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.
3
The happy couple were so involved in what they were doing-and they behaved as though they'd achieved something no one else in the world had ever done-that they didn't ask me what I was up to. That suited me. Like them, I wanted to be sure before making any announcements. I was happy for them and myself: I'd missed out on the real experience of fatherhood, a big thing to miss out on, and now I was getting a second chance at a version of it.
I went home from their flat with two-thirds of a bottle of champagne inside me. Megan wasn't drinking and Hank was almost too excited to drink. The walk from Newtown to Glebe sobered me and it wasn't late. Time to work.
I transferred Standish's list and his brief comments on the people on it into a notebook. I had names-Stefan Nordlung, Felicity Standish, Rosemary Malouf, Prospero Sabatini, Clive Finn and Selim Houli. Sabatini was the journalist who'd written on the Malouf matter; Finn and Houli were gamblers. Finn was the manager of a casino at Parramatta and Houli ran a nightclub and a high stakes card game at Kings Cross. Both men had told police that Malouf had lost heavily but both denied having anything to do with his disappearance. I had addresses and phone numbers for some of them. I spread the clippings, printouts and emails on the desk in the room I used as an office-now given over mainly to paying bills-and immersed myself in the life and times of Richard Malouf.
Perry Hassan had sent Standish a copy of the CV Malouf had provided when applying successfully for a job in his firm. This, with Sabatini's published articles, provided a detailed portrait. Richard Malouf was thirty-five, the only son of immigrant Lebanese parents who'd come to Australia in the early 1970s. Malouf senior was a veterinarian not qualified to practise in Australia but who acquired a great reputation among the Brisbane horse racing fraternity. He did well and his son attended private schools. Both parents were now dead. Richard Malouf played soccer for the school and was scouted by professional clubs. Instead, after stellar HSC results, he went to the University of Western Australia where he got a degree in economics. He followed with a master's in computer science and worked for IBM and other firms in Perth before coming east and joining Perry Hassan's outfit.
In 2003 he married Rosemary Bruce, an airline flight attendant. They had no children, lived in Balmain with a water view and a mortgage, and shared a Beemer. Malouf played golf at Kogarah, amateur soccer briefly, and collected wine. He was found in his car at the Sydney airport parking station. He'd been shot once through the head.
Several photographs accompanied Sabatini's articles- schoolboy Malouf with his near perfect HSC score, Malouf with the soccer ball on a string and later receiving an award at IBM. I worked through the material, highlighting various points and making notes. I put the stuff together neatly and got up to take the medications I'd be taking for the rest of my life for blood pressure, heart rhythm regulation, cholesterol control. I swallowed them down with the dregs of the red wine I'd been drinking as an aid to concentration. It was a life sentence, but not to do it was a death sentence.
Always get up from your studies with a question, someone had said. I had one: why would a high flyer like Maloufjoin a firm like Perry Hassan's? It was big, but not the biggest.
In the morning I phoned Nordlung at his home address. A woman with a faint American accent answered and I told her what I wanted.
'I'm his wife. You'll find him at the marina by the Spit Bridge, working on his boat.'
'Can you tell me the name of the boat, Mrs Nordlung?'
'It's the Gretchen III -that's Stefan's little joke. Gretchen's my name and I'm his third wife.'
I couldn't be sure but she sounded drunk. At that time in the morning? Well, it happens.
It was a perfect day with a blue sky and light wind. Coming down Spit Road towards the water gave me a
