Tommy spoke from the heart. He and Rolf had been best and loyal friends since they were at school together and in the holidays they had been almost inseparable, sharing their thoughts and aspirations and planning their futures. They had never fallen out and although they saw one another less often over the last two decades they had never lost contact. Tommy then became more serious, stating that he believed his friend had gifted half his shares to him for a reason, that reason being that he should be at the heart of WareWork to ensure that it was well managed but be ready to step in should circumstances dictate. He therefore had the intention of being an active member of the board, albeit part-time. He had his own business, now with three outlets each with its own on-site manager, and so he would be able to devote as much time as was necessary to WareWork’s needs. He believed that Daniel, the founder’s grandson, was the right person to be the next CEO and that he would cast his vote in Daniel’s favour but with two caveats. The first was that Andreé and Marian should withdraw their candidatures for the post of CEO thus leaving Daniel unopposed and allowing him the possibility of being elected unanimously. The second was that he felt the company would benefit greatly from a non-family member holding a position of importance and he suggested that the company elect a deputy CEO, the obvious contenders being Marian or the other Alan. He himself would not seek that role. There were some nods of approval around the table but Andreé made no comment and gave away no body language.
Adam spoke next. He had the delicate task of reminding the board members that he was the son of one of the founders and therefore he too had a valid family interest in WareWork. He added that although he had no offspring his brother Simon had a boy and a girl and that consequently there was a Gadd grandchild employee potentially in the wings. Mustering his courage he went on to mention past problems which had led to a whole series of unhappy events between the two families and fractured what had been until then a valuable relationship. ‘I doubt very much Adam had said that anyone around this table knows the full picture leading to these destabilising circumstances, myself included, and for the good of the company I believe that this particular Pandora’s box should remain firmly closed.’ Despite being the largest individual shareholder he agreed with Tommy that Daniel would be the best choice for CEO and that he too would vote for Daniel. He further agreed that a non-family member should be promoted to a new position of deputy CEO and that, should the board agree to this idea, he would vote for Marian should she wish to stand. The bank man agreed. The least change at the top was best for the share price and, ultimately, the bank loan repayments.
As acting chairman the letter to shareholders inviting them to the forthcoming EGM was sent out in the name of Andreé Walker. The document urged them to vote, either in person or by post, to elect and re-elect the directors named in alphabetical order on the voting card. They also had the option to vote by proxy. It seemed to Andreé that her final chance of becoming the real boss at WareWork was now gone. She would have to support her son which she would do willingly but she realised now just how much she had wanted the top job for herself. It was with a heavy heart that she penned her signature to the EGM letter before it was taken away by her personal assistant to be photocopied thousands of times and posted off to the general public holding WareWork ordinary shares.
***
Ron Lindsey logged onto the “marbles aficionado” billboard on social media in accordance with the instructions contained in the jiffy bag. It was now more than the seventy-two hours dictated in the instructions since Arthur had collected the jiffy bag from the post office box number while he and Lizzie were in Switzerland and had been so furious with the sender that he had failed to deal with the matter. Cutting off his nose to spite his face, Ron had said to Lizzie, that’s no way to get the gems back. We’ll deal with it ourselves. Lizzie had agreed and had said that she wasn’t averse to double crossing Arthur if he was going to flounce off in high dudgeon whenever things didn’t go his way. Leaning over his shoulder Lizzie soon spotted the message posted by “Gary Lembers” about “how to look after your grey marbles”. It had a link and she told Ron to click on it. He did so but the link was a blank page which did nothing to enlighten them. It did however set up a computer trail which one of Ruth’s geeky IT consultant clients would be able to follow.
It was the geeky IT consultant, one of Ruth’s more on-the-ball clients when it came to understanding the subject of investments, who telephoned her.
‘Hallo Ruth,’ he started, ‘I’ve been doing some ferreting to establish the computer trail you wanted. I’ve made a list of UK email addresses that have clicked on the link you set up between midnight on Tuesday to midnight on Friday. It’s not a long list. I’ll email it to you.’
‘Thanks,’ responded Ruth and the geek hung up.
