A Pleasure to do Death With You

by Paul Charles

  “Why of course.”

  “I really would love to have chatted to someone who was knowingly going out with someone for sex and only sex.”

  “You think Mr Mylan made it that clear to her?”

  “Well. I did get that feeling. But with Chloe, from our brief conversation, I didn’t get the impression she felt she was a victim.”

  “And what about any of Chloe’s predecessors; did Mr Mylan ever mention any of them?” Kennedy asked.

  “No. I did ask Tim if he knew anything about them. I mean, I never took him into my confidence about what Patrick had told me; I just asked him about Patrick’s earlier girlfriends,” she paused as she went to open the door and let DC King in and then continued her conversation with Kennedy, “but the surprising thing for me was not that he didn’t know but that he didn’t even seem interested.”

  “Wouldn’t that have suggested that maybe Mr Dickens knew something about Mr Mylan but didn’t want to betray a confidence?” Kennedy asked as King dished out several calorie enemies.

  “As in Patrick was gay?” Nealey replied.

  “Perhaps,” Kennedy said.

  “Not possible, Christy. Girls can tell the gay men, can’t we, Constable King?”

  “Maybe only when they want us to,” King replied, accepting the olive branch.

  “Oh I don’t know,” Nealey said. “I’d say my own radar hasn’t let me down yet.”

  “But would it be fair to say that you feel Tim Dickens felt Mr Mylan might be?” Kennedy asked, giving up on his tea. They’d been so involved in their earlier conversation that she’d committed the mortal sin of stewing his tea. Both King and Dean seemed to be enjoying the coffee though.

  “Okay, Christy, I’ll give you that.” Nealey conceded.

  “Who would you say was closest to Mr Mylan?”

  “I’d say Roger and Maggie Littlewood, especially Maggie; she seemed genuinely fond of Patrick and was always looking out for him. They’d often be off in the corner by themselves rabbiting away.”

  “And there was nothing…” King started.

  “Oh no. Roger and Maggie were the perfect couple, tight as tiger cubs,” Nealey interrupted quickly. She looked as if she might be still considering the possibility of such a relationship. She then stared at Kennedy as she said, “Maggie is very comfortable with all her friends, male and female. I agree with her; you can’t let any of that kind of green-eyed baggage get in the way of a potentially great friendship. My father doesn’t have any female friends who are not friends of my mother. All his real friends, all his mates, are male. But that’s a generation thing, I suppose.”

  “Did Mr Mylan ever give you any of his stock market tips?” Kennedy asked.

  “Oh, he talked about them briefly the first time we met, but I can’t be bothered with all of that, I really can’t. I’m an actress. I make money acting, and I don’t want to be distracting myself worrying each morning about what might have happened to the few pence I’ve managed to put away. I much prefer to ring-fence it, stick it away somewhere safe where, although I may never make a fortune on it, I’ll never lose it either.”

  “Did Patrick drink a lot?” Kennedy asked.

  “Not as much as Roger. That sounded like I was perhaps trying to protect Patrick’s name a bit when in fact I wasn’t. Yes, he liked his wine, but he never got ugly, he never drank too much. Oh gosh, now I’ve made it sound like Roger does. Let’s start from the beginning again. I’d say he and his mates liked their wine, but none of them are, or were, slaves to it.”

  “Tell me about Tim.”

  “Tim, what about Tim?”

  “Is he married?”

  “Oh, Christy, that was devious, very devious. We touch briefly on whether or not Patrick might be gay, and then you take the conversation well away from the topic and back via Tim. You know that Tim is not married… and…”

  “And that was equally devious, wasn’t it?” An admiring smile creeping over Kennedy’s face.

  “Sorry?”

  “I ask you a question and you avoid it by turning the spotlight back on me and away from the question.”

  She smiled.

  “Okay, I didn’t believe Patrick was gay, therefore I wouldn’t have suspected any such relationship.”

  “And Mr Dickens?”

  “Surely we don’t need to cast aspersions on Tim as well?”

