The Lost Swimmer by Ann Turner Page B

happened. There was a maze of different lines in the accounts – ‘strings’ as we called them. After several hours I found a disturbing trend, hidden deep in the files. I’d missed it before because it was lying within sections of other accounts. Some of the strings had shadow strings in which money meant for the first account had been deposited into its twin or triplet. The original Athens account was the simplest to unravel. Half the students who had gone on the most recent Athens intensive had deposited the money for their trip into this account set up by Pam and signed off on by me. The other half had deposited their money into the Athens 2 account – which seemingly had been authorised by me too. But where Athens 3 had got its money from remained unclear.
    Alarmingly, portions of my colleagues’ grants had also been siphoned into the Athens 2 account, and also into other shadowy accounts that stalked legitimate ones. I was sickened to see my own X account had colleagues’ money in it.
    Other sums had gone back into legitimate accounts making up the lost amount, like a complex Ponzi scheme. No wonder Alison had picked up irregularities. I could see now why she had to cover her own position. Many of the legitimate accounts were ones that she would have presented to me for authorisation.
    The logic of the perpetrator was elusive, as mysterious as the gold ibex of Santorini. Who could have done this? I was intrigued to find out.
    I flicked through the photocopied records obsessively, willing myself to remember signing them. But I couldn’t. I genuinely believed I hadn’t. But then, the investigators claimed the signature had been verified as mine, and it certainly looked like mine. A brilliant fake. And not for the first time in history. The world was flooded with fakes – even in archaeology we could be fooled. For every legitimate enterprise, there were those waiting to do the quick rip-off. I just hadn’t expected it at Coastal. And I hadn’t expected to be the victim.
    I reached for my phone and excruciating pain shot from my ribs to my shoulder. Ignoring it, I looked through the address book and found Loris Gant’s number. A professor at Melbourne University, Loris was a handwriting expert. He was a trusted colleague whom I knew from inter-university research committees and crucially, he would keep the matter confidential.
    When he picked up, I gave him minimal information, just that I needed a forensic analysis of the signatures and would provide my own legitimate signature with them. I told him I wanted to pay the full cost, no favours. Loris said four thousand dollars was the rate. I gave him the go-ahead.
    Over the next few days I made comprehensive lists of staff who could be embezzling, noting everyone who had sought authorisations from me. It read like a Who’s Who of the School, everyone at senior lecturer level and higher. Even Josie and Pam were on my list. And then I had to add Rachel. Melinda too – papers were often left on her desk for me to sign. I didn’t think that any of these colleagues were criminals who would perpetrate such a financial web. I kept following the strings regardless, like Theseus following Ariadne’s magical thread in the labyrinth, trying to find the way out.
    So far Coastal had been professional. I felt that no one outside the investigation had heard anything, including Stephen. And the further into the fraudulent accounts I went, the more I wanted to sort it out on my own, not bring him into it. Particularly if, despite his denials, he was seeing Priscilla behind my back. The thought made my ribs burn – not only at the thought of him with Priscilla, but that I didn’t want to turn to him for advice – the person I’d relied on for over two decades. I took more painkillers. Priscilla was high on my list of suspects and I wasn’t going to have Stephen unwittingly feed her information if my worst