The following evening Mike Mercer found a nervous Frank Cardigan waiting for him with two craft beers in an alcove at Romeo Lane in Crossley Street.
A tracking device, which days earlier Kasimir had placed on Mercer’s car in the underground carpark of Torrent Industries HQ, alerted Kasimir that Mercer had arrived at the bar and allowed him to remotely switch on the recording device in the alcove.
‘Frank, you look like shit. Did you mix your hayfever medication with alcohol? Did you do that again?’
‘Always sticking it to me, aren’t you, Mike? Listen, there’s something I’d like to put to you on a confidential basis.’
‘No, I’m not kidding, you really look like shit. What is it?’
‘Oh, I just haven’t been sleeping.’
‘No, what is it you want to put to me on a confidential basis?’
Around the corner from the Romeo Lane cocktail bar, Betga and Acting Sergeant Ron Quinn, still in uniform, were at just that time having a coffee together at Pellegrini’s. Betga, in his capacity as his life coach, had invited him there as part of a getting-to-know-you session.
‘So, Ron, in order to do my best as your life coach, I need to know a bit more about you, what makes you tick, how you like to spend your free time. Do you go out much?’
‘No, not really.’
‘Not, say, to the movies?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘What about the football?’
‘Not regularly.’
‘Do you have any hobbies?’
‘I’m a bit of a collector, I suppose.’
‘What do you collect?’
‘I collect single malt Scotch whisky. I like to think of myself as a bit of a connoisseur.’
‘Ron, will you excuse me for a minute?’ Betga had received a signal from Kasimir through the window that looked out onto the corner of Bourke and Crossley Streets. It meant that they now had a recording of Mike Mercer in conversation with Frank Cardigan conspiring to buy shares in Torrent Industries ahead of a public announcement that would increase the company’s share price and then to sell the shares after the announcement to their mutual profit. It was a conspiracy to engage in insider trading, which was illegal and carried a maximum sentence of ten years’ imprisonment and a fine of up to three times the value of the benefit attributable to the crime. The charge had a conviction rate of over 85 per cent. It was, therefore, statistically a lot more dangerous for the perpetrator than rape. It was almost thirty times more dangerous.
Jessica would send an email containing the recording to Frank Cardigan from a phony email address that had been created days earlier in an internet cafe. The address was TOI-MikeMike, a combination of the initials Torrent Offshore Industries, the entity Frank Cardigan used to bribe the Iraqis, and of Mike Mercer’s secret name for his banking file.
On receipt of Kasimir’s signal, Betga suggested that Acting Sergeant Ron Quinn and he go for a walk. It was, he explained, sometimes easier to talk while walking.
Betga suggested what might be missing in the acting sergeant. ‘Look at that moon, Ron, almost full.’
‘Yes, it’s beautiful.’
‘Beautiful, yet not quite full, almost . . . but not quite. A part of it is missing. It has no control over itself so we can’t offer it any advice. But you, my friend, are a man, a man with agency, able to appreciate the finer and more subtle beauty of single malt whisky. And yet . . .’
‘And yet?’ asked Acting Sergeant Ron Quinn as they walked together at a pace slower than necessary for comfort.
‘And yet, if you’ll forgive me, you’ve failed to take advantage of your agency.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘To put it bluntly, Ron, I don’t think you’ve lived up to your potential. I don’t think you’ve seized the day.’
‘Well, depends what day you mean. People outside the force underestimate the need to stay on top of the paperwork. There’s a spill-over effect, unintended consequences that nobody ever sees till it’s too late.’
‘Ron, don’t feel the need to defend yourself here. Go with me on this. Take it as the compliment it is.’
‘How is it a compliment?’
‘A man of your calibre, a man with all your gifts, should have reached a higher rank. And I think it’s because something has held you back. Now, whatever that is we can examine over time but how about each day you set yourself the task of showing us, me and you, a certain drive? Set yourself the exercise each day of finding an opportunity to unequivocally show initiative.’
