UnSafe Deposit
J.E. Kellenberger
Copyright © 2016 J.E. Kellenberger
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
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Matador® is an imprint of Troubador Publishing Ltd
In memory of
RONALD ERIC RAVEN
1917-1943
City of London School for Boys scholar
Warrant Officer 1st Class
Royal Army Ordnance Corps
Prisoner of War 1941-1943
With thanks to Rosemary and Hilary for reading the original manuscript.
Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Prologue
1936
Despite the time of year, late spring, it was cold in the prefab hut close to the wharf where the cross-Channel ferry had docked in Dover. Max sat across the small, bare table top from the austere-looking immigration officer. He was a middle-aged man with greying hair and receding hairline. His back was ramrod straight and, in true British tradition, his upper lip was equally stiff. He was an Oxford-educated senior Home Office official and knew how to handle young men like Max.
‘Is your maternal language German?’ he enquired calmly.
‘Yes,’ replied Max hesitantly, trying to express with gestures that the only word in the sentence he really understood was “German”.
‘Do you need a translator?’ the immigration officer went on.
‘Yes,’ replied Max, again unsure as to the true nature of the question.
‘Mein Kollege spricht Deutsch ich wird ihn beschwören.’
They sat for some moments in complete silence while awaiting the translator who the immigration officer had summoned by the only telephone in the draughty hut. A third chair was drawn up to the wooden table when she arrived, a lady from the Swiss Embassy who had been seconded to the Home Office to help with the growing number of asylum seekers arriving on British soil from Nazi Germany. With no more than a nod confirming the arrival of the translator he continued the interview.
‘Is it your intention to seek asylum in the United Kingdom?’
‘Yes,’ replied Max. Despite his youth he had an air of haughtiness and now that he understood the question he was able to reply without any hint of deference.
‘Do you have any identity papers?’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Max as if the immigration officer should know that he was an important personage. ‘I can tell you who I am!’
‘I’m sure you can, Sir, but I need evidence. Do you have any official documents which show your name, address and date of birth?’
There followed a long pause. A change of attitude was necessary, Germanic arrogance would serve no useful purpose on these shores. To survive he would need to adapt and he would have to do so sooner rather than later.
‘None,’ he replied meekly. ‘I escaped with nothing.’
Chapter One
Initial Thoughts
2010
It wasn’t the usual type of French open-air market selling fresh produce from the dozens of farms in the vicinity but a specialised market of non-consumable merchandise, goods that had started life in shops and fairs but had failed to sell for one reason or another and had eventually trickled down to their terminal stage to be sold at a hugely discounted price or be dumped ignominiously. Tommy knew where all these types of markets were located and the one just outside of Belfort in the Haute Saône region of north-east France had been a regular on his schedule for many years. He was steeped in market trading having since a small boy accompanied and later helped his father Stan who made his living trading in the market towns of outer London and its provinces. He’d learned a lot of tricks from his dad and together with his best friend Rolf he had mastered the knack of selling unwanted goods. The boys’ scam, for that was what it was, had yielded over the course of several years two very nice nest eggs which each was now using according to his own particular philosophy for the conduct of his future working life.
They’d first met as twelve year olds at a grammar school when both had won scholarships. By their classmates with middle-class and professional family backgrounds they were regarded as oddballs: Rolf the immigrant’s son and Tommy, a rough diamond with a working-class upbringing. This had inevitably thrown them together, spending many hours in each other’s company discussing everything under the sun. It had started as a friendship borne of need but would develop over the coming years into one of profound depth and total trust, a partnership of equals with Rolf the instigator and Tommy the adapter. It suited their personalities. Rolf was a closet-introvert and most of the early thrust in his ambition was fuelled by resentment towards his parents; caused, he blamed, by his disabled sister. But he had qualities, often hidden from the casual observer that endeared him to Tommy. He was hardworking, intelligent, interesting with an original slant on life and, where Tommy was concerned, loyal to him to a fault and Rolf had long ago conceded that Tommy’s description of him as “driven” was both fair and accurate. They shared the same sense of humour, it was never boring being with him. He complemented perfectly Tommy’s easygoing, gregarious and cheerful nature and although one mostly led and the other mainly followed it proved to be the strength of their friendship, not a weakness. From a young age Tommy had a need to earn money, his father’s work bringing in only sufficient to meet the family’s basic needs and any treats he wanted he had to fund himself. For Rolf too finance was an important issue for although he received pocket money from his grandparents Rolf had, with a maturity way beyond his age, already identified what he needed to achieve with his savings. Whereas Rolf had grandiose plans regarding his family’s clothing manufacturing company Tommy’s were far more modest. Despite his excellent academic achievements he had spurned the chance of a university education preferring to remain in his own working-class milieu; his ambition to trade in his own right a deep-seated goal but where his father appeared content with low-end products Tommy’s ambition was to go up-market and sell cars from his own plush showroom. His nest egg had given him sufficient capital to rent a small commercial property which he renovated. Situated in a great location it had plenty of
hard standing for second-hand cars. From the outset the business had performed well, giving Tommy little cause to worry about failure, it was a triumph for the business plan he had honed and perfected with Rolf during their schooldays.