  “Nealey, I need to find out every single thing I can about Mr Mylan and his group of acquaintances. Somewhere in the middle of it all, there just might be a clue as to what happened and why it happened to him.”

  “You know, I’ve never thought about it,” she said, and the three of them knew she was lying.

  “I understood you felt you could always tell these things,” King suggested, but cleverly restrained herself from sounding smug about it.

  “All I can tell you is that he’s always been a good friend to me, and neither of us has ever got into the romantic side of each other’s lives. And that’s positively all I have to say on the subject.”

  “Okay, Nealey, we respect that,” Kennedy said, feeling they’d run out of steam. “These dinner parties of Mr Mylan’s, do you ever remember anyone who attended them who argued with Mr Mylan?”

  “No, none of that, ever. Lively yes, confrontational no,” she said. “I’ve been thinking about nothing else recently, to be honest, and I haven’t as yet turned up one piece of information that might be helpful.”

  The ensuing silence was broken with, “Tell me, Constable King, have you always wanted to be in the police force, or was it a career choice you made later in life?”

  “I always wanted to be a detective,” King replied quickly.

  “Was your father in the police?” Nealey Dean probed, obviously doing some research for her own career of choice.

  “No, and no relations,” King offered. “I considered a few things, but there was never anything else that interested me as much as this.”

  “What, catching the criminals or solving the crime?”

  “Well, they’re obviously connected at the hip, but I’d have to say my priority has always been the need to solve the crime.”

  “And yourself, Christy?” Nealey asked in a gentler voice.

  “Solving the puzzle of the crime,” Kennedy replied, “which reminds me, we need to…”

  “Yes, of course, sorry,” Nealey said, standing up. “I’m always doing that, trying to get a fix on people. Invaluable for my work as you can imagine.”

  As the detectives were leaving the flat, Nealey Dean hung back with Kennedy, encouraging King to lead the way. By the time King had opened the door and was in the corridor of the mansion block, she realised that Kennedy and Dean were still in the flat.

  “Maybe James and I,” Dean said in a quiet voice, “and you and your new lady could go out some time together for dinner or drinks?”

  “I don’t think it’s that kind of a relationship,” Kennedy replied honestly.

  “Right,” she said, looking bemused. “Okay,” she continued, nodding her head very slowly. “I see. I get it now.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  At the same time, on that particular summer Tuesday morning, DS Irvine and DS Allaway were in Martin Friel’s office. Friel & Associates was based on the first and second floors on Parkway just above the sadly missed Regent’s Book Shop, not a million miles from North Bridge House. The offices were small but cleverly decorated with lots of mirrors and were tidy, very tidy. Friel was friendly immediately, and with generous handshakes all around, he invited them up to the second floor to his meeting room while his secretary nipped out to fetch them each a cappuccino and, in Friel’s words, “a nibble or two.”

  “I’m still waiting for my associates to come in,” Friel deadpanned in an accent halfway between the Black Country and America, “but they haven’t come in once so far.” He chuckled heartily. “Oh well, at least I don’t have to share my profits with anyone.”

  This time he laughed longer and louder. Irvine
reckoned it must have been one of his regular routines, but he still genuinely seemed to get a great amusement out of it. He was dressed in a pair of tan Camper trainers, tan cords, and a multi-coloured knitted jumper, which looked very expensive and best suited for a golf course. He was fresh faced and recently shaved, so that his skin positively glowed. His hair was thick, black, and cut to about half an inch all over.

  “But seriously, I was a teacher for years while working part-time on investments. I started to make more on investments, so I switched careers and eventually ended up at Credit Suisse where I met the crew. When I started up here by myself, I thought Friel & Associates sounded better, grander if you will, than a plain, simple ‘Martin Friel.’”

  “What did you teach?” Irvine asked. “Economics?”

  “No, physical education actually, in Wolverhampton,” Friel replied. “I’ve found it very handy in this business.”

