Unsafe Deposit

by J. E. Kellenberger

  Sir Brian Day did not take his detainment calmly. On arrival in the police station he had flung intense verbal abuse at all and sundry and, at one point, had had to be forcibly restrained on a sturdy plastic chair in the middle of the reception area. When in time the maelstrom of red blood corpuscles accelerating through his cranial arteries slowed down and he became able to think clearly he invoked his right as a suspect to legal advice. The station sergeant told him that he was entitled to free advice from the duty solicitor. Sir Brian looked down his thin, bony nose with disdain at this suggestion and snapped back that he would select his own legal representative thank you very much but when pressed as to who that would be there was a dawning for Sir Brian that he was precariously situated in a cleft stick. On the one hand he knew several lawyers of note either through business or social activities who he could call on without worry about payment of their extortionate fees. He was totally innocent in regard to the gemstones and if this charade was just about them then an eminent solicitor would soon have him free and be pursuing the police for unjustifiable conduct. But his grey cells were blinking a warning message. This was a set-up and was surely unlikely to end with the gemstones and the police were displaying a worrying air of confidence too. So, on the other hand, would he wish to take the chance of unmasking his real background to a lawyer of that ilk who had only ever known him as a grandee of society, it was a dilemma which he knew would end with him eating humble pie and opting for the duty solicitor on the grounds that it wouldn’t be fair to ask someone he knew to come out at this time in the late evening over a matter about which he was totally innocent. But an early end was not in sight as the police sought an extension of a further twenty-four hours to the standard detention period due to the complex nature of the evidence and the concomitant difficulties in assembling it. It was only after his second night in one of the station’s cells that he was charged with money laundering in his original name of Bernard Evans, known usually as Brian Day. The police now had the right to take photographs, fingerprints and DNA samples, and he was told he would be kept in custody until his appearance in court the following day to confirm his name, address and age.

  During his long third night in custody the horns of his dilemma spread and sharpened. It was no longer a question of who he should pick to represent him but rather a question of whether he should be represented at all and he could only decide that when he knew the full extent of their knowledge which would be the following day when they started questioning him. If they had concrete evidence about Brazil and Zilbar Holdings he was doomed but if they just wafted names and places and speculated about possible actions then all was not lost. The thought of the remainder of his life in prison, for that was what it would be realistically, was unbearable. He didn’t think he would survive for very long living amongst the scum of society; he would find it insufferable. He would rather be dead. The formal interview started at nine o’clock the following morning but lasted no more than five minutes. The opening gambit of the law was to immediately spread out before Sir Brian their hard evidence which they pointed out could be corroborated from different sources and he didn’t for one second doubt their ability to do so. It was a no-brainer in the end. He turned Queen’s evidence and cooperated fully in return for the promise of a change of identity and a safe house in one of the former colonies with a regular income for the remainder of his life. The monthly payment would represent peanuts in relation to the billions saved by the international authorities smashing the ring of drug traffickers. He had disclosed everything he knew including Arthur’s part in the chain. He was sorry to have to do that but his prosaic attitude was “needs must”.

  ***

  Marian lifted the receiver to her ear.

  ‘It was you, wasn’t it, who rang me with the news of the share run!’ stated Ruth without prevarication.

  ‘Hmm,’ replied Marian guardedly. ‘Are you Ruth Raven?’

  ‘I am. And are you open to a frank conversation about the things you told me about in that anonymous call you made?’

  ‘If you are on a landline then yes, I most certainly am.’

  ‘Good, but perhaps we had better discuss such sensitive matters face to face,’ said Ruth. ‘Can we meet soon?’

  They met at junction twelve services on the M1 motorway. As they had not encountered one another before Ruth gave a short description of herself and said she would be wearing a thin sky blue fleece. They homed in on one another without difficulty at the main entrance to the cafeterias and fast food outlets but decided straightaway that sitting in one of their cars would be the only place that would afford them the privacy they required.

  ‘How to start?’ opened Marian, a little unsure of how to get proceedings going.

  ‘At the beginning,’ replied Ruth firmly, taking charge.

  ‘Very well, I don’t know how you found out it was me who made the anonymous call but it’s probably good that you did. I care very much for my job and although I’ve only been employed for a relatively short time at WareWork I am fiercely loyal to the company and to Daniel. But like a lot of men he doesn’t always see what is staring him in the face, or if he does, he doesn’t conclude the obvious! And it was obvious to me that there was an orchestrated share run on WareWork the aim of which was to gain a sufficiently large holding of our shares in order to claim an automatic place on our board of directors. The man who was nominated to take that place is inoffensive but useless. He has no knowledge whatsoever of the clothing industry let alone working clothing. He is just a puppet waiting for his strings to be pulled presumably by the person or persons who devised the plan. At some stage he will be told by his masters what to do.’

  Marian paused for a moment, trying to muster her facts and present them in a logical order.

  ‘A hedge fund is behind this plot,’ she continued. ‘It’s CEO is Sir Brian Day. Whether they will try to force a merger, or a takeover, or asset strip or just head the company in a totally different direction I don’t know. Whatever the reason I want the lackey off the board so that we, the true employees of WareWork, can determine our own corporate future.’

