48 Hours - A City of London Thriller Page 12

“For Pete’s sake, Nicky, I’ve only been gone a couple of hours and I’ve got three missed messages from you.”

  After five minutes listening to what Nicky had to say, the Director of Security was also beginning to feel unsettled. He consulted an internal telephone directory and dialled.

  “Richard Wolsey Keen speaking.”

  “Ah, hello Richard, this is Michael from Security. We have a bit of a problem. Can I come down and see you?”

  “Look, Michael, I was just about to leave. Can we do this tomorrow?”

  “No, I’m afraid it can’t wait,” said Michael Grazeley, Director of Security, leaving no room for discussion.

  ***

  Shortly after six thirty Richard Wolsey Keen sat facing his tormentors from security. He was still wearing his overcoat and he was still sweating. Michael Grazeley spoke. There was respect in his tone of voice, and Richard relaxed, but only a little.

  “The thing is, sir, you exceeded the daily floor limit of a million pounds today. That’s a good thing, really, because if it had been a million or less the system wouldn’t have flagged up this potential problem.”

  Richard listened and frowned as if puzzled. “Whist your purchase is for a million pounds, you paid to express clearance of the payment and a fee of four thousand pounds was charged by the clearing system. It was the fee that pushed the purchase over the floor limit.”

  “Well, really! Surely you haven’t made me wait here just because I expended a few thousand pounds that the client will pay anyway?” Richard tried to sound angry.

  “No. That isn’t the real problem. Nicky here tried to clear the warning by raising an exception notice, which you could have signed in your own time, and all would have been well. But the system wouldn’t accept the exception notice because your purchase was for land in the Seychelles, but the bank account you paid the money into was in Switzerland and belongs to an art gallery.”

  Richard had no idea who owned the account that ‘Sam’ had nominated for his million pound payoff. He had automatically assumed that it would be Sam’s own account. The banker needed time to think. He tried a bluff.

  “Michael, you know what things are like here. They change by the minute. About five minutes after I typed the request and sent it, I had a call to say that the land was off the market and so I diverted the investment into fine art for the client. I managed to pick up a marginal sale, and so Mrs Patterson pays one million and four thousand pounds, plus our fees, and she gets artwork worth approximately one point one million. We all win.”

  “Richard, we are not questioning your judgement. I am sure you will make the bank and the client money. No, the problem is the artwork itself. It appears that you arranged to pick it up in person.”

  Richard was now in deep water but he had to propagate the lie. “Yes, I wanted to deliver it personally.”

  “Well, that’s the problem. Nicky checked your swipe card. You haven’t left the office since mid-afternoon.”

  “That’s right.” Richard wondered which direction this was going, and whether he was clever enough to stay ahead of the security chief.

  “When Nicky rang the gallery to confirm they had received our transfer, the owner told him you had already picked up the painting. The description the owner of the gallery gave of his Richard Wolsey Keen does not fit you. It appears that our artwork has been stolen. We need to call the police.”

  Richard said nothing. The colour drained from his face. The security director squeezed his shoulder gently.

  “Don’t you worry, Richard, we will get to the bottom of this. We’ll get your artwork back.”

  The security team left, and Richard dropped his head into his hands. It was all over. Tomorrow the whole story would come out. He was ruined.

  The phone rang. He answered it.

  “Hello, Richard. This is Callum Rogerson of UK Newspaper Group. We were wondering whether you had any comment on tomorrow’s front page.”

  Richard knew all too well that UKNG owned two scurrilous tabloids as well as their broadsheet papers and radio interests.

  “How would I know? I haven’t seen it, and even if I had I wouldn’t give you the time of day.” He slammed the phone down. How much longer would the debacle at Northern & National Bank make front page news? When he checked he saw that new mail had arrived in his inbox from Callum Rogerson. He wanted to ignore it, but he knew he couldn’t.

