Unsafe Deposit

by J. E. Kellenberger

  ‘A reward sounds good to me. What’s the drawback?’

  ‘Paul counselled caution. Handing them back to the police is one thing, receiving an insurance reward is potentially far more dangerous. They will want chapter and verse in terms of details about how, when and where we got them and we’ll have to prove that we are not the thieves. Paul said they will assume that we are guilty until we prove our innocence. They’re blood suckers getting your premiums but very astute at finding ways to wheedle out of claims.’

  ‘Proving our innocence could be tricky,’ Doug agreed but the prospect appealed to him.

  ‘I’d love to get hold of a lump sum,’ he admitted to Ruth. ‘I could pay off my ex-wife with a final one-off payment and she would be free to remarry without losing her alimony. I’m sure one of our divorce solicitors could broker a good deal for both of us. It would be lovely to be shot of her.’

  ‘So you wouldn’t spend it on a world cruise or a Ferrari?’

  ‘Absolutely not! Ex-wife off my back first, world cruise second on my list if I could ever afford to retire.’

  A few moments passed while they looked intensely at one another, Doug wishing he had had the courage to add, “or honeymoon if I ever re-married” and Ruth wondering if she could ever give up the independence that she so greatly valued to share her life with another man.

  ‘Paul is having no luck tracing the silver saloon. There are just too many combinations of the last three letters in the number, more than fifteen thousand possibilities apparently. Unfortunately silver is the most popular colour and saloon the most popular shape. His contact in the force checked the number against the stolen car register and came up with loads, so not much hope there either.’

  ‘Hallo Paul,’ said the friendly voice on his mobile. ‘It’s John Price speaking.’

  ‘Hallo John,’ replied Paul, ‘does your call mean you have some news for me about the car?’

  ‘Yes it does and it might just be your lucky day! A silver saloon was involved in an RTA yesterday morning in Stepney. The driver was uninjured although his nearside wing was badly crumpled. He’d only had the motor a couple of days. The vehicle he hit, a red Smart car, was severely damaged and the occupant carted away by ambulance to hospital. All unremarkable I know except the registration is LN07 TWP and the offside door shows signs of the paintwork having been touched up along the sill, not very well, a bit amateurish. Still not incredibly remarkable but you had mentioned the possibility of someone, while in the driver’s seat, being able to open the front passenger door with force and that there might be some modification to the door’s inside panel. This is where it gets interesting because on the inside of the door near the handle are three neat but distinct screw holes and I could just imagine the end bracket of a curtain rod being attached to the door panel via the three holes and the end of a sawn down curtain rod being pushed into the bracket. Are you with me Paul?’

  ‘I certainly am,’ answered Paul immediately. ‘Who’s the owner?’

  ‘A Mr Darren Smith of Chingford bought the Toyota Yaris. He probably paid quite a bit for as it looks to be in good nick.’

  ‘You said he’d only had it for a couple of days. Who was the previous owner?’

  ‘A firm of second-hand car dealers Cahill & Dawes. They sell what they call “quality” cars. Operate out of a couple of sites along the Essex border.’

  ‘Thanks John for all your efforts. I owe you one,’ said Paul gratefully.

  ‘You’re welcome. When I need a favour done I’ll know where to come,’ said a happy-sounding John.

  Paul drove out to the documented address of Cahill & Dawes near junction twenty-nine of the M25. There was a car for sale on every square inch of the forecourt and he had to park in the street. The showroom was well kept and surprisingly plush and the three used cars on display were high-end German makes with price tags over £20,000. A slim man, in his early thirties Paul guessed, was sitting at a desk with his back to the showroom window tapping away on the keyboard of his desktop computer. Seeing Paul enter, he stood up and walked over.

  ‘Can I help or are you just browsing?’ he asked his prospective customer in a genial manner.

