Executive Affair (28 page)

There was a burst of noise as Fiona turned on the TV. She adjusted the volume.

‘I don't know. I'll have to sleep on it … Hey, can you fax me the company search reports?' He had almost forgotten.

‘On both companies?'

‘Yes.'

‘To your hotel fax?'

‘No, I won't get back here until late. Work should be okay – hold on and I'll give you the number.'

She took the number down, aware of Fiona watching her rather than the TV.

‘Okay, got that?' said Robert. ‘Goodnight, my love, I'll talk to you tomorrow.'

Fiona didn't allow her time to think about the endearment
he had used. ‘I can't believe you're still talking to him!'

‘He didn't do it. We jumped to the wrong conclusion.'

‘Don't be so silly. He's playing with you.'

‘He's not. I know Robert. Every day at work I've seen his commitment to the company, his integrity when making hard decisions – he would never do something like this – and I should have trusted my instincts before assuming the worst,' Claire answered, her confidence deepening Fiona's frown.

‘But you have the evidence, the reports. And he needed the money for his divorce.'

‘You don't know the full facts.'

‘Well, tell me them,' Fiona demanded in frustration.

‘I'm sorry. I can't tell you anything right now. Only that it wasn't Robert.'

Claire went to bed. An hour later, sleep was still evading her. She got dressed and went down the street to a twenty-four-hour garage. She sent the fax to Robert from there.

The nurse led Robert to the visitors' room. She was professional and pleasant. So far he was impressed with both the staff and the facilities at the clinic. It was a few moments before Julia came in. She looked dreadful. He realised that the Julia he had seen in Sydney had been heavily made up to disguise the damage her addiction was wreaking on her body.

‘Robert!' She flung herself into his arms, tears welling in her eyes.

He gave her a courteous embrace before sitting her down on the sofa.

‘How did you know I was here? I didn't want you to find out about this.' She was uneasy, afraid of what had prompted this unexpected visit.

‘It doesn't matter how I know,' he reassured, holding her hand loosely to calm her down.

‘It was just some bad luck, Robert, bad luck with the cops … and the judge.' Her eyes pleaded with him to believe her.

‘Don't worry. I'm not here to talk about that. We'll discuss it another time … I need you to help me …'

‘What's wrong? Are you in trouble?' Her concern was surprisingly endearing.

‘Yes, I'm in trouble,' he said with a sigh.

‘Oh no, what's wrong, Robert? Are you ill?' She looked at him frantically, her fingers curling around his.

‘No, nothing like that. It's work. Something has happened … I may lose my job.'

‘Thank heavens! Thank heavens you're not ill! It's not the end of the world if you lose your job. In fact it could be the best thing that happened to us.' She was suddenly excited.

He was staggered at the intensity of her reaction. ‘I need you to answer some questions for me, Julia – I need you to be honest.'

‘Okay,' she smiled at him.

‘You know that company you bought last year, the shelf company?' He continued when she nodded, ‘Did you ever use that company?'

‘No, I was going to set up a small business but I lost interest.' Her answer seemed genuine.

‘Okay, just one more question. Did you know Frank Williams before you met him in Sydney?'

‘No, why?' She looked so puzzled that Robert could only believe her.

‘No reason, I must go now,' he said, letting go of her hand to stand up.

‘Don't go. Please stay! I haven't said sorry yet for what happened in Sydney.' She was distressed, grabbing the end of his jacket as she sat on the sofa.

‘It's okay, Julia. You don't have to apologise,' he said, releasing his jacket from her grip. ‘We'll talk soon, okay? We'll talk about Sydney and some other stuff we should have talked about a long time ago.'

He was trying to give her an inkling that they were coming to an end, but the hope on her face made him realise that she had misinterpreted what the ‘talk' would entail. She was in denial and very fragile. Telling her about the divorce was going to be one of the hardest things he'd ever done.

Wayne was reading something at the fax machine when Robert got to the office.

