so,’ she agreed.

  ‘No, no, no!’ said Maserov excitedly. ‘Try this on for size. Frank Cardigan was skimming money off the top. His lieutenant, Mike Mercer, found this out and is blackmailing him. The size of the payments, the speed of the payments, the lack of proper accounting procedures, proper invoices and the undisguised contempt for his superior; there’s your evidence. Malcolm Torrent knows and tacitly approves of the bribing of Iraqi government officials but he doesn’t know that Cardigan has been stealing from TOI, the company set up to administer the bribes. Mercer found that out and is blackmailing him. Remember the theft of the steel by Cardigan? Mercer found out and was paid to keep quiet.’

  Betga got up off the couch and kissed Maserov’s forehead. ‘Maserov,’ he said, ‘you’re like a baby caterpillar that has burst through his cocoon to become an incredibly beautiful, translucent-winged commercial lawyer. The only thing that would make your theory better
is me having thought of it.’

  ‘How do we prove it?’ Carla asked.

  ‘Yes, how do we prove it? You know,’ speculated Betga, ‘there are often email conversations between Mike Mercer and Frank Cardigan that are incomplete for some reason. We’d know more if we also had all of Frank Cardigan’s documents.’

  ‘Well, we don’t. We’re lucky Carla was able to get these. We should just keep looking but maybe not tonight.’

  ‘Yes, we should just keep looking but . . . What if we also got hold of all Frank Cardigan’s documents? Do you think Jessica would be willing and able to download them?’

  ‘You have got to be kidding?’

  Maserov protested to protect Jessica from even the possibility of getting caught downloading Frank Cardigan’s documents but Betga said he was merely planning to ask her. She should and would, he assured Maserov, feel perfectly comfortable saying ‘no’. They all agreed to call it a night. Maserov left before he’d had a chance to see whether Carla was inviting Betga to stay the night but not before Carla had noticed Maserov’s instinct to protect Jessica.

  The next day Jessica told Betga that she did feel comfortable saying ‘no’ but that she wanted instead to say ‘yes’. Maserov tried to talk her out of it on the grounds that it was dangerous, illegal and speculative. But she said it was so easily achieved that it was worth an attempt. She knew when Cardigan left his office for lunch and when he left to go home at the end of the day, because it was when she had suggested he go home. He left at four o’clock each day in order to test his idiosyncrasy credit. She had often been seen in his office working with him or dropping off her draft of the newsletter column he put his name to so, unless anyone actively saw her at his computer with a USB, she had an alibi for loitering and nobody would give it a second thought.

  When she went to his office at lunchtime the next day most of his colleagues were out. His computer was on and she simply visited Dropbox. He always stored his passwords in Google Chrome so she breezed through the login then sat down at his desk and began to try to download everything he had onto the USB she’d brought along for the purpose. But he had so much data to download, Jessica began to worry that she wasn’t going to have enough memory on her USB, so she started to curate what she was downloading, nothing with graphics or video. ‘Oh well, there goes his collection of digitally remastered seventies porn,’ she said to herself, sitting at his desk, and just as she said it her mobile phone rang in her jacket pocket. She took out the phone and saw that it was him, Frank Cardigan, calling her.

  ‘Frank!’ she said, trying to hide her nerves. ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m at work. Why?’

  ‘Where exactly? You haven’t left for the day yet, have you?’

  ‘No, don’t worry Jessie, I’m keeping it scientific, not leaving till four, just like you said. I’ve just stepped out to lunch. But that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.’

  ‘What, lunch?’ she said, trying to hide her terror.

  ‘No, but . . . Hey, do you want to have lunch?’

  ‘I can’t, sorry. Didn’t mean to steer the conversation away from . . .’ Jessica looked at the computer. There was still quite a bit left to download. ‘Sorry Frank, didn’t mean to steal the . . . steer the conversation away from . . .’

  Now the rate of download seemed to have slowed. For the first time ever she began to contemplate what it would mean if she got caught. She’d have absolutely no defence, not one that was coming to her as she sat in Frank Cardigan’s chair. Was this a criminal offence? It was feeling like one.

  ‘Sorry Frank, what were you calling for?’

  ‘Well, it’s this “leaving” thing, you know, leaving early, the idiosyncrasy credit test?’

  ‘Yes? What about it?’

  ‘Well, people in the department have, I think, been leaving earlier since I started doing it, don’t you think?’

  ‘Yes, that’s been my observation too. That’s a good sign. It suggests they think of you as a leader.’

  ‘Hmmm, see, that’s what I was wanting to talk to you about. There seems to have been a marked drop-off in productivity in the department since I started doing it.’

  ‘Frank, it’s funny you called. You’ll never guess where I am.’

  ‘Where are you?’

  ‘I’m in your department. I came in connection with the idiosyncrasy credit test, to see how many of the guys were already not here. A lot of them aren’t here at exactly the same time as you’re not here. This looks good for you.’

  ‘Well, yeah, but it is lunchtime.’

  ‘Frank, don’t be so modest . . . Frank, I’m having trouble hearing you. Email me. Hanging up, hang-ing . . . up . . . now.’ And with that she used her index finger to end the call. By then she had downloaded all she had come for and she withdrew the USB stick and put it in her jacket pocket beside her phone.

