CHAPTER 4

Clem went straight to the Galimore Foundation website after returning to the shanty. The idea had come to her as she hauled Pocket off the rat carcass. The foundation was a prestigious organisation with some serious heavy-hitters on the board, and powerful men can leave a trail of bodies. She just needed to find that trail, follow it till she got to a decomposing rat—roll in it for all she was worth.

She didn’t recognise anyone in the directors’ group photograph, just the usual gaggle of grey-haired suits carefully coiffed for the camera—four men seated on a crimson brocade sofa, another male quartet standing behind with a lone woman between them.

She scanned the caption hoping one of the names would ring a bell. Finding a smudge on any of these pillars of society was a long shot, though; likely to require a shitload of research with no guarantee of a result. It would be much easier if they’d been linked to something grubby already. But nothing jumped out at her as she scanned the back row. She moved on to the three amigos seated in front. John Bester? Nothing. William Goh? Nothing. Kenneth Borman?

Kenneth Borman.

Yes! Holy snapping turtles, yes! And he wasn’t just a director: Kenneth Borman, Chairman.

She sat back in the chair and stared at the shining smiles in the photograph. There he was, seated proudly—navy suit, houndstooth tie, one slender hand draped limp-wristed over the right knee, the left displaying an eye-catching gold watch. The Kenneth Borman, Miranda Cato’s boss.

Clem knew all about the Cato trial. Sitting in the library at the Dillwynia Correctional Centre, she had devoured every newspaper article she could find. Then she’d asked for, and been granted, access to the online court judgement. She’d pitched it as part of her prison rehab and reintegration program. But Cato was two weeks into her sentence before Clem actually had a chance to meet the woman at the centre of the scandal.

Miranda Cato. Of all the people implicated in a series of legal proceedings brought by the corporate regulator against the big banks for rate-rigging, she was the only one to go down. They’d got her on perjury. If she’d just admitted to participating in the rate-rigging she would have copped a monetary penalty, and probably not even a very big one. But perjury was a different matter. The justice system is very keen to let you know you cannot play fast and loose with it, and then expect to just open your wallet and walk free. Nope, six months for Miranda.

The story was a goldmine for the newspapers—Cato was the stereotypical sexy corporate executive, outrageously wealthy and, being a banker, hated to boot. But it was what Cato had told Clem about her boss as they strolled around the exercise yard that clanged like a cymbal in Clem’s head now.

Kenneth Borman. Clem stared at the photograph—bushy eyebrows projecting jauntily at the edges, remnant hair carefully clipped to sit tight around his ears, then a smooth, bare expanse of scalp hovering over that immense financial-genius brain. This man, facing the camera intently and sitting up proud like a rabbit on a ridge, was her target now. She was determined to hit the bullseye with her first shot.

Cato had been relieved to meet Clem—someone else from the corporate world. She unloaded her rage into Clem’s sympathetic ear, describing in fine detail just how Kenneth Borman had screwed her over. For Clem, the pointless parading around the exercise yard became her favourite thing: a chance to hear more from Cato—stories of deceit and treachery played out in the glass towers of the financial sector.

She told Clem that Borman, one of the bank’s most senior executives, had personally orchestrated a longstanding campaign to rig the benchmark interest rate. As Clem was well aware, that was a very big deal. This was the single number with the most influence on the cost of finance for absolutely everything—mortgages, monthly credit-card interest, the cost of money for every business and every project around Australia, from a shop fit-out to a new city freeway. And it was supposed to be driven by market forces, changing daily with fluctuations in supply and demand—not by Kenneth Borman.

It was Cato, as Borman’s 2IC, who made it happen, operating under his protection. Her claim was that they made tens of millions in profit for the bank every quarter by manipulating the seemingly ‘natural’ fluctuations in this number. When the regulator got wind of it and an investigation commenced, Borman assured Cato there was no evidence—nothing in writing, not a single hook for ASIC to hang its hat on—and all they had to do was ‘sit in a room with these bozos and tell ’em there’s nothing to see here’. Cato believed him.

But as ASIC’s interrogation got closer to the truth, Borman became more agitated. Then an email surfaced in one of the boxes upon boxes of documents handed over to the regulator. Purporting to be sent by Cato, the email instructed her team of senior traders to take the rate to the cleaners…shake out a couple of mill.

