CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Prentice Affair
It was now nearly three months since the retrenchments had happened at Élan. This was not quite the six months that Persephone had hoped for, but just the day before she had opened her mailbox to find a cheery postcard from Maria, who was having the time of her life on her final cruise. Before Persephone embarked on her final activity to permanently remove Craig from the face of the earth, she needed to make sure that Reg was not going to be a problem for her. Now was the time to unveil the major fraud that the CFO and his wife had been running for years under the not very watchful eye of the CEO.
Persephone had kept in touch with Reg and regularly had a drink with him at his local. Every now and then, Reg would ask her how she was going with the insurance company. Persephone would make some sort of noncommittal noise and promised him faithfully that as soon as anything significant happened he would be the first to know. Now she actually had something to tell him, she wasn’t really sure how to go about it. When she thought about it, she didn’t really know Reg very well even though they had been drinking buddies for a while. It was critical to her plans that she used this information not only to ensure that the senior executives got what was coming to them but also that Reg was tied so closely to her that he would never risk disclosing her involvement in what he almost certainly knew was a criminal activity.
Persephone needed to find out a lot more about her policeman friend and she didn’t want to be relying on Isaac for everything so she thought she would put her research skills to the test. Luckily Reg had lived a fair part of his recent life squarely in the public eye so there was no shortage of information on his professional achievements as well as a number of his squads failures. It was clear from the public information that Reg was a dedicated and hard-working police officer who was passionate about ensuring that white-collar criminals weren’t given any special privileges because of their wealth and connections. He had publicly campaigned to try to remove the phrase “victimless” from descriptions of fraudulent behaviour that peppered the media’s coverage of such crimes. He clearly identified strongly with victims of these crimes and Persephone wondered what it was that had caused him to develop this view. There was very little to be found on his personal life and Reg did not appear to be an avid social network user. She found his Facebook page, but it was operated by the New South Wales Police PR department and not Reg himself as it had no information other than police work.
From chatting to Reg at the pub, she had found out that he was divorced, no children, no pets and didn’t appear to have a significant other in his life, male or female. He sounded more resigned than bitter about his marriage, which had ended in divorce several years ago. She decided on the old-fashioned route to get some more information about Reg and the next time they met up at the pub she asked him. Reg was initially a bit reticent about telling her his family history but after a couple more beers he loosened up a bit and told Persephone about his brother.
As Persephone sat there listening to Reg telling her this tale, she was both saddened at Steve’s plight and pleased that she understood Reg a lot better. She now saw how she could make the information she had on Élan compelling enough for Reg to act on it even though he had received the information based on her illegal activities.
“So Reg,” she took a deep breath, “I know you’ve been waiting a while for some information about the insurance scam. It’s been a bit difficult, and I’ve got to say that you might not approve of some of the methods that I have had to use to get you the information I’m about to give you.”
Persephone swallowed, and waited to see how Reg responded. Reg, who wasn’t born yesterday, sat back and said nothing. Persephone continued, “Before we talk about the insurance company, let’s get to the matters of Alice and Brad Jones.”
She paused again and receiving no sign from Reg to stop, she continued, “I’m pretty sure you already know that Alice died as a result of a self inflicted drug overdose and had probably been an accident waiting to happen for years. Brad however, remains a mystery. I’ve had some people looking really closely at what might have happened to Brad, but try as we might; he’s just dropped off the face of the earth. If anybody’s going to find him, it would be the police but it doesn’t look as though they are looking for him and nobody else seems particularly worried. At this point, I’m not sure anybody is served by us taking any further.”
She stopped talking, and looked hard at Reg. She was hoping that Reg got the message that he really didn’t want to know what had happened to Brad. Reg now had a decision to make, was he going to behave like a policeman or was he going to go with the program and accept that he had now crossed the line into an area that was marginal at best and certainly required him to keep his mouth firmly shut. Reg took the hint, so Persephone continued and related to him the tale of the greedy CFO and his demanding wife and their clever and nasty property development scheme. When she got to the end of the tale she paused and asked him, “is this the sort of thing you wanted?”
Reg nodded, a slow smile creasing his face, “this is exactly the sort of stuff that I can deal with. Thanks Persephone.”
Persephone continued, “How much documentation do you want to help you get started on this? I realise your only witness so far is on the high seas and isn’t going to return, but I’ve got the names of some of the others who are involved and that might be enough for your people to start with. I assume you can get some sort of a warrant to look at the insurance company’s systems so you don’t need any of the other stuff I’ve got.”
Persephone shut up, realising she was starting to tell Reg how to do his job. Reg smiled, seeing Persephone's embarrassment. He was really excited at the prospect of getting his teeth into this new investigation. Who knows, maybe they had even taken the next step and set some of the fires themselves? In any case, it certainly looked as though his initial drinks with Persephone had paid off big time. Reg yelled at Tom, “A couple of drinks over here mate please.”
