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‘Ah'm so fooked.'

‘Which is where, of course, you come back into it.'

‘I see.'

‘Maaate.'

‘Yes? Mate.'

‘You know a bit about shares don't you?'

‘Are you back in Australia, Dave?'

‘Sitting in a lovely overpriced hotel in St Georges Terrace looking at many cranes building lots of new mining edifices, as we speak.'

Dave ate a room service steak sandwich while Terry sat on the bed looking at the stack of English pounds. There were three mobile phones sitting on the table.

‘Beetroot, that's the key to a great steak sandwich,' said Dave.

‘It's slightly short of nineteen thousand pounds,' said Terry. ‘That'll pay a few debts.'

Dave smiled a tomato-saucy smile. ‘Well, I never thought of it like that. I was thinking more double or nothing.'

Dave stood at the kitchen table of Deidre's tumbledown farmhouse in Lewis off the coast of Scotland. The condom lay split open, its modest gravelly stones scattered.

Deidre brought a pile of papers from a cupboard drawer, picking bills away from the shares. ‘Here they are.'

‘Can ah coom in,' called Dewar plaintively from the door.

‘Ye set foot in this croft and ah'll kill ye,' said Deidre, not for the first time.

‘The shares. Your dad's shares and Dewar's. That's what it's all about,' said Dave. ‘Why else would you smuggle poor-grade industrial diamonds halfway across the world. Salting.'

‘Salt?'

‘No' salt!' called Dewar.

‘Hey, who's telling this?' called Dave.

‘Well, git on wi' it,' said Dewar.

‘The plan was to crush up a bit of this stuff in the hole so you send it in with the core samples.'

‘But they'd do other tests,' said Deidre.

‘Yeah, that's what was confusing me too. They'd find out soon
enough. But they don't want to mine it. They want to make a quick hit on the shares.'

‘No' so quick, as it turns oot,' mumbled Dewar.

Deidre blinked. ‘Wha'?'

Dewar called, ‘When word leaks oot, like. Rumours.'

Deidre smiled. ‘Ah, rumours. Yes. And ye uncovered all this?' Deidre opened her arms and put them around Dave and hugged him. She whispered, ‘Thank ye. Noo he'll goo tae jail.' She kissed Dave and Dave kissed her back, feeling her body pushing against him and he looked over her shoulder to the bed.

Dewar was now sitting on it. ‘Tell her aboot t'better plan.'

Deidre turned, wild. ‘Oot.'

He stood, hands up, placating. ‘We kin all come ootae this, Deidre MacDonald. A profit.'

She stopped being wild. ‘A profit?'

‘Tidy. Yir da's dream.'

‘If this goes right,' said Dave, ‘we leave Lord Fotheringham holding the bag, escape the police of at least three countries and make a largish profit on the side.'

Deidre looked from Dave to Dewar, both smiling.

‘How can it be so easy?'

‘It won't be,' said Dewar. ‘Lewis will have tae help us get him oot of t'country, by boot.'

‘And I'll have to give the police something ... to distract them while we set it up,' said Dave, feeling the beginnings of a new rush.

Deidre said, ‘Ye're a wee punter aren't ye?'

‘I haven't had so much fun since I lost my first house in a card game.'

‘And so, I was the distraction for the police.'

‘Sorry about that.'

‘It took a great deal of explaining, you know.'

‘I knew you'd be good at that.'

‘And chastising. I was chastised in a number of countries and at many levels.'

‘Sorry. Was there spanking?'

Dave made the phone call from the Isle of Skye while he waited to board a fast freighter heading towards Fremantle. Lewis had taken him in his fishing boat, happy to see the back of Dave Kelly.

‘I only just managed to get away myself, Inspector Colley.'

‘But ye saw her take the diamonds.'

‘Absolutely. She either has them or knows who now has them.'

There was more talking in the background of a hotel in Ullapool where the police had set up their headquarters.

‘Is this the woman who was in Amsterdam?' said Colley when she got back on the line.

‘Yes. The one on the barge.'

‘We have video, apparently.'

‘She may be going by the name of Julie Lansky. She uses aliases, apparently.'

‘You're such a hypocrite.'

‘Oh, aye.'

‘What about Dewar?' said Colley into the phone.

