‘Mark.’ Taploe turned quickly, moving forward with his hand outstretched, like an edgy host at a cocktail party. ‘How have you been?’
‘Fine,’ Mark told him. ‘Fine.’
‘Good. Great. Thanks, Ian.’ Taploe’s thin, nasal voice was unusually rushed. ‘We’ll be fine if you just leave us in here.’
‘Right, guv.’
The source of his nervousness, perhaps, was a bulky, shaven-headed man hunched forward uncomfortably in an armchair on the opposite side of the room. Younger than Mark by perhaps five years, he had the look of an electrician or plumber, wearing a green Fred Perry T-shirt, scuffed cream trainers — the laces slackly tied — and dark denim trousers swollen with fat at the thigh. Mark did not recognize him, but assumed he was one of the plumbers who had helped strip the hard drives at Libra.
‘This is a colleague of mine. Paul Quinn. A legal financial expert,’ Taploe explained, speaking in short, abrupt sentences. ‘He’s going to be helping us today. Paul this is Mark Keen.’
Fifteen stone of concentrated indifference half-rose from the armchair to shake Mark’s hand.
‘All right, mate?’ A London accent, low and nebulous. Mark wondered how such a person could know anything at all about the complexities of the financial markets.
‘The journey was no problem?’ Taploe’s head bobbed up and down as if to encourage a positive response from the question. ‘You found us OK?"
‘No problem,’ Mark said. The room was very small and a wide coffee table threatened to strike his shins at any moment. He sat down on a low, two-seater sofa with coathanger springs and said: ‘The journey was fine. No trouble.’
Above Quinn’s head, not incongruously given his youth and appearance, hung a worn, faded poster of Enter the Dragon: Bruce Lee stripped to the waist, three fresh scars torn like cat’s claws across his chest. The bright yellow room was otherwise bare. A row of bookshelves on the facing wall contained nothing but outdated telephone directories and a small vase of dried heather. A 100-watt bulb burning in a lampshade overhead left a blob of blinding colour on the backs of Mark’s eyes whenever he closed them.
‘First things first,’ Taploe said, sitting down and jerking his knee away when it accidentally brushed against Mark’s thigh. ‘The Soho operation was a big success. Really first-rate. Enough information to convict Macklin and put him away for a very long time.’ There was a slight shaving cut on the underside of his chin and he touched it. ‘I wanted to thank you in person for all your help so far. You’ve been invaluable to the operation as a whole. Really turned it around.’
‘Don’t mention it.’
‘Which brings me to explain why Paul is here. I thought it would be better if what has become a somewhat complicated situation was explained to you by somebody with an expert’s grasp of finance. A specialist, so to speak.’
Across the room, Quinn inhaled briskly through his nose, a sound like a rhino bathing. Mark smiled at him, trying to establish a connection, and was met by a look of intense, intelligent concentration that did not preclude the later possibility of empathy or rapport.
‘Paul is a lawyer by trade.’ He was also Taploe’s closest colleague on Kukushkin, the engine of the case. ‘He helps us out from time to time with complex financial cases. When we can’t see the wood for the trees.’
‘I see.’ Mark suspected that this last remark had cost Randall something in terms of his own pride and smiled at Quinn to flatter him.
‘What we’ve been able to establish from the hard drives and safe is a highly sophisticated money-laundering operation with Thomas Macklin at its core.’
‘Seb’s not involved?’ Mark asked immediately, a question that caused Taploe to grimace nervously.
‘Not in the first instance, no,’ he replied, and then passed the buck. ‘I’m going to let Paul take it from here. Otherwise there’s a danger we could repeat ourselves.’
‘Sure,’ Mark said.
They were down to business now. Quinn, who was focused and alert right from the start, moved forward to retrieve a thickred folder from the floor beside his chair. Loose papers bulged from within, secured uncertainly by strained elastic bands. The history of the case, all the raked-up dirt and bad news. Laying the file on the coffee table in front of him, he coughed damply and said, ‘Right. Let’s kick this thing off.’ There were no preliminaries, no small talk. ‘Tell me what you know about the way Libra is set up, your actual holding companies and so on.’
