Unsafe Deposit

by J. E. Kellenberger

  ‘But surely you can make allowances in a case like this where you can prove that you are handing it back to the real owner,’ countered Doug, ‘it’s been lost for barely five minutes and if I hadn’t turned back in the hope that the train had somehow been delayed leaving this station I would have probably reported it to you before it was even handed in. Please make an allowance. All I’ve got is my Oyster card. I can’t even get home because my overground train season ticket is in my wallet.’

  The ticket collector was impressed by Doug’s coherent plea. He prided himself that he was a thinking man and it made no sense to follow slavishly a laid-down procedure which would create work and disruption when he could simply reunite the briefcase with its owner here and now. He opened the briefcase, removed the wallet and pulled out the driving licence. With an adjustment of his reading spectacles he asked the passenger his name and date of birth. They tallied. He took a closer look at the photo, then at Doug, then back at the photo. It was the same man.

  ‘OK Sir,’ he said, handing over the wallet and then the briefcase to Doug, ‘I’ll just mark on the official form that you claimed the article whilst I was still completing the paperwork.’

  ‘Thank you so much for dealing with this intelligently,’ replied Doug, ‘I’m really grateful to you.’

  Sitting on the train home from Fenchurch Street Doug speed dialled Ruth’s number. She answered at the first ring.

  ‘You’ll never believe what happened to me today,’ said a tired but animated Doug. ‘Could you come and meet me at my office tomorrow morning and I’ll tell you then but for the moment could you do me a big favour on your way in please and deliver by hand a Thank You card with a twenty pound note slipped in to the senior ticket inspector at Stratford tube station exit. I’ll explain all tomorrow, you’ll be amazed!’

  Doug’s call was not the only interesting one Ruth had received that day. An earlier call from a woman who wished to remain anonymous alerted her to a run on WareWork shares and hinted that the force behind the run was a hedge fund fronted by Sir Brian Day. The unknown caller clicked off without further comment when Ruth began questioning where she had obtained her information. These bare facts, some of which Ruth had already alluded to in an article she had written, were confirmed in a later conversation with a broker with whom she had been acquainted for many years. In addition, she learned of the appointment of a new non-executive director whose call to the board, the broker speculated, was forced on the company by dint of the percentage of shares held by an investment firm which wished to have their own man on the board for some, currently, unknown reason. The name of the new director meant nothing to Marian but the search engine came up with some interesting facts about his background including a photograph of him at the Cheltenham Cup races with two companions, one of whom was Sir Brian Day whose company was sponsoring one of the races. Ruth had established a link between the two men and was optimistic that, with persistence, this tiny fact would unlock further pieces of information about the shady world of the knight. What she had to do now, Ruth decided, was to find out what Sir Brian Day hoped to achieve by getting his own man onto the WareWork board. She could also try and trace the anonymous caller. She would ring her geek IT client and beg another favour.

  Marian Bowden had purposefully genned up on micro SIM cards. She could buy one over the counter without a handset. It would have its own telephone number. If she removed the SIM from her own mobile and replaced it with the new one she could make a call which couldn’t be traced to her usual number. If she then threw away the new card no one could link her with a telephone call she planned to make. When she disconnected her call with R.E. Raven Marian had no sense of being duplicitous whatsoever. Someone had to deal with the implications of the new non-exec board member foisted on them as a result of the share run. Daniel was too nice, too conciliatory and too prepared to accept situations at their face value. Marian would have to handle it and while the new man was affable and well connected he had no commercial pedigree and no business acumen. He was clearly a puppet whose strings would be pulled by a third party and she had every intention of putting a spanner in those particular works. The more so since the bank’s representative on the board had recently been replaced by a younger, more sociable man, one with dark brown curly hair and a sense of humour and, apparently, still without a wife. Where she had failed before she sensed she might succeed this time.

