Disappear (19 page)

As always Kaplan was convincing, even to the son who’d heard it all before. He’d always been able to instill motivation and enthusiasm in Roger, if only for a short while.

‘I don’t want this whole thing hinging on me,’ Kaplan continued. ‘You and Harold are to play vital roles in the talks.’

‘You don’t want them to think that Kaplan Corporation is a one man affair.’

‘There’s that. And something else. I don’t want it to come down to just Becker and myself. The more players on both sides, the better. We need to get all Becker’s “yes” men on side, as well.’

Roger relaxed as the video began. Like his father, he would be sorry to see their stake in Southern Star Mining relinquished. But the sale was worth four hundred million, enough to pay the required installments to creditors, stop the bankruptcy proceedings, and cast their other divisions in a stronger light. The corporation would be a shadow of its former self - but that was better than having no financial future at all.

The video’s opening shot was an aerial view of the mining operation.

‘It is only twenty-four years old,’ the commentary began, a familiar voice over the montage of pictures, one heard dozens of times over television commercials and corporate films, ‘but in that time Southern Star Mining has become listed in the top five hundred companies on the Australian stock exchange. It is one of the South Pacific region’s largest coal producers. Amongst other things it has caused the founding of an outback town with a population of five thousand people.

‘Most of Southern Star’s output is for export, and even with the rise of new, green energy initiatives locally, the international market for coal is strong.’

News footage filled the screen, taken twenty years before. Tractors roaming a large site, turning rugged earth into a quarry buzzing with men and machines. Interspersed were shots of men in wide brimmed hats, even wider grins, captured during light-hearted moments. ‘Coal deposits at Mount Ginger in north-western Queensland were discovered in 1970 by the prospecting team of a small mining exploration company, Western Allies. They formed a syndicate with three other local mining operators, and with large amounts of capital invested by Japanese and American interests, the Southern Star Mining Group was launched …’

In the space of a few minutes the video drew its small audience through more than forty years of development and growth. ‘By 1974 there were haulage roads and preparatory earthworks for the crushing plants. A small, thriving community of workers and their families had sprung up on the level ground to the east of the mines, at the foot of the mountain’s western slopes …’

‘… the first contract shipment of coal, an encouraging 30,000 tons, was transported by freight train to the coast in 1976 …’

At the end of the film, Roger explained that in 1995 the Kaplan Corporation had acquired controlling shares in Southern Star. Those shares had risen steeply in value in the years since, and were now being offered at a bargain price.

Kaplan took his cue then, bringing in the senior accounts people. They were armed with documents and presented the financial structure of the share arrangement.

There were many times when Henry Kaplan had purchased a company at a premium price because the buyer was being forced to sell. On every occasion he felt like an avenging hawk, swooping in for the kill. The urge to take advantage of his opponent’s situation was irresistible. He knew the Canadian entrepreneur would feel exactly the same. Kaplan had made certain that everything presented to Becker underlined the desperate need of the Kaplan Corporation to sell under market value in order to survive. Kaplan expected this ploy to make the sale a certainty.

After all, Becker was just another greedy scavenger, brimming with blood lust for his prey, anxious to move in for the final feed.

Lachlan strode through the swinging glass doors of the data communications room - a large, oval space with a dozen workstations, each with its own partially closed-off area. Every time he came here Lachlan was struck by the thought that this was the quietest, cleanest part of Central Crime Command at the Parramatta HQ.

The rest of the building he perceived as being in a state of organised chaos. If there was organised chaos in
here
, he reflected, then it was inside the collective memory of the desktop computer units, deep within the intricate bowels of the mainframes.

Lachlan stuck his head around the third cubicle to the left of the swinging doors. ‘Hi Teddy.’

Edward ‘Teddy’ Vanda looked up from his screen, swinging round in his swivel chair as he did so. ‘Lacho! Long time no see, no hear. No evil. No way!’

‘No time is more like it.’

