One of Miles’ first acts in investigating the allegedly criminal activities of Steven Gerald Coombes was to walk down the main street of Koala Bay. Kelly had said he was a solicitor in a firm somewhere along the street. An internet search did not show anyone by the name of Coombes working as a solicitor in Koala Bay but perhaps Steve had been using false names, and there was a lot to be said for checking out the territory. The legal firms were easy enough to spot. Each firm had a small sign on the building in which it operated, usually in the floor above the shops. There were a surprising number in Koala Bay’s main street – scraping a living on property conveyancing, plus minor injury, accident and police work. The reporter started from the beginning, poking his head in the front doors to smile vaguely at the receptionist, who smiled back, in a business-like fashion. He then asked for a business card, muttering that he wanted to check out a few law firms.
On his third visit, at a firm called Werribee and Wilson, one narrow flight of stairs above street level, the receptionist, a 30s-something women in a blazer, did not smile back. Someone, not far away, was shouting into a phone.
“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE HE IS? WE’VE BEEN WORKING…. HELLO! HELLO!” The shouter had been hung up on.
Miles suspected he had the right firm.
“I was just checking out legal firms for a friend who wants to buy a house around here,” he said. He had worked out a decent cover story. “Do you have anything about the firm. A web site address, maybe?”
There was a sudden, splintering crash in one of the offices. “DAMN IT!” said the same person who had been shouting, “DAMN EVERYONE TO HELL!”
“Is it always like this?” asked Miles.
“Bad day,” she said distractedly, looking towards the nearby office door. She thrust a brochure into his hand, saying “The web site address is on that.”
Miles had no further excuse to linger but as he walked out he heard a dull, rhythmic thumping which sounded very much like someone was beating their head against a desk. The firm was missing Steven Gerald Coombes badly.
Back on the street the intrepid investigative reporter looked at the brochure, which stated that the firm had considerable expertise in all legal matters relating to property transactions and development. It also listed two principals plus an associate, one Steven Archer. Mr. Archer’s qualifications included a law degree from Oxford and he was studying for a Master’s in Finance.
Miles bought a can of soft drink and a newspaper from the delicatessen on the ground floor of the same building.
“G’day,” he said, deliberately broadening his accent.
The little dark man behind the counter looked at him, puzzled, then yelled something in what might have been Serbo-croat at his wife who was stacking goods on shelves well back in the store.
“Yith,” he said, eventually.
“Just up at the lawyers upstairs. Bloke in an office sounds real upset about something.” Miles spoke slowly, now not because he wanted to disarm the man by pretending to be a country bumpkin but so he would be better understood.
The proprietor shrugged his shoulders. “Bad news, I heard someting. One guy going – nice guy upstairs, he go, take money, so I heard.”
“Oh right.” Miles tried to sound casual. “They’re carrying on a lot up there. Must’ve been a lot of money.”
The little man shrugged again, and yelled at his wife again. She looked briefly at Miles and replied.
“My wife, she knows the women upstairs who buys coffee down here. Dey is good friends She says ‘Dree mil.”
“’Dree?... you mean three million dollars, mate? No wonder they’re having a yell.”
“Happy I stay down here, you know.”
Back at the office, Miles rang a couple of his contacts who might know something about either Werribee and Wilson or Steven Coombes-Archer and could be relied on not to run to the Telegraph or the Herald. The fact that a Koala Beach solicitor was short a few million was not major news for the metros, but they would happily run it somewhere inside the paper. One contact was Councilor Coustas.
“Yeah, I know him,” said the councilor, “he’s turned up to a few meetings with the Libs, talking big.” (Coustas had tried for State Liberal preselection himself, and was happy to see the end of a potential rival. He had not yet realised that hell would freeze over before the Liberal preselection committee would nominate him.) “They were talking about making him branch treasurer. Don’t quote me,” he added hastily. “Give the branch president here a call, I’ll get the number, ‘n don’t say I gave it to you.”
