Unsafe Deposit

by J. E. Kellenberger

  ‘Really?’ replied Rolf.

  ‘I saw Kevin Yorke in a pub with Ron Lindsey a couple of days ago,’ Tommy said to Rolf. ‘He didn’t recognise me. I suppose it’s my bald head and contact lenses instead of those NHS round tortoiseshell spectacles that I used to have to wear.’

  ‘Oh yes, I remember nasty little Kevin from when we all worked on the market stalls. He must have been in primary school when we were at the grammar, but who is Ron Lindsey?’ asked Rolf.

  ‘Word has it that Ron is a professional crook although you’d be hard pressed to find out much about his shady dealings,’ Tommy recounted. ‘I could see they were up to no good the way they were talking to one another. They looked furtive. When they left the pub a sixth sense told me to follow them, can’t explain why, just intuition. They quickly split up and I followed Ron to a lock-up garage a few streets away. He was carrying a parcel that Kevin had given him in the pub and which he left in the lock-up. With Kevin’s background it was a pound to a penny that something dodgy was going on. I noticed that something was jutting out at the side of the garage door low down near the ground which Ron had obviously not spotted. It must have slipped out of his pocket when he was pulling down the up-and-over door. When no one was around I pulled it out to find a small lined exercise book such as those used by young school kids. It contained various lists of names, dates and amounts, none of which meant anything to me. However, on the inside back cover there was a company name, RLL Marketing, and address made by a rubber stamp.’

  ‘You went there?’ asked Rolf.

  ‘Yes, the address was an office block in Ludgate Hill,’ continued Tommy. ‘I picked a moment during the lunch hour when there were lots of comings and goings to read the three brass plates on the wall by the entrance and I was surprised that none of them were for RLL Marketing. Somebody came out of the building and I felt obliged to go in. The entrance foyer was quite small with two lifts immediately ahead, a wide door to the left stating the company name Meares Import Export and “Reception” and immediately to the left of the lifts a flight of stairs which by way of a half landing turned right to disappear behind the lifts. On the half landing was a door bearing the sign “RLL Marketing”. A noise came from behind the door and I quickly scarpered upstairs and joined some people waiting for the lift. I glimpsed a woman coming up the stairs and when I got a better look at her from standing half hidden behind someone else I knew immediately who she was. It was Lizzie Lindsey, Ron’s sister.’

  ‘You knew her?’ asked Rolf.

  ‘Not personally but I’d seen her at the local cinema where she worked as an usherette on Saturdays when she was a schoolgirl,’ Tommy responded. ‘I knew her name was Lizzie because my mates living in the same street as me fancied her and used to hang around after the end of the film trying to get a date. But her older brother always came to collect her on late nights and her brother I now know was named Ron.’

  ‘So what?’ Rolf questioned him.

  ‘Well the lift arrived and the people in front of me started shuffling in,’ continued Tommy. ‘At this moment a man came up the stairs and, on purpose, I dropped something on the ground to avoid having to get into the lift. The man coming up the stairs went straight into the offices of Meares Import Export. From his bearing it was obvious that he was the Meares in Meares Import Export and later I checked at Companies House and found that his first name is Arthur.’

  ‘So you think that Arthur Meares is the brains behind the blackmail and it is his wretched suspect marbles that I have been forced to keep in the safe deposit these last twenty years. But why him? Just because they’re criminals doesn’t mean that they’ve blackmailed me,’ said Rolf.

  ‘Well I think it does,’ responded Tommy. ‘We worked on my father’s stall, remember. He sold anything he could turn a few pence on let alone a dollar. I knew Ron Lindsey by sight because Dad sold a lot of his goods. Dad knew that a lot of his stuff was dodgy, especially the cosmetics which Dad believed to be counterfeit. Ron would have known you through me and Dad and your distinctive name would have stuck in his memory. So when WareWork gets a mention in the press before it goes public on the Stock Exchange either Arthur or Ron sees the name of Berghoff and puts two and two together and bingo, finds someone to hide his stolen property because you dare not risk having your past exposed. And if I can work out what the lists of names and amounts represent then we could turn the tables on him and even if I can’t I think we know sufficient to scare them!’ continued Tommy.

