Twenty Years a Stranger (The Stranger Series Book 1)

by Deborah Twelves

  Daniel went to speak, but the judge silenced him with a raised hand. Daniel had always been quite fond of using that ‘talk to the hand’ thing, infuriating my friend Sara on the boat, and I knew she would find it as hilarious as I did that he was now on the receiving end of it from the judge. I thought of her recent suggestion that we should hoist Daniel’s favourite pink bloomers to the top of the mast for all to see, then send all the halyards up there as well, so that he would have no way of getting them down other than shinning up the mast himself. Given Daniel’s level of athleticism, that was a feat well beyond his capabilities. A smile played on my lips as I forced myself to concentrate on the business in hand.

  There were further calculations concerning my pension and the helicopter before Judge Barraclough came up with the only real figure I was interested in.

  ‘I am as content as I can be, having regard to the paucity of evidence, that I have got as near to a fair figure as I can do.’

  He looked over the top of his spectacles at Daniel and addressed him directly before he delivered the death blow.

  ‘The Order is that you make an adjusting payment to Mrs Callaghan of £487, 500 and she will retain the house in Conway, her car, her horse and her baby grand piano.’

  Daniel stared back at him in disbelief. He was unused to people seeing through him and clearly did not like it.

  ‘Where am I supposed to get that from?’ he demanded, defiantly.

  ‘Well, you have a choice of either selling some of your assets or using the monies in your various bank accounts. There is, of course, the question of your pending bankruptcy and, whether or not it goes ahead, Mrs Callaghan is entitled to be protected. For that reason, the assets I have mentioned will be charged to her with immediate effect and sold by her if you fail to pay the debt. The cars must not be moved by you, but Mrs Callaghan may wish to arrange alternative storage. That is a matter for her to decide.’

  To my amazement, Daniel seemed to see a glimmer of hope and visibly cheered up.

  ‘Yes, Your Honour, that is actually fine. I would be quite happy to sell the house and other things to pay the debt, working on a time scale of say three to five years.…’

  ‘Mr Callaghan, let me stop you there. We are not talking about three to five years. You have fourteen days to pay the debt, otherwise Mrs Callaghan will have the right to sell the assets herself to recover that debt.’

  Daniel leapt to his feet, bright red in the face and leaned his hands on the desk. He was shouting again, in a slow and patronising tone, as though making allowances for the fact that the judge had learning difficulties.

  ‘The assets. Are. Not. Mine. This is a real issue. Why won’t you listen to me? I’m telling you, I’m going to have a real problem getting hold of the cars, as I don’t even know where most of them are. I am going to have to negotiate with the directors of Jupiter Holdings over in the States and I strongly suspect they will put a third party claim in. I am absolutely certain that Jane will also be putting in a claim against Grace.’

  He paused in his rant to look back at me with an expression of pure hatred that sent a shiver down my spine. Judge Barraclough stepped in to take control of the situation.

  ‘Sit down please, Mr Callaghan. You need to act very sharpish to try and work out, either from memory or enquiry, exactly where those cars are. The same applies to all the other assets. Believe me when I say that this situation can only get a whole lot worse for you if you fail to deal with it as a matter of urgency.’

  ‘And where exactly am I supposed to live if my house is sold?’

  ‘As I understand it there is a bedsit in Stainsford that you are currently renting and I am sure that will be perfectly adequate, at least on a temporary basis,’ replied the judge, helpfully.

  I bit my lip as the unwelcome vision of Daniel’s bedsit in Stainsford and all I had found in it came into my mind. Poor Santa would be even more traumatised if he knew about that.

  Daniel was now a desperate man, pleading pathetically with the judge.

  ‘I do not understand the maths, Your Honour. What do I get out of all this? Have I got any assets left? You seem to be assessing me on things that do not exist.’

  He actually looked like he might start to cry, but I noted happily that it did not wash with Judge Barraclough, whose tone and expression remained as cold as steel.

