Chapter 18
On the flight home, even before we had a good day’s sleep David opened the box and we sorted through it. It contained not just their original passports but their first forged ones as well, the wallets that they must have had on them when they had set sail, with their driving licences, credit cards and the usual things that men lug around ‘just in case’, two Certified Cheques – ready for cashing, two envelopes crammed with cash (one in pounds sterling, one in US Dollars) and a pile of blown up photographs of the security portfolio’s codes. We pondered whether they had taken copies of the copies, but all three of us came to the same conclusion, between the two of them they had an alarmingly high I.Q. count – so we doubted it very much. Just before I snuzzled up in the fresh Irish linen an idea began to form in my overtired brain so I quickly contacted five people, made some quick arrangements, and was sound asleep before my head hit the pillow.
When we touched down at El Campo I was met by my three new visitors Itza, Vicente and Sandra, who, along with Sue and Charlotte were the idea that had formed in my sleep deprived brain just before I entered the land of nod. Sue and Charlotte were still in residence (somewhere?), ‘they weren’t going anywhere’ they said ‘until I got back’ (oh to be so popular), Itza hopped on a plane as soon as I told him that I had the answers to the ‘Maldives situation’ but ‘it was too ‘complicated’ to discuss over the phone’, and he had landed three hours before us, Vicente came running as soon as I mentioned that I might soon be going to prison and last, but not least, was a call to Sandra, and she was soon on her way, being as there were no pressing wars on at the moment (and I promised her something that she couldn’t resist), but Sue and Charlotte weren’t there to greet me, Sue had locked herself in a spare bedroom as soon as Sandra had set foot inside Mi Casa, and Charlotte was giving her friend ‘moral support’.
First things first, sort Sue out.
Knock, knock -‘Go away you ‘bar steward’’ (I think that is what she called me) she screamed ‘how dare you bring THAT woman into our home’ (I liked the ‘our home’ bit).
‘She’s going to help us get married’ I shouted through the door, and with that it flew open and she launched herself at me, wrapping her legs around my waist and started smothering me in kisses: ‘if only all my problems were this easy to solve’ I thought.
I left Itza and Vicente in the capable hands of David, to ‘bring them up to speed’ (ugh), left Sandra peeling off her clothes by the pool (‘memories’ I thought) - she was definitely here on a ‘need to know’ basis only, the less she knew about Shaun and Franklin the better I would feel, then I took Sue and Charlotte to visit Sheila (using Aaron and the helicopter rather than prolonging their agony by going by boat), it was the solemnest place on El Campo, and by the time we arrived they were both quietly crying into my shoulders, one each.
After we sat down I said ‘I’m sorry to have to talk to you together but the decisions that you have both got to make now must be totally unanimous, there are no ‘individual’ solutions.
‘They are alive’ Sue said, it was not a question but a statement.
‘That depends on the both of you’ I said, ‘here and now you have to decide whether they are ‘alive’, in which case things must take their course’.
‘Vincente’, Sue said.
‘Yes’, ‘or they died in that storm’.
‘Sandra?’ she said.
‘Yes, but she must never know the truth, after all she is a reporter, her only reason for being here is to enable us to get married because they ‘did’ die at sea.’
‘If either one of you, wants either one of them, to be alive - to face up to their responsibilities, to punish them, or for whatever reason, I must warn you that ‘things will never be the same again’, for them, and for you, especially for you Charlotte,’ and turning to Sue I continued ‘If it is what you want Sue, then we will still be married, but after your divorce, but not in your lovely church, you would be a divorcee’. At this moment in time I am ninety-nine point nine per-cent certain that I can make them ‘disappear’, but if you make that decision, then you must promise me that once we have left this island then you will never, under any circumstances discuss this with anyone, not even between yourselves, or even with me, ever again, they will have unfortunately ‘died at sea’, and we will take it from there.’
‘Is Charlie a hit man?’ Charlotte said, with a hint of panic in her voice: but only a hint.
‘Not on this side of the Atlantic’ I said, before engaging brain,’
‘If they are ‘dead’, will they be punished?’ Sue asked, it was an odd question to ask, but I saw what she meant
‘Oh you have got to believe it’ I said, and in unison they said ‘Itza’.
‘Where are they, what are they doing’ Charlotte asked.
‘I am not going to answer those sorts of questions until after you have made your decision’, they are irrelevant at the moment, and I won’t be going into any great detail either.’
‘That is cruel’ she said.
‘Maybe, but some answers may cloud your judgement, others I may not be able to answer for whatever reason, it really does hinge on you decision. I think that you should both stay in here and talk it over. I will wait outside - and take your time - I still have a lot of ZZZZZeds to catch up on.
