Muller rationalised that he’d been lucky with Candy and the real estate agent but impersonating a policeman was a serious offence. He was unlikely to be able to fool a branch manager of the Commonwealth Bank. He phoned his mate on the force and begged him to check out the bank details, promising him that he wouldn’t ask any more favours. Thirty minutes later Muller felt sick when told that Adderley had cleared the balance and closed his bank account two days earlier.
We’re too late. He’s flown the coop.
When Muller phoned Raj and told him, he was sure Aspine was already out of county, the Singaporean became very angry. “He can’t be. I told you there’s been no sign of him in international departures on the CCTV footage over the past seven days. He’s still here.”
“I don’t think so,” Muller responded. “He’s been one step ahead of us all the way. What if he took a domestic flight to Sydney or drove there and then hopped it to Bangkok? That’s if he’s really going there? It wouldn’t surprise me if he’s halfway to South America as we speak.”
Raj paused. “Yes, you may be right, but my gut says you’re not. I’ll get Sydney international departures checked out.”
“It doesn’t have to be Sydney. It could be any of our international airports.” Muller sighed in exasperation.
“Keep looking, Bill. I just know he hasn’t left.”
Chapter 51
THAI AIRWAYS FLIGHT TG466 departed Melbourne precisely on time at 3.35 P.M. bound for Bangkok without stopovers. Douglas Aspine relaxed in a luxurious first class cabin sipping Jack Daniels. He closed his eyes and pondered the past year and how clever he had been. His future lay in South America and he was looking forward to sampling the beautiful señoritas. If only Sonchai had removed his love handles he’d be on his way there now. He had spent far more money escaping and pursuing vengeance than he’d ever anticipated, but still had nearly ten mil in the Caymans – enough to live a very comfortable life in Argentina, Brazil or Paraguay. I might even buy a business and export merchandise to Australia. Labour is cheap and regulations are loose. I might be able to make some serious money. He checked his watch and smiled. It was 4 P.M. The losers would be opening their envelopes. A flight attendant asked if she could do anything for him and he ordered another Jack Daniels. Life is good.
Jasmine opened her envelope and said, “He has a very long memory.”
“The fool has gone but he had to have one final word,” Raj replied, reading his note. “I have to make a few calls. Jasmine, phone Bill Muller and ask him to come here. Then phone the others and get them to come too. I’m sure they will also have notes.”
By 7 P.M. Raj was seated at the head of Jasmine’s dining table relating what he knew to the others. “He’s on a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok travelling under the name of Osker Schmitt. It departed nearly four hours ago.”
“How do you know?” Muller asked.
“They matched his photo going through international departures, and then it was just a matter of time before they found out what airline and flight he was on.”
“It’s a pity they didn’t find out before he boarded. It’s too late to do anything now,” Muller said.
“Good riddance,” Jasmine said.
“He’s gotten away.” Harry growled. “I would’ve loved to have seen him back in Changi.”
“Me, too,” Sir Edwin said.
“I’m like Jasmine,” Fiona said. “I’m just glad we’ve seen the last of him.”
“I know hate chews you up,” Harry growled. “All of my life I’ve tried to turn the other cheek and take the positives out of life. This man ruined my company and nearly destroyed my marriage. I’m sorry. I hate him so badly. I feel physically sick.”
“I guess there’s no point hanging around,” Muller said, standing. “The ladies are right. There’s nothing we can do now, and all hate will do is destroy us. Let’s not wait another ten years before we catch up again.”
“Don’t go, Bill. Stay around for a cup of coffee or tea. Besides I still have to settle up with you,” Raj said. “This wasn’t your fight but the contribution you made and the hours you put in were outstanding.”
“Hear, hear,” Fiona said.
“Well done, Bill,” Sir Edwin said, patting him on the back.
“Thank you, Raj. I’m surprised you’re taking it so well. You were so determined to put him back behind bars,” Muller said.
Raj’s mobile rang and he excused himself to take the call in the kitchen. They could hear him talking in Malay, and while Jasmine picked up a few words, she didn’t get the gist of the conversation. When he returned half an hour later he said, “I’m sorry. Business never rests.”
“I feel flat, washed out.” Sir Edwin moaned. “He really did a job on us. The bastard.”
“We would’ve all preferred a different outcome, but sitting around moping isn’t going to change anything,” Fiona said.
Jasmine served the tea and coffee with an enticing chocolate cake but the mood of the room didn’t lift. The rich aroma of the coffee failed to block out the stench of defeat. Raj’s mobile rang and he again excused himself. This time he spoke in the distinctly sing song Thai language and no one could understand a word. The conversation was long and while they couldn’t understand it, Raj’s voice progressively became more demanding. “He speaks five languages,” Jasmine said, almost apologetically.
