‘Two hundred million dollars stolen from the Malaysian Development Fund may, or may not, have passed through his company,’ she said.
‘But you’re not certain?’ said Nightingale.
‘No,’ said Silver. ‘I won’t bore you with the details, but let’s say that the trail marches all the way up to his doorstep, his new London doorstep I might add, and stops short.’
‘The City is awash with dodgy funds,’ I said. ‘What makes this different?’
‘The difference, constable,’ said Silver, ‘is that I’ve been tasked to investigate this particular instance.’
Money laundering classically has three stages called placement, layering and integration. Traditional crime – drug smuggling, protection rackets, illegal gambling – generates wodges of cash. If a known face starts shelling out readies for the good things in life, people get suspicious. Which can result in arrest, conviction, gaol and – worst of all – forfeiture of funds. So the money has to be ‘placed’, usually through cash intensive businesses like hairdressers, kebab shops and retail banks.
If placement is loading the machine, then layering is the wash cycle where funds are shunted around, from company to offshore account to financial instrument, and then filtered through a fine mesh of shell companies whose only purpose is to disguise where the money comes from and who has their snout in the trough.
Silver pulled a face.
‘Every so often someone from KPMG or Price Waterhouse will turn up on Bloomberg and explain how multiple shell companies are vital to modern business,’ she said, and then glared at us as if expecting us to comment.
We gave her the bland reassuring expression that police have been using on the obviously upset since Daniel had that tricky moment with the lion.
Integration is when the criminal opens the door of their international financial spin dryer and pulls out their nice clean money and, pausing only to rub its silky smoothness against the cheek and comment on its lemony freshness, spends it just like an ordinary rich person.
‘The big players and the state actors don’t deal in cash anyway,’ said Silver. ‘They go straight to layering and integration.’
‘Terrorist financing,’ said Nightingale. ‘Isn’t that what you chaps are interested in?’
‘That’s mostly Five’s concern,’ said Silver, meaning MI5. ‘We were tracking this as part of a layering operation. These tech entrepreneurs believe that the rules don’t really apply to them, so Skinner wouldn’t be the first to actively pursue dirty money if they get into difficulty.’
‘Was he in difficulty?’ asked Nightingale.
‘He left California in a hurry,’ said Silver. ‘He sold his house in Saratoga and other properties in San Francisco and San Jose. We can’t be sure, but we think he divested himself of his stockholdings in several hi-tech companies he helped start. We were expecting a call from some branch of the US Government informing us he was wanted for something. When that didn’t materialise, we expected enraged creditors. What we weren’t expecting was the GRU.’
Apparently nobody ever expects the GRU, Russian Military Intelligence, partly because it changed its official name to GU, but mostly because everybody is too busy worrying about the agency formerly known as the foreign intelligence wing of the KGB – the SVR RF.
‘We traced a payment from one Antem Sergeyevich Yershov, a mid-tier oligarch,’ said Silver. Mid-tier meaning that he was merely obscenely wealthy, rather than functionally an independent nation state in his own right. ‘Like most of his kind he’s been looking to stash his ill-gotten gains abroad and we assumed this was merely a money laundering operation.’
Except GCHQ had passed on the gist, not the details, of an intercept that indicated that not only had Yershov transferred the money as a down payment for a job, but he’d done so on behalf of the GRU. An organisation he’d been an agent of in his younger days and had maintained strong informal links with ever since.
‘Informal networks,’ said Silver. ‘You can track the connections, but it’s almost impossible to prove in a court of law.’
‘So what are the Russians paying Mr Skinner to do?’ asked Nightingale.
‘That’s a good question, because as far as we can tell the Serious Cybernetics Corporation produces sweet FA,’ said Silver. ‘If they’re producing any product, real or virtual, they’re not even advertising it, let alone selling it. A better question would be how Terrence Skinner made his millions in the first place.’
At last a chance to shine.
‘Algorithms,’ I said.
That’s what Skinner had been famous for. Data compression for server farms and then developing trading programs for financial companies and online retail.
‘That’s what we think,’ said Silver.
‘What would the GRU want with algorithms?’ I said.
‘GCHQ have some mad theory that they’re going to try to influence public opinion in the West,’ she said. ‘Perhaps in support of an effort to get sanctions lifted.’
‘Could they do that?’ asked Nightingale, who I suspected thought algorithms were something to do with Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers.
‘They’re all getting very agitated up at Cheltenham,’ said Silver. ‘So I wouldn’t bet against it.’
‘And is that what you think Skinner is working on?’ I asked. ‘An algorithm?’
‘A suite of tailor-made algorithms designed to suit the GRU’s operational needs across a wide variety of platforms,’ she said. ‘That’s what we think, or at least that’s what we thought right up until you phoned us.’
I’d sent her a detailed report of our findings after our initial phone call, so she knew all about Skinner’s interest in the Mary Engine and the 137-key music book. We like to keep the more overt magic elements out of our official communications. But fortunately Officer Silver had worked with us before, so she knew when to read between the lines.
‘Is it possible the GRU are looking to acquire a Falcon asset?’ asked Silver.
