Bad Seed (52 page)

Des necked the remains of his whisky. ‘Fuck it, I've had enough.'

‘Des?' Cato had said, rubbing his neck in relief.

‘I can't do this to Joyce. Leave her drowning in other people's blood.'

Des and Matt had a cup of tea while they waited for the paddy wagons to come and take them away. ‘Pity about that whisky,' said Matt.

Cato had used a towel in the bathroom to mop the gash on his forehead where the bottle had connected.

Now Matt was having breakfast a few doors down and consulting with his lawyer Henry Hurley. He could wait. Des was the one with most of the jigsaw pieces in his pocket. They were lawyered up, announced on the tapes and ready to roll. Des and Amrita on one side of the table, Chris Thornton and Cato on the other.

‘Where do you want to start?' said Des amicably.

‘How about the beginning?'

‘That depends on what you think I've done and when.'

They could only now begin the forensic accountancy on what might have happened with young Benji Strickland's trust fund but Cato suspected it was being milked by Des to help fund his dealings with Yu Guangming. But while it remained guesswork he couldn't go there, yet.

‘Tell me about you and Yu Guangming.'

‘By the time I met Yu, Francis was already in trouble. He'd been skimming, overpricing the deals to help out the poor cockies. His Chinese mates knew, thought he was an idiot, but it was small change to them. Usually ten to fifty grand here and there so they indulged him. Until Strickland.'

‘That was three years ago, right?'

‘Thereabouts.'

They'd nail the details along the way in subsequent repeat interviews. Cato was happy to go for an open account for now, to maintain flow. ‘Why was the Strickland deal different?'

‘He overloaded it big time. Valued the farm more than double what it was worth. His backers went ape when they found out. Thought it lacked respect.'

‘You told them?'

‘Had to, otherwise they would have come after me as his partner.'

‘So?'

‘Yu Guangming was working for Li at the time. Chief headkicker. He was sent over to have a discrete word with Francis. Old Li wanted a bit of distance from doing the nasties.'

‘And you became acquainted?'

‘He was a charmer. I was at a barbie at the Tans, they were still in Bicton at the time, and he was all over Genevieve like a rash. She didn't seem to mind too much either. Yu let Francis know he'd have to either reimburse them from the newly set-up Strickland trust fund or make up the difference himself.'

‘But he didn't want to touch the trust fund? He downsized, sold Bicton and moved to Coogee instead.'

‘Yep, and he told Yu Guangming that was his plan. Maybe that's
what gave the bloke ideas above his station, or maybe not. He seemed cocky and ambitious anyway.'

‘Go on.'

‘He invited me to lunch. He told me about this development opportunity in Shanghai. Worth zillions for relatively small outlay.'

‘Cambridge Gardens?'

O'Neill snorted bitterly. ‘First rule of commerce. If something seems too good to be true, it probably is.'

‘You wanted in and borrowed from the trust fund to make it happen?'

‘No doubt your bean counters will dig it all out in time. The trust fund was a small part of it, yeah, but only in passing to help with cashflow. I did repay the loan when I disbursed the fund after the boy died.'

Cato could only ask. ‘Did you have anything to do with the boy's death?'

‘No. Why would I?' A shake of the head, how could Cato think such a thing? ‘It served no purpose. The deal was on by then and I was able to repay the loan. No dramas.'

So the Strickland boy's death would remain an unsolved hit and run. Maybe just some bloke with two much grog still in his system after a big night out. Guilty, scared, waiting for a knock on the door. Over the following few years Yu Guangming established his own business empire, with the help of his then girlfriend Phoebe Li, and fed deals to O'Neill while sabotaging Francis's work with Old Man Li. Phoebe was the main saboteur.

‘Motive?' said Cato.

‘She didn't like the strong bond between her dad and Francis. And I think she was going through her rebellious phase. Flirting with dad's rival, doing deals behind Daddy's back. She was in on Cambridge Gardens for a while, part-funding our purchase of it and jacking up the pressure on Daddy for a big buyout to save his bigger deal.'

‘But she finally came down on the side of the family business?'

‘No choice. Filial daughter and all that. Besides there were big names attached to the main deal, party figures, military brass. They
got wind of what she was doing. Quietly brought her into line.'

Unit 61398, or a freelance offshoot.

‘You and Yu Guangming were out in the cold?'

A rueful smile. ‘But holding on. We had too much invested by then and Joyce's cancer was back with a vengeance.' O'Neill's eyes clouded over. ‘I couldn't back out, I needed the money too much. No super or shit like that. We dug our heels in.'

‘Meantime, what was happening with Francis?'

In a tailspin. Phoebe's sabotages, culminating in the disastrous FIRB ruling that cost her father many millions, piled business pressure on Francis. Domestically the impact was huge. With the exception of young Joshua, the whole family turned on Francis for selling Bicton and taking them to Port Coogee and a generally less lavish lifestyle than they had become used to. Matthew moved out and kept on nagging his parents for money because he was too useless to organise his own life. Genevieve lost interest in her husband and began to look elsewhere, particularly at Yu Guangming who was in town more frequently on his own business these days. And sixteen year old Emily used her raging hormones and bitter teenage rebellion to maximum effect. Moving on from her bogan boyfriend Zac and turning her attentions full beam on her mother's lover.

