London Stormbird

by Martin J Cobb

  “I’ve got the taste now, shall we have another?” Tom asked.

  “You’re driving.” Claire responded gathering up her stuff, “Come on let’s get back to the hotel for a proper celebration.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  Three months later

  Tom sat at his desk in the office above the workshop at home trying to fill in his tax return which, as usual, he’d left until the last moment and now needed filing that same day if he was to avoid a fine. Normally this was a pretty straightforward procedure with a few paid jobs to list, a few commissions payments and the odd payment in for things he’d sold. This year was proving a little more problematic. The Austrian Government had been frighteningly efficient in documenting the gold find and had assigned a value on it based on the exact bullion price on a day 2 weeks ago of US$42,672 per kilo. They had recovered a total of 228 kilo bars giving an overall value of $9,729,216. The statement he was looking at from them collated all the figures down to a total due to him of $486,461 at that day’s exchange rate amounting to £368,733. The arrival of this sum had prompted an immediate phone call from his bank who, for the first time in his memory, couldn’t have been more helpful suggesting ways he should consider allowing them to help him invest it wisely. The advice had fallen on deaf ears though. Tom had immediately transferred £70,000 to Heinrich’s account and paid off all his credit cards. He had then set up a limited company to own and operate the Focke Wulf with himself and Claire as shareholders and invested another £100,000 into the company to pay for the rest of its restoration. With a chunk of his mortgage paid off, and the transfer of enough into a new saving account to pay the tax bill when it arrived, Tom realised that his huge windfall had now shrunk to a mere £23,000 in less than 2 days. That would not please Claire, he thought. Claire had been trawling the internet relentlessly since their return from Austria looking at houses on just about every estate agents site covering Sussex, Surrey and Hampshire. Tom had started to get really concerned though when, not finding anything that sparked her interest, she had now resorted to scanning Country Life adverts. Tom had casually picked up one of these and been horrified to see the seven figure prices attached to every listed property. It was this that had finally decided him on the eventual fate of the Messerschmitt. For a while he had seriously considered keeping it and trying to operate it alongside his Focke Wulf as some sort of display team but that was really impractical. He just didn’t have the money necessary to fund such an operation. He had called an old friend in the US who had become one of the largest owners and operators of vintage aircraft in the World. They had met in Russia years ago when they were both squabbling over a recovered Hurricane aircraft. The interim years had been somewhat more financially successful for him than they had for Tom and he now boasted not just a fleet of aircraft but an entire airport to house them. Being such an active figure in the ‘warbird’ movement, Ed had kept a watching brief on the progress of Tom’s Me262. He had even talked his way into the Mercedes workshops in Stuttgart to view the aircraft during one of his visits to Germany. When Tom had called, he had fully been expecting the call. Tom had been wracking his brains trying to think how best to broach the subject and fire up Ed’s interest in buying the Messerschmitt. When he thought he’d established a suitable ‘pitch’ that could work he made the call.

  “Hi Ed, been a while. How are you, everything going well?”

  “Spitfire Mk.V project in storage, which you know about, plus one million dollars and I’m not negotiating!”

  “I haven’t made my pitch yet.” Tom said petulantly.

  “You don’t need to. We both know I want the Me262 and you can’t afford to keep it and operate it. It will also make a perfect addition to my little air force. So, is it a deal or not?”

  “Is the Spit in the same condition it was when I saw it a few years back in Cambridge?”

  “It’s still crated up as it was when it left the UK. I have stored it in the climate controlled facility here and it now also has a new build wing spar kit and frame 14 made for it by those guys on the Isle of Wight.”

  “OK, you have a deal. I’ll send over a standard sale contract if that’s OK for us to both sign and I’ll let the Mercedes Museum know that you are the new owner and they need to liaise with you from now on. I’ll need the payment to be split 50/50 into different banks if that’s OK.”

  “Excellent, why don’t you come over so we can have a beer together?”

  “Maybe I’ll just do that, sounds like a great idea, bye Ed.”

  Tom replaced the phone handset on its cradle as Claire walked up the stairs with a tray with tea and biscuits on for them both. Tom saw there was a Country Life folded over exposing a property advert face up under the cups. Claire placed the tray on the desk, passed Tom his cup and drank from hers whilst nonchalantly appearing to flick through the pages of the magazine.

  “What do you think of this place?” Claire asked passing the open magazine to Tom.

  He looked at the magnificent Georgian pile with its outbuildings, walled garden, rolling lawns and a huge driveway with carriage circle. It was stunning as was the price.

  “I need to tell you something, do you want the bad news first or the good news?”

  Claire looked at Tom with furrowed brows, “I guess the bad first is customary.”

