‘But there’s no other option, is there? Enrol for next year and try again,’ his father instructed him firmly. Then, seeing the stricken expression on Erick’s face, he added more gently, ‘You have seven weeks’ holiday in front of you. Do what you want. Travel abroad, sail wherever you like. Get over it. But promise me that in the autumn you will go back to Business College?’
It was a relief to find his fierce father had selected to allow him his summer. In business, and often at home, he was a man most people feared. Erick looked at him and nodded wordlessly. Another whole year of slogging his guts out to keep up with pupils who thrived on bookkeeping, found business law exciting, enjoyed spending whole days in libraries, clearly fascinated by statistics, export initiatives and management theory. He could hardly bear to contemplate it. But at least the old man was giving him the summer to run wild. There’d be the dinghy to sail, and the other lady in his life, as free and fast and capricious as Christina.
He smiled as he thought of Andrea. Her family owned the house next to his parents’ summer place in Hornbaek. They each had other partners for the rest of the year but for Erick the summer meant sea, sand and passionate reunions with the one girl who had ever dared to behave as though she could take him or leave him. At least he had that to look forward to before settling down to his studies again.
* * *
Hornbaek, a town with less than a thousand inhabitants, expanded in the summer months to a population of ten thousand while still managing to maintain the charm of an old fishing village, even if the fishing craft amounted to only a few peeling relics, returning each dawn with their thrashing silver cargo of live cod and plaice. The combination of golden beaches of fine sand, pine‑scented air, clear water and endless summer days attracted many families who fled houses, flats and jobs in Copenhagen for a few weeks each year to experience the magic.
The circular high street began and ended at the harbour, around which the life of the village was conducted. Erick and Andrea would meet there every morning queueing for bread, the delicious smell filling the street and tantalising their nostrils as they walked hand in hand. The shop selling the local Brostraede Is, home made ice cream, had bikes parked around it all day and lines of people waiting patiently to be served.
In the evening, they liked to dress up and walk with their friends on the harbour piers, nodding or saying hello to everyone they knew. At a beach soda fountain called SunSpot nearby, there was a New Orleans style jazz band playing on the beach and the teenagers listened to it while drinking Coke from bottles with illicit alcohol added. At ten o’clock they would go back to the harbour and pick up Erick’s motor bike, then drive to Bondegaarden at the other end of town, where there was another band. Here it was beer which was drunk in vast quantities, helped down by sandwiches of steak tartare, complete with raw eggs and onions.
When the restaurant closed about one o’clock, Andrea would jump on to Erick’s motor bike again, and they would zigzag down the middle of the quiet town’s streets, then through the scented pine forest to the empty beach, where they would find a secluded cove and make love.
‘We are going to marry one day, aren’t we?’ she said suddenly to him one night on the beach.
‘Why? You’re not pregnant, are you?’ Erick sat up with a jolt, sending sand flying everywhere.
She tossed her sun‑streaked brown hair and stared at him levelly from eyes the colour of a shallow sea, so clear that sometimes he thought he could see through them to the madcap, contradictory thoughts that constantly filled her head.
‘I might be. I might not.’ Andrea shrugged her shoulders, quite unconcerned. ‘What would you do about it if I was?’
‘Don’t joke about it, Andrea!’
‘I’m serious about us getting married. We’re good together, Erick.’
‘I know!’
‘Oh, I don’t just mean like this.’ She pouted. ‘I mean, I like the way you’re always coming up with new schemes and ideas, and I’m always telling you which will work and which never could. You need me, Erick. Go on, admit it?’
‘All right,’ he grudgingly conceded. ‘And we probably will get married. Say ten years’ time, when we’ve lived a little.’
She slid her arms around him from behind and wound her greedy, sun‑soaked body around his like a cat. ‘Five years and no longer. Say yes now or I’ll have to start persuading you...’
‘Give me a break, Andrea. God, you’re insatiable.’ Erick turned round, pushing her down, while holding her firm breasts in his hands.
