Love Me In The Dark

Chapter10:The Near Break

The near break in the investigation came from a source I didn’t expect, which is how most breaks come.

Her name was Irene Pene. Fifty-one years old and worked as a document registrar at the Crestholm Companies House office for twenty years. She contacted me through a colleague I knew slightly, a woman who covered financial regulation for a trade publication. The colleague, Sandy Jose, sent me a message that said simply: “someone wants to talk to you, she is careful, she knows something about a filing.” I remember mentioning, in passing, to Sandy about a misfiling story I was handling.

I met Ms Pene on a Monday morning in a coffee shop in the civic quarter, six blocks from the Companies House offices. She was average, methodical, the kind of woman who straightens her cutlery before she speaks. She told me she had been following my work in The Median. That she read one of my stories, some time ago, about planting corruption and recognised the method. And, that she had a similar experience, once. “When I discussed it with Sandy, she told me a colleague was investigating a story on suspected company irregularities,” she started.

“Does your work center on company irregularities?”

"I process filings," she answered. "Incorporation documents, amendments, dormant company renewals. Thousands of them. You stop seeing them after a while, the way you stop seeing individual words when you are reading fast."

"But something made you stop," I said.

"A renewal," she responded. "For a dormant subsidiary called Halcyon Marine Developments. The company is listed as dormant. Has been for about five years. I process the annual renewal, which is routine. But when I check the signatory on the renewal against our internal records, something is wrong."

She took a folder from her bag. Inside, a photocopied document.

"The renewal is filed by a law firm as the registered agent," she said. "Pemberton and Associates. Which is standard. But the confirmation of authority, the internal document that the firm submits to confirm they have client instruction to file, references a trust instrument as the source of authority.”

She pushed the photocopy across the table.

"The trust authorises the filing," she said. "The trust is in two names. Joint beneficiaries. But the current signature on the confirmation of authority is only one of them."

I look at the photocopy.

The signature was in initials. Two letters, in capitals.

"Any other beneficiary?" I asked.

"Also there," she said. "Under the trust instrument, both beneficiaries are required to authorise any action taken in the trust's name. But this renewal is filed with only one signature. Which means either the trust instrument has been amended, or one beneficiary is acting without the other's knowledge."

I looked at the document for a long time.

Halcyon. The failed marine project. The project that left dormant dock access agreements in place. Whose structure Hale was the project lead.

A second door. A back channel into the dock infrastructure that existed within the Cirrus architecture.

Just then, another flood of thought crossed my mind. The transaction authorisation codes on the Cirrus accounts. Hale's credentials on every payment. What if Hale was not the one signing those transactions? What if he did not even know his name was on any of it?

I thanked Irene Pene. She nodded with seeming relief, straightened one more time before she stood.

"He seemed like such a careful person," Irene said, almost as an afterthought. "When he came in to file the first renewal. Four years ago, I think. Very polite."

She left.

I sat for a moment with the photocopy on the table.

Then I called Damien.

"I need to know something," I said. "And I need you to think carefully before you answer. Have you, at any point in the past nine years, authorised any action through the Vael family trust? Any filing, any renewal, any instruction to Pemberton?"

A pause.

"No," he answered. "I told you, I haven't touched that trust in years."

A longer pause.

"What if Hale is not acting alone?" I queried. “What if he’s not even the one signing those transactions?”

“How is that possible?”

“Just a theory,” I replied.

The silence on the line was deafening. The quality of something clicking like a mouse trap.

"Then, that would imply Hale is not the architect, right?" Damien said. “But how can he simply be the signature on documents he has never seen?"

"What if he is just a credential?” I said.

Another silence.

"Selene…If Hale doesn’t know his name is on the transactions, then when Dell found the filing and left three messages for me, that would mean Hale was not the person who made that call, right? He would have no reason to. Since he would not know there was anything to be afraid of, right?"

The cold descended like wild snow…very chill.

"No," I said.

"Then, who made the call that got Dell killed?"

The silence after that was the loudest kind.

"I need one more thing," I said, eventually. "I need to know if your brother has any link with the logistics firm. Not through the Cirrus structure, not through the Halcyon subsidiary, but a direct link. A phone record, a meeting, a payment. Something that puts his name next to theirs in a way a courtroom can hold."

"I doubt that,” said Damien. “He’s my brother. If he did, I would know. But then, let me know if there’s anything I can do to quicken the result of your inquiries."

I didn’t answer to that directly. At that point, it seemed it was not clear to Damian that even he was suspect.

“…the trust is in two names. Joint beneficiaries. But the current signature on the confirmation of authority is only one of them," Ms Pene had said.

Even though Damian had told me he did not touch the trust for years, I still needed to be very careful.

"I’ll get back to you," I told him.

Then, I hang up and called a contact, who linked me with a senior investigator. I could not leave the coffee shop for some moments. Outside, the civic quarter maintained its busy look. People crossed the streets. A tram passed. The ordinary city, indifferent and ongoing.

+++++++

I thought about the many nights I spent with Damian working on the documents. The near confidence that we had the culprit in Hale. The chance meeting with Rowan…

Right then, I trusted no one. And, there’s still more work to be done. So, I got up, paid for the coffee. Then, walked back to my car in the cold civic quarter air. And I felt, for the first time in this investigation, not the cold focused fury I use as fuel, but something different underneath it.

Something closer to grief.