When the Siren Calls

by Tom Barry

  Toby looked to his right and motioned for a young woman with a pinstriped trouser suit and apricot lips to speak. She rose from her seat and adjusted her glasses, her voice loud but pleasant.

  “Certainly the case has many of the characteristics of what most people might consider a fraud, but it is a complex area.”

  Peter nodded impatiently, hastening her on with an almost imperceptible cough.

  “What we do believe,” she continued, “is that Mr. Brooke, unknown to Mr. Skinner, has used the venture to divert funds to his own companies, principally through commissions and expenses.”

  “So that is fraud then?”

  The smart young woman removed her designer glasses for dramatic effect. “That’s potentially a valid conclusion. But there’s nothing that he’s done that is, strictly speaking, illegal.”

  Toby broke in to offer his words of wisdom. “What I can say is that we have seen cases like this before. Often you will hear plausible sounding explanations for what has been done. So then it becomes a matter of who you believe, really.”

  Peter nodded, his chin set hard, and stood up to leave. “Toby, your guys have done excellent work, thank you.”

  “But we have other matters to discuss,” he said, anxious perhaps to keep the many meters in the room ticking, while also rising to meet Peter’s eyes.

  “As I can imagine. But I can read faster than even you guys can talk, so I’ll settle for the report.”

  The older man nodded with the faintest semblance of a smile, and the respectful bearing of a man who knows he has met his equal, and led Peter out of the conference room and to his office. It was like walking into open air; the room was situated on a corner and both outer walls were made of glass. The Thames ran beneath, docile and green, straddled by the imposing London Bridge, which sat to the left of the window like office art.

  “This is the dossier you asked for, Peter,” said Toby, now opting for the familiar address, as he passed across a sealed red envelope with ‘secret’ marked in black letters across its surface. “I’m afraid it doesn’t make for pleasant reading. I say that with particular regret because, as you know, Mr. Brooke — or Brookes as he was then — qualified with us and worked here in this building. Many people here still remember him, which might tell you something also.”

  “So I heard,” said Peter, leaning forwards in interest. The wrinkles around Toby’s mouth contracted in response, scoring deep into his face like scars.

  “It is a long story, Peter, and I’d rather not bore you with it.”

  “I’m curious. How about the short version?”

  Toby leant back in his chair and stared out the window, as if seeking the past in the murky waters below. “Ah,” he sighed, “what might have been. Julian was very gifted and very popular — he had a generosity of spirit that drew people to him. But he was unorthodox in his methods. A maverick you might say. Some of the old guard disliked that; they looked at Julian and saw the future, and felt threatened by it. His maverick methods, you see, brought in a lot of business. He was, as we say, a rainmaker. Someone destined for the top.”

  “So they ganged up and got rid of him?”

  The lines grew deeper around the old man’s mouth, closing up into terrible blackness. “Not exactly. Julian’s unconventional approach extended to his personal expenses. Maybe we should leave it at that?”

  Peter shook his head in refusal and incredulity. “You fired him over a few dodgy receipts? I’ve not come across that before. Why didn’t you just warn him, put him on the straight and narrow? Give him a second chance, or a last chance?”

  “There were those that wanted to,” said Toby, sage-like and wistful, “because the tragedy of it was that Julian was not lining his own pockets. His mantra was to give clients what they wanted, everything they wanted, you know, the whole fleshpot-demimonde of city-player schmooze.” Peter nodded with a grimace, acknowledging a method that had never been his own. “So Julian covered himself by submitting spurious receipts — quite a lot of them.”

  “Sounds a bit harsh,” said Peter with a frown. “How many in this building haven’t slipped through a receipt or two that they shouldn’t have?”

  “Quite so. Unfortunately for Julian, someone had taken an intense dislike to him. She’s still with us in fact. Sara Golding. A bit of a ballbreaker.”

  “The woman who runs the TMI account?” asked Peter in shock, his brain kicking into overdrive.