  ***

  Much was going on in Doug’s office building when Ruth arrived the next morning having completed her task at Stratford tube station. There was a frenzy of activity in his firm’s suite of rooms and she was lost in the general hubbub of employees and tradesmen until a well-suited man in his late fifties with a quiet air of authority enquired if she was Doug’s friend Ruth. He explained that the upheaval was the result of an electrical fire which damaged two of their office rooms, including Doug’s, and the reception area. Doug would have to work for a few days in the photocopying area on the floor above while his room was being redecorated and re-equipped and SP, as he had introduced himself to Ruth, shepherded her up the stairs to his improvised workplace. Until this moment Ruth’s encounters with Doug had been as two separate people meeting up but from SP’s manner she felt she was being considered as his partner. She hoped she had interpreted it correctly and the look of affection on Doug’s face as she approached the table which was serving as his temporary desk was affirmation of their relationship. He stood up and moved towards her, immediately putting his arms round her waist and kissing her gently on the lips. SP left quietly and descended the stairs to his own office, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

  It was probably only a few seconds that they stood there in that loose embrace, oblivious to anyone or anything else but it seemed to both like a heavenly eternity. Sit down and let me explain, Doug had said finally as he took her through the anguishes of the previous day, ending with the part she had played with the small reward for the ticket collector in Stratford.

  ‘So where are they now?’ asked Ruth cautiously.

  ‘My adrenaline level was running at an all-time high when I got home last night, I couldn’t sleep, I had to do something so I split the gems into two separate lots, the Ruby Reds and the remainder,’ he replied in a low voice. ‘So they no longer read “the quality of mercy is not strained”,’ he added with a cheeky grin and continued, ‘but I had no idea where to store them so they are now in my briefcase,’ pointing to the satchel-style case slung over the back of his chair.

  ‘We don’t seem to have much luck finding safe storage,’ commented Ruth, ‘whatever location we chose seems fated.’

  ‘That’s true but we can’t go on like this,’ said Doug, ‘we simply have to try to get them back to their rightful owners. We’ve talked about it before and done nothing but this time we must. If only it was that easy but it isn’t.’

  ‘Do you mean how to give them back anonymously?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes, that’s a big enough problem on its own but there’s also the question of fingerprints and DNA material. Our fingerprints and our DNA are all over the gems and before we find a way to return them we must clean them so that they cannot be traced back to us.’

  He went on to explain about his internet search to find an effective way to remove DNA material. There was no failsafe method but bleach appeared to be the most effective chemical and was easily available. Diluted with water it apparently degraded the DNA by breaking the hydrogen bonds between DNA base pairs, whatever that meant, Doug informed her. It should be fairly simple to rub off fingerprints but they would have to clean the stones meticulously to remove all traces of DNA. A brand new toothbrush and an artist’s fine-detail paintbrush should allow them to get into all nooks and crannies and, of course, they needed to wear disposable gloves and have a receptacle which they had never touched into which to put the gems once they had been cleaned. It would take patience, time and concentration but removal
of the DNA material was vital because the police might hold it on their database for years to come and if, at some time in the future, they were burgled or involved in an accident or something of that nature and the police wanted to eliminate their DNA material from that of the suspects they would be in hot water to say the least if the computer suddenly spewed out a match with samples on the Ruby Reds!

  ‘You’d better leave that to me,’ said a serious-sounding Ruth. ‘I hadn’t thought through the possibility of the gems being traced back to us. It wouldn’t be fun to languish in a prison cell for a crime we hadn’t committed in the first place and for trying to return the spoils to the rightful owners in the second. I’ll take on that job as I can be extremely organised.’

  ‘So that leaves us with the question of how we return them to the owners, in the case of the Ruby Reds either to the London Museum of Fine Arts from where they were stolen or to the museum in New York where they were bequeathed.’

  ‘You have done your homework,’ said Ruth admiringly. ‘I don’t know where you found the time.’

  ‘I’m stumped now though. No idea how to proceed from here but I’m sure a jiffy bag isn’t the right solution.’

  Ruth smiled mischievously, pulled her chair closer to Doug’s and talked uninterrupted for several minutes with Doug nodding from time to time in agreement and in awe of her daring plan. They would concentrate on the Ruby Reds and, for the time being, the other stones would go back deep into Ruth’s compost heap.

