It was Darren Metcalf aka Kenneth Bates who’d set it all up, of course. Or rather, the true identities were the other way around. The man I’d known in Sydney as Metcalf was in fact born Bates into an establishment family in Melbourne. He was the very black sheep. He’d been sent off to Britain after some youthful indiscretions and resurfaced in Sydney as a louche low-life, exploiting the vulnerable. He’d gone back to Melbourne well-heeled after some successful drug deals, rehabilitated himself as Kenneth Bates in the eyes of the people who mattered and become a partner in MIA.
I got this information through Stuart Mackenzie, whose firm was going to represent Whitney at his trial. Mackenzie wasn’t a trial lawyer himself, but he’d briefed Cary Michaels QC, who was one of the best, and he also briefed me. We were in his office drinking excellent coffee-encouraging, but I was concerned about my standing. I couldn’t see that I’d failed anywhere, except in not telling Whitney or Mackenzie what I knew about Bates. Whitney wouldn’t have believed me and Mackenzie probably couldn’t have done anything about it. Still, for me, having the person you were supposed to be minding brought back from interstate under arrest wasn’t exactly my finest hour.
‘It was a brilliant scheme,’ Stuart said. ‘Bates and the others must’ve planned it in detail well in advance. They needed a patsy and they had one ready-made in Whitney. Would you say he was less than bright?’
I spread my hands noncommitally, not feeling that bright myself.
‘Anyway,’ Stuart went on. ‘They did everything Whitney said they did and more but they structured the arrangements and the paper trail so that it leads straight to him. The prosecution has him squirrelling away millions in accounts only he can touch.’
‘What about Whitney’s documentation and his approach to ASIC?’
‘Apparently that can all be made to look like tactics. The solid evidence says Whitney’s got the dough.’
I’d talked to Whitney while they were waiting to put him on a plane. We were both depressed. Everything I’d done-the exit from Melbourne, the confrontation at Violet Town, the supervision in Brisbane-could be construed as criminally damaging. ‘That’ll be a surprise to Tom,’ I said to Mackenzie. ‘He claims he’s close to broke.’
Mackenzie nodded. ‘He’ll have to sell his house to pay for his counsel and he won’t get all that much out of it. His wife’s going in strong.’
‘Bates again?’
‘Right. He got her ear and maybe other parts.’
‘Jesus, that poor bastard’s really been screwed. What can we do?’
Mackenzie shrugged. ‘Not much. MIA is being wound up. They’ve got some kind of insurance and most of the big losers’ll be compensated up to a point. Whitney goes down for the fraud. End of story.’
I couldn’t cop that. ‘Come on, Stu. We’ve got stuff on Bates that Michaels can use. He can construct an argument that Whitney was a fall guy. He can…’
Mackenzie shook his head. ‘Whitney’s going to plead guilty.’
‘What?’
‘That’s it. He’s going to cop it sweet. Michaels’ job will be to get him off with as light a sentence as possible.’
I sat back in my chair. ‘I can’t believe it.’
Mackenzie shrugged. ‘Don’t worry about it. It’s white collar crime. Speaking of which, you can collect your cheque at the desk. Oh, by the way, Whitney wants to see you again, asap.’
Whitney was temporarily on remand in Melbourne. Having been unable to provide sufficient sureties for bail and reporting his passport as lost, he’d been judged likely to flee the jurisdiction. I flew down there and arranged to see him, taking in a couple of books I thought he might be interested in, but not Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil — not quite the right tone.
The place was a big biscuit box near Spencer Street railway station. Modern, brightly painted, plenty of light and a minimum of restraint. Whitney shared a wing with about thirty other men and they had the run of a small inside recreation area and a yard where they could walk or sit in the sun, play handball or shoot hoops. I’d expected to find him downcast but he was quite the reverse. When I entered the wing he was engaged in a fierce ping-pong battle with another remandee which he won 21–19. He approached me with a smile on his face, wiping sweat away. For a minute I thought he was going to give me a high five.
‘Hello, Cliff. Good to see you.’
‘You too. Like it here, do you?’
‘Hardly, but it could be worse.’
I did my bad Bogart impression. ‘I hear you’re copping a plea.’
He nodded. ‘Come back to my room and I’ll tell you all about it.’
His room, shared with three others, was spartan-beds, chests of drawers, one desk, three chairs. We sat with our knees almost touching.
‘They fixed me up good and proper. My passport’s been nicked just for starters, but there’s no way a jury could understand my side of the whole thing.’
I shrugged. ‘If you say so. I’m in the same boat. You should’ve done it to them first. That’s if I believe you.’
‘Do you?’
‘Does it matter?’
‘Yes.’
I looked at him and thought back over what we’d been through. I should’ve seen that he had victim written all over him from the start. ‘How’s the family?’ I said.
That brought him down a notch but didn’t deflate him. ‘Good question. Ken Bates has got to Jasmine-that’s my wife. She’s bought the whole package. I can’t use the house as surety to post bail. I’ll get there some other way but I’m in here for a bit. It’s mostly the way he’s worked on Jasmine that’s got me to ask you down here.’
‘I don’t follow.’
He leaned closer and instead of cigars and whisky, the last smells I’d associated with him, I got sweat and sincerity. ‘I’m going to do three, maybe five years. Minimum security. I’ll be able to run that Brisbane business and make some money.’
‘Good for you.’
He shook his head. ‘No, you don’t get it. What I’ll really be doing is putting together deals that’ll expose Bates and the others and prove that they’re the worst kind of corporate crooks. It’ll take time but I’ll screw them to the wall. I’ll clear my name and get back my kids’ respect. I know I can do it, but I’ll need help. I’ll need you, Cliff. What d’you think?’
I thought about Bates/Metcalf and his slimy ways. The heavies he’d sent to stand over dumb kids whose only wish in life was to ride horses. His recommending me to Whitney had been a payback. ‘You’re on,’ I said.
‹‹Contents››
CHOP CHOP
You a smoker, Cliff?’ Spiro Gravas said.
‘Was. Gave it up years ago.’
‘Rollies?’
‘Yes, mostly.’
‘What d’you reckon about this chop chop?’
I shrugged. ‘If it’s cheap and smokes all right they’ll buy it.’
‘It’s illegal.’
‘So’re a lot of things-SP betting, underage drinking, doping horses…’
‘It takes away tax money from the government, our government.’
I looked at him. Spiro is Greek in every recognisable way-the colouring, the moustache, the shoulders. He breaks the mould by being a florist rather than a fruiterer. His shop is in King Street, Newtown, about half a kilometre up the way from where I now have an office. When the St Peters Lane building in Darlinghurst was renovated, we tenants got the push. The depressed part of King Street, heading towards St Peters, was the best I could afford. I bought flowers from Spiro to send to my daughter, Megan, on the opening night of the play she was in at the Opera House and we got to talking because he had a daughter who aspired to a career in the same uncertain business. I didn’t buy any more flowers, but I passed the shop on the way to the pub and the deli and we became friends.