by Graham Ison
It all now depended on what further information Horst Fischer had for us. It looked as though a trip to Germany wasn’t out of the question after all, but that was something I’d have to take up with our beloved commander at a later date.
As Linda left the office, she almost collided with Kate Ebdon on her way in.
‘I’ve seen Guy Wilson, guv. He was the man who lived opposite the scene of the fire, and who called the fire brigade.’
‘Did he have anything useful to say?’ I asked.
‘Of sorts,’ said Kate, accepting my offer to sit down in my only available armchair. ‘About ten minutes before he saw that the camper van was on fire, he claims to have seen a car driving away from the scene. The best he could do was to describe it as a silver-grey family saloon. No index mark, nothing.’
‘To be expected, I suppose, and he probably wouldn’t be able to recognize it again.’
‘Not a chance,’ said Kate.
‘Anything else?’
‘Yes, he was a self-opinionated galah.’
Later that day, Horst Fischer came up with more information.
‘I’ve just received an email from the German police officer in Essen, sir,’ said Colin Wilberforce, handing me the printout as he entered my office.
‘Is it good news?’ I asked, although I didn’t hold out much hope.
‘I wouldn’t know, sir, it’s all in German,’ said Wilberforce.
‘Fischer was getting the German counter-espionage service to decode a list he’d found on Eberhardt’s computer,’ I said, running my eye over the email. ‘He thought it might contain details of Eberhardt’s targets and it appears from this that they succeeded.’
The list contained over twenty names of people in the United Kingdom who had been swindled by Eberhardt. Nine of them were in the Greater London area, five in Birmingham and five in Manchester. The rest were scattered around the country, but that there were none in Scotland didn’t surprise me. The Scots are a canny lot. Fischer went on to say that he had omitted the names of people in other parts of the world, but was willing to forward them if I felt we needed them.
I walked out to the incident room and gathered the team together. Bringing them up to speed on what Horst Fischer had passed on, I explained about the list that he had discovered and which had been decoded by the BfV.
‘I’m going to split you up into nine pairs,’ I said, ‘and allocate one of these London addresses to each pair. Pay them a visit, starting tomorrow morning.’ I noted their looks of surprise. ‘Yes, I know it’s a Sunday, but this is a murder enquiry. Don’t give any indication that that’s what we’re dealing with, but merely suggest that we’re investigating a large-scale fraud involving bogus share certificates. I want you to keep your eyes open and report anything that you think might warrant further enquiries. If that doesn’t yield anything, then we’ll have to go further afield. Oh, and one other thing . . .’ I told the team about the silver-grey car that Guy Wilson claimed to have seen. ‘If any of the scam victims has a car, just make a note of it, but don’t ask any questions.’
Detective Sergeant Lizanne Carpenter and Detective Constable Sheila Armitage had been allocated an address in Pinner in what was once the county of Middlesex. Some sixteen miles from Whitehall, Pinner was a place that the residents liked to style ‘a village’ even though it was now a part of Greater London.
It was a moderately sized detached house, built probably between the wars, and had survived the redevelopment of its particular area. It now stood alone and slightly forlorn among the blocks of new flats that had proliferated to accommodate the young upwardly mobile professionals who wanted easy access to central London. And the Metropolitan Line of the Underground railway provided it.
The grey-haired woman who answered the door must have been well into her seventies, was stooped and leaned heavily on a walking stick. She was dressed in a sweater and a skirt in the pattern of an invented tartan. Her pair of flat suede shoes looked as though they had been selected for their comfort rather than their style. Despite the warm weather she wore a heavy cardigan.
‘Catherine Fairfax?’
‘Who wants to know?’ The woman spoke with a refined accent and regarded the young women who stood on her doorstep with a measure of suspicion.
‘We’re police officers, Ms Fairfax,’ said Lizanne, producing her warrant card. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Carpenter and this is Detective Constable Armitage.’
‘What’s it about?’ Catherine Fairfax still sounded sceptical at the arrival of two policewomen on her doorstep on a Sunday morning.