  ‘Well said,’ exclaimed Ruth. ‘I’ve been following your company for many years since it first went public. As you may know I’m a financial advisor and need to keep conversant with what’s happening in the market place. Also, I’m asked from time to time to make comments or write articles for the media about specific fiscal issues and WareWork has often figured. A broker who knew I was following WareWork hinted to me exactly what you’ve surmised but I can tell you quite a lot more now as things seem to have taken a dramatic turn.’

  She went on the tell Marian about the whispers that had begun to spring up about Sir Brian Day. Rumour has it that a big cover-up is being put in place. Something happened to him but Ruth didn’t know what. He was no longer around in daily life, no longer with his girlfriend, no longer at one of his homes, no longer with the hedge fund. He just wasn’t around! Backing up the rumours were several facts, Ruth said, and she proceeded to enumerate them. Fact one, was that a whizz-kid forensic accountant had been assigned to the hedge fund management team. Who he represented wasn’t quite clear but it was either HMRC, or the police, or the fraud section of the London Stock Exchange, or some other authority and he would be reporting back to them. About what it wasn’t clear but this led on to fact two. The rise of the hedge fund and all its subsidiary investment trusts had been exceptional and had remained undimmed through all economic climes. It has appeared unaffected by all prevailing market forces. It attracted investors because of the favourable terms it always offered but this did not in itself account for its phenomenal growth. There were suspicions, Ruth chuntered on, that dirty money was involved, being pumped in via some shell company but nobody, until possibly now, had been able to get a handle on it. The third fact came courtesy of a private investigator she knew. Info about a recent raid on a small firm in London had filter
ed down to him via the Fraud Squad grapevine and one of his former police colleagues. Ruth speculated that this was the so-called shell company that drip-fed the dirty money into the hedge fund. The final fact, number four, said Ruth, looking Marian directly in the eyes, was that the man placed on WareWork’s board was a social acquaintance of Sir Brian. She had done some homework and discovered that he was asset-rich but cash-poor, or to put it bluntly, he didn’t have two pennies to rub together. Her search revealed that they were members of the same livery company of the City of London and Ruth deduced that in return for the generous stipend he would receive for sitting on the board of WareWork as a part-time non-exec director he would be obligated to pay some favour to Sir Brian.

  ‘So you think his presence on the board has nothing to do with WareWork per se,’ said Marian.

  ‘Correct,’ confirmed Ruth. ‘My guess is that they entered into a “rub your back” agreement which would push Sir Brian several rungs up his social ladder. Maybe he is, or was, hoping to become Lord Mayor of London!’

  ‘Many a true word is spoken in jest,’ said Marian thoughtfully. ‘You may be closer to the truth than you realise.’

  Marian turned her head and stared out of the window at a passing baby buggy as it was pushed uncomfortably close to the paintwork of the front wing of her car by its distracted driver. She watched as the mother unstrapped the toddler and fought to get the child positioned in the special infant seat all with one hand clamped to her ear holding a mobile.

  ‘Do you think a quiet word in his ear about these facts would be sufficient to get rid of the non-exec?’ enquired Marian eventually.

  ‘I do,’ said Ruth, ‘that and a bit of bluff should do the trick. In the end what matters to types like that more than anything else is their social standing and he really won’t want to be associated in any way with Sir Brian if you hint darkly that his apparent disappearance may be indirectly linked to dirty money.’

  ‘Cool,’ remarked Marian, ‘cool and clinical. You should replace him on our board. No joke! Come on, let’s go and have a plastic sandwich and some tasteless coffee!’

  They laughed loudly as they left the car, almost arm in arm.

  The following morning Ruth spotted that a few remarks had been worked into the social column of one of the national dailies about Sir Brian. The well-known knight of the realm, it printed, business man and latter-day socialite with aspirations on becoming Lord Mayor of London apparently, had died unexpectedly of an unknown cause. He had been divorced twice and had grown-up children from both marriages. ‘Clever,’ thought Ruth. ‘Not in the financial section where it might cause panic among investors, not in the obituary section where some prying journalist might make enquiries about date and time of death and venue of cremation. I wonder who instigated that!’

  ***

  It was after midnight. Daniel had just taken home a young woman in her mid-twenties he had recently met. She was a software engineer and had come to WareWork for a few days to iron out the wrinkles in the firm’s newly purchased accounting software and to demonstrate to the end-users the advantages it gave them over their previous accounting package. She was tall and slim with flowing light brown hair and a mellifluous voice and for the first time in years Daniel was genuinely attracted to another woman. Her firm operated out of Bristol where she lived. She would be staying at a local hotel for three nights while she dealt with WareWork’s account. Daniel had wasted no time in asking her out to dinner and that evening they had enjoyed a quiet meal together in a rural gastropub. After he had left her at her hotel with a very sweet goodbye kiss he made his way home. Pulling up in front of his cottage, he stayed seated in the car. It was late but he needed to think, he needed to reflect for a final time. Now was the moment, it was now or never and it had to be now. Entering the kitchen of his attractive white-washed cottage, he pulled open a cupboard drawer and removed the small object wrapped in a new microfibre dishcloth, stuffing it in a front pocket of his jeans. He drove the few miles to his parents’ house and parked on the gravel drive. His bequeathed wristwatch showed one o’clock in the morning. It’s an outrageous time to disturb them, he thought, but it’s the right time. Using his mobile he rang their number and waited patiently. His father answered eventually, sounding confused.