The president of the Koala Park branch of the Liberals Party was a Mr. Evans, a solicitor who worked at the other end of the street from Werribee and Wilson.
“Oh yes, I know Steven Archer,” the official burbled, when Miles said who he was enquiring about. “A fine young man, active in party affairs.”
Miles debated about whether to lead this man on with some guff about doing a profile because the paper had decided to make Steve Citizen of the Year, but realised it was unwise. In the small community of Koala Bay deceptions would be remembered.
“Well I hate to tell you this Mr. Evans,” he said, “but your fine young man is wanted by the police. His girlfriend was my colleague here and when I came in this morning I found the cops taking away her computer to check the emails on it. I only just managed to convince them not to take mine away.”
Miles later became used to what followed – silence. Like so many others when presented with bad news and suddenly realising that they did not want to talk to the media after all, Mr. Evans did not gasp, or sigh or mutter. Instead he just went silent.
“Mr. Evans,” Miles said eventually, “I’m not going to drag your branch into it, although I probably will have to say he was known to attend branch functions – maybe there’s no need to say active. He wasn’t a branch official or anything as I understand it.”
“Yes, yes, that’s right.” Evans let out a sigh. If one of the branch members was wanted by the police that was unfortunate, but not much to do with him or the branch. It happened.
“All I’m after is some idea of where he might have gone… Why don’t we go off the record for a while and we just talk about our mutual friend.”
Fortunately, Mr. Evans proved sensible enough to relax and tell Miles what he did know, which was little enough but it included the suburb Steve had lived in, and a phone number – information tacitly given in exchange for details on what the police wanted to speak to Steve about. In later years Miles would encounter others who, when faced with a situation that even hinted at criticism of themselves, however indirectly, would become semi-hysterical. Evans, however, was a man of experience who listened carefully to what the reporter had to say.
“Dear Lord,” said the solicitor, when the suspected amount was mentioned, “it must have been money in the firm’s trust fund account. We’ve had that much in ours at times – a couple of deceased estates at once will do it - but it’s not often. But how did Steven get his hands on it?”
“Trying to work it out myself. The firm’s advertising says he was a consultant, not a principal.”
“If you have a law degree you can be on the letterhead, but you can’t practice as a solicitor without passing a bar exam in one of the states. He shouldn’t have had access to the trust funds, but the rules in each practice can be different.”
“What happens if they don’t find Steve or the money?”
“Its covered by insurance. I pay too much in premiums for the insurance fund to refuse to pay up. The principals will face disciplinary action but I just don’t know enough about this. We are not even sure what we are talking about.”
“True.”
The suburb, the name Archer and the phone number lead Miles to an ordinary, red brick suburban house perhaps 20 minutes away from the office, where the reporter found his police friends of that morning busy carting computers and boxes of files out into an official looking station wagon.
“Hey Miles,” said Frank.
Sergeant Owens condescended to smile. “Wondered if you’d find us.”
“You fellas have collected a few things for your note books.”
“We’ve collected a lot of work, that’s what we’ve collected,” said Owens sitting in the open back of the station wagon, organising the collected files in a brown box. “There’s not much for you here. Can’t have you in the house, mate.”
“No worries…. But I was wondering if you’d spoken to the local Liberal Party here.”
Owens eyed Miles appraisingly. “Why them?”
“He was active in the branch here. Branch president is a solicitor his office is not far from Steve’s.”
“Was he involved with them in any way?”
“Doesn’t seem so, but they might’ve had a lucky escape. He wanted the treasurer’s spot.”
Both policemen laughed.
“I’m sure he did. They might know something. But why are you helping us?”
“Well… I heard Steve had taken off with $3 mill, from the trust fund. He told the other partners in Werribee and Wilson he could get good returns on money just sitting there. They knew he was doing some fancy financing course, and they thought they just let him have the money for a little while. They wanted to make some money on the side ‘n get out of Koala Bay.”
