by Dick Francis
According to the internet, he lived in the village of Hermitage, a few miles to the north of Newbury, and I found the exact address easily enough by asking directions in the village shop.
‘Oh, yes,’ said the plump middle-aged woman behind the counter. ‘We all know the Tolerons round here, especially Mrs Toleron.’ Her tone implied that Mrs Toleron wasn’t necessarily the most welcome of customers in the shop. I thought it might have been something to do with the never-ending praise of her ‘wonderful’ husband or, more likely, was just straightforward envy of the rich.
Martin Toleron’s house, near the edge of the village on the Yattenden road, was a grand affair in keeping with his ‘captain of industry’ billing. I pulled up in front of the firmly closed six-foot-high iron gates and pushed the button on the intercom box fixed to the gatepost, but I wasn’t quite sure what I was going to say if someone answered.
‘Hello?’ said a man’s voice through the box.
‘Mr Toleron?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ the man said.
‘Mr Martin Toleron?’
‘Yes.’ He sounded a little impatient.
‘My name is Thomas Forsyth,’ I said. ‘I’d like to—’
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ he replied, cutting me off. ‘I don’t take cold calls at my gate. Goodbye.’ There was a click and the box went dead.
I pushed the button again. No reply, so I pushed it once more, and for much longer.
Eventually he came back on the line. ‘What do you want?’ he asked with increased impatience.
‘Does Rock Bank Limited of Gibraltar mean anything to you?’ I asked.
There was a pause before he replied. ‘Who did you say you are?’
‘Thomas Forsyth.’
‘Stay there,’ he said. ‘I’m coming out.’
I waited and soon a small portly man emerged, walking down the driveway towards me. I vaguely remembered him from Isabella’s supper, even though we hadn’t spoken. Looks, I thought, could be deceiving. Martin Toleron didn’t give the appearance of being a multi-millionaire captain of industry but, there again, Alexander the Great had hardly been an Adonis, having reputedly been very short with a twisted neck and different-coloured eyes, one blue and the other brown.
Martin Toleron stopped some ten feet from the gates.
‘What do you want?’ he demanded.
‘Just to talk,’ I said.
‘Are you from the Inland Revenue?’ he asked.
I thought it a strange question but perhaps he was afraid I was going to hand him a tax summons.
‘No,’ I said. ‘I was at the same dinner party as you, at Jackson and Isabella Warren’s place last week. I sat next to your wife.’
He took a couple of paces towards the gates and squinted at me.
‘But what do you want?’ he said again.
‘I want to talk to you about Rock Bank Limited and the investment you have just made with them in Gibraltar.’
‘That’s none of your business,’ he said.
I didn’t reply but stood silently, waiting for curiosity to get the better of him.
‘Anyway, how do you know about it?’ he asked, as I knew he would.
‘I think it might be better for us to go inside to discuss this rather than to shout a conversation through these gates where anyone could overhear us. Don’t you agree?’
He obviously did agree because he removed a small black box from his pocket and pushed a button. The gates swung open as I returned to Ian’s car.
I parked on the gravel drive in front of the mock-Georgian front door and pillared portico of his modern red-brick mansion.
‘Come into my office,’ Martin Toleron said, leading the way past the grand front door to a smaller one, set between the main house and an extensive garage block. I followed him into a large oak-panelled room with a built-in matching oak desk and bookcases behind.
‘Sit down,’ he said decisively, pointing at one of two armchairs, and I glimpsed for the first time the confidence and resolution that would have served him well in his business. I resolved to ensure that Martin Toleron became a valuable friend rather than a challenging enemy.
‘What is this about?’ he said, sitting in the other chair and turning towards me, jutting out his jaw.
‘I believe that you have recently sent a large sum of money to Rock Bank Limited of Gibraltar as an investment in a hedge fund.’