Cato had learnt the email off by heart, reeling off the words like she was peeling an orange. Borman, she said, had feigned distress, raged at where the email might have come from and ‘which of the bastards had sold out’. He promised to take care of it, look after her: he hand-picked her legal team, the finest silk, two juniors and a swathe of solicitors and not a cent from her own pocket. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything, said Cato, absolutely everything, from the very first day in court. But it was only towards the end of the whole nightmare, after the trial had been running a week, that she’d allowed herself to realise what she now saw as obvious: the deck had been stacked against her, she was the patsy in Borman’s game, the decoy carcass he’d planted for the hyenas at ASIC. Borman had been right about the lack of evidence against him or anyone else at the bank, and nothing she might now say to accuse him would stick, with her credibility completely undermined by the perjury charge. Even talking to Clem, she was incandescent with rage—it wasn’t just the rate Borman had rigged but her life—hauling her up on a gibbet and leaving her dangling.

And now Clementine owned that information. She held onto it like a grenade, ready to pull the clip. She drove in to Barnforth, bought a burner phone, returned to the shanty and tapped in the number. A woman with clipped vowels answered, ‘Kenneth Borman’s office, June speaking.’

It seemed Borman held enough board roles post-retirement that he could afford his own serviced office and executive assistant. Clem figured the Galimore directorship wouldn’t pay much, but it would be like a gleaming halo in his portfolio, helping him get better paying gigs elsewhere.

‘Good morning, June, this is Alice Baguley,’ said Clem. ‘I’d like to speak with Mr Borman please.’ She used the name of one of Miranda’s Borman-funded legal team. Not the partner—Borman would probably recognise the voice—but the senior associate on the next rung down, who Miranda said had tried to warn her. Not the biggest fish, but a name Borman might recall.

The usual platitudes from June…not in at the moment, can I take a message…

‘Yes, please. Could you let him know I rang and ask him to call me?’ Clem gave the phone number and spelt out the name. ‘And if you could mention I have something he needs to know about from the court proceedings two years ago?’

It was just before dark when the call finally came through. A blocked number. She’d poked about the shanty all day, compulsively checking the phone for missed calls even though it had never left her pocket the whole time. Now she was sitting on the back deck in her cut-off denim shorts, oiled in Aerogard with the twilight fading and the biting insects of Queensland giving her a wide berth. With the Great Sandy Straits silver in the distance, she reached for the tumbler of scotch beside her on the rickety old table and took a swig before accepting the call.

‘Hello, Alice speaking,’ she said. Professional, unhurried, imagining herself in an air-conditioned office on the thirty-third floor, white shirt crisp on her shoulders, high heels cocked beneath a sleek black chair.

There was a pause, then: ‘This is Borman.’ Gruff, abrupt. She’d expected as much from Cato’s description.

‘Thank you for calling back, Mr Borman.’

‘And?’

‘You may remember me. I was part of the team representing Miranda Cato in her perjury trial a couple of years ago.’

A grunt.

‘I wanted to alert you to something.’

‘Can’t wait,’ he said, sarcastic.

‘I’ve come into some information that I feel I may need to report.’

‘Report to me?’

‘No, Mr Borman, to the authorities.’

Silence. She could almost hear the gears clunking in his brain.

‘You may remember an incriminating email, sent from Ms Cato’s computer?’

‘Sent by Cato, you mean…computers don’t send things themselves.’

‘Of course, you’re right Mr Borman, always a human at the keyboard,’ said Clem, waiting a beat. ‘Which human, though? That’s the question.’

A welcome rush of breeze lifted the frayed edge of her shorts and tickled her leg. She gave the silence time to unsettle him.

‘Look,’ he said. ‘I don’t have time for riddles, Alison. You said you had something important for me.’

‘Alice. The name’s Alice.’

Clem took another sip from the tumbler, making sure the clink of ice was audible, making him wait, putting the glass down on the table, feeling the fire in her throat before she continued.

‘For fuck’s sake, out with it woman.’

She sniffed, gave him another pause. ‘I met a man from the bank last week at a bar in Sydney. Knows you. Works in IT. He told me Miranda’s swipe access card placed her in a meeting room on the other side of the building at the time that email was sent.’ The lie was as liquid and smooth as the whisky.

‘What? Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ he croaked, an indignant toad. ‘That’s it? That’s your important information?’

Shit. Not even rattled. Work to do.

‘As a lawyer, Mr Borman, I have a duty to the court…’

‘I don’t give a flying fuck.’

‘…The proceedings were decided largely based on that false evidence.’ That part was true.

