by Les Cowan
“You used to be a Salamanca customer. It’s in our customer records.”
David rolled his eyes. Did this man not take any of his responsibilities seriously? As regards PGC he wasn’t sure whether to mention that he’d been to pay them a visit but decided it might be best to keep his powder dry. “Go on,” he said. “Mike was insistent that you follow them up but you tried to block it. Correct?”
Sandy seemed like a puppet with an erratic operator and not enough stuffing to keep him upright on his own, jerking up or down depending on the topic.
“Yes, that’s right. I knew it was wrong. I knew all along. But I thought I was doing a good thing. I never dreamed it would come to this.” He paused and shook his head. “You don’t know what they’re like,” he said, “how they make you do what they want you to.”
“I can imagine,” David replied. After Sunday’s performance it didn’t need that much imagination. In spite of himself he was growing in sympathy for the hopeless figure in front of him.
“What did they say to you?” he asked, again trying to get the conversation back on track.
“That it was for the kingdom of God,” Sandy said simply. “There was to be a massive expansion in Edinburgh. The money would be for outreach – to plant new churches, to reach new families. He told me it would be like taking all the benefit Sonia and I had from the church and passing it on to a hundred others. There’s a lot that’s been really good for us at PGC, you know. It’s helped our marriage. It gives meaning to your life – not just making money, retiring, dying. You know?”
“Of course. That’s what the gospel is. But hiding millions of pounds and lying to the regulators, Sandy. Did it never make you wonder?”
“You have no idea. I never felt right about it. But I couldn’t tell Sonia. Every Sunday we were at church, he’d just be up there looking at me, smiling. He has this smile that makes you feel he knows exactly what you’re thinking. If I’d had a bad week he always seemed to know. He’d just smile at me and say, ‘Keep the faith, Sandy. For all the millions that don’t yet know.’ So I’d have to go into another week hoping nobody would notice.”
“But Mike Hunter noticed…”
“Right. Mike was a friend as well as a colleague. They’d been kind to us. He was good at his job. When the system flagged up the account he ran the analysis and found they were like 3000 per cent at variance with the profile. There was no way this was just a church account. So I told him I’d deal with it. But he wouldn’t back off. He came back to me the next week and asked what was going on. Somehow he seemed to guess there was more to it. I tried to tell him the Serious Crime Division was already involved and we had been told to sit on the account until they were ready to move. But he didn’t believe me and kept on checking. I think he even phoned them to find out.”
“So what did you do next?”
“What could I do? I phoned the Prophet. I thought he’d be able to tell me what to do.”
“The Prophet,” David interrupted to make him clarify. “What do you mean? Who’s the Prophet?”
“Max. His name’s Max but he calls himself the Prophet and that’s how we’re supposed to refer to him too. When you stop and think, I know it sounds a bit crazy. That’s just the way it is though. Once you’ve been doing it for a bit you stop noticing how weird it must sound. Actually I have no idea what his second name is. He’s not British; he’s from Eastern Europe. He says that’s what pastors are called in his country and that it fits with what the Bible says.”
“His country?” David asked. “Where’s he from then?”
“Belarus – Minsk, I think. He doesn’t say much about what he used to do. I think he’s been in Britain about ten years or so. He was involved in another church – Manchester maybe. There were financial problems there and the whole thing was shut down and disappeared. There was a case study about money laundering through a church at a conference I was at once and I’ve often wondered if that was them.”
David couldn’t contain himself.
“What?!” he burst out. “You had suspicions about money laundering in the past and you still hid accounts controlled by the same man? Are you crazy?”
“I know, I know,” Sandy moaned. “The past two weeks there’s not been a moment I haven’t asked myself the same question. I think I must be stupid. But he’s really convincing. He’s always talking about leaving the past behind. He calls it ‘Forgiveness and Forgetfulness’. I suppose I thought he’d maybe got sucked into something that went wrong but that was behind him now. The church is really good in other ways. If it wasn’t for them Sonia and I probably wouldn’t even be together any more. You’ve got to believe me, Mr Hidalgo.”
David got up and clicked the kettle on again. He stood looking out across Bruntsfield Links without speaking. He made two more coffees and quietly put them on the table.