  ‘I have dealt with things which certainly did exist and for which there is no satisfactory explanation as to what you have done with them. That is the whole point of the adverse inferences that I drew and which I set out very carefully at the beginning of my judgement. That is my final say on the matter. Counsel, will you please draft an Order for me in the terms I have set out?’

  The poor man had clearly reached the end of his tether with this case and would almost certainly need a therapist himself.

  ‘I will, Sir,’ replied my barrister.

  And with that, the proceedings were over.

  Judge Barraclough left the room and within seconds Daniel erupted, metaphorically throwing his dummy, closely followed by all his toys, out of his pram. He was crimson in the face as he stormed towards the back of the room, hurling abuse and accusations at both me and Anthony. He stopped just short of the door and leaned back against the wall, eyes rolling wildly in his head, his breathing loud and far too rapid. He appeared to be hyperventilating. To my amusement, a court official came over and provided him with a paper bag to breathe into, while we stood back and waited for him to calm down.

  What a drama queen - I thought to myself.

  I desperately wanted to laugh but realised it might be seen as inappropriate and managed to control myself.

  In my eyes and, apparently, also in Daniel’s, I had won. I would have given anything to be a fly on the wall when he informed The Whale that they would have to hand over the Ferrari to me. At last, it was all over and I was finally going to be able to draw a line under this whole disastrous episode of my life.

  If only crystal balls really worked and I could have looked into the future, I would have known then that the real nightmare was only just beginning.

  A Friendly Warning

  Jane

  As soon as Matthew walked through the door Jane knew there was a problem. She stared at him with eyes narrowed and arms folded.

  ‘So what happened?’

  ‘Let me get through the door, for Christ’s sake. I need a drink.’

  Matthew flung his briefcase on the floor and flopped down onto the sofa, running his hand through his hair.

  ‘That conniving fucking bitch sat there like butter wouldn’t melt and lied about everything. You should have seen the stuff she got away with. The worst of it is, the thick fucker of a judge believed every word she said! I’m apparently supposed to hand over the best part of half a million to her in fourteen days, or else she gets to sell everything from under me. I just can’t believe this is actually happening. Where the fuck am I supposed to get that kind of money from?’

  Jane sat down opposite him. She despised him for the mess he had made of everything, but she couldn’t let him see that just yet. There were still too many loose ends to tie up. Thank goodness she had arranged for Aaron to have a sleepover at a friend’s house. It was going to be a very long night.

  ‘We both know you can get your hands on the money if you really wanted to Matthew, but it’s all about priorities. You’ll obviously be fine, given your American ‘interests’, so as I see it, your main priority now has to be to make sure we, as in Aaron and I, do not suffer. You need to make sure that our assets are protected, including all the new ones.’

  ‘Well, there’s a problem with that for a start, because the judge has ruled that all the cars are mine, including the ones in your name, and therefore part of the divorce pot. He pretty much gave her every fucking thing I own.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake, get a grip. They don’t even know where the cars are. We stay calm and we move them all tomorrow to different locations. We have all the paperwork fo
r them and we stick to our story. Nobody can seize things if they can’t find them.’

  ‘You’re right,’ he said, feeling a little calmer. ‘We’ll move the lot. Then we draft a third party claim from both you and the directors of Jupiter about the cars. I’m going to make her life hell! And after her performance today, I’m going to make sure she gets nothing off me. Not a fucking thing.’

  That was more like the attitude Jane wanted to hear. At last, he appeared to be getting with the programme.

  By 7 am next morning, they were on the road, with the car trailer hitched up to Daniel’s Range Rover. The unit where most of the cars were stored was about an hour away, in an insalubrious area of Dunston, near Wolverhampton. The process of moving one car at a time was going to be a tedious but necessary one. Jane had rented a unit of her own for the Ferrari and the two other cars she now ‘owned’. Everything else would be scattered far and wide in many separate locations, making it impossible for that bitch to track them down.