  ‘You’ve got three good-looking motors in here,’ said Paul, looking around admiringly, ‘but sadly I’m not here as a buyer. I’ve been asked by an insurance company to get some gen on a car you sold very recently to a Mr Darren Smith.’ Paul flashed his business card quickly at the salesman, hoping he wouldn’t see the firm’s name too clearly and definitely, hoping that he wouldn’t remember it.

  ‘The car in question is a metallic silver Toyota Yaris, LN07 TWP. It’s been in an RTA and the insurance company is trying to piece together its history as they believe it’s been the subject of a fraudulent claim in the past. Can you tell me how you acquired it please?’

  ‘I remember the car and the punter,’ the salesman said. ‘It was just a few days ago and I made the sale. I’m Jack Dawes as in Cahill & Dawes. I’m usually here with my assistant but on that particular day he was needed to provide cover at our other showroom in East Ham so I was here alone.’

  Paul had to stifle a giggle at the mention of his name Jack Dawes. How could parents be so cruel or so stupid as to burden their offspring with a name like that! He could just think of all the cruel expressions his classmates must have called him at school.

  ‘Which insurance company did you say?’ the salesman enquired.

  ‘Allied Insurance,’ replied Paul assuredly. ‘They’re not suggesting that you are involved in any way, they are just trying to work back to its original registration in 2007.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Who did you purchase it from?’ asked Paul, pulling out a notebook from his jacket pocket to look as convincing in the role of investigator of insurance frauds as possible.

  ‘The partnership bought it at a car auction in Romford on, let me see, last Monday I think but I would have to check the paperwork to confirm the date. Good little motors those Toyota Yaris. It was European Car of the Year when it was introduced. It had a bit of damage to the offside front door sill, paintwork chipped and a couple of small dents and I was going to get the door sorted but before I could do so this punter, Mr Smith, made me a decent offer which took account of the damaged door and said he’d touch up the paintwork himself. He wasn’t worried about the small dents.

  Thanking Mr Dawes for his time, Paul pondered his next move, how to discover the name of the owner who sold it to the car auction company. This was the key, the person who owned the car when it was used to intentionally harm Doug. Getting this information out of the DVLA or the auction firm was likely to prove far trickier than squeezing it from the unprepared car salesman. They would claim red tape prevented them from disclosing such details. He couldn’t go back to John Price, his contact in the force, as he’d used up all his credit there! No, some other way would have to be found but right now he was bereft of ideas.

  ***

  The 18.02 from Waterloo to Southampton calling at Woking, Winchester and Winchelsea was delayed by a signals failure outside Woking station and Arthur was steaming when he alighted at Winchester almost forty minutes late. He had rung Jane on his mobile from the train carriage to warn her of his late arrival and she was dutifully waiting for him just outside the main exit with engine running. She sensed he was in a foul mood even before he got into the car. Normally she would drive the short distance of three miles or so home but this evening he came round immediately to the driver’s side and gesticulated in no uncertain terms for her to swap seats. She held her breath worrying about what had brought this on. Was it just the delay or something else? She’d made a faux pas earlier in the day when answering her mobile. Thinking it was Tommy, she had responded to the musical ring tone with a “Hallo Tommy, I was hoping you would ring” without waiting for the caller to give their name only to find that it wasn’t Tommy
at the other end, it was one of her girlfriends and there ensued an embarrassing pause with both parties reflecting on the situation. ‘Is that the Tommy we met at the dogs,’ her girlfriend had asked rather tartly, ‘sounds like you are rather smitten.’

  ‘No, no, no,’ Jane had replied, the words stumbling out of her mouth. ‘It was another Tommy, the Tommy from the partially sighted charity, the young man I guided around Hampton Court the other day when the charity had its outing there.’ Jane had been perspicacious with her reply but she wasn’t sure her excuse had been believed. I can’t afford another slip up like that, she thought. I’d better get another mobile, a basic model. Pay-as-you-go and give the number only to Tommy. Pay cash when I need to top it up. No incoming bills showing telephone numbers dialled during the preceding period. That would be much safer, she concluded.