Most of that was straight guess work by Miles but he knew he could not be far wrong. Owens did not much care for reporters one way or another, but Miles amused him.
“How did you know all that?”
“Oh I’m just a shrewd bush lad.”
Both policemen laughed again.
Owens flicked through files in one of the boxes then, without looking up, said: “You’re not going to quote me are you?”
“Never heard of you.”
“Then yeah, that’s about right. Stick to the three mill figure. Its close enough. Another point that’ll come out soon enough is that our friend forged his qualifications.. better to say, some doubts about his qualifications.”
Miles nodded but deliberately did not reach for his notebook.
“You can check on qualifications, can’t you?”
“You can check,” said Owens. “You might also ask around about the problems that occur when two solicitors let money from a trust fund out of their control.”
“Hmm! I was down at Werribee and Wilson today.”
“You get around Miles.”
“It’s a nice day; good to get out of the office. Anyway, it sounded like one of the partners was banging his head against the desk.”
Owens smiled. “Can’t say as I blame him. Now Miles, nice talking to you, but that’s enough.”
The reporter raised both hands and stepped back, then walked away and got into his orange utility. He noted that Frank, the younger policemen, looked curiously at the vehicle’s Victorian number plates. Back at the office he found that Ros had succeeded in creating more work for him. There was a message from a female solicitor at the company’s firm who wanted to know what was going on.
“So what story was Angela working on?” the solicitor asked, when Miles rang back.
“Um, none that I know of. She was junior. She did police rounds stuff and community notes – that kind of thing.”
“Then what were the police after her for?”
“They weren’t after her, they were after her boyfriend. They wanted to search her desk for evidence about him and they wanted her PC to check the emails they sent to each other.”
“Oh right! So this has nothing to do with the newspaper?”
“Not a thing. The only issue is that they have the PC from the office. I guess we’ll want it back sooner or later.”
“Okay – the story we got from Rosalind Charles over there was that people had been arrested and office fittings had been removed.”
“They’ve taken a PC.”
“And no one been arrested?”
“Not even Angela. If they find her they’ll ask her questions but I doubt if she knows anything.”
“But no one’s seen her.”
“Its voluntary as we understand it – she’s run off with this guy.”
The women solicitor snorted. “Miles, women don’t run away with guys anymore.”
“Tell that to Angela.”
The last call was the most difficult. It was to Werribee and Wilson itself. This time Miles identified himself and asked to speak to Mr. Werribee or Mr. Wilson.
“Mr. Wilson is in a meeting at the moment,” she said. There was a muffled crash, and her voice became tense. “Can I ask what it’s regarding?”
“Well its over what he’s in such a bad temper about..” Miles briefly explained what he knew; the response being an extended silence.
“One moment,” she said, eventually. Miles waited a minute, listening to inane elevator-music “on hold” music then a male voice shouted, “hello?”
“Is that Mr. Wilson?”
“Is that the reporter?”
“Um, yes, its Miles Black from the Koala Beach Bugle..”
“You rat fuck shit, piece of garbage.”
“Yeah?”
“Print a single word – a single word of this and I’ll sue you and that shit publisher of yours for every cent you have.”
“Three million dollars is a lot of money.”
“How..” Mr Wilson choked himself off, “it’s a load of garbage. Print a word and I sue. In fact, I’m getting an injunction to prevent your rag from publishing, you blood-sucking parasites.”
“Isn’t that what they say about lawyers?”
“I’M GETTING AN INJUNCTION” Wilson slammed the phone down in Miles ear.
When Miles wrote down a few additional notes about the conversation he saw, to his surprise, that his hands were shaking. A few harsh words should not bother him. People with thin skins and sensitive souls did not last long at the Bugle Group. But perhaps he was shaking not over being abused but the excitement of being abused for a good reason. Miles had a good story and, by heavens, Miles was going to write it. Nothing could now get between him and the story.
