CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Getting Away with Murder
At home in her flat, Persephone logged onto the UK Telegraph web site. There on the front page was the welcome headline, “Businessman Murdered – Police Baffled.” The story went on to say that apart from a Japanese dagger that had been found at the scene, there were no other clues and Police were keen to speak to an English businesswoman who was linked with the premises.
There were several video versions of interviews with Gervais who was highly entertaining as he covered his face with his hands as he exclaimed, “She was sooooo gorgeous, with exquisite taste! OMG! To think that I kissed an actual murderer! She could have killed me, you know, but maybe I impressed her with all my beautiful things for her office. Actually, Mr Clayton’s dead body looked quite striking in that Edwardian chair…oops, I really didn’t mean that to pop out!”
Over the next couple of days, the story slipped from the front pages, until an investigative journalist revealed in salacious terms that the murdered man, far from being an innocent person, was being accused of numerous counts of date rape, with women from his office, friends of his wife and others now coming forward to tell tales of friendly drinks that had led to vicious assaults and amnesia after Jim had spiked their drinks. The police were now saying that the Japanese dagger may have been related to another incident that may or may not have taken place during his recent trip to Asia. They were keen to implore women in similar situations not to take matters into their own hands if they were assaulted, and to come to the police, who would ensure that the matter was properly dealt with. This statement was treated with derision by a number of radical women’s groups and a small spate of stabbings broke out perpetrated by women who accused the person they stabbed of having raped them. This quickly died down again and people went back to their normal lives, such as they were.
Nobody knocked at Persephone’s door to accuse her and within a month, it was if Jim Clayton had never existed. Persephone was relieved to have gotten away with this second murder and although she occasionally suffered pangs of regret, they were mostly about putting herself in the situation where Jim could rape her and never about killing him. It had, however, left her feeling empty inside and she now felt she was living a life apart from the rest of the human race, unable and unwilling to risk any real connection with another person. Even her friendship with Isaac became quite strained until one night when Isaac confronted her.
“Persephone, I know what you did. I’m not sure why, but I know you would have had a good reason. I did a bit of research and found that Jane O’Mara made another trip overseas, this time to England via Tokyo. I read what happened to Jim Clayton and given the latest news to come to light, I can only guess what he did to you. Please know that I will always be your friend. There is nothing you can tell me that will change that and I will protect you with my dying breath.”
Persephone was aghast. Not so much at Isaac’s declaration, but at how easy it had been for him to put it all together.
“Oh God! They will find me and put me in jail! What am I going to do now?”
Isaac comforted her. “They will never find out. Only I know about the O’Mara link and I am not going to tell anyone. I know you’re scared and feeling alone. You don’t have to be as I am with you and am not going anywhere. You can trust me.”
Persephone was only partly reassured. “But I can’t put this stuff on you! I didn’t ask for your help and I don’t want you involved in this side of what I am. I love you as if you were my brother but I don’t know what to do now.”
Isaac took her in his arms and held her to his chest. “I am involved. You can’t change that and I don’t want you to. You need someone to share this with or you’ll go nuts. Talk to me.”
Persephone broke down in tears. She hadn’t realised how close to the edge she had been and was so grateful to have someone to share this with, she blurted out the whole story. At the end, as she gulped and sobbed, Isaac stepped back and held her at arms length, both his hands on her shoulders.
“Look at me.”
Persephone saw an Isaac she had never seen before. In front of her, his eyes were black with fury and his jaw was clenched.
“If I had known about this, I would have killed the bastard myself with my bare hands. He was lucky you got to him first. I would have made him suffer for days before I finally tore out his heart in front of him, not just slipped a little knife in there.”
Something changed in Persephone as she looked as Isaac. She really couldn’t fathom what she had done to deserve a friend like this, but she was going to stop teasing him and become a better friend to Isaac. He was right, she thought, I really need someone to share this stuff with or I will go completely bonkers, and nobody else, especially not Reg, is going to want to hear this.
“Thank you Isaac. I needed to hear that. I promise I won’t hide things from you any more.” Persephone emphatically stated. She even meant it at the time
There was still plenty to do. Isaac had helped Persephone set up some overseas accounts to hold the money from Craig’s fraud. Along the way, he found another million in life insurance that Craig still had as part of his job at Élan, and as it was an annual policy it had not yet lapsed.