  She had not seen Arthur like this since their encounter with a tout outside the Wimbledon tennis championships on men’s semi-finals day several years previous. In an unforgettable scene the tout and Arthur had almost come to blows when the tout, who seemed to know Arthur, enquired with a smirk on his face, about the wellbeing of Arthur’s father. Out of character Arthur had got hold of his lapels and told the tout to mind his own business. Jane had pulled Arthur away and as they walked into the grounds the tout had shouted out “you’ve come from nothing and you’ll end up as nothing”. Arthur had taken some time to calm down and had looked flushed and remained silent for the rest of the day. Jane had known better than to make a comment but had spent the first set of Sampras versus someone or other wondering if Arthur’s imperfect Home Counties accent tied in with the tout’s comment.

  There wasn’t much fun to be had in the Meares’ family home that evening. Arthur had slammed as many doors as he could and after a tense meal he had put himself incommunicado in the study, thankfully as far as Jane was concerned. Too agitated to sit down Arthur had paced the square-shaped room to and fro, back and forth, side to side with wild thoughts flowing incessantly through his head. How badly was his position compromised by the note in the jiffy bag? He wasn’t sure. He’d been thankful to read in the press just recently about the stroke suffered by the CEO of WareWork and reading between the lines the suggestion that recovery was unlikely. Rolf and Tommy had knowledge of Arthur’s activities but now Rolf was out of the equation. But as Rolf left the scene the note writer entered. Tommy and A.N.Other could unmask him, how likely was that? Then there were the Ruby Reds. They had sat in the safe deposit for years, Ron and Lizzie not knowing their provenance or their extreme value. All his future plans for them now in jeopardy because they were no longer under his control. Somebody else was calling the shots. He opened the desk’s top drawer and slammed it back as hard as he could. The computer screen quivered as if in harmony with his lost temper. He’d researched the Ruby Reds meticulously. They were worth far more than all the other stones put together and that was saying something as several individual diamonds were of exceptional quality. Ron and Lizzie, Arthur judged, didn’t have the intellect to appreciate that the six rubies individually were no match in value compared to one of the smaller diamonds but when put together with their history they outshone all the other stones. Of course, the Ruby Reds couldn’t be sold to someone who would put them into circulation, they had to go to a private collector and he alone had the contacts through the old schoolboy network and his longstanding passion for the arts in which he had made many useful acquaintances. But it had to be a special type of private collector, the type whose gallery or museum or showroom was never seen by the outside world, the type who was secretive and amassed works of art or antiquities or fabulous jewellery for his own ego. Someone who had grown spectacularly rich on the back of some lucky chance or some invention: they’d struck oil, or gas, or invented a new type of packaging, or sold software in the billions or reinvented some humble kitchen appliance. Those men were now billionaires and for some there was no other goal in life than to create a dynasty in their own likeness. Lack of knowledge of the fine arts was no bar to their lust for famous paintings, or genuine Chippendale, or a handwritten letter by a famous world leader or a Fabergé egg. If it was sought after they would win the bid at auction and whatever it was would be lost to the world for the next few decades or centuries. For someone like Arthur it was a crime that beautiful objects and priceless historical documents were no longer in the public domain where they could be enjoyed by those who would appreciate their true beauty and importance. Arthur had planned it all. With the lease of the Ludgate Hill building rapidly running out he would pay off Ron and Lizzie with the diamonds and keep The Ruby Reds, sapphires and emeralds for himself. He would close down his import/export firm, cease all criminal activities and retire to Winchester to spend his days helping in his daughter’s antiques shop. He would have the three emeralds and two sapphires set in a brooch and give it to Jane for their thirty-fifth wedding anniversary. All his plans were now subject to regaining the gems. Maybe he should bribe the present holder. He would have to follow the instructions on the jiffy bag note and hope that it would result in a lead. Until then he must control his temper.

  When Jane dropped him off at the station the next day he did his best to apologise for his behaviour the previous evening, explaining that he’d had an extremely difficult day at the office compounded by the delay on his journey home. Opening the door and stepping out, he looked back at Jane through the half-opened door and said sorry. Jane was less sympathetic than on the other rare occasions he’d had reason to reproach himself.

