Illegal Tender (Three Oaks Book 12)

by Gerald Hammond

  ‘And we know the number of the mobile phone used to send the e-mails through the Agrotechnics mainframe and for the money transfers,’ WDC McLure put in. ‘It was purchased by, and registered to, Roger Breeks — in whose name the dummy bank accounts were opened.’

  ‘You might try dialling the number,’ I suggested, pushing the telephone across the desk towards her.

  It was a long shot. The most likely outcome would have been nothingness. Or the call might have been answered by some scavenger who had found the phone on the local rubbish tip. Miles looked unconcerned and even slightly amused, but when I saw the perturbation that slipped through Bea Payne’s careful mask I knew that it might hit the mark. The dialling was followed by a faint ringing in the other office. Otherwise there was a long silence. I heard footsteps outside the door. Miss McLure gently replaced the phone and the ringing next door stopped. Miles gave Bea a long look of reproach.

  Bea Payne kicked Spin off her feet. The spaniel came to me for reassurance and lay down again. ‘I deny everything,’ Bea said through stiff lips. ‘If there’s a mobile phone in my office, it’s been planted there.’

  Miles closed his mouth with an audible snap. He tried to keep his face passive but I could see that his mind was racing.

  ‘You should have had the sense to get rid of it,’ I told Bea. ‘Or at the very least to switch it off. Who were you expecting to call you on it?’ I looked at Miles. ‘It’s all coming apart, isn’t it? Why don’t you make a clean breast of it and return Mrs Ilwand’s money.’

  ‘That really would be the best thing,’ Ian said. He was watching Miss McLure’s pencil. ‘Of course, there’s no compulsion on you to say anything, bearing in mind that this matter is certain to fetch up in court.’

  ‘But must it?’ Miles said. ‘Suppose it was possible for me to make an admission and immediate restitution, would you advise Mrs Ilwand not to press charges?’ he asked me.

  ‘That,’ Ian said slowly, ‘is not a matter for Mrs Ilwand, it is a matter for the police. Of course, restitution and a clear statement, made prior to arrest, might count heavily in your favour. But it would have to be a full statement, mind. Juries tend to disbelieve arguments which are thought up later and weren’t produced in the first statement.’

  I hid a smile. There is no fixed wording for the statutory warning. Ian had managed to embed its meaning in a few apparently casual remarks.

  Miles’s carefully schooled mask failed him. Emotions chased themselves across his features. Guilt, fear, regret, they were all there. And anger. He turned on Bea Payne. ‘I told you and told you to get rid of that thing,’ he told her.

  ‘I deny everything,’ Bea said again. ‘He’s trying to shift the blame onto me.’

  ‘I think Miss McLure should look in the computers,’ I said. ‘Both the desktop and the portable.’

  Ian hesitated and then looked at Miles. ‘Have you any objection?’

  Miles was uneasy but he also looked puzzled. Was he, I wondered, so good an actor after all? Perhaps I had it all wrong. ‘What if I have objections?’ he asked.

  ‘It will make almost no difference,’ Ian said. ‘We will have to proceed more slowly and officially, that’s all. Meanwhile, somebody will stand guard over the machines.’

  ‘In that case . . .’ Miles said.

  WDC McLure took this for permission. She switched on the laptop computer and left it to boot up. The desktop computer was almost in front of her, the screen readable. She pulled the keyboard round on its spiral cable. She touched no more than two or three keys. A new window appeared, overlaying part of the stock list on the screen.

  Ian leaned towards it. ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s called the Recycle Bin,’ said the WDC absently. ‘Always the first place to look. It’s where every file fetches up when it’s been deleted.’

  Miles looked at Bea. Her face remained stubborn and impassive.

  ‘Most people,’ the WDC continued, ‘think that when you empty the Recycle Bin your deletions have gone for ever.’

  ‘And they haven’t?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘No. All you’ve done is to remove them from the indexing system. They can still be found. It may take time or come easily . . .’

  Bea showed momentary apprehension. For my part, I felt a glow of relief. Bea had treated her deletions as full and final.

