Counterfeit!

by Elizabeth Ducie

  ‘The first envelope arrived later that day, addressed to me personally and handed in at the hotel reception. Another one was handed in at the British Embassy. Luckily, they both said ‘Private and Confidential’. If we’d been back in London, one of the admin staff would probably have opened them, but when we’re out travelling, they stay back home to run the office and we fend for ourselves.’

  ‘What was in the envelopes, Francine?’

  ‘Pictures—pictures of Ernest and me, compromising pictures. There must have been a camera set up in the bedroom.’

  ‘So you think Ernest was in on the set-up?’

  ‘Isn’t it obvious? He must have planned the whole thing from the start. The bastard!’

  But Suzanne could see her heart wasn’t in the condemnation and guessed Francine still clung to a faint hope that her lover had been duped in the same way she had. Although it really didn’t seem likely.

  ‘Francine, that’s an old trick; they used it all the time in Russia. Although it was usually a glamorous young Soviet girl and a middle-aged or elderly businessman who thought they’d got lucky.’

  ‘Instead of a sad, lonely female who was fool enough to be led on by a handsome face,’ said Francine. ‘So that’s how they caught me. Although there was no further contact during my trip to Africa, or when we got back to England. Gradually, I convinced myself it had all been a bad joke—or that they’d lost their nerve. After a year or so, I stopped being frightened of the daily post and even managed to put the whole thing out of my mind for months at a time. Until last year, when they finally made contact.’

  ‘So what have they asked you to do?’ said Suzanne quietly. ‘Validate documentation for them? Let them win government tenders? Maybe even give them Overseas Aid grants…’ But her voice petered out at the look of complete shock on Francine Matheson’s face.

  ‘Good God, what sort of a monster do you take me for? I may be a politician, but I have got some morals left!’

  The vehemence of Francine’s reply took Suzanne by surprise and seemed completely genuine. She sat down on the cold steps behind her and folded her arms.

  ‘I think you’d better tell me the rest of the story,’ she said. Francine swallowed and shook her head.

  ‘Well, there’s not a lot more to say. Back in the summer, I had a visit from your Mr Mladov. It was completely unexpected. And as he’s Ukrainian, rather than African, I didn’t suspect anything to begin with.’

  ‘How did he get close to you?’

  ‘He was part of a delegation that came to my office to talk about trade links and support. He was very charming to begin with.’

  Suzanne thought back to that afternoon in her flat, the only occasion when she’d met him. She remembered how initially she’d been quite impressed with the man’s suave manner; although Charlie had been uncertain about him from the beginning. And after the burglary in her flat and the tragedy at Mazokapharm, she knew her sister’s instincts had been right. Francine continued.

  ‘As they were leaving, he said to me quietly that he was a keen photographer and he would love to talk to me about the photographs I’d picked up during my first trip to Africa. I particularly remember the way he said “picked up”. I thought it was a strange way of saying “took”, but then I remembered I didn’t take any pictures on that trip—my camera had been playing up and I hadn’t had time to replace it—so he had to be talking about the ones of me and Ernest.’

  ‘So what did you do?’

  ‘I agreed to meet him again.’ She glanced up at Suzanne’s startled look and smiled sadly. ‘What else could I do?’

  ‘Call his bluff?’

  ‘But at this point, I had no idea what his bluff was. Gerry and I have long since sorted out our difficulties and I didn’t want to risk destroying my marriage, not to mention my reputation in Parliament, unnecessarily. I needed to find out what he was planning before I decided what to do.’

  ‘And what was he planning?’

  ‘To be honest, I have no idea. He came back to my office one evening after work.’

  ‘Wasn’t that a bit risky?’

  ‘Well, I thought it was safer than meeting him somewhere else—like the crypt of Westminster Abbey,’ she said with a rueful grin. ‘It’s quite common for MPs to meet with constituents and other people in the evenings. And there are always plenty of people around. In fact, we had a drink in the Members Bar. I remember looking out across the Thames as he was talking to me and wondering whether it was worth calling his bluff and letting him do his worst. But I didn’t want to lose everything I’d worked so hard to get—and, frankly, I don’t want to have to deal with the humiliation. You do see that, don’t you?’

