by Iain Adams
4
Walsall, May 2007
He doesn’t look like a typical Greek, thought McRae, as they shook hands amid the debris. More Prince Philip than Zorba, that was for sure. The group was currently sheltering from the worst of the rain underneath what remained of the entrance porch. Beneath his anorak hood, it was apparent that Kanelos was a pale-skinned, fair-haired man, quite tall and slim, with a handsome, straight-nosed face. Particularly surprising was the man’s deep, velvet, well-modulated voice. For some reason that McRae couldn’t define, the voice seemed incongruous being so exceptionally soft and easy on the ear. Very English and refined, it seemed that Kanelos must certainly have been born in the UK. He wasn’t just unusual for a Greek, but also as a “rag-trade” man; he had the persona of a merchant banker or a distinctly upmarket solicitor.
‘Thanks for getting here so quickly, gentlemen. I’m afraid it looks pretty desperate,’ Kanelos sighed. ‘Mind if I see your cards?’
Fishing a somewhat dog-eared visiting card from the breast pocket of his suit with some difficulty, McRae juggled with his clipboard before handing it over. It was quickly joined in the slim grasp of the Greek’s hand by Grim’s clean and pristine equivalent. Kanelos glanced at the cards for a fraction of a second before asking, ‘So, gentlemen, where would you like to start?’
‘A bit of background I think, Mr Kanelos, but perhaps you can introduce us to your colleagues first?’ McRae glanced out of the side of his eye at the two men who had hung back a little as Kanelos had introduced himself. Now, they look almost theatrically Greek, thought McRae, the only thing missing was a pair of piratical moustaches.
‘Of course, of course, how rude of me,’ responded Kanelos, smiling apologetically. ‘This gentleman is Spiros Angelous, our sales director,’ he said, gesturing in the direction of the taller of the two, ‘and this is George Gallo, our operations manager.’
The men exchanged cursory handshakes. The fourth man that the adjusters had noticed during their unannounced preview was nowhere to be seen.
‘Can you firstly tell us a little about the company, Mr Kanelos? Please assume that we know nothing about the fashion industry.’
‘Certainly,’ replied Kanelos, before starting to outline the history.
It transpired that Hellenic had been in existence for over ten years. The company employed around twenty personnel, most of whom were either designers, office workers or warehousemen. Originally, the company had operated in the heart of Birmingham, before transferring to Walsall as they had outgrown their original premises. Kanelos explained that Hellenic had initially manufactured their lines in-house but now was effectively a wholesale trader, importing its stock mainly from Greece, where it was made up to Hellenics’ requirements. The man was keen to emphasise that Hellenic was a superior operation, with its own highly respected branding and a reputation for quality.
‘We aren’t some Bangladeshi t -shirt outfit; our garments are well-made, high-fashion, high-margin clothes. We regard ourselves as up there with the very, very finest… you understand?’
‘Right, understood,’ said McRae, pausing to absorb the drama of Kanelos’s emphasis. ‘So can you just give us a feel for the layout?’
Before Kanelos could respond, Gallo interjected, ‘We can do better than that... this is a plan of the warehouse I was able to rescue from my desk. It’s a bit grubby but it may help.’ He brandished a heavily creased and distinctly smoke-permeated piece of paper in his left hand. The adjusters stepped forward and craned their necks to scrutinise the plan.
The building was a simple one. Running horizontally across the front was a two-storey office and administration block built of brick with a flat asphalt roof, behind which were three connecting, lofty, steel-framed bays that stretched back at 90 degrees to the administration block. Gallo indicated, using a stubby, nicotine-stained index finger, the entrance where the group was clustered. Immediately behind them on the plan was the reception and on either side were indicated the general and sales offices respectively. The ground floor of the office block was completed by a small kitchen and canteen with adjacent toilets.
‘What’s above?’ enquired Grim.
‘The designers’ room and our offices,’ replied Kanelos, presumably meaning the directors. ‘Generally, the damage to this area is not too bad. It’s the warehouse that’s really been buggered.’ Leaning in towards the crumpled plan, Kanelos then pointed towards the three bays. ‘Unit A is used mainly for receiving, treating and processing deliveries, Unit C is for despatch control and most of the stock was in B.’
