Then, again, you could play with the numbers, and it was an open secret a few disreputable firms had. Pension professionals tut-tutted behind closed doors, and shook their heads disapprovingly. Not a case had yet come to court.
Actuaries, unlike lawyers and accountants, had no legal duty to ‘blow the whistle’ on their fellow professionals. So it wasn’t out of the question that Ken was on to something. But if Kelly did take out money, others must have colluded, such as the scheme’s actuaries and trustees. Was that likely?
I reached across for my A4 pad, and began to draw a family tree of the main suspects. Art was never my subject, so it was a scruffy affair. But it helped me to focus.
It was an inverse tree, with the central character Jack Kelly at the bottom. He was the root and trunk from which all branches grew. From him stemmed his two sons and a daughter. The sons, Tom and Richard, were both directors, with daughter, Kirsty, a non-exec member of the board. I knew the old matriarch Mary Kelly hovered somewhere in the background, but I could never remember if she was on the board or not.
A quick tap on the internet filled in that gap. She had been, but resigned three years ago, before the company ran into trouble. And the same applied to the daughter Kirsty.
According to the last set of accounts filed, Jack took home £2 million in salary and bonuses, with Tom pocketing £1.2 million. There was no mention of Richard.
I searched his name and found an old newspaper article dating back four years. He had sold out of the business, among rumours of a falling out, and emigrated to Western Australia, Perth.
Ah, Perth, where Mum, Dad, Peter, Helen and the children lived. My parents had retired over there, to be near Peter and his family, after giving up on me ever providing them with grandchildren. I was glad of the space.
A quick click into the company’s pension scheme and I had details of its legal advisers, Duncan & Aitcheson in Edinburgh. Actuarial advisers were Sherlock, often referred to in the trade as ‘Shylocks’.
I scrolled down the trustees. No surprises there. Jack and Tom Kelly and two shop floor workers, a pensioner. Blinding the latter three with numbers would have been easy.
One name jumped out of the screen at me. Banker to the scheme: David Black. He was a director of Kane National Savings Bank. Of course, Kane was Kelly’s banker.
I told Omar about Black, when I met him at the Savoy theatre that evening. He had invited me to a performance of HMS Pinafore to take my mind off the funeral. He loved Gilbert and Sullivan.
“Kane’s a ruthless bastard, but he's not a crook,” he said, as we sat in our seats and waited for curtain up.
“Really?”
“You’re prejudiced. I’ve met Black. He’s OK.”
“Maybe.”
“If you want my advice, don’t get involved. OK, so they lost their pensions. So’ve plenty of people. Bad luck. You’ve more than enough to worry about right now.”
“It's just,” the orchestra burst into full swing, and the curtain was rising.
“Forget Ken,” Omar’s voice was suddenly sharp. “He's not your problem. And anyway he was probably wrong.”
Voices behind shushed us quiet, and I relaxed as the performance got underway. It had been a good choice, with humour that lifted my spirits, and razor wit that warmed.
The Admiral’s song had long been a favourite, particularly the lines
… and when the winds blow I generally go below, and so does his sisters and his cousins and his aunts, his sisters and his cousins who he measures up in dozens and his aunts …
It was an object lesson in staying out of trouble.
At the interval, we went to the bar for a drink.
“Andrew wants me to keep chasing,” I said, as Omar handed me a glass. “I think there may be some history there.”
“Old scores?” Omar shook his head thoughtfully. “Be careful. Bad idea, fighting other people’s battles.”
“I know,” I nodded, sipping my drink. “And d’you know, for once, I don't feel it. Here, in my guts. I didn’t when Ken kept badgering me and I don’t, now. It’s such a huge sum of money to have ‘disappeared’. The rules and safeguards may not be perfect, but there are some. I can’t see how they could have got away with it.”
“There you are then.”
“What if I’m wrong? Surely I should at least carry out some preliminary checks. Surely I owe that to Ken…. and the others?”
Omar sipped his drink thoughtfully, but did not reply until we were back in our seats.
“You don’t owe them anything, Julia. If they’re unhappy, tell them to write to their MP. It’s not your problem.”
The orchestra was beginning the rhythmic opening of the second half.
“It’s all just playing with numbers anyway,” Omar shifted in this seat.
“Yes it is, unless it’s your pension that disappears.”
Renewed shushing from behind brought any further discussion to a halt as the curtain rose for the second half.
We were in a taxi and crossing the river in the direction of my flat before our conversation resumed.
“I just can’t stop thinking…”
Omar took both my hands in his, and looked me straight in the eyes.
“Don’t do this to yourself.”
“Do you really think Ken killed his family? What made him do it Omar? What could have made him do such a thing?”
Omar opened his mouth to say something, but no sound emerged. He closed it again, shaking his head slowly, for once the brilliant lawyer was lost for words. He released my hands and sank back in the seat.
“Is there any other possibility?” I continued. “Any other possible explanation? Could Mrs Strachan be right? Could they have been murdered by someone else?”