  ‘Francine,’ Suzanne said patiently, ‘you still haven’t told me what he wanted you to do.’

  ‘Nothing,’ she said, ‘it’s that simple; at this point, he just wanted to remind me the pictures exist and to tell me they would be in touch if they needed a favour from me.’ Suzanne stared at her in amazement.’

  ‘So, nothing’s actually happened so far?’ she asked.

  ‘Well, there’s a little matter of compromising pictures of an MP and the attempted blackmail of a Parliamentary Undersecretary in Her Britannic Majesty’s government—but yes, essentially nothing’s happened.’ She stopped and looked closely at Suzanne. ‘Why, what did you think had happened?’

  ‘I told you earlier—trade links, dodgy contracts and things like that.’ But Francine was shaking her head adamantly.

  ‘Suzanne, I thought you knew me better than that. I may be a coward who’s scared to let the good people of this country know I’ve been taken in by a love rat, but I can assure you, if the story has to come out, so be it. There’s no way I would let myself get pulled into anything like that. But I think it’s more likely to be a simple case of blackmail.’

  Suzanne sighed and stood up.

  ‘Okay, Francine, I believe that’s what you think is going on. But I suspect it’s much more sinister than that.’

  ‘Then I think you’d better fill me in on the details,’ was the icy reply. The tears had gone and the calm politician was back in control.

  ‘Well, I will,’ Suzanne said, ‘but I have one request. Let’s get you out of that ridiculous outfit and go and have some dinner. There’s nothing suspicious about two old school friends eating together, is there? Besides, it’s getting very cold down here.’

  29: ENGLAND; MAR 2005

  Two hours later Suzanne and Charlie, together with The Honourable Francine Matheson, were sitting in the flat in Vauxhall, eating the takeaway they’d collected from Sanjay’s. Francine had opted for Chicken Korma with Peshwari Nan, while the sisters ordered their customary Vindaloo. Francine and Suzanne ate off trays on their knees while Charlie sat cross-legged on the floor.

  Charlie had been a little taken aback when Suzanne phoned her on the way from Westminster Abbey and warned her about their supper guest but had seemed willing to accept her sister’s assurances that she knew what she was doing. The conversation so far had been light-hearted and general. But now Suzanne wiped her fingers on a paper napkin and sat back with a sigh.

  ‘Well, I suppose we’d better get back to the real reason for this little get-together,’ she said. In a few words, she brought Charlie up to date on what she’d learnt so far that day. She was pleased and surprised to see that Charlie didn’t mock Francine for getting caught in a honey trap; in fact her sister was more sympathetic than she had been.

  ‘When we met earlier,’ Suzanne now said, ‘your reactions made me suspect you knew Mladov and that was confirmed when we talked in the Abbey. But I also suspected you knew of Mazokapharm and Kabwe Mazoka. How did you come across them?’

  ‘Didn’t I say?’ said Francine. ‘That’s where Ernest was working. He told me it was only a tiny company and I got the impression he wasn’t going to be there very long, but he’d been picked to go to the conference as one of their representatives.’

  ‘I don’t remember anyone
called Ernest at the plant when I visited it,’ said Suzanne. ‘And I thought I’d met, or at least been told about, everyone.’

  ‘I’ve got a picture of him here,’ said Francine. At the sisters’ startled looks, she gave a grimace. ‘What can I say? He may have turned out to be a bastard, but that week still meant a lot to me and I wanted to keep a souvenir. And before you ask, no it’s not one of the ones taken in my hotel room.’ She opened her handbag and took out her wallet. In the side pocket was a folded newspaper cutting; it was a report on the conference and included a standard photograph, with all the delegates lined up, smiling and looking as though they were all best friends, even if they had recently been at each other’s throats. She pointed to a figure on the back row. ‘There, that one at the end. That’s Ernest.’

  Suzanne took the photograph from Francine, stared at it silently and then handed it over to Charlie.’

  ‘Shit, I don’t believe it,’ said her sister.

  ‘Well, I think we can say the camera doesn’t lie.’

