Free My Brother’s Keeper by Donna Malane Page B

Auckland finding out what I could about Justin. Apricot was a registered company, with both Justin and Salena nominated as shareholders and company directors. It was the same with the gym gear and health supplement importing business, which was registered under the company name of Orpheus. Both the websitesfor Apricot and Orpheus gave the impression of small-time businesses. Justin also had a specialty wine import business. From what I could make out it was so boutique as to be a company in name only, set up to provide tax-free expensive wines for Justin and Salena and their dinner guests. His own ‘private cellar’ I believe is the term used. I didn’t get very far by tracking the line of imports and sales for Justin’s gym gear and health products so I made a couple of phone calls complaining about missing deliveries and managed to glean much more information about the size of the import loads. On a roll, I followed this up by phoning the gym and posing as the personal assistant of a high-profile media celebrity who wished to remain anonymous. Eventually, after a lot of name-dropping on my part and a rather feeble struggle with confidentiality on hers, I convinced the receptionist to part with the gym’s membership list. By the time I had hung up I was confident my first impressions had been pretty close. Both businesses were doing okay but were hardly mega money-earners, which didn’t entirely gel with the house, the lifestyle and assets so ostentatiously on display. The Herne Bay multi-squillion-dollar villa with the barn-sized kitchen was owned by a trust, presumably for tax purposes — again — and presumably the trustees were Justin and Salena. I was about to check this when I realised it was five o’clock and I hadn’t eaten anything since Ned’s scrambled eggs in the early hours of the morning.
    Over a coffee and muffin at Café Cézanne, a little place in Three Lamps, I thought over what I’d learned. It looked to me like Justin was spending more money than he earnedfrom either the gym or the online store. This could mean the money was coming from somewhere other than from legitimate businesses. Possibly Justin had taken his alleged history of drug use to a new level and had switched from consumer to supplier. Possibly this was what Karen suspected, which would explain why she was concerned about Sunny — possibly. Justin’s assistant Anton with his gold-spangled chest ornaments and bulging water-winged biceps would pass as a classic drug-dealer accoutrement. I made one more call.
    Oliver was affectionately known by those in the media as ‘accountant to the stars’. He had some luminary clients among the film and celebrity set, who paid him handsomely to look after their books. What made Oliver extremely hot property was that he was the most unlikely of accountants: convivial company, a popular spinner of unlikely yarns, an accomplished singer, lover of the high life and, most importantly, Oliver adored spending money. His own, that is. A generous big spender who was able to legally and legitimately protect his clients’ money from the taxman — the only surprise Oliver offered was that he wasn’t inundated with marriage proposals. I’d done some work for Oliver a couple of years earlier, tracking down his birth mother. It was an emotional time for him and by the end of it we weren’t exactly friends, but we were definitely more than acquaintances. He’d said at the time he’d be happy to help if I ever needed anything. I wasn’t counting on Oliver being Justin and Salena’s accountant but I was confident he’d know who was.
    ‘You want me to do what?’ he responded archly.
    ‘I’m just asking you to have a drink with their accountantand if something should happen to come up in conversation that you think might be of interest to me, you could let me know.’
    ‘And I would do this for you, why?’
    ‘Okay, never mind. Forget it.’ It hadn’t occurred to me it was a lot to ask until