Within minutes she was reading the list. The link had had twenty-three hits. The email addresses looked ordinary, unremarkable even. Mostly first names followed by surnames with an intervening dot or underscore. None of them meant anything to her including “[email protected].” She printed off the list and wondered what to do next.
Arthur was in more controlled mode when they had their next regular get-together in Ron’s office. Ron reported that fake fine wine was still their most profitable scam but that he recommended that they pull the plug on their timeshare swindle on the Costa del Sol as Eastern Europeans were now muscling in and employing threats and violence and he personally didn’t want to have anything to do with that. Arthur and Lizzie concurred. He suggested they revive their counterfeit ticket-touting fiddle concentrating on sporting events. He knew how to get back into this line of business and it should again prove profitable. Arthur and Lizzie concurred. Lizzie then reported that they had followed up the jiffy bag instructions but that it had led to a dead end. Neither she nor Ron offered to do more and they had decided in advance that if Arthur didn’t suggest a further course of action then they would move on the conversation very quickly to their trip to Switzerland and the location of the Croesus treasure. It would become their project alone to find the gems and Arthur would be frozen out. Keep him occupied with this silly treasure hunt, Ron had said and we will sort the gems.
The more Ron and Lizzie related to Arthur about their trip to Switzerland the more evident it became to all three of them that the geometrical shapes on the handkerchief were based on the two new wings added in 1976 to the original factory building and which were represented by the scaled-down rectangles drawn on the handkerchief. Lizzie had said on a previous occasion that the “x and y” were co-ordinates so if they could find their values and the correct scale then they could find the hiding place. The banknotes had been included for some reason and as they hadn’t found any use for them so far they correctly worked out that the numbers on the banknotes must contain the coordinates, the first two numbers or the last two in the string being the most obvious ones. How “watchword” fitted into the scheme of things was still a mystery. Could you find a scale which would pinpoint a location in or around the factory buildings, Lizzie asked Arthur, your mathematics education was at a higher level than ours! Ron mentally nodded at the neat way in which his sister had put the ball very firmly in Arthur’s court, should keep him quiet for a bit.
***
It would have to be a bribe Paul thought. That’s the only way I can get the name and address of the person who sold the silver saloon to the car auction. He dithered a bit as he was unsure whether he would be the right person to try this and in the end he asked his colleague Susan if she would do a private job for him, a favour he was calling in for all the times he had helped her out. A woman was more successful at some aspects of their business than men and he reckoned this was one such instance. Armed with five used ten pound notes Susan attended the next auction at the centre in Barking. It was mid-morning and she watched several cars auctioned off, keeping one eye on the office where payments were made. It seemed to be staffed by two ladi
es only, one sitting at a counter receiving payment from each car purchaser while the other was at a computer workstation, presumably updating records. When the last purchaser of the morning’s auctions left and Susan could see only one lady in the office she entered and asked if she could have some information about a sale made nine days previously. The assistant at the counter immediately said that she wasn’t allowed to give out such information but when Susan flashed the banknotes and said there were five of them she whispered to Susan that she was about to go for her lunch break but if Susan came back about an hour later her supervisor, the lady at the workstation, would go off for her break before the afternoon’s proceedings commenced and then she would have a chance to get the information from the computer records. It was easy-peasy Susan told Paul. The money talked. The car auction records showed that the seller of LN07 TWP appeared to be a Kevin Yorke but there was a little more to it than that. They must have missed it at the time but on close inspection it looked like the registration document had been incorrectly completed with this man’s details and so they had had to contact the owner previous to him to check that the car was bona fide. It was. The previous owner was a company called RLL Marketing of Ludgate Hill in the City of London.
‘Hallo Ruth,’ said Paul. ‘I’ve got some information about the silver saloon.’
‘Great, go ahead Paul. I’m keen to hear your news.’
‘The registration is LN07 TWP not that it will mean anything to you. But it helped me trace back its various owners and, guess what?’
‘You sound jubilant so you must have found a link. Tell me!’
‘It’s our old friend Kevin Yorke, Mr Red Baseball Cap himself.’