‘It’s about certain investments we believe you to have made, Ms Fairfax.’
‘You’d better come in,’ said the woman, and opening the door wide led them into a sitting room. ‘I’m sorry I’m only hobbling along, but I’ve had an arthritic hip for some years now and the damned doctors don’t seem to be able to do anything for me,’ she added, seemingly irritated both by her disability and the medical profession.
‘We must apologize for calling on a Sunday morning, Ms Fairfax, but police work’s a bit like that.’
‘That’s all right, my dear. I gave up going to church some years ago. There didn’t seem to be much point in it any more. Please sit down.’
The two detectives settled themselves on a large sofa. The room was sparsely furnished, but the remaining items appeared to be of good quality. The impression was of a woman who had been obliged to sell various cherished pieces in order to make ends meet. On a side table there was a silver-framed photograph of a handsome man in army uniform with red tabs on the collar.
‘That’s my late husband, General Sir Michael Fairfax,’ volunteered his widow. ‘He died about five years ago.’ There was a momentary pause. ‘And that makes me Lady Fairfax,’ she added, in a tone that was almost apologetic and certainly didn’t imply censure for having been addressed incorrectly.
‘I’m so sorry, Lady Fairfax,’ said Lizanne. ‘The list we got from the German police merely named you as Catherine Fairfax.’
Lady Fairfax waved a hand of dismissal. ‘You weren’t to know, my dear. Anyway, my husband always referred to the title as something that came up with the rations. Generals get it automatically, you see.’ She smiled at the recollection. ‘But why have the German police taken an interest in me?’
‘Without wearying you with the details, it was as a result of an incident in this country.’ Lizanne had been instructed not to mention the murders. ‘We had to get in touch with the police in Essen and one thing led to another. However, they sent us a list of names of people in this country who had allegedly been swindled out of large sums of money.’
‘And there’s little doubt that I was one of them,’ said Lady Fairfax, with a sad shake of her head. ‘It would never have happened when Michael was alive.’
‘How did it come about, Lady Fairfax?’ asked Sheila Armitage.
Catherine Fairfax did not immediately answer the question. ‘I’m so sorry, I haven’t offered you girls a cup of tea. And as you’ve come from London you could probably do with one.’ She made it sound as though the capital was a hundred miles away instead of less than an hour’s drive.
‘There’s no need, Lady Fairfax, unless you were having one yourself.’
‘I was about to put the kettle on when you arrived, as a matter of fact.’
‘Let me help you, then,’ said Sheila, leaping to her feet.
‘That’s very kind of you, my dear. It’ll certainly get it made quicker. I have a nasty habit of dropping things these days. I’ve given up using my best crockery. What little of it I have left.’ Catherine Fairfax displayed her gnarled hands. ‘It’s the arthritis, you see.’
Once the three of them were settled again, and the tea had been poured, Lady Fairfax began her story.
‘I had a telephone call from a very nice young man who introduced himself as a share broker located in the City; at least that’s what he led me to believe. He said that he was sure I’d got some spare cas
h just sitting in a bank, and he could make it work for me and produce a substantial profit.’
‘Did you wonder how he knew you’d got some capital to spare?’ asked Sheila.
‘I did at first, but then I imagined that being a share broker he somehow had access to my account. I don’t have a computer myself, but I understand that one can do something called hacking. I seem to recall something about a newspaper doing that sort of thing.’ Catherine Fairfax glanced at Lizanne. ‘Have I got that right?’
‘It is a possibility,’ said Lizanne, without mentioning that hacking into a bank account required a high level of computer expertise. ‘And presumably you took this young man’s advice?’
‘Unfortunately, my dear, yes I did,’ said Lady Fairfax ruefully. ‘You see I had a nest egg of some forty thousand pounds tucked away. And it was quite true when the young man said it wasn’t doing anything. Ever since the banking crisis and this Eurozone nonsense, I was getting hardly any interest and, despite what you may think, the pension of a general’s widow doesn’t amount to very much. Michael retired from the army thirty-one years ago, and in real terms the pension has been diminishing all the time. And a widow only gets half of that anyway.’