Isaac created a fictitious long lost brother for Craig called David, who lived in Thailand. He fabricated just enough documentation to satisfy the insurance company; then he submitted a claim for the life insurance. There was a bit of a hitch when Kylie in the claims department, swore that Craig had never mentioned his brother when he had been dating her, so Isaac had to pay a mate in Bangkok to make an irate phone call pretending to be David Sellars, demanding that Élan not exacerbate his grief and distress by unreasonably denying him. Getting a bit creative, ‘David’ told the insurers that he needed the money to set up a charitable foundation in Thailand in Craig’s name to teach young Thai women to surf, thus providing respite from the tyranny of their day jobs working as prostitutes. This completely outrageous tale actually aligned with several Facebook posts that Kylie had made over the past year or so as she encouraged her friends to support a number of causes in support of helping unlucky Asian sex workers across the region.
So with a bit of luck and some of Isaac’s effective research, the ridiculous story hit just the right buttons for the self-absorbed claims clerk and she signed it off, netting him a million-dollar payout. Ironically this was through Isaac’s use of a variant of the very fraud that Craig had perpetrated. As they were sitting on the balcony at Isaac’s flat, Isaac gave Persephone the news about the bonus million-dollar payout, telling her he was about to put it in her new bank account later that day. To Isaac’s amazement, she was furious.
“Who do you think I am, Isaac? Why do you think I did this? Do you think I am that greedy, you bastard? I started going down this path because greed drove Craig to kill two people and greed was driving him to plan to kill at least ten more. This was never, ever about making money for me.” She paused, glaring at Isaac.
“Let me tell you something really important. I have fundamentally changed the direction of my life as a result of these last few months. One of the big commitments I made to myself when I came back from London was my future would now be dedicated to avenging the victims of the greedy bastards who have taken their crimes from the boardrooms to the real world where people get hurt and killed. I can live with what I have done, but only because I am serving a greater good. You took that million bucks, just because you could. This is completely different to what I am doing and why. This is just a game to you, isn’t it? Never, never forget, Isaac, it’s deadly serious to me.”
She stopped and looked at the expression of sadness and shame written on her friend’s face. She realised that she had come on very strongly, but was glad that she had got it off her chest. Isaac was a dear friend, but he was also a professional villain. For too many years he had earned his living skating very close to, if not over, the line and was p
erfectly comfortable on either side of the law. Persephone was not the same. She needed Isaac to understand this and respect her rules so that they could continue to be friends and work together. She saw that Isaac was nodding to himself, and she took that as a sign that he had heard and understood at least part of what she had just yelled at him.
In the mean time, though, there was the million dollars to deal with.
“You should keep this Isaac, you’ve certainly earned it”
Isaac, still smarting from the tirade answered, “Don’t need it, don’t want it, thought you would like it, that’s the only reason I went after it.”
Persephone thought a bit and came up with an idea: as Alice Jones had been the one to kick this all off, despite being a hopeless junkie, perhaps they could give the money anonymously to a local charity that helped out kids in this situation. Persephone had heard quite a bit over the years about a man called Father Chris Riley who had founded a fantastic organisation called Youth Off the Streets. They had a button on their web site for making donations, and it took Isaac only a few minutes to make a one-time million-dollar payment from one of his untraceable credit cards in the name of Joseph B Lowe.
“That should give them something to celebrate,” said Isaac, “I hope they spend it wisely. I won’t be doing that again in a hurry.”
The following night on the news, an ecstatic Father Chris Riley was featured waving a printout with the anonymous donation. He said he understood that the donor did not want to be known, but he and thousands of children thanked them from the bottom of their hearts. Even Isaac felt good.
Although she could now afford to move up-market, Persephone loved her flat in Surry Hills and decided to stay, although she treated herself to a new bathroom with a nine-function shower and spa bath. She was still lonely though and quickly became bored and she decided she was ready for her next challenge, so back she went to the Royal to catch up with Reg.
Her timing was impeccable. The verdicts had just been handed down in the Élan property scandal case and Reg was the toast of Police Headquarters. She found him sitting at the corner table where she had last left him before her life had changed.
“Persephone!” Reg exclaimed, extracting himself from the attempted embrace of a violet-coiffed harpy, “Where have you been for the past couple of weeks? How are you? Come and have a beer!”