  ‘What is it?’ said Francine. ‘Do you recognise him? Is it Kabwe Mazoka?’

  ‘Oh yes, we recognise him—and no it’s not Kabwe,’ said Suzanne.

  Staring out at them through round glasses, looking as confident as they’d ever seen him, was Chibesa Desai!

  ‘Shit!’ said Charlie once more. Francine looked from one sister to the other, her puzzlement deepening.

  ‘But this doesn’t make any sense,’ Suzanne said. ‘He’s been as damaged as anyone by all this. He’s never forgiven himself for George’s death.’

  ‘Well, it looks like he’s a better actor than we thought,’ was Charlie’s tart reply.

  ‘I still don’t buy it.’

  At that point, Francine stood up, put her hands on her hips and stamped her foot—bringing back to Suzanne’s mind for an instant, the overweight teenager who’d had a tantrum on the rare occasions her exam results had been beaten by someone else in the class—usually Suzanne. But this wasn’t about exam results; this was much more serious than that—and the schoolgirl was now a member of the Government and insisting on some answers. Suzanne patted the sofa next to her. ‘Sit down, Francine. There’s a lot more to this than you realise—and I think we need to tell you everything.’

  Between them, the two sisters brought Francine up to date on everything they knew or suspected: about Mladov, about the lost suitcase, the ransacked and spied-upon flat; about Suzanne’s ordeal in Zambia; and about Kabwe Mazoka’s disappearance, reappearance and confession—and his subsequent suicide. They told her about the team that had been working with Suzanne on the counterfeiting project: the big powerful Ugandan from the pharmaceutical industry, WB Businge; and the soft-spoken logistics expert from Zambia, Chibesa Desai. Then they told her gently that Chibesa and Ernest were one and the same person. She refused to believe them at first, but when they’d showed her the pictures from the recent IHF conference in Swaziland, she had to accept it.

  ‘And because anything else would be a coincidence way too big to be believed, we have to assume his involvement in Suzanne’s team and his seduction of you are part of the same operation,’ said Charlie.

  ‘Charlie,’ said Suzanne, ‘I think we have to explain to Francine why we came after her in the first place.’ Her sister went pale and bit her lip. ‘It’s okay; given the circumstances, I don’t think she’s in any position to report you, but,’ turning to Francine, ‘what we’re about to tell you may be compromising for all my team, and Charlie in particular, so we’re trusting you to handle the information sensitively.’ Francine nodded impatiently and looked at Charlie, who took a deep breath.

  ‘We needed to follow the money, to know who was talking to whom, so I did some fancy things with my computer.’

  ‘By “fancy things”, I take it you mean hacking,’ said Francine icily.

  ‘Oh, shit, sis, I told you this wasn’t a good idea.’ Charlie turned to Suzanne with a despairing look on her face. But her sister just put a hand on Francine’s arm to quieten her and nodded for Charlie to continue. She pulled a face but then carried on speaking. ‘We have reason to believe that Mazokapharm was involved in some heavy duty counterfeit manufacture. Suzanne can give you the evidence for that later on if you need to see it. And it seemed that most of their funding was coming from Mladov’s gang, Banda.

  ‘The money was obviously being hidden; it was quite tortuous to follow—and I almost lost it in the Cayman Islands. But finally I picked up the trail again—and it led me right back here to London and to a special account in your name.’

  ‘In my name? That’s impossible!’ Francine jumped up and started striding around the room. ‘I’ve not got any secret accounts, special or otherwise. Why would I have? I get sufficient money from my day job.’

  ‘In my experience, few people would ever accept they had “sufficient money”, no matter what their level of income,’ said Charlie dryly. Francine glared at her and Suzanne realised the conversation could get out of hand if she didn’t step in.

  ‘Francine, the account wasn’t actually in your name—but it did use that nickname we had for you at school—back in the days of ‘London Loiters’.’

