The Scottish Banker of Surabaya - By Ian Hamilton Page 0,7

did you become so Canadian?” Jennie asked. “Is it only the big and the rich who are allowed to do whatever they want to avoid paying taxes?”

“That’s not the point.”

“No, the point is that Theresa and her family worked for years and put everything back into the family, and now the money is gone and they want you to help them get it back. That is what you do for a living, isn’t it?”

“You know it is.”

“And when you do it in Asia, are you and Uncle always so fussy about how your big-shot clients came by their money, and how they hang on to it too?”

Ava sat back and stared at her mother. “You don’t know who most of my clients are, or the kind of due diligence we do,” she said.

“I know about Tommy Ordonez, because you needed my help, remember? You needed to get to his sister-in-law in Vancouver. When you called me, did I ask you how Ordonez became the richest man in the Philippines? Did I ask you about due diligence? All I remember is that my daughter needed my help.”

Ava and Uncle had recovered more than fifty million dollars for Ordonez, money from his businesses that his brother had lost in an online gambling scam. Arguments lined up in Ava’s head about the difference between that case and Theresa Ng’s situation, and just as quickly they dissolved. She didn’t win many arguments with her mother anyway, particularly when Jennie decided she wasn’t going to back down, regardless of whatever logic Ava threw at her.

Theresa came back with two mugs and a bottle of water on a tray. She couldn’t look Ava in the eye, and Ava felt a twinge of sympathy for her.

“So, Theresa, as I calculate, this character Lam stopped paying you dividends and has been gone for the past six months,” she said as the woman passed out their drinks and then sat down.

“That’s about right.”

“And neither you nor any of the other people who lost money went to a government authority, other than that one person who approached the police and then backed off.”

“Yes, that’s true.”

“So you’ve done absolutely nothing to try to get your money back?”

“We tried to find Lam.”

“How?”

“We hired a private detective, a Canadian. I don’t think he took us very seriously.”

“And what did he find?”

“Nothing.”

“So what makes you think I can do any better?”

“We think we know where Lam is now.”

“You think?” Ava said.

“I got a phone call four days ago from my sister, who’s visiting relatives in Saigon — they call it Ho Chi Minh City now, but to us it is still Saigon — with my mother. They took our cousins to dinner at the Hyatt in the city, and when they were leaving, a big BMW pulled up at the hotel entrance. My sister swears she saw Lam get out of the car and walk into the hotel.”

“How did she know it was him?”

“His picture was all over the local Vietnamese newspapers when the company got into trouble, and my sister said she recognized him from there. And, of course, she yelled his name. She said he turned around right away, looked at her, and then ran into the hotel.”

“It was him,” Jennie said, nodding at Theresa.

Theresa nodded back and then looked at Ava. The uncertainty that had been in her eyes had vanished, replaced by anger that verged on hatred. “I was upset and happy all at the same time. I talked to the rest of my family, and we told my sister to go back to the hotel every night and see if she could talk to him. He never showed again. While this was going on, I was telling your mother everything, and she was kind enough to suggest that maybe you’d help us.”

“I didn’t say you would,” Jennie stressed to Ava. “I told Theresa that you and the man you work with in Hong Kong are very good at recovering money. That’s true enough, isn’t it?”

“Yes, that’s all she said,” Theresa added.

Ava felt the pressure all the same. “You have to understand, I don’t decide which cases we take and which ones we don’t take. I have to talk to my boss in Hong Kong. You haven’t given us very much to go on. I mean, one possible sighting at a hotel —”

“My sister wrote down the licence number of the car, so you have that too.”

“Well, that’s helpful, but there is also the amount of money involved. I don’t