‘This was on the machine for you.' He was flushed as he handed the sheets to Robert.

‘Thanks.'

Wayne followed him to the door of his office. ‘What are you doing, Robert? You know Donald will be pissed if he finds out you are pursuing this behind his back.'

‘That's for me to worry about, not you.'

Wayne looked as if he was about to argue the point. Robert shut the door firmly. He no longer cared about Donald. The fax pages were out of sequence; he didn't know whether Wayne had mixed them up or this was the way they had come through the machine. There were no leads from the DC Solutions report – it was only a few pages. It was interesting that the directors of the Australian company were US citizens but their names meant nothing to him. He put the report down on his desk and started to read the ARS one. He saw his own
name in the director's section. The other director was Ralph Costello.

Costello. That's Wayne's surname. This must be a bizarre coincidence.

He was frowning in concentration when his mobile rang.

‘Robert, it's me, Tom … I've checked out that company.'

Of course – Tom has been checking out Julia's shelf company. There are so many companies in the ring now that I'm starting to get confused.

‘Look, it's dormant, it's never been used,' Tom went on to say.

‘How can you tell?'

‘Got a contact who's a cop – he did me a very big favour and checked to see if the company had any bank accounts or shareholdings or anything like that. All his enquiries came back negative. Don't ask me for the details – I don't want to get the guy into trouble.'

‘Okay, thanks for that.'

‘Robert, I want to talk about the divorce papers. Do you have time?'

‘Not now. I'll call you tomorrow.'

He turned off his mobile. He needed to think without the threat of interruption.

How can I find out about Ralph Costello?

Claire called Emma first thing the next morning.

‘Em, it's me again.'

‘Hello 007. I was hoping you'd call with another assignment.'

‘Not exactly an assignment, just something that has been bothering me. Do you know who has access to set up vendors in –'

‘James,' Emma answered before Claire finished the question.

‘Is he the only person?' Claire needed to be sure.

‘And Alan Harris – he's the backup for James.'

Alan Harris! Alan helping Frank Williams … that makes sense … he's always been in Frank's pocket.

Emma was still speaking. ‘Oracle keeps a record of all updates and logs the user's name. It's a pretty good audit trail.'

‘So, if I want to find out who set up a vendor about four months ago, all I would have to do is look it up in Oracle?'

‘Under normal circumstances, yes … but it's not so simple after the upgrade.'

‘Why?'

‘Because we purged all the historical data – we didn't think it was worth transferring across.'

‘Surely it's been backed up?' Claire yawned – she hadn't slept much after she got back from the garage.

‘Yes, but retrieving the backup tape and reloading it would be a major task. You'd have the whole IT Department involved,' Emma explained.

‘Damn. Robert wouldn't want that.'

‘There's one other thing we could try,' Emma suggested.

‘What?'

‘The download I sent to Michael for testing. I might still have it.'

‘Can you check now?'

‘I'm doing it right as we speak.'

Claire waited. All night she had been thinking about how Frank could have orchestrated the fraud. It was relatively easy for him to create a company and to sign off the invoices. It wasn't as easy to get the supplier set up in Oracle. Somewhere
in the jumble of her thoughts was the previous year's audit issue regarding segregation of duties in the accounts payable area – the concern that the person who entered invoices into the payables system could also set up a vendor, making fraud all the easier. And both James and Alan were in that sensitive position.

‘Bad luck,' Emma said finally. ‘It's not here. I must have deleted it … but we could try Michael. He might still have it.'

‘I don't know,' said Claire, dubious about the idea of involving yet another person.

Emma misread the reasons behind Claire's reluctance to call Michael. ‘I would ring him for you but I have to be out of here today at five – I've got to go to the dentist.'

‘It's okay. I'll ring him myself … but I don't want him to know I've left Amtech.' She knew he wouldn't be able to find her on the global mailing list; she would be deleted by now. ‘If he has the file, I'll ask him to send it to you. Is that okay?'