  ‘Not ‘Little Piggy Matheson’, said Francine with a laugh. ‘I thought I’d got rid of that image, but some idiot from our old class was talking to a friend of hers in Fleet Street and gave him the details a few months back. There was a short burst of ridicule in the papers, and somehow they managed to find an old picture of me, back in the fourth form, but there’s no crime in being plump.’ At this Charlie snorted and Francine glared at her again before going on, ‘Okay, maybe I was a little more than plump, but the fact remains that anyone in the country who reads that particular newspaper or watches Have I Got News for You knew about my old nickname. It was news for a couple of days, but then it went away. Frankly, I had more important things to worry about than this country’s obsession with how a person looks.’ But as she said this, Suzanne watched the other woman glance in the tall mirror on the back of the door and tuck her hair behind her ears. Francine was obviously more comfortable with her current self-image than she was with her fourteen-year-old one. ‘So, this is the only evidence you have against me, is it?’

  Charlie looked uncomfortable and licked her lips, apparently unsure what to say next. But Suzanne took up the story at that point.

  ‘Well, it may not sound like much, Francine, but the fact remains that you do have links to Mazokapharm and Mladov has been threatening to blackmail you. So you’re definitely part of this whole picture, even if we don’t know why yet.’ Francine threw herself back on the sofa and groaned.

  ‘Yes, you’re absolutely right. But I can tell you hand on heart that I had no idea about this account and I have never profited from any counterfeit drugs.’ The two sisters stared at their old school friend, saying nothing, and then looked at each other. Charlie slowly nodded and smiled.

  ‘Okay, Francine, we believe you,’ Suzanne said. ‘Now are you willing to help us sort out this mess and try to work out what’s going on—and why they might want to involve you?’

  ‘Of course I will. After all, it seems someone decided to involve me personally in all of this—although I still don’t understand why—so it’s as much in my interests as anyone else’s.’ She paused and looked at Charlie, pointing her finger. ‘But I don’t want to know about any more computer hacking, right?’ Charlie grinned and held out her hand to shake Francine’s.

  ‘You’ve got a deal,’ she said.

  ‘Okay,’ said Suzanne, standing and starting to pick up the dirty plates and empty curry cartons, ‘we need a plan of action. Let’s get this mess cleared up and then look again at everything we know.’

  With Charlie taking notes on her laptop, the three women went back over every scrap of information and speculation they had so far, and tried to identify a pattern.

  ‘One thought occurs to me, Charlie said at one point. ‘If Chibesa’s dirty—and it rather looks as though he mig
ht be—then what about WB? Do we need to worry about him too?’

  Suzanne was still trying to get her head around the fact that the efficient Zambian, on whom she relied so much for the organisation of her trips, could be working for the other side. She couldn’t bear it if WB was also found to be untrustworthy.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘He’s proved himself to be very useful over the past few months, especially when it came to helping Sara get out of Swaziland.’

  ‘Sara? Is that the woman who started all this for you?’ Francine asked. ‘The one you mentioned during your presentation?’ The only thing the sisters hadn’t mentioned so far to Francine was Sara Matsebula’s involvement. Now, Suzanne glanced over at her sister and the pair had another of their silent communications.

  ‘You do realise how unnerving that is for other people, don’t you?’ asked Francine.

  ‘Definitely; why do you think we do it?’ said Charlie with a grin. Then she turned to Suzanne. ‘I think we need to give Francine the last piece of the jigsaw; otherwise, why should she trust anything we say?’ Suzanne nodded.

  ‘I think you’re right.’ She took a deep breath and explained to Francine exactly what role Sara Matsebula had played in getting the investigation going. Then she went on to talk about their fears when things started unravelling in London and how relieved they were to meet Sara in Zambia with WB.

  ‘And if WB had meant to do Sara any harm, why would he have gone to all that trouble to smuggle her out of Swaziland? Wouldn’t he just have walked her into the bush and got rid of her? No-one would ever have been any the wiser?’

  ‘That sounds logical to me,’ said Francine, while Charlie nodded her head. ‘But if Chibesa,’ she still seemed to be having difficulty saying that name and paused to swallow before going on, ‘if Chibesa knows where WB is hiding her, isn’t she still in danger?’

  ‘Possibly, yes, although now that her information is more widely spread, and Banda’s operations have been shut down, there’s less to be gained by doing her any harm.’