The Butcherbird (23 page)

He heard breathing like his own on the other end of the line. ‘It’s this ASIC thing, Mac. And I couldn’t reach you. But you said to put them all on the market this morning. You said just get the best price I could on Tuesday. I wrote it down, Mac, it’s all written down. I asked you for a bottom price, but you said sell them on Tuesday.’

Mac was desperate for air. He jabbed at the window button but it wouldn’t respond. He fumbled for the key but couldn’t find it. He swung the door open and a passing cyclist swore at him as it nearly crashed into the bicycle frame. The roar of the traffic reverberated into the car’s interior and he shouted into the cell phone. ‘What are you talking about, Max? What ASIC thing? How do you know there’s an ASIC thing? They’ve only just left. Did Gerry call? Why would he call you?’ He pulled the door shut again to hear the response.

‘It’s on the front page of every paper, Mac—surely you’ve seen it. It was on the screens before the market opened. The press have been outside your house all morning. Where are you?’

Where was he? God knew. His mind was tumbling over itself, trying to sift information into logical order and failing. He opened the door again, climbed almost drunkenly out of the cavernous interior and leaned against the bonnet. He hated this car. Pretentious piece of crap Rolls-Royces were, but it had become a sort of trademark. People waved at him as he drove around, and he liked to be waved at. Usually they spat at Rollers, but not at Mac, because they knew he was just one of them who’d made it. There was no silver spoon anywhere near his mouth. His head swivelled as if searching for clues to his whereabouts.

‘I’m at Bonny’s in Potts Point.’ What did it matter where he was? That wasn’t the question he was searching for. What was it? How had the press known about the raid before it happened? How could so many shares have been sold so quickly? Why was Max talking about writing things down? No, none of that. Only one thing mattered. The price. The fucking price.

‘What did we get? What’s the price?’

‘You know the market, Mac. Anything that creates uncertainty, anything that smacks of wrongdoing, or false accounts, not that there is anything yet, or at all I’m sure, but this sort of thing spooks the market, you know it does. It’ll come back, I’m sure it will, in time, but well—you said to sell, I wrote it down.’

‘What’s the fucking price?’He could barely get the words out and the response hit him with the impact of a bullet.

‘Four fifty, average. We sold a few closer to five dollars, but average four fifty.’

Mac slumped. It wasn’t possible. The shares had been at seven dollars. With the revelation that the government was considering restrictions on foreign insurance companies, eight was an easy mark. Of course he’d told this idiot to sell the shares immediately. He couldn’t explain he knew the question would be asked in the Senate, and that he’d promised the banks they’d have the money by the end of the week. He certainly couldn’t explain to them where it was coming from before it arrived. That would have killed the share price in a minute. But it had been cut off at the knees anyway. By what? By nerds in grey suits? No, not by that. By someone knowing the nerds were coming before they came.

‘You sold them all? How could that large a parcel move so fast?’ Gradually his brain was picking through the debris of the bomb blast.

‘I don’t know. They went in three lumps virtually the minute we put them out. I mean you wanted them sold quickly, Mac, those were your instructions.’

Mac slammed the phone onto the bonnet. It made a slight dent but didn’t penetrate the eight layers of enamel. Maxwell Newsome’s voice could be heard squeaking from it briefly as it lay in the sun and then all was quiet, except for the roar of passing traffic.

Equations were swirling in front of Mac’s closed eyes.

Numbers and multiplication signs jostled with plus and minus symbols on the red surface of his inner eye. Dollars swam through the sea of black dots. A thundering headache was gripping his cranium in a vice, squeezing all the redness together until he felt it would burst out from his ears and nose and eyes. He never got headaches; he gave them. There was no humour in the thought now. He clutched at his temples to ease the pain and it was then he heard his name called.

As he opened his eyes he heard the whirr of cameras and that was the picture on page one. An old man, in pain, dishevelled, slumped on a ridiculous car, stripped of dignity and reputation, never to be restored no matter what the facts might prove.