Koala Bay legal firm Werribee and Wilson is missing about $3 million from its trust fund. The firm has called in the police who are now looking for a consultant employed by the firm to assist them with their enquiries.
Police want to question Steven Gerald Coombes who also called himself Steven Archer, listed on Werribbee and Wilson advertising leaflets and on the web site as a consultant specialising in advising on property sales.
David Wilson, a principal of Werribbee and Wilson, had no comment to make when approached by the Koala Bay Bugle. But it is understood..
Miles was careful to ring the police PR unit for an official comment and got a “neither confirm nor deny”, but otherwise thought that the story told itself. This was better than writing about visits by the state governor general to bush schools. He decided he liked being a reporter.
Miles decided he hated being a reporter. The Werribee and Wilson story almost wrote itself and was destined for his front page until a dead hand belonging to a different set of lawyers – those retained by his own company – descended. Eve took one look at the story Miles sent in and promptly referred it for legal advice. The lawyers equally promptly convened a meeting in the office at South Forest where they all sat in Justin’s office, along with Eve. It was only the second time Miles had been in Justin’s office.
“You can’t possibly print this,” said the younger of the two lawyers, the same one Miles had spoken to over the search warrant. She was not at her best in a moment of crisis. It was the first time Miles had seen anyone literally wringing her hands. “This firm’s already been on the phone to us threatening the company with everything.”
“Don’t much blame ‘em,” said Justin, “but isn’t that what we pay you guys for? To make problems like that go away.”
“The way to make the problem go away,” said the second lawyer, with a slight, self-satisfied smile that Miles wanted to wipe off his face, “is not to print the story at all.” Owning to the name of Mr. Bosworth – no first name was mentioned - he was a heavy set man with silver hair and a dark suit. He also had an old fashioned attitude, for lawyers retained by a newspaper group, that stories should not leave their clients open to legal actions. Bosworth and Ms. Moore, the female solicitor, were from a recently retained small firm in Chatswood which thought it knew as much about communications law as any expensive lawyer from Sydney’s CBD, but neither journalist had encountered journalists in the rough before. It was proving to be a revelation.
“You mean we should prevent the public from knowing that there’s a bunch of bent lawyers who’ve just had their trust fund emptied out because they had someone on staff benter than they are,” said Justin, “just because our own bunch of lawyers won’t get off their fat arses and fight legal actions?”
Bosworth was taken aback. “I wouldn’t have put it like that,” he said. “Part of our job is to advise clients on how to avoid legal actions. We’ve seen a potential legal action and we’re telling you to avoid it.”
“And this is very damaging,” said Ms Moore.
“Damaging!” exclaimed Justin. “Great! Eve put a bigger head line on it.”
“Sure!” said Eve. “So we go with it as is?”
This startled the two lawyers.
“But you can’t print this, they’ll sue us,” shrieked Ms. Moore.
“So? Truth is a defence in defamation actions, isn’t it?”
“In a way,” said Bosworth. He could have lectured the others on the issues of truth and public interest in defamation law but he sensed that the editor in chief was not the sort of person who would sit still to be lectured for very long, so he got down to brass tacks. “But do we know it’s true?”
“Of course its fucking true,” said Justin, “look at the way they’ve been acting. No baffled denials. Instead we get abuse and injunctions – they’re desperate to stop the story getting out.”
“But they can sue if we run with the story.”
“So? Mate, if they’re missing three large from a trust account then they’ll have a whole lot more problems than us once the story gets out. Trying to take an injunction itself is so fucking unusual for a small firm that if the dailies found out about it, they’d wanna know why they want it.”
“But they’d get sued, too?” protested Moore.
“Their bigger; nastier. Their lawyers are braver.”
“I don’t mind a fight,” said Bosworth, irritably. “But can we win it? What happens if they get the money back? You don’t carry three million around in a suitcase you have to transfer it. You have to know how to hide that amount of money. This Coombes person can‘t know much about international transfers just from working in Koala Bay.”