Tom studiously ignored him. Reg was suddenly very angry. He'd been a patron here for years, and Persephone was just a Johnny come lately so how come she got table service and he had to get out of his seat and drag his arse to the bar? He turned to Persephone, and through clenched teeth asked her, “Any chance you can get that arsehole Tom to send us over a couple of drinks? For some reason he doesn't want to do it for me.”
Persephone tried very hard not to laugh out loud but failed. “Maybe if Tom were gay you might have more success.”
Reg, only slightly mollified, shrugged, and grunted something to Persephone along the lines of, “well you'd better get them in then”.
Persephone smiled, turned around and waved gaily at Tom. Tom gave her a big grin and instantly brought over the beer and chilled white wine that he previously poured when Reg had asked for them. “Here’s your drinks darling. Reg, that'll be $12.50.”
Reg slammed a $20 note on the table, which Tom daintily picked up between his thumb and forefinger as he nonchalantly strolled back to the bar. Reg was in too good a mood to let this little incident spoil his day, and he sipped his beer and considered all the options that were available to him to take the insurance company down. He was pondering about which of his officers to assigned to this case when Persephone interrupted his thoughts, “so Reg, are you totally sure there’s nothing more to be done on the insurance case you showed me?”
Reg paused, he knew what Persephone was up to, and he had to make a decision as to how much he really wanted to know about her activities. It was true he was curious to know what Persephone had actually been up to and he was experienced enough to know that he was not getting the full story. His problem was that he was still an officer of the law and still believed in trying to do the right thing wherever possible. He knew that if Persephone had broken any laws then he was going to have a very hard time ignoring that, so how much did he really want to know? He already knew about some of her i
llegal activities, but these were pretty minor in terms of privacy and some slightly dodgy computer hacking so he felt he could overlook these given the nature of the prize that she just presented him.
He was in a dilemma, as he had a very strong suspicion that there was much more to Brad Jones's disappearance then he was being told. The problem was now that it would be almost impossible to get the investigation into his death reopened without disclosing how Persephone had become involved and the links to the property scheme, which he dearly wanted to investigate. If any of his disclosure of the police reports came to light he was going to be in very deep trouble. He knew why Persephone was pushing the point, and he was pretty angry with her. He was also pretty embarrassed to have been called out by Persephone, and blamed her for his behaving like a rookie.
“Fuck you Persephone!”
Reg stood up and stormed out of the pub. Persephone was worried, perhaps she had pushed a little bit too far, but it was too late now to worry about that as Reg had clearly just realised the mess he had got himself into that day he started drinking with Persephone. She forced herself to remain calm hoping that he would get over it, and sure enough, before she had a chance to finish her glass of wine Reg came stomping back in through the pub door.
He sat down opposite her, reached across the table and grabbed both her hands so she was forced to look into his eyes. Persephone was quite startled as Reg had never laid hands on her prior to this but she realised that she was going to have to see this through. She looked back at him with what she thought was a determined steely glare. Fortunately for Persephone however, Reg saw through this front to the Persephone that he had come to know and respect, and maybe even like more than a little bit. He spoke carefully,
“You need to know sweetheart, that I will not be messed around by you. I'm not some idiot who came down in the last shower, and if you try and treat me like one you will discover that it is really bad news to piss me off. You may think you've got me where you want me, maybe in some way you have, but you don't own me and you never will.”
He paused and looked deep into Persephone's eyes. Persephone had been expecting this, and while Reg frightened her a little by his comments, she had been stared down by much more vicious and ugly people than him. She smiled, “and you need to know, darling,” as she paused for effect, “that I will never compromise you. Nothing I do or say will ever come back to hurt you. I need you to trust me in this.”
Both Reg and Persephone knew this was an empty promise but Reg appreciated the sentiment anyway. He resolved to go ahead with the insurance investigation and to make sure nobody went anywhere near the Brad Jones 'disappearance'. He lifted his beer glass and tapped it against Persephone's wineglass. “Cheers to that.”
With both of them reassured, and comfortable that they had established the rules of the game, they had a couple more drinks. As the clock ticked on past closing time, Tom came over and joined them for a couple more, ensuring that he only ever brought over a glass of wine for Persephone, sending Reg to the bar to get his own beer. Tom flirted outrageously with Persephone and had the same amount of success that Reg had experienced over the past few months. Nevertheless all three of them had a riotous time exchanging tales of drunken idiots seen in bars and police cells over the years. Tom was quite curious about the relationship between Persephone and Reg but try as he might, neither of them gave him a hint as to why they were such fast friends and what they were discussing when they had their heads pressed together in the far corner of the bar. Being a bit of a busybody, Tom was determined that one day he would find out what was really going on between the two of them, because it certainly wasn't sex. Finally, in the early hours of the morning, Tom booted the two drunks out and staggered off to bed in his little flat above the bar. Persephone and Reg went their separate ways and collapsed into their own beds, waking up in the morning to the all-too-familiar hangovers.