  ***

  When Tommy had handed him the treasure and note with the message “pass down male line” it had brought Daniel up with a jolt. The plain facts were being presented to him in uncompromising form. He had to face facts that if he carried on in the same way he would have no offspring let alone male heirs. He had tried his best to totally ignore his personal future, the pain of his unrequited love being still too raw to revisit. During social evenings out with his friends, male and female, married and single, he had tried a few tentative steps to get a girlfriend but, nice as some of them undoubtedly were and as interested as some of them seemed, his heart simply wasn’t in it. Even Marian Bowden had tossed her hat into his ring and although his faulty gene made having healthy offspring a fifty-fifty lottery the chances were considerably better with a partner who was not a first cousin. As for the item of purported Croesus treasure, like Tommy before him, he had been mesmerised by its beauty and was in awe of its history. An internet site had provided him with general information about the Croesus treasure although he had found very little about individual pieces and what was his family connection with this beautiful object? Did they own it legitimately or was it plunder from the spoils of war? He had no idea and, sadly, had no one to recount to him the true story. He supposed that in his latter days his grandfather had taken Rolf aside and told him about its history and how it had been handed down to him and what to do to secure its future. No such handover could occur with Uncle Rolf’s unexpected demise and Daniel was left with minimal instructions. He felt he needed wise counsel. Should he turn to his mother? She was family and of the same generation as Rolf but she was part of the distaff line. He knew before he posed the question that he would turn to his father. Uncle Rolf would approve. He would put it all in a theoretical way so that his father couldn’t be considered as being involved in any misdemeanour should something go wrong and the secret of the treasure be exposed by bad luck or unintentionally but when he approached his father with the storyline of a friend with a dilemma Daniel broke down. One moment he was seemingly uninvolved emotionally with his friend’s story, the next he was relating his own. For a moment he couldn’t speak. He turned away from his father as tears welled up in his eyes and sprang with force over his lower eyelids and down his face. Amid a mumbled apology and a dabbing of cheeks with a large white handkerchief his father rested a hand gently on his shoulder and waited for his son to steady himself. From behind Daniel’s shoulder came a soft and reassuring voice. ‘You must tell your friend,’ his father said, ‘that for most people affairs of the heart seldom run smoothly. There are ups and downs along the path, causing periods of pain and joy but as time passes feelings usually mellow and what was unbearable to contemplate at one point becomes possible later. Most of all you must tell your friend to be kind to himself, not to blame himself, not to give up and to try to keep a positive attitude however unlikely a situation may seem. Something usually turns up and can be just as rewarding. Now on the subject of the object d’art I can definitely help your friend there. Your mother knows a lover of fine arts who is a member of the same Livery Company. He seems very knowledgeable and if he can’t help then I’m sure he could tell you who to contact. His name is Arthur Meares. I’ll get his number from your mother’s telephone book, that’s the one I have to write all the numbers in and read them out to your mother when she wants to make a call!’ They both chuckled. When Daniel rang the house number, however, the line went dead.

  ‘Hallo,’ said Daniel down the telephone. ‘Am I ringing the correct number to speak to a Mr Arthur Meares?’

  ‘May I know who’s calling please,’ answered Sandra.

  ‘He doesn’t know me. I’m ringing to seek his advice about who to contact regarding a piece of fine art that I am interested in. I understand from a friend that he has a vast knowledge about antiquities and might be able to recommend an expert for me to speak to.’

  ‘How did you get this number,’ enquired Sandra.

  ‘Actually I wasn’t given this number, I was given an old number which went dead when I called it. I rang directory enquiries to check it out and they supplied your number.’

  ‘I see,’ said a slightly wary Sandra. ‘Mr Meares is out at the moment but if you give me your name and contact number I will ask him to ring you when he returns.’

  She wrote down his name and number on the pad of sticky notes by the receiver.

  ‘And what type of antiquity is it that you wish to know more about?’ requested Sandra, twiddling the pencil she had just written with.

  ‘It’s about a king who lived in central Europe in 500 BC. His name was Croesus.’

  ‘Could you spell that please?’

  Daniel enunciated each letter slowly and distinctly.

  ‘Thank you, I’ll tell him,’ she said politely and rang off.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Arthur from the other end of the sofa.

  ‘A man who wants your advice about a king named Croesus.’

  She tore off the sticky note from its pad and handed it to the flabbergasted Arthur.

