by S L Beaumont
I had no appetite and moved the tuna rolls around on my plate with chopsticks. “I didn’t make it.”
“Oh?”
“Bad timing. I’ll go another day. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“Well, what do you want to talk about?”
I heard the slight edge in his voice and knew that I had to pull myself out of my mood.
“Tell me something I don’t know about you.”
“Such as…?”
“Why do you not have a girlfriend?” I asked giving him a sly little smile.
“I have you.”
“Before me? I’ve known you for months and there hasn’t been anyone,” I replied.
Will shrugged. “I’ve had trouble committing to anyone in the past for longer than a few months and I guess I never really found anyone that I wanted to commit to.” He leaned over and helped himself to a piece of sushi from my plate. “Now, if you’re just going to play with your food and not eat it, I will.”
I pushed the plate towards him. “All yours.”
I went back to work and sat at my desk deep in thought.
Will and I didn’t talk about the future, but our attraction was all encompassing. I enjoyed being with a man who saw me for who I really was and although I knew it was wrong, at the same time it felt so right. We talked and talked about everything and anything; politics, travel, books, movies, music. He seemed to value my opinion which was novel for me, and we had some heated discussions at times. For the first time in my life, I felt truly happy. I tried not to allow the little niggle of guilt that plagued me most days to ruin how I was feeling. The irony that I was doing what I wanted and not what everyone else expected, was not lost on me. However, with a husband such as Colin, I shouldn’t have even considered stepping out of line.
I was still so angry at him for abandoning me when Dad died. I also now knew that there were many things that he kept from me. I was a little wary of him. I guess if I was honest, I’d always known that he was secretive and manipulative, but he was becoming openly hostile towards me and that change worried me. I should have brought matters to a head sooner, but I kept telling myself that I was waiting for the right moment to talk to him. The trouble was that right moment didn’t seem in any hurry to present itself.
While it had been a relief to voice my concerns to Marie, the other thing holding me in check was my mother. After everything she had been through over the past few months, I didn’t want to add to her burden either. She was so proud that I was married and settled, as she saw it. I knew she would be disappointed in me if I left Colin. I felt the pressure of being the good daughter and not letting her down.
Sometimes, I nearly just blurted out to Colin that I’d met someone else, but I knew that he would turn it into something tawdry and disgusting and make me out to be a whore. In hindsight, I should have just left, but I didn’t have the energy for the fight that would ensure. I knew that he would make it all my fault and everyone would end up hating me. And on top of it all, after last night, I was a little scared of him and the people he knew.
***
The following afternoon at work, I shut myself in a meeting room and spread out the information that I’d taken from Dad’s safety deposit box.
The first step was to look into the companies on Dad’s handwritten chart. The three companies in the center of the page all had Scottish names: Tartan Warriors Ltd, Scottish Wanderer Ltd and Highland Avengers Ltd. Each company’s name had a box drawn around it with a solid line linking it to its owner, whose names were written in three smaller boxes above; three companies in different offshore jurisdictions. Each of these had a dotted line to a box at the top of the page where Dad had written ‘Ultimate owner, Offshore Trust’.
The names of Colin’s two businesses, Loch Freight Logistics International Limited, known by its acronym L-FLI and Labour for Hire Limited, were written in boxes further down the page. L-FLI was linked with a solid line to a company called CMEC Ltd. I recalled that Colin had originally bought the courier firm through a company structure that he’d set up, rather than in his own name, so this made sense. However, both businesses had dotted lines connecting them to the Offshore Trust at the very top of the page. Beside each dotted line on the chart was a £ sign.
I looked up the UK Companies Office on my laptop and typed Scottish Wanderer into the search bar. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for but saw that it was wholly owned by a foreign company with an unpronounceable name domiciled in Liechtenstein, matching what Dad had noted on the chart. Scottish Wanderer’s sole director was someone I had never heard of, a John Smith of London. His contact details were a PO Box which was not helpful. How many John Smiths would there be in London? The company’s physical address was listed as being on Fulham Palace Road in south-west London. I made a note of it and moved on to Tartan Warriors. Its single shareholder was a company registered in the Cayman Islands. Joe Brown was its only director, again very common, but I noted down the address of the company, this time on London’s Wandsworth Bridge Road. It was a similar story with Highland Avengers, offshore ownership and a director named Ian Clark and an address in Swiss Cottage.
I put the company chart to one side and moved on to the other document. It appeared to contain pages from a contract between Her Majesty’s Government and a company called Mendelson. I flicked through the pages of legal speak, relevant dates, termination clauses, contract law conditions until I came to a schedule detailing delivery of 1,000 units of SA80a2 each month for a year to an army base in Scotland.
I reached over for my laptop and Googled Mendelson. After scrolling past web pages related to the composer, I came across one for Mendelsonuk. I clicked on it and was taken to a home page with a beautiful scenic photo of Loch Lomond in Scotland. Mendelson, it transpired, was a manufacturing business near Glasgow. I typed SA80a2 into the search bar and a photo of an assault rifle filled the screen. Resting my elbows on the desk, I leaned my chin into my palm and scrolled through the webpage. So, Mendelson was a weapons manufacturer, who was a major supplier to the British Army, but what, if anything, did that have to do with Colin?
