Suddenly Standish looked closer to forty than thirty. His face seemed to clench and lines radiated out from his eyes.
'Did you ever meet Malouf?' he said.
'Two or three times.'
'What did you think of him?'
I didn't want to talk about Malouf. I'd tried to forget him. 'As I said, I found all that money management stuff boring and I tended not to take much notice of the people who spouted it.'
He persisted. 'Good-looking?'
'Certainly not ugly, anyway.'
'He had… has a fatal attraction for women, including my wife.'
You want to say 'Ah' at times like that but you don't.
'I discovered that they'd been having a long-running affair.'
'How did you discover that?'
'She told me.'
It hurt him to say it; Standish was the sort of man who liked to put a personal-positive spin on anything. 'Why?'
'It was after he disappeared with your money and other people's as well, as I suppose you know. She seemed upset at the news about Malouf but not distraught. But it was a sort of catalyst. We hadn't been getting along for some time, the usual things… and she told me, shouted it to me. She said she loved him.'
Saying this had taken a lot out of him. He got up and the athletic bounce had left him as he crossed to where his bar fridge and a cupboard were tucked away. 'I'm going to have a drink. You?'
It was about three hours before my usual drinking time, but I didn't want him to feel any worse than he already did. 'Sure, what've you got?'
'Everything.'
'Scotch, a bit of ice.'
I didn't recognise the bottle; that doesn't mean much; I don't see enough single malts to get well acquainted. He made the drinks and brought the bottle back to the desk. The whisky was smooth-about as far as my capacity for appreciation goes. Standish downed half of his in a swallow and topped up his glass.
'I'm not a drunk,' he said.
'No.'
'Just that it's hard to… relive it all.'
'Yes.'
'Are you making fun of me?'
I sipped the drink. 'No, I'm not. But you've only scratched the surface of what you want to tell me about all this, and I'm wondering how much you're going to have to drink to get through it.'
He pushed the glass away. 'They told me you were a hard man to deal with, but that if I was straight with you you'd give me a hearing and might be willing to help.'
'I wouldn't exactly call what you've been doing up to now being straight.'
'No, you're right. I'm sorry. I'm manipulative-force of habit. Let's start again.'
Standish said his wife, Felicity, had met Malouf at a dinner for people in what he called the finance industry where he was the keynote speaker.
'I was swamped by commitments, clients, prospective clients, offers of various kinds.' He pointed to his glass. 'I'd had a few too many.'
'It happens,' I said.
'Yeah. I tell myself if not that night, then sometime, and if not him, someone else. I sort of believe it. Anyway, the point is, it became an affair. I was busy and didn't know until she hit me with it.'
'You said she was only upset when Malouf was killed, not devastated.'
'You'll think me paranoid, but I suspect her and Malouf's wife and Christ knows who else of being involved in a conspiracy. There's a lot of money involved, but more than that…'
For a man like Standish that was a big admission. What could be 'more' than money? I sipped whisky and waited for him to tell me.
'Word got around about Felicity's involvement with Malouf. Confidence is everything in this business. Trust is nothing. A few clients have… withdrawn; a few are cooling off and it's not just the GFC. I'm facing a personal fucking financial crisis.'
So it was about reputation but still about money. He was serious, no question. He'd drawn up a list of names-the person who claimed to have seen Malouf, Malouf's wife, his own wife, gamblers the police had interviewed, a journalist who'd covered the case, a lawyer representing a client who was suing Perry Hassan's firm and another who was processing Perry's application to the insurance company covering him against precisely this kind of disaster. For someone who didn't particularly care for lawyers, it looked as though I was going to be spending some time with them. If I agreed to work for Standish.
'Well?' he said after handing over the list and some supporting information-newspaper clippings, web page printouts, emails. 'Will you help me, and yourself?'
I finished the drink and ran my eye over the list. The alleged sighting had been in Middle Harbour, at a marina by the Spit Bridge. That helped me to decide. It'd be hard enough tracking people down and questioning them with no credentials whatsoever in Sydney, but impossible in Liechtenstein or the Bahamas. Standish saw me focusing on that entry.
'He's still in Sydney. That means there's a reason, probably an associate. He had to have someone help him mount this operation.'
'From what you've said it could be a woman looking after him, giving him sanctuary. That's if the sighting's genuine.'
'The names are there. Felicity and I are separated. You can approach her.'
'The helpful associate and the woman could be one and the same,' I said.
'Does that mean you're in?'
'I'm thinking about it.'
'Let's talk money.'
Standish began by mentioning a contract, a daily rate and expenses but I stopped him.
'First off, I'll go and see this yachtsman, the one who says he saw Malouf. If he doesn't convince me then it's all off and I won't charge you anything. If I'm convinced I'll follow up the other leads and see where I get. I'll charge you what I think the work's worth.'
'That's not businesslike.'
'Right,' I said, 'look where businesslike has got us. I'll need your email address and a mobile number where I can reach you twenty-four seven.'
He slumped down in his chair. 'See May Ling in the office.'
I dealt with May Ling, who seemed to have everything at her perfectly manicured fingertips. I went down the stairs to the street feeling strangely buoyant. It wasn't just the prospect of recovering some money or avoiding bankruptcy. High enough stakes to start with, but it was more than that. It was because I was working again and about to be useful in a way I hadn't been for too long. Maybe.
They told me that after the heart operation I'd have a new surge of energy, feel ten years younger. I did some days, not others. Some days I worried about little things that never used to bother me and some days I didn't let quite big things concern me at all. And I couldn't predict the way it'd go. For the moment I was feeling younger because of the prospect of interesting work. I decided to walk back to the city for the exercise and to plan ahead. I was looking forward to studying the material Standish had given me and interviewing Stefan Nordlung, who'd claimed to have seen Malouf. He was a retired marine engineer, an acquaintance of Malouf's. A drive to Seaforth tomorrow morning was a pleasant prospect after all the sitting about and time-filling I'd been doing.
I'd covered several kilometres briskly and was feeling good when my mobile buzzed. For some reason I have an aversion to walking along with the thing cocked up at my ear the way so many people do. I stopped and stepped out of the way to take the call.
'Cliff, it's Megan.'
My daughter. 'Yes, love?'
'Good news.'
'Always welcome. Tell me.'
'I'm pregnant.'
I said 'What?' so loudly people in the street gave me an alarmed look.
'I said I'm going to have a baby.'
'I can't believe it.'
'Why? Didn't you think Hank and I were fucking?'
That was pure Megan-direct. 'Yes, but… Well, that's terrific. When?'
'Six months. We waited until we were completely sure. We phoned Hank's people in the States and you're the first to know here.'
I mumbled something, said I'd see her that night and walked on in a sort of daze. Fatherhood had been sprung on me; I hadn't known of Megan's existence until she was eighteen. Now this. I didn't know what a grandfather's credentials were, but I was pretty sure they didn't include bankruptcy. I thought about it as I moved on. Megan was young, who knew how many kids she might have and what help she might need? The stakes just climbed higher.