Today, his trading day would differ from the norm. He would be packing up his stall mid-afternoon in order to drive the relatively short distance across the border into Switzerland to meet Rolf in Basle. Rolf had asked him to act as a courier, an assignment which would take him to Vaduz, the capital of Liechtenstein. And later, after completion of Rolf’s task, there would be his assignation with Jane. He could hardly wait. They met up that evening in a small but smart hotel in the city centre. After dinner, in the soft twilight of the late evening, they strolled along the banks of the Rhine deep in conversation. They had slipped back effortlessly into the frankness and trust they had shared in their teens despite their increasingly infrequent get-togethers as their working and social lives took them in different directions.
‘So what’s the reason behind you moving the whole contents of your safe deposit to Liechtenstein?’ asked Tommy. ‘I know about the pouch obviously but why the cash and, indeed, the equities too?’
‘It’s all down to the new EU laws relating to offshore banking,’ replied Rolf, ‘in its wisdom the EU has extended its tentacles beyond the frontiers of the Eurozone and wrapped them in a vice-like grip around the throats of some independent countries including Switzerland.’
‘And…’ pressed Tommy.
‘It’s a dry and technical story but the basics are this,’ continued Rolf. ‘Although the European Union was their largest trading partner, the Swiss electorate voted against joining the EU. But as continued trade was still essential, Switzerland negotiated some special bi-lateral treaties which had the effect of making a large chunk of the EU law applicable in Switzerland too. When the global economics started going pear-shaped in 2008 there was international pressure on Switzerland to provide information about bank accounts held in Switzerland by foreign nationals. This finally resulted in 2010 with individual agreements with various countries for disclosure of assets held in numbered accounts by their own citizens and hence the move!’
‘I see but why Liechtenstein?’
‘Chatting with a business acquaintance one day I learned for the first time about the new Anglo-Swiss tax agreement that is due to come into force in January 2013 and when I delved into the subject on the internet I found that there were two options available to me,’ continued Rolf, ‘I could either pay an assessment of unpaid taxes based on a sliding scale of the average value of my assets over the years with a minimum rate payable of twenty-one percent or choose the option of the Liechtenstein disclosure facility. There are advantages and disadvantages for both. If you chose the former then any tax you would pay would be paid anonymously so your name is not given to HMRC but by the same token you cannot prove to them that you have paid the tax. With the latter option the disadvantage is that you are made known to them but they do send you a certificate showing you have paid. Also, with the latter option the person or party disclosing the information to the Swiss and British tax authorities is not liable to criminal investigation, an important point bearing in mind that most of the portfolio grew out of the money we made from the scam!’
Deep in thought they hadn’t noticed the streets becoming deserted as the hour hand passed eleven o’clock and the good burghers of Basle prepared for their early rise the following morning to be at their office desks punctually just before eight o’clock. They made their way back to the hotel for a nightcap in the hotel’s tiny and intimate bar where several visitors were still enjoying what remained of the day.
‘I have a confession to make to you Tommy,’ said Rolf quietly. ‘I’ve always told you everything and been happy to do so but I’ve held something back and I don’t feel comfortable about it, so I want to put that right and now seems opportune.’
‘Go on.’
‘It’s a long story but I guess you have the time to hear it, although we mustn’t forget that we have to be at the bank early tomorrow morning as my appointment is at eight-fifteen.’
‘I’m all ears,’ replied Tommy arching his eyebrows to show his full attention.
‘It’s about the Berghoffs really,’ started Rolf, ‘the Berghoffs and their land. My father escaped from Germany in the mid-1930s. Our family came from a region in the north-east that was known then as Prussia, where we can trace our roots back for several centuries. Well one day my father had a run-in with some members of the regime’s youth brigade, Prussian autocracy clashed with brown shirts. When Father called them thugs of low standing they brandished broken bottles in his face, he took to his heels and was lucky to escape their pursuit but he became a marked man. The Berghoffs were well known in the district and it wasn’t long before some Nazi officials were hammering on the family’s front door braying for his blood. He fled from the house via a servant’s door while my grandfather was arguing with the officials, running down and hiding in the cemetery at the bottom of the formal gardens from where he escaped into the nearby woods.’