“So,” he said finally, “believing you were doing the right thing – despite all the evidence and your own misgivings – you went to the ‘Prophet’ to ask what to do when Mike Hunter wouldn’t let it lie. What did he tell you?”
Sandy Benedetti took another sip of coffee and looked up to the ceiling as if in search of some better way of saying it. He spoke in a whisper.
“He didn’t tell me anything to do. He just asked the name of whoever it was and told me they’d sort it out. He even thanked me for trusting him. He said God would remember everything I’d done. Listen, Mr Hidalgo, I swear to God I had no idea what was going to happen. I was scared. I thought I’d go to prison or something if it came out.” He paused. “And there’s something else too.”
David’s heart sank further. What more could there be?
“He kind of reminded me that I had got a bonus for bringing in the new account. He didn’t threaten me or anything, not openly anyway. He just said that we all needed to see this through to the end. If not there’d be questions about more than PGC. I knew what he was talking about. Sonia had a terrible time with her ex; she needed peace and security. If I went to prison and we lost the house she’d never be able to handle it. So I hadn’t any choice. It wasn’t just for me, Mr Hidalgo; it was for Sonia, for the kids. I never meant for this to happen. I never meant for Mike Hunter to die.”
Sandy Benedetti came to his own bitter end along with his story. He tried to dab the tears away. The words came out in broken, stuttering syllables. David couldn’t help but hear an echo of Sam Hunter in the man who had caused, even if not directly, her husband’s death. But he didn’t go round the table and wrap his arm around anyone’s shoulders this time. Mike Hunter was dead. Sandy Benedetti’s blind faith and foolishness had made it inevitable. He didn’t need to ask for the rest of the story. Sandy had given Mike’s name to Max. They saw the writing on the wall. Exactly how they’d managed it didn’t particularly matter right now. That would be for police and lawyers and forensic experts. Somehow they’d picked him up, jabbed a needle into his neck or his leg, and brought him back to 67, Colinton Mains Rise. Had they guessed there might be trouble so had installed the computer virus weeks before, or was that just routine, an insurance policy in case anything went wrong? Anyway, there was a ready-made explanation for why an apparently successful married man had decided to end it all; a bogus phone call and a burst of data from Belarus made it all look so reasonable. In the clear again, problem sorted. It certainly fooled Charlie Thompson. But it didn’t fool Sam Hunter. If not for her tenacity and faith in the man she loved it all might have worked the way they had planned, and if not for a Latin American gunman who had accidentally shot a hacker who could trace the whole enterprise back to a corporation in Minsk, the truth might have been lost in cyberspace. Mike Hunter wasn’t a man with a warped sexuality, amusing himself in his study once his wife had gone to bed. He was a diligent, moral man who unwittingly put himself in harm’s way to find out the truth about dirty money. He had no way of knowing that his boss had been compromised or the lengths that vested interests would go to to protect themselves. God willing, he was t
oo far gone by the time they got him home to be aware of anything else.
But there were still important unanswered questions. Sandy Benedetti had been protecting cash that came from crime. That much seemed certain. But what crime? What was PGC and its charismatic, compelling prophet up to? As that thought went through his head, David once again found his sympathy for the wretch across the table waning. Sandy looked up at him.
“Do you believe me?” he said, pleading like a child.
“Do I believe you?” David repeated, half to Sandy and half to himself. He thought for a moment, then felt a sudden, cold, rage inside. He looked Sandy Benedetti straight in the eye and spoke slowly and clearly.
“Sure, I believe you. I believe you have been naive, gullible, and reckless. I believe you never stopped for an instant to consider the implications of what you were doing. I believe you were more concerned about your own safety – your big bonus and house in the Grange – than the safety of another human being, another believer for that matter. I believe you had all the information you needed to see that the PGC account was corrupt and that you had a moral duty to do something about it. I believe you allowed yourself to be convinced against your own doubts and suspicions because it was in your own interests to do so. I believe you have never shown any interest or curiosity as to where that amount of corrupt gain had come from and who might be suffering in the process.” Sandy was looking like a rabbit caught in the headlights, but David pressed on. “And I believe you should now do everything in your power to bring your ‘Prophet’ and whatever gangsters are working for him to justice. Yes, I believe you, Sandy, and I think the police will too.”