  ‘I agree,’ said Rolf jubilantly, ‘we will turn the blackmail tables on them and what’s more we’ll do it in the same way as they did to me, by letter!’

  Dear Mr Meares and Mr Lindsey,

  I have something that belongs to you. It is now time for you to retrieve it. Please do not query this course of action otherwise I shall be obliged to reveal the location of your lock-up.

  Please send your representative to the Café Rosah in Vaduz at noon on 15th September where your property will be handed back. Should something unexpected happen to me in the interim then please note that this information will be passed on to the police. Your assistance in this matter will be appreciated.

  ‘I think that says it all,’ said Rolf with a look of triumph at Tommy to which Tommy nodded in equal delight.

  ‘It’ll certainly piss them off!’ responded Tommy and added, ‘I’ll put it in the post this afternoon marked private and confidential and am I right in guessing that you want me to be the courier?’

  The Arthur Meares criminal empire had been based in the Ludgate Hill offices for more than two decades. In exchange for laundering their dirty money the lease had been bought for him by a longstanding business associate, a well-known face in the City who was the front man for a South American drugs cartel. In the tall, narrow building with a view up the hill to St. Paul’s Cathedral Arthur had gone into commerce legitimately in a modest way as a cover for his illegal activities. Arthur’s firm occupied the ground floor. The three upper levels were rented by a firm of solicitors and an insurance broker while the basement floor was currently leased by two young software designers. Ron worked in the self-contained semi-basement suite comprising two rooms, a reception area and a cloakroom. Two lifts served the basement to the top floor but not the semi-basement. This was accessed by a short flight of steps and thus few people working in the building were aware of its existence and even fewer noticed those working there. This suite of rooms was accessed by two doors located side by side, one with “RLL marketing” emblazoned on its smoky glass panel, the other with a simple one word notice, “Private”. This was ideal for Arthur as he could spend much of his time with Ron discussing money-making schemes without attracting attention but it was generally Ron, aided by his sister Lizzie, who put the ideas into practice. Lizzie doubled as Ron’s secretary; short and vivacious, she could be very adept at winkling out useful information from clients.

  Ron Lindsey liked his status as Arthur Meares’ first lieutenant. When not involved in Arthur’s projects he acted as a trade fair promoter running his own small company with usually just Lizzie’s assistance. The three of them had regular meetings in Ron’s office reviewing their ongoing scams and working on new strategies. In the early seventies they were involved in the sale of various fake goods, in particular cosmetics and cigarette smuggling. By the eighties they had moved into the burgeoning trade in counterfeit wine, buying cheap supermarket bottles and repeatedly buying and reselling them, thereby creating a complex paper chain and finally labelling them as premium products. Always keen not to overstay their time in any particular sphere of criminality in order to minimise the risks of getting rumbled, Ron and Arthur later moved into white-collar crime in the shape of fraud and embezzlement. Although he never let on, Ron knew quite a lot about Arthur Jnr’s family background. Brought up on a small council estate in north-east London, Ron and Lizzie heard all the gossip. When the Conservative governmen
t of 1979 allowed the sale of council houses to their tenants, Ron had been quick to offer his father sufficient cash for a deposit. The siblings had left home by the time their parents died. They decided to sell the house, which had greatly appreciated in value as Ron had thought it would, but to retain the lock-up garage which was situated in a block behind the housing terrace. He would use it for storing his hot merchandise.

  With Ron on hand and with a capable manager of his legal import/export business Arthur was in the enviable position of being able to take time off from business matters to indulge his passion for the arts. He had been very content watching this same trait echo in his daughter as she grew into adulthood. When she married but failed to start a family it was Arthur who had suggested opening an antiques shop and it was Arthur again who had provided the financial backing to do so. Neither Jane nor Angela had ever questioned how a small import/export firm could generate sufficient funds to support their expensive lifestyle let alone provide the capital outlay to set up shop near the centre of affluent Winchester, a testimony to Arthur’s deft skills at separating and cocooning his family from his criminal world. The shop specialised in water colours and small ceramics and father and daughter would often travel to antiques fairs and large car boot markets up and down the country seeking stock.