  ***

  They had both agreed to the quickie divorce and Jane had accepted Arthur’s generous proposition of a one-time-only payment, the marital home. It would free them both to pursue fresh lives with new partners. There would be no hanging about waiting for solicitors’ letters and emails to go back and forth, no wasted time, no recriminations and no gratuitous nastiness, just a mutual agreement to a quick and clean break. Jane was happy although she had to admit that her ego had been somewhat dented when she learned through Angela of Arthur’s kept woman. It had been going on for years apparently, right under her nose but she had failed to spot the signs. Had she been too trusting or had her world of socialising been too self-centred? Well it didn’t matter now, she had someone she truly loved, her own soul mate, and apart from the damaged relationship with her daughter which she would have to leave for time to heal they would make the most of their future together. The decree nisi had been issued and the formal notification of the decree absolute would soon be on its way. The marital home was already on the market and attracting some serious prospective buyers. For the moment living in Tommy’s modest house in north London was fine but as soon as the house sale was completed they would use the proceeds to buy a roomier and plusher property in south Leicestershire. It would be a break from the past for both of them and she longed for that very moment to come.

 
Living with a woman after years of bachelorhood would, someone had told him, require a period of adjustment but Tommy had taken to it like a duck to water. He loved her presence in his home, the smell of her perfume, her dressing gown hanging from the hook on the bedroom door, the way she brushed her hair, the well-stocked fridge she had insisted on having and the slim arms she draped around his neck when they said hallo and goodbye. But most of all he loved the prospect of sharing the rest of his life with her. She was a good cook too. He would have to start watching his weight. The other day his partner Jack Dawes had playfully tweaked a roll of fat around his waist and said that he was looking chubby. Contentment: that was the root cause. He’d discussed with Jack the idea of ending the partnership, wondering whether Jack would like to buy him out and go it alone as a sole trader or whether he had plans for his sons to join him in the business when they were old enough. Jack seemed keen for the partnership to continue, with Tommy playing a secondary role, but Tommy was not enthusiastic. He explained his lifestyle change and that after his marriage they wished to move up to a more rural location and one from where he could commute to a new commitment as a director of a textile firm. He had accepted the brief of finding out the needs of the average wearer of protective clothing in the workplace so that WareWork products would meet their requirements and new lines would evolve to fill any gaps in their product range. His easygoing manner, honed by years of selling cars on the forecourt, would allow him to talk to all workers in his naturally charming way from the shop floor to the boardroom and he would listen carefully to their suggestions for product improvement. He and his wife would be travelling far and wide on this business. Jack nodded in approval and said he would consider all possibilities.

  Their wedding was a very quiet affair in a hotel with a licence to hold marriage ceremonies. Rolf would have been his best man had he been alive. His father Stan was unwell and unable to attend, Daniel was very busy and so it was Jack Dawes who acted as supporter and witness. For Jane the situation was even starker. On the threshold of her new life she was unable to share the joy with her currently estranged daughter and son-in-law and from her band of socialite friends came the realisation that none amongst them counted for much. ‘It didn’t matter,’ Tommy had told her, ‘people who truly mean something is what matters and the truth is that we wish to be together all the time and that’s what we are going to do.’ After the ceremony there was time only for a handshake with Jack before they departed to the airport for their honeymoon and Tommy’s first assignment as WareWork’s roving ambassador. They were on their way to a five-star luxury beach resort in Kassandra Bay on the Greek island of Skiathos where they would spend ten days before returning to the mainland for Tommy to start checking out the protective clothing requirements of manual workers engaged in the building of bulk carriers and tankers in the Hellenic shipyards in and around the area of Pireaus. These shipyards had been good customers in the past but their loyalty to WareWork was waning in the light of severe competition from Asian manufacturers. They settled into their business-class seats and toasted their marriage for the first time with champagne. As the aircraft flew over the Alps on its journey towards the south-eastern extremity of Europe they were too engaged in one another to notice the wondrous Alps laid out below them with the sun glinting on the snow-capped peaks and shadows with razor-sharp edges cast by the craggy summits on the pristine ice fields below. By the time the aircraft was crossing the Pindus mountain range of central Greece before starting its descent into the busy airport of Athens they were slumbering, lost in their own world and totally oblivious to the events that were about to unfold.