  Richard clicked on a PDF file attachment called ‘Front Page’ and a piece of software called Adobe Reader opened on his desktop. Slowly a facsimile of the newspaper front page built before his eyes. The headline was bad enough:

  “The Fabulous Banker Boys!”

  Below the headline was a telephoto shot of the young Arabic boy touching Richard’s tie. The photo was taken from such an angle that the boy’s face was obscured, but such was the young man’s short build that he looked even younger from behind. The soft, puppy dog expression on Richard’s face made the photo even more damning.

  The text of the article had been carefully worded.

  “....assignment on Clapham Common at a place known to be a regular haunt of older men looking for younger partners.” “Dinner at the intimate Carannas Restaurant where the clientele is almost exclusively male...”

  The reference to further photographs inside chilled the banker to the core.

  Richard realised that more damage would be caused by what was not said than what had actually been written. Readers already enraged at his big payoff wouldn’t hold back; they would fill in the blanks with their own sordid story. Couldn’t people see that he was treating these poor boys, not exploiting them?

  The banker did not know how he could hope to face his wife or children again, especially his teenage son, when they had no idea that he had a predilection for attractive young men. His friends and colleagues would not understand, either. They would be shocked, possibly disgusted, and he foresaw only social exclusion and humiliation.

  Richard took off his overcoat and jacket. His shirt was stained red at the back but he didn’t care about that any more. He opened his desk drawer extracted a half full bottle of whisky and a smaller bottle.

  Within a short time, the banker was lying down on the sofa in his darkened office. The whisky bottle in his hand was almost empty, and tears streamed down his face.

 

  Chapter 35

  Vastrick Security Offices, No 1 Poultry, London. Tuesday 8am.

  We had spent much of yesterday afternoon with the City Police, and so I was surprised to get a call from DS Fellowes on the stroke of eight the following morning. The young policeman wanted to meet with us urgently, and would be bringing along an ex colleague. He was reluctant to say what this was all about on the phone, and so we invited him around.

  Dee and I were gradually becoming more intimate as the days passed. I was hoping that this was a continuing trend, although I did occasionally have doubts when I remembered that sick people sometimes fell in love with their nurses. I wondered if the Florence Nightingale syndrome extended to bodyguards.

  We sat in the operations room, each at our own console, working through the evidence until our visitors arrived. We gathered in the conference room and the Detective Sergeant introduced us to a former police inspector who now worked in private security.

  “Josh Hammond, Dee Conrad, this is Michael Grazeley of the London Mercantile Investment Bank.” We shook hands and sat down. “I’m going to let Michael explain, and then we can decide what we need to do.”

  We sat back as Michael Grazeley explained that at nine o’clock last night he had been called back to the office because Mr Richard Wolsey Keen was discovered lying dead in his office, with an empty whisky bottle and an empty bottle of pills. A note apologising to his wife and rambling on relatively incoherently lay on the printer in his office. It was an apparent suicide.

  The police, in cooperation with Michael and his assistant, sought answers as to why the banker might have taken his own life. Their first thoughts cen
tred on the loss of a painting which he had bought for a client, but that was before they looked at his phone and computer.

  Martin Grazeley opened his briefcase and removed a printed copy of the front page of one of the country’s most scurrilous tabloids. The story was sordid and suggestive, probably ruinous for the banker’s career, and yet the photos were relatively innocent on the surface, more suggestive than explicit. Nonetheless, the message was clear; rich banker exploits young men for sexual favours.

  Dee spoke out first. “I saw the front page of that paper on a news stand on the way in this morning, and it had a different headline.”

  “Yes. When we found the front page we rang the paper and asked them where they got the photos. They were emailed anonymously from...” Michael looked down at the file to find the domain name.

  “Someone@48hrs.co.za?” Dee suggested. She was brilliant at this.

  “Absolutely right. The name used was Sam,” Martin said, looking impressed.

  “It would seem that, in view of the circumstances, even this awful excuse for a newspaper decided it would be in bad taste to run that front page,” DS Fellowes added.