Persephone strolled over, nodding coldly at the desperate hopeful, who got the message and made her parting excuses, and sat down in the seat she had just vacated. She looked over at the bar to see Tom already with the beer and wineglass in hand, heading her way. Thanking Tom, she gave him a hefty tip.
“It’s great to be back Reg, I see you are quite the local hero.”
Reg tried to look embarrassed, but failed. He was delighted to see Persephone again, and had been worried that something had happened to her. “What have you been up to?” he tentatively enquired.
“Well I could tell you, but I’d have to kill you” was the cool response. He waited a bit longer, but Persephone was not going to be drawn. He realised that this was how it was going to be with this woman and decided that he was okay with that. There was probably some truth in the old saying of ‘what you don’t know won’t kill you’, or at least won’t compromise your career.
“So tell me about what happened when you looked into that nasty property scam” Persephone asked, “I read a bit of information in the papers, but they never have the full story. It looked on the surface like a pretty complex setup, so it must have taken a fair bit of ingenuity and effort to unravel it.”
Reg, like all people, was not immune to flattery, even when he recognised he was being stroked, so he proceeded to give Persephone chapter and verse on the investigation. He was a bit indiscreet, but then again, it was Persephone who had brought the case to him and they were now convicted and probably heading for jail so he felt pretty safe sharing with his new friend.
Maria had been on the money. With some help from the boys at the Fraud Squad, Jimmy had unravelled the crime. By checking records of properties sold for well below market value following a fire and matching them with records of insurers who had paid out on policies, the boys had found over twenty families and elderly people who had been conned by the Prentice’s scheme.
The best one was the case of Agnes Strange from Dover Heights. Agnes was a 91-year-old widow who had owned a fairly small family house on a huge block with views overlooking the whole of Sydney harbour. It had burned down eight months ago and her family had used the opportunity to move Agnes into a small unit in a retirement village just around the corner, plonking the rest of the money into a family trust. The insurance company were fighting the claim, saying that Agnes had caused the fire herself by smoking in bed. Even though she was a non-smoker, when a developer offered the family a fraction of what the site was worth and told them they would deal with the insurance company, they jumped at the chance. That way they would get their hands on the family inheritance before Agnes died.
Agnes, although she was getting on a bit, was still in possession of all her marbles and was really pissed off about what had happened. She hated the oldies village and missed her large garden that she had looked after for over 50 years. on one of her daily walks she decided to go and see what they were doing to her old home. She was really shocked and upset. They had bulldozed the whole block, destroying the garden and the beautiful Moreton Bay figs that shaded the bench her husband had made for her golden wedding anniversary. In its place was a set of six towering townhouses. The sign on the fence at the front showed pictures of interiors with harbour views and stated prices of above four million dollars for each one.
Agnes was as mad as a cut snake. She had received less than a million dollars for her home and the developers were going to make at least millions. She was also pissed off that her spoiled son and daughter had locked her up in the retirement home. She stood on the footpath next to the fence and cried. She walked slowly back to her prison and decided to do something about it.
Agnes looked like a frail elderly woman whose French origins were hard to pick from hearing her speak, but inside she was still the fierce and intelligent member of the French Resistance from World War II. She had spent all that time blowing up and setting fire to as many German military installations as she could. So she had the knowledge and skills to improvise and make bombs out of whatever she could lay her hands on.
The following day, she went back to the site and by chatting up a young man who was going in with a load of bathroom fittings, got an introduction to the site manager. She told him that she was the previous owner and would love to see what they had done as it looked amazing.
“It’s remarkable what you young people come up with, dear. This looks absolutely beautiful!”
The site manager was in on the scam and was a bit worried when Agnes turned up. His first thought was to keep her away, but as he looked at this frail and slightly dotty old lady, he realised that the best thing to do would be keep her happy so she wouldn’t come back later with someone who might look a bit more closely at what was being done. He went off and found a hard hat and took her on a tour of the site. Agnes was really grateful and went on and on as to how beautiful everything was. She was keen to see the tool shed as well, saying, “My husband, God rest his soul, was a keen handyman, but I think tools have changed a bit since he passed away. I could tell him tonight when I talk to him about what sort of things you use these days.”
The site manager was a little puzzled, but as she was clearly cuckoo, there was probably no harm. He showed her the equipment and even explained how some of it was used. After this, Agnes thanked him and left, a spring in her step. She now had a plan.
