A Woman of Courage (51 page)

She phoned Channel 12 again, this time to speak to Aaron, an old friend on the financial desk, and Aaron told her what she already knew, that Haskins Gould was one of the biggest crooks in the corporate world.

‘Sell his mother for a quid if there were takers,' he told her. ‘Not that there would be.'

‘Why's that?'

‘She gave birth to him, didn't she?'

Which said it all, Sara thought, but didn't help.

‘I'll tell you what you should do,' Aaron said. ‘Make some enquiries in Switzerland.'

‘But how? Swiss banks never give details of their clients' affairs, do they?'

‘Speak to Günter Flüry at the Bernese Land Bank,' Aaron said.

‘I've never heard of him. Anyway, why should he help me? He doesn't know me from a bar of soap.'

‘But he knows me. And he hates Haskins Gould like poison.'

‘May I mention your name?'

‘He won't tell you anything if you don't. He may not, anyway. I can't guarantee anything. But if he's sticky, ask him to give me a bell.'

‘I owe you one,' Sara said.

‘How do you plan to settle the debt?'

Aaron had always liked her. She laughed. ‘Let's find out what he has to tell me first, OK?'

7

Whichever way you looked at it, Haskins thought, it was a problem he didn't need.

Maybe he'd seen Sara Brand off, maybe not, but either way he couldn't afford to let the Stock Exchange boys get on his case. They'd come close to catching him several times in the past; nifty footwork had saved him but he was older now and neither his footwork nor his nerves were what they'd been once, when the market had been a casino and those upon whom fate smiled had made fortunes. He'd been one of the lucky ones; he still had millions in Switzerland that no one knew about. Where else would he find the funds to go after Brand? But this was his last big play; with age his appetite for the razzmatazz of the markets had dulled. He still wanted this final coup, though. What an exit that would be, to have the scalp of the Brand Corporation hanging from his belt! That would give him crowing rights loud enough to give Hilary indigestion even in the afterlife. Let's hope it chokes her, he thought.

But he'd have to move; now the bitch's daughter was in the know he couldn't hang about. He must grab all the stock he could; once he had the company the regulators could scream all they liked but it would be too late.

Time to throw caution to the winds.

8

It took a while, first phoning Günter Flüry in Switzerland, then waiting while he phoned Aaron in Sydney, then having to phone him again, but at last she got the information she needed.

‘People will want to know where you got it from,' Günter said.

Sara looked at the notes she had made during their conversation. ‘I have no information. I don't know what you're talking about.'

‘And if the police ask?'

‘I shall say it has nothing to do with me and I know nothing about it.'

‘Good. Please be sure to keep it that way.'

By then it was nearly eleven o'clock and everyone else had long gone home. No matter, she thought, I shall speak to Vivienne in the morning. And say what?

It gave her time, both in bed and over breakfast the next day, to think where she was heading. Was Vivienne up to the challenge of taking Brand Corporation past Hilary's legacy and into the future? She sat and thought carefully about that. No, she thought. She isn't. It's not in her. Very well. Mind made up, she picked up the phone.

‘Vivienne? It's Sara. I'll be in the office in an hour. I'd like to see you, if you're free.'

9

The discussion was amicable and brief. Vivienne would retain the title of CEO for the next six months but at the AGM would announce she was stepping down for health reasons. Sara would replace her officially at that time but Vivienne would retain her place on the board in an advisory capacity.

‘Wouldn't you sooner I quit altogether?' Vivienne said. ‘I'd be happy to step down tomorrow if you'd prefer.'

‘I'd much sooner you stayed on,' Sara said. ‘Your experience and advice will be invaluable. In fact I am not sure I could manage without you.'

Vivienne felt a ton weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She hadn't been so happy for months and it made her magnanimous. ‘I shall be happy to help in any way I can,' she said. A thought occurred to her. ‘Do you really think you've worked out a way to fend off Haskins Gould?'

‘I think I have,' Sara said.

Back in her own office Sara phoned Aaron at Channel 12 and fifteen minutes later walked into his office.