  I was now full of questions and so I cut in quickly. “Was there any indication of a specific threat to his life, or was it just the pictures?” Michael looked at DS Fellowes for permission before he answered. The DS nodded his assent.

  “He had been threatened by Sam around forty eight hours earlier. The pictures were first mentioned in a text yesterday. Someone - we believe it was Sam -shot Mr Wolsey Keen three times with a paintball gun. His shirt and jacket were stained and his back was bruised.”

  “We know the blackmailer as Bob,” I added. “How much did he ask for?”

  “He asked for a million pounds to be express transferred to a Swiss bank account in the name of a London art gallery. He then picked up the painting yesterday, claiming to be Richard. We appear to have lost both the money and the painting. There’ll be hell on in the office today.”

  “Let me guess,” said Dee. “The man was around six feet tall, slimly built, bad toupee, moustache, glasses and an East End accent.”

  Michael showed less surprise this time. “Almost right, except that he had a strong West Country accent.”

  “It seems His Lordship changes his accents with his names.” Those of us who knew what she was talking about nodded in agreement.

  Fellowes spoke. “That makes three suspicious deaths now, and a small fortune in ransoms paid. The Chief is really on our backs over this. In fact, the inspector is probably being bawled out at this very moment.”

  Dee looked thoughtful, and then she smiled as she passed comment. “Either the man is reckless, or he has no idea that we know who he is. That has to be in our favour.”

 

  Chapter 36

  City of London Police HQ, Wood Street, London: Tuesday, 11am.

  We were back upstairs in the more lavishly appointed part of the police HQ. On this occasion we sat at a large walnut conference table which held a tray of different kinds of mineral water and two plates of biscuits. I had never really thought about the police sitting around a conference table having the same kinds of boring minuted meetings that were held in the rest of the City. There was also a video projector on the ceiling and one of those black conference table telephones with microphones on four sides.

  I was sitting with Dee and DS Fellowes. Sitting opposite us was DCI Coombes of the Metropolitan Police, along with his sidekick from Friday night, Detective Sergeant Scott. The bigwigs were outside in the corridor, talking.

  After a few moments the door opened, and Inspector Boniface entered followed by two uniformed policemen with plenty of silver decoration on their blue serge tunics. One of them had his highly decorated hat under his arm.

  The two uniformed men took their seats at the head of the table and Boniface sat next to me. I recognised the first uniformed man, and recalled that he was the London City Detective Chief Superintendant, DCS Boddy. He stood and introduced himself and then his uniformed counterpart from the Met, Assistant Commissioner Bryn Evans, former Assistant Chief Constable for South Wales. Boddy sat down, and Assistant Commissioner Evans took the chair and spoke clearly and concisely in that pleasant sing song manner associated with soft spoken Welshmen.

  “Gathered around the table here today we have representatives of the two London Police Forces, and one of the victims of this blackmailer and possible murderer. To date the Metropolitan Police have restricted their investigations to the death of Andrew Cuthbertson, with the City Police looking into the blackmail allegations. These two cases are strands in the same rope, as far as I can see.” The AC picked up a sheet of paper. “We also have two other deaths to consider. The death of Sir Max Rochester, which the toxicology reports suggest may be a suspicious death, and the apparent suicide of Richard Wolsey Keen.”

  The Welshman paused to look around the table. “Whilst the toxicology report indicated high levels of potassium in Sir Max’s blood, Sir Max suffered from heart problems and had recorded high potassium levels previously in routine blood tests. Nonetheless, we are not ruling out foul play, especially in the circumstances. Mr Keen’s demise, on the other hand, is probably what it appears to be, which is suicide. Excessive amounts of alcohol were found in his bloodstream and stomach, along with a huge number of painkillers. The pills he took were prescribed to him by his doctor, and they contained codeine, which can apparently convert into morphine in the human body. As few as six could kill, and he had taken almost four times that amount. I’ll now hand you over to Inspector Boniface, who has some new information.”

  Inspector Boniface passed around a profile of a man we all recognised, although his photo did him no justice.