  Toby raised his eyebrows in admiration. “My, my, Peter, you have been busy. Anyway, when the expenses irregularity blew up, she went after him, and got the support of a few of the old guard.”

  “And it was goodbye Mr. Brooke?”

  “Precisely. Though of course the record shows he resigned, which he did, but with a gun to his head,” he turned away, looking mournfully into the waters once more, “a gun in Sara’s hand.”

  Peter nodded, his eyes too on the water as the old man continued.

  “I saw Julian a couple of times after that; I could see the experience had changed him, scarred him even, he was somehow harder, more ruthless, and of course bitter. I think it was the injustice, or perhaps I should say the double standards, that really got to him.”

  Peter was satisfied, everything fitted. “Ok, let’s move on. What has he been up to since he left you?”

  Toby reverted to a more formal air, as if leaving a trance. “Mr. Brooke is a clever man. Over the last eight years he has used that knowledge most effectively in a succession of business ventures, most of which have ultimately failed, sometimes at significant cost to others. I think you know the most recent example.”

  “I do, the Malaga scam.”

  “The document we have prepared sets out the history of Julian’s companies over that time. He has registered and folded over fifty businesses in the UK alone during that time, but none of the fallout has ever stuck to him personally. The dossier is purely factual. It makes no judgements; we are after all not the police. You must draw your own conclusions.” He looked Peter straight in the eyes, showing his own decision in the fond light at their centre.

  “So how has he got away with it for all these years?”

  Toby laced his fingers with an almost dreamlike fluidity as he gave his reply, admiration faint behind his words. “What we can say is that Mr. Brooke has been particularly astute. Most of the ventures were set up in other people’s names. And it is perfectly possible, if you are clever and cynical and, yes, even perhaps thick skinned enough, to go from one failed venture to another, while personally profiting in the process.”

  “And without doing anything dishonest and illegal?” asked Peter with scepticism.

  “Let us be realistic,” said Toby, swivelling to face the window and delivering each word with the distant assuredness of a deity. “The business world is full of chicanery. If you are motivated by high moral principles, it is perhaps better to pursue a career in the church than in the City. So frustrating as it may be, using the rules to your own advantage is not a crime.”Forty-five

  As Andy strode along to his meeting with Peter he went with the urgency and expectancy of a bookie on his way to the racetrack. He was looking almost unrecognisable from the flustered man at the airport. He was translucently pale, an almost monochrome figure in his black suit. Everything about his appearance suggested precise control, from the meticulously flattened hair to the mirror-shined shoes, and the pedestrians milling about on Tottenham Court Road subconsciously moved aside as they met his path, thin and determined. Jay had called him a few days earlier, incandescently angry after being alerted to the accountant’s microscopic activities at Capadelli, and the conversation still rung in Andy’s mind, echoing over and over again like thunder in a storm.

  “You said Peter Roberts was just going to have a look at a few things, now I’m being told it’s a full-blown tax audit? What the fuck are you up to?”

  “What the fuck am I up to?” Andy had replied in exasperation. “What the fuck are you up to, more like. We a
greed you were going to be on site to supervise things!”

  “Something came up,” Jay had said casually as Andy tore at his hair.

  “I can imagine,” he said with a heavy sigh. “The tax story is just a cover so the staff isn’t alarmed.”

  “You and Roberts aren’t up to something, trying to cut me out or stitch me up, are you?”

  Andy had exhaled in loud frustration, “I assure you this is something that I reluctantly agreed to. But as Roberts is paying, and as it’s been forced on me, it may be no bad thing to get a full accounting update. I’m the principal investor. So please don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. If you suffered disruption to day-to-day operations then I apologise. Goodbye.”

  He smiled at the recollection of his victory, but it was cold comfort in the face of whatever Peter’s investigators might have found out. Although, Andy thought to himself as he reached the door of the office Peter had hired, it had taken him two years to properly understand what was going on in Tuscany; how much could they really have learnt in a few days?