‘The other day you asked me how I planned to settle my debt to you.'

A hopeful look momentarily brightened Aaron's face. ‘A dinner?' he suggested. ‘A secret rendezvous afterwards?'

‘Alas,' Sara said.

‘You can't blame me for trying,' Aaron said.

‘I would be disappointed if you didn't.'

Sara took two sheets of A4 paper out of her briefcase. The sheets contained a typed list of transactions: their nature, dates and the amounts. All the amounts were large; some were huge.

Aaron looked at the list, frowning, and then at Sara. ‘What is this?'

‘A record of Mr Gould's financial dealings in Switzerland over the last twelve months.'

‘My God.' It might have been a prayer of thanksgiving, the way Aaron spoke.

‘You think the ATO might be interested in this?' Sara said.

‘Would they ever.'

‘Let's be quite clear about this,' Sara said. ‘You never reveal your source.'

‘Indeed. And if you are asked any questions?'

‘I shall say it is nothing to do with me and I know nothing about any of it.'

‘Bully!' Aaron said.

‘If I may suggest: perhaps both the television and the print media?'

‘Consider it done,' Aaron said.

FLIGHT

‘Shit and derision!' screamed Haskins Gould. His fist pounded the surface of his desk as he stared with outraged eyes at the headlines of the newspaper spread in front of him. ‘I do not believe it. I do not fucking well believe it!'

He knew he had a name for being a foul-mouthed screamer. So he was. No doubt there were some who didn't like it. Well, they could lump it. His power in this city had meant he didn't have to give a damn what other people thought; he never had. It was one of his many strengths, along with a nose that could sniff trouble a mile off.

He had not sniffed this.

He couldn't sit still. He gathered himself, rose from his executive leather chair – hand-crafted in Germany to suit his bulk– and turned to the window behind his desk. His sausage-sized fingers clenched and unclenched as he stared out at Sydney. Circular Quay and the harbour with the Manly ferry carving its wake across the blue water; the frigging Opera House: not that he would be seen dead in there; the million-dollar view of the city sprawling thirty floors below him. He had been a major player in this city for twenty years, off and on. The city? Say Australia, rather. Say the world. He still was and was determined to remain so. This – whatever the sodding
Monitor
might say – was a hiccup, no more than that. All the same, some drastic action was needed, and at once.

He took a deep breath, squared his massive shoulders and returned to his desk. He snatched up the paper and glared at it, willing the story to disappear, but it did not. The inch-high letters screamed back at him as he knew they would be doing across every boardroom in the land.

HASKINS'S HORDE!

GOULD'S SECRET MILLIONS REVEALED

It was all there: the Swiss bank accounts, his dealings with Selwyn Raucher, the letters he had written – in confidence! – to the Zurich District Attorney's office. There was even mention of the suicide of a currency trader and the murder –
murder! –
of the wife of a wheeler dealer who it was alleged had links to Haskins Gould.

Some hiccup, he thought. And all of it – the embarrassment, the adverse publicity and likely trouble with the taxman – was down to
The Monitor
and its triple-damned proprietor. Obviously someone had talked and he would deal with them in due course, but that was for later; what mattered now was how to kill off the story or, if it was too late for that, to insulate himself against the possible fall out.

Lots of times the authorities had tried to corner him but every time he'd managed to dodge the bullet. Until now.

One thing was certain. Gaol time was not a proposition.

His brain was a boiling soup of contradictory objectives. He had set his heart on grabbing Brand Corporation; he couldn't grab Brand Corporation because without his Swiss funds that was impossible. He had to get to Zurich to take control of his various bank accounts and switch their contents to a safer jurisdiction; now the story was out he daren't go to Zurich and face questions from the hard men of the Swiss regulatory authorities. He must stay in Oz to clear his name; he daren't stay in Oz and risk having not only his assets but his passport frozen when the tax boys got on his case, which would assuredly happen within hours.

