We stared each other out for a few moments until eventually the other man grinned, nodding as though at a private joke. “Well,” he said, turning to go, “if she does pop in – y’know, for her redundancy money, or whatever,” and here his voice rose in volume, “can you let her know that Jimmy was asking after her and Carlton? Give her my best, won’t you.” And so saying, he nodded at Dash and allowed his eyes to stray slowly and pointedly towards the beaded curtain through which Ali had fled, before turning his gaze back to mine, winking and leaving.
THIRTEEN
Balthazar Lowe’s offices were in a large Georgian Square in Marylebone and were showing, on Google, as the home of: The Children’s Protection Fund.
“Maybe he’s a genuine charity,” I mused to Caz as the taxi crawled its way down Marylebone Road.
“Or maybe,” she answered, applying another layer of bright scarlet lipstick, “he’s smart enough to know that anyone who receives large amounts of cash from frightened people needs to have something other than International Extortionist on his letterhead. Whatever,” she decided, “setting up Bobbers and then demanding money by menace is hardly the act of a Mother Theresa. Okay, you’re clear on how we’re going to play this, right?”
I nodded. After Ali’s visitor had left the day before, I’d spent a considerable period of time trying to get her to talk to me, but she’d closed up like a broad-shouldered, crew-cut clam and would not be drawn on who the man had been, only that, if he ever came in here again, none of us was to give him her whereabouts or even mention her name.
Eventually, I’d headed back into the kitchen, where Caz had been hunched over her iPad, a small leather-bound notebook open beside her as she made notes for the battle campaign on Balthazar Lowe.
“We don’t have the money,” I recited, as in the front of the taxi my dad gesticulated at a cyclist who had just cut in front of him and demanded to know what sort of death wish the individual in question actually had, “but we’re trying to get it. We need to have a little more time.”
“How much more time?” she asked.
“A month. Maybe six weeks.”
“And what’s happening in the meantime?”
“We need to see the evidence. All of it.”
“Why?”
“Really?” I frowned at her. “So we can see where he keeps it all – safe in the office, offsite, wherever.”
“But we’re not going to tell him that,” Caz prompted.
“No,” I shook my head, “of course not. We’re going to tell him that we need to be sure there is sufficient evidence to justify the money he’s demanding.”
“Good,” she patted me on the thigh, slid her lipstick back into her purse and peered out the window. “We’re there.” Caz turned and winked at me. “Showtime.”
The taxi pulled up outside a three-storey Georgian town house, three steps leading from the pavement to an ominous black doorway with a huge concrete urn filled with some sort of evergreen plant sitting to the left of the door.
Two large unshuttered windows sat, one either side of the doorway, though there was no sign of any life beyond them. The wind had stripped the trees in the square and packs of rustling brown leaves were being blown across the pavement.
A discrete brass plaque to the right of the doorway, positioned over a single bell press and polished so definitively that our reflections – distorted and haunted – stared back at us from underneath the words: The Children’s Protection Fund. ‘We are children of the world.’
“There you go,” Caz nodded at the plate. “If you ever needed proof that the whole thing was a sham.”
I frowned at the plaque, puzzled by her reference.
“He’s quoting the bloody Bee Gees,” she tutted, pressing her finger firmly on the bell press. “Hardly Mother Theresa.”
A woman’s voice – tinny and adenoidal – came through a speaker discretely concealed behind the evergreen plant and, as she spoke, an almost imperceptible movement just above my eyeline drew my attention upwards where a small black security camera had swung into motion and was now pointed at us.
“Hello?” the woman’s voice said.
“Oh, hello,” Caz spoke in her most cut-glass RP. “It’s Lady Caroline Holloway and Mr Daniel Bird to see Mr Lowe.”
“Oh.” The adenoidal robotic voice seemed puzzled. “Wait a moment, please,” it said, and there was a click, then silence.
The door remained firmly barred against us.
Caz stared pointedly up at the camera and was just lifting a finger to press the button one more time when the locks clicked and the door swung slowly open.