When he came back to the table Fiona asked, “More business?”
“Not really.” Raj laughed. “I have some good news.”
Aspine had consumed at least ten whiskies and converted his seat to a bed. He was sound asleep when a flight attendant entered his cabin. She picked up two glasses being careful not to touch the rims and placed them in a plastic bag. Thirty minutes later, she returned and gently shook him. “Wake up, sir. We’re landing in fifteen minutes.”
His head was heavy and he was drowsy, but when he looked at his watch he knew they’d only been in the air for eight hours. “I don’t understand. How can we have made such good time?”
“Oh, you must have slept through the captain’s announcement. We’ve been flying into heavy head winds and we’re making a short stopover to refuel.”
“Where?”
“Singapore, sir.”
Aspine started shaking uncontrollably. “God no,” he said.
“Don’t worry, sir. Everyone will remain on the plane and we’ll be underway again very quickly. The captain will do his best to make up time. Please fasten your seatbelt.”
Aspine groaned. Why didn’t I go to South America? I feel sick. Perhaps I’m overreacting and the plane really does have to be refuelled. Yes, that’s it. How would anyone know I’m on the plane or have the power to divert it?
Sir Edwin’s mouth was agape. “You have enough influence to do that?”
“Raj, I love you, Raj,” Fiona said. “I’d kill to be at Singapore airport when that plane lands.’
“Don’t worry. You’ll get to see him being marched off the plane in handcuffs,” Raj said. “The media will be there in force.”
“But how did you do it?” Harry said, shaking his head.
“I didn’t do anything.” Raj smiled grimly. “I just told those in power in the Singapore government that the escapee, Douglas Aspine, was travelling on a Thai Airways flight to Bangkok, under the name Osker Schmitt. You have to realize his escape made fools of many powerful people and saving face in Singapore is very important. The Thai and Singapore militaries have had a very close relationship for nearly thirty years and have been partners in maintaining regional security. Singapore’s done a lot of favours for Thailand including donating seven second-hand F-16s to it in 2004. This is an opportunity for Thailand to repay a favour.”
“We heard you talking in Thai. What was that about?” Fiona asked.
“I have some very large investments in Thailand and know the minister for industry very well. I asked him to use his influence to persuade those who may not want to help. That’s all.”
“You shouted at him,” Fiona said.
Raj laughed. “You misheard. I would never be so disrespectful.”
Bill Muller hadn’t said a word. “How are the police in Singapore going to prove it’s him? You said they don’t have his DNA and if I’m right, he no longer has any fingerprints. And we all know that the man on the plane looks nothing like the Douglas Aspine of ten years ago.”
“When he divorced Barbara, he cheated her out of what was rightfully hers. She has been living a very hard life with very few of the luxuries she once enjoyed.”
“We all know that, Raj, but what’s it got to do with identifying him?” Muller said.
“She has three children, the youngest, Mark, is eighteen and still living at home. He’s the same age as Jack. Jasmine and I visited her the day after Mary recognized the man in the sketch. We knew we had to find a way to identify him. We told Barbara what we thought her ex had done to Jack. She was appalled.”
“She is a lovely woman,” Jasmine interrupted. “We asked her if Mark might be willing to provide his DNA, and she said she could do better than that. She asked us to follow her into the laundry which we thought was a little strange. Then she sifted through the dirty laundry until she came across a blood stained yellow and blue singlet. Mark is a basket baller and he’d copped a knock to his nose at the weekend.”
“She gave you the singlet,” Fiona said.
“Yes and no,” Jasmine smiled. “Raj felt very sorry for her and agreed to buy it for−”
“That’s unimportant,” Raj cut in. “What’s important is that the police will now be able to prove it’s him.” Five hundred thousand is not a large amount for me and it will make Barbara’s life a lot easier. I would have paid ten times more for that singlet.
“Where is the singlet?” Muller asked.
“It will be in Singapore in the morning.”
“What a fool he turned out to be,” Sir Edwin said.
“No, he was not a fool,” Raj said. “He was as cunning as a fox, but he was loose lipped, vain and arrogant too. That’s what brought him down. If he hadn’t mentioned Bangkok to the girl, if he hadn’t wanted more plastic surgery and if he hadn’t sent us those notes, he’d still be free.”
The front page of The Straits Times carried a large photo of Douglas Aspine being hauled off the Thai Airways jet in handcuffs under the headline, Escapee Recaptured. There were two smaller before and after facial photos below it. Police said the apprehended escapee continued to deny he was Douglas Aspine but they were in no doubt, and DNA evidence would soon confirm their assertions. The attorney general said the recapture was the result of six months of painstaking police work and the community could feel proud of their police force.