‘Yu was just playing her, though. Incurable flirt. Still he must have thought all his Christmases had come at once.' O'Neill grinned. ‘Dirty old bastard.'

Amrita Gupta was finding it hard to hide her distaste.

‘And then things took a turn for the worse,' said Cato.

‘Much worse,' conceded O'Neill.

Marjorie Hutchens was eating a hedgehog slice while she worked through another gruelling
Fifty Shades
sex scene. Puh-lease she thought to herself, flicking crumbs off her chest, just smack him back.

‘You still reading that? I thought you'd be finished.'

‘Fuck me,' she said. ‘You're awake.'

Hutchens smiled weakly through the bandages. ‘Maybe later, love. Can I have a drink of water first?'

‘They were trying to find a way around having to pay us for Cambridge Gardens. They'd even coopted Francis, told him I was working behind his back. Told him I was the saboteur instead of Phoebe. He believed it, things were a bit fraught between us by then.' O'Neill sipped some water from a bottle. ‘We wanted two hundred million: dollars that is. We'd dropped it down to a hundred by the time the crunch came. True it was still three times its real value but it was still just tea money to the Lis.' He picked at a gouge in the desk top. ‘I think Old Man Li would have gone for it but Phoebe was digging her stilettos in. She'd got word about Yu's dalliances with the Tan girls. The green-eyed monster had reared.'

‘Stalemate,' said Cato. ‘So what changed?'

‘Francis had been going through some old papers. Trying to work out what went wrong with the FIRB decision on the Great Southern property, trying to redeem himself with Li. He must have come across the old documentation on the Strickland trust fund. He worked out I'd temporarily milked it. It offended his sense of propriety.'

‘He was going to tell Li?'

A nod, which became a yes under Chris Thornton's instructions.

‘But it was small change. Why would that be a threat to the Cambridge Gardens deal?'

‘They could claim it was fraudulently obtained. A nod and a wink here. An envelope there. The local city officials could be persuaded to void their original sale of the land to us and blame the dodgy foreigner. And Francis now had the documentation to prove it.'

‘Did Francis want anything to stop him blabbing and handing over the paperwork?'

‘Nothing. He just thought it was the right thing to do.'

‘All those calls and emails around that time. You tried to dissuade him.'

‘He wouldn't listen to reason.'

‘What reason?'

‘I offered him a cut of the Cambridge deal. It would have solved all of his problems. Got him out of debt, out of Port Coogee. Maybe even got his wife and family back.'

‘No deal?'

‘No.'

‘Why didn't he just scan the documents and email it all through?'

A shrug. ‘Maybe a face-to-face with Li was his insurance, his bargaining chip, a way back into Li's confidence.'

‘So you brought Matthew in. What was his part in it?'

‘He was Mummy's boy. Mummy wasn't interested in communicating with me. She'd made that clear over the years. But through Matt, I made her the same offer. Get Francis to hold his tongue and they'd all be in clover.'

‘And?'

‘She tried, she failed. By then Yu Guangming was already in transit. He'd given me a chance to try and sort it out my way. Otherwise he would do it his way instead.'

‘You knew his intentions?'

‘Yes, I had a pretty good idea of what he was capable of.'

Good luck, mate, you'll need it

‘You didn't warn the Tans?'

‘No, it had to be resolved one way or another. Francis was scheduled to meet Li on the Monday and hand over whatever he had. Too much riding on it.'

Conspiracy to murder. But could Cato make it stick in court? ‘Did Matthew know what was coming?'

‘No.'

‘But he must have guessed afterwards?'

‘Must have,' Des said, grimly.

There'd been nothing about the Strickland trust fund at the crime scene so Yu must have found it, taken it, destroyed it.

‘So mission accomplished,' said Cato. ‘Francis was killed before he got to speak to Thomas Li.'

‘So it seems.'

‘Did you expect him to wipe out the whole family?'

O'Neill shrugged. ‘No witnesses. He was in, job done, and out back to China. And for a while you guys were none the wiser.'

Something occurred to Cato. ‘Once Yu Guangming was killed in Shanghai, that must have changed the game. Weakened your position?'

‘It did a bit. The final offer on the land was pretty near to the true market value. I think Old Man Li was trying to play fair even though he didn't need to. By the time I had the meeting with Feng they'd somehow got word of the trust fund milking anyway, even with Francis dead.'

The cyber dragons, monitoring Cato's musings.

‘You know we'll get the evidence to link you to Feng's death, don't you?'

A shrug. ‘Let me know how you go with that.'

Cato had already had heartening news from Duncan Goldflam on that score. The washing machine filter contained suspicious blood traces that promised a result.

‘What could be gained from killing Feng?'

O'Neill smiled. ‘Hypothetically you mean?'

‘If you like,' said Cato.

‘I've been up to Shanghai, even met Old Man Li a couple of times. Funny old coot isn't he? Very formal and polite, but hard as fucking nails.'

‘That sounds like him.'

‘Did he do that “pushing hands” bullshit with you too? Toyshow, I think they call it.' Tuishou. O'Neill closed his eyes and brought his hands together in a mock prayer. ‘So, grasshopper, you must dissolve the incoming force before striking the fatal blow.' O'Neill shook his head. ‘Threats dressed up as mysticism. Silly old drama queen.'

‘So,' said Cato. ‘Feng. Hypothetically?'