‘Is that the person who followed Doug on the train?’ she asked.
‘Yes, the very person himself and there’s more because it looks like the car registration document was tampered with, probably by Kevin.’
‘Oh!’ exclaimed Ruth, not appreciating what this might mean.
Paul continued. ‘Kevin might not have been the true owner. The real owner was probably a firm called RLL Marketing.’
‘RLL Marketing,’ repeated Ruth thoughtfully, ‘that rings a bell.’
After Paul rang off Ruth took out the list she had printed off of the email addresses that had clicked onto the social media website. She ran her finger down the list and stopped when she came to RLL Marketing.
Paul had not been the only one to think that a bribe might get a result. Tommy could not think of a better way or even another way of extracting from Kevin the information about the whereabouts of the tube. He knew that Kevin was motivated by easy money and he’d rather give him money than pretend to be his friend and with Tommy’s childhood connections it shouldn’t prove difficult to seek him out. He found him alone in a grubby burger bar in the East End one overcast Wednesday afternoon and sat down beside him.
‘Want to earn some cash Kevin?’ Tommy asked without a hint of goodwill.
‘Who invited you to sit next to me?’ retorted Kevin, equally lacking in friendliness.
‘Well do you want to earn some cash or don’t you?’
‘That depends how much.’
Tommy withdrew a roll of banknotes from his jacket pocket. Hiding them subtly with his hand from prying eyes in the fast food outlet he opened his fist to reveal the roll to Kevin. ‘This much,’ he said.
‘And how much is this much?’ pressed the ogling Kevin.
‘Five hundred pounds if you’ve got the information I want. And don’t tell me that’s not enough because you won’t be getting more.’
‘A bribe is it?’
‘Let’s call it an inducement.’
‘So what do you want to know?’ enquired Kevin.
‘What did you do with the two items I handed over to you in Liechtenstein, the pouch and the tube? And don’t even think of lying or making up an answer because if you do I’ll find out and come after you,’ said Tommy very firmly.
Kevin recounted the sequence of events in Vaduz, the return to England by train and the compost heap saga.
‘After that I don’t know what happened,’ ended Kevin.
‘Is that all you know?’ said Tommy disappointedly.
‘Yes, absolutely all!’
‘Well it’s not enough for five hundred pounds,’ snapped Tommy. ‘Can you find out more?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like where it is now!’
‘Maybe,’ said Kevin, stringing Tommy along. He did actually have a bit more knowledge. Not much that went on in his particular criminal patch passed him by and anything he did miss his father Darren picked up. It was his father who had mentioned that Joe McKay had seemed flush with cash a little while ago when they had had a drink together in their local. After a couple of pints or so Joe had bragged a bit about a robbery he had done recently and what he had stolen. He claimed he did it with Ron Lindsey’s sister Lizzie although he didn’t know if the wig she was wearing was to disguise herself from the victim or from him!
‘Was it both items you wanted?’
‘Yes, but particularly the tube.’
‘I’ll ask around, Dad might know. I’ll have the dosh now,’ said Kevin, holding out his hand.
‘No you won’t. You’ll get it when you deliver the goods and not before.’
‘What nothing in advance!’
‘No, nothing in advance Kevin, I’ll give you twenty-four hours to get the information and I’ll meet you this time tomorrow just inside the main entrance of London Bridge tube station. Be there with a useful lead and you’ll get the five hundred quid.’
Kevin swivelled round on the bar stool, got off and left. He made a rude gesture in Tommy’s direction but Tommy didn’t see this as he was bending down to pick up the red baseball cap from the floor. I’ll give it to him tomorrow, Tommy thought.
It was raining the next day and the entrance to the tube station was crowded. Tommy took up position early and scanned the commuters as they hurried in and out. Eventually he spotted Kevin.
‘I’ve got a lead for you,’ said Kevin, looking at the red baseball cap in Tommy’s clenched hand.
‘Let’s hear it.’
‘Word on the street is that Ron Lindsey is involved. Here’s his address,’ said Kevin as he passed a slip of paper to Tommy. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Yeah, I know him,’ he said, handing over to Kevin the banknotes rolled up in the baseball cap.