I paused but he didn’t respond. He just continued to stare at me with unfriendly eyes. It was slightly unnerving and I began to question if coming here had been a mistake. I suddenly wondered if Toleron was, in fact, part of the conspiracy. Had I just walked into the lion’s den like a naïve lamb to the slaughter?
‘And I have reason to believe,’ I went on, ‘that the investment fund in question does not actually exist, and you are being defrauded of your money.’
He continued to sit and look at me.
‘Why are you telling me this?’ he demanded, suddenly standing up. ‘What do you want from me?’
‘Nothing,’ I said.
‘You must want something.’ He was almost shouting ‘Otherwise why are you here? You didn’t come here to give me bad news so you could simply gloat. Is it money you’re after?’
‘No, of course not,’ I said defensively. ‘I came here to warn you.’
‘But why?’ he said aggressively. ‘If, as you say, I have already invested money in a fraud, your warning would then be too late. And why is it you believe I’m being defrauded anyway? Are you the one who’s doing it?’
Things were not going well.
‘I just thought you would like to know so you didn’t send any more,’ I said, again on the defensive. ‘I am not involved in the fraud other than being the son of another victim. I had hoped you might have some information that would be helpful to me in trying to recover her money. That’s all.’
He sat down again and remained silent for a few seconds.
‘What sort of information?’ he asked eventually, and more calmly.
‘Well,’ I said. ‘With respect, my mother is no financial wizard, far from it, and I can see how she was duped, but you …’ I left the implication hanging in the air.
He stood up from the chair again and went to the desk. He picked up a large white envelope and tossed it into my lap. It contained the glossy offering document for what it called the ‘opportunity-of-a-lifetime investment’. I skimmed through the prospectus. It was very convincing and certainly gave the impression of being from a legitimate organization with photos of supposed business offices in Gibraltar, graphs of past and predicted investment performance, all of which moved in the right direction, and with wonderful glowing testimonials from other satisfied investors.
‘Why do you think it a fraud?’ he asked.
‘I know of two separate cases when people, including my mother and stepfather, after investing through Rock Bank Limited, have lost all their money. They were both told that the hedge fund in which their money had been placed had subsequently gone bankrupt, leaving no assets. I have reason to believe that the funds never actually existed in the first place and the money was simply stolen.’
I flicked through the glossy brochure once more.
‘It’s a very professional job,’ he said. ‘It gives all the right information and assurances.’
If they were after ‘investments’ in million-dollar chunks, it would have to be a professional job.
‘But did you check up on any of it?’ I asked.
He didn’t answer, but I could tell from his face that he hadn’t.
‘Why didn’t your mother complain to the police?’ he said. ‘Then there might have been a warning issued.’
‘She couldn’t,’ I said without further clarification.
I thought back to his strange question at the gate about me being from the Revenue, and his rather belligerent attitude towards me since. ‘Mr Toleron,’ I said, ‘excuse me asking, but are you being blackmailed?’
As in my mother’s case,
it wasn’t the loss of his money that worried Martin Toleron the most; it was the potential loss of face because he’d been conned.
If I thought he would thank me for pointing out that his investment was a fake, then I was mistaken. Indirectly, he even offered to pay me not to make that knowledge public.
‘Of course I won’t make it public,’ I said, horrified by his insinuation.
‘Everyone else I know would have,’ he said with something of a sigh. ‘They would gleefully sell it to the highest bidder from the gutter press.’ He may have been a highly successful businessman, and he had clearly made pots of money, but he’d obviously been accompanied by precious few real friends on the journey.
He was not being blackmailed – at least, he denied he was to me – but he did admit that someone had recently tried to extort money from him, accusing him of falsifying a tax return that stated he was not a tax resident in the UK when, in fact, he was.
‘I told him to bugger off,’ he said. ‘But it took me a lot of time and money to get things straightened out. The last bloody thing I want is an audit by the Revenue.’
‘So you are fiddling something, then?’ I asked.