Rolf paused for a moment to find the right words to give a concise account of what more he had to say.
‘Most of this you already know,’ he continued, ‘but this is what you don’t. My grandfather was fearful of the impending war and his own survival and just before he engaged the officials in delaying tactics he told my father very hurriedly about a family heirloom. It was, apparently, very valuable and had been handed down the line of male heirs over several centuries, always being kept hidden with only two people at any one time knowing of its existence and location, the current head of the family and his male heir. He made my father commit its location to memory and got him to promise to hand it down in his turn. He then removed his wristwatch, a timepiece of distinction made by a famous horologist, and slipped it on my father’s hand. They embraced and Father fled, he never saw his own father again.’
‘I know the watch,’ said Tommy gravely. ‘I admired it on Max’s wrist and now on yours.’
‘Father had the back inscribed to remind him of his heritage. You must have seen him flip it face side down on its expandable strap and run a finger over the inscription. He was always doing it, a habit he couldn’t seem to resist. I felt so proud when Father passed it down to me on our return from the homeland trip. It’s my only souvenir of my grandfather,’ sighed Rolf. ‘I never met him.’
‘What happened next?’ asked Tommy knowing there was more to come.
‘Nothing for many years, nothing in fact until the Berlin Wall was ripped down in 1990. Our homeland was in the new East Germany and travel there wasn’t permitted until the Ulbricht regime was toppled. My father told me about the heirloom, or prize or whatever it was, shortly afterwards suggesting that we go there together to find any remains of our old family estate and to see if we could recover the object. He’d fled Germany more than fifty years previously and had no information about any remaining family members. He assumed all had either perished in the fierce fighting around Berlin at the end of the war or were dead simply due to old age.’
‘So you went there.’
‘Yes,’ answered Rolf, ‘even though I didn’t care a jot about the heirloom.’
‘Because you sensed the possibility of building a better relationship with your father,’ anticipated Tommy with keen insight.
‘He’s getting on and all the resentment I felt towards him since childhood now seems stupid.’
‘I’m glad you did, it was the right thing to do. I’d hate to be on bad terms with my parents,’ said Tommy reflectively. ‘So did you find the prize?’
‘We flew into Tempelhof airport and hired a car, a Trabant! Remember those?’
‘Worst cars in the world they were reputed to be. Tinny and always breaking down. You needed a sense of humour to drive one of those.’
‘Couldn’t get
anything else,’ recalled Rolf. ‘We drove off in the direction of Magdeburg hoping that we could get there in an afternoon but the car couldn’t handle a sustained drive and we had to keep stopping to let the engine cool down. The countryside was drab and forlorn and the few buildings we passed were rundown, people were shabbily dressed and seemed uninterested when we enquired about a place to spend the night. Next day we motored on, my father guiding us on instinct alone until he spotted a low range of hills, one with a plateau, and bordered by a forest of pines. He seemed to recall it from his days out hiking with school friends. From there he found it possible to work out the southern extremity of our estate even though there was no sign of buildings just areas of rubble. It was his instinct again that led us to the cemetery and although mostly intact it was in a neglected state overgrown with grasses and brambles and with many headstones broken or lying on the ground. It took some time to find the correct grave, my great grandmother’s, as the headstone was in two pieces lying inscription side down. I’d taken a trowel with me and as no one was around Father directed me to scrape away at the indentation in the soil caused by the weight of the headstone and within a few minutes we heard a sharp noise as the trowel came into contact with something metallic. It was a small box with surprisingly little rust although when I tried to open it with the tip of the trowel it put up stout resistance. We were back seated in the car by this time and Father took out the content of the box which was wrapped in what had probably been an oily cloth but was now dry and stiff. As we pulled it off, it tore and shredded as if it didn’t want to reveal its matter. Neither of us knew what to expect, even Father had never seen it before but when we did we were both left speechless, gobsmacked. It was wondrous.’
‘What was it?’ asked Tommy eagerly.
‘I want to tell you Tommy but I can’t. My father asked me to promise there and then that I would respect his wish for me to try to continue the family tradition. Also, not only is it probably very valuable but our family may have acquired it as a prize of war or even stolen or looted it as there were lots of foreign armies fighting in that part of Prussia in the 1700s. I wouldn’t want to burden you unnecessarily.’
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