Chapter 83
The arrest was reported on the news wires around the world within the hour, complete with pictures of Christoforou as the crazed assassin who had terrorised tourists at the Parthenon. Nothing was said about the operation to capture him or that he was supposedly a dead man, come back to life after his ship, the doomed freighter, Captain Stratos, had sunk in heavy seas off the coast of Portugal three years earlier.
In London, the news was seen by Elefthriou and Thanakis. They had both been expecting to cash in the following day when Plantation’s leave to appeal was rejected.
By now, it had become a test of nerve for the shipowner. He knew it was only a matter of time before Christoforou would talk – and when he did, he – Elefthriou would be implicated.
Which would happen first ? Ashby’s proof of the fraud, Christoforou’s full confession or rejection of Plantation’s appeal – and payment forthwith. It might only be a question of timing.
If leave to appeal was refused, Elefthriou could rely on Nigel Black to push Plantation’s board in the right direction.
The arrest of his co-conspirator wasn’t entirely unwelcome. There was the unexpected windfall that with Christoforou in prison, his share of the loot would be kept by Elefthriou who would disappear, never to be heard of again. The seafarer would be left to suffer his fate in prison for the next twenty years.
At the country pub outside Walton-on-Thames where they’d met a week earlier, Elefthriou saw Nigel Black again to discuss the arrest.
“So, where does this leave us ? Now that Ashby has located.....this ‘person of interest’ – as the newspapers call him – and had him arrested, is it going to cause us problems ?”
“Oh, I shouldn’t think so, Nigel. The Greek legal system doesn’t work as quickly as in England and it may be some time before he is brought to trial. Even then, I don’t expect him to say anything about the earlier events – he knows that if he does, he will get nothing – and that is our guarantee, shall we say.”
“And while the legal process is grinding on and Ashby is bogged down in his investigations, Plantation will be forced to pay out on the claim. And then, we can settle everything between us.”
“Yes, it shouldn’t be too long now. Not long at all.”
In London EC3 and EC4, Wells, Riordan and Meredith had also seen the news. This encouraged them, that they were a step closer to holding off the judgment granted two weeks earlier. Yet, Ashby was to discover when he telephoned Meredith that they were still some way from having enough evidence of fraud to dispose of the judgment entirely.
“The police will prove by a fingerprint test that the man they arrested is the deceased master of the Captain Stratos who has now returned to life. Won’t the court be persuaded by that ? All of the claims documents say that he and the crew died when the ship went down. And we’ve also found the Chief Engineer. So, there’s no question that this claim is a complete fraud.”
“Yes, I agree with you Robert....”
“You’re going to say it isn’t enough. What more do we have to do ?”
“A lot more. This judge isn’t easy at the best of times. Unless we have incontrovertible proof of fraud, he’ll be difficult to convince.”
“Would this convince him ? In Patra only yesterday, we found some shreds of documents Christoforou tried to burn. One of them mentioned Lagos. I assumed it was Lagos on the Algarve as it’s the closest sea-port to where the Captain Stratos sank. It’s feasible that he and the crew could have gone there on another ship together with the cargo. To test this theory, I got a loss adjuster to check whether he or a large number of crewmen had stayed at any of the hotels or pensions in Lagos, weeks or months after the sinking. It turned out there was no record of them. But then I found some further information which meant that they could have gone to Lagos in West Africa and not the Algarve. The Portuguese had a trading post in Lagos, Nigeria in the sixteenth century – hence the same name. I had a Nigerian adjuster from Paxton carry out the same exercise in the other Lagos. At one hotel – a four star hotel in the business district, a suite of rooms had been booked in the names of a ship’s master, Captain Constantinos Christoforou and each of the twenty two Philippino crew members commencing on 15 March 1980. However, the important point is that the booking was made on 6th February 1980 – this was two weeks before the date when the Captain Stratos sank on the 20th February.”
“Ha.....two weeks before the sinking.....so.....they set the whole thing up in advance.....it must have been some form of conspiracy, certainly between the Captain and the crew. Hm, that’s extremely interesting – but how do you know of all this ?”
“At the moment, only from a telephone call with the adjuster. When I spoke to him, he said he’d seen the booking entry himself and had taken a copy of it. I told him I needed to be absolutely certain there was no mistake but he was adamant – the date of the booking was in the hotel’s accounts and had been charged on that day. And the booking was in chronological order in the hotel register. He says that the manager will verify this for us. My next stop will be West Africa and I leave on a flight at mid-day tomorrow.”
Plantation A Legal Thriller Page 83