‘Oh, my God! Why didn’t you tell me you were being released? I’m not prepared...’
‘I thought it would be a nice surprise, after all these years.’ He hung up and walked across the road with a measured stride, arriving at the door to the building at the precise moment Ann opened it. She looked flustered, he noted with satisfaction. He kissed her, tilting her face with his hand, and followed her in to the lift.
He walked round the flat, admiring the furniture and the view from the balcony.
‘Why don’t we go out for dinner somewhere nice? I haven’t had a decent meal for years,’ he said, turning to her at last. This was what he had decided on doing, when sitting in his small prison room planning, planning, planning.
‘What a good idea,’ Ann said, sounding relieved. ‘Let’s do that.’
They drove to Palma and made small talk over the meal. Paul enjoyed keeping her in suspense. He knew she wanted to ask why he had been released early, but had no answer to give her. They arrived back at the flat about eleven o’clock.
‘Let’s have a drink out here,’ he said, standing on the balcony. ‘I know this has been a big surprise for you, but go on with your usual routine. After a week or two I’ll probably go back to London to look for a job.’ He paused, taking a sip of the brandy she had handed him. ‘If you want us to sleep separately it’s fine with me. I’ll understand. I’m probably not up to much anyway.’
‘What nonsense!’ Ann sounded almost offended. ‘Of course we’ll sleep together! I wouldn’t have it any other way.’
She hoped against hope that her voice sounded less hollow to him than it did in her own ears. After Erick and Andrea, sleeping with her husband held few attractions for Ann but dutifully she feigned enthusiasm. In her eagerness to fool him she did not realise that Paul was equally unenthusiastic.
* * *
The next afternoon they went for a drive. Parking beside a spectacular view of Palma bay, Paul suddenly said, ‘Tell me about your life here. What do you actually do?’
Ann hesitated. She had known he would ask sometime and had decided to tell him exactly what she did. There was no reason to keep up the pretence.
‘I travel as a courier for the Company.’
‘Really?’ He did not ask anymore, not even enquiring as to the business’s name, but began reading a guidebook he picked up from the seat beside them.
She went on brightly, ‘I’ll phone the Elgbergs tomorrow and let them know you’re here. Would you like to meet them?’
‘Of course,’ he replied, absent‑mindedly. ‘They’ve been very good to us, haven’t they?’
When Ann phoned Andrea, it was arranged that she and Paul should come for lunch at the Cave on Friday. Sam picked them up and drove them there. Although impressed by the Elgbergs’ house, Paul tried to keep a noncommittal expression on his face.
‘I’m very pleased to meet you at last.’ Erick Elgberg, a big, admittedly handsome man, Paul thought, held out his hand. He took it briefly, gritting his teeth into a smile. It felt warm and solid, that hand that had touched every inch of his wife’s body... God, he must stop thinking about it!
Elgberg was ushering him towards a sun‑filled patio, pulling out a chair for him. Paul looked round. Blue parasols matched the sun beds and tablecloth. The pool was almost the same colour. The yacht, the same one where Ann had been photographed, was anchored close to the shore, a gleaming white monstrosity.
The whole place was artificial, insulated from harsh reality by money and closely guarded privilege. He could not believe Ann would have allowed herself to be taken in by its showy glamour. Elgberg himself, although friendly, was all surface.
Underneath was a hollow, amoral man who had taken advantage of an innocent woman...
‘Now, Paul,’ his host was saying as he waved his hand to the waiter at the bar. ‘What will you have? We must celebrate your release and drink to the future.’
‘Thanks to you, it wasn’t so bad,’ he forced himself to say.
‘Ah.’ Elgberg placed in front of him an ice‑cold Tequila drink in a tall glass, frosted with salt round the rim and a slice of lemon stuck on the side. ‘That topic is closed. I’m glad I was of some help. And I must say that your wife has been more than useful to us.’