‘No problem. I might drop in when I'm finished with the dentist to see if he's sent it … Of course, that's dependent on how much pain I'm in.'

Cherie answered the phone. It was three in the afternoon and Wayne was at work.

‘Hello there,' Robert said. His friendliness wasn't forced – he was very fond of Cherie. These days he had much more in common with her than he had with Wayne.

‘Robert! About time! I was wondering if you would ever call me,' Cherie scolded.

‘I'm sorry – I had a lot on. But that's no excuse, I know.'

‘Wayne said you had some trouble at work. Is everything okay?'

‘Yes, it was just a misunderstanding. I'm getting it sorted as we speak.' He didn't mind her asking – it was only because she cared.

‘Good.'

‘Cherie, I had another reason to call. It's coming up to Wayne's tenth anniversary with the company –' he began.

‘So it is … doesn't time fly?'

‘We're planning a few things for him, including a surprise party.'

‘Oh, how exciting. He'll be so pleased!'

‘I need you to help me. I need a list of all the people he knows, friends, family … don't hold back, because it will be a big function.'

‘Okay, I won't.'

If this turned out to be a false lead, he resolved that he would have a party for Wayne – it would go some way to relieving his guilt at lying to Cherie like this.

‘And I need a copy of his birth certificate.'

‘Why on earth do you need that?' Cherie was understandably curious.

‘Can't tell you. It's a surprise … and I need all this as quickly as you can get it to me.'

Claire thought about ringing Mark to see if she could get the file from him rather than Michael. Then she remembered that she wasn't on the best of terms with Mark – she was an obstacle to his empire-building plans.

Michael's phone rang for a while before it was picked up.

‘Michael?'

‘Yes …'

‘It's Claire.'

‘Hello, Claire. I should have recognised your voice. It's been a long time.'

‘Yes, it has. How are you?' she asked coolly.

‘I'm knee deep in wedding plans, but grand.'

She felt detached. There was no jealousy. The love she'd had for him and the hurt he'd caused her were fully erased.

She used the pause as an opportunity to move from the personal to business. ‘Michael, we need your help with something … We're looking for a copy of the download that Emma sent you for testing.'

‘Why? Have you had a system crash?' He was instantly alert.

‘No, nothing like that. We're just doing an internal audit on the transition from the old system to the new one.' Claire had her explanation well rehearsed. It came out sounding reasonably plausible.

‘I'm a magpie, I keep everything, so I should have it somewhere – I'll send it to you in a few minutes.'

‘Can you send it to Emma? I've been having some problems with my PC.'

It was after eight when Emma called.

‘The bastard took my tooth out! I can't feel the left side of my face' she moaned, her voice muffled.

‘Poor you! Thanks for doing this when you feel so lousy. Did Michael send the file?'

‘Yes. What vendor did you want me to check?' Emma had the file open, ready to run a search.

‘DC Solutions … it should have been created around May or June.'

It took a few moments for Emma to look it up. ‘It's here … It
was set up at the end of June … James was the user,' she said, her response coming bit by bit as she read the record.

‘What about Alan? Does he use James's password?'

‘No, he has his own password. He didn't set this vendor up.'

James. Was it James who helped Frank?

‘Claire?' Emma prompted when there was silence.

‘What other details are on the file? Is there a phone number?'

‘No, no phone number.'

James said there was a phone number in the system. He said he had no problems contacting DC Solutions.

‘Okay, thanks, Em … and keep this quiet, okay?'

‘You don't need to tell me that.' Emma was rightfully offended.

‘Sorry, I'm just paranoid.'

Fiona stared at Claire as she hung up the phone. ‘Are you ever going to tell me what's going on?' Her expression was devoid of the disapproval she had shown the previous night. If anything, she looked hurt at being excluded from what was consuming Claire.

‘I can't … I'm sorry, Fi, I would tell you if I could.' Claire gave her a tentative smile as she sat next to her on the couch.