  Whilst returning home one day from an antiques fair in Peterborough they spotted a road sign for a local craft fair whilst driving through rural Leicestershire and stopped off to explore the craft work displayed in a large barn and were delighted to find some paintings amongst which were a few water colours. After some minutes a lady assistant enquired if they needed any help.

  ‘I was just enjoying looking at your watercolours,’ Arthur said. ‘Are they scenes of the local countryside?’

  ‘They probably are but I am not sure,’ she replied, ‘but as the artist lives locally I suspect that they are views from hereabouts.’

  ‘They are beautifully painted,’ he said admiringly.

  ‘Yes, they are. The lady who painted them is an art teacher in the sixth form college in Market Harborough. She doesn’t have much time to do her own painting but when she does she produces a few exquisite ones like these,’ she said, pointing to a harvest time scene in golden yellows and ochre browns.

  Examining the painting more closely Arthur tried to discern the artist’s name.

  ‘Is her name E. King?’ he enquired. ‘It’s a little difficult to make out her signature.’

  ‘Yes, it is Ella King and she is quite well known in these parts as her husband is one of the top men in WareWork. That’s a big company in this area employing a lot of local people,’ she added.

  ‘WareWork!’ he replied amazed. ‘Is that the company that manufactures overalls and work clothing?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one.’

  ‘And this Ella King is married to the top man, you say.’

  ‘Well I don’t know if he is actually the managing director but Alan Gadd, that’s her married name, is a big boss in the organisation.’

  ‘How interesting,’ said Arthur and really meant it.

  Just another little nugget of information that Arthur would store away in his memory archives for use against someone if it became necessary or if there was profit to be had. The paintings they bought would act as a splendid reminder of the link with WareWork and, ultimately, with Rolf Berghoff.

  Chapter Three

  In Time

  2010

  In his early forties Doug Watson had grown slightly overweight, a fact that wasn’t really surprising since for the last twenty years or more he had been wedded to his office desk earning large amounts of money to support his wife’s lavish lifestyle and the financial excesses of his two teenage daughters. He had met her at university while studying law but their relationship, in truth never particularly strong, had become increasingly strained and loveless and one day Doug had thrown in the towel, moved out of the family house and applied for a divorce. Neither an optimist nor a pessimist, the realism of a situation in which he seemed tolerated only for his breadwinning powers had finally kicked in. It had been an upsetting and unsettling period awaiting his divorce but one also of welcomed relief for although he liked many of the fine things that money can buy he was, basically, a man of moderation finding pleasure in simple and low-key activities. Slowly over the years he had grown more and more uncomfortable with his family’s extravagances, something that had added to the alienation he felt in their presence. The financial settlement in favour of his children he bore with equanimity but he really resented every penny he was required to pay his former wife. Unless she re-married he would have to work in a highly paid and demanding job for the rest of his life to fund her way of life. However, it was worth it. At least he now knew his monthly outgoings were fixed. Indeed he found that there were sufficient funds after all bills were paid to rekindle his former interest in cycling. Looking at himself in the mirror one day he prodded at the flab that had, for some time, been establishing a wobbly band around his waist and had to accept that he looked well past his mid-forties. He bought a bike, joined the local cycle club and started enjoying his weekends in the company of other club members. As he became fitter and trimmer he accepted invitations to do bike event rides along the Thames, in quiet rural settings in Oxfordshire and from London to Brighton. When the club organised a trip abroad flying into Munich and cycling south around the eastern end of the Lake of Constance, through Liechtenstein and south-west to Zürich and the Eurostar back to London he jumped at the chance of such an energetic holiday.

