Cat O'Nine Tales (2006)

by Jeffrey Archer

  Tracey stood on the pavement and waved goodbye, as her parents’ car trundled off down the road. When the old Rover reached the end of the street it swung right, instead of left, which took them in the opposite direction to Heathrow. Something was wrong. Tracey dismissed the mistake, aware that they could correct their error long before they reached the motorway.

  Once Chris and Sue had joined the motorway, they followed the signs for Dover. The two of them became more and more nervous as each minute passed, aware that there was now no turning back. Only Stamps seemed to be enjoying the adventure as he stared out of the back window wagging his tail.

  Once again, Mr. Appleyard and Mrs. Brewer went over their plan. When they reached the docks, Sue would jump out of the car and join the queue of foot passengers waiting to board, while Chris drove the Rover up the car ramp and on to the ferry. They agreed not to meet again until the boat had docked in Calais and Chris had driven on to the dockside.

  Sue stood at the bottom of the gangway and waited nervously at the back of the queue as she watched their Rover edge toward the entrance of the hold. Her heart raced when she saw a customs officer double-check Chris’s passport, and invite him to step out of the car and stand to one side. She had to stop herself from running across so she could overhear their conversation—she couldn’t risk it now they were no longer married.

  “Good morning, Mr. Appleyard,” said the customs officer, and then added after looking in the back of the car, “were you hoping to take the dog abroad with you?”

  “Oh yes,” replied Chris. “We never travel anywhere without Stamps.”

  The customs official studied Mr. Appleyard’s passport more carefully. “But you don’t have the necessary documents to take a dog abroad with you.”

  Chris felt beads of sweat running down his forehead. Stamps’s papers were still attached to the passport of Mr. Haskins, which he had left in the safe back at Cleethorpes.

  “Oh hell,” said Chris. “I must have left them at home.”

  “Bad luck, sir. I hope you don’t have far to travel because there isn’t another ferry until this time tomorrow.”

  Chris glanced helplessly across at his wife, before climbing back into the car. He looked down at Stamps, who was sleeping soundly on the back seat, oblivious to the problem he was causing. Chris swung the car round and joined an overwrought Sue, who was waiting impatiently to find out why he hadn’t been allowed to board. Once Chris had explained the problem, all she said was, “We can’t risk returning to Cleethorpes.”

  “I agree,” said Chris, “we’ll have to go back to Ashford, and hope we can find a vet that’s open on a bank holiday.”

  “That wasn’t part of our plan,” said Sue.

  “I know,” said Chris, “but I’m not willing to leave Stamps behind.” Sue nodded in agreement.

  Chris swung the Rover onto the main road, and began the journey back to Ashford. Mr. and Mrs. Haskins arrived just in time to join their daughter for lunch. Tracey was delighted that her parents were able to spend a couple more days with her, but she still couldn’t understand why they weren’t willing to leave Stamps with her; after all, it wasn’t as if they were going away for the rest of their lives.

  Chris and Sue spent another uncommunicative day and a further sleepless night in Ashford. A duffel bag containing a quarter of a million pounds was tucked under the bed.

  On Monday a local vet kindly agreed to give Stamps all the necessary injections. He then attached a certificate to Mr. Appleyard’s passport, but not in time for them to catch the last ferry.

  The Haskins didn’t sleep a wink on the Monday night, and by the time the street lights went out the following morning, they both knew they could no longer go through with it. They lay awake, preparing a new plan—in English.

  Chris and Sue finally left their daughter after breakfast the following morning. They drove to the end of the road and this time, to Tracey’s relief, turned left, not right, and headed back in the direction of Cleethorpes. By the time they’d swept past the Heathrow exit, their revised plan was in place.

  ‘The moment we arrive home,” said Sue, “we’ll put all the money back in the safe.”

  “How will we explain having that amount of cash, when the Post Office accountant carries out his annual audit next month?” asked Chris.