Regardless of his pounding head and dry mouth that felt like the bottom of a birdcage, Reg was eager to get into the office and kick-off the investigation into the CFO-led property fraud at Élan, so when his bursting bladder woke him up at shortly after five he leapt out of bed, ran through the shower and drove straight to work. When he arrived, he noticed one of the junior detectives who had only just joined the squad already sitting at his desk. Not sure whether to reward this kid for being super keen or just a crawler, he decided to give him something useful to do by kicking off the research to uncover the scope of the fraud that Persephone had told him about. The good news about using this kid was that he was going to be far too scared to ask where the information came from, the bad news being that he wasn't going to be able to find it out as efficiently as some of his more experienced hands. Mind you, this would test the young lad’s ability to work as a part of a larger team, enlisting the help of his colleagues where and when he needed them.
Reg was very careful as he briefed the young detective, giving him the name of the insurance company, a brief description of the alleged fraud and instructions to track down transactions that could fit this description without alerting anybody at Élan. This was going to be a challenging task as they would need access to information in the company's computer systems in order to track the transactions down and they wouldn't get that level of access without first obtaining a warrant. The Catch-22 problem was they didn't have sufficient evidence to gain a warrant. Reg was interested in seeing how the young detective would deal with this. He dismissed him just as the rest of the squad started to turn up at their desks. Let's see who he asks the help on this one, he thought to himself, I really need my team to be very creative, just not too creative. Reg then settled down to a day of boring administrative tasks: approving leave, attending management meetings, writing reports and reviewing investigations with the team. He was really starting to look forward to his retirement, which due to his very expensive divorce, was going to have to wait for another for five years yet. Let's hope that some more interesting jobs like this insurance fraud come my way, he thought, otherwise I'm going to die of boredom before I even get to retire.
At the end of his long, tedious day, Reg was really looking forward to a beer at the pub when Jimmy the young detective stuck his nose round the door into Reg's office.
“Excuse me sir, can we have a chat about this insurance job please?” He looked pretty flustered, so despite his burning thirst Reg nodded resignedly and waved him into his office.
“Take a seat son, what do you want to talk about? And make it quick, you need to know you're standing between me and a beer.”
Jimmy didn't seem too worried by this, Reg thought, bloody typical of these young fit buggers, nobody drinks beer any more after work, they all seem to be rushing home to go to their Pilates classes and drink vitamin shakes with weird green shit in them. Jimmy took a deep breath, and launched into a very long lecture stating the bloody obvious about how difficult it was to get information on these transactions. Irritated, Reg snapped back at him.
“Where did you come from son before here? Bloody traffic? Did nobody ever teach you to think laterally about a problem? While don't you have a go now?”
Jimmy went as red as a beetroot, and stammered something completely unintelligible to Reg. He was floundering about like a fish out of water so after a decent period, Reg decided to help him a little more.
“Do you know what hypothesis is, son? Do they teach that sort of stuff at school any more?”
“Yes sir, of course Sir, yes I know what a hypothesis is.”
“Well why don't you try and formulate one then?” Was Reg’s exasperated reply, “and use that as a starting point to come up with a plan for how you're going to find out what's really going on there.”
The lights slowly dawned for Jimmy, who started to give some examples of what he thought would be an acceptable hypothesis.
“Not now, didn't you just hear me about what you were standing between me and?” Reg snarled at Jimmy, then realised h
e was probably being a bit harsh on the young lad. He moderated his voice a little bit and carried on, “Tell you what, why don't you join me? We can just duck up to the Beauchamp near Vinnie’s, it’s on my way home, serves a decent beer and is probably just trendy enough for you to be seen in.”
Even though Jimmy was running a bit late for a spin class at his gym, there was no way he was going to turn down an invitation from the chief superintendent. He would even have a beer, he just hoped they served low-carb as it was now after 6 PM. They got to the pub about 15 minutes later, and luckily for the both of them it was just filling up with nurses coming off shift. Despite Jimmy being keen to talk about possible hypotheses for the fraud, Reg insisted that they talk about football and whether Jimmy was a leg man or a breast man as they surveyed the noisy crowd of young women who were intent on drinking as many cocktails as they possibly could during the three-hour long "happy hour". Jimmy, who normally cycled the 15km home to his trendy inner west flat, resolved to stick around after work in the city bit more often. After a bit of pressing from Jimmy however, Reg agreed to a 'brainstorming' session the following day and to give him a bit of a hand, suggested he might like to invite a couple of the more senior and experienced detectives to the session.
