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 plausibly 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.