Follow the Money Read Online Free Page A

covers the losses. The firms compensate over and above the lost amount on the proviso that the details don’t get out. The servers and the credit company people don’t want publicity. The Malouf case made an exception because it was too big to be dealt with in house, as it were, and he turned up dead, but believe me, there’s a collection of Malouf types floating about playing games with other people’s money.’
    ‘The insurance companies must be getting shitty.’
    ‘Yes, and no. In most cases, in real terms the amounts aren’t that big, and the legal insurers lay off against insurers and spread the pain down the line and pretty thin. They know they’re being taken advantage of but what can they do? They want to keep the lid on it and stay in business. No one who’s ever been broken into, had a car damaged or lost anything has any sympathy for insurance companies. They use the excess clause to cover their arses and they make millions by investing the policy premiums, most of which they never have to pay out on. Insurance is a legal racket.’
    ‘I wouldn’t argue with you, but . . .’
    ‘When you contacted me just now I thought you might have been hired by one of the insurers to investigate, break the code of silence, but unless you’re bullshitting me this is all new to you.’
    ‘It is. I started in at a very small scale. I thought it was just a rip-off missing person scam with a twist—the missing party apparently dead. But it seems to be growing hour by hour. How do you know as much as you do?’
    ‘Sealed containers leak.’
    ‘Do you have names for these other embezzlers?’
    A waiter cleared our table and asked if we wanted anything else.
    ‘No,’ Sabatini said. ‘I mean yes.’
    ‘Sir?’
    ‘Sorry. Coffee—long black, please. You, Cliff?’
    ‘The same.’
    As the waiter left I leaned across the table as if we had a secret: we didn’t, just a question. ‘What’s behind it all, then? You make it sound like a conspiracy.’
    ‘You said it, not me. That’s why I’m talking to you and letting you buy me lunch. If Malouf’s still alive and you can grab him, there’re two possibilities.’
    A guessing game, I thought. ‘One is that if I can grab him we might find out what’s going on. What’s the other possibility?’
    Sabatini stroked his beard. ‘Malouf was one of the smartest hackers and cyber fraudsters we’ve seen. If he’s alive he’d still be at it. This stuff’s an addictive game for someone like him. All this might just be him! And remember, you said I’d get first bite.’
    The person I most wanted to talk to next was Gretchen Nordlung but it wasn’t the time. I went home. Sabatini had given me references to several other articles he’d written where he skirmished around the question of dodgy financial advisers and managers without getting himself into trouble. We have new libel laws allowing greater freedom for journalists, and judges are awarding lower damages than juries once did, but caution is still the keynote.
    It was a familiar scene: I pulled up by my house and the door of a car parked on the opposite side of the street opened and the men who stepped out could only have been police. Not that they wore suits and hats; they favour leather jackets these days and a casual but clean look. Neat beards are in rather than moustaches. I stood by the front gate as they approached, the taller and older of the two showing his warrant card.
    ‘Detective Sergeant Caulfield and DC Manning, Mr Hardy. We’d like a word with you.’
    ‘What about?’
    ‘Could we go inside?’
    I looked up at the clear sky. ‘Why? It’s not raining.’
    Caulfield sighed. ‘They warned me about you. Here or at the station.’
    ‘Could rain,’ I said. ‘Come on in.’
    We went in and down the hall to the kitchen at the back where I set about making coffee. I spent a fair bit of money on the house a while back, but somehow its essential shabbiness had reasserted itself and it didn’t