Mark put his elbows on his knees.
‘London Libra is owned by an offshore company registered in Cyprus, to limit tax liability. Same thing goes for New Yorkand Paris, two separate holding companies in Jersey controlling all the money from both clubs.’
‘And what else?’ Quinn was confident and eager for information in a way that encouraged Mark. There was an idealistic quality to him, a young man’s zeal. ‘What do you know about private investors, Macklin’s role in all of this, the structure of the new Russian operation? How much do you know about that side of things?’
‘The Russian club is going through Cyprus and our regular bank in Geneva. Same with the money from Ibiza in the summer and the cash from merchandising. France and Manhattan are two separate entities. Otherwise everything gets paid out of Switzerland. Staff, ground rent, booze, DJs, hardware. Everything.’ He felt like a corporate whistleblower, spilling all the secrets. The feeling of this was intoxicating. ‘As for private investors, Seb still owns about sixty-five per cent of the stock. Tom just looks after him, signs the cheques and all that. Probably has a bit of equity, too. I don’t know. Those two are like brothers.’
Taploe stood up from the sofa and moved towards the window.
‘Brothers,’ Quinn muttered. ‘But Macklin has power of attorney over Roth’s affairs, is that right?’
‘That’s right.’
‘So in theory he can do whatever he likes?’
‘In theory,’ Mark said. ‘But I’m not a lawyer, so I wouldn’t know.’
‘Well, I am a lawyer and I’m telling you that’s the situation.’ For the first time Quinn grinned, a crease at the edge of fat lips. Mark liked him. ‘When it comes to his relationship with Roth, Macklin is the main man, the consigliere, if you like. We reckon he’s been buying up chunks of London real estate on behalf of the Russian mob, small businesses too. As of this moment I have him as the main signatory on two hotels in Paddington, an entire residential block north of Marble Arch, a couple of bureaux de change out at City Airport, a minicab operation based not too far from here, even a chain of laundrettes in fucking Manchester. He’s also looking into buying out a majority share in a Bayswater casino. Might have even done so by now. In other words, operations with a high-volume cash element which can be used to facilitate money laundering on a massive scale.’
Suddenly Mark felt heavy in the stomach. He leaned backon the sofa so that his head was resting against the wall.
‘Where’s he getting the cash from?’ he asked. ‘The Russians?’
‘Exactly.’ Taploe had interrupted, frustrated at having remained silent for so long. In Quinn’s company he often felt second-rate, shamed by the younger man’s greater self-confidence and expertise. ‘We think Macklin is operating as one of several frontmen for the Kukushkin syndicate, buying up properties on their behalf and helping to clean illegal money.’
‘Which is what you suspected he was up to all along.’
‘Yes it is.’ Taploe’s eyes softened, as if he had been paid an unexpected compliment. ‘But now I have proof.’
‘Still,’ Quinn said, rubbing his scalp, ‘that’s just one side of a more complicated situation.’ He began removing rubber bands from the red folder and placing them at the edge of the coffee table. ‘Do you know what I mean by the term “double dip”?’
‘No idea,’ Mark said.
‘Well…’
Taploe cut him off in mid-sentence.
‘In the model double-dip operation an individual — or group of individuals �
� pretends to be depositing cash sums in a legitimate bank account while in reality he — or, of course, it could be she — is making payments into a separately located dummy account of exactly the same name.’
Mark, confused, instinctively looked to Quinn for confirmation of this.
‘That’s actually right,’ he said, deferring uneasily to the boss. ‘Now, London Libra is owned by a single asset offshore based in Cyprus?’
‘Right.’
‘Only when it came to your new venture in Moscow, Macklin devised what you might call a new strategy.’ Quinn moved forward heavily in his chair, to the point where Mark began to worry that it might actually topple over. ‘He seems to have convinced Roth not to own the club in his own name and not to be a signatory on any of the accounts.’
‘Why?’ Mark asked.