  Maserov was amazed but Betga said, ‘None of these guys in construction take IT security seriously. This is a salient lesson for them. Or it would be if they knew about it.’

  ‘It’s stunning,’ said Maserov, ‘that they could be so stupid, not about their plan per se, but stupid enough to leave a virtual paper trail, an email trail that could convict them both in about thirty minutes.’

  Jessica and Betga nodded. Carla was the only one who didn’t find this hard to understand. ‘No, it’s not really so amazing. Not really. Look, I don’t know Frank Cardigan very well but, unfortunately, I do know Mike Mercer. He’s an entitled piece of shit and the most arrogant man I’ve ever met. Went to all the right schools, joined all the right clubs and just takes anything he wants, always has.’

  ‘Well,’ said Jessica, ‘Frank’s thick as a concrete slab in a new Iraqi bridge and presents with a Jekyll and Hyde belief in himself as a leader of men who also fights not to see himself as the dumb unpopular rich kid everyone makes fun of.’

  ‘See,’ said Carla, ‘if you give power to two men like that, give them access to huge sums of money so they can bribe people, at their discretion, and if they keep winning plaudits from their boss, who is the boss of everything, suddenly their brazen stupidity in terms of emails and IT security doesn’t look so unlikely. It’s almost predictable, don’t you think?’

  Both Maserov and Betga had been right. Maserov was right to speculate that Frank Cardigan was almost certainly the one, or one of very few people, responsible for bribing foreign governments and companies to ensure Torrent Industries’ tender bids were successful. More importantly, as far as buying time from Malcolm Torrent was concerned, Cardigan was stealing from the funds allocated for doing this. Betga, in turn, was right that Frank Cardigan’s files and Mike Mercer’s files, especially when read together, pretty much proved it. Best of all, it appeared almost certain that Mike Mercer had twigged some time ago that Frank Cardigan was creaming a sizeable dairy-farm’s worth off the top and was using the information to blackmail Cardigan. It was a good old-fashioned shakedown, classically elegant in its simplicity. Mike Mercer was extorting Frank Cardigan, knowing that Cardigan couldn’t stop him without the risk of revealing his own crime.

  ‘You’ve done it again! Brilliant!’ said Carla to Jessica, who was now having trouble hiding her feeling of triumph.

  ‘I can get some champagne if you think it’s called for,’ Jessica volunteered.

  ‘When is it not called for?’ asked Carla. ‘This is going to stitch up Mike Mercer like I never dreamed of.’ This was met with silence. ‘Isn’t it?’

  ‘Well, maybe. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,’ warned Betga.

  ‘How could this possibly not fuck Mercer right up?’ Carla asked.

  ‘No, I think Betga’s actually right to be cautious,’ Maserov confirmed, ‘Yes, Torrent will likely want both of them killed for what they’ve done but he’s got a problem. If he, or anyone else, goes to the Feds with this it’s going to be obvious very quickly that Torrent Industries has been bribing people left, right and centre. That’s illegal. Even if he’s able to p
lausibly claim he didn’t know anything about the bribery, which, frankly, seems kind of doubtful, the share price will take a beating while Mercer and Cardigan are prosecuted and perhaps even longer while the company cleans house. It won’t be able to do this overnight. Torrent Industries would be mud for quite a while no matter how well its core business had been doing. The board would almost certainly be thrown out. It will be a nightmare for him, a lot worse than having these bastards steal from him.’

  ‘Are you saying he’d just let them get away with it?’ Jessica asked.

  ‘No, I can’t possibly imagine that he’d let them get away with it. But he needs to find a way of punishing them that doesn’t hurt him,’ said Maserov.

  ‘And that’s where we come in!’ said A.A. Betga, standing tall and clapping his hands in triumph just once before realising that this could wake his daughter.

  part eight

  I

  Stephen Maserov knew there were certain things he wouldn’t do that A.A. Betga would. But he didn’t know what those things were. Time and Betga were about to tell. The first thing Betga did after that evening was ask Jessica if she could get Mike Mercer’s home address, which she did within twenty-four hours, but only once he had assured her that he would not approach him or do anything remotely violent.

  Although Carla was still not allowing Betga to come back to live with her and Marietta, she was now letting him stay overnight to sleep, and only to sleep, beside her. She welcomed the warmth and strength of his arms when he hugged her after her sleep had been broken by the violence of the nightmares that came in horrific variations of the same form several times a week.

  And so she trusted him implicitly one morning as they drove out to a quiet street in the leafy suburb of Mont Albert where another woman, not known to either of them, had woken with a presentiment of foreboding. In the house beneath the red oak everyone admired for its robust health and spreading canopy, the attractive woman, in her early forties, whose husband had already left for work, awoke to read emails on her phone telling her variously that no matter how high their premiums, their private health insurer wasn’t going to cover their daughter’s speech pathology, that her new Cayenne E-Hybrid still hadn’t arrived, that her son’s antisocial behaviour had again attracted the attention of the vice-principal, and that a woman who had comprehensively out-campaigned her in the race for school council president was inviting her to join ‘a few of the other mums’ for a celebratory drink in South Yarra. Her husband had pushed her to nominate. He was always pushing her; pushing her to do better, dress better, lose a little around the hips and sometimes he pushed her up against the wall or down onto the floor.