  By the time Jane looked at her watch, she saw to her intense irritation that it was already 1 pm and they had only managed to move two cars. She phoned her friend Tracy and asked her to pick up Aaron from school and keep him until she called that evening. The sooner she could get Daniel to commit to paying for boarding school the better as far as she was concerned. She loved her son of course, but a child was a massive inconvenience at times.

  When they arrived at the unit for the third time there was another car parked there, a black Range Rover Sport with blacked-out windows. Matthew looked instantly concerned.

  ‘Who the fuck is that?’

  As they pulled up outside the roller shutter doors, a burly, thick-set man in a black polo shirt and tattoos up both arms got out of the car and came towards them. His pal got out of the passenger side and looked every bit as much of a thug. Matthew got out to meet them with a last-minute attempt at chivalry.

  ‘Stay in the car and lock the doors.’

  Matthew was not small by any means, but the two thugs dwarfed him. Intimidation was clearly their business and, from the look of them, they were pretty good at it. They stood side by side and spoke quietly, but loud enough for Jane to hear.

  ‘We believe you are moving cars which you have no right to move, Sir. Our client has asked us to collect five cars on her behalf and we have the authority to move them to alternative storage facilities.’

  ‘Who the fuck do you think you are? You’re not taking those cars anywhere. They’re mine and the only person moving them will be me,’ Daniel stated, with reckless bravado.

  Jane observed the action from the safety of the car. She was unsure about the wisdom of Matthew raising his voice and adopting such an aggressive tone with the henchmen. She noticed they were careful not to lay a hand on him, but they blocked his path every time he moved towards the entrance of the unit. Jane could no longer hear what they were saying, but she could see that the expression on Matthew’s face had changed from one of arrogant annoyance to fear. They were standing far too close to him and the one who had got out of the driver’s side kept holding out his hand as if asking Matthew to give him something. Matthew took a step backwards and looked around him with an air of desperation, but they moved with him. The driver was speaking again, leaning his face in towards Matthew and gesturing towards her and Matthew’s own car. She checked the doors were locked and looked at the keys in the ignition. It crossed her mind to swap seats and drive off, leaving him to his fate but decided against it for the moment.

  The argument continued for a good fifteen minutes after which Matthew, apparently, gave in and opened the door of the unit. Thug number one disappeared inside with Matthew, while Thug number two took out his mobile and rang someone.

  Half an hour later Jane and Matthew watched helplessly as the remaining cars were loaded onto the multi-car transporter that had miraculously turned up shortly after the phone call. Before they drove off after the transporter, the thugs handed Matthew a business card and held out a hand for him to shake.

  ‘Fuck you!’ he shouted and banged on the window for her to open the door. He was ashen-faced and shaking as he got in and slammed the door shut, but Jane was not letting him off the hook lightly after the charade she had just witnessed.

  ‘Why the hell did you open the unit for them? I can’t believe you let them take the bloody cars.’

  ‘Are you for fucking real? Did you see them? You’ve no idea what they were threatening me with. That bitch Grace is behind this and I’m telling you she’s gone too far this time. If she wants to play rough, she’s going to find out she’s messing with the wrong person. What the fuck is she playing at, getting involved with low life scum like that?’

  Grace was actually going up in Jane’s estimation. She had to admit she was proving to be more of an adversary than she had initially anticipated. Jane wondered just for a moment whether she might be more useful as an ally than an enemy, but she put that thought quickly out of her mind. That would never happen.

  ‘You need to calm down and get your act together,’ she snapped at Matthew. ‘At the end of the day, all she’s managed to do is get Dumb and Dumber to move a few of the cars, but we already got the Ferrari and the Beamer out of there. First thing tomorrow we need to put a claim into the Courts for the other stuff and play it by the book for once, as we planned. We’ve put a lot of effort into modifying all the paperwork and there’s no way she can prove anything. We just have to be patient and let the Courts take everything back off her.’