‘Simple. Same as what you were saying before. Because it would limit Roth’s liability for creditors if Moscow went tits up. At the same time he reduces his capital gains bill in Russia. Roth apparently agreed — makes sense, after all — so Macklin went ahead and set up a second separate holding company in Cyprus. Called it Pentagon Investments, just so no one would pay much attention. He then appointed a small number of nominee directors — under his own control — and got his hands on a couple of bent accountants to cookthe books.’
Mark was struggling to keep up. His brain was a mulch of facts and theories, a puzzle he could not solve. He thought back to all the days and nights he had spent with Macklin, the restaurants and nightclubs in Moscow and St Petersburg, all those endless plane journeys out of Heathrow with nothing to do but listen to Tom’s stories. When had it all started? Macklin had led a double life wildly more dangerous and clandestine than his own, right under the noses of men who trusted him like a brother. All of us are spies, his father had once told him: all of us inhabit a private world, a place of secrecies and evasion.
‘I’m not getting this,’ he said, shaking his head. ‘Where does the double dip come in?’
Quinn scraped his trainers against the carpet and coughed, folding bulky arms across his chest.
‘Basically,’ he said, ‘like this. The main Libra holding company in Cyprus — the one you’ve all been told about — is still operational for London, Ibiza, T-shirts, compact discs.’ He pronounced ‘Ibiza’ as ‘Eye Beetha’, an affectation for which Mark had always lacked the courage. ‘Then there’s Pentagon Investments, which is used for Moscow. But Macklin has been playing both ends. Unknown to the Russians he’s also set up an identically named dummy Pentagon account in the Cayman Islands. Every now and again, when he thinks no one’s looking, Macklin has been redirecting some of the Russian cash into that account for his own personal enrichment.’
‘That’s the double dip,’ Taploe said, stating the obvious.
Quinn ignored him.
‘At a guess,’ he said, ‘there’s now something in the region of one point eight million buried away out there. Give or take.’
‘Holy fuck,’ Mark said, language Quinn seemed to enjoy. ‘And the Russians have got enough money they don’t notice that’s gone missing? How’s this all getting generated?’
‘Lot of ways.’ The room was now very warm and Quinn’s face looked cooked beside the bright yellow walls. He was flying. ‘Narcotics, prostitution, arms deals, precious metals, oil, timber, stolen cars, icon smuggling, you name it. He’s entrepreneurial, your average Russian mafioso, and he robs people for a living. About thirty per cent of the capital flight out of Russia these days is illegally earned. Thirty per cent. And it has to get washed. Now and again a man like Viktor Kukushkin will try and improve his public image by donating a couple of million dollars to local charity. Generally speaking, though, he wants to hold on to his cash. And that’s where blokes like Macklin come in. He’s been cleaning Kukushkin’s money through the hotels, through the cab company, through the bureaux de change. There’s lots of it and it’s moving all the time. You’d need a hundred officers working round the clock just to keep track of half of it.’
‘And Libra is a part of this?’ There was resignation in Mark’s voice, still a sickening loom in the stomach. ‘Tom’s been laundering through the club, hasn’t he?’
‘’Fraid so.’ Quinn lifted several pages from the file and scratched at his left ear. ‘Nightclubs make ideal cover. Again the high cash element, again the rapid turnover. You charge punters sixteen quid for a couple of gin and tonics with ice and lemon, you’re gonna make a lot of money very fast. Those invoices you’ve been signing off — most probably faked. Macklin has been doubling your weekly turnover for more than eighteen months, drawing up fake balance sheets, inventing staff and security personnel, saying he sold a hundred crates of Bacardi when he only sold fifty. That kind of thing.’
‘But I saw all of those,’ Mark insisted. ‘I see it all the time. Everything goes across my desk.’
‘You’ve been away a lot,’ Taploe said quickly, as if there were a way of letting Mark down gently. ‘Travelling overseas, delegating responsibility, seeing to your father’s probate…’
‘We also suspect that Macklin has other people working for him on the inside,’ Quinn continued. ‘But it’s too early to tell.’