‘No, of course not,’ he said. ‘I’m just sailing close to the wind, you know, trying it on with a few things.’
‘VAT?’ I asked.
‘As a matter of fact, yes,’ he said. ‘Is that why your mother didn’t go to the authorities and complain?’
‘Is what why?’ I asked.
‘Because she was being blackmailed.’
I simply nodded, echoing my mother’s belief that, in not saying anything out loud, it somehow diminished the admission.
‘Did you know someone called Roderick Ward?’
‘Don’t you mention that name here,’ he said explosively. ‘Called himself an accountant, but he was nothing more than a damn bookkeeper. It was thanks to him that I nearly copped it with the Revenue.’
I wondered how on earth a captain of industry had become tangled up with such a dodgy accountant.
‘How did you come to know him?’ I asked.
‘He was my elder daughter’s boyfriend for a while. Kept coming round here and telling me how I could save more tax. I should never have listened to the little bastard.’
Oh! What a tangled web he weaved, when first he practised to deceive!
‘Do you know what happened to him?’ I asked.
‘I heard somewhere that he died in a car crash.’
‘Actually, he was murdered,’ I said.
He was surprised, but not shocked. ‘Not by me, he wasn’t. Although I would’ve happily done it. Good riddance, I say!’
‘He was murdered by someone else he stole money from.’
‘Well done, them.’ He smiled for the first time since I’d been there. But then the smile vanished as quickly as it had arrived. ‘Hold on a minute,’ he said. ‘Didn’t Ward die last summer?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘In July.’
‘So who is robbing me now?’
‘Who gave you the offering document? Who was it who recommended the investment to you?’
‘How do you know someone did?’ he asked.
‘No one invests in something from a cold call, or from a prospectus that just drops through their letterbox. Certainly not to the tune of two million dollars. You had to be told about it by someone.’
He seemed slightly surprised I knew the exact size of his investment.
‘Did Jackson tell you the amount?’ he asked.
‘So it was Jackson Warren who recommended it,’ I said. ‘You asked me who was robbing you and that’s your answer – Jackson Warren, together with Peter Garraway.’
He didn’t believe it. I could read the doubt in his face.
‘Surely not?’ he said. ‘Why would he? Jackson Warren’s got lots of money of his own.’
‘Maybe that’s because he steals it from other people.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said.
‘I’m not. I’ll show you. Do you have an internet connection?’
‘But how did you get access?’ Martin Toleron was astounded as I brought up the recent transactions of Rock Bank (Gibraltar) Ltd on my laptop computer screen. ‘You must be involved somehow.’
‘I’m not,’ I said.
‘Then how did you get the passwords?’
‘Don’t ask,’ I said. ‘You don’t want to know.’
He looked at me strangely, but he didn’t ask, simply turning his attention back to the screen.
‘Whose is the other investment?’ he asked.
‘I was hoping you could tell me,’ I said.
‘I’ve no idea. I’ve only spoken about the fund with Jackson Warren.’
‘Did he raise it or did you?’
‘He did. He told me at that supper that he had a great investment tip for me.’
‘Did he indicate that he was going to invest in the fund himself?’
‘He told me he had made his investment sometime in the past, and he claimed that it had performed very well since, very well indeed. That’s why he was so keen on it.’ He paused. ‘I believed him and, to be fair, you haven’t shown me anything substantive to contradict that belief.’
I opened one of the e-mails from Alex Reece’s inbox from the previous week:
Alex
We should expect a 2-unit sum into the account this coming week from our drainpipe friend. Please ensure it takes the usual route, and issue the usual note of acceptance. Your commission will be transferred in due course.
JW
‘That doesn’t prove it’s a fraud,’ Toleron said.
‘Maybe not directly,’ I said. ‘But did Jackson Warren tell you he was actually running the fund he was so keen to promote?’
‘No. He did not.’