‘Historically, the Russians have had extensive Falcon assets of their own,’ said Nightingale. He didn’t say how we knew this, and Silver didn’t ask, although she was obviously dying to.
I suggested we could just wander round and ask the Serious Cybernetics Corporation to help us with our inquiries. Silver said that, alas, tech entrepreneurs, especially ones who cut their teeth in America, tend to be obstructive in principle, and lawyer intensive in practice.
‘Normally,’ said Silver, ‘I’d insert an undercover officer into the company to confirm whether this was espionage, ordinary crime or just business.’
‘And what’s preventing you in this instance?’ asked Nightingale in a dry tone that indicated that, like me, he’d already seen the way the conversation was going.
‘I don’t have any officers qualified to make a Falcon assessment,’ she said. ‘And Peter’s recent suspension would provide the perfect cover.’
And thus yours truly was launched into the murky world of undercover policing. My first time, not counting when me and Lesley went semi-undercover at Skygarden Towers. And we all know how that ended.
‘You’re a natural,’ said Silver. ‘Just don’t piss off The Guardian and we’ll be fine.’
Since by that time the Folly’s mews was full of builders, I let myself in through the side entrance and into what were once the servants’ corridors. These were narrow, with bare brick walls and a single energy-saving bulb hanging forlornly from the ceiling. The door at the end had a spyhole so that a conscientious servant could check to ensure that the young masters wouldn’t be inconvenienced by his sudden appearance. I had a look but it was covered over by more plastic sheeting, as I found out when I opened the door.
The Folly had been built with an impressive central atrium that rose up to an iron and glass dome installed in 1861 by the same people who’d worked on the Crystal Palace. U
sually it was the natural habitat of overstuffed green leather armchairs, antique occasional tables and art deco coffee tables. All that glory was currently smothered under waves of blue sheeting and plastic mats laid down to protect the floor. There was a yawning gap in the eastern edge of the floor from which the conveyor belt snaked out amidst a welter of scaffolding before heading out towards the front and the waiting skip.
The air smelt of tarpaulin and wet cement.
From below, voices shouted instructions and jokes back and forth in Polish and Romanian.
Towards the west wall, white dust sheets had been thrown over furniture and rucked up so that they resembled the peak of a snowy mountain. Seated at the top was a young Polish builder, naked to the waist, with his elbow on his knee and his chin resting on the back of his hand. He was being painted by a young white woman in an artist’s smock who stood behind an easel a couple of metres away. She was tall and long-limbed, with a cascade of black hair that fell down her back. Her face was subtly inhuman with high cheekbones and a smile that contained too many teeth.
This was Foxglove, who was the Folly’s artist-in-residence and fully paid-up member of the fair folk. I learnt later that, tired of being pestered and worried about health and safety, the builders now volunteered one of their members to pose each afternoon and keep Foxglove occupied.
Meanwhile her ‘sister’, Molly, the Folly’s live-in housekeeper and demon deterrent, had added savarina, poppy seed cake and a kind of heavy Polish doughnut filled with plum paste to her traditional cake repertoire.
I didn’t disturb Foxglove. You could pick her pockets when she’s painting and she wouldn’t notice.
I found Nightingale in the first-floor study, sitting at the map table with a battered red hardback open in front of him. He was making notes with a fountain pen on a Ryman pad of lined A4 paper. He looked up with evident relief when I entered.
‘I’m refreshing my memory of the theory behind the basic formae,’ he said when I asked what he was up to.
‘For Abigail?’ I asked. Abigail being my cousin and Nightingale’s other younger, smarter apprentice.
‘In part,’ said Nightingale. ‘I was reviewing some of the textbooks from Casterbrook and discovered that I was somewhat slapdash when I trained you in the basics.’
The Folly had once had its very own school of witchcraft and wizardry – well, wizardry, because obviously women hadn’t been invented until 1945. And after that there was nobody left to teach, and nobody who wanted to learn. Or at least that was the received wisdom. Nightingale had learned his magic at Casterbrook amongst other suitable boys and was generally considered the best spellcaster of his generation, although he’d admitted to me that he’d always been a bit hazy as to the theory behind the magic.
My own training had been hurried, on the job, and mostly focused on keeping me alive long enough to make sergeant.
‘Slapdash?’ I asked.
‘From the point of view of the masters at Casterbrook, in any case,’ said Nightingale. ‘Although you appear to have mastered the forms and wisdom quite handily despite my limitations. With Abigail we can afford to take our time with the curriculum.’
I had my doubts about that.
‘“In part”, you said. What’s the rest?’
‘I’m surprised you don’t remember,’ said Nightingale with a grin. ‘Implementation of Section 3A – “Ensuring requisite skill coverage in future Falcon operations” – at least six Falcon officers is what I believe you recommended.’
‘That,’ I said.
‘Quite,’ said Nightingale. ‘I thought I’d use the legal group as guinea pigs.’
The legal group were a nest of City lawyers that we’d smoked out during the hunt for Martin Chorley. I trusted them about as far as I trust anyone that far up the corporate hierarchy, but Nightingale had insisted that it was better to have them safely trained and supervised than running around giving themselves brain injuries. I’m pretty sure I could have learnt to live with the guilt, but he was right. And the thought of Nightingale experimenting on them cheered me up no end.