I returned to the company’s office tab and ran a search. Mendelson had an extensive shareholding including a number of UK based investment funds. I scrolled through the list and three companies jumped out at me. Highland Avengers Limited, Scottish Wanderer Limited and Tartan Warriors Limited who each had a seven percent shareholding.
I sat back and frowned. I was none the wiser.
I checked my watch. 4pm. It was Friday and I was pretty much done for the week. I could finish early and go and check out the two companies on Dad’s chart with addresses in south-west London on my way home. I gathered all the information together, took it to the scanner and fed the pages through. I returned to my desk, located the scanned file and emailed it to my personal email account. I locked the documents in amongst a number of other files in my desk drawer.
I bade farewell to my colleagues and caught the tube. After changing trains at Earl’s Court, I alighted at Fulham Broadway station just after 4:30 pm. I walked through the small shopping mall past the billboards advertising the latest movies playing at the large cinema complex upstairs. Out on the street, I checked the map on my phone and crossed over as the lights changed and walked down Harwood Road. The sun was setting and the temperature dropping, so I buttoned up my overcoat and turned up the collar.
The walk to the address on Wandsworth Bridge Road took around ten minutes. It was three blocks down, a doorway nestled in a block of shops, between a pizza restaurant and a hardware store. The blue wooden door had a gold letterbox flap and around ten name plaques, including one for Tartan Warriors. I tried the handle, but the door was locked, so I pressed the button on an intercom set into the wall at one side of the door.
“Can I help you?” a pleasant disjointed female voice answered.
I leaned closer to the intercom. “I’m looking for Tartan Warriors.”
The door buzzed as the woman r
eplied, “Come on up.”
I took a deep breath and pushed the now unlocked door. It opened onto a carpeted stairway. Square wall lights glowed at regular intervals at ankle level all the way up. I started climbing as the heavy front door clicked shut again behind me. I glanced back at it, wondering what I was about to find. The stairs turned ninety degrees onto a landing with two doors leading off. One was ajar and I could hear the chatter of several women’s voices. I knocked and entered.
The office was plain, with six wooden desks, each with a computer terminal, telephone and overflowing trays of paper. A smartly dressed young woman sat behind each desk. The talking stopped and they turned to look at me.
“Over here.” An Asian woman in her mid-twenties with short dark hair and bright red lips beckoned. “I deal with Tartan.”
I smiled at the other women, who returned to their conversation, a discussion of Friday night and weekend plans, as I walked over to the desk in one corner.
“What do you have for me?” the woman asked.
“Just some papers,” I replied, digging into my bag. “What does Tartan do?” I asked looking around.
“Beats me,” the woman replied. “We’re just their mailbox. Although I like to picture hunky Scotsmen wearing kilts whenever I deal with their stuff.”
The other women in the office laughed, but I must have looked blank because she continued. “A number of companies pay us to be their postal address and address of record with the Companies Office.”
“Oh,” I replied. “So you’re not involved in running the businesses?”
She shook her head, large gold earrings swinging from side to side as she did so, and held out her hand for the white envelope that I pulled from my bag.
“So where do you send the mail?”
“Each company has different instructions. Some have forwarding addresses and others have people who come by weekly to collect anything,” she explained.
“Does someone come and collect the mail for Tartan?” I asked.
“We forward everything to a PO Box in Scotland.”
“Can you give me that and I’ll just post this, save you a job?” I suggested with a winning smile, pulling the envelope back towards me as she reached for it.
“Sorry, that’s confidential information.” She leaned over and took the envelope from me.
“Okay, thank you,” I said, turning to go.
“Wait,” the woman called as I reached the door. “This isn’t for Tartan Warriors. This is addressed to Tartan Wools Ltd. Not the same.”
I let out a loud sigh. “Oh, you’re kidding me? My boss has sent me all this way for nothing?” I walked back over to her desk. “I’m sure he said Tartan Warriors.” I read the label on the envelope she gave back to me. “Sorry, I’ve wasted your time.”
“No problem. Have a good weekend.” She turned to rejoin the conversation with the other women.
I raced down the stairs, through the blue door and back onto the street. I hailed a passing black cab with its yellow light illuminated and gave the driver the address of the second company on Fulham Palace Road. The Friday night traffic was getting heavier as he drove past Parsons Green Station and turned onto Fulham Road. We were stuck behind several red double-decker buses before merging into Fulham Palace Road. The driver asked me to confirm the address. Several minutes later we pulled up outside a small square white two-story building sandwiched in the middle of a row of red-brick terraced houses.
“Can you wait for me?” I asked. “I’m only dropping something off.”
“Sure, love,” he replied.
I walked up to the front double glass door entrance. I could see a long unattended reception desk in the center of the lobby. I tried the door. Locked. I looked at my watch; five minutes past five. They were most likely closed for the day. Damn. An opaque panel attached to the wall drew my attention. It contained the names of no less than fifty businesses. I looked back up at the building. There was no way that fifty companies operated out of a building that size. It was safe to assume that this was another corporate mailbox. I ran my eye down the list. About two thirds of the way down the second column the name Scottish Wanderer Ltd jumped out at me. I pulled my mobile phone out and snapped a quick photo, before walking back to the taxi.