‘And how much did you invest, Lady Fairfax?’ asked Sheila Armitage, making notes in her pocketbook.
‘Twenty thousand at first.’
‘At first?’ Sheila looked up, carefully disguising her astonishment.
‘He came back to me again, and said that the launch of this company was looking very promising and that there had been great interest worldwide. He went on to say that he wanted me to get in on the ground floor, so after a bit of persuasion I invested another twenty thousand. He assured me that I would more than double my money.’
‘Did you take any independent advice before investing this amount of money, Lady Fairfax?’ asked Lizanne.
‘No, I’m afraid I didn’t, my dear, and I suppose you think I’m just a foolish old woman.’
‘Not at all. Even experienced financiers have been tricked by people of this sort,’ said Lizanne. ‘Have you any idea where this man had his office? You said he was in the City.’
‘I presumed that’s where it was. It was certainly a City of London address on the letter that came with the certificates. Let me show you what they sent me.’ The old lady rose unsteadily from her chair and crossed to an escritoire that stood in the corner of the room next to a small television set. She spent a few seconds ferreting about in an untidy accumulation of paper before producing a large envelope. ‘It’s all there,’ she said, handing it to Lizanne.
The envelope contained a sheaf of ornate share certificates purporting to show an investment in some emerging international company of information technology developers based in Buenos Aires. And to add a hint of authenticity it claimed that the company was linked to an unnamed corporation in North California, the area known colloquially as Silicon Valley. Accompanying the shares was an impressive letter headed with an address in the City of London and dated eighteen months ago. The letter was signed by someone who called himself Anthony Cook. Lizanne Carpenter was in no doubt that the name and the address were as false as the share certificates that would probably match those that had been found in Hans Eberhardt’s basement in Kettwig.
‘Presumably you didn’t receive any dividends, Lady Fairfax,’ said Lizanne.
‘Not a brass farthing, my dear. I tried telephoning, but the number had been disconnected, and I’m too old and infirm to go traipsing up to the City. So I suppose that’s that.’
‘How did you pay this man the money, Lady Fairfax?’ enquired Sheila Armitage.
‘I wrote cheques to the account shown in the letter and paid them into my bank.’ Lady Fairfax gestured at the documents Lizanne was holding.
‘Well, we’ll certainly follow that up,’ said Lizanne.
‘I doubt if the money’s still there, my dear. In fact, when I spoke to some girl at the bank she told me that the cash had already been forwarded, and that the account that it had been sent to had been closed.’
‘I’m afraid that’s standard procedure in this sort of case, Lady Fairfax,’ said Lizanne. ‘Even so, you might be eligible for some compensation under the Proceeds of Crime Act if any monies are recovered, but first we have to find the fraudsters and convict them. I don’t want to buoy up your hopes because these people tend to move their money from one offshore account to another and it’s very difficult, if not impossible, to trace it. The likelihood of recovery is remote to say the least. What’s more, anything got back would have to be shared out among all the parties who’ve been defrauded by this particular individual.’
‘I suppose you think I’m just a silly old woman,’ said Lady Fairfax, once again.
‘Not at all. These people can be very persuasive.’ Lizanne left unspoken her opinion of people who combined stupidity with avarice. ‘I’m sorry to say that people fall for this sort of fraud almost every day.’ She tapped the envelope containing the certificates. ‘May I hold on to these? I’ll give you a receipt, of course.’
‘Certainly. They’re no good to me. I’m glad that Michael’s not still alive. He’d’ve had something to say about it, I can tell you. But then if he’d still been here it wouldn’t have happened.’
‘Did you discuss this with anyone, Lady Fairfax?’ asked Sheila Armitage. ‘Once you’d realized that you’d been swindled.’
‘I spoke to my solicitor and he had a look at the certificates, but he said what you’ve just said. In short, that I’d been seen off by a clever fraudster. He suggested I should tell the police, but that I’d probably be wasting my time and theirs. Funnily enough I mentioned it to a friend of mine, and he’d fallen for it too.’