***
On an early October morning Ruth arrived at the allotments on her bicycle. Rosemary’s small van was parked in the roadway just outside the entrance to the plots. Her friend made cakes for a living, a job that suited her flighty, creative and excitable character to a tee. She delivered the cakes in her cheery yellow and purple striped van with “Rosemary’s Cakes” emblazoned on each side panel. Having been professionally trained in the patisserie section of a leading hotel in London’s West End, her cakes were widely known in the locale to be works of art as well as scrumptious. All her work was commissioned, mostly wedding, anniversary and christening cakes and sometimes she was asked to do cakes for special events. She always did a special one every year for the Allotments AGM depicting a scene of one of the holder’s plots. At the AGM they would crowd around the cake to guess whose plot it was, the hut or shed or water butt usually being the giveaway. Wheeling her bike up the narrow strips between plots to the far end, Ruth stopped at Rosemary’s shed and went in. Rosemary was busy sowing various seeds for overwintering in her cold frame to bring to germination. Ruth declined the offer of a cup of tea as she hadn’t much time to do all the jobs she knew needed to be done and with a few words and a quick reassuring glance at the bag of seed potatoes under the workbench she went to her own plot and got started. She was way behind her normal schedule, being distracted by the events of September, and the developing friends
hip with Doug. She would really have to get stuck into hoeing and weeding today.
Using a long handle hoe Ruth was absorbed in her task, looking steadily down at the ground and admiring the clean earth as she weeded it. Suddenly there was a deafening crack and Ruth looked up just in time to see a large and heavy branch of the black poplar tree which formed part of the boundary of the allotments fall to the ground in a swift and lethal movement giving no time for anyone or anything under its path to save themselves. The branch was long and, although the main weight fell on a few plastic cloches protecting some delicate seedlings, its distal end went crashing through Rosemary’s shed. With her mouth open in horror and disbelief it took Ruth several seconds to mentally process the situation. It was not until the creaking of the smashed and splintered wood and the sharp report of the shattered window panes ceased that Ruth sprang into action. By this time other plot holders were running to the scene and she heard one already calling the emergency services on his mobile for help. Dreading what she would find, Ruth called Rosemary’s name and was relieved beyond all measure to hear a whispered answer. She was alive at least. ‘Help is on the way Rosemary,’ she had called back. ‘It will be here very soon. Hold on. It won’t be long before we get you out.’ Someone called out not to touch anything while they were waiting as it might make matters worse and it wasn’t long before they heard the scream of the emergency sirens.
The paramedics arrived first, running from their ambulance to the scene to assess the situation. Within seconds of their arrival the wailing of the fire brigade siren was heard and the officer in charge was soon by their side. Ruth told them that the lady inside, Rosemary, had at first responded to her call but that she couldn’t get any reply now. One of the paramedics said it was probably because she was in shock. If she was trapped they would have to work quickly to release her as early treatment was vital in cases of shock. The firemen raced back to their engine to get the necessary cutting equipment and the officer asked Ruth to keep talking to Rosemary, reassuring her while they planned her extraction. With a modified chainsaw and men supporting the fallen branch, they cut through the limb, severing the farthest part from the lower portion. As they firmly but gently lifted it up, disentangling it from the demolished shed material, Rosemary became visible. The paramedics were instantly by her side checking her vital signs and nodding back towards Ruth and her fellow allotment members that Rosemary was still alive. From what they could see she looked awfully bloodied but it was a relief to learn that she was still living. With heavy-duty loppers and other cutting gear the firemen freed her left shoulder and arm from the strewn debris whilst the paramedics were busy loosening her clothing and keeping her warm. They transferred her deftly to a stretcher but couldn’t wheel her away as the narrow walkways between plots were too tight for their wheeled stretcher. Four firemen carried her to the waiting ambulance where she was hoisted carefully into the vehicle and a paramedic strapped her in and prepared her for the drive to A & E. Ruth accompanied them, forgetting that she had left her bicycle unchained.
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