Plantation A Legal Thriller

by J M S Macfarlane

  Chapter 16

  By four o’clock, Ashby was nodding off to sleep and decided that he could make no further progress that day. In the taxi, on the way to his hotel, he continued looking through the papers unearthed from his father’s desk which he’d taken with him. As soon as he got to his room, his head hit the pillow and at three in the morning, he suddenly awoke and could sleep no longer. By the time the sun came up, the floor of his suite was littered with empty coffee cups and piles of paperwork relating to the six claims.

  In more than one file, he’d come across telexes consisting of numbers in groups of four. No address or telephone number was given. The notations (in his father’s scrawled handwriting) said that a number of enquiries had been made.

  In the paperwork on the Captain Stratos, some of the notes written by his father said “fraud”, “ship sinking” and “cargo” and had been underlined for emphasis. There was nothing else to back them up – no letters, documents, telexes – nothing.

  At half past seven, he checked out of his hotel and lugged his bags across to the Fenchurch Street office. After grabbing a quick breakfast at one of the Italian cafés which in those days were institutions around the City, he made his way to the office. In a corner by himself, Steve Whittingham was reading the morning’s Guardian and having breakfast at his desk. The rest of the office was deserted. As soon as Whittingham saw him, he seemed embarrassed and annoyed at being disturbed.

  Ashby subtly perceived the irritation and decided that if Whittingham wanted to keep his job, he would have to put up with intrusions whether he liked them or not. He also sensed the claims man’s dislike for him because he was the boss’s son.

  “Do you know anything about fraud in the Captain Stratos claim ?”

  Whittingham put down his bacon roll. Then he stared at Ashby with a knitted brow and said : “No, I can’t say I do. Why do you ask ?”

  “Well, my father was apparently told by someone that the Captain Stratos might have been scuttled. The brokers have given us a load of twaddle. Someone, somewhere knows what happened and we have to find them – and quick.”

  From his deadpan expression, Whittingham was often taken for a churl. However, this was an unfair assessment.

  In the seventies and eighties, those who worked as claims ‘technicians’ or as brokers, had usually left school at fifteen and gained experience according to their ability. Whittingham was no exception. He was a die-hard member of the Labour Party with ambitions of running for a safe seat on his local council and eventually in Parliament. He secretly looked down on anyone who dressed well or lived in the ‘stockbroker belts’ encircling London or had a first-class season ticket to travel into work. He abhorred public school accents and old boy networks and despised anyone with inherited wealth which he viewed as a form of theft. He supported the ‘comrades’ in the trades unions, the campaign for increased wages and the historic destiny of the working classes. Taking all of this together, he could barely conceal his contempt for Robert Ashby’s youth, his lack of experience, his upbringing and sense of entitlement as the boss’s boy and the largest shareholder in the company. It was wrongful and unjust that all of it had had fallen into Ashby’s undeserving lap. Yet this set of commandments were submerged within Whittingham and he saw no contradiction in working for capitalists whom he detested.

  “You probably wouldn’t have picked this up so far…. but I heard that the Security Service were involved somewhere along the line.”

  “Where did you hear that ?”

  “It was months ago now.….in the other claims, your father had discussions with the South African and Soviet governments. One is an international pariah and the other is supporting armed struggle in third world countries against the Americans. It could have been this that caused our own government to be in contact with your father. At least, that’s what he hinted. Obviously it was all a bit hush-hush.”

  “Is there any record of who he spoke with ?”

  “Not that I know of. Wasn’t there anything in his notes ?”

  “Nothing that I could see.”

  “You said yesterday that you wanted to go through all of the underwriting and claims files and the papers sent to the lawyers. And you know about the conference arranged with our solicitors for noon today in the Stratos case ? I also have a message here that Wellbourne of the brokers saw you and wants to get around the table to talk things over.”

  “Tell me when the files are ready. We can go to the conference together. Don’t answer the brokers for the moment. Let them stew.”