I can see he doesn’t get too involved in the dirty end, thought McRae as he studied the elegant, impeccably manicured fingers of the Greek.
‘So, what can you tell us about the circumstances?’ he asked.
‘Well, all we know at present is that George here was the last to leave at around 8pm last night.’ Gallo did his best to look innocent as this damning remark was uttered. He succeeded. ‘He had to hang around to accept a late delivery, which was offloaded at about 7pm. Everything was locked up as usual and the first thing we knew was when George got a call from the alarm company, Alaska, at about 6.15am this morning, telling him that the central station burglar alarm had been triggered. About five minutes later, the police arrived while he was getting dressed to say that the place was on fire. He rang me immediately. I called Spiros and we all arranged to come down here together. We got here eventually about an hour later. The fire was pretty fierce by then, I can tell you. It took the brigade about another hour to bring it under control.’
‘So, why did George get contacted? Is he the registered keyholder?’
‘Of course,’ said Kanelos. ‘George looks after everything concerning the premises. He effectively manages the place day to day.’
‘Do you own the building?’ enquired Grim.
‘Yes, we do actually. We used to rent, but we had an opportunity to buy out the lease last year,’ replied Kanelos with a slightly unconvincing appearance of regret.
‘And how much stock do you think you were carrying?’ enquired McRae.
‘Well, fortunately we do stock reconciliations on a weekly basis, so we have a pretty precise idea. As of last Friday, the stock stood at just under £8million.’
He looked enquiringly towards the two adjusters. There was a pregnant pause while McRae and Grim exchanged glances before the former spoke.
‘Fine, I think that’ll do us for now,’ he said. ‘Time to take a good look around. We’ll have another chat with you in about an hour if you don’t mind hanging on here, but we may need to come back with any queries as we proceed.’
‘Yes, well, as you might imagine, I have quite a few things to be getting on with,’ said Kanelos ruefully. ‘We may well decide to be represented by someone who can help us with our claim, so I have to sort out some meetings with a few assessors. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind raising any questions with George here in my absence?’
‘Certainly’, replied McRae, ‘but we will definitely need to speak to you personally at some stage later.’
‘Of course,’ smiled Kanelos.
5
Walsall, May 2007
Leaving the Hellenic directors clustered in the doorway, the adjusters moved away to the shelter of an adjoining lean-to that housed an aging cycle rack.
‘Right, so what are your initial impressions?’ enquired McRae. Grim’s response was a shrug, followed by a terse, ‘Too early to say, mate. Let’s crack on.’
‘Fair enough. You start on the structure, while I have a gander at the stock. We can compare notes in, say, half an hour, eh? Don’t forget to take plenty of photos.’
The couple separated; Grim started to measure up and quantify the structural damage while McRae made a beeline for the warehousing.
The damage was undoubtedly far more severe at the rear, and it became abundantly clear that the fire must have originated close to the rear exterior door of the central section of Warehouse B. The pitched, profiled-steel
sheet roof of this section of the building had totally collapsed, and the structural steelwork, formerly supporting the roof, had buckled and was now sagging across the centre of the warehouse like some kind of giant colander. The perimeter walls had been pushed outwards by the expansion of the steel wall plates and in some areas the walls had been fractured, allowing shafts of daylight to penetrate the gloom. The whole place was swimming in ankle-deep, sooty extinguishment water, and, not for the first time, McRae was glad that he had remembered his boots.
Looking towards the rear, it was clear that each of the bays incorporated individual personnel access doors and that Unit A, to his left and C to the right, also benefitted from wide roller-shuttered loading bays. Despite the murkiness of the weather, the massive gaping breach in the roof enabled McRae to see sufficiently well, so as to make out the principal features.
As they had been told, the bulk of the stock had been stored in the central area, Bay B, while to his left, a couple of what seemed to be burnt-out fork lift trucks, hanging rails and storage racking was evident. Damage on his right in Bay C, was far less severe and stacks of pallets and what he assumed to be some type of wrapping machines were clearly visible.