Teddy laughed. For a computer whizz, Teddy didn’t fit the stereotype of the scrawny, bespectacled nerd. He was a big, broad shouldered twenty-eight year old with a wide, toothy grin, an irreverent gleam in his eye, and a thick brush of dark hair, razor short. He spoke in the lingo that had become prevalent in the male youth of recent years - part urban dude, part old time ocker. A curious and infectious blend that had always amused Lachlan.

‘Any chance of a favour?’ Lachlan asked.

‘For you. Always.’

‘I need some info on missing persons.’

‘We have info on missing dudes and dudettes you wouldn’t believe. What are you after?’

‘People who’ve been listed as missing who’ve subsequently been found murdered.’

‘Man, are you kidding? I could run you a printout that’s a mile long. It would take you a month of Sundays to read it and you still wouldn’t be any the wiser.’

‘We’re going to be more specific than that. Anyone reported missing seventeen to nineteen years ago, nationally, who’s been found murdered in the past twelve months.’

‘Now we’re cookin’. I’ll run a search program first thing this afternoon. Sorry, but the mainframe’s chock’a’block until then.’

‘That’s fine. And Teddy?’

‘Yeah?’

‘The favour part. Keep it just between us. Okay?’

‘Uh-oh. One of those. Internal politics or something equally as smelly.’

‘Equally as smelly,’ Lachlan replied.

‘No problem,’ Teddy assured him. ‘After all, I owe you.’

‘Big time. Make sure I return the favour sometime.’

‘Already in my diary, Sherlock.’

Lachlan gave his young friend a harmless punch on the shoulder, then left. Over the past few years he’d asked Teddy for more favours than he could remember. He’d never been asked to repay one of them. Teddy always said he owed him, but in fact he’d never owed him anything at all. It had started out as a joke, now it was part of the repartee between two colleagues who had a healthy respect for each other.

Two men who knew that politics and bureaucracy sometimes got in the way of a man doing the job he was meant to do.

Jennifer made half a dozen calls to contacts within the fashion industry, and two of those she called mentioned Stuart James. He was a registered private investigator who had undertaken assignments for both those contacts.

‘Always good to get referrals,’ James said, ‘not that I get much work from the fashion business. Most of the work I do is on missing persons.’

‘That makes you ideal for this brief,’ Jennifer commented.

James flipped through the notes he’d taken while quizzing Jennifer on the case. ‘Most PIs get a lot of missing persons work,’ he commented, ‘and most of that work entails teenagers from wealthy homes who’ve left home without a word. Your husband … quite a different kettle of fish.’

‘What do you think?’

‘I can’t make any promises, you understand, but I’ll dig around, see what I can come up with. I gather that’s more than you’re expecting from the coppers.’

‘Seems so.’

‘Not unusual. That’s why PIs pick up so much missing persons work. The coppers don’t have the time or manpower. And in the case of your husband’s murder after so many years missing … well, this is both a cold case and a new case all rolled into one.’

‘I have a feeling there’s more to it. That man, Rosen, was … evasive.’

James smiled and held up his hands in a mock gesture to hold back further comment. ‘Please. I hear a hundred and one conspiracy stories a day as it is. No more.’

Jennifer half grinned, conceding the point. ‘Understood.’

She liked Stuart James. He was a charming, articulate, effusive character, not at all what she expected when she had phoned for an appointment. He’d agreed to see her almost straight away.

‘I’m just around the corner from you, Australia Tower, seventeenth floor. If you come by in twenty minutes you can take the place of a cancelled appointment. I don’t have long, though - fifteen minutes, so we’ll have to talk fast.’

That presented no problem to James, who spoke in fast motion, spitting out words in an endless stream and constantly flashing looks at his Rolex. He was of solid build, with warm, round features, mid-forties, impeccably well dressed. He could have been a real estate salesman for one of the elite suburbs; there was nothing dark or moody or mysterious about him. His offices were modern, relaxing, designer-style, but functional, not overly expensive looking.

‘You’re certain about your husband’s appearance,’ James asked, ‘ he hadn’t aged at all?’

‘Not a line on his face,’ Jennifer said. Once again the vision of the body on the slab crashed uninvited into her mind.

‘There are certain possibilities, Ms Parkes - for instance, plastic surgery might allow a fortyish man to pass for mid-twenties, it’s just that not too many Aussie men go in for it, at least not yet.’