  “Out of the 380 plus grand I got as my share of the gold haul I now only have just over twenty left after tax, Heinrich, mortgage, debts and setting up the business to finish the Focke Wulf. If we sell this house, I’d get about half a million after paying off the rest of the mortgage which would still leave us short by almost a million to buy that place.” He finished tapping his finger on the picture in the magazine.

  “My flat is worth about half a million as well as so we’re not that far short, possibly within mortgage range?” It was obvious this particular property had definitely caught Claire’s eye and Tom could see why.

  “Do you want the good news now?” Claire didn’t answer.

  “I have just negotiated the sale of the Messerschmitt to Ed in the USA, I have $500,000 coming my way as a result which is about £300,000 after tax.”

  “That’s brilliant!” Claire leapt up and kissed him spontaneously. “We could definitely manage it between us without a totally crippling mortgage, what do you think?”

  Tom carefully studied the full page advert reading the entire description.

  “It says it needs some modernising, how would we pay for that?”

  “Don’t be so negative, there’s always a way. We could pay for it as we went along when money became available.” Claire responded now obviously having mentally moved from a pipe dream to the point where she could see herself as lady of the manor.

  “I have a little additional news, do you want to hear it?”

  Claire looked at Tom quizzically not sure whether she was going to like this or not.

  “The sale of the Me262 will also put a half million US into your bank as well. So that’s another £300k after tax.”

  There was silence for several seconds as Claire absorbed the latest revelation.

  “We need to arrange a viewing, right now!” She blurted out reaching for the phone.

  Tom decided that it was unnecessary and probably unwise to mention that another plane project was going to arrive imminently. He listened to Claire making arrangements with the agent for them to view the Georgian pile and for them to also value Tom’s house. Life was a funny old thing really he mused, you never really know what’s around the corner.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Epilogue

  The last couple of weeks had been something of a blur. Claire had dragged him, only slightly reluctantly, to view the Georgian house and to his surprise he’d totally fallen in love with it. Despite it needing complete redecoration inside and out, a new kitchen and bathrooms and a host of smaller time and money-consuming items Tom could see the potential. It was of classic design with a slate roof and floor to ceiling windows on the g
round floor with internal shutters. It had a stunning walled garden, a gardener's cottage in the grounds needing total restoration. More importantly to Tom there was also a stone-built stable block and coach house which had been beautifully converted into a self-contained flat for guests plus a large workshop with office. The coach house itself was enormous and by Tom’s quick calculation quite sufficient to house a complete Supermarine Spitfire Mk.V standing on its wheels, should the need every arise of course.

  Claire had sold her flat without even putting it on the market formally. One of her work colleagues wanted it and they’d agreed a price and shaken hands on the deal. His house was on the market and they’d already had a couple of interested parties viewing it so a sale was looking hopeful. Ed had made the bank transfers, and they now had a huge pot of cash sitting in a high interest account waiting to find out if their offer for Highcourt Manor would be accepted. The Focke Wulf was heading off to a specialist restoration facility at Duxford for its final assembly and eventual test flights with hopefully most of it’s required funding in place. The Mercedes had become a real celebrity despite the Mercedes Museum trying to keep it under wraps until it was ready for display. They had, unusually, decided not to restore it but to display it ‘as found’ having stabilised its condition and they had invited Tom and Claire to be present at its press unveiling next month.

  The Spitfire was due to arrive any day now from the USA which Tom had, so far, neglected to tell Claire about which was probably a bit of a mistake. Never mind, the workshop here would be empty soon if they didn’t sell up and if they got the Manor, there was plenty of room for a Spitfire in the coach house.

  Claire was now surrounding herself in paint charts, wallpaper samples, fabric pieces and a plethora of other odds and ends which she was sticking to large sheets of cardboard. These apparently represented the proposed decoration plans for Highcourt. God help everybody if this purchase doesn’t go through, thought Tom, Claire would never come to terms with somebody else living there now.

  Tom saw the postman closing the lid of the postbox outside as he walked down the stairs from the office to his workshop. He took the key hanging from the workshop wall and opened the box retrieving the usual pile of junk mail from online food delivery companies, estate agents speculative mail outs (ironic he thought) and various furniture shops. Amongst this dross was an obviously expensive vellum envelope with a Paraguayan stamp and postmark from somewhere apparently called Lavalleja. Tearing it open Tom read the single paragraph of neat handwriting written in very awkward but absolutely correct English as if the writer hadn’t used the language for a time. In essence it suggested a phone call to the writer might prove rewarding if Tom would like to find out more about the fate of SS Standartenführer Ernest Fischer and Dr-Ing. Hans Kammler and what they bought with them from Europe back in 1945.