  ‘I’m sick of the whole bloody business now,’ Daniel whined, looking hassled. ‘I was supposed to be going over to the States again this week.’

  Jane’s face darkened at the implications of that. She didn’t entirely trust him not to just bugger off to America and stay there, shacked up with that tramp and her kid. That was why she needed to protect her own interests over here. It was about damage limitation now. Even she was realistic enough to see that. So long as he stayed in the UK she was okay. She had already screwed private school fees out of him, on the grounds that their son was being bullied in the local school. It should be easy to move that on to the next stage of boarding school. She knew there was plenty of money around, despite what some of the many accounts showed, and their business arrangement for milking the company in lieu of child support payments could continue. So long as he didn’t abscond.

  She had already threatened him with whistleblowing to the taxman, but again, that would only work if he stayed in the country. They would have a job to pin him down if he ran off to the States. As would she. She was walking a tight rope and would have to be careful not to push him too far. Right now he was in a blind rage and did not seem to be capable of thinking or acting rationally. It was actually a bit unnerving.

  Maybe it would be best if she dealt with Grace herself rather than leaving it to him. Ex-wifey was certainly flexing her muscles and clearly thought she was holding all the cards now. Perhaps it was time to disabuse her of that thought.

  What Jane did not know, however, was that Matthew was already one step ahead of her on that score.

  Shifting goalposts

  When someone pulls the rug from under you, you need to learn how to dance on a moving carpet.

  Grace

  I felt the soft, buttery leather of the All Saints jackets on the rail in Harvey Nichols and put down my bags, containing a new pair of grey suede ankle boots and a dress from Reiss, eager to try it on. I felt justified in treating myself, now that I had finally stopped haemorrhaging money on solicitor’s fees. This was the start of my new life and I had to dress for the part. The last couple of weeks since the court case had not been easy and Daniel had done everything to put obstacles in my way, but the fact remained that I now had a signed and sealed Court Order stating exactly what he owed me. Of course, I had to be realistic about the fact that he had absolutely no intention of paying me a penny, so I had to get as many of the assets as possible sold. I had managed, with the help of the tracker, to get my
hands on most of the cars and motorbikes and I had rented a specialist storage unit for them in Leeds. It had not been cheap to move them but, hopefully, it would only be for a short time.

  Daniel and The Whale had got one over on me with the Ferrari, but my solicitor had said I just had to bide my time and wait for the court process to take its course. No judge was ever going to believe the story they had concocted, especially not the bit about her paying him for the car in cash with a pile of fifty-pound notes she had found in a tin box under the floorboards of her father’s house after he died.

  Everyone involved in the storage of the assets had been served with the Court Order and warned that they were not allowed to let anything be moved by Daniel. I was certainly not going to let the grass grow under my feet and intended to get the cars to auction as fast as possible. Some of the other stuff, like the helicopter, was trickier to get my hands on, so I was concentrating on the cars, the bikes and the house for the moment.

  My phone buzzed in my bag and I scrabbled to get it out and check the screen. Eleanor. My mood changed abruptly, as it always did when her name came up, and I wondered what the hell she wanted. She didn’t usually ring with good news.

  ‘Grace, are you okay to talk?’

  ‘Yes, I’m in a shop, but its fine. What’s happened?’

  ‘I don’t want you to panic, but I have just had news from the Court that they have received third party claims from Jane Sutcliffe and the directors of Jupiter Holdings about the various assets, including the Ferrari of course.’

  ‘Shit, what does that mean? I don’t understand…there are no other directors of Jupiter Holdings apart from Daniel.’

  ‘As I said, there is no need to panic. It wasn’t entirely unexpected. We just have to deal with it and hopefully it can all be sorted out of court. There should be sufficient evidence on our side to get the claims thrown out, but if they are prepared to force the issue and stick to the lies, we may need to go to a hearing.’