PROLOGUE:
Cause they're waiting for me,
They're looking for me,
The dream police they're coming to arrest me."
- Rick Nielsen, from the album by Cheap Trick, 1979
The tip had come - as they often had recently - late in the evening, a sleep-shattering phone call with a voice speaking in hushed tones down the line.
"The Serious Fraud Office will rendezvous with one of your contacts, 9:00am tomorrow morning, Aotea Square. Be there."
I'd caught sight of my quarry a little after nine - the familiar visage of Spook, a source of mine, standing near the middle of the Square and, with him, senior SFO investigator Gib Beattie and another officer, both looking like they'd been tailored by the FBI. Retreating from my vantage point I slunk back to the car. The camera was on the back seat. All I needed to do was load the film. Please God, I muttered frantically as I slumped into the driver's seat and swapped the 400mm long lens for a more manageable 210mm zoom, please give me time to roll off a few shots.
I knew Beattie had been talking to Spook for months. I also knew what had been discussed in those conversations. With a Commission of Inquiry underway, a photo of my contact meeting these SFO guys could prove relevant down the line. I hadn't figured on Murphy's Law.
"Look," Spook was repeating to Beattie back in the Square, "I'm not happy about you bringing this guy Steve Drain down here. I don't know him, and I don't want to talk in front of him. Besides, I'm worried my car might get a parking ticket. Can we go back down there by the street where I can keep an eye on it?"
And so it was that just as I unpacked the film, Spook walked around the corner with the SFO's Gib Beattie and Steve Drain. My worst stakeout nightmare had just come true. I may as well have hung out a sign saying "Here I Am, Come And Get Me". Beattie and Drain took a half-step past my car and stopped dead in their tracks. While they couldn't see my face, that could tell that someone in the driver's seat had a camera in his lap.
Drain, in one fluid movement, whirled around and opened my passenger door, leaning in as he did so. "What the hell are you doing here?," he demanded. I clutched vainly at a straw, hoping that Drain was taking a wild guess, that he wasn't an avid watcher of TV news bulletins which have featured my face every week for five years, and that even if he did know who Ian Wishart was, he wouldn't recognise me behind the Ray-Ban Aviators. Fat bloody chance!
"Haven't we met before, somewhere?," he sneered, before adding "I know who you are, now tell me what you are doing down here!"
"None of your business," I retorted, giving up the play-dumb ruse.
Gib Beattie couldn't make up his mind whether to gloat or snarl, so he mixed the two expressions, his ears and nose appearing to twitch in the battle for facial control. His eyes, however, glittered with hate.
"Wishart, you bastard. You bastard! We've got you now!"
I barely had time to react - Serious Fraud Office investigator Steve Drain, a former cop, chose that moment to lunge across the seat in a bid to grab the camera and rip the film out. We fought briefly as I lashed out to stop him gaining a secure grip on the Olympus.
"Back off pal!," I warned as menacingly as I could muster, "You don't have any... [to read more, take advantage of our half price offer and grab an e-book edition of this re-released bestseller]