They looked at each other, nodded and Sue said ‘don’t bother, they have both been ‘dead’ to us for a long time, we have no wish to resurrect them. What do you think we have been talking about whilst you lot have been gallivanting around the globe?’
‘Perhaps ‘what I would say when I saw your tee shirt’, I said.
On the front was I’ve just been ‘pulled’ by ‘Randy Andy’ and on the back ‘and hopefully my knees will never meet again’.
They both decided that they wanted to know ‘everything’, warts and all, or as much as I could tell them without involving others, and most of the time I talked to them both together, but there were a few private aspects of the investigation that I thought would be prudent to keep the other one in the dark about, so I spent a little time with each of them separately, and Charlotte’s first question to me was ‘What about my ‘dividend payments?’
‘I think that from now on they best come under the heading of ‘never to be discussed again’, but I promise you that they will continue for as long as you want them, and you might even get your annual increases if you need them, but I seriously doubt if you will get any seriously large ‘lump sums’ unless you fall on hard times, but at least what you get will be 100% legal.
‘Via Itza’ she said.
‘Yup’ I said.
‘From you’ she asked, with a frown on her face.
‘Nope, from whom they should come from, but don’t be too enthusiastic with your demands, they now have to work very hard for a living, but Itza will always be there to advise you’.
My final act before we left the island was to light a brazier, and when it was well alight I handed both of them an envelope, and inside were their respective ‘late’ spouses real passports and wallets, ‘I thought this might give you some sort of closure’, I said.
Charlotte opened up Franklins wallet and looked longingly at the strip of credit cards, ‘I don’t suppose I could keep one, or maybe two or three, for old times’ sake’ she said impishly, knowing quite well that they all had to be consigned to the flames.
‘Afraid not’ I said with a smile ‘but now you can have as many as you want in your own name’, and she flicked them, one at a time into the fire.
Sue opened her envelope and tossed the wallet straight into the flames, without a second glance, but kept hold of Shaun’s passport. In deathly silence she eventually managed to tear the page with his photograph on, out of the booklet, and tossed the rest into the flames. She then started to try to shred the page, but because of its reinforced plastic coating she caused little damage to it. Still in total silence she took it to a nearby flat stone, knelt down, and holding it steady she started to pound i
t with a second rock, not even flinching when it caught her fingers. Finally she stopped and started to sob uncontrollably; her whole body heaving and I went over to her and helped her to her feet and picking up the now battered, disfigured and blood smeared page we walked over the fire and I held it out to her.
‘I never want to touch another thing that he has ever touched’, she said with venom; please throw him away so that we can start our new life’.
I tossed it into the flames of Hades and the three of us watched until it was totally consumed, and Sue, now cuddled into my chest as though she were freezing cold, whispered into my ear ‘is he really a hit-man - Charlie’?
‘Darling we are not even going there, least of all because if ever something ever did happen to Shaun, totally unrelated to us, then it might come back to haunt us.
‘But ..’
‘No buts, you have had your closure, now let’s go home and start our new life’.
‘Tonight?’ she whispered hopefully.
‘Yes, tonight, you are now ‘almost officially’ a widow’ and we made our way back home.
When we arrived back at ‘Mi Casa’ (‘my house’, although I had visited smaller palaces) I sent the girls off to play ‘but no more tee shirts – promise’ as it was now their ‘ignorance is bliss’ time, and I decided to leave Sandra ‘cooking on grass’ as there was no news flash strip on the bottom of Sky News, informing us of a new war somewhere in the world.
I had kept Vicente ‘in the loop’ from the very beginning, half the time asking legal advice, and the other half covered by attorney/client privilege, although ‘TMI’ was his favourite cry (although I doubted if it was the same in Spanish) (it isn’t – ‘demasiada información’). David was also covered, but Charlie was a different kettle of fish altogether. I had finally convinced Vicente that he had seen a ghost after he had ‘seen’ him around Mi Casa (when I was in the coma), even though they had spent two hours at my bedside quietly talking to each other, but he had finally conceded that he was in his ‘private’ time, not ‘abagado’ time, when he had visited my sick bed so his vision was most likely blurred, but I had to agree that if a ghost, any ghost, were to ever reappear at El Campo again then I would make sure that he was in a different Province, or preferably Country at that time, and he was deadly serious, but unfortunately I couldn’t arrange it this time so Charlie, to save an embarrassing situation arising suggested that he remain on board the aircraft when we arrived, until it was moved into the hangar, then he could say his goodbyes to the rest of those in the know and then embark on his jet black jet, with no identification numbers or letters on it (they must have washed off in the rain - Officer) and wing his way home, a job well done (or so he thought), and as I made my way to the conference room I could not help but grin at Charlie’s parting dig at David. I had picked up ‘dribs and drabs’ of what had transpired in France; just enough to appreciate what was going on as we taxied in.