It was as much as Paul could do to stop himself from circling the man’s throat with his hands and slowly squeezing the life out of him. ‘That’s good,’ he heard himself say. ‘And I’m very grateful to you for looking after her so well. So here’s to us!’ He lifted the glass and poured the drink down his throat. He could see Elgberg watching him through narrowed eyes, slightly bemused by his attitude.
Paul replaced the empty glass on the table and said with a smile, ‘You have a beautiful place here, Mr Elgberg.’
‘Oh, please, call me Erick.’
‘OK, Erick. Is this where you carry on your business activities?’
‘Yes. I’ll take you on a tour in a minute.’ Elgberg had relaxed back in his chair. ‘What did you do in Ford?’
‘I was the cinema orderly. I’ve seen exactly two thousand, two hundred and fifty‑four films in there.’
Elgberg laughed. ‘And what are your plans for the future?’
‘Nothing at the moment.’ Paul hesitated then added casually, ‘When I worked at the bank I specialised in investments, but there’s not a chance in hell of getting a job like that now.’
His ploy worked. Elgberg leaned forward. ‘I could offer you work here for a month or so, if you’re interested? Unfortunately there’s no permanent post, but once you’ve updated yourself, we might find you a position in London.’
Paul tried to keep his rising excitement under control. His plan was working better than he’d dared to hope. Elgberg explained that he would be helping their companies’ analyst.
‘What you’ll be doing is looking for companies which are asset rich and have a turnover of more than ten million pounds. You will go through the accounts and balance sheets and sift through the figures. Anything further you need to know, Karen Knudsen will be able to explain.’
‘You’re being extremely generous,’ Paul said with a show of sincerity. ‘I can assure you I’ll carry out my duties to the letter.’
Elgberg smiled, looking satisfied. ‘We’ll give it a month and see how it goes. Oh, sorry, I forgot the most important thing. Is five hundred pounds a week all right? After tax, of course.’
‘Well, thank you!’ Paul forced himself to sound grateful, all the time actually conscious, that nothing Elgberg offered him could ever repay him for the theft of his wife.
Their business concluded, they walked slowly towards the house. Ann came towards them together with a slim, striking woman in a bikini who held out her arms.
‘So this is Paul! I’ve heard so much about you! Welcome to Mallorca!’ Before he could step aside, she had taken his head in her hands and kissed him on both cheeks.
‘Pleased to meet you,’ he heard himself say. Andrea Elgberg was certainly an attractive woman, but that was no excuse. The photograph swam in front of his eyes again. It represented a fraction of a second, but for how long had their sex sessions gone on? He felt himself begin to tremble with rage, but self‑control honed by his years of incarceration came to his rescue. Erick Elgberg had taken his elbow and was steering him away from the women.
‘I’m going to show Paul round the offices. Back in a minute.’
As he was taken round, he made knowledgeable remarks about investments and interest rates, to show Elgberg that he had kept in touch with the financial world while he’d been imprisoned. He noted the wall charts on the Purcell‑Jensen group, and remembered the stock market crash of October 1987. Slowly he was piercing together the jigsaw in which he had been one tiny and insignificant part.
‘As an ex‑bank manager,’ he said, ‘may I ask you why your investors come to you? Have your investment plans been more prosperous than others?’
‘We don’t invest only to get the highest return. We invest
to gain control. You’ll soon find out our methods.’ Erick then introduced him to Karen, an elegant Dane who answered his questions guardedly.
‘I think you can afford to forget about business today, Paul,’ Erick told him eventually and led him back to the terrace. They spent some hours together and were driven back to Cala Vinas by Sam.
‘I’ve been asked to arrange a trip abroad tomorrow,’ Sam said before leaving them. ‘I’ll do it if you want.’
‘No, it’s all right,’ said Ann. ‘Where to?’
‘It’s an anywhere trip.’
She turned to Paul. ‘You don’t mind spending the day alone, do you?’
He smiled. ‘Of course not, darling.’
Sam handed her a denim shoulder bag. When he had gone, Paul casually asked what an ‘anywhere trip’ entailed.
Ann explained that all she did was take any plane from Mallorca and post letters abroad. ‘It’s faster that way,’ she explained, placing the bag on top of her own in the lobby.