Pleasant, uncomplicated summer days sped past.
They were well off, young and in love. Ambitions and dreams were for tomorrow as life seemed to stretch ahead of them like the calm sunlit sea.
What could possibly go wrong?
CHAPTER SIX
_________________________
Cerne Estate, Dorset 1955
From the box buried in the park, John took out £25.. A few weeks before it would have seemed like a fortune. Now he knew there was a great deal more to be made. But it would pay him to take things slowly, to acquire some skills before he made his next move.
Over the next few weeks he visited many locksmiths in the area, buying different makes of lock and several sets of fine tools. In his room, with the door bolted against his mother, he spent hours figuring out how the locks worked. He also bought a device which glaziers used to cut and lift glass, and hid all these things safely away in the loft of the stable flat.
He practised and practised, timing himself with a stopwatch until he could open any lock in less than thirty seconds.
At the end of the summer, Archie Carven surprised him by offering to introduce him to a business associate in the City.
‘Clever sort of chap – advises me on where to put my money. When there is any, of course!’ Archie’s chuckle was slightly hollow but John barely noticed, too busy considering this surprising proposal which was not at all what he had planned.
He hadn’t bargained on taking up another occupation but saw now that he would have to get work in order to satisfy other people’s curiosity about how he lived. And there was something rather appealing about learning how money could be gained by reputable means. One day he too would have a fortune to invest.
He realised at his first meeting with his future employer, however, that he himself would never do business with Alexander Higginson, investment advisor.
‘So you’re the young toerag Carven wants me to employ,’ Higginson greeted him, not getting up from behind his large mahogany desk. He waved a fat cigar in the direction of John’s face. ‘I agreed to see you as Archie is one of our oldest clients, but I’d like you to tell me, young man, why I should give you this job?’
John had his answer well prepared. ‘I want to find out what goes on in a large financial establishment,’ he said humbly, though in fact Higginson’s was anything but large.
Alexander Higginson subjected him to close scrutiny.
‘Something tells me,’ he said, ‘that though you can behave like a perfect gentleman, with you it’s only skin deep. Nevertheless, I owe it to Carven to give you a month’s trial. You can start first of October.’
From the first day he hated working at Alexander Higginson Investments. As office junior he was asked to do only menial jobs and errands for six long months. The only bright spot was that the actual work took up a mere hour or so a day. For the rest of the time John was free to ask questions of the more kindly of Higginson’s employees. He soon realised that the company was neither important nor well managed and had little but scorn for investors too ill informed or lazy to find their own investments. But Higginson’s was still a known and respected City name and John was astute enough to realise that while he spent his days blamelessly, no one would ever suspect how he spent his evenings, nights and weekends.
Before using these skills in a real situation, however, he decided to check if Arthur Black still worked in the Mayfair shop.
* * *
‘Hello, stranger!’ Arthur recognised him immediately. ‘What brings you here?’
‘Are you still looking to buy antiques?’ John asked. ‘I’ll probably have a few more items for you within a month.’
Arthur nodded. ‘Always interested to look at anything you’ve got,’ he said. ‘I’ve to subsidise my studies any way I can.’
‘What are you studying?’ John asked, not sure Arthur was serious.
‘History of Art, of course! What else? I’m doing an external degree. I love the subject, which is more than most people can say for their work.’
Since his employer was out of the shop Arthur talked for an hour with a passionate enthusiasm about antiques that inspired John and made him realise how little he himself knew. Before he left, Arthur had given him a list of books to borrow from the library.
‘And don’t bring me any old rubbish,’ he warned with a wide voracious smile. ‘Remember.’ I have a very exacting eye. I only take the best.’
John decided to revisit Tearborne Castle.
Later that night he placed a Tiffany vase, a French St. Louis paperweight, a piece of Staffordshire porcelain, a silver coffee pot by Simon Pantin, a Mohr figurine and six silver watches in several strong boxes which he buried in different locations in the home park at Cerne.