Agnes then bought herself a black tracksuit and hoodie, then went to Bunnings and bought a set of bolt cutters. She went back to the site at night and broke into the tool shed, which had all the things she needed to pay the bastards back. Rigging the oxy ta
nks to a homemade fuse, she piled up cans of paint. She found a small can of petrol, opened it and splashed it around. She wanted to make the biggest possible bang. She figured the fuse would take about an hour to ignite the oxy tank, so she shut the shed door, hung the padlock back on and walked slowly back to her unit.
About 45 minutes later, the entire block was awoken to the sound of an enormous bang. Nobody got any sleep that night as the fire engines and police sirens went for hours.
The next morning, Agnes got up, bathed and dressed in her Sunday best and went to the Police Station in Rose Bay.
“I would like to speak with the Inspector please, I have a crime to confess.”
The copper saw this every day. The area was full of retired people living at home, in retirement villages and nursing homes and many of them would turn up and confess to all sorts of crimes and weird antics. Some of them were doing it because they were bored, others because they thought they had done something wrong and others were criminals who had gotten away with their crimes and had decided to confess to the Police as well as their local priest. So as not to upset these poor buggers, the standard process was to take their statement, reassure them that the crime would be investigated and send the criminal home.
The statements were then sent on to the appropriate Police squads. If they thought there was something to it, especially being able to close a long open case, then the detectives from that squad would interview the old buggers.
When Agnes turned up, she was given the same courtesy. Her statement was typed up, she signed it and went home. The statement, which mostly covered the arson and only briefly mentioned the property scam, was sent onto the Arson Squad, who promptly ignored it as the outpourings of a senile old lady. By sheer coincidence the following week, one of their detectives was on the treadmill next to Jimmy from Fraud at the gym and told him the side-splitting tale of the 91-year-old arsonist who had confessed to blowing up a townhouse development as revenge for being cheated out of her home by a filthy developer who was obviously in league with the insurance company. Jimmy’s ears pricked up and he went back to the office, called the Arson Squad and got hold of the statement.
Reg and Jimmy interviewed Agnes, despite Reg’s initial scepticism. Over tea and biscuits, Agnes told her tale, adding background about her wartime activities. Immediately Reg’s ears pricked up and he paid close attention.
“You know what really galls me?” Agnes asked Reg, ripe with indignation, “The bastards who are in on this are a French insurance company! After all I did for my country! You make sure they pay for this, young man!”
Reg nodded.
“Thank you very much Madame Strange, we most certainly will.”
Persephone laughed. “What did you do about the arson? Did you prosecute Agnes?”
“Don’t be a silly tart, can you imagine the public reaction if we took this lovely old duck who just happens to be a war heroine, and tried to put her in jail? In any case, Jimmy and I were more than sympathetic to her cause. What we did do for her was give her the chance to get her hands on the proper money for her home.” Reg laughed. “Funnily enough, she just said, “What would I do with twenty million dollars? Give it to my darling children who have locked me up in this bloody mausoleum?” I saw her point.”
“The funniest part, Persephone, was when we went and arrested them. The stupid bitch Sophia Prentice was hosting a dinner party at their Vaucluse mansion for a dozen or so close friends. We fronted up just as dessert was being served along with several lines of coke as a side dish. There was a local councillor and his mistress, her boss from Élan with his latest teen bride, a couple of neighbours and the Prentices, all wearing silver straws up their noses and white moustaches. They thought we were the drug squad. It was chaos. Sophia tried to make a run for it, but stilettos and marble floors are not a great combination so she collided with the maid who was trying to clear the table and went down like a sack of spuds.”
Persephone giggled, remembering the repulsive woman she had worked with at Élan for whom style was a complete replacement for substance. She would have been completely humiliated. Somehow this meant more to Persephone than the jail term Sophia was facing as well.
