STRANGE BODIES (a gripping crime thriller)

by Antonia Marlowe

  They left the conference room and headed to an office a few doors away. There was a man on the door, one of the security guards. He saluted smartly when he saw the Commander. ‘Sir,’ he bellowed, ‘Weller, John, on duty, sir.’

  Nicholas concealed a grin. ‘Mr Weller, no need for salutes around here. Ex-army, are you? Related to Max?’

  ‘Yes, sir, cousin, sir. Discharged six months ago, sir,’ he said answering the questions in reverse order.

  ‘Good chap. Now this is Dr Burne. It’s her room from now on and you answer to her. If she isn’t around, it’ll be DS Blanchard. Met him yet?’

  ‘Ma’am, I mean doctor. Pleased to meet you, ma’am, uh, doctor. Yes, sir, I’ve met Mr Blanchard. He’s in there now with Senior Sergeant Fraser, Commander, ma’am.’

  Verity managed to keep a straight face during this barrage of sirs, ma’ams and titles, nodded to him, murmured something and ducked inside. The room had been divided into two working areas. In what had to be her area was a desk, its battered surface trying to gleam with hastily applied polish. The other desk, plus a couple of side tables, was already cluttered with several bulky machines including Levinsky’s computer, all the peripherals, and surprisingly, the professor’s old beast.

  Adams said, ‘Lunch break. Lock up and come back when you’ve finished. Blanchard, Dr Burne is in charge. All and any questions to her, please.’

  ‘It’s Verity, Jet. I don’t think we need to be formal now. See you later.’

  Chapter 31

  After lunch it was a matter of minutes before the two cyber aces got to work. Verity had already loaded the programme and deciphered some of the disks she’d purloined. She decided to do the lot as a penalty, though since Nicholas had caught her out she didn’t feel so bad.

  So far she had managed to pin down several names. Not all board members were present at all meetings but there was a core group of five, one of whom was doing the recording. Not all the recordings had sound and some were damaged or faulty in some way, and not worth the trouble of deciphering. Then she struck gold … the anonymous recorder had forgotten to switch off when he went to the men’s room so she was treated to the full sound effects of his visit, and then shots of him combing his hair in the mirror, the first sight of his face. And it was a face she recognised.

  Making a note of that she hurried through the rest of the recordings then transferred them to her Tyle where the program took care of the rest of the process. She turned to Jet Blanchard who had been muttering and swearing under his breath. ‘How’s it going with that booby-trap, Jet?’

  ‘Well, um, Verity, I got through the first okay but there’s a second one I’ve never come across. It just sits there … a big smiling face. I don’t s’pose you could have a look,’ he said hopefully. He scooted his chair over to give her room.

  ‘Ah, I see why he wanted me to do this. It’s one of mine, a bit of joke code I did years ago, so simple but obsolete now. Used to be called Easter Eggs.’ A few keystrokes sorted it out and she was through.

  ‘Now let’s see what he was hiding. Mmm, look I’m going to download all this to my Tyle, you do the same on yours, then you can wipe Levinsky’s computer and get it all set up for the professor. See if you can find a chess programme, too. I promised him.’

  ‘What are we going to do with his old one once I’ve transferred what I can? Do you want me to dismantle it for re-cycling?’

  She thought about it for a second or two. ‘No, hang on to it for now. I need to check my records to see if I’ve got anything similar. Can you get started on the files from Levinsky’s machine first? I noticed one called Minutes. With a bit of luck that’ll be the minutes of these Board meetings.’

  Half an hour later she buzzed through to Adams. ‘I think we have something for you.’

  ‘Come and join us then we can all hear the good news.’

  She and Jet Blanchard gathered up what they needed and walked through to the conference room. Adams turned the floor over to Verity.

  ‘First, what you are about to see are poor quality recordings made from a concealed camera about ten years ago. I’ve brought five of them in here, the ones which give us the most information. I’m going to put them up on the wall screens one by one...’