  Miles must have reached the same realization. ‘Just a minute,’ he said quickly. ‘I do have a strong objection. Anything in there has been deleted because it is totally and absolutely confidential. You have no right to pry into it.’

  ‘As an investigating police officer,’ Ian said, ‘I have every right. In what way is the material confidential?’

  ‘In every way.’ He hesitated. ‘The financial affairs of the business —’

  ‘Agrotechnics will be taking over the business soon,’ I said glibly. ‘As a director, that gives me the right to see your figures.’

  There was a huge hole in my argument, but it passed them by.

  ‘But I’ve told you —’ Miles began.

  ‘Words are cheap,’ I said. ‘I haven’t seen any cash yet.’

  Miles turned back to Ian. ‘Other things are confidential. All kinds. My father wrote his love letters on one or other of those machines.’

  ‘What could have greater possible relevance to his death?’ Ian asked.

  During this argument, Miss McLure had been fingering the keys with her left hand, apparently idly, as if drumming her fingers on the desktop. But she had been tapping to good effect. The screen changed. ‘One moment,’ she said. She filled a page with her shorthand. ‘Relevance to his death,’ she repeated. She put down her pencil and returned her attention to the computer screen. ‘Here we are,’ she said. ‘A copy of the fraudulent e-mail. The original, incoming one from Canada.’

  ‘That doesn’t mean a damn thing and you know it,’ Miles said loudly. ‘So somebody tried it on with us. Dad was going to give them their answers but I spotted it immediately for a try-on and that was an end to the matter.’

  Ian looked at me but I had nothing to offer.

  ‘Nothing else easy here that we’d consider significant,’ said the WDC. ‘It’s going to take an hour or two to hunt out all the recent deletions.’ She switched her attention to the laptop computer. Bea and Miles waited in sullen silence. ‘Nothing here,’ Miss McLure said suddenly. ‘They’ll have kept copies, if at all, on separate floppies. I’ll have to gather them up and go through them all. Shall I go next door and make a start?’

  Bea and Miles protested — loudly, as each tried to be heard above the other. Ian held up a hand as if to stop traffic. The gesture must have had some special significance or else his attitude held an authority which was lost on me, because they fell suddenly silent.

  ‘You stay with us and keep a complete record,’ Ian told the WDC. ‘I want to hear what Mr Kitts has to say. Then, if I see fit, I’ll impound every floppy in the place, including the house and the flat, and we’ll take them away for you to study at your leisure.’

  ‘Hypothetically,’ Miles said desperately, ‘just suppose that I was able to replace the money straight away and save all the delays and legal costs. What then?’

  ‘Whether you get prosecuted or not depends on the police,’ I said. ‘And on whether you had a hand in your father’s death.’

  He turned white. ‘For God’s sake!’ he yelped. ‘I was out of the country. I wouldn’t do such a thing. He was an old reprobate but he was my dad.’

  ‘In that case,’ I said, ‘I’d be prepared to give you credit in court for your help and to state that I can appreciate the pressure you felt under with your father frittering away your inheritance.’

  ‘Now, just hold on a minute!’ Ian broke in. ‘You can’t bargain with a suspect in the presence of the police.’

  Having reached a winning position, I was not about to abandon it. ‘I’m not bargaining,’ I said. ‘I’m stating the facts and expressing my views so that Mr Cowieson can reach
a sensible decision. Agrotechnics would still call up the floating charge, take over the firm and put in a manager. If you escape a custodial sentence, I’ll recommend that you are appointed on commission to carry out your rescue package. You will be audited every step of the way.’

  Miles nodded slowly. ‘And if . . . it goes the other way?’

  ‘I’d be prepared to recommend that you’re given the same terms when you come out.’

  ‘But what about me?’ Bea asked.

  ‘I don’t think that you will still be here,’ I told her. ‘I’m sorry.’

  She began to change colour. I had seen her react to a daunting situation once before but this was in a new dimension altogether. Her face blanched chalky white but her cheeks, ears and chin flushed scarlet. The effect would have been comic except that her face, for one instant, showed terror before, with an effort that brought sweat to her throat and brow, it resumed its usual placid mien and the colours began to merge. ‘I can’t imagine what you mean,’ she said. ‘Unless you’re giving me the sack.’