‘I think he was a go-between. Like Ken. And me. Caught up in it.'

‘That makes no sense, Ken. Campbell and Karushi were ordered to kill you in the forest.'

‘Did I say that? I might have misunderstood. My stomach was playing up. Anyway, I heard her say Montenegro. There aren't panthers there, are there?'

‘Very good work. We'll clear this up when we debrief you, Ken.'

‘Well yes, of course, Inspector. I'm near Edinburgh now. Shall I drop in?' Dave disconnected the phone. He turned to head up the gangway stairs and to sail as far away from the police as possible.

‘Ship. Hmm. Very slow.'

‘Twenty-eight days. A lot of sleep. And a lot of cards.'

‘Don't tell me you won.'

‘We only played for matchsticks.'

‘And back in Scotland they had time to salt the mine.'

‘Yes.'

‘And set the other things up.'

‘A lot of it had been set up already. But timing is everything ... apparently.'

Dave offered Terry the last chip on his plate.

Terry shook his head and looked back at the pile of money. ‘What you want to do is totally illegal.'

‘Compared to diamond smuggling and nearly getting murdered in a forest, a bit of share plumping seems kind of mild. Isn't that what the big end of town always does?'

‘They don't get caught. I mean converting this many pounds into Australian dollars could be tricky enough.'

‘Naw, you're right. You don't have to do this, mate.' Dave went to the hotel window and tried to find sky above the bigger buildings around his hotel.

Terry said, ‘Only, without someone who knows a bit about shares, none of it will work.'

‘Well there's that. It's all betting though isn't it? Instead of Wandering Lark, it's Kershader Mining. To win.'

‘You never win, Dave. You know that, don't you?'

‘I'm on a roll. Ride it all the way, I reckon.'

Terry introduced Dave to his broker Ed via telephone then headed to the stock exchange. Dave's plan centred on deniability, for everyone involved. So Ed, in Sydney, didn't know Dave. And Terry was not logging onto computer accounts, as he pointed out he could do, but watching the televisions in the stock exchange foyer. The television screens were there so that old folks could watch their superannuation funds dwindling without bothering the big players who were busy inside watching Greece plunder their funds.

Dave had three new mobiles lined up on the table in the hotel room. He'd put labels of gaffer tape on each one.
Terry, Ed, Deidre.
He'd opened a Stella from the bar fridge.

The Terry line rang. When Dave picked it up, Terry said, ‘Kershader
isn't on our board yet, but it won't be until it starts to do something. Now, dangle the first bit of bait. Not all of it.'

‘Yep, I got ya. It's the opposite of laying off bets around different tracks.'

Dave picked up the Deidre mobile. ‘You still there, my lovely?'

‘Aye, Dave.'

‘Missing you already. Um. One two three, go.'

Dave rang Ed on the Ed phone. ‘Account 432 here. I want you to use half the money in that account to buy shares in Kershader Mining. Scottish company. Um, London Stock Exchange.'

There was clicking and keyboard tapping on the other end. Finally Ed came back on the line. ‘That's a lot of shares, Mr MacFergus.'

‘Good. I reckon it's going to do something.'

‘What have you heard?'

‘Not allowed to say if I have, am I?'

Dave clicked Ed off and picked up the Terry phone. ‘What's happening, brother?'

‘Too soon mate and what you put in is too little to start anything. Has the Scottish end started?'

‘Yep, and we've bought about fifty thousand shares, I'd say.'

‘Yeah, well the whole thing depends on your Fotheringham getting on this, you know. Millions need to play. Not just the local villagers.'

‘That's Dewar's job.'

Dave heard noise from the Deidre phone. ‘Is anything happenin' yet?'

‘Hello darlin'. Not yet, but Terry says it's like fishing. Gotta wait till the fish notices the bait. Your folks buying?'

‘In dribs and drabs, although Dewar has more.'

‘Keep by the phone, Deidre. When we go to dump it all, I don't want your neighbours being left hanging.'

‘Ah'll look after them.'

‘We're up,' called Terry. ‘We've made the Commodities screen. Trading on the ASX and London.'

‘What we worth?'

‘Up from twenty cents to thirty-three.'

‘Doesn't sound like much,' said Dave.