----------------
Charlie hoped that he could make other ‘special appearances’ in the future, after all if ‘Pam can bring Bobby Ewing back in a shower’ in ‘Dallas’ - then perhaps Marie could do it for him in ‘El Campo – the movie’, and then, as we came to a halt and shook hands, he added ‘making up in some small way for what I had done for him and his ‘special’ friend in the past’, and blew David a kiss, then continued, ‘anyway, hopefully I will be seeing you all again soon at the wedding, but only if I can be your ‘Maid of Honour’
David’s face had been a picture, and he nearly fell down the aircraft steps when Charlie moved in to give him a ‘goodbye kiss’, undoubtedly thinking, as he landed on the tarmac ‘Puffda Palace!’ - ‘I wonder if it was contagious?’ He never saw the evil grin that Charlie gave me.
----------------
I was still smiling as I entered the conference room and took my rightful place at the head of the highly polished table. All the chaos of the hunt had been cleared away, replaced by order and calm, and overseen by Maria, now back to being my P.A. (perhaps ‘ex gratia payments’ should be added to ‘any other business’ I thought as I glanced at Marie, Caroline and David (I also thought of Charlie – but ghosts don’t need money), right, down to business.
We had all had ample time to create our own ‘what if’ list, what if ‘they had drowned at sea’, although we had started them after we had known that they were still alive and kicking, and it had continued - ‘how can we punish them.’
Vincente had agreed to wear ‘selective’ ear muffs for the meeting; and promised that he would hear only what was relevant to him as an abagado (solicitor), and nothing that would violate his Oath.
David’s list was short, ‘castrate them’.
I thanked him for his valuable contribution, and asked for volunteers to carry out the punishment, it was close – six to zero – although Vicente thought we were voting on who wanted tea or coffee, then, after we had all stopped laughing (who’s laughing David thought), we got down to the serious business, and again it was fairly short and we ended up with:-
Confiscate all funds related to the Certified Cheque withdrawals. Itza now knew how much had been taken from the dead accounts, so he deducted the cash that had been in the two envelopes in the box from it – they were obviously un-spent withdrawals, or not –nobody was that bothered, along with the two un-cleared Cheques. He then added up Charlottes total ‘dividends and loan’ that she had received, and deducted that, and what they had actually used was surprisingly low, considering, just over one point six million pounds. He then went into their business and private bank accounts in the Maldives and after making allowances for living/business expenses (after all we did not want them to go out of business – I wanted the rest of my money back) he ‘removed’ another four hundred thousand, leaving one point two million pounds unaccounted for.
I wrote – £1.2 mil to Itza, get it back from them over 20 years.
Close down the dead account scam and return all the money, and Itza promised to arrange it without creating a storm. (In the near future the whole banking group would mysteriously shut down for an hour, giving Itza’s geeks more than enough time to insert their geeky stuff - that would not only return the fraudulently removed funds to their rightful accounts, but ensure that the scam could never happen again).
Just in case they had made copies of the codes and passwords: render them useless. In the very near future photocopies of the photos would be ‘found’ in a cupboard by a cleaner at the bank. The bank would never find out who had taken the photos, but they would obviously change the codes post haste.
Deprive them of their ‘love boat’, but how?
I thought – return it to Sue – but I doubted if she would ever step inside the cabin again, visualisations, ewwwww, and then I thought ‘dick head’, it could never re-surface – it had ‘sunk’.
David thought - ‘C4.’
Caroline thought, after glancing at David – I could make nice pretty curtains for ‘our’ love boat, and think of a new name for it, and then she thought of that cabin – nahhhhh.
Vincente said ‘who owns it?’ he must have had ‘selective’ ear muff failure.
Marie said ‘’I know’, and went over to the boxes of papers that had so recently cluttered my table. ‘Aquí lo tienes’ she said (I think she said – ‘here it is’), holding up the registration papers for Halcyon, it had been in a ‘let’s bring it along just in case’ file, and she said ‘Joint, ¿por que?
Vincente, who understood Spanish – as he was Spanish, said, ‘well Shaun is now ‘dead’ so it is now Suzanna’s - has she a spare key?’ Maria held up an envelope with ‘spare keys for Halcyon’ written on it, and shook it – it rattled, ‘So if she gave them to someone’, he continued, ‘then they would become the agent of the legal owner, Shaun (as he is dead of course) could not stop them from doing anything that they wanted to do with it’.