  ‘The angry silence and all that slamming of doors, really Arthur, I thought you’d lost your marbles!’ she said.

  Arthur turned white instantly, the blood draining from his face as if a plug had been removed from a sink. He stood there motionless, unable to speak.

  ‘Loopy, lost the plot, lost your marbles,’ explained Jane, pointing a wagging finger at her own temple.

  ‘Oh! Yes,’ mumbled Arthur. ‘I see what you mean.’

  He closed the door and Jane drove off without waving goodbye.

  Chapter Five

  The Ruby Reds

  500 BC – 1985

  Around fifty million years ago the continental drift of Africa and India towards Asia squeezed the Tethys Sea lying between them. This resulted in the minerals that the converging land masses contained washing off into the ancient water including those minerals necessary for making rubies: aluminium, oxygen, chromium and silica. As the Tethys Sea constricted, the limestone deposits on its floor were pushed deep into the earth where they were fired and compressed as if in an inferno. They slowly metamorphosed over the next forty million years into sparkly marble as the molten stone released fluids which seeped into the rock’s changing structure removing most of its silica content but leaving untouched the alumina. Another result of the shifting continents was the formation of mountainous regions including the Himalayas as the tectonic plates collided. Along these collision contours erosion eventually exposed a collar of ruby deposits from China in the east to East Africa in the west with an abundance of gemstones in the region of Burma.

  Corundum is a rare mineral made up of densely packed aluminium and oxygen atoms. In a process that still has geologists scratching their heads for an adequate explanation of precisely how it happens this normally colourless mineral turns deep red when equally rare chromium atoms are substituted for a few alumina ones. Thus rubies are very rare and considered to be, along with diamonds, sapphires and emeralds, one of the four gemstones of the world. Their property of brilliant radiance when exposed to the sun’s ultra-violet rays had long fascinated and intrigued ancient peoples of the world and became an established part of their folklore.

  Reaching back about ten thousand years, the indigenous population of central-east Africa was thought to have been the click-speaking Hadza and Sandawe hunter-gatherers, who lived nomadic lives in a largely egalitarian society without the need for leaders or followers and in wh
ich men and women were considered equals. At first they roamed the dry, high plateau but later they descended into the vales and basins and were believed to be the first peoples in the Rift Valley. In the first century BC Cushite tribes moved down from Ethiopia and settled throughout East Africa and brought with them basic techniques of agriculture and food production. Farmers learned how to make essential wooden and stone tools and, later, weapons. Bantu-speaking people began to arrive from western Africa in a series of migrations. These groups brought and developed ironworking skills and new ideas of social and political organisation. They absorbed most of the Cushitic peoples who had preceded them. Meanwhile people on the east coast of Africa had contact with various Mediterranean civilizations: the Persians and the Romans sailing as far south as Tanganyika and by the eighth century Arab merchants were settling along the coast and trading with places as far afield as India.

  The hunter-gatherer was foraging for edible plants and large leaves into which the animal meat that had been freshly killed by his tribesmen could be wrapped before being placed into fire pits and allowed to slow-cook over many hours. The gathering of sappy leaves was never easy, as the thick, fibrous stalks tended to bend and split but not separate from the plant itself. But this time it would be different, he had found something he thought might prove useful. In a vale well below an upper plateau his attention had been caught by a transient glint of flaming red as an intense, focused shaft of sunlight fell on a small rock lying ahead of him on the arid, loose, rust-coloured soil. The rock contained a ruby implanted at its surface and when the sunlight fell on it the ultra-violet wavelengths in the light caused the chromium in the ruby to fluoresce. He picked up the rock and tried to dislodge the red stone with a sturdy twig but it would not shift. He pounded the stone against a large rock but the stone would still not yield its contents. Finally he threw the small rock against the jagged edge of a stony escarpment. The rock broke into two separate parts and surrendered its red content.