  But as he walked through the door and sat down opposite Peter, his quiet confidence was shattered with the first blow.

  “Before we talk about what each of us want, I have a few things I need you to know,” Peter said with the gravity of a doctor about to diagnose a terminal condition. “Almost nothing about your company in Italy is legal. You’re running a hotel without the proper licences; that in itself might be a police matter.”

  Andy straightened himself in his seat at the mention of the law but fought to retain a sphinx-like expression.

  “You are also trading while insolvent, which, in case you don’t know, is viewed much more seriously in Italy than the UK. Without wishing to be melodramatic, you might be looking at a significant term of imprisonment.”

  Andy laughed nervously, sure that Peter was overplaying his hand.

  “Imprisonment? Be serious. I’ve done nothing wrong.”

  Peter continued with his deadpan delivery. “That would be for the court to decide.”

  Andy rose slightly from his seat and then set himself back down in agitation. “I have no idea where you think you are going with this nonsense, but even if you possessed a shred of evidence for what you are claiming, I am just one director, and my company in Italy is only a small part of a much larger operation.”

  “Yes,” said Peter with all the humour of a hangman, “but one of the many problems you have is that the company shares are registered in your name; you are the only named director. So it’s you alone who is legally accountable.”

  Andy rose fully now, hardly able to believe what he was hearing. “But—” he began and then stopped as realisation hit home like a hammerhead — why Jay had made him sole director, why all the money travelled to Jay’s companies and not his own. He was the fall guy. The thought of Interpol and an international arrest warrant with his name on it flashed through his mind. He fell back into the seat like lead but mastered his fear and resolved to be lectured no longer.

  “Let’s cut the crap here. You obviously have no interest in Jay’s proposal, and probably never did, so what do you want?”

  “I want Brooke hung out to dry,” said Peter with venom in his voice, “like he’s hung you out. It’s that, or my file goes to the Italian police and the UK serious fraud office.”

  Andy narrowed his eyes and looked at Peter intently, wondering if he had heard the rumours too.

  “And what’s in it for me, supposing I had an interest in doing that?” he asked, sick and tired of being the victim.

  “Stop fucking with me, Andy,” said Peter, unwilling to consider negotiation. “You tried to screw me over for thirty million and you can’t even pay this month’s wages. If you do what I want then I’ll protect you until you’ve spoken to your advisors and sorted this mess out.”

  “I want to see some evidence—”

  “I have the evidence,“ Peter interrupted, “on BB&T headed paper no less.” He thumped down a file as thick as Andy’s briefcase. “I can let you have some of this. A redacted version, as the spooks call it.”

  Andy knew when to quit. “Jay’s not an idiot,” he sighed, “he’s not going to just roll over and let us do this. How am I supposed to get him to play ball if, as you say, he’s insulated himself better than Al Capone?”

  “Didn’t they get Al Capone for tax dodging?” said Peter with a sombre smile. “Anyway, it’s your problem now, you’ve got three days to get back to me, or the shit hits the fantasy.”

  As the days passed, Andy’s rage and indignation flared and flickered with his mood. He felt a marionette in Peter’s hands and he hated it, but nothing could conceal that —regardless of his motives — Peter had done him a favour. Legal and financial advice had confirmed that he was but a phone call away from a prison cell — only one path lay before him and to either side was an abyss, each crafted by the two men that pulled him in grotesque puppetry.

  And so it was with resolve — the iron resolve of a man crushed by ultimatum — that Andy flew out to Tuscany to meet with Jay, convinced that he was at least siding with the lesser evil, and ready to announce the closure of Castello di Capadelli.

  As Andy sat in Jay’s office, looking out at the clean bright courtyard with its closely pruned plants and immaculate stonework, he could not quite believe what he was to say, or that so idyllic an image could be so false.

  “What’s on your mind, Jay?” he asked, determined at least to be human.

  “Well, for one thing I was hoping for an update on the Roberts proposal. It all seems to have gone quiet.”