During the night Paul tiptoed out of bed and took the denim bag into the toilet. Its fastening was just a leather string. Inside were five manila envelopes. He made a note of the names and addresses written on the envelopes. Of course they had to be posted abroad for security reasons, not because it was faster. Ann would know that.
The largest envelope was heavier, as if it contained a report. It had no name on it, only a PO box number in France.
Ann was fast asleep when he returned. Paul stood looking down on her. Her head was turned in exactly the same way as in the first photograph, her arm lying on the bed cover in the same manner as it had been draped over Elgberg.
He knew he would never forgive her. It was not jealousy that made the bile rise in his throat. It was disgust at the depth of her deceit.
* * *
Some days after Ann arrived back from her trip they went for a drive round the island, staying a night in Cala San Vincente and driving back along the west coast. Paul recognised the area they had passed through when they had gone to the Elgbergs. A bit further on, he stopped the car beside a harbour wall and turned off the engine.
‘What’s this place called?’
Ann consulted her map. ‘Port d’Estellence.’
‘That rings a bell! Wasn’t that the place that policeman – what was his name, Fox – hired the dinghy? You know, the chap who drowned.’
He kept his face turned towards the sea, but out of the corner of his eye he watched his wife. She folded up the map, her face averted.
‘Was it? I don’t remember....’
‘That’s funny. It happened near Elgbergs’ place. You must have heard about it?’
‘I meant, I don’t remember where he hired the boat. Of course I remember the accident. I was even questioned by the police about it.’
‘Were you? Why?’ This was more than Paul had hoped for. The plan was moving forward.
Ann shifted uncomfortably in the seat. ‘Because I work for Erick, I suppose. And...’ She drew a deep breath. ‘And I saw Fox at the airport the day he arrived.’
‘You were there on one of your trips, I suppose.’ Paul started the car. He did not want to seem too interested.
‘No.’ She hesitated. ‘I was given a photo of him. I had to follow him out of the airport.’
‘Why?’
‘I don’t know.’ She took his hand and played with his fingers. ‘Does it matter now? He drowned. It was an accident. The police were perfectly satisfied.’
Paul started the car and shifted into first gear, driving off along the coast road. ‘He shouldn’t have gone out by himself,’ he said idly. ‘ It looks dangerous out there.’
* * *
Paul worked at the Cave for six weeks. His job was to produce detailed analyses of companies which may or may not be selected by Erick and Karen. He realised that it would take years for him to be trusted with information about where the funds came from or how they were invested. What he could do was to study the two large wall charts and memorised the company details and their secret investors often mentioned only in codes, including finance houses and foreign banks. He had to memorise and write it down daily in small parts as soon as he was back at the flat. The only significant bit of information that Karen let drop was to mention a ‘man in France’, a few times. He wondered why she did not call him a Frenchman.
After six weeks, Paul felt he could no longer keep up his friendly facade towards Ann and the Elgbergs any longer and accepted Erick’s offer of a job in London. He knew that Elgberg was satisfied with his work and that he could probably gain more information by working in one of the other companies which had to be less security‑conscious.
Paul had to break the news to Ann. He chose his time carefully. She was swimming in the pool in front of the flats and he was sunbathing on a lounger. Now could be as good as any other time. A copy of The Times lay beside his chair and idly he picked it up and his timing changed.
On the front page was the headline THE GREAT CHEQUE FRAUD, and underneath,
‘Will confidence in the banking system be fully restored?’
Paul read it, his heart thumping. The story told how printed cheques, exact copies of large international companies’ originals, with correct signatures and cheque numbers photographically transferred, had been banked all over England on the same day. Each cheque was for an amount of between forty to sixty thousand pounds.
Around five hundred such cheques had gone through the banking systems of four major banks. After the normal internal clearance procedures, the amounts had been paid into recipient’s accounts opened months before, all with standing orders made out for that date, to ensure that the money was transferred abroad within hours of clearance.