  ‘On screen one is a full Board meeting, all twelve members. This is one of the earlier ones. Screen two, meeting of twelve again but two of the people are different.’ She indicated with a laser pointer. ‘Next, screen three, a meeting of what I believe is the core group, five members, that’s including the person recording. There are a number of these but this is the best.’

  ‘How come there’s no sound?’ asked someone.

  ‘There is sound on some, but the quality is so poor I’ve suppressed it. But let me continue—I promise all questions will be answered. Screen four, one of the last ones, about two months before the end, again all Board members, only one person is different, this one.’ She pointed again.

  ‘Before I show the last one, I’m going to hand over to DS Blanchard for a few minutes.’

  He stood up and walked up to the end of the table, bent and had a quick word to the Commander. Then, referring to his e-book he said, a little nervously, ‘This is some background to the movies we’ve just been watching.’

  ‘Huh, some movies. I’ve seen better …’

  A look from Adams shut the person up and Blanchard continued, turning now to write on the murder board the word, InterPharm, then underlining it. ‘This is the mob, and a nice bunch of crooks they turned out to be, well, some of them anyway. What we’ve found on Levinsky’s computer is nothing more than a complete record of their dealings over a period of almost four years—names, accounts, the lot. We don’t know why he decided to start recording but he did.’

  He looked over to Verity and she gestured him to continue. More confidently now, he said, ‘I’ve sent the summary we compiled to your computers so I don’t have to take up your time with details now. Very briefly, this was an elaborate, and very lucrative hoax, the Ponzi scheme to outdo all Ponzi schemes. What made it worse than most is that it was ostensibly a charity, a company creating and distributing essential medications to needy countries and hospitals.’

  ‘Just check out a file marked Distributions and you’ll see what I mean … no, not now. I’ve just got a few more things to say.’ He turned to Verity then and asked, ‘Which screen shall I use for the names?’

  ‘Better make it six … I’ll be using five for the last recording.’

  He clicked a button. ‘Right, screen six. The names and pictures. These are the members of the board, the first five are the ones Dr Burne referred to as the core. The chief of these is Werner Steiner, the CEO; he had the recorder. Next we have Conrad Turner-James, Hedley Emerson, Javier Perez and Umberto Rossi. Maybe just as important are two of the wives, Robyn Turner-James and Lydia Emerson. They’re not part of this group but Dr Burne tells me that they were present in some of the other core group meetings. We suspect that at the very least they had some knowledge.’

  While he spoke Verity was putting up hard copies of the photos, names written under each, on the murder board.

  Ira Gold commented, ‘So the other five members were just there for show?’

  ‘You’re getting a bit ahead of me but, essentially yes. From the fairly brief look we’ve had at the files, I’d say that’s so. Possible exception is that one of these five is their, shall we say, enforcer. The other members are Blake Grantham, Walter Hill, Ernest Yarrow, Niles Leonard and Peter Ashton. The last one named was the company’s chief accountant. I don’t yet know why they are members of this board, we’ll probably find out when we analyse the files in a bit more depth. Now I’ll hand back to Dr Burne.’

  Adams spoke first. ‘I know everyone’s bursting with questions, but time’s moving on. We’ll have a look at this last item before questions.’ He gestured to Verity.

  ‘Thanks. As you heard we suspect one of these is the enforcer. And is that their code for hitman? What they n
eed an enforcer for is anybody’s guess at this stage. There’s an enormous amount of stuff on Levinsky-Steiner’s computer, thousands of files … we could do with another brain there.’ She looked a question at the commander, who nodded but said nothing, made a note on his e-pad.

  ‘We can be fairly sure it’s not Peter Ashton, the accountant chap, or Niles Leonard. We can safely say he will turn out to be Neville Lake aka Neil Laker of Daintree fame.

  ‘This last film doesn’t really tell us anything new now we have the names and faces, but it’s part of the record and it’s the very last one made. On screen five.’

  They sat back and watched the last meeting of the board of InterPharm.

  The huge oval boardroom table gleamed under its many coats of lovingly applied wax, the old wood glowing warmly in the soft lighting of the boardroom. Twelve heavily upholstered chairs stood around the table with gold engraved name plates marking the places of the twelve board members of InterPharm.