  The trip really began in Munich although it had been in preparation for quite some time. When she got wind of it one of the legal assistants in his office had told him about her son’s bike shop in north London where they specialised in touring bikes. The bike he had bought himself when he split up from his wife was one from a high street chain and although it was sturdy and had performed well for the bargain price paid it didn’t cut the mustard in terms of looks. Doug’s breath was rather taken away when he learned the price range available on his visit to the north London shop. Her son was very helpful explaining the pros and cons of each. After trying several models he settled on a bike in the medium price range that had been reduced by three hundred pounds when its replacement came on sale. It had a light alloy frame, fourteen speed gears, dual point brakes and specialised touring handlebars and was finished in steel blue paintwork. After customising with a rear rack, mudguards and comfort saddle it looked the part. Doug arrived in Germany by plane with nine other members of his cycle club, all male. At Heathrow they had had to remove the pedals and align the handlebars along the same plane as the bike’s frame before putting each bike into a special bag before it would be accepted for stowing in the aircraft’s hold. They all had panniers for their clothing and incidentals which they had taken onto the aircraft as cabin luggage. Doug had recently bought his on the high street and although not very expensive they were waterproof and capacious and a good thing too as he was amazed at just how much stuff he needed.

  Reassembling their bikes in Munich they headed off in a sort of convoy for the city centre. A short ride had been planned for the first day so that they could ease into the cycling but still have time to explore some of the city sights. It was also a time to relax and get to know one another, very probably with a stein of beer in hand. Leaving Munich the next day they headed west to Langsberg where they refuelled with würste and sauerkraut before pedalling south along the banks of the river Lech to Schongau where they would spend the night, a distance of eighty-five kilometres. Their second full day of cycling was scheduled to be the longest, taking them first south-west to Kempten and then onwards to cross the border into Austria and arrive at the eastern end of the Lake of Constance in the large town of Bregenz. Doug wasn’t used to such long stages and trailed in last with a man in his early seventies. He was glad he had packed a couple of sachets of anti-chafing cha
mois cream! They dined that balmy evening at a restaurant on the lake shore with views to their right of Lindau in Germany and a spectacular panorama to their left of the foothills to the Swiss Alps. After an early start the following day they cycled over the quiet border into Switzerland and spent a splendid morning of relaxed pedalling along the flat Rhein valley, entering Liechtenstein from its northernmost point and stopping in its capital Vaduz where they piled into the Café Rosah in the main square for lunch and a glass of wine after stacking their bikes along the railings on the pavement. The outdoor eating area was already half full with customers mostly finishing their morning coffees.

  On Ron’s instruction Kevin too had made his way to the rendezvous point. Kevin was one of Ron’s cohorts, someone he used regularly for mundane and time-consuming jobs. Kevin was not the brightest of sparks but was reliable because he was always in need of money. Where earning money in a proper job was concerned he was bone idle. He had left secondary school without any obvious qualifications and drifted from one labouring job to another. Following in his family’s footprints he had been involved in minor crime in one way or another since the age of eleven and although being caught by the police on one occasion had been let off because of his age with just a warning. Criminality seemed ingrained in his genes. But for a person steeped in history of petty crime and the perpetrator of countless scams he was none too subtle in his approach to this particular role. Ron had told him to linger near the café but not go in. Somebody would be looking out for him and would make contact. Sitting at an outdoor table with a small beer, Tommy was scanning the arrivals. He had seen the group of cyclists arrive, chain their bikes to the railings and go inside for an early lunch. He didn’t know who to expect as the blackmailer’s courier other than that person would be wearing a red baseball cap and standing just outside the railings. As soon as Kevin took up position Tommy spotted him, instinctively knowing there was something familiar about the figure with the red head covering. Tommy rose from his table a little too quickly, catching his thigh on the table’s rim and upsetting his half-finished glass of beer which overbalanced and fell to the ground, shattering noisily. Kevin’s attention was caught by the sudden noise and he recognised at once that the man standing at the table drying himself off was Tommy Cahill.