‘Oh, fucking give me a break, sweetheart. The case is long dead.’

‘Yes, but I’m not sure that’s relevant, Mr Borman, certainly not to the courts. And as it’s just the sort of thing that undermines public confidence in the judicial system it’s therefore squarely within my duty to report it.’ God, she was delivering a lecture on ethics to a man who had none.

Borman laughed, but she picked up a nervous edge. ‘Ppphht. ASIC won’t have a bar of this. They nailed a banking executive, at long bloody last, put her behind bars…it was their only decent scalp in ten years of trying! You think they’re gonna let this spoil the party?’

This Borman—what a piece of work. The biggest swinging dick she’d taken on so far in her thirty-three years. He wasn’t going to go down easy. Clem took a breath, rallied and drew on every ounce of gall she had.

‘I’m afraid it won’t be up to ASIC, Borman. And once the court overturns Miranda Cato’s conviction, ASIC will go after those whose swipe cards do put them in the right place.’

No laughter now. A crackling hot silence, snapping in her ear like static. Then his voice again, impatient, angry, snarling, ‘Now let me tell you something, Alison…’

‘Alice.’

‘…I have ways of stopping this sort of thing. Self-righteous little bitches like you—I’ll send you into a living hell. You think Cato was the first I’ve despatched?

He’d flicked to bully mode and it fired a corresponding switch in Clem—a wick of anger sparked and flared into full flame, white hot at its centre but calm and unwavering. ‘I think you’re getting a bit worked up, Kenneth, and it’s completely unnecessary…you can fix this matter quite easily with one simple decision.’

The sun sank lower behind the great sand island of K’gari, the darkness wrapping itself around the sword-like fronds of the backyard pandanus. A cockroach, Queensland-sized, strolled along the edge of the verandah.

‘What are you talking about?’

‘Something you can do to prevent all this coming to light, Mr Chairman.’

‘You’re trying to blackmail me? Oh, you’re in serious trouble now, girl.’

‘The Galimore Foundation withdrew its funding from the Wildlife Association of the Great Sandy Straits. This organisation is leading the charge to save an endangered freshwater turtle. You need to reverse that decision and release the funds.’

‘What? Who is this?’

‘Well, you seem to remember me as Alison, so let’s run with that shall we?’ She could hear his breathing. ‘And Borman, you have exactly three days.’

She hung up.

As Clem scooped half a tin of Pal into the dog bowl the afternoon storm clouds rolled in, eating up the sunshine. She fed Pocket first, then put him inside to stop him sticking his snout into Sergeant’s bowl. Sarge was a slow eater for such a big dog and far too polite to shove Pocket out of the way. The two had formed a contented friendship and while Sarge would happily rip the head off the labrador up the street he couldn’t get enough of the frisky little blue heeler that had come to play.

The first scouts of the storm front pushed across the backyard, cool puffs breaking through the heat and casting a pleasant chill on her cheeks. She walked back inside and checked the pantry for dinner. Canned tomatoes, pasta, mince in the fridge. She started working on the onions for a bolognaise, her mind drifting back to the phone call. She wasn’t confident. Borman was a player, a big, big man. Who was she to unseat him?

Marakai Mining had been in the news again, announcing the first of many environmental approvals. She would have to read up on it, see if there was an angle, a way to drive a wedge. If not, there were plenty more stages to go, plenty of time. But the way the company’s media release was worded, it was as if the mine was inevitable, concrete and dump trucks already rumbling into Piama.

She chopped the onions savagely. The world was marching on, trampling all over the turtle and stomping big heavy boots all over Helen.

She was stirring in the tomato paste when she heard a knock on the door. The rain started at exactly the same time, fat drops pinging on the tin roof. No one visited. Had Borman put two and two together? She couldn’t think how, but maybe he’d tracked her down and sent someone around to sort her out, buy her silence? Compel her silence? She dropped the wooden spoon with a splash into the pot, flicked the light off and picked up the kitchen knife, feeling the heft snug in her hand. Another knock. She stepped slowly into the passageway, peeked around towards the front door. Dark outside.

Barking from the backyard. Sarge. Of course! Get him in here! She crept back into the kitchen, opened the back door a crack and the two of them came charging through, Pocket’s high-pitched machine-gun yelp and Sarge’s thunderous baritone barrelling up the hallway. She followed them, turned the porch light on, peeked behind the curtain beside the front door. A tall, hulking figure, baseball cap, the handle of some sort of large container in his hand. The man saw the curtain move, turned towards it.