At the mention of police Benedetti seemed to gain some last morsel of energy. He sat up.
“Police,” he said, “do you… will you… I mean, are you going to tell them? Tell them what I’ve told you?”
“No need, Sandy,” David replied. “You’ve done it yourself.”
He reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a black plastic box about the size of a packet of cigarettes and laid it on the table.
“You get all that, Charlie?” he asked. “Maybe you should come up now. You must be freezing out there.”
David’s head was still buzzing with Sandy Benedetti when Gillian picked him up that evening. Charlie Thompson had made it abundantly clear just how much trouble the banker was in and that there would be charges pending. Just exactly what with would depend on the Procurator Fiscal. Without a doubt a breach of the banking regulations. As regards the murder – well, that would remain to be seen. Sandy sat without a word of protest. In a way he almost looked relieved the roller coaster ride was finally over and the brakes were on.
“Can I go home and talk to my wife?” was his only question. “I left her a note yesterday to say I was at an urgent work event and I haven’t been in touch since. Actually, I was in the Balmoral last night. I just couldn’t face going home.”
“You’re not going to do a vanishing act, are you?” Thompson asked pointedly. “I might be able to swing it for you to come in voluntarily if I can trust you.”
“Absolutely,” Sandy confirmed in a totally flat tone. “This has all gone on long enough. To be honest, I don’t really care what happens now. I just want it to be over. But I need to talk to Sonia. She needs to hear it from me – that I did not know about the murder and I had no part in it.”
Thompson paused, considering his options. “I’m going to take a risk. Go home and speak to your wife. Have a night at home; then, two o’clock tomorrow afternoon at Gayfield Square. Turn up late or not at all and we’ll throw the book at you. Is that clear enough?”
Sandy nodded.
“Crystal,” he said. “I’ll be there.”
Later on, rattling over the Dean Bridge then out Queensferry Road, David updated Gillian on the conversation and the fact that Benedetti had indeed turned up and given a statement – to everyone’s relief. Gillian gave a long sigh as they sat at the Orchard Brae lights.
“I wonder how she’ll take it,” she said, “Sonia. I suppose she must be completely in the dark.”
“Did I tell you I’d met her?” David asked.
“Sonia? How?”
“At Power and Glory. She was on the welcome team. It was quite surreal, to be honest. But I’d swear she knows nothing about it all.”
“How was she?”
“Really nice actually. Welcoming – well, that’s the job I suppose – but genuinely. It’s plain to me that whatever else they might be up to, for her and Sandy PGC had its good points – as far as being a church is concerned, I mean. She said how much it had helped them. Like we keep on saying – good in the bad and bad in the good.”
“I’m glad it’s the angels that are supposed to pull it all apart, not me.”
They drove on in silence as Gillian nipped in and out of the teatime traffic then onto the curiously named Quality Street and on down towards Cramond, en route to her dad’s birthday do.
“Speaking of angels, Gillian,” David finally said.
“Were we? Oh yes, the angels in the parable.”
“So, speaking of angels, I wonder if you could pull in somewhere down here just before we get any further.”
“Intriguing,” Gillian said as she slowed up and found a parking spot. “We better not be long. Dad’s eightieth is a big deal. We can’t be late. And what’s this to do with angels by the way?”
“You’ll see… or at least one angel in particular. And your dad has waited eighty years for this. Ten minutes won’t make a difference.”
Gillian turned the engine off and twisted round as far as the sports car seat would allow.
“So, fire away,” she said. “What’s on your mind?”
“Something I need to say,” David replied after a pause, as if he’d been trying to compose his opener but was still having a bit of difficulty getting started. Oh dear, she thought, here we go. This could be good or bad. Do I really want to hear it? They still hadn’t spoken about Sunday’s lunch fiasco and despite thinking it through a bit and calming down, Gillian didn’t yet feel it was out of Action and into Filing. If he doesn’t bring it up I will, she thought.
“Mmm…” she replied non-committally.
