The man nods compliantly, stands, and walks away. Mandy senses there’s something unusual about him; recalls feeling the same way when she first encountered him.
‘He’s fine,’ says Zelda, as if she’s used to explaining. ‘On the spectrum, but not too far in.’
‘He seems lovely,’ says Pam in a very Pam voice.
The three women sit at the table, surrounded by a quiet babble of voices, enough to offer them privacy. Mandy offers to buy coffees: Pam selects a large skinny decaf and a slice of carrot cake, Zelda chooses two iced coffees with whipped cream—one for herself and a takeaway for Derek—plus an eclair for herself and a mousse for her brother. Mandy orders at the counter, making do with a skinny latte for herself, returning to the table with a number on a pole.
Once she’s seated, Pam takes charge. ‘Here,’ she says, ‘let me show you.’ She extracts a clear plastic folder from her bag, removes a piece of paper and unfolds it. It’s two pieces of A4 stuck together. There’s a drawn diagram, as neat as any school assignment. At the centre are three large squares arranged in a triangle, each neatly labelled: Mollisons at the top, Diamond Square and Large Sky below. Each square is linked to the other two by arrows going in each direction, forming the sides of the triangle, each arrow containing a percentage between twelve and twenty-four. To the right of the diagram is a list of about two dozen names.
‘Mollisons I know,’ says Mandy. ‘What are the other two? They sound familiar.’
‘Zelda?’ prompts Pam.
‘Mollisons is a bank, Diamond Square is an unlisted property trust, Large Sky is a property developer. All privately held companies, so not on the stock exchange.’
‘And the arrows and percentages?’
‘They represent the cross-ownership. Each company possesses a significant holding in each of the other two. Not enough for outright control, but enough to get a couple of board positions. The companies are separate legal entities, but because of the cross-ownership, and because of common board members, it’s safe to assume they operate in concert.’
Mandy looks at the list of names. Most are male, most appear to be Anglo-Saxon, but that’s not what draws her eye. Six names have a suffix, like some sort of qualification, except instead of PhD or AO, the names are followed by a mixture of the initials M, DS and LS. Four have all three of the initial sets, another two have two each. ‘And these?’ she asks.
Pam is beaming with pride. ‘Board members.’
‘Six of them are on more than one board,’ Mandy observes.
‘That’s right,’ says Zelda. ‘And three of the four who sit on all three boards are the deputy chair of one of the companies.’
‘Very symmetrical,’ observes Mandy. ‘Who’s the odd one out, if he’s not a deputy chair?’
‘Here.’ Pam pulls out another single piece of A4 paper. It is headed Phipps Allenby Lockhart.
‘That’s the law firm Tarquin was working for,’ says Mandy.
‘Correcto-mundo,’ says Pam.
‘It’s a partnership, like a lot of law firms,’ says Zelda. ‘Look at the names of the partners.’
There are a dozen partners, but only two matter: the bottom ten names have no suffixes. One man, Atticus Pons, has the trifecta—M, DS and LS—and another has DS and LS.
Mandy compares the two documents. ‘So these six men, they’re across everything?’
‘It seems that way.’
‘Let me guess,’ says Mandy. ‘The bank sources money, some of which is invested in the property trust, Diamond Square, which in turn invests in new developments being built by Large Sky. Or Large Sky sources money directly from Mollisons. And if there are any legal hurdles, they turn to Phipps Allenby Lockhart.’
Zelda smiles. ‘That seems likely. We can’t say for sure how the money flows, but it seems logical enough.’
Mandy looks at the flow charts, the numbers in the arrows. ‘Is there anything illegal or improper in the cross-ownership?’
‘Not really,’ says Pam. ‘But it’s interesting, isn’t it?’
‘Yes. And these six, the inner circle, they own the companies?’ Mandy directs the question at Zelda.
‘No. It’s not that simple. They do seem to have some holdings, but the controlling ownership of all three companies is held offshore. The board members represent the owners, but that doesn’t mean they themselves are the owners.’
‘So who are the owners?’
‘Don’t know—and it’s nigh on impossible to find out. Some shares are held through custodial accounts; some are held directly through companies domiciled in offshore tax havens: the Caymans, the Bahamas, Switzerland. Bits and pieces through Vanuatu. Here …’ Zelda hands over a third piece of paper, a list printed off a computer. ‘You can see for yourself, there are hundreds of shareholders.’
‘What’s a custodial account?’
‘An account run through a large stockbroking firm or some such. It can be a way of disguising the true ownership.’
‘Is that legal?’
‘Yes.’
Mandy stares at the diagram of the companies and the list of names. It’s like looking at the Rosetta Stone: as if seeing great knowledge, but lacking the key to decipher it. ‘What does all this mean?’
‘Maybe everything, maybe nothing,’ says Zelda. ‘All those small holdings might be just that: dozens of small holdings. Which would mean the Australian directors really do have effective control. But so many foreign owners, nearly all of them untraceable, raises a more likely possibility: there are a handful of foreign owners who are disguising their control.’
‘Is that possible?’
‘It is. There’s even a name for it: bank capture.’
Mandy stares at her, blinking. ‘That sounds serious.’
‘The tax haven ownership sends up a red flag. It suggests that this has something to do with evading tax, or money laundering, or even ownership by organised crime syndicates.’
‘Shit a brick,’ says Mandy.
‘I know, right?’ Pam is grinning madly now, like a schoolgirl receiving an A-plus for her homework.
‘Money laundering? How would that work?’ asks Mandy, again directing her question to Zelda.
‘Well, these diagrams don’t tell us anything about that. They show cross-ownership and board directors, not how the companies make money. There’s nothing here about revenue, margins, profits, cash flow.’
‘Any guesses?’
‘Well, no doubt all three companies