A tall, almost skeletally-thin woman stood before us, her salt and pepper hair swept into a meringue-like confection atop a head which looked like its brothers might have modelled for Easter Island.
At the end of her long, pointed nose a pair of almost comically-harsh horn-rimmed spectacles perched. She peered down the proboscic slope, through the lenses and, having registered that we were, in fact, still standing on her doorstep, smiled a smile so broad as to be almost deranged.
“My Lady,” she said, displaying a set of teeth which – like Britain’s transport infrastructure – were stained, crooked and fucked beyond repair. They didn’t need a dentist; they needed demolition.
She switched off the gurn and stepped to one side, ushering us into the building. “How kind of you to come. Mr Lowe awaits you in his office.”
We stepped into the hallway.
Ahead and to our right a set of stairs lead upwards. To our left another hallway lead, I assumed, to what would have been the parlour and the kitchen. To the left and right were doors into other rooms, and the one on the right was partly open showing what looked like a reception desk within.
On the walls, wherever there was a bit of empty space, framed portraits of photogenic children looking wistful were displayed.
She introduced herself as Miss Morgan and, having taken our coats, waved us towards the stairs.
“Mr Lowe is on the first floor. If you would take a seat, he’ll be with you shortly. Would you care for some tea or coffee?”
Caz gave her a look of pure outrage and I declined on both our behalves.
“A million pounds,” Caz muttered as we trudged slowly up the stairs, “and he’s offering tea? You know, Danny, if there’s one thing worse than an extortionist, it’s a cheap extortionist.”
We reached the top of the stairs and, on the landing, were met with a selection of large sofas dotted around a selection of low-level coffee tables.
On the tables, brochures featuring more tragically photogenic young ‘uns were piled. Even I had to admit that The Children’s Protection Fund were laying it on a bit thick.
We sat and Caz picked up one of the brochures. I watched her pretend to flick aimlessly through it as her eyes darted around the bland space.
“Anything of interest?” I murmured.
Her eyes dropped to the pages before her and she pursed her lips. “Malawi, Namibia, villagers in India, and more ill-placed apostrophes than a butcher’s convention,” she concluded as, from behind us, a man’s voice rang out.
“Miss Holloway.”
I stood and turned.
Balthazar Lowe – for I assumed it was he – was, well, not to put too fine a point on it, Balthazar Lowe was fine.
He stood about six foot two, his shoulders broad and his waist trim. His hair was jet-black, and styled into a seemingly casual quiff that I reckon took weekly – if not daily – barbering to maintain. He was tanned, but in the way of someone who spends their time in executive lounges rather than in the style of Ali’s visitor, who looked like he spent his time in back lounges.
Lowe’s eyes were almost turquoise-blue, almond-shaped, and – along with his chiselled jaw and high cheekbones – lent him the air of a Mongol overlord, if Mongol overlords did catwalk modelling.
He wore a pale-blue shirt, open at the neck, a pair of slim-fitting black jeans, and a pair of black suede l
oafers. At his wrist, a single silver bangle gleamed. There was no sign of a watch, or of a wedding ring.
Caz stood slowly to her feet, turned as if in slow motion to face him and held a hand out to him. “Lady Holloway,” she said coldly, “is the actual title.”
At this, Lowe’s lips curled slightly. He nodded, took her hand, bowed and kissed it gently. “As you wish,” he said, seeming to register me for the first time. “And this is...?”
“This is my associate Mr Bird,” Caz said, and I stepped forward offering my hand, which he gripped solidly.
“Good to meet you,” he said, somewhat dismissively, before turning back to Caz. “I thought we agreed you alone?”
“Mr Bird goes where I go,” Caz deadpanned. “Shall we get started?”
Lowe stared her down for a moment, then nodded curtly. “Shall we?” He gestured behind him
Caz, in high dudgeon, swept past him and headed towards the open door of what I assumed was his office. Lowe watched her pass him, a small sardonic smile on his lips, glanced briefly at me then gestured for me to follow her. “After you, Mr Bird,” he said.