  When Irvine and Allaway stared at him blankly, he added, “I was in great shape to run away from my creditors,” breaking into his infectious laugh again. “No, seriously,” he said, turning moods on a sixpence, “I know you’ve come here to talk to me about Patrick; I’m just trying to break the ice. Apart from which, I’m as nervous as a judge on court with John McEnroe.”

  By which point the cappuccinos and muffins arrived. Allaway took out his notebook and set it down on the table by his untouched muffin, to show that it was time to get on with the proceedings.

  The room was expensively decorated. With the double-glazed windows and thick linen shutter blinds, the occupants could imagine they were three miles away in the City, should they so wish. The walls were an off-white, the thick carpet a deep blue, and the two sofas and two matching chairs placed around a large stained-glass coffee table were black leather. The original fireplace had been replaced with a bookshelf crammed with books by and about various famous business people. Above the built-in bookshelf was a large framed poster of Manchester United’s 2008/2009 League-winning side. On the other walls were framed Man United shirts signed, Irvine reckoned, by the players who had owned them.

  Friel obviously noticed Irvine clocking his book collection. He walked across to his books and took out a Branson edition, Business Stripped Bare: Adventures of a Global Entrepreneur, and fast-flicked through it a few times.

  “What Richard forgets to reveal here, and in his other books, is that the real key to his success is, and has always been, his ability in picking great lieutenants. And there’s nothing wrong with that. It’s certainly worked well for him, not to mention Churchill, Napoleon, and John F. Kennedy.”

  “Right,” Irvine said. Allaway jumped in.

  “So, do you make a good living doing this, you know, investing?”

  “I could show you a method, which is based on analysing shares closely for two hours, each and every day. You study a screen two hours a day, watching for candlesticks, falls and rises. You simply clock the movements, and within a month you could be making a living out of it. But,” Friel held out the “But” the way Chris Tarrant held it out while showing the cheque on the current state of play before withdrawing it again, “within a month you’d be bored to tears.”

  “But isn’t it just like gambling?” Allaway suggested, carrying on his new interest from the recent Tony Stevenson interview.

  “Not even a little,” Friel tutted. “In horse racing you have a horse and you have ten minutes, and at the end of the ten minutes there is a very good chance the bookie is going to be taking your hard-earned cash home to his magnificent country house. But with shares, you will get a certificate, and that certificate will have a life of several years; in those years you could be earning from it annually while still awaiting your big winnings - you know, when you eventually sell.”

  “Right,” Allaway replied, seeming to take the point on board.

  Irvine knew that if they stood any chance of solving this case, then they needed to have at least some sense of the workings and dealings of this world.

  “How do you know which shares to go with?” he asked, thinking it was as good a place as any to start.

  “You know, the honest answer to that is that you just follow your nose and don’t be scared of being wrong. If you don’t want to lose, then don’t buy shares.”

  Irvine looked as if he’d been expecting more.

  “Okay, two fellows we knew, David Bramhill and Joe O’Farrell. They’ve been good to us, we’d invested in a few of their projects in the past, things like Cambridge Mineral and Encore Oil, and they’d done well for us…”

  “When you say us, you mean you and Patrick Mylan and Tony Stevenson?”

  “Yes, Patrick, Tony, and myself: Toblerone…”

  Irvine arched his eyebrows into a transparent question mark.

  “Okay, we, all three, came from Credit Suisse, Toblerone is Swiss and has three sides.”

  “Right,” Irvine said, forcing a smile.