‘The coroner’s autopsy showed there’d been no plastic surgery.’ Jennifer filled him in on her talks with Lachlan and Rosen.

‘I see. Well, I’ll check the autopsy result as a matter of procedure. But in the meantime, tell me, was there any indication from the coroner of other surgery, anything at all?’

Jennifer told him about the unexplained post mortem incision to the throat.

James nodded as he listened, but he made no comment. When she had finished, he leaned forward, adopting his down-to-business face. ‘I charge a retainer of $150 an hour, plus expenses, minimum start up fee of $500. But, I won’t keep taking your money if I don’t think I can help you.’

‘That’s fine.’

‘My focus will be to find out where Brian was during those missing years. Answer that and I know we’ll find the solutions to the other questions. You know, Ms. Parkes, you may have heard the expression, from the police world, that the dead can talk to us from beyond the grave.’

‘Yes…I have.’

‘What it means, exactly, is that the circumstances of a victim’s body - where it’s found, how the person died - can yield clues that ultimately lead to the person’s killer. I want you to think of Brian’s reappearance in a similar way, perhaps not speaking to us from beyond the grave but crying out to us from the limbo of those missing years. And that something about his reappearance is going to lead us to the answers.’

‘Okay.’

‘Now, first, I want to look into your husband’s business activities. Do you know if his accountancy records still exist?’

‘There’s been no reason to keep them, but they’ve never actually been thrown out.’

‘They’re with you?’

‘Yes. In boxes. Buried somewhere in the clutter at the back of my garage.’

‘The Missing Persons Unit checked them at the time?’

‘Yes. They didn’t find anything unusual.’

‘I’m looking for something that may not be unusual or obvious,’ James pointed out, ‘but when accountants are murdered you can bet your bottom dollar it’s got something to do with money. I have a gut feeling I might find something useful in those records.’

Jennifer wondered if she’d kept the records all this time, subconsciously suspecting this day might come. She’d always been skeptical about things like that, but this past week was fast changing her in that regard. She had begun to think perhaps nothing was as it seemed.

Could there be something about Brian, something related to all of this, that she had never known?

‘How’s it going with the Canadians?’ Jennifer asked as she entered Roger’s office.

‘Hard to tell, they don’t give much away,’ Roger replied. He gestured to the lounge against the wall of the office. ‘Sit down for a moment. Masterton and my father are showing Becker and his men the building. We’re taking them to dinner tonight and I’m double checking the reservations.’

Jennifer sank comfortably into the pliable welcome of the sofa’s cushions. ‘With everything that’s gone on over the past week I haven’t actually asked you how you’re handling the problems here. You seem to be holding up okay.’

‘I’m holding up. The odds are in our favour that the Southern Star sale to Becker will go through.’

Appraising him, Jennifer reflected once again on how much Roger looked like Henry. The dark hair was just beginning to show flecks of grey. ‘It’s a wonder Henry didn’t take this step much sooner.’

‘He wanted to avoid this. Buying into that mine was a pet project of his, you know, big time coal magnate and all that. Doesn’t give a shit about all the anti-coal environmentalism going on, sees a world market for it with fewer players. Maybe he wanted to be another Lang Hancock along with everything else.’ He shrugged. ‘Who knows? We simply reached the point where there was no choice - this sale represents the one chance we’ve got to stay afloat. And we’re better off out of the old energies anyway. I’d be going solar if we were in any position to be taking up new investments.’

‘I’ve got fingers and toes crossed for you guys on this. I just wish I could do something.’

‘Just being a friend helps, Jen,’ he said, echoing her earlier comment to him.

‘I’m glad we’ve always remained friends. Brian would’ve been happy about that.’

Roger nodded in agreement. He wondered whether now, after all this time, she might be prepared to allow that friendship to blossom into something more. He allowed himself a subtle admiration of her. The years hadn’t dimmed her beauty, quite the opposite. She had an inner glow that came from maturity and experience. No longer just a pretty face and gawky young wife of years before, now she had the warm, intimate allure of a confident woman.