Next morning Jimmy crawled into work feeling and looking like he’d just been hit by a train. His head pounding and his stomach churning, he promised himself to stay out of the boss’s way at the end of the working day. His fellow detectives were not at all sympathetic and when Jimmy explained his plan to them, suggested through riotous laughter that perhaps he just get in a bit more practice. One of the older detectives took him aside, put his arm around Jimmy’s shoulder and deadpan said, “Mate, this is just the start of it. Now that he’s taken you under his wing, and you survived the training session at the bar, he’s going to take you to the next step. You’ve got a girlfriend at home haven’t you? You’d better word her up that she’s not going to see much of you in the next few weeks.”
Jimmy really wasn’t sure what to expect but he knew it wasn’t going to be good. He swallowed, regretted it, coughed and stuttered, “So what’s the next step?”
“Mate, can’t say too much about it, but you need to be aware there’s going to be cameras on you at all times. Oh, I assume a good looking young bloke like you carries condoms?”
Jimmy was horrified. He was fairly sure that his mates were taking the piss, but given all the stuff he’d heard about old-timers, he wouldn’t have put it past Reg to put him through some strange initiation rite, and he wasn’t going to discount it completely. He struggled to put a brave face on it, ignoring the laughing and jeering from his colleagues and went to set up the room for the brainstorming session. After a couple of minutes Reg came out from his office to see his entire squad hanging around, laughing uproariously and generally not getting anything done.
“Okay lads, let's have those of you in this brainstorming session in the conference room, and the rest of you can get on with something useful. I want full investigation status reports to me on every open investigation by 3 PM.”
Amidst a chorus of groans and complaints, Reg turned on his heel and went into the conference room where Jimmy was busy setting up whiteboards, butchers paper and coffee. This was going to be interesting for Reg, he knew much more than he was telling his young detective and he didn't want him to waste too much time going down blind alleys, but equally, he couldn't afford to give away the knowledge that he had illegally obtained from Persephone. Oh well, he thought to himself, let's see how good this young lad really is. As two more of his squad shuffled into the room, Reg settled back to see how they would all perform.
There was a bit of an awkward silence as everybody looked expectantly Jimmy, who suddenly realised he had to kick this off.
“Okay, this is what we know so far.” He started writing the bare facts of the matter on the whiteboard, and there weren't very many. Anonymous informant complaint about parents house being sold to a developer for less than market value after a fire. Ownership of development company difficult to ascertain and tied up through several trusts. Complainant says that insurance company stuffed them around on the claim and the developer seemed to know far more than they should have done. Have uncovered seven more properties that would appear to fit the same pattern over the past five years, major damage to property followed by purchase by the same developer at what looks like less than market value. He paused, looking around the room to see how this information was being received. The questions came thick and fast.
“Is it the same insurance company?”
“Where are the properties?”
“What's the name of the development company?”
“How long would the insurance companies take to pay these claims normally?”
“What are all the developments that the company has done the past 10 years?”
“Are any of the trustees working at the insurance company?”
“Have you spoken to any of the owners of these properties, and have you found out who they were dealing with at the insurance company?”
“How much money are we talking about when you add up all the properties that you've just found? Have any of the developments been sold? How much? To whom?”
Jimmy was trying his best to write up all these questions but Reg could see that he was struggling. He waved his hands at the other detectives to get them to slow down a bit and they paused to let Jimmy catch up.
“How about you boys give Jimmy a bit of a hand to get some of these questions answered?” Reg gently suggested, “I would certainly like to know exactly how much money we talking about if this really is a scheme on the sort of scale that it looks like. I also want to know about the specific tactics that the developers took to persuade the owners to sell. On the face of it there may well be something dodgy going on at the insurance company, but if they've been using standover tactics on the owners there are potentially some very serious charges that can be aimed at these arseholes over and above the fraudulent use of the insurance data.”
Reg then suggested that the three of them work up two or three hypothetical scenarios that would provide a good starting point for them to answer some of these questions. He reminded them to be careful and not alert anybody at the insurance company until they had enough information to support a warrant to obtain the insurance company records. He was confident that a search run on the trustees of the development company would yield rewards, it would just take a little time, and it certainly looked as though there were tens if not hundreds of millions at stake so he would have no problems at all justifying the manpower to undertake the investigation. He left them to it, confident that within a couple of weeks or so, they would be going into the insurance company armed with all the information they needed to nail the perpetrators. It would be easy for him to gently steer the team in the right direction rather than see them wasting their time going down any blind alleys or chasing the wrong people.