The burglary made headlines in the local papers.
John waited for three weeks before visiting Arthur Black one evening after work before returning to his lodgings in Islington. Arthur listened carefully to John’s description of each item and rang up figures on the cash register.
When John had finished he asked, ‘How much did you have in mind?’
‘Four hundred?’ he guessed. It was the figure he’d hoped for. Offered less, he’d have to take it.
Arthur chortled. ‘Have you ever heard the saying, ‘Honour among thieves’? It’s a con, of course, but maybe today is the exception.’ He pressed the total key on the cash register and showed John the total of £1,325.
‘Bring the paperweight to me on Sunday,’ he instructed while John gaped, ‘so I can have a look at it. We’ll meet next to the refreshment pavilion by the Serpentine in Hyde Park at exactly one o’clock. If it’s right, then I’ll take the other things on trust. Next day, take them all to this address.’ Arthur passed him a piece of paper. ‘Memorise it, OK?’ A few seconds later he set the paper alight with a match and watched it blaze. ‘Be there at nine o’clock sharp. Make sure no one sees. Don’t ask for anyone. In fact, don’t say anything. A man will give you an envelope with the money. Take it and leave.’
‘Thanks for being so fair,’ John said.
‘Call it an investment,’ said Arthur. ‘This way, you’ll be back.’
* * *
On his eighteenth birthday, after two years at Alexander Higginson Investments, John decided he was wasting his time. He had learned the daily routine of the company and understood the basics of investment in shares and government bonds. The work was boring, and he spent his time poring over client accounts, without ever meeting the clients themselves. Any decisions of importance were taken by Higginson himself who used to boast about the ‘tight ship’ he ran.
In school holidays he sometimes brought his son into the office. Philip was ten years old. John played the occasional game of chess with the boy, which pretty well marked the highlight of his time at Higginson’s.
He finally gave in his notice at the office and went down to Cerne to see his mother, telling her he intended to start up his own business importing toys. He had already written to Hong Kong for samples and told her he had an order from Hamley’s in Regent Street that would give him a profit of £400. May was bemused by his announcement and worried that Lord Carven would be cross with John for finishing his job at Higginson’s.
‘Don’t worry, Ma,’ he told her, ‘so long as I don’t ask him for another introduction, Archie will let sleeping dogs lie.’
As soon as John passed his driving test he bought a second hand Anglia van. He hired a lock up in South London and referred to it as his office, filling it with samples of toys from Hong Kong and Japan. He quickly had several orders for teddy bears, simply because he undersold every other supplier.
In the meantime his burglaries went on as planned. Now he targeted wealthy private houses, leaving nothing to chance. There was sometimes only a week between each burglary and he always followed the same procedure.
The strong box under the oak tree now contained £9,000.
John decided to learn about alarm systems. Archie was propositioned for a place in which John could store his stock of toys He gave him the use of an old barn and there John tried out every type of alarm system. He worked out how to avoid inertia sensors and how to block out infra red‑sensors. He experimented for weeks with various soft and slow setting cements, and bought a cannula, used for cleaning drains. By carefully making a hole with a battery‑operated drill, he could insert the tip of the cannula, making it possible to pour cement into the alarm box. When the cement set after twenty‑four hours the alarm was silent for ever. John soon learned which systems were linked to the police and which to the security companies direct, giving him the exact time it would take for anyone to come to the scene of his forced entry.
He had enough experience by now to realise that only the very best and rarest antiques brought the highest prices. John wished he could target his robberies better.
One day Arthur Black told him of a house which had been photographed in House and Garden. In one of the photographs he had spotted four porcelain horses. After enlarging the picture, Arthur believed these were original Tang dynasty figures.
He was right. The black‑market value of the Tang horses netted John over £10,000.
* * *
By the time he was twenty, John Forbes was well on his way to being wealthy.