The office we entered was high-ceilinged, light, thanks to well-placed halogen spots, and furnished in an odd selection of styles. In one corner of the room hulked a huge dark wooden desk, leather-topped and looking like something that generals and industrialists would once have sat behind. Behind the desk was a tall metal filing cabinet.
The windows looked out on the square, the little park in the middle already crowded in shadows as the sun began to move westwards.
Lowe directed us not to the mahogany desk, but to a pale wood round table on the opposite side of the room, three chairs gathered democratically around it.
“Tea?” he said, sitting himself at a chair. “Coffee?”
“No thanks,” Caz, managing to make a polite decline sound like a giant ‘fuck you,’ answered for both of us.
“Well, then,” he placed his hands palm-down on the table and spread his fingers, “how may I help you?”
“Mr Lowe,” Caz addressed him, “I am lead to understand that you have some evidence that places my brother in a difficult situation.”
Lowe smiled, “It places him in prison, Lady Caroline. If it ever gets out.”
Caz stared him down. “My sister-in-law,” she said at length, “tells me that you played her some recordings of Bobby down the phone.”
“That’s true,” Lowe said, turning, now, to me, “are you sure I can’t get you some tea?”
“No,” I shook my head, adding, “thanks,” as an afterthought.
“I wonder if you could tell us, Mr Lowe, just how these recordings came into your possession?”
“Well it’s rather simple, Lady Caroline,” Lowe seemed to be enjoying this game, his smile broadening a he recalled his scam. “I dressed up as a representative of a certain Middle Eastern government, had some associates wire me for sound, approached your brother and proposed buying from him the lease to an oil well which he holds in Central Asia.”
“Interesting,” Caz murmured. “Do go on.”
“There was a considerable amount of money on offer for the rights and your brother seemed very interested in the proposition, suggesting, at length, that we settle the funds via the Luxembourg branch of a St Petersburg corporation which he has an interest in, as a way of avoiding taxes on the sums payable.”
Caz nodded, a look that said she was absorbing all of these facts on her face but a twinkle in her eye that told me she’d already made her mind up. “And this St Petersburg corporation…” she prompted.
“Is half-owned by one Oleg Nikolayevich. Who is explicitly named on the list of both European- and US-sanctioned individuals, with whom it is illegal to trade,” Lowe finished, shaking his head and tutting as though disappointed by the situation.
“And my brother suggested this transaction himself?” Caz asked.
“Suggested it and enthusiastically lobbied for it,” Lowe answered.
Caz looked around the room. “I’d like to see the evidence, Mr Lowe,” she said.
“You can hear it,” he answered, “any time you’d like. Just let me have a telephone number and I will have the tapes – as much of them as you can bear – played to you.”
“But I’d like to see it,” she pressed.
Lowe frowned. “It’s a sound file, Lady Caroline. An mp3. There are no physical items to show you.”
Now it was Caz’s turn to frown.
“But I stress,” Lowe said, “as I stressed to your sister-in-law that, unless a sizeable donation is made to The Children's Protection Fund, the relevant sound files could well end up in the hands of the British, European and American authorities. And that wouldn’t go very well for your poor brother.”
He paused to let this sink in, then turned to me. “You’re very quiet, Mr Bird,” he said, “don’t you have anything to add to the conversation?”
“I’m just here to make sure she doesn’t leave fingerprints when she garrottes you.”
Lowe chuckled. “Oh, bigger beasts than Lady Caroline have tried worse,” he murmured in response.
Caz looked around the room.
“Tell me, Mr Lowe, what do you do here?” she asked.
“Do?” Lowe seemed puzzled for a moment, then recovered his equilibrium and waved a hand airily at the space around him. “I run The Children's Protection Fund. We support programs to help support, protect and develop the lives of young people in the developing world.”
“And I’m guessing that this supporting,” she said, lending the word a pointed tone, “brings you into contact with many intelligent people.”
“We’re lucky enough to deal with many experts in their fields.”