‘Do the maths. The company has to be trading at about a million before they'd list them, you know. Anyway, it means Fotheringham is on, but he's just dangling his own bait. We got to wriggle a bit in the water. Buy.'

Dave dialled the Ed phone and picked up Deidre's at the same time.

‘Hey girl. Hey?' There was noise and shooshing at the other end. ‘Not alone?'

‘In the pub.'

‘Okay. Buy buy buy. I always wanted to say that.'

‘Everything.'

‘Throw everything at it so he panics into buying them cheap.'

‘Hello?' said Ed.

‘Account 432. Please spend all the rest of my money on Kershader Mining.'

‘Hey, it's going up fast. You do know something.'

‘Buy please at whatever price it is. Bye.'

Dave clicked off.

‘Terry?'

‘It's moving up but not fast. It's at forty-one cents. Maybe you should sell. That's double now.'

‘Hold your nerve, mate.'

‘Forty-three. Big jump. Sell, mate. It'll lose momentum.'

‘A bit more, Terry.'

‘Dave, fucking sell, now.'

‘Forty-five cents?'

‘It's forty-five cents. Sell the fucking shares.'

Dave buttoned off Terry.

Dave called Ed. ‘Account 432.'

‘Yes, Mr MacFergus.'

Dave picked up the Deidre phone and he yelled into both phones, ‘Sell. Sell everything.'

Dave buttoned off Ed. He said, ‘You hear me, Deidre?'

‘Oh, aye my love.'

Dave buttoned off Deidre. He danced to the hotel bar fridge. There was whisky. ‘It's after drinking time in Scotland.'

One of the mobile phones was ringing. Dave went over. He picked up Terry.

‘Dave, I told you to sell!'

‘I have.'

‘The price is still rising.'

‘Doesn't matter to us, does it?'

‘Well, if everyone jumped off, then the price would fall suddenly and Fotheringham would get caught. That was your plan, wasn't it?'

Dave rang Ed. ‘Ed, it's um, whatever the MacFergus account is. Sold?'

‘Tidy morning's work, Mr MacFergus. One hundred and eight thousand dollars. You would have made much more if you'd stayed in. I'm filling out the CHESS now.'

‘Ta.'

Dave rang Deidre. ‘Deidre, I said sell. Did you hear me say sell, now before it drops?'

‘Ah'll get her,' said Dewar.

There was cheering and glass clinking.

‘Dave,' she said, like a cancer doctor.

‘What?'

‘Well, the way it was was this. Lord Fotheringham explained that we could make a lot more money if we dinae dump him in it.'

‘Oh,' said Dave.

‘Dave?'

‘But, I set this whole thing up so you could get your revenge on him. For your dad. And, you know – get the English.'

‘And we thank ye for it. The names Dave Kelly and Ken mean a lo' in this wee croft. But Dave, we had a wee choice. A lot of revenge an' a wee bit o' money. Or lots of money. It's 2010 for fook's sake, no' 1746.'

‘Ah.'

‘If ta sun shines, ye stand in it, Dave. Ah'll never forget ye, y'know. Got tae goo, we're aw sellin' when it hits fifty p.'

Click.

Dave sat in the empty hotel room wondering why he felt like he'd lost again.

‘Poor Dave.'

‘Yes, the universe's victim.'

‘I think you're a victimless crime.'

CHESS stood for Clearing House Electronic Sub-Register System, Terry had explained when Dave wanted to collect his money.

Terry said, ‘I mean the diamond salting will be discovered. You could ring your police mates and give them a tip. Teach that girl a lesson.'

‘Not the first girl to break my heart, Terrence. Naw. Let the chips fall, I reckon. I might keep a bit of a low profile, police-wise. Stay in my own backyard.'

‘And stop shitting in your own nest?'

The three-day wait to see if anything dodgy had transpired before the stock exchange released the funds made Dave sweat. The sweating could have been caused by Terry's un-air-conditioned garage where Dave camped. Dave could not afford to be seen anywhere around town. Dave could not go into Terry's house because he had been persona non grata with Judy, Terry's wife, ever since Sally, Dave's wife, had left him some five years before, which seemed unfair to Dave, seeing as Judy and Sally and most of Dave's own family thought that was the best thing for Sally and the kids – by a long shot.