  Ian had not missed the momentary revelation. I was playing fast and loose with the proper procedures but if I could show him where to look he could find the necessary evidence in proper form. He knew that I had already gone too far to withdraw. ‘I think that you had better explain,’ he said grimly.

  What I wanted to say had been taking shape in my mind while the others argued. ‘I’m in no doubt,’ I began, ‘that Miles Cowieson is Miss Payne’s boyfriend and has been for some time.’

  ‘No comment,’ Miles said.

  Bea nodded. ‘That’s nobody’s damn business but ours,’ she said.

  ‘I suspect that Miles is the father of her unborn child — and you needn’t bother to deny it,’ I added when Miles opened his mouth to protest. ‘A simple DNA test would confirm or refute that supposition. I’m sure that there’s a relationship. Miss Payne reacted, minutely, whenever Mr Cowieson’s name was mentioned.

  ‘Let’s call them Miles and Bea for the sake of brevity.

  ‘I assume that Miles had been trying for some time to wear down his father’s resistance, get her appointed to her present job and be given the granny flat. But the older man was addicted to false economies and no doubt objected to increasing the wages bill. I certainly can’t see Mr Cowieson Senior, whose whole philosophy was summed up in the phrase Penny wise, pound foolish, taking on an office manager when he was stuck for cash and also quite convinced that he was the proverbial bee’s knees at the job himself. However, Bea heard Mrs Ilwand say that she would want to ensure that existing employees were looked after and I later said much the same to Miles. That meant that Bea would be secure in the post provided that she was appointed before Agrotechnics called in the floating charge. They must have mounted an immediate assault and persisted until they had worn down the old man’s resistance.’ Another idea hit me and I blurted it out without thinking. ‘Or they may have had a backup plan to kill old Maurice if he didn’t come round.’

  Miles and Bea began to protest. She fell silent and let him speak for her. ‘This is preposterous,’ he shouted. ‘We don’t have to stay here and listen to this.’

  ‘No,’ Ian said grimly. ‘You don’t. But I do and, if my superiors agree, you’ll have to listen to it some time. I suggest that you hear Mr Kitts out now.’ To me, he added, ‘The times don’t fit.’

  That point had already struck me. ‘You mean that Maurice was still alive while Bea was beginning her move into the granny-flat. But we only have her word for her movements.

  ‘To go back to the beginning, putting together what you’ve told me with what I’ve found out for myself, Maurice Cowieson was running the firm rapidly towards bankruptcy or towards being taken over by the major creditor, Agrotechnics. Something had to be done or Miles would find himself without an inheritance, a job or prospects.’ (Involuntarily, Miles nodded.) ‘The first necessity was an injection of cash. The idea of an e-mail fraud was probably put into the heads of Bea and Miles when the first fraudulent e-mail came in. You may get your evidence of the outgoing copy from the floppies or from somewhere in one of the computers.’

  Miss McLure nodded. ‘It may take time, but I’ll get it all out in the end.’

  ‘I’m sure you will. So they disseminated their own version of the e-mail with a slightly different reply address, choosing recipients who they knew to be suitably wealthy and rather naïve and whose e-mail addresses they could obtain easily. Mrs Ilwand fits all three criteria and Bea had easy access to her papers and computers. You may find other examples among the attempted frauds lying with the Serious Fraud Office. The couple probably hoped that if two or three were foolish enough to reply they might at least win enough money to stave off the imminent takeover.

  ‘Mrs Ilwand may not have been the only recipient daft enough to reply, but they must have been stunned to discover that they had gained access to her account at the one time when it held the proceeds of the farm sale, money intended for the share issue of Agrotechnics but more than enough to pay off Cowieson’s debt to Agrotechnics. They would have to clean out the account, of course. To take only the amount due to Agrotechnics would have been an absolute giveaway.