  “No, it all seems to be proceeding to plan.”

  “So that review didn’t turn up any show-stoppers?”

  “A few difficult questions, but nothing I couldn’t handle.” Andy flopped his arm causally over the studded armrest. “Frankly, I think the man is out of his depth. I expect to hear something next week.”

  “That’s good,” said Jay, running his finger along his lower lip. “I had him down as a smart cookie though. You don’t get to where he is without knowing your onions.”

  Andy faltered for a split second. “Well, I expect so, but then again he has no direct experience of our industry.” He let the briefest hint of a smile light his eyes. “What else is on your mind?”

  “Come on, Andy, we’ve known each other too long, you know what’s on my mind,” Jay snapped.

  “No announcement yet then?”

  “No.” He bored deep into Andy’s eyes, as if holding him accountable.

  “And your instincts tell you what?”

  “Everything says we’ve won it, but—”

  “But a call might help?” Andy interrupted, the smile growing within him.

  “No one else can get to Epstein but you, and the file’s sitting in his in-tray.”

  “Hum. I’d love to make the call, Jay, but you see the thing is I’m in a bit of a bind myself. In fact, it’s lucky you’re here, because the police could knock on that door any minute. Take a look through this while I get us both a coffee.” Andy pushed across a file, and rose to his feet.

  The blood had drained from Jay’s face when Andy returned, but the fire in his belly was far from extinguished.

  “I’ll need time to go through this, but the conclusions are flawed, it’s all supposition,” said Jay. “If you let me—”

  Andy held up the palm of his hand as he cut Jay short. “Don’t even go there. I’m done with your spin. You can’t talk your way out of what you’ve behaved yourself into, not this time.”

  “Who pulled this shit together?” Jay had to struggle to not shout and Andy drew strength from his lack of composure.

  “I’ve had my accountants and lawyers on it for the last month. Obviously, I’m shocked. All I asked for was a standard risk assessment. The operation here will have to close, before someone else shuts it down. And anyway, as you can see from the figures, the business in Capadelli is totally bust. But it seems your operations in the UK are,
well, armour plated.”

  “But what about the Roberts proposal?” asked Jay, confused but resilient.

  “He wins,” said Andy with a theatrical sigh, “I’m going to sell, but it will be a fire sale.”

  “I thought you said he was out of his depth?”

  “That was before you asked me to make a phone call.”

  “And I’m the villain of the piece?”

  “I think that puts it rather well,” said Andy with an exaggerated grimace. “But here’s what I propose. You resign all your positions and interests in what we have here, and I will make the call.”

  “No fucking way, Andy,” said Jay vehemently. “Fire sale or not, this place is still worth millions of anybody’s money, and I’m entitled to twenty-five percent of whatever it realises.”

  “Which won’t cover your unpaid tax,” said Andy with an ominous raise of his eyebrows.

  “What’s the taxman got to do with this?” shouted Jay, exasperated and wrong-footed by Andy’s change of tack.

  “Quite a lot actually, my dear Julian. You’ve been routing all your sales and commissions and other revenues to offshore accounts. I have all the records. That is tax evasion, which last I heard was a crime. Unless, of course, you’ve been declaring the money transfers…”

  Jay stood up and made towards him, angry not at the prospect of ruin, but the shift in control. Andy rose to meet him and for a second it seemed the two men might come to blows. But Jay’s dependency on Andy’s goodwill demanded conciliation.

  “You can’t unload all this on me now and expect me to give you an answer,” he said, hoping for some miracle, thinking Andy too moral, too judicious, to play tough and dirty.

  “That’s up to you, but the clock is ticking on your deal, and it could be called at any time.” Andy looked at his watch. “Think about what I’ve said. You can keep the file — I’ve got copies. I’ll set up a contract signing ceremony in London on Monday, which I believe is the deadline Epstein is working to. You sign over what I want, and I sign over what Roberts wants. That’s the deal.”