“And then you met Robert. Or Bobbers, as we who’ve known him his whole life call him.”
“I fail to see—” Lowe began, but was cut off by Caz.
“My brother, Mr Lowe, is – not to put too fine a point on it – an imbecile. Really. He wears loafers and boots because he can’t tie a decent knot in his laces. His businesses – the family businesses – are run by other people precisely because Bobbers and those around him know that he’s a knife so dull he couldn’t cut water. In fact, his principal employment in business is exactly to be a charming sweet figurehead. To entertain visiting Americans or Sheiks.
“Because he’s good at that, Mr Lowe. He’s sweet, loyal and loving, but he struggles with the plot twists in Peppa bloody Pig. So I find it hard – not to say impossible – to believe that this simple man, on his own and with no prompting from anyone, concocted a sanctions-busting, tax-evading complicated corporate dodge the likes of which you’re describing.”
Lowe tilted his head, the smirk widening. “And yet,” he said, snapping his fingers.
From hidden speakers in the corners of the room, a voice – posh, reedy and slurring slightly as though speaking after the consumption of a few bottles of champagne – issued, “So we’ll funnel the money through the Blackgold accounts in Luxembourg. Ever been to Luxembourg? Dull, but great chocolate. But dull. What?” he asked as another voice muttered something. “Oh, yes, we’ll settle to Luxembourg – no tax then, you see, cos they’ll send it straight off to some Johnnies in The Caymans. Dull there too. Why is it always really bally dull where rich old farts send all their money? Oh, I don’t mind if I do,” he slurred, and I could almost see him holding his glass out for a top-up.
Lowe snapped his fingers and the tape stopped. His face, now, had a different look to the amiable and slightly-bemused one he’d worn in the face of Caz’s hostility for the past few minutes. Now, his almond eyes, high cheekbones and the smile on his face gave him a wolfish air.
“Terms, I believe, have been explained already. So what I’d really like to know, Lady Caroline, is why you’ve wasted my time and yours by coming here.”
Caz stood up. “I came,” she said, “because I like to look in the faces of the people who are attempting to extort money from my family before I tell t
hem to go to hell.”
“Oh I’ve been to hell, Caroline,” he said, dropping the honorific. “I’ve been there and I’ve seen the faces of the children and women there. And I’ve seen the tax-dodging internationalists who swan in and out and try their damnedest not to see the people who can never leave the place.”
“And tell me,” Caz snapped back, “did you get the Cartier Bangle at duty free before flying in to hell, or on your way back out?”
Lowe shrugged. “Three million. I prefer cash, bullion, stones, or bearer securities. In ten days.”
“I was told the figure was two million,” Caz squawked.
“It was,” Lowe said, standing too, “But that was before today. Now, I believe Miss Morgan has your coats. We won’t meet again. Unless you’re bringing the funds.”
And so saying, he crossed to his desk, unlocked a drawer, withdrew a small laptop, opened it and began typing on the keyboard.
“Do show yourselves out. It was pleasant meeting you Mr Bird,” he said without looking up.
FOURTEEN
Down on the pavement, Caz dived into her handbag, extracted her phone and jabbed furiously at it.
“Bastard!” she spat.
“What are we going to do?” I asked, assuming that she’d have a plan.
“Crucify Prissy,” she said, her eyes blazing as she lifted the phone to her ear.
“It’s me,” she said into the phone. “Are you still in town? Where? Well don’t leave… No. You stay exactly where you are… What’s happening? Oh,” she said, “nothing much. I’ve just met your Mr Lowe. Yes,” she nodded, “I thought you might.”
And hanging up, she turned to me, eyes still blazing.
“D’you think your brother was drunk?” I asked.
“Drunk or doped,” she answered, stalking towards Baker Street. “Either way, that toad,” she gestured back towards the building we’d just left, “set him up, recorded him and now has us over a barrel.”
“Okay,” I said, feeling less than optimistic, “so what do we do next?”
Death Of A Devil Page 8