Enormous stacks of heavy duty, double-walled cardboard flatpack boxes were teetering precariously in an alcove adjacent to Bay C. They were sodden and scorched but remarkably intact. McRae took a closer look and saw that they were clearly used boxes, many of which still carried yellow labels bearing a large black ornamental, almost gothic, letter K logo, below which was the legend Viktor Kaloudis Ltd – Vlastou 15, Thessaloniki, Greece. He pulled one of the sodden labels free and inserted it into his file.
It was getting darker by the minute and the wind was getting up, driving gusts of rain into the areas where the roof no longer provided shelter. He decided to take an alternative view, from the rear of the warehouse before attempting the more daunting task of penetrating into the heart of the warehouse. The heart of darkness, he suddenly thought, for no good reason.
From the rear access door to Unit A, it was possible to get a fairly panoramic view of the interior, so he rested his clipboard on the steel-framed seat of a gutted forklift, extracted his compact camera from the pocket of his anorak and took a couple of general shots. It was important to do this while there was still sufficient daylight. They wouldn’t be brilliant with the inbuilt flash, but he would get some professional ones taken later. Deciding to continue his general survey for the moment, he picked his way carefully amongst the charred timber, broken glass and fallen bricks, parallel with the rear wall, in the general direction of the despatch unit, C.
In the course of his tortuous progression he looked closely at the three loading bay doors, each of which seemed well secured by newish twin closed-shackle padlocks. The two timber-framed personnel doors also seemed well protected, being lined externally with sheet steel and secured by five lever deadlocks.
Spotting a collapsed section of the rear wall, McRae clambered gingerly through the gap and outside for a general view. Stepping as far back as he reasonably could from the rear wall, he took two pictures showing the complete rear elevation and then moved quickly to his right to get a shot along the side wall.
Precisely as his finger began to depress the shutter, a short stocky figure in a high visibility jacket materialised on the very edge of the viewfinder and quickly turned his face away from the camera. Friar Tuck? he wondered, as he lowered the camera, only to find that the figure had disappeared as quickly as he had arrived. He then retook the shot before retracing his steps to the right-hand warehouse door. As he approached the door, he could clearly see that one corner of the steel sheet seemed to have been levered, almost peeled, away from the frame. Looking more carefully, it was also apparent that the inner tongued and grooved woodwork had been splintered. He took several close-focus pictures for the record.
Time to get stuck into the heart of darkness, he thought.
Re-entering the warehouse and climbing with care over a fallen stack of sodden heavy-duty cardboard packing cases, McRae moved into what had evidently been a two-tier aisle of hanging rails. Filthy, charred, part-melted and sodden piles of reeking garments, most still clinging to deformed plastic hangers, formed a valley through which he negotiated an erratic path. After twenty minutes, McRae had gained a clear idea of the original layout.
It was evident that Unit B had indeed contained the bulk of the stock. There had been ten long aisles with double-height hanging rails, adjoined at each end by metal Dexion racking that consisted of multiple shelves. It appeared to the adjusters’ untrained eye that dresses, skirts and similar items had been hung up, while the shelving had contained blouses and tops in silk, cotton and mixed man-made fabrics each packaged in clear plastic sleeves. Not exactly being a fashionista himself, McRae was unable to determine how good the stuff was but, he thought he knew someone who could.
Thinking of Karen made him realise that there was now little chance of making their agreed dinner date. It was nearly five o’clock already and they would not get away for at least another hour or two. Traffic on the Aston Expressway would be at a standstill anyway. Fuck, better ring her.
Astonishingly, Karen responded with a rare good humour to his apologies. However as the call ended she had said: ‘It’ll cost you!’ He knew she wasn’t joking.
Replacing the phone in his pocket, McRae observed Grim zigzagging his way towards him
‘I’m done with the buildings for now,’ he panted. ‘It’s looking good. Want me to get on with the machinery or have you done it already?’