Chapter 18
January 10
The trading floor was due its annual winter party. This year it was to be held in a series of marquees at Greenwich Park. A select number of middle office staff were invited, including Jimmy, Dave, Andrew, Marie and me. I was really looking forward to it and had bought a gorgeous new dress to wear, when Colin announced that he needed me at a dinner with his new Middle Eastern contacts, the same night.
“Sorry, I have a work function,” I replied.
“You have so many of them that you can miss one,” he grumbled. “This is really important to me. The Arabs like to see a pretty face at dinner.”
“I’d much rather go to my work party,” I replied.
“Please, Jessie, I need you there,” Colin wheedled.
I acquiesced; perhaps it would be an opportunity to find out some more about Colin’s businesses and the three companies that I’d drawn a dead end on.
“Where is the dinner?” I asked Colin as I began to get ready on Friday night.
“It’s at La Marx,” he said, naming an exclusive restaurant overlooking the Thames near London Bridge.
My eyes widened. “Can we afford to eat somewhere like that?”
“For these clients we can. They have almost signed on the dotted line for me to manage their freight requirements to and from the UK, as well as supply labor teams to their construction sites in Dubai and Qatar,” Colin explained as he stood in front of the bedroom mirror straightening his tie. He was dressed in a smart dark navy suit, one of the few times I’d seen him really dressed up in ages. I walked out of the bathroom in a black figure-hugging knee length dress and very high heeled shoes. I had pulled my hair up into a messy bun, with several tendrils hanging down around my face. I checked myself in the mirror and was pleased with the sophisticated woman who looked back at me.
“No, no. What are you wearing?” Colin looked aghast.
I glanced sideways at him. “Ah, business dinner attire.”
“No. That won’t work.” He slid open my wardrobe door and rummaged around, pulling a skimpy red silk dress with tiny shoestring straps from the recesses. “This,” he said thrusting it towards me. “And lose the tights.”
I looked at him as though he’d stepped in from another planet. “Colin, you do realize that it’s winter? That’s a summer dress and besides I haven’t worn it since I was a teenager on holiday in Spain. It’s trashy. I don’t know why I even still have it.”
“Trashy will work with the Arabs. Now hurry up and get changed. We cannot be late.”
“No way. I’m not wearing that.” I took a step backwards.
A look of fury took residence on Colin’s face. He covered the distance between us in two strides and gripped my upper arm tightly. “You agreed to do this for me.”
“Colin, you’re hurting me.” I struggled in his grip.
He let go and gave me a little push as he thrust the dress into my arms. “Get changed.”
“No,” I said.
The crack of his palm across my face sent me sprawling against the bed. The sting that spread across my cheek was like fire and brought unwanted tears to my eyes.
“You bastard.”
“Yes. Now get changed or there will be more of that.”
I pulled on the little dress with its plunging neckline and short skirt. The tiny straps meant that wearing a bra was impossible and I felt practically naked standing there as he handed me a pair of stiletto-heeled strappy sandals. I glanced in the mirror at the miserable looking girl with the red mark across her right cheek. Colin came to stand behind me and I flinched as he reached up and pulled the clips from my hair, letting it fall in loose curls around my shoulders. He tucked a strand behind my left ea
r and pushed some of the curls over the red mark.
“There,” he said. “Much better. Now go and redo your makeup.”
“You should have just hired a prostitute,” I spat at him.
“Next time I will.”
The dinner was excruciating, and I learned nothing useful. I wasn’t included in any conversation and several times Colin leaned over and hissed, ‘smile’ in my ear. The two middle-aged Arab gentlemen quite openly leered at me throughout the meal. The waitresses gave me filthy looks and I felt dirty and embarrassed. I hoped that no one from Dobson Stone was there to see me looking so cheap and wretched. At the end of the dinner Colin announced that they were off to a gentlemen’s club down the road and that I could go home.
“Great night, so glad I came,” I muttered to him as I got in the cab.
He arrived home very late and crawled into bed stinking of whiskey and cheap perfume. I wondered how many lap dances he’d had at the club and felt even dirtier. I feigned sleep when he rested a hand on my hip and whispered my name several times. Did he really think that was an option after hitting me? He finally fell asleep, snoring.
***
I left the house early and met Marie for lunch at a café just off the King’s Road. It was bustling, but we managed to secure the last spot on their winter garden terrace. We followed the maître d’ to a small table nestled among planters filled with colorful cyclamens and pansies. Marie looked amazing in tight blue jeans and a red overcoat, her glossy locks loose around her shoulders.
“I don’t know how you can look so good after the night you must have had,” I said.
She hugged me and pulled back looking at my cheek frowning. I’d mostly covered the red mark with makeup.
“What’s wrong with your cheek, Jess?”
“Just a rash,” I replied. “Now tell me about your night.”
She seemed to accept that explanation and launched into a long description of the winter party venue, the food and the band.