  “By the time they get around to checking what’s left in the safe, as long as we don’t apply for any more money, we should have been able to dispose of most of the cash simply by carrying out our regular transactions.”

  “What about the postal orders that we’ve already cashed?”

  “There’s still enough cash left in the safe to cover them,” Sue reminded her husband.

  “But the scratch cards and the lottery tickets?”

  “We’ll have to make up the difference from our own money—that way they’ll end up none the wiser.”

  “I agree,” said Chris, sounding relieved for the first time in days, and then he remembered the passports.

  “We’ll destroy them,” said Sue, “as soon as we get home.”

  By the time the Haskins had crossed the Lincolnshire border, they had made up their minds to continue running the post office, despite its diminished status. Sue had already come up with several ideas for extra items they could sell over the counter, while making the best of what was left of their franchise.

  A smile settled on Sue’s lips when Chris finally turned into Victoria Crescent, a smile that was quickly removed when she saw the flashing blue lights. When the old Rover came to a halt, a dozen policemen surrounded the car.

  “Oh shit,” said Sue. Extreme language for the chairman of the Mothers’ Union, thought Chris, but on balance, he had to agree with her.

  Mr. and Mrs. Haskins were arrested on the evening of 29 December. They were driven to Cleethorpes police station and placed in separate interview rooms. There was no need for the local police to conduct a good cop, bad cop routine, as both of them confessed immediately. They spent the night in separate cells, and the following morning they were charged with the theft of £250,000, being the property of the Post Office, and obtaining, by deception, four passports.

  They pleaded guilty to both charges.

  Sue Haskins was released from Moreton Hall after serving four months of her sentence. Chris joined her a year later.

  While he was in prison Chris worked on another plan. However, when he was released Britannia Finance didn’t feel able to back him. To be fair, Mr. Tremaine had retired.

  Mr. and Mrs. Haskins sold their property on Victoria Crescent for £100,000. A week later they climbed into their ancient Rover and drove off to Dover, where they boarded the ferry after presenting the correct passports. Once they had found a suitable location on the seafront in Albufeira, they opened a fish-and-chip shop. Haskins’ hasn’t caught on with the locals yet, but with a hundred thousand Brits visiting the Algarve every year, there’s proved to be no shortage of customers.

  I was among those who risked a small investment in the new enterprise, and I am happy to report that I have recouped every penny with interest. Funny old world. But then as Mr. Justice Gray observed, Mr. and Mrs. Haskins were not criminals.

  Only one footnote. Stamps died while Sue and Chris were in prison.

  Maestro

  The Italians are the only race I know who have the ability to serve without appearing subservient. The French will happily spill sauce all over your favorite tie, with no hint of an apology, at the same time cursing you in their native tongue. The Chinese don’t speak to you at all, and the Greeks think nothing of leaving you alone for an hour before they even offer you a menu. The Americans are at pains to let you know that they aren’t really waiters at all, but out-of-work actors, who then proceed to recite the specials on the menu as if performing for an audition. The English are quite likely to engage you in a long conversation, leaving an impression that you ought to be having dinner with them, rather than your guest, and as for the Germans . . . well, when did you
last eat at a German restaurant?

  So it is left to the Italians to sweep the board and gather up the crumbs. They combine the charm of the Irish, the culinary expertise of the French and the thoroughness of the Swiss, and despite their ability to produce a bill that never seems to add up, we allow them to go on fleecing us.

  This was certainly true of Mario Gambotti.

  Mario came from a long line of Florentines who could not sing, paint or play football, so he happily joined his fellow exiles in London, where he began an apprenticeship in the restaurant business.

  Whenever I go to his fashionable little restaurant in Fulham for lunch, he somehow manages to hide his disapproval when I order minestrone soup, spaghetti Bolognese and a bottle of Chianti classico.

  “What an excellent choice, maestro,” he declares, not bothering to scribble down my order on his pad. Please note “maestro”: not my lord, which would be sycophantic, not sir, which would be ridiculous after twenty years of friendship, but maestro, a particularly flattering sobriquet, as I have it on good authority (his wife) that he has never read one of my books.