Douglas Aspine sat in one of the cells in Changi Police Station, head between his legs, racking his brain trying to fathom where he had slipped up. His face was stark white, his eyes were bloodshot and his head pounded from the whiskies. He had asked to see a lawyer. When the police had suggested Teo Boon Wan, the lawyer who had defended him ten years earlier, Aspine had denied knowing him. He was still not without hope because even if they forced him to give a saliva or blood sample, they had nothing to match his DNA with. If I get a good lawyer, I’ll walk away from this. They’ll never prove I’m Douglas Aspine.
Aspine woke to see the inspector, who had interrogated him the night before smiling at the small barred window in the cell door. “Good morning, Mr Aspine.”
“I told you that’s not my name. You have the wrong man. I’m Osker Schmitt.”
“I believe your son, Mark, is a very good basket baller.”
“I do not have a son. I have no family.”
The inspector ignored what Aspine had said. “When he was playing last weekend he took a solid knock to his nose and it bled all over his singlet.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
The inspector smiled. “We have his singlet and you know what else we have. The glasses you drank from on the plane. You’re going to die in Changi prison, Mr Aspine.”
Aspine took a few seconds to absorb the inspector’s words and then he let out a harrowing scream, “No, no,” and fell on the floor sobbing.
The right of Peter Ralph to be identified as Author of the Work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright Design and Patents Act 1988.
This is a work of fiction. Characters, corporations, institutions and organisations in this novel are either the product of the author’s imagination or, if real, used fictitiously without any intent to describe their actual content.
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An excerpt from:
COLLINS STREET WHORES
A BUSINESS THRILLER
Peter Ralph
Chapter 1
Leon Hill thrilled to the power of the Harley as he swung it through the twists and turns of the Dandenongs on a peaceful Sunday morning. He usually reached the green leafy hills just as the first rays of light were filtering through the towering gums. The road was deserted, but he knew in a few hours it would be heavy with tourist traffic.
The turbo-charged Bentley he used six days a week when he was in Melbourne was in the garage of his Toorak mansion with the Porsche Sports and the Land Rover. As chairman and an equity partner in the country’s most successful stockbroker, J. D. Ford & Co., he could afford his little toys. He was in his late fifties, superbly fit and heavily tanned from regular sessions under sun lamps. His face was lined but his hair was still dark and shiny, largely as a result of his hairdresser’s skills.
The Sunday morning rides on the tranquil, fern-lined roads were his thinking time, when he could analyse what the firm had achieved in the past week, and the targets he would set it in the current week.
The roads were wet and there was light drizzle coming through the huge old gums. He could feel the cold, bracing wind rushing under his helmet as he gunned the Harley through the tight bends and up into the hills. The accountants had completed the firm’s financial accounts in the past week and confirmed what he’d already known: record sales, record profits, record bonuses and a huge cash surplus. Vastly different from the mid-eighties, when the firm had struggled to stay afloat, and had nearly gone under. At that time, the senior partners had decided to accept a new person into the firm—a silent partner with access to large amounts of cash and who could help them out of the crisis. Leon had welcomed the cash, and the fact that it saved the firm, but not the influence the silent partner then wielded over the business.
As he thought about this, his mood changed. He recalled the argument they’d had earlier in the week. Leon had offered to buy him out at a very generous price, but the silent partner had become enraged and made it clear that he would never sell.
“Fuck him!” he shouted.
He was in a sixty kilometre zone, but was doing close to eighty when he glanced in his rear-view mirrors and saw the lights of a black Audi Quattro about forty metres behind, closing fast. He smiled and pushed the Harley up to one hundred, but when he glanced in the mirrors again, the Audi was still there. He increased his speed to one-twenty and struggled to hold the big bike on the wet, greasy twists and tu
rns, which were coming at him in a blur in the gloomy early morning light. Christ, whoever’s driving sure knows what he’s doing. He briefly toyed with the idea of pulling over and letting the car pass, but couldn’t resist the challenge.
The man in the Audi barked instructions into his hands-free phone. “I’m three kilometres out of Sassafras, doing one-twenty. Where are you now?”
The reply crackled through. “I’m on the outskirts of Olinda, only a few minutes away.”
The Harley was now nudging one-thirty. Visibility had deteriorated with the constant drizzle, but still the Audi was there, no more than thirty metres behind. Leon fought to control the powerful bike, cutting the bends tighter and tighter, unconcerned about the risk of accident, as the road was almost deserted. He came out of a tight left turn and onto a stretch of straight road leading to the small township of Sassafras at nearly one-sixty. Now I’ll sort that fucking smartarse in the Audi out, but still the lights in his mirrors were closing as small shops whooshed by.
“Where are you?” shouted the man in the Audi.
“I’m coming into Sassafras,” the voice drawled, echoing around the car.
“Slow down and hold back when you’re on the other side of the bend. About thirty seconds.”