‘What do you mean? What am I meant to do?’
‘You’re a cop. Solve crimes, catch people committing illegal acts. Show them that you can do it!’
‘Show who?’
‘The people above you, below you and the crime-committing public of this great state. You’re not just fighting the war against paperwork, you’re fighting crime, finding it wherever it’s committed and fighting it. Do you know how many things are illegal in this state?’
‘No, not the actual number.’
‘A lot, Ron. A lot of things are illegal in this state. Yet people think they can get away with doing them. There are crimes waiting for you to find, everywhere you look. Here, look, even here! Look inside that car, for example,’ said Betga, stopping now at Mike Mercer’s Porsche. ‘I can see what look like deal bags, probably heroin, just peeking out from under that document on the passenger seat. It’s a prohibited substance. What are you going to do about it?’
‘What can I do about it?’
‘Impound this prick’s car, Ron. You’re the law! The public is counting on you not to let this guy thumb his nose at them . . . and at you.’
‘Betga, I can’t impound his car on suspicion.’
‘Ron, you only need reasonable cause to suspect a crime in order to break into a car and seize stuff. That’s all the law requires for a police officer. And there might be a laptop in there too with evidence that he’s a dealer, a major player.’
‘I can’t see any laptop. There’s nothing to suggest that he’s a dealer, Betga.’
‘No Ron, look carefully. I think there’s a laptop lying on the floor.’
‘Okay, so he doesn’t value it. He’s just rich.’
‘Ron, look at today’s economy. Who’s really doing well out there? Only Rupert Murdoch, Jeff Bezos, Apple and drug dealers. Now, it’s not Murdoch’s or Bezos’ car. You would have heard that Steve Jobs died. That just leaves drug dealers. Surely that’s reasonable cause right there.’
There was indeed a laptop in Mercer’s car, Frank Cardigan’s laptop. Jessica had taken it from Cardigan’s office and given it to Betga, who had made it available to Kasimir. Kasimir had put it in Mike Mercer’s car together with the just visible deal bags of heroin. Mercer would think Frank Cardigan had planted the drugs there and Cardigan would think Mercer had stolen his laptop. Now they were guaranteed to be at each other’s throats.
‘No, I don’t think that would be right,’ said Acting Sergeant Ron Quinn. ‘The public would consider it an infringement of their civil liberties.’
‘Civil liberties? What kind of policeman are you?’
‘Ron, the expensive foreign sports car, the laptop computer and what look like deal bags of heroin; this is the universe delivering you reasonable cause on a plate. You’re allowed to make a mistake, Ron. People do it all the time, sometimes even the police. But you’re also allowed to show some initiative. You can walk past this car because you’re, of course, not sure what’s going on in the life of the driver. Or you can take a deep breath, Ron, and you can investigate on behalf of the people of this great state. Will you be the one? What would your superiors say? Will the records, will the newspapers, will the television news show that Acting Sergeant Ron Quinn was the one who broke this case wide open? Who was it that found the dealer everyone had wanted caught for years? Was it Acting Sergeant Ron Quinn? Yes, turns out it was Acting Sergeant Ron Quinn. He did it.’
The ageing policeman’s eyes had grown moist under the nearly full moon. Betga could almost see in the man an ingress of thoughts pertaining to possibilities long suppressed, so long in fact that they seemed to belong only to other people; people who had not been bullied by their colleagues, who had never been mocked or laughed at, whose opinions were valued, who were not always the last to learn about changes that affected everybody, people who had not spent decades gathering the detritus of their lives to build a wall to shelter them from the painful realisation of social and economic relativities, a sad cocoon in which a lonely man could feel safe. And there in St Andrews Place, a stone’s throw from Parliament House, Acting Sergeant Ron Quinn took the first of several deep breaths that were the beginning of a chain of events that would ultimately see Mike Mercer and Frank Cardigan charged by the federal police with insider trading and Mercer with possession of heroin.