  “This is the profile of rock star and humanitarian Don Fisher. He came to prominence in the late 1970s with his band ‘London’s Burning’. After one major mainstream hit they played mainly to their own fans. At that point they may have faded into obscurity if Don had not married a high profile bleached blonde rock journalist who was making a name for herself by swearing on mainstream television in a popular punk rock programme. Three oddly named children later, he teamed up with a few others and launched one of the most successful charities in recent history. Anyone under forty will probably not remember his singing career, but they will certainly know him for his charity work and high profile daughters.”

  We were all of an age where Don Fisher was known to us; his violent language on live TV, urging people to donate, had become a favourite clip on TV news items whenever his name popped up in connection with a charity event, or when one of his daughters managed to attract the attention of the media for some sort of unwise comment or misdeed. Boniface explained why we were looking at the CV of the former rock star.

  “In accordance with money laundering regulations, the banks always let us know if they see any suspicious activity. Just over a week ago they contacted the Financial Crimes Unit and reported that Mr Fisher had asked for one million pounds in cash. He wanted it within forty eight hours. The bank tried to persuade him to use bankers’ drafts or electronic transfer, but he refused, and turned up with two heavies to pick up the money in cash. The Financial Crimes Unit followed up with Mr Fisher the next day, but his solicitor told them to mind their own business and the enquiry was put on the back burner, until DS Fellowes saw the file when he searched the Serious Crime Database for related cases this morning.”

  DCS Boddy interjected with some further interesting snippets.

  “An hour ago Mr Fisher agreed to discuss the matter with us, in the presence of his solicitor, later today. What we do know, courtesy of the paparazzi, is that his eldest daughter was the victim of an apparent prankster last week, who shot her with a paintball gun as she exited her favourite nightclub by the rear exit to avoid the Press. Photos of the tearstained daughter, covered in red paint, appeared in the celebrity columns on Saturday.”

  It seemed that everyone else in the room was doing the maths, as
I was. His Lordship had apparently netted a million in cash, a million in art and my quarter of a million in diamonds.

  The meeting continued for another hour as assignments were made, and we were asked to remain available but not to hinder the investigation. The codename for the operation was to be Operation Peer Pressure. How many more neat sound bites could be extracted from this heinous man’s campaign of hate, I wondered?

 

  Chapter 37

  Vastrick Security Offices, No 1 Poultry, London. Tuesday 2pm.

  Dee and I were enjoying a late sandwich lunch in her office. The sun was shining and the air conditioning was trying to keep up. At last we were enjoying a glorious spell of late summer weather in the Capital. We were actually having fun, despite the seriousness of the case. We felt comfortable together; we were a good fit, or at least I thought so. I intended to speak to Dee at some point about our ‘relationship’ but I hadn’t found the right time yet. Perhaps I never would. Like all of my relationships, I would have preferred it if the girl just got the message without my having to say it out loud.

  Perhaps I had been tainted by my experience with Julie Tate. What a great time we’d had together. We were compatible in every way. Then, when I decided to verbalise what we both felt and where it might go, she smiled kindly and touched my arm. She didn’t need to say anything, I knew already, but she said it anyway.

  “Josh, of course I love you, but like a brother!”

  The door to the office opened, snapping me out of my reverie. A young woman walked in. She looked to me to be about fifteen, but she was in her early twenties. I must be getting old, I thought. Her name was Alana and she was pretty and slightly built. She was one of Vastrick’s best investigators, and her nickname was Nancy Drew.

  Alana sat down at the desk with us. I cleared away the empty Prêt a Manger sandwich cartons and made some space for Alana’s file. Alana’s excitable manner of speaking convinced me she really must be fifteen after all.

  “I have something here that should be of interest.” Alana sat down and opened the file. “I searched for a link between Lord Hickstead and Don Fisher on the internet but found nothing. I word searched all biographies and autobiographies, but they don’t mention each other. In the end, I had to laboriously trawl through the NaNA.”