“Betcha that’s why they told the cops,” said Justin. “The cops tell Interpol, which can trace the transfers and freeze the money.”
“Exactly,” said Bosworth, “then the money comes back, eventually, and no-one is the wiser unless the police say something officially. The Law Society will only start an investigation if someone complains. If the money comes back, then no-one knows anything.”
“Aren’t their books audited?”
Bosworth shrugged. “I suppose.. but if the money comes back and the lawyers are desperate enough then a few book entries can be made to disappear. Even if an audit finds something the result may be just be a fine for not keeping proper records of the trust fund.”
“Difficult to hang a fucking story on that.”
“Exactly.”
“So it comes down to a question of what we can prove in court,” said Moore.
“What about it Miles, what have we got on the record?”
That was a problem. In his inexperience, Miles had not really thought about evidence that could be brought before a court. He had written what he knew. No-one involved so far could be dragged into court.
“Not a whole lot,” he said reluctantly. “Cops said everything off the record.”
“We can’t work with that,” said Moore.
“Even evidence wouldn’t matter if three large takes a walk. They’ll be too busy skipping town to sue us,” said Justin.
“But if the money comes back..” said Bosworth.
“Yeah, that is the problem. ‘Fraid Miles, you’re going to have to sit on this one.”
“But it’s the best story I’ve had since I’ve been up there!” wailed Miles.
“Mate, the reason I’m in this hell hole is because I didn’t listen to lawyers once. They’re scum, but they know how the scum working for the other side thinks.”
“Thanks for that,” said Moore, looking grim. Justin ignored her.
“You can’t be serious about having me sit on this?”
“You can eat it if you don’t wanna sit on it,” said Justin, “but it ain’t running until we know the money is gone. What else you got for this week?”
Miles was too numb to answer.
“Council action on graffiti on local, buildings is okay,” said Eve, “then there’s council’s worm farms losing heaps of money.”
“Worm turns, eh. Go with that. Miles we haven’t lost your story, we’re just hanging fire. Now get out and find stories we can put in the paper.” Miles did not quite believe what had happened. He had a good, local story and at the last moment it had been snatched from him.
“The story’s been killed?” he heard Bosworth ask.
“No way,” said Justin. “If the money doesn’t come back, just watch us run it.”
“But you still couldn’t prove it.”
“So? It’s like I said, if they’re missing three mill they’re not going to start hiring barristers are they?”
“But it’s very damaging.”
“If it’s not damaging it shouldn’t be in the paper. Miles?”
“Uh, yeah?”
“I told you to bugger off – but if you’re still here, did you find out about Angela?”
“No – gone.”
Leaving Justin to argue with the lawyers Miles went back to his office. On his way up the back steps, he stopped on a whim at the back door frame. He backed up against the frame and touched the back of his head against the lintel. This had helped last time.
“WACK!” Okay, that helped. “WACK!” Still not quite there. “WACK!” Ouch! He slumped on the back step. The back door opened out onto a strip of concrete edged by an ordinary suburban wooden fence, but wide enough for a few parking spaces. The Bugle office was entitled to one car space which, of course, was occupied by Ros’s late model Ford. Miles thought briefly of slashing its tyres, but put the idea to one side as unworthy of him, not to mention pointless. For all her incompetence Ros was not responsible for his current frustrations.
In fact, as he realised much later, he should have felt complimented that the story had been the subject of a conference, rather than simply killed on the spot. Large dailies would have hesitated to run a story for which there was so little direct evidence. All Miles did know at the time, sitting on that back step, was that he still had no place else to go. He had not got the job at the Manly Daily or another at the Newcastle Herald. He just had not been in journalism long enough to be taken seriously. If he got some decent stories in the paper – stories like the one which lawyers had just managed to squash - then maybe he would be taken seriously. Maybe! With an effort he stood up and dragged himself back upstairs. The paper still had to be filled. He could make a few more calls before he went home.