  On the table, in front of the usual place of the Chairman, Conrad Turner-James, was a small recorder with a note propped against it.

  Niles Locke said disgustedly, ‘Great, Conrad calls an emergency board meeting and he and Robyn don’t even show up. Hedley and Lydia Emerson aren’t here either. What’s the note say? You’re closest, Walter.’

  ‘It just says “Please take your seats then one of you can press the blue button”. Ms Purcell isn’t here and there doesn’t seem to be any coffee made either.’

  The eight members present took their usual places as Niles pressed the button. An image of the Chairman sitting in his usual chair was projected on the wall. The image was a little blurry and had obviously been done by someone with limited knowledge of the technology. But there was no problem with the audio and his voice was very clear.

  ‘Good morning, gentlemen.

  ‘I trust you are all present. It is my painful duty to inform you that this company is about to go into receivership. It may be prudent for you to make some other arrangements as to your future prosperity and employment.

  ‘I believe plod will shortly be arriving so if any of you wish, feel free to use the private lift down to the Board car park. I regret I cannot be with you in person but urgent business has called me away.’

  The image faded and the remaining board members sat stunned for a few seconds before anyone spoke.

  ‘The bastard’s taken the money and run.’

  ‘He could have let us know—I thought we were all in this together,’ said a plaintive voice from the other side of the table.

  ‘I don’t understand. What do you mean—all in what together?’ asked Peter Ashton.

  ‘You should know, you’re the Chief Accountant,’ snarled Hill.

  ‘But I don’t, I don’t know. Everything should be fine. I don’t have anything to do with the day-to-day stuff. I don’t even see the accounts. My deputy does all that,’ he replied. ‘Emerson does all that. What money, what money are you talking about?’

  ‘Forget it. We’re on our own and I for one have no intention of carrying the can on this. I think we’d better start covering our tracks,’ said Ernest Yarrow, leading a rush for the door.

  ‘Going somewhere, gentlemen,’ a voice boomed from the doorway. ‘Why don’t you all just sit down nice and quiet while we have a little chat. I’m Detective Chief Superintendent Moncrief, Fraud Squad, Metropolitan Police. I wouldn’t bother trying the private elevator either—it’s been immobilised. So who’s first? Mmm…? Mr Yarrow, what’s the rush?

  ‘From information received, you are all under arrest and are requested to co-operate while I sort out who’s who. After that you will oblige me by accompanying these police officers,’ he gestured to the doorway where several uniformed police officers had appeared. He ignored the furious hubbub that had broken out on these words and raised his voice above it. ‘As I was saying, you will accompany these officers to Hampstead Heath Police Station where you will be held for questioning.’

  He turned to his men. ‘I don’t think handcuffs will be needed, but if any of them makes a break for it feel free to use your weapons. Do try not to kill them. Oh ... there seems to be a bit of a media scum, oops, scrum at the front door. Wonder who tipped them off.’ He smiled a terrible smile as he looked around the room.

  ‘You can’t do this,’ howled Javier Perez. ‘Don’t you know who we are?’

  ‘Yes, I know exactly who and what you are—you’re a bunch of crooks and cheats.’ He walked to the door and said, ‘Take them in.’

  The images cut off there and the officers around the table looked at each other. ‘So what now?’ asked Donna Price. ‘What’s our next move, sir?’

  ‘Well, we’ve got the faces and the names. I’ll contact London … I’m pretty sure this was in London, and it would have been about ten years ago. I think we need to know what happened to all those board members before we go any further. I remember the case, sort of, but I was on secondment in the USA chasing a serial killer at that time and out of the loop. InterPharm, Gabriel, didn’t you have some involvement with that?’

  ‘Not really, DCS Moncrief was my boss at the time but I was in charge of another unit tracking down a gang of ration card forgers. Got them too,’ he said with a satisfied grin. ‘Bastards were sentenced to death when they estimated that at least two thousand people had died, froze or starved to death, because of their activities. I never actually worked on that case with him and I recall very little about it. He’s retired now but the records will be there.’