Reg continued his tale, “Next, she bounces back on her feet, showing us all what large amounts of cocaine can do for you. She had managed to break her nose on the edge of the table going down. As she reaches the front door, she sees herself in the huge mirror just to the left. At this point, she is covered in blood and white powder. She stops dead and tries to fix her hair, then grabs a cloth from under a vase to try to mop off the blood from her frock. The flowers go everywhere, the water soaks her as they fall, which then turns her whole frock pretty much see-through. Like she is some sort of lady of the manor, she coolly turns around to see at least a dozen cops pissing themselves laughing. She reaches into her handbag and before anyone can move, pulls out a lipstick and fixes up her face. Her nose is still bleeding all over her face, so now she decides to take her dress off so that she doesn’t get any more blood on it, hands the dress to the nearby young plod, then holds out her hands for the cuffs, just like in the flicks. The poor bloke didn’t know what to do with the dress, but luckily the maid walked over and took it from him, telling Sophia that she would get it dry cleaned on Monday.”
He continued, “So there she was, standing there clothed in just a red lacy g-string, sporting the tits of a sixteen year old, so new you could still see the scars underneath, nipples pointing to the ceiling. Quick as a flash, my young bloke says, “better get a space blanket boys – looks like she’s a bit chilly”. One of the squad – the only one not pretty much in tears at this point – went out to the squad car and brought one in and draped it round Sophia’s shoulders. The stupid bitch was pretty much out of it, so he got some gaffer tape and taped the edges together. She was standing there, bloody nose and all, looking like some sort of strange super-hero in drag when the ambos turned up and took her away. The rest of the dinner party guests were still sitting at the table, stunned into silence at the show. They dutifully filed out into the paddy wagons for the short trip to Rose Bay, where we handed the them all off to the local drugs squad, along with the bucket of cocaine that had been sitting in a bowl on the table.”
“Turns out that the coke had been supplied by some local celebrity footy player who had stopped by for cocktails earlier on in the evening but had left after dropping off the drugs and had missed the fun and games later. He was apparently not very happy to get a knock on his door at three o’clock that morning, but the TV News crew (who had mysteriously appeared) had a great shot of some handsome young bloke wearing very little else but a baffled expression as the local coppers went inside, released the furious footy star from the furry manacles on the bedhead and replaced them with NSW Police issue handcuffs.”
I tell you what, Persephone, I wish all our arrests were like this. The bloke who was filming the whole thing so we don’t get sued, reckons this will be the best Christmas party movie ever.”
Persephone guffawed. This was the funniest tale she had heard in a while. She asked Reg if Sophia would have to hand back the tits as they were clearly paid for from the proceeds of crime. Reg pondered this question, and reckoned that he would run it past the DPP and see what they said. He promised to tell Persephone the answer.
“I’ve got to say, sweetheart, that your information about that nasty mob has really helped my standing in the force. I got a call from the Commissioner saying that they were looking at me for promotion – I thought I had reached my top rank and was happily looking forward to a disgraceful retirement, but who knows, if I get to the next level my pension is much, much better and I could afford to have even more fun in a few years. The ex-missus is spewing I can tell you.”
Persephone congratulated him on a job well done, playing down her role in the situation, saying that she had only spotted the potential fraud and that it really had been him that had do
ne the job of putting them away. Almost as an afterthought she asked,
“Did anything ever eventuate from that report about the bloke from Neutral Bay who disappeared?”
“Nope, I put a small team on it – couldn’t spare many more as we were all focusing on the property scam at the time. They are really good blokes, but they couldn’t get anywhere. There were no records of anything dodgy at the insurance company and the bloke never turned up, so there was nothing to do. It’s frustrating, as I am sure there was something going on. Your little exercise of making half the staff redundant didn’t help either; all the people who could have helped weren’t there any longer and were only interested in spending their redundancy payments and not helping my blokes.”
Persephone nodded. It looked like she was now in the clear. “So what’s keeping you up at night now that the glamour case is over?”
“Oh well, we are mostly back to the business of chasing dollars and not worrying about the victims. We get some strange ones, though sometimes.” Reg smiled, realising where this was going.
“Do tell,” Persephone leaned closer, “I’m dying to hear about this one.”
“Well, just this week, we ran into a brick wall with our investigation into corruption at that construction company…..actually, isn’t it your shout?” Reg smiled.
Persephone had no idea at that moment that she was about to become very familiar with Crowning Constructions.
Thankyou
Thank you for reading my book. If you enjoyed it, won’t you please take a moment to leave me a review at your favourite retailer?
Thanks!
Mary Bingham
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You can find out more about Persephone at www.persephonestone.com
You can read the first couple of chapters of my new book, “Cruelty Kills” in the following pages. It is due for release in 2016 and you will be able to buy it at your favourite retailer as an ebook and in print.