‘The same shares?’ asked Lizanne.
‘Yes, and the same letter. He was in the army, as well. He’s a retired sergeant major I meet at our social club. He’s about my age, I suppose, perhaps a little older, and he claimed to have remembered Michael. He said the general was highly respected by the men, but he would say that wouldn’t he? You know how crafty old soldiers can be.’ She smiled. ‘But there again perhaps you don’t.’
‘Is this club local?’ asked Sheila, still busily making notes.
‘Yes, it’s here in Pinner. He’s become a good friend over the years and he collects me in his car every Tuesday to go to the club.’
‘That’s very good of him. Perhaps you’d give me his name and address. We’d like to have a word with him, in case he’s able to give us some more information.’ Following Brock’s instructions, Sheila asked no questions about what sort of car the man drove.
‘It’s William.’ Catherine Fairfax paused. ‘I’m just trying to remember his surname. Ah, yes, I’ve got it, it’s Rivers, William Rivers, but he told me he was always known as Billy in the army, after Billy Two Rivers. The army’s very good at giving one nicknames. I know my husband had one, but I can’t remember what it was now.’
‘Do you have an address for Mr Rivers?’
‘I’m afraid not, my dear. I only know he lives locally, but I couldn’t tell you where.’
‘Thank you, Lady Fairfax,’ said Lizanne, as she and Sheila Armitage rose to leave, ‘and thank you for the tea. I’d like to say that we’ll have good news for you next time we meet, but if I’m honest I very much doubt it.’
SIX
‘Mr Brock, a moment of your time, if you please.’
‘Yes, sir,’ I said, and replaced the receiver.
Why the hell couldn’t the commander just wander into my office for a chat like any real detective instead of telephoning me? But I knew the answer: he wasn’t a real detective. He had been the beneficiary of what in the Job is known as a ‘sideways’ promotion. In other words, he’d spent his entire career in the Uniform Branch until some administrative genius high in the ivory tower of New Scotland Yard decided that the CID were deserving of his talents. Most other senior officers to whom this transition had occurred just sat back and let the detec
tives get on with it, but our revered commander actually thought he was a detective. The only drawback, as far as he was concerned, was that he could no longer wear his uniform and that meant that people might not know how important he thought he was.
‘Ah, Mr Brock, close the door, and bring me up to date about this suspicious death in Richmond.’ The commander always referred to any death we were investigating as suspicious, just in case it turned out to be manslaughter instead of murder. Or even suicide. But he is something of a pedant.
‘Deaths, sir, plural.’
‘Ah, yes, quite so. Deaths.’ The commander hated getting things wrong and disliked even more being corrected by a junior rank. But a commander who’d come up through the ranks of the CID wouldn’t have had to ask for that information in the first place; he’d’ve been in the incident room the same day, poking about and finding out for himself.
‘They’d both been murdered, sir. A single shot to the head in each case, and then the camper van was deliberately set on fire.’ I started to tell him about the information we’d received from the Essen police, but the moment I mentioned it, he interrupted me.
‘There’ll be no question of you going to Germany, I hope, Mr Brock.’ Any suggestion of unnecessary expenditure was anathema to the commander, and to him all expenditure was unnecessary. I don’t know why he was so uptight about it. He’d already got a Queen’s Police Medal, and he’d been appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire in the last Honours List. What more was he hoping for? Promotion? I wish! So long as it was back to some Uniform Branch post. If I were in his position, I’d just coast happily towards my retirement and let my minions get on with the nastiness of everyday detecting.
‘That remains to be seen, sir,’ I said, just for the hell of it. I couldn’t really see the necessity for a trip to Germany, but I enjoyed planting the seed of doubt. ‘As I was saying, sir, it appears that we’ve stumbled on a scam of monumental proportions—’
‘A scam?’ The commander abhorred criminal argot, even though he knew what I meant. He peered at me over his half-moon spectacles. I’m sure he only wore them because he believed that they lent him an air of importance. And I’d put money on them containing plain glass.