‘Not even started, my friend, so feel free. I’m still trying to get some idea of the bloody stock numbers. Actually, I don’t think they have too much in the way of plant anyway. Mind you, there could be a fair bit of smoke damage in the admin block, even though it seems intact.’
‘You’re not wrong,’ responded Grim. ‘I’ve already been through it. Nothing has been totally destroyed but all the computers have been knackered. There will be fuck all salvageable, I reckon. Incidentally, the ‘canteen’ is just about bearable as a dry meeting room, if we need to bring old George in for a few questions later.’
‘Great, but what I’m more bothered about right now is getting forensic in. We are talking millions here. Can you get onto Balfour and see how soon he can get down?’
With this value of loss, it would be essential to get forensic consultants involved. It was a no-brainer. Normally McRae would contact the insurer first to seek approval, but CFG would absolutely insist on someone being engaged here, he was certain. As he thought about it McRae realised that CFG would almost certainly engage someone else, one of the major international forensic companies, but McRae had total confidence in Steve Balfour of Balfour-Grange. As a small, keen-as-mustard, independent practice, he knew that Balfour would do everything himself. There would be no delegation of certain mundane aspects of the investigation to junior members of staff, which so often happened with the larger companies. No, Steve, he was decided, was the man.
He hesitated, as he noticed Grim staring at him. Already, the little man had acquired a patina of soot on his face and his eyes were gleaming.
‘Yes, I know what you’re thinking, but Steve won’t let us down and I really don’t want to report back, in any way, before we’ve got all our ducks in a row.’
Grim shook his head sorrowfully as his eyebrows rose. ‘You’re taking a hell of a chance, Drew.’
‘I know,’ he replied, quietly, ‘but the way I see it, if we get back to them now and give ‘em a reserve of umpteen million, we’ll be off this case before we even get started – and that much is certain! This way, so long as we take all the right steps and get our feet a little bit under the table, it might be easier for them to stick with us than twist.’
Cairns looked dubious. ‘Phew, I really don’t know. It might be smarter to put them fully in the picture now and take our chances.’
‘Yes,’ responded McRae, patiently, ‘but the trouble is that
it could come across as if we are nervous of handling a large loss. You know how these guys work, the slightest sniff of some decision that head office might not like and they’ll be saying, ‘Sorry about the mistake, let’s have your bill. The Big Three are taking over tomorrow.’ You know that’s true.’
Grim gazed into space a moment before eventually sighing, somewhat theatrically and saying, ‘Okay, okay, it’s your call, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.’
McRae needed no warning, the potential politics of this case had been absorbing him from the second he had picked up the Hellenic file. In some inner recess of his mind he was fully conscious that he was taking chances, but… needs must.
‘Okay, let’s give this another half hour and meet in the canteen at...’ he glanced at his watch, ‘say, six? You can tell me then how soon Balfour can get here and we can finally decide on how we’re going to approach CFG.’
While Grim began poking around the adjoining bays, individually examining and painstakingly listing the damaged equipment in his usual methodical fashion, McRae continued with his own detailed examination of the stock. He started in the first aisle, the one nearest to the loading bay.
There seemed to be three major brands which were discernible on the soiled labels, Anastasia, Dido and Xenia. Inside each garment were further tags indicating the nature of the material, the washing instructions and the legend “Made in Greece”. What surprised McRae a little was that the mounds of sodden fabrics in the aisles, while forming a considerable obstacle to his progress, were perhaps rather less formidable than the extensive rails and racking might have suggested.
Pausing alongside a particularly unappealing mound of neon yellow shift dresses McRae decided, reluctantly, that it was time to get down and get dirty, literally. He bent his protesting knees, settled onto his haunches and began to pull away the reeking top layers. More and more of the same were revealed, but as he delved deeper, the dresses located in the centre of the heap seemed noticeably drier and less smoke damaged. By the time his efforts had finally revealed the concrete floor, the garments uncovered were dry and crumpled but virtually clean. Surprised, McRae commenced a similar exercise on another mini-Everest towards the rear of the bay. The pattern was repeated.