‘But he clearly must be running it if he’s ordering the issuing of acceptance notes to investors.’ I paused to allow that to sink in. ‘Is that enough proof for you? If not, there’s plenty more.’
‘Show me,’ Toleron said.
I pulled up another of Alex Reece’s e-mails to the screen, this time one he had sent to Sigurd Bellido, the chief cashier in Gibraltar, about a transfer:
Sigurd
Please transfer the million dollars, received into the Rock Bank Ltd account last week from the UK, into the usual other account at your bank. I trust your mother-in-law’s health problems are improving.
AR
Martin Toleron read it over my shoulder. ‘That doesn’t prove anything.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But read this.’
I pulled up another e-mail from Alex’s Gibraltar folder, this one to Jackson Warren sent on the same day as the previous one:
Jackson
I have issued the instruction to SB (and his mother-in-law) and the funds should be available in your usual account later today for further transfer.
AR
‘What’s all that mother-in-law business about?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘But it appears in all the e-mails sent to SB, that’s Sigurd Bellido, the chief cashier who makes the transfers in Gibraltar. Funny thing is, he doesn’t ever mention her in his replies.’
Toleron thought for a moment. ‘Perhaps it’s a code to prove that the transfer request really is from this AR person.’
‘Alex Reece,’ I said.
‘Didn’t I meet him at that dinner party? Ginger-haired fellow?’
‘That’s him,’ I said. ‘Slightly odd sort of person. He’s Jackson Warren’s accountant but he’s up to his neck in the fraud.’
‘But Warren must surely know that I would suspect him if the fund went bust and I lost all my money.’
‘But he would simply apologize for the bad investment advice and say that he’d also lost a packet and, if the newspaper reports of your company sale are to be believed, you would have been able to afford the loss more than he would. In fact, I bet you would have ended up feeling sorry for him, rather than accusing him of stealing from you.’
‘Don’t ever believe what you read in the papers,’ he said. ‘But I get your point. The very fact that it was a relatively small investment is why I did it in the first place. I can afford to lose it. Not, of course, that I want to.’
How lovely it must be for him, I thought, to be so rich that two million dollars was a relatively small investment, and one that he could afford to lose.
‘So all we need to do now is to get this Alex Reece chappy to e-mail SB in Gibraltar and get him to return the money whence it came.’ Martin Toleron smiled at me. ‘Then I’ll have my money back. Shouldn’t be too difficult to arrange, surely?’
He certainly made it sound easy, but I’m not sure that Alex Reece would play ball. He might be more afraid of Jackson Warren and Peter Garraway than he was of Martin Toleron; or even of me and my syringes.
‘I have a better idea,’ I said. ‘We could send an e-mail to SB pretending to be Alex Reece.’
‘But that’s not as easy as you think,’ Martin said. ‘Not without his e-mail account password.’
Now it was my turn to smile at him. ‘And what makes you think I don’t already have it?’
18
The e-mail to Sigurd Bellido was ready to go by half past eleven:
Sigurd
There has been a mix-up at our end and I need to transfer back to the UK the last two payments that were made into the Rock Bank Ltd account on Thursday and Friday of last week. Please transfer, as soon as possible from the Rock Bank Ltd account (number 01201030866) at your bank:
(1) US$2,000,000 (two million US dollars) to Barclays Bank plc, SWIFT code BARCGB2LBGA, Belgravia branch, for further credit to Mr Martin Toleron, sort code 20-62-18, account number 81634587.
(2) US$1,000,000 (one million US dollars) to HSBC Bank plc, SWIFT code HSBCGB6174A, Hungerford Branch, for further credit to Mrs Josephine Kauri, sort code 40-28-73, account number 15638409.
Please carry out these transfers as soon as possible, preferably immediately. I trust your mother-in-law continues to make a sound recovery. Many thanks.
AR
Martin Toleron and I had looked through all the transfer requests in Alex Reece’s ‘Gibraltar’ folder, and we had studied closely the language and layout he had used in the past.