Omar shook his head, disappointed his advice was being rejected.
“Where would you start?” he said.
“The diary I guess.”
“The what?” he bolted upright again.
“His diary. I didn’t get a chance to tell you before now.”
“Do the police?”
“No. His solicitor handed it to me after the funeral.”
“And…”
“No ‘and’. I’m still reading it.”
“I see.”
“Then, there’s the company, not that I’ll get anywhere with them. Knock off the trustees, one by one, I suppose. All I would need was a sympathetic trustee, scared enough of being nailed for complicity to spill the beans. I would be home and dry.”
“There may be no beans to spill. Anyway, they’d never talk.”
“Then there are the actuaries and the scheme lawyers, of course,” I continued, ignoring him.
“Forget the lawyers,” Omar advised. “I know the legal adviser to the fund. It’s Marcus Briggs. As nasty a piece of work as you will meet anywhere.”
I raised my eyes questioningly to Omar.
“Oh yes, and he's Kelly's son-in-law.”
Omar let the implication sink in as my mobile rang. We were pulling up outside my flat. I flicked it to speak
“Julia Lighthorn.”
It was Carlton Crabb. I’d never mistake his voice.
“Mr Crabb, whatever do you want at this hour?”
“I may be overstepping my brief here, Ms Lighthorn, but Mr Strachan instructed me during the last days of his life. I feel he would want you to have the fff…following … Have the f..f..foll…”
He couldn’t seem to get it out, and I could hear he was tired. He tried again. “The f…f….following information.”
“Which is?”
I heard him take a big breath and the rest came tumbling out. “Kelly’s Brewery is re-opening for business. I have just heard. A solicitor friend of mine is handling the planning permission to restart production.”
“But the company’s bust.”
“The old company, not the new one.”
“Which will be called?”
“Kelly’s Brewery.”
“I do
n’t believe this.”
“T..t..t…trust me it is so.”
“And the pension scheme?”
“I have no knowledge, but the normal procedure is...”
“To liquidate.”
“Quite.”
“And the directors?”
“Naturally, in the circumstances, the former directors won’t be on the board. But I understand it will still be a family business.”
“Mother and daughter.”
“Granddaughter, I think you’ll f…f...find. But don’t forget that the bankruptcy rules have changed.”
“They can be back on the board in a little over a year.”
“Quite.”
“Thank you, Mr Crabb.”
“It is my pleasure, Ms Lighthorn.”
Omar couldn’t have mistaken the fury in my eyes.
“Kelly is back in business,” I didn’t need to let the implication sink in. We both knew what this meant.
“What did you expect?”
“No, don’t Omar, don’t say another word. Someone has to stop these crooks. They can’t be allowed to keep getting away with it.”
“But not you. Not now.”
“Then, who else?”
Chapter 10
10am Friday, October 12,
Whitechapel
The Friday deadline came and went, relatively painlessly. I delivered my copy, and began looking for new story ideas and leads, starting with the 10 0’clock news bulletin. Another teenager had been stabbed, in Hackney this time. On the financial front, a bank and insurer had announced a merger, and a UK businessman had been jailed in the US. There was nothing for me in any of this.
But a one-paragraph story in the morning paper caught my eye. A businessman working for the actuarial consultants, Sherlock, was reported missing. Sherlock was the Glasgow firm advising Kelly.
Ludgate called.
“Good line, this stuff about Kelly’s reopening.”
I mentioned the missing Sherlock actuary.
“Yes, I saw that…..he’s done a runner.”
“Maybe. Strange though, isn’t it? I’m not so sure…”
“Oh… you be sure,” he said. “Before we run anything,” he wasn’t joking. I swallowed hard.
“What do the police say?”
“I was just about to call them.”
“Good. Keep digging.”
I dialled Strathclyde Police press office and spoke to a Sergeant Brown.
“This missing actuary,” I began.
“What do you call a hundred actuaries at the bottom of the ocean?”
“A good start,” it was an old joke. “This missing actuary…”
“Donald Livingstone isn’t missing, not officially, not yet.” This time he was serious.
“He’s been reported missing.”
“By his wife. She says a couple of men came to the door, said they were police officers. He left with them.”
“Were they officers?”
“Of course not. If I had a fiver for every middle-aged man who disappeared, on a lame excuse, after telling his wife he was going out and wouldn’t be long, I’d be a very rich man.”
“So the police aren’t treating the report seriously?”
“I didn’t say that,” he protested. “But right now we’ve nothing to report.”
The officer was right. Grown men and women walk out of their lives every day. Nine times out of ten, they simply want to disappear. Wasn’t this too neat a coincidence, though, given the Kelly connection?
I badly needed a lead on this pension story. Omar was right. The staff and pensioner trustees were saying nothing; warned off by their lawyers. My best hope was the independent trustee, the professional, appointed to run the crippled fund. So I dialled the Edinburgh number of Mr Alexander Ross for the sixth time.
“Mr Ross is away from the office,” protective secretaries were a curse in my job.
“Does he have a mobile with him?”