Paul knew that from there the money would be transferred from bank to bank, country to country, until it was nearly untraceable, finally buying Krugerrands, gold bars, art, drugs, diamonds, stamps, jewellery, expensive antiques, untraceable Government bonds and similar items. He quickly worked out that up to thirty million pounds had been siphoned off in this way, without anybody noticing until it was too late. How simple. To forge cheques was a hundred times easier than forging money, he thought.
He sat back. To be able to carry out such a vast fraud, the perpetrators had to have had inside information.
The very information he had given Harold and Jeffrey at Ford.
And from them the information could have gone to Aaron Nicholstein – and from him to Erick Elgberg?
For a moment Paul felt as if he could not breathe. His heart skipped a beat. He could go back to prison when the police started their investigation. No one would help him. He knew that from the previous time. He had been used again.
Ann was climbing out of the pool and coming towards him, rubbing herself with a towel. Paul looked at her through half‑closed eyes.
‘This company we work for,’ he murmured. ‘I’ve been wondering... There must be someone in overall control?’
‘There is.’ She stopped drying her hair. ‘He’s everywhere and nowhere.’ She laughed dryly. ‘Invisible.’
‘I don’t know what you’re on about.’ But Paul had got his answer. He picked up The Times again and began to reread the front page.
‘Are you listening to me, Paul?’ she asked.
He looked up, frowning. ‘Sorry. What did you say?’
‘I’ve met him.’
‘You met an Invisible Man?’
‘Yes.’ Ann lay down on the next lounger. ‘In the most magnificent restaurant in Cannes. We had dinner together. He made me feel like the most important person in the world, but he had the most sorrowful eyes I’ve ever seen.’
‘Should I be jealous?’ He tried to make his voice sound light and easy.
‘Of course not! He would have been the same with anyone else. He was only killing time with me. We kept being interrupted by telephone calls. Then he tore an important man apart, with a few words, signed some papers and sent me on my way to Gibraltar.’
> ‘Really?’ Paul turned a page, casually.
‘An unusual man,’ she murmured. ‘Knew a lot about wine. I got the feeling he owned an estate somewhere in France.’ She did not give John Forbes name, not even to her husband. John’s warning had made an impression on her.
‘Lucky him,’ remarked Paul, heart thudding.
The French PO box number – Karen’s ‘man in France’ – Ann’s meeting with this enigmatic stranger in France – her connection with Malcolm Fox – and now the cheque fraud.
It was all coming together.
* * *
The next day Erick told him that there was a job as financial manager at the Purcell‑Jensen head office in London, in charge of checking the collateral various banks were holding for the group all over the world. The job was exactly right for Paul; so right, in fact, that he suspected Elgberg had manoeuvred him from the Cave because he still had designs on Ann.
She herself had decided to stay on in Mallorca, but promised to visit him often. Well, that was all right with Paul. Their life together had been strained, their sex life mechanical, loveless, and less and less frequent.
He did not even look on her as his wife anymore. She was someone else’s now. It would be good to get back to London and concentrate on his plan.
CHAPTER SIXTY-SEVEN
_________________________
Lunch time, London, Friday 5th July, 1991
‘Have you heard the news?’ one of the women working in Paul’s section asked, while giving him the tuna sandwich he’d ordered, a Seven Up and some change. ‘It just happened.’
‘I don’t know what you are talking about?’
‘You were a manager at BCCI bank once, weren’t you?’ she asked.
‘Yes, I’ve told you that.’
‘The authorities have just closed down all their branches, fraud and laundering drug money, they said.’
‘Closed the branches all over the world?’ Paul was taken by utter surprise.
‘That’s what they said,’ the women confirmed. ‘You can hear it on the radio.’
Walking angrily towards his rented flat in Surbiton from the station the same evening, he could think of nothing but the way the disgraced bank had behaved towards Ann and him. They were the real reason she had been forced to work for bloody Elgberg and his mob; they had not given the Docketts a chance, just demanded the house to be sold and loans repaid. They must have been involved in all kinds of fraud and given badly secured loans to associates for large back handers at the exactly same time as they went to the police regarding him.