The press had been outside Jack’s house when he returned from the park with one hand on the dog lead and the other holding the small plastic bag. They hadn’t been there when he left, but at that hour the light was only just starting to creep over the electricity cables, to illuminate the garbage bins strewn about the normally tidy street. Alice Street was anally neat, every edge clipped, every lawn shaved, except on Tuesday mornings when the garbage collectors delighted in showing these rich wankers who was really the boss. A little yelling at five a.m., a little throwing of bins and lids, off to the pub for a wake-up call or two.

Jack had walked past the hockey fields on the reservoir at the top of Centennial Park and down into the pine forest, where he set Joe free to run and snuffle in the fallen cones. As he stood listening to the light breeze sigh in the needles above, he noticed a soft crackling noise from high in the trees, and when he looked up, a flock of sulphur-crested cockatoos was contentedly grazing on the remaining cones. He heard the kookaburras calling across the valley and the barking of other dogs from the exercise area below.

He called to Joe, a border collie of superior intelligence and wit, and they sloped off together towards the ponds and the paperbark forest, past the pelicans and other waterbirds, and through to the unkempt, dank section of the park, away from the cyclists and the pony track. Jack half knelt to undo the lead again and found himself looking into the dog’s eyes. He took the lead in both hands and scratched behind the ears and rubbed gently up and down both sides of its neck. He could hear himself mumbling without really knowing what he was saying and Joe stared back at him as if he did.

He felt tension he hadn’t realised was stored inside him uncoil and run down through his fingers into the hair and the warm body. Then he stretched and reached his arms up over his head towards the sun. They were so close now. He would see the old lawyer on Sunday, and hand him the folder with the smoking gun. They would pass the whole stinking mess to the authorities to unravel, and he, Louise and the kids could go back to real life.

The photographers hadn’t seen him approaching in tracksuit and sneakers, cap pulled down against the angled sun, and probably wouldn’t have recognised him anyway at this distance, even though he was often recognised now, just by people in the street. It was part of the job he secretly liked—being known for something. And he quite liked the press, and felt they liked him too, his easy candour. He’d nothing to hide and the venomous pieces had been written by gossip columnists, not the serious business journalists he mixed with. He thought about turning away, buying a newspaper from the corner shop just to check before he met them, because his home-delivered one would still be in its wrapper, but then he tugged the dog forward and they walked together into the fray.

Sir Laurence sat with arms folded tightly against his chest and a grimace of extreme distaste across his face. He disliked folding his arms at any time, certainly not tightly. It creased the lapels of an expensive suit and, unless one was particularly careful, risked crushing the petals of his boutonničre. He glanced at the clock on the boardroom wall again, well aware that it would show eleven minutes past the hour. It was one minute since he’d last checked it. When the door swung open and Jack entered, he tried unsuccessfully to alter his expression, but only succeeded in unfolding his arms.

‘Sorry I’m late, Laurence. Had to run the gauntlet of the press before I could get here. No doubt you’ve been doing the same.’

Sir Laurence had been doing nothing of the kind. He did not run gauntlets. He was a non-executive chairman. Chief executives and others of their ilk were paid a great deal of money to run gauntlets. Besides, the press, if properly handled, if fed and watered regularly, if left tasty morsels on their doorsteps, didn’t do their droppings on yours. ‘I’ve rather a busy day, so let us get on. You agree? This business with Mac is most distressing. I’m sure there’s nothing in it, but it’s distressing nonetheless. To the board, to the shareholders. You agree? But before we discuss that, I am concerned to know the findings of the committee I asked you to establish to investigate any issues or irregularities on matters concerning our reinsurance contracts, balance sheet, and profit and loss account. I’m surprised, disappointed I may say, to have received no report from you.’

They stared at one another across the curved table. Jack ran his hand over the polished mahogany. He was trying to remain calm in a storm where the wind blew from all directions at once. He needed to sit quietly in the workshop with the old lawyer and listen to a logical analysis of events he couldn’t piece together, of documents he couldn’t match, of people who wouldn’t remain in the roles they had been cast for. Why was ASIC investigating Mac when Hedley Stimson hadn’t yet passed the case to them and the Global Re side letter was still in the safe at Jack’s home? Why was Sir Laurence questioning him on matters he was assumed to want to avoid? What had Jack done about a committee, if anything? He couldn’t remember. The shock of seeing that front page with the headline about Mac, of seeing it for the first time in a journalist’s hand with photographers clicking away at him—well, he was still in shock.