“Out of the question, he’s at an important meeting.”
Couldn’t you guess.
“Will he be back later?”
“He has back-to-back meetings all week,” with that, the line went dead.
I had to speak to this man. An independent trustee is appointed when schemes go down, with specific instructions to carry out a forensic investigation into what went wrong. If anything is found to be amiss, they have a legal duty to go to the courts to recover missing money. By now, he should have a good idea where at least some of the bodies, or rather bundles of cash, were buried.
As a breed though, they didn’t like journalists, and this Mr Ross seemed no exception. I couldn't wait indefinitely in the hope he would call me back.
Omar was also right about wasting my time speaking to the scheme lawyers, and Sherlock was strictly ‘no comment’. That left Cameron’s, a respected global company, and the actuaries who advised Kelly’s up to three years ago. It might be willing to help, to protect its own reputation and direct blame elsewhere.
I pulled up Cameron’s last valuation and report completed six years ago in 1997, onto my screen. It was among the hundreds of documents Ken had sent me; files I hadn’t opened until now. It put the investments held within the fund, ie the assets, at £3.5 billion, and the liabilities, ie the pensions due to be paid both now and in the future, at £3 billion. The margin was close, but close enough, with a cushion for comfort.
The valuation was signed by Maurice Patterson, a senior partner at Cameron’s.
I dialled the number.
“I’m afraid we have no listing for a Maurice Patterson.”
“You must have. He’s listed on the documents I have here as one of your staff.” I wasn’t going to be fobbed off by an officious switchboard operator.
“Hold the line.”
Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled Waters’ clicked in. Presumably, the mood music was designed to calm clients, begging the question why so many were angry in the first place.
“Can I help you?” came a fresh voice.
“I'm trying to contact Maurice Patterson.”
“I’m afraid he no longer works for us.”
“Oh?”
“He retired three years ago.”
“Three years ago?”
“Something like. Before my time.”
“Do you know where I could reach him?”
“Even if I did, I wouldn't be able to disclose that information. It’s against company policy. But I'm afraid I don't.”
The line snapped shut.
So he was no longer with the company, and retired three years ago. What should I make of that? For lack of any other inspiration, I began a google search on Cameron and browsed its website, clicking idly through the press release archive, looking for an announcement of his retirement, or any other reference.
He was a past chairman of the professional association, had made some fairly esoteric speeches only a pension’s anorak could hope to understand, but that was about it.
Then, a name at the bottom of one of the releases caught my eye. For more information call Jamie White, senior press officer. Jamie was an old pal, now working in Whitehall. I didn’t remembering his working for Cameron’s as a PR. I flicked through my contacts book, found his mobile number, and dialled it.
“Jules, good to hear from you, how’s tricks?” His voice was warm. There was no side to Jamie.
“I came across your name on a press release. I didn't know you worked for Cameron.”
“Not for long I didn't. One of those career moves where you know you’ve done the wrong thing the minute you step foot over the door.”
“When was this? I don’t remember.”
“Understandable.”
The penny dropped. He was talking about Philip.
“I wasn’t there long, so doubt I can help, but shoot away.”
“Have you any idea where a man called Maurice Patterson might live. He retired a few years ago.”
“Patterson...Patter
son...it rings a bell.”
“You must have worked with him, your name’s on one of his releases.”
“It was such a long time ago,” I could hear him wracking his brain.
“Wait a minute, it’s coming back. A very thin tall old-school type. Used words like “pukka”, “shipshape” “tally ho” and a favourite phrase, I recall, was “steady old chap.”
It looked like I was about to strike gold.
“He retired a few years ago.”
“Really, he didn’t seem that old.”
I crossed my fingers before asking the next question.
“No idea, I guess, where I might find him?”
“For you, d’you know, I might. It’s coming back to me now. He lived in the same village as my Aunt Sally. I saw him at a village cricket match. It’s called Upton Grey, Hampshire.”
“I grew up not far away in Winchester.”
“So you know it. Whether he’s there now or not I couldn’t say.”
“You wouldn’t happen to have your Aunt Sally’s number?”
“It’s going to cost you,” he muttered, as I scribbled the number down.
Chapter 11
10am Monday, October 15,
Upton Grey Hampshire
Marsha insisted on accompanying me to Upton Grey, staying over the night before, so we could make a reasonable start.
“Can’t have you wandering the countryside alone, doll,” she said, wriggling to get comfortable in the passenger seat of my Golf. “They’re all mad. It’s the interbreeding.”
“For someone who’s travelled half-way round the world, you can be unbelievably insular,” I said, ramming the car into gear.
“Yeah, but I always fly out of thief-row. Never cross the M25 unless I have to,” she teased, knowing Hampshire was my home.
It wasn’t hard to find Jamie’s Aunt Sally’s house. Straight down the M3 towards Basingstoke; then follow the signs for Upton Grey. Traffic was light, so we were there in a little over an hour, and parked in the centre of the village outside St Mary’s Church.
DEAD MONEY Page 4