‘Inside Libra?’ Mark stood up out of the sofa. The room was so small he barely had space to move. So much of his anger at Macklin and Roth had grown out of a conviction that they were in some way responsible for his father’s death. And yet the scale of the deception purely within Libra, the liberties Macklin had taken with Mark’s friendship and trust, momentarily seemed worse even than any involvement he or Roth might have had in the murder.
‘One of these is a former employee of yours,’ Taploe said. ‘Left the company some time ago. A Mr Philippe d’Erlanger.’
Mark looked up.
‘ Philippe? ’
‘He’s been running an Italian restaurant out of Covent Garden and — how can I put this? — assisting Mr Macklin with his business affairs.’
‘Assisting in what way?’
Taploe moved towards the window and pinched a clump of curtain fabric in his hand.
‘He’s one of the nominee directors of Pentagon, for a start. For the moment, however, what we’re most interested in is his rapid turnover of female staff.’
‘Rapid turnover of female staff,’ Mark repeated.
‘That’s right.’ Quinn now tookover. ‘Waitresses, bar staff, cloakroom attendants, the pretty girls on reception who smile at you when you walkin then don’t speakany English. Birds from Poland, Romania, Bulgaria, Russia, the Balkans. They find jobs at the restaurant, then disappear when they’re offered more lucrative ways of making a living.’
‘You mean prostitution.’
‘I do mean prostitution, yes. We know that Kukushkin has control of a network of apartments all over London that are being used by call girls with connections to organized crime. We’ve had d’Erlanger under surveillance for some time, although at present his role seems to be limited.’
‘Limited to what?’
‘He simply acts as a middle man. The gangs organize to bring girls to the UK from locations right across central and eastern Europe, promising them jobs as au pairs, waitresses, dancers. D’Erlanger is one of several businessmen in London who offer them work so that they can remain in the country, then they run up debts, get their passports taken away by the gangs and discover that the only way to breakeven is spending fourteen hours a day sucking cocks in South Kensington. Maybe you’ve noticed this with staff at Libra — barmaids or girls in admin who were given workby Macklin and then farmed out to Vladimir Tamarov.’
‘Tamarov?’ Mark said. ‘The lawyer?’
‘For lawyer, read gangster.’ Quinn spoke the word with relish. ‘Tamarov is number two in the Kukushkin organization and certainly their main player on the UK mainland. We thinkhe’s the one who controls the girls. There are three known Tamarov-controlled escort agencies on the Internet, all of them based in London.’
‘And you’ve been follo
wing him?’
‘Him and others, yes.’ Taploe came forward, encouraged Mark to sit down and then looked across at Quinn. ‘This is part of the reason why I’ve brought you here today. Tamarov has a bodyguard, a middle-aged Latvian thug by the name of Juris Duchev. In the past Macklin tended to meet him as a first point of contact in London or Moscow. Increasingly, however, he’s been seeing Tamarov in person. Both Tamarov and Duchev are in London for the next three weeks. How would you feel about getting close to them, forging some kind of relationship?’
Mark laughed.
‘You want me to make friends with the Russian mob?’
Taploe opted for flattery.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘So far you’ve shown a real facility for winning people over. It’s one of the reasons Paul and I are so grateful to have you on board.’ Tellingly, Quinn looked at the floor. ‘You obviously have your father’s gift for intelligence work. The personal connections you could make would be worth months of surveillance.’
Mark frowned. ‘What makes you think they’d trust me?’
‘Just that,’ Taploe said, as if the simple fact of Mark’s good nature provided him with the answer. ‘And we have fresh sigint which suggests that Macklin is now looking to bring someone in.’
‘You’ve heard him say that? That he wants me?’
‘Not in so many words. But it’s clear that the relationship between Libra and Kukushkin has become so complex, so far-reaching, that Macklin needs a partner. Someone other than d’Erlanger. Someone like yourself, in fact.’
And so Mark found himself lured, flattered, finessed into a new area of intelligence work in which he had not anticipated being involved. From informer to plant, the ghost in the machine. It felt at first like a promotion, and appealed as much to his vanity as to any sense of duty towards his family. Yet Mark must have looked unsettled at the prospect because Taploe said, ‘There’d be no danger. You’d be under our watchful eye all the way.’
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