  When I was in attendance at North Sea Camp open prison, Mario wrote to the governor and suggested that he might be allowed to come down one Friday and cook lunch for me. The governor was amused by the request, and wrote a formal reply, explaining that should he grant the boon, it would not only break several penal regulations, but undoubtedly stir the tabloids into a frenzy of headlines. When the governor showed me a copy of his reply, I was surprised to see that he had signed the letter, yours ever, Michael.

  “Are you also a customer of Mario’s?” I inquired.

  “No,” replied the governor, “but he has been a customer of mine.”

  Mario’s can be found on the Fulham Road in Chelsea, and the restaurant’s popularity is due in no small part to his wife, Teresa, who runs the kitchen. Mario always remains front of house. I regularly have lunch there on a Friday, often accompanied by my two sons and their latest girlfriends, who used to change more often than the menu.

  Over the years I have become aware that many of the customers are regulars, which leaves an impression that we are all part of an exclusive club, in which it’s almost impossible to book a table unless you are a member. However, the real proof of Mario’s popularity is that the restaurant does not accept credit cards—checks, cash and account-paying customers are all welcome, but

  NO CREDIT CARDS is printed in bold letters at the foot of every menu.

  During the month of August the establishment is closed, in order for the Gambotti family to return to their native Florence and reunite with all the other Gambottis.

  Mario is quintessentially Italian. His red Ferrari can be seen parked outside the restaurant, his yacht—my son James assures me—is moored in Monte Carlo, and his children, Tony, Maria and Roberto, are being educated at St. Paul’s, Cheltenham and Summer Fields respectively. After all, it is important that they mix with the sort of people they will be expected to fleece at some time in the future. And whenever I see them at the opera—Verdi and Puccini, never Wagner or Weber—they are always seated in their own box.

  So, I hear you ask, how did such a shrewd and intelligent man end up serving at Her Majesty’s pleasure? Was he involved in some fracas following a football match between Arsenal and Fiorentina? Did he drive over the speed limit once too often in that Ferrari of his? Perhaps he forgot to pay his poll tax? None of the above. He broke an English law with an action that in the land of his forefathers would be considered no more than an acceptable part of everyday life.

  Enter Mr. Dennis Cartwright, who worked for another of Her Majesty’s establishments.

  Mr. Cartwright was an inspector with the Inland Revenue. He rarely ate out at a restaurant, and certainly not one as exclusive as Mario’s. Whenever he and his wife Doris “went Italian,” it was normally Pizza Express. However, he took a great interest in Mr. Gambotti, and in how he could possibly maintain such a lifestyle on the amount he was declaring to his local tax office. After all, the restaurant was showing a profit of a mere £172,000, on a turnover of just over two million. So, after tax, Mr. Gambotti was only taking home—Dennis carefully checked the figures—just over £100,000. With a home in Chelsea, three children at private schools and a Ferrari to maintain, not to mention the yacht moored in Monte Carlo, and heaven knows what else in Florence, how did he manage it? Mr. Cartwright, a determined man, was determined to find out.

  The tax inspector checked all the figures in Mario’s books, and he had to admit they balanced and, what’s more, Mr. Gambotti always paid his taxes on time. However, Mr. Cartwright wasn’t in any doubt that Mr. Gambotti had to be siphoning off large sums of cash, but how? He must have missed something. Cartwright leaped up in the middle of the night and shouted out loud, “No credit cards.” He woke his wife.

  The next morning, Cartwright went over the books yet again; he was right. There were no credit-card entries. Although all the checks were properly accounted for, and all the customers’ accounts tallied, when you considered that there were no credit-card entries, the small amount of cash declared seemed completely out of proportion to the overall takings.