‘Ah, I really can’t recall, Laurence. About the committee, I mean. Did I agree to set it up? I’m not sure I did.’

Sir Laurence’s face was a picture, but more a Breughel than a Rembrandt. ‘You can’t recall? Is that what you said? Am I to understand no such committee has been formed? No progress made? No documentation is to be forthcoming on these important maters? I specifically instructed you to report directly to me on this. You agree?’

Jack loosened his tie and unbuttoned his collar. Why he was wearing a tie today when he hated them he wasn’t sure. Somehow he felt it was important to face the world, his staff, the business community looking every inch the chief executive. The founder of the company, its biggest shareholder, was under attack from the authorities—for what, nobody knew—and it was up to the leader to lead. But where? The share price was tumbling, there were rumours of a takeover, and the chairman was asking him about a committee. Suddenly Jack saw the issues in perspective.

‘I’m sorry, Laurence, I really don’t have time to waste on this today. Frankly I don’t think you do either. We can talk about committees some other time but our shareholders and the press are expecting us to make a statement about what’s occurred and I want to concentrate on that.’

Laurence Treadmore’s face became the colour of his shirt. ‘Waste? Did you say waste? A waste of time to consider serious questions concerning matters that could profoundly affect the interests of shareholders? Questions you were instructed to examine by the duly elected and appointed chairman of a public company?’He paused, took up a crystal glass from the tray on the boardroom table and sipped delicately. The water seemed to give him strength. ‘And the reason you don’t have time for this is that you wish to rush to the press to discuss—what? Issues of which you know nothing. That Mac is being investigated, but you don’t know why. I’m sure your prepared statement will be penetrating in its wisdom and of great comfort to all.’

Jack’s resolve was shaken by the outburst. There was some force in what had been said. What could he say to the press? That he supported Mac? Hardly. That he didn’t? That he had no knowledge of the issues, that the company was in great shape? That it mightn’t be in great shape if he could ever understand the balance sheet? He settled back into the chair and examined Sir Laurence with more respect. Why did he feel he was the one on trial here when he suspected the chairman was as mixed up in all of this as anyone?

‘Appearances. They seem to be your main concern, not matters of substance.’ Sir Laurence drew a sheet of paper from his breast pocket, where he preferred to store nothing, not even a wallet, lest it disturb the line of the fabric, and slid it across the table. ‘There is no statement the company can or should make other than this.’

Jack read the wording. ‘The board of directors of HOA has no knowledge of any matters under investigation by ASIC concerning the company. Nor does it have any knowledge of the reason for or nature of this morning’s search of premises reported to be owned by one of its directors, Mr Macquarie James Biddulph. The company will cooperate fully with ASIC in any investigation related to its business if asked to do so.’

Jack rubbed his chin. ‘Yes, on reflection I think you’re right, Laurence. We really can’t say more than that. I’ll have it released right away.’

Sir Laurence reached out a hand for the return of the paper. ‘It was issued at nine this morning, under my signature. While you were running gauntlets, I contacted the other directors. It is a matter for the board not the executives. Mac is one of our number.’

Again Jack felt he was somehow at fault, when he should have felt righteous. He’d wanted to appear before a press conference and make reassuring noises. He was good at that. He wanted to stroll the factory floor and embrace the workers. He was good at that. Suddenly he was cut off at the knees by a man he’d assumed was a weak second fiddle playing Mac’s tune. How was he going to spend his day now?

The prim voice interrupted his reverie. ‘I’ve called a board meeting for ten o’clock today. Your notice of this is on your desk. Most directors are able to attend, although I’ve been unable to contact Mac. Since the meeting will commence shortly, we may continue this discussion in the meanwhile. I should inform you that the subject of my instruction to you to investigate the matters referred to earlier, and your response, is a major item on the agenda. I trust your response to the board will be more forthcoming and detailed than the one provided to me.’