  ‘Sorry Dad, it’s me Daniel, I know it’s an unearthly hour but I need to speak with you and Mum. It’s important.’

  ‘Do you know what time it is!’ said his father, sounding a bit more with-it.

  ‘I know it’s very late or very early but it’s important.’

  ‘Have you got your key?’

  ‘Yes Dad.’

  ‘Well let yourself in and I’ll get your mother to come downstairs.’

  They assembled in the lounge, mother and father in pyjamas and dressing gowns and all with a mug of decaffeinated coffee.

  ‘It had better be good,’ said Andreé as the clock chimed one-fifteen.

  ‘Mum, you’re a real Berghoff,’ said Daniel. ‘I mean you’re a one-hundred-percent Berghoff whereas I’m only fifty percent. What I’ve got to tell you is about the Berghoffs, as far as I understand anyhow.’

  ‘Stop talking in riddles Daniel and get to the point,’ instructed Andreé.

  Daniel removed the dish cloth from his pocket and placed it on the coffee table between him and his parents. He slowly pulled back the corners of the cloth, revealing the treasure, a round brooch of pure gold set with jewels of varying colours. It gleamed and shone and sparkled. His parents gasped, such was its beauty. They continued to gaze unfalteringly at it as if under its spell. They were spellbound.

  ‘Uncle Rolf gave it to me,’ said Daniel quietly, ‘it’s a long story and I need to tell you everything I know. For me it began with Tommy.’

  He related all he knew: what Rolf had apparently told Tommy when he lay on his deathbed in hospital, about the handkerchief and its puzzle, about Switzerland and the English visitors, about Tommy and the uncovering of the buried treasure, about hiding it in his home and, finally, about his efforts to find out more concerning King Croesus and his spectacular treasure. He was mentally drained by the time he finished, his parents equally exhausted.

  ‘So what we’ve got here,’ said his father finally, ‘is a piece of what you believe to be King Croesus’s treasure and from the presence it radiates I can believe that.’

  His mother concurred with a softly spoken “hear hear”.

  They all continued to stare at the brooch and even Andreé, despite her visual handicap, could appreciate its exquisiteness.

  ‘I guess it’s priceless,’ she said.

  The men nodded in unison.

  ‘And now you want to know what to do with it. Is that it?’ asked John.

  ‘Not exactly Dad. I want your advice on how to do what I think should be done.’

  ‘And that is?’ asked Andreé.

  ‘Pass down the male line. Tommy said that was what Uncle Rolf had mumbled to him.’

  He looked intently at his parents.

  ‘I don’t have a male line to pass it down to and although children are not absolutely out of the question should I find someone with whom I might wish to start a family, I still may never be able to have a male heir. Mum’s the true Berghoff of the family, not me. If she approves I would like to return it to the world in general, put it back into circulation, see it displayed in a museum where it can be marvelled over by visitors for centuries to come. What good is it laying hidden in the earth or anywhere else? It should see the light of day so that everyone can appreciate its beauty. How we ever came to claim it as our own we will never discover. What can we know about what went on over two millennia ago? Did we acquire it by plunder and pillage? Very probably. What good has it done us? None that I can see. It’s only in my mind’s eye that I can imagine the knowledge of stashing it away from one’s enemies giving pleasure to one of
our predecessors.’

  ‘From what you’ve said it seems that Tommy’s part in this also needs to be considered,’ reflected Andreé, ‘it sounds like he risked his reputation in order to get the information to you and to fulfil any promise he made to Rolf. Clearly Rolf would have wanted the chain of heirs to continue else he wouldn’t have encrypted information about its location so that only you, Daniel, could interpret. But Tommy would have taken a different view. He was far more practical and down to earth than Rolf. He was the pragmatic one while Rolf was the idealist. He would have agreed with you Daniel. He would have asked the self-same question, why bury it when it’s so beautiful?’

  She paused for breath and for words to express her thoughts clearly.

  ‘In my opinion it’s the only course to take. Hand it back to the authorities but the question really is to which authorities and how to hand it back!’

  John sighed deeply. He had seen this practically unanswerable question coming.

  ‘I looked up the definition of Treasure Trove,’ said Daniel. ‘An object, a find or whatever you want to call it, is regarded as Treasure Trove when it is found hidden underground and it seems old enough for it to be presumed that the true owner is dead and the heirs undiscoverable.’

  ‘Burying it somewhere and arranging for it to be found would be a neat and very appropriate solution but on who’s land would you inter it and who would you arrange to find it?’ asked John, ‘and don’t forget that if a find is declared Treasure Trove then its value when auctioned off is shared between the finder and the landowner and, unless I’m mistaken, that’s not what you want. You just want it to be gifted to the nation.’