  Mr. Cartwright didn’t need to be told that his masters would not allow him to waste much time dining at Mario’s in order to resolve the mystery of how Mr. Gambotti was salting away such large sums of money. Mr. Buchanan, his supervisor, reluctantly agreed to allow Dennis an advance of £200 to try to discover what was happening on the inside—every penny was to be accounted for—and he only agreed to this after Dennis had pointed out that if he was able to gather enough evidence to put Mr. Gambotti behind bars, imagine just how many other restaurateurs might feel obliged to start declaring their true incomes.

  Mr. Cartwright was surprised that it took him a month to book a table at Mario’s, and it was only after several calls, always made from home, that he finally was able to secure a reservation. He asked his wife Doris to join him, hoping it would appear less suspicious than if he was sitting on his own, compiling notes. His supervisor agreed with the ploy, but told Dermis that he would have to cover his wife’s half of the bill, at his own expense.

  “It never crossed my mind to do otherwise,” Dennis assured his supervisor.

  During a meal of Tuscan bean soup and gnocchi—he was hoping to pay more than one visit to Mario’s—Dennis kept a wary eye on his host as he circled the different tables, making small talk and attending to his customers’ slightest whims. His wife couldn’t help but notice that Dennis seemed distracted, but she decided not to comment, as it was a rare occurrence for her husband to invite her out for a meal, other than on her birthday

  Mr. Cartwright began committing to memory that there were thirty-nine tables dotted around the restaurant (he double-checked) and roughly a hundred and twenty covers. He also observed, by taking time over his coffee, that Mario managed two sittings on several of the tables. He was impressed by how quickly three waiters could clear a table, replace the cloth and napkins, and moments later make it appear as if no one had ever been sitting there.

  When Mario presented Mr. Cartwright with his bill, he paid in cash and insisted on a receipt. When they left the restaurant, Doris drove them both home, which allowed Dennis to write down all the relevant figures in his little book while they still remained fresh in his memory.

  “What a lovely meal,” commented his wife on their journey back to Romford. “I do hope that we’ll be able to go there again some time.”

  “We will, Doris,” he promised her, “next week.” He paused. “If I can get a table.”

  Mr. and Mrs. Cartwright visited the restaurant again three weeks later, this time for dinner. Dennis was impressed that Mario not only remembered his name, but even seated him at the same table. On this occasion, Mr. Cartwright observed that Mario was able to fit in a pre-theater booking—almost full; an evening sitting—packed out; and a post-theater sitting—half full; while last orders were not taken until eleven o’clock.

>   Mr. Cartwright estimated that nearly three hundred and fifty customers passed through the restaurant during the evening, and if you added that to the lunchtime clientele, the total came to just over five hundred a day. He also calculated that around half of them were paying cash, but he still had no way of proving it.

  Dennis’s dinner bill came to £75 (it’s fascinating how restaurants appear to charge more in the evening than they do for lunch, even when they serve exactly the same food). Mr. Cartwright estimated that each customer was being charged between £25 and £40, and that was probably on the conservative side. So in any given week, Mario had to be serving at least three thousand customers, returning him an income of around £90,000 a week, which was in excess of four million pounds a year, even if you discounted the month of August.

  When Mr. Cartwright returned to his office the following morning, he once again went over the restaurant’s books. Mr. Gambotti was declaring a turnover of £2,120,000, and showing, after outgoings, a profit of £172,000. So what was happening to the other two million?

  Mr. Cartwright remained baffled. He took the ledgers home in the evening, and continued to study the figures long into the night.

  “Eureka,” he declared just before putting on his pajamas. One of the outgoings didn’t add up. The following morning he made an appointment to see his supervisor. “I’ll need to get my hands on the details of these particular weekly numbers,” Dennis told Mr. Buchanan, as he placed a forefinger on one of the items listed under outgoings, “and more important,” he added, “without Mr. Gambotti realizing what I’m up to.” Mr. Buchanan sanctioned a request for him to be out of the office, as long as it didn’t require any further visits to Mario’s.

  Mr. Cartwright spent most of the weekend refining his plan, aware that just the slightest hint of what he was up to would allow Mr. Gambotti enough time to cover his tracks.