He had money in the States and friends in Mexico. He liked Mexico: the people were friendly, the living cheap and it had a warm climate. He knew enough Spanish to get by. Maybe Cancun, on the Yucatan Peninsula, he thought. The beaches were as good as you could get anywhere, the nightlife was hot and the senoritas hotter still. Or so it was said. He had mates who'd get his money out of Zurich somehow. For a steep percentage, naturally – nothing for nothing, right? – and it would take time, but that couldn't be helped.

Maybe it was time to call it a day, hang up his boots. It was a pity he wouldn't be able to nail young Sara Brand but in this game you had to know when to cut your losses. And besides, another day another dollar. Who could say what the future might hold?

He had ten grand in hurry money in his safe. He took it and stuffed his wallet. He went out, beaming at the receptionist. ‘Going to lunch. OK?'

He knew she would have seen the headlines – the whole of goddamned Sydney would have seen them – but she showed nothing as he waved gaily at her and went out and down in the express lift to the parking garage in the basement.

Three hours later he was in the air, enjoying the comfort of his first-class seat and sipping a glass of free bubbly as the Boeing headed east across the Pacific.

AN END AND A BEGINNING

Three days later Sara received a call from the manager of the resort in Thailand, giving her the news that she had been dreading but had come to accept was inevitable. Hilary, definitely, was dead.

The boatman who had taken Hilary and Craig into the hong had survived. To the police sergeant who questioned him he explained that he had been standing to one side of the entrance tunnel when the water arrived – driven by the demon Mara and the evil daughters of Mara, he said – and so had missed the worst of the impact that had hurled his two passengers to their deaths against the limestone cliffs.

Protected by the sea goddess Mazu and being young and agile he had escaped the rising waters by climbing into the topmost branches of the tallest tree in the hong, where he had clung, expecting every minute to be his last. There had been monkeys in the tree with him but – praise to Mazu! – they had been terrified and had not attacked him. After several hours the waters had subsided once more and he had climbed down, barely able to believe he had survived.

He had gone to check on the two Europeans but had seen at once there was nothing he could do for them. He had found the kayak and paddle jammed in the roots of a mangrove tree. They had been damaged but were still usable by someone like himself, a masterful boatman –

‘A masterful braggart,' the sergeant had said. ‘Spare us your boasting.'

The boatman had ignored this – a wise man did not argue with the police – and later had led a party to the hong.

‘Where are the bodies now?' Sara asked.

‘Stored in the mortuary at the hospital,' the resort manager said. ‘I did not know what you wanted to do, whether to have them repatriated or buried here.'

‘I'll let you know,' Sara said and rang off.

Dear God, she thought, first Emil and now Hilary. At least Emil had left her a one-line message.
I have always loved you.
But from Hilary, whom she had loved and admired so much, there was nothing but memories.

She sat, clasped hands on the desk in front of her, staring at emptiness. She and Hilary had never found it easy to express their feelings to each other. There had been admiration, yes; respect, certainly, but the loving mother-and-daughter chitchat that others achieved had never been there for either of them. Too much alike? Too close to rivalry? Perhaps. But that had been only on the surface. Underneath the feelings had been there all right. The love. Affection. Trust.

There were tears now, welling uncontrollably, flowing in choking floods down her face. She got up. Making no attempt to stop the tears she walked to the picture window, resting her hands on it. She looked out, saw nothing but blur. She could have smashed the window in her grief.

Hilary dead, her love unexpressed. Too late.

The phone rang.

A half-dozen furious steps; she snatched it up. ‘I thought I said –'

‘Martha Tan,' Janet said. ‘I thought you would want to speak to her.'

A deep breath. ‘Of course. Put her through.'

‘I am so sorry,' Martha said. ‘I loved her too, you know. I truly loved her.'

‘I know you did. I did too, but somehow I never seemed able to say it. I wish I had.'

‘Not important,' Martha said. ‘She knew. Always she knew.'

‘You think so? You're not just saying it?'

‘So much like you. How could she not know?'

More tears then, a tempest of tears.