  Goldy said, ‘Ten years ago I was still a DC, might have just been made up to DS. Read about it but it didn’t make much impact.’ He looked grim. ‘We had other problems to deal with about that time. Does anyone know how much money they got away with?’

  ‘I seem to recall it was billions rather than millions.’

  ‘We’ll just have to wait till we hear back from our overseas sources.’ Adams glanced at Verity as he spoke … he was becoming very attuned to her body language. Though she was sitting quietly he could almost feel the tension radiating from her. He guessed she could obtain that information with very little trouble. He’d keep that in reserve.

  ‘Homework for all.’ He ignored the groans. ‘I want every word of those Levinsky reports read, summaries made. All of you report back here at eight.’ More groans. ‘We are going to close this case tomorrow if possible.’

  ‘Which case, sir? Levinsky or the Richardsons or that bloke from the Daintree?’

  Before he could answer Verity stood and spoke. ‘It’s my belief that all three murders are linked. Clear one, you clear them all.’ She gathered up her things, ignored the mutters and the odd gasp and headed for the door, Adams looking annoyed at her statement, pre-empting his.

  ‘Sir, do you agree that they are all linked?’

  ‘I have to say it’s looking more that way the more we dig. Lake, who is probably Niles Leonard, the Richardsons were maybe the Turner-James, and Levinsky or Steiner, to give him his real name, were all members of that board.’

  Donna Price said thoughtfully, ‘So the murderer may be someone who was swindled by this bunch of crooks. Would there be a list of investors on that computer?’

  ‘And what about the other board members? Where are they?’ asked Ira Gold. ‘Mr Thomas, is your old boss still around? Would he know what happened to them?’

  ‘Yes, he’s retired I think, but he’d have his notes, never got rid of anything, Moncrief. I could give him a call if you like, a bit later today.’ He caught Adams’ nod then looked at his watch. ‘Bit early there yet. Give it another hour or so.’

  Brenda Kane was fiddling with her morph and matching programs. ‘Look at this.’ She split one of the wall screens, set up an image of Gerald Richardson on one half and one of Conrad Turner-James on the other half. ‘Computer, start matching program, taking into account that subject may have had appearance altering surgery. Highlight similarities.’

  As they watched, the program highlighted points of similarity
, then stripped the flesh from both and slowly rotated the two skulls. They didn’t really need the computer’s confirmation … it was obvious now that they were the same person.

  ‘Good thinking, Brenda. So it follows that his wife, the very blonde Robyn there, is the lady who had us believe she was part coloured … Roberta Richardson,’ said Thomas. ‘And she’s not a real blonde anyway as we know from the autopsy report.’

  Kane repeated the exercise with Lake/Leonard … again a match.

  ‘To summarise,’ she said, ‘We have identified four members of the board, all four of whom were murdered here in Australia. Our murderer definitely has a strong bias against InterPharm. I wonder how many of the others he’s managed to get to.’

  Adams cut in there. ‘We won’t know much more till we hear back from the enquiries I’ve just sent to InterCat and HOLMES, and we’ll see what eventuates from DCS Thomas’s talk with his former boss. Might be something back tomorrow … but I doubt it. In the meantime, we have to go through everything again. The murderer is here in Sydney. Thomas, call me as soon as you talk to Moncrief … he’ll still have his finger in a few pies if I’m not mistaken.

  ‘That’s it for now. I’ll be in my office for another hour or so, but I want you all to review the evidence and give me some intelligent answers tomorrow morning. We need to get this bastard before another innocent gets killed.’

  He was thinking of poor Sienna Starr. This person would destroy anyone who was in his way or who could serve his ends.

  Chapter 32

  Nicholas was at the door at six-thirty. He saw the front door swing open at his approach, but was surprised to see there was no one waiting there so stopped at the threshold and called. Verity came along the hall and said, ‘Oh, hello Nicholas. I didn’t realise you were here.’

  ‘Everything just opened as I approached.’

  ‘You are registered to the system, so that’s why the doors opened. It recognised you.’

  He took a step back then and really looked at her. ‘Wow, you look … fantastic. Beautiful, absolutely stunning.’