  “Anyway, Bramhill and O’Farrell rang up once, like they’d do from time to time, and said they were starting up a new project called Nighthawk Energy. This was about four years ago. Now Warren Buffett claims that he usually prefers to invest more in the people running the company than in the company’s product. I’ve always found this to be solid advice. Bramhill and O’Farrell are always on the case. You know, in contrast to where you’ve got a chairman who believes the company is there purely as his own personal plaything and primarily to finance his lifestyle. We’ve always respected David and Joe and their approach. I believe they put £56,000 of their own money into Nighthawk Energy, creating, at a quarter pence per share, something like 22.4 million shares. They were selling some of the Hawk shares to people like us, people they’d used before, to raise funds. We bought in at 2p a share, which meant their shares were immediately worth eight times the original value. They even sold some to Credit Suisse who bought in at 4p, 8p, and 12p. Credit Suisse sold their shares at 25p and then bought back in again later. Once Nighthawk Energy, or Hawk as the company came to be referred to, came on to people’s radar, the brokers, bankers, and hedge fund managers, who are out there all the time looking for stuff to buy, became interested. I believe a lot of those came in at around the 8p stage. So, all the time the value of our shares was increasing, but obviously we couldn’t sell at that stage because it wasn’t, as then, listed as a share. Of course, it’s currently listed, and to cut a long story very short, the shares are currently around the 42p mark. Okay, and here’s where it gets interesting. On top of the increase of the share price, Hawk is involved, on a 50/50 basis, with Running Foxes, on the Jolly Farm project, where they’ve just discovered an extremely large reserve of oil. Word has it they’d hit around 1.6 billion barrels of oil. So they expect the shares to triple in the next few months.”

  No wonder Martin Friel has such a great sense of humour, Irvine thought, as Allaway voiced it even more succinctly, “So, you’ll make sixty times your original investment?” “Yes, but I did buy the muffins,” Friel said, guffawing. “Sorry. Seriously, we did - well pretty close. We bought only the original chunk of Hawk shares at 2p, but by the time we bought more shares, we had to pay 4p and 6p.”

  “So how much have you invested in this?” Irvine asked.

  “Well, I’d prefer not to say,” Friel replied coyly.

  “But surely all of this is above board?” Irvine said quickly.

  “Of course. It’s just that I don’t like to boast.”

  “But this must all be public record, Mr Friel. We really do need to know.”

  “Okay, £100,000.”

  “What? You’re going to make a £100,000?” Allaway said, clearly mentally dividing it by his annual salary.

  “Ah, no, that was the original investment,” Friel replied humbly.

  “But split between the three of you?” Allaway continued, now clearly in shock.

  “Ah no, that would be £100,000 each.”

  “So you stand to make six million quid each on this one deal?” Allaway squeaked.

&nb
sp; “Closer to four mil, actually.”

  “How many people would have known that Patrick Mylan had such holdings?” Irvine asked.

  “We’re not the Flaming Ferraris; we’re very discreet,” Friel claimed, “Really just the three of us, our accountants - a few people like that.”

  “Did you, Toblerone, did you all get on well with each other?” Irvine asked.

  “Yes, we were a good team, and we really got on extremely well with each other socially.”

  “And you’re all on the same share?”

  “If we go in to a project as Toblerone, we go in as equal partners. If one of us is not as fussed on a project as the others, we’ll do it ourselves individually.”

  “Are there any projects you can think of where only one of you went into it, as an individual, and the others didn’t and…” Irvine said leaving the important bit unsaid.

  “And the others felt bad about it?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose.”

  “I mean, not everyone thinks the same way,” Friel started, and then looking like he was searching through his mind for an example. “Yes, Donegal Creameries. That would be a good example. I’d a wee bit of local knowledge on this one. Around the early nineties, I was having a wee look at them, and the shares were floating anywhere between 1.20 euro and, say, 1.60 euro per share, and they were pretty static. But I discovered that their property portfolio hadn’t been valued for… I forget, it was either eight years or twelve years, and so I bought in, against the advice of everyone. The property boom happened, Donegal Creameries subsequently revalued their properties, and the share shot up to 5.00 euro, and I, well I did very well out of it.”

  “How much did you have on that one?” Allaway asked.

  “There you go again, Constable; you’re making it sound like I was backing a horse. Again the shares had been pretty static for a good while; they were going about their core business, and I had certificates, which never ran out, showing that I had a share of the profit of the company. So in my mind I wasn’t gambling.”