‘Radio Charlie to turn back, he will love this’ I said to David.
‘Who’s Charlie?
’ Vicente said.
I felt reasonably happy about the list, they would not be gaining financially from the scam, although I would be out of pocket (slightly) until the loan was paid back, and I considered that the loss of the Halcyon to them would compensate Sue and Charlotte ‘the harlot’, as I now called her (Arthur!!), for ‘pain and suffering’.
Charlotte would now receive all insurance settlements due to her, including a handsome ‘death in service’ payment from the bank, and due to Franklins ‘foresight’, her mortgage would be paid off and all payments received after the storm refunded. Although these companies should not have had to cover these payments that I was putting on them, mine was a ‘victimless crime’ as they say, I would arrange for Itza to make sure that future investments in those companies would more than cover their additional outgoings, and as Arthur was quite ‘comfortable’ Harlots life now looked quite rosy, but I would still have someone checking on her from time to time, to see that she was still O.K.: although if I had to add her proposed new lifestyle costs to the 1.2 million, then I guess it would bankrupt them.
David would be paying her ‘very nice gentleman’ a visit, to explain the error of his ways to him (and that we could prove it), and whilst he was at it he could show him his ‘secret weapon’ to further ensure his silence: he could put that one down to ‘business’.
Sue had never been dependent on Shaun, some relatively minor things would be put in order, but the main thing was that we could, with a little luck, now marry in church (although she would have to cross her fingers when answering some of the questions) which more than made up for any ‘out of pocket’ expenses that I might incur.
‘Now back to Sandra’ I thought, she be done to a turn by now, but I would flatly refuse to rub in any ‘after-sun’: I had fallen for that one, more than once before. My idea was to bribe her with another ‘fly on the wall’ documentary, but a more up to date one, she had been plaguing me for a while as a lot had happened in my life since we parted, and her answer was ‘I would love to, but what’s the catch, has it got anything to do with the meeting you have just had?’
‘What meeting?’ I said, with my fingers crossed, and the ground rules were set: ignorance is bliss.
Sandra was not only a media icon, but also had considerable clout within the industry (she knew were the bodies were buried), and my idea was that if she created enough interest in Sue and Harlot’s plight (husbands missing at sea, no bodies, antiquated laws etc.) then perhaps it could hasten up a favourable solution, ‘can I mention your involvement in it’ she purred: I should have taken notice of that purr.
‘Yes, if you think it might help’, I said.
---------------
Within three days PMQ’s (Prime Ministers Question Time) was virtually dedicated to their plight. The following day the PM had lunch with the Home Secretary, who later that afternoon asked the Commissioner of Police to pop in for a chat. The next morning the Chief Constable of Norfolk Constabulary had a ‘working breakfast’ with the Commissioner of Police, and then stormed into his Chief Superintendents office, who then went and reamed a Chief Inspector a ‘new one’. By lunch time ‘that’ detectives waters had broken for a second time whilst on the job, and she left vowing never to return, she much preferred the peace and quiet of screaming kids and the delicate aroma of dirty nappies, but not before she re-submitted ‘that’ file, but this time there was no hint of an ‘inconclusive’ on it, and that evening the Lord Chief Justice rang me ‘just to let you know that the paperwork will be fast tracked through his Courts’)
----------------
But why should I have been wary of Sandra’s purr? In the photograph of Sue that had accompanied her article she was wearing her ‘I have just been pulled’ tee shirt (meowww), and I understand that a second one, of her walking away, was vetoed by the editor. Sue had been chatting amicably to Sandra when I came into view, but what I didn’t realise was that a few seconds earlier she had taken a step back to let Sandra take a quick photograph of her, ‘just to show my son what you look like’ she had said (you live next to him you dilliewat), and when she spotted me she ran over (click, click, click) and said ‘Sandra’s quite nice really, despite what Sheila says’; I was getting used to her new ‘best friend’ putting in her two penneth.
I left them to ‘girlie chat’ (or more than likely to compare notes) and returned to my other guests, Vicente was just finishing sifting through ‘anything that could be used as evidence against him’, and couldn’t wait to vanish from El Campo, most likely to establish a cast iron alibi, preferably on another planet, so after a few words he clambered aboard ‘Twinkle’ and was whisked away by Aaron, wishing that he could fly the helicopter himself, ‘one less witness’. Itza was going to stay on for a few days - relaxing – but I very much doubted it, as he was more than likely now going to be having two new clients.
~~~~