  ‘Whether Maurice Cowieson knew of this plot I rather doubt — he was a foolish, greedy and lecherous old goat and capable of monumental self-deception but I think he was fundamentally as honest as the next man — which probably means no more than being afraid of being caught out in dishonesty. I don’t think that he would have gone along with a deliberate fraud. How they intended to explain the availability of the cash to him I can only guess. Possibly as a lottery win. Miles tried to hint to me that the money stemmed from organized crime. Perhaps he thought that that would seem credible and yet stifle enquiries. But that would never have washed with his father, who wouldn’t have wanted his firm to get caught laundering money.’

  I paused to gather my thoughts. My mouth was dry from too much talking. An incongruous water cooler was standing, American style, in the corner of the office and I got up to fill a paper cup. Not a word was spoken. Bea and Miles sat with the clear intention of hearing every word but avoiding any comment by word or deed. Ian seemed afraid to break the silence as long as anything potentially useful was emerging. Miss McLure passively completed her note-taking.

  I wetted my mouth and resumed. ‘Banks used to want references, postal addresses and your size in hats before they’d open an account but that’s all changed. Nowadays, you can open an account over the phone with any name and password you care to choose and no questions asked. And the Dutch banks are more secretive even than the Swiss. So they had opened an account in Edinburgh to deal with incidental payments and a Dutch account to handle the big money. They could transfer the money from Mrs Ilwand’s account into it, using Bea’s laptop computer. They wouldn’t want the telephone connection to be traced but they could have plugged the computer into a terminal almost anywhere — you see them at airports and railway stations and there are cafés that provide the facility. To make it even more difficult to follow their tracks they bought a digital mobile phone and routed their transaction through it and then through the main-frame at Agrotechnics.

  ‘So far so good. But however secretive their moves had been, as we’ve just seen, traces are always left — records of telephone connections, computer transactions, electronic ‘footprints’, bank records. If they set hands directly on the money, that too would be traced. Not easily, not quickly, but eventually. So it was necessary for Miles to go to Holland. The money was drawn out in cash. It may simply have been re-deposited in another bank or it may have been translated into something portable and very hard to trace. Possibly something documentary — what are loosely known as bearer bonds and cashier’s cheques. But jewels and drugs are even more difficult to trace and Holland is ideal for either.

  ‘Miles tells me that he expects to be in a position to settle accounts very shortly. Draw what inferences you like.

  ‘Meanwhile, something happened back here.
It may have been part of a prearranged plan or there may have been a sudden flare-up. Perhaps Maurice found out about the fraud and was going to expose it. His death may even have been unintended. Whatever the cause, Maurice died of a badly dented head. Quickly, he was loaded into his own car and driven to the road above the Den Burn. I believe that Bea was the driver and that she acted alone.’

  Miles broke his silence at last. ‘Bea, you didn’t? You wouldn’t!’

  She shook her head, tight-lipped.

  ‘Let’s accept for the moment,’ I said to Ian, ‘that somebody behaved as I described. Much of what I’ve said came from you anyway. I’ve given you my interpretation but I leave it to you to make your own mind up. You discovered, as I did, that Mr Cowieson’s car was driven by somebody unused to an automatic transmission. That person prepared to change down to make the turn at the top of the hill and made the common mistake of hitting the brake instead of the non-existent clutch. Bea is accustomed to driving around briskly in a car with manual gear-change and in the circumstances her mind may not have been wholly on her driving.’

  ‘That doesn’t prove anything,’ Miles said desperately.

  ‘It’s another pointer,’ I said. ‘Arrived at her chosen place, where the little-used road turns sharply right away from a steep drop to the burn, she stopped and managed to move Maurice into the driving seat. Then, with the engine running and the lever in D for Drive, she let the handbrake off and walked beside the car, steering through the open window until it had picked up too much speed. It went over the brink. The car was probably intended to burn, covering up any possible traces of what had gone before. I don’t know why it didn’t.’

  ‘It probably would have done,’ Ian said, ‘except that a rock smashed the sump and stopped the crankshaft, stalling the engine.’

  ‘That would explain it. There was a stink of petrol. That, and the fact that Bea had been wearing her usual waxed cotton coat, prevented me from noticing the presence of her usual, rather strong, perfume in the car. I just don’t understand why she didn’t descend the embankment and drop a match.’