Torrens. Thank God. With an esky.

Pocket recognised the scent, stopped barking and began an urgent tail-wagging whimper. Sarge just looked confused, shifting from one massive paw to another, eyes flicking between the door and Pocket, a thick drop of drool hanging from the corner of his mouth.

As she opened the door, Torrens grinned from behind a thick bush of freshly grown beard.

‘Saw your light on.’

After Torrens had scooped the last of the bolognaise into his mouth, she hoped he’d take himself off to bed. She’d prepared the shed for him yesterday with a secondhand camp stretcher—he’d said he didn’t want the spare room, thankfully. She watched with regret as he pulled two more beers from his esky.

‘Oh no, not for me. Two’s more than enough,’ she said.

‘But we’re on holidays,’ he said planting the cans on the table.

He was wearing a bright yellow T-shirt with a kangaroo in sunglasses, incongruous under the dark expanse of untrimmed beard covering his neck. A man this big made everything look incongruous—the tiny kitchen had surely been built for hobbits.

‘You are. I have stuff I need to do.’ She hadn’t mentioned Helen, or the turtle for that matter.

‘Such as?’

‘Oh, you know, stuff to keep me going for another day in paradise,’ she said, scooping up the plates and making for the kitchen sink.

‘Hey, no you don’t.’ He got up and nudged her aside. There was suddenly no room for her at the sink. ‘I invited myself here, dishes are me punishment. Now get yourself a beer and sit down.’

She sat down and cracked her third, watching his back as he washed.

‘Saw your photo online,’ he said.

‘Mmm. Stalking me?’

‘With that woman that died.’

‘Helen. Helen Westley.’ She tried to keep her voice level but was surprised to find it a challenge. For some strange reason Helen’s signature came to mind—looping and flourishing across the page. Just like her…until someone ripped the page right out of the book.

‘She was your friend, yeah?’

Torrens had heard the twang in her voice. God, must she be so transparent?

‘More than a friend. She looked after me when I was a kid, five months while Mum was in hospital.’ It was painful, talking about Helen. She hadn’t had to until now. She cleared her throat and found a reason to get out of the room, grabbing the kitchen garbage bin and marching outside with it half full. She emptied it and stood there a while, listening to the hush of waves expiring on the beach. No moon, and the cloud still clearing. The storm had been short and sharp, raindrops the size of buckets, a few snaps of lightning then a calmness, the lingering smell like gunpowder.

When she came back in Torrens was wiping his hands on the back of his boardshorts, big red things that hung loose and billowy around his knees. ‘Reckon I deserve another after that!’

He opened a beer and leaned with his back up against the sink, one hand lodged behind him on the edge of the bench, the other wrapped around the beer, legs thrust straight in front. No room left to swing a cat.

‘Heard it was suicide,’ he said.

Clem raised her gaze to the window, out into the blackness of the night. She took a big breath, blew it out between pursed lips, focusing on a single pinprick of starlight in a thin veil of cloud.

‘You heard wrong,’ she said, more to the star than Torrens. ‘Someone pushed her off that cliff.’

Saying it out loud for the first time to someone she knew had an immediate galvanising effect—a public declaration pinning her to the argument. But it was also awful, horrifying to hear it articulated. Helen had been murdered.

Torrens looked up sharply. ‘What the hell?’

Clem nodded. ‘No suicide note, no sign of depression. Nothing.’

‘So how come the papers said it was suicide?’

‘Because the cops think that.’

‘Oh now, don’t go telling me the pigs got something wrong.’ He held his hand high, eyes closed in mock protest. ‘Don’t say it, Jonesy, I’m just not having a bar of it.’

‘Only one set of tracks up at the quarry.’

Torrens took a deep draft of beer and belched loudly, lips thrust out, projecting forward with gusto. ‘Up there on her own, hey? An accident then?’

‘Helen hated the quarry. She said it was a scar on the landscape. She’d never have gone for a walk there. She loved the river and the beach and K’gari and the state forest. She was always going for hikes in the bush. Never the quarry.’

Torrens folded one arm across his chest, looked across at Clementine sternly. ‘You told the police that?’

‘Of course. One-eyed bastards jumped on the suicide thing after that.’

‘Oh, that’s harsh, Jonesy. Bastards they may be, but one-eyed? You gotta count their arsehole too!’

He broke into uncontrollable laughter, shoulders shaking. She couldn’t help but join in.