‘Will you be staying for tea?’ asked Nightingale.
‘I’ve got to work on my legend,’ I said, ‘but I should be done by tea.’
‘Excellent,’ said Nightingale. ‘Then I’m sure we can fit in some practice after.’
‘Of course,’ I said, and made a mental note to text Bev. She’s made it clear that while she accepts that as police my hours are irregular, she doesn’t see how carrying a warrant card prevents me from using my phone.
‘And do it at the earliest possible opportunity,’ was the advice of the firmly married Detective Inspector Stephanopoulos.
Next door to the reading room was a small study which I used as my office when operating out of the Folly. Despite lacking Wi-Fi, or Ethernet, or anything remotely connectable, it did have a row of big green filing cabinets. They were green government-issue jobs from the 1930s with heavy-duty locks and I used them to store my daybooks, notepads, duplicate copies of arrest files, lists of good takeaway places and anything else I deemed professionally useful.
Before heading for the Folly I’d looked up the last couple of years in policing and downloaded likely grievances onto my laptop. I started making up a blog under the tag of F**kTheresaMay678, composed of the sort of material it was unwise to commit to the record, however electronically ephemeral.
Nothing you wouldn’t hear ad bloody nauseam wherever us lower ranks gather together, but the managerial levels notoriously have no sense of humour about bringing the profession into disrepute. Especially if they think you’re getting political.
I started with a couple of events that could be linked to me in my probationary days, including the showgirl and the tiny arsonist, and the virtual flasher. Then I let in a bit of grump about the ‘cheer up and smile’ campaign during the Olympics. Which segued nicely into pay and pensions and who was to blame. Poured in a bit more vitriol for the massive mullering police budgets got, and let the more-in-sorrow-than-in-anger tone mutate into outright anger.
You could have heard all of it in any police canteen in the country, assuming the canteen hadn’t been closed down, or wherever two or three response officers gathered together. I finished up with a massive rant about the lack of secure mental health places and the fact that the police were always expected to fill in for the gaps in social care. I directly named senior officers and politicians, but only because Nightingale and Silver had both signed a policy document, one copy of which was now locked in a safe under Molly’s bed.
‘These people live online,’ Silver had said. ‘The first thing they’ll do is find any social media accounts you’ve got. We just need to make sure you’re hard enough to trace to make it convincing.’
The idea being that they would find my blog and jump to the right conclusion – that I’d been eased out for speaking my mind.
‘Nobody’s going to fall for this,’ I said.
‘Of course they will,’ said Silver. ‘They fall for Nigerian princes all the time.’
‘Stupid people do,’ I said.
‘Wrong,’ said Silver. ‘It doesn’t matter if you’re a leading astrophysicist or thicker than a bag full of bricks. Whether the mark falls for a scam depends on experience, knowledge and how much they want it to be true.’
Silver was confident because, in her experience, tech types were particularly attracted to conspiracy theories.
‘They all want to think they’re on a watch list,’ she said. ‘It makes them feel important.’
I failed to point out that we were engaged in a conspiracy of state-sponsored disinformation, because I reckoned Silver was already aware of the irony and nobody likes a clever clogs.
Towards the end of our first briefing I’d asked Silver how long the operation was going to take.
‘The whole operation or your undercover pa
rt?’
‘My undercover part.’
She asked whether I had a previous engagement.
‘In three months,’ I said. ‘I’m going on parental leave come hell or high water. And I literally mean high water.’
Sometimes when I put my ear against the Bulge and closed my eyes I’d swear I could hear the twins singing. Beverley rolled her eyes when I told her that.
‘You know, I thought you were going to go all starry-eyed,’ she said. ‘But you’re even worse than I thought you would be.’
‘You don’t think they’re going to be “special”?’ I asked – meaning leaning more towards her side of the family, the River Goddess side, than mine, the common as muck side.
‘What I know,’ she said, ‘is that they’re enormous now and they’re going to be even bigger before I pop.’
This was normal for twins or, more precisely, normal for a certain value of normal that wasn’t satisfactory for someone who was a) actually experiencing it and b) had discovered the word epistemology and was wondering on, exactly, what basis that normality had been defined.
Up until the second trimester I’d thought epistemology was something to do with allergies, so that shows you what I knew about it.
Still, I thought they were singing. Although to be honest, it was probably more of a hum.
We’d talked about their ‘specialness’ back when they were a theoretical twinkle in Beverley’s eye and the practical day to day was a comfortable distance in the future. A theoretical distance at that. Only one of Beverley’s sisters had had kids of her own and they’d turned out mostly ordinary. Well, ordinary posh, anyway. So that wasn’t much help.
I’d even asked my mum about it, in as roundabout a fashion as I could manage, but all she said was, All man e pekin special to e mama ein e papa.
Also unhelpful.
One of the twins kicked me in the ear, so I turned to that spot and kissed it.
‘Don’t,’ said Beverley. ‘That tickles. And in any case it encourages them.’
False Value (Rivers of London 8) Page 10