“Well, two things actually. First, I should have called you on Sunday. I thought I needed to go and see these guys but we should have talked about it the night before; I just hadn’t got to the point of making up my mind. I’m sorry I messed up your day.”
That’s a good start at least, she thought.
“Forgiven. But you’re right; it did mess up the day. I was pretty mad… and number two?”
David sat in silence again. A couple of mums walked past with buggies, babies, and shopping, laughing and chatting, heading home to get the tea on. He watched them pause on the corner. One of them pulled out a mobile and held it so they could both see. A couple of seconds watching then they both cracked up. Probably internet cats, he thought. Why does half the world want to spend all their time filming cats? Then he shook himself and snapped back to the present. Get a grip, he thought, this isn’t helping, and tried again.
“Number two isn’t just about yesterday, or what’s going on just now – well, only partly. Remember when we were with Sam last week? I felt totally useless. I’m much better at practical things. When we worked with the addicts in Madrid I used to do the treatment plans. When they needed to talk about how they’d screwed up or were missing their wives, well, Rocío did that – or Juan, or Alicia. Anybody. I just knew I wasn’t any good at it. But you were there last week and you did exactly what was needed.” David held his hand up to block the denial he guessed was coming. “You did. Exactly. When Sam was talking about finding Mike in the garage I couldn’t get the images out of my head – Rocío, when she tried to end it all, and then seeing her in the morgue. I don’t think about it every day any more, but sometimes it just seems to pop out like it was yesterday, you know? It’s like a photo album in your head with someone turning the pages
and pushing your face in it. You try to close the book and move on but you can’t. It’s always there on the shelf and sometimes comes down at the most awkward moments.
“But then I looked at you. Sam was crying and I wasn’t that far from it myself. I was able to remind myself the world had changed. The images are still there but they don’t have the power they used to. Juan says I was a broken man when I got back to Edinburgh but that you put the pieces back together again – it’s true. If I hadn’t been for you, Sam and I would have been sitting there, both of us blubbing. Anyway, I’m just saying I’m glad you’re with me – and that, thank God, Raúl didn’t, well, he didn’t manage to do what he tried to. And I haven’t chased you off yet.”
Gillian had taken David’s hand as he spoke. Now she kissed it.
“Igualmente,” she said. “Is that the right expression?”
“Well, it means ‘me too’ so I hope so.”
“I was just managing to hold it together myself. Are you seeing her again this week?”
“Yes, I think so. But I’m not quite done yet. Sorry, you know I’m no good at this. What I want to say is I don’t ever want to be thinking about the time we’ve spent together like it’s only pictures in the past. I want it to be the present. Always in the present.”
Gillian turned further round, as far as the cramped cabin would allow.
“Are you saying what I think you’re saying, David Hidalgo?”
He reached into an inside pocket and pulled out a little black box – not too dissimilar from what he’d laid on the table in front of Sandy Benedetti – but with altogether a different feeling.
“I am. What do you think?”
There are places that deserve to have ugly, harsh names and entirely live up to them and others that you somehow feel well disposed to just by the sound of the word. Gillian had always thought that Silverknowes was one of the latter. Sandwiched in between upmarket Cramond and the grittier Granton, it was neither posh nor plain, which was fine. That was partly why she’d felt ok about Dad coming here when he needed more care than she or Ros could give just by popping in a couple of times a day. Initially she’d had a horror of the idea of “going into care”, but the social worker had seemed human enough and the staff were really nice. The reality was that more was needed and they all had to all face up to that. The clincher was when they said of course Dad could bring his drums; they had a piano in the lounge and maybe he could entertain them if they got someone to tinkle the ivories. It was certainly going to be a lot better than finding him with a broken hip on the bathroom floor and decisions to be made in the midst of a crisis. Archie himself was remarkably sanguine about it all after a visit. In fact, he seemed to have got a bit of a thing with Juanita, the Brazilian care worker in his unit, and made his own decision without anyone having to badger him. “She says her brother can get me all the João Gilberto records I want,” he reported, “even the ones not issued in Europe.” So that was that. The building was new and located on Marine Drive, so there was a waterfront view as well. By and large he seemed to have been happy in the year since he’d given up the house in Corstorphine.