He rented offices in Esher for his ‘toy’ company and employed an elderly woman to answer the phone, reply to what little post there was and do the accounts. With part of the money he had saved, he bought a job lot of toys from a Hong Kong factory and set up as a wholesaler and agent. The business lost money, but as he was only interested in establishing a legitimate front, he did not worry.
It was now too risky to keep hiding money in boxes around the park at Cerne Estate. As he moved into his new office, he opened a bank account in Kingston and an account in Gibraltar in which he placed most of the proceeds.
By this time the total had swelled to £50,000.
To avoid the number plates on his van being recognised, John went to car auctions all over England every month. Using various fake company names, he bought and sold the vehicles that he used for his burglaries and stored them in rented private garages. He used the Anglia strictly for the toy business and his own private use.
He and Arthur had now settled into a routine. Arthur supplied information about marketable antiques and the addresses at which they could be found. Using his expertise with locks and security systems, John usually managed to obtain the items and Arthur used his contacts to get the best prices.
One night John was in a house where he noticed a safe built into a small escritoire. Usually he would leave safes alone, not wanting to spend time trying to crack their codes, but this time he decided to try to lift the desk out to the van, which was parked at the back of the house. It was heavy, but using all his strength he managed to heave it into the back before quickly grabbing the items Arthur had asked for and driving off.
In the park at Cerne he worked on the safe for an hour before it opened finally. Inside was a metal box. When John opened it, he found six sealed plastic bags containing a yellow powder.
For a while he sat looking at them.
He knew nothing about drugs, but realised instinctively that this find was valuable. It was also possible that, if these drugs reached the market from an unexpected source, they could be traced back to him or Arthur.
John smashed the desk and dumped it, together with
the safe, on a tip twenty miles away. Then he arranged to meet Arthur at the Serpentine.
‘I don’t think this is something we should tangle with,’ Arthur warned. ‘It’s against my principles, believe it or not, and besides you have to deal with a very unpleasant class of person. It’s out of our league.’ Then he hesitated, looking tempted. ‘Of course, I could always find someone without my delicate sensibilities who’d soon have this off our hands... Oh, well. Just this once, then. Give me a small sample and I’ll find out what it is.’
‘I’ve brought some with me.’ John handed him a tiny stamp collector’s plastic envelope with some yellow powder inside.
A few days later he was instructed by Arthur to send the drugs by motor bike courier to an address he had never heard before.
‘So how much will we get?’ John asked. ‘Was it worth the effort?’
‘Your share is eighty grand,’ Arthur said.
‘Eighty thousand!’ gasped John.
‘It’s pure morphine powder. When diluted and repacked it’ll be worth fifty times as much, so don’t think they’re doing us any favours.’
The next day John was on his way to Gibraltar to bank the money. His statement now showed the sum of £300,000.
* * *
With so much money in the bank, John was determined to rescue his mother from service with the Carvens, but to his great surprise May refused to give up her job.
‘No, John, it wouldn’t be right, not now,’ she insisted. ‘Not when Her Ladyship needs me.’
Gwen Carven had suffered a mild stroke and was making a slow – John suspected self‑indulgently so – recovery. He couldn’t understand why his mother felt such devotion to her, bad‑tempered and increasingly fond of her gin as she was, but May remained adamant, even when he tried to force her hand by buying for a song a beautiful eighteenth‑century house in Salisbury close to the cathedral.
Arthur had tipped him off that the repossessed property was coming on the market and one glance at its plum‑coloured bricks, graceful casement windows and the wisteria drooping over the front door convinced John that this place would change his mother’s mind. But, stubbornly, she maintained she was happy in her little stable flat. The sole concession he could win from her was that she’d enjoy visiting the house on her Sundays off, so whenever John’s extracurricular activities permitted, he would pick her up from Cerne and whisk her off to Salisbury. He furnished the house very simply at first, hoping his mother would step in and add the finishing touches and afterwards change her mind about living there.