Arbitrage

by Colette Kebell

  Logan realised something was wrong when he arrived at the office that morning, having spent the weekend in Brighton in an apartment owned by Pamela. They hadn’t opened a newspaper or watched television all weekend. They had barely gone out for a walk on the Boardwalk.

  The security guard at the entrance of the building had a dark face. When Logan took one of the newspapers, he whispered condolences half aloud. Logan took no notice until he was in the elevator and opened the paper. Saunders’s face looking at him from the front page, an image that portrayed him in a dark suit and tie and half-smiling. The photo was at odds with the news. He continued to read the article eagerly until he arrived at the floor of his office.

  The secretary ran up to him as soon as she saw him. ‘Two metropolitan police officers are waiting for you, Mr Logan. I had them sit in your office.’

  According to the rules they should have waited in the lobby, thought Logan, but given they were the police and were there due to the death of one of the partners, he decided not to give an earful to his secretary.

  ‘Hello, may I help you?’ said Logan upon entering his office and heading toward his desk. The two cops were a woman in her thirties, dark and oily hair held back in a ponytail. The man, of similar age, balding, was dressed in a dark blue suit, surely bought at a discount shop. He wore a pair of turtle shell glasses that he was adjusting on his face every two seconds. It wasn’t clear whether this was because they were too big or if it was due to a tic. He looked more like a rugby player than a cop. They showed him two badges. The woman had changed her hair colour from blonde to brunette. The man was unchanged, but with a sad face in the photo. Same glasses. Patricia Willoughby and Jordan Corrigan. He didn’t look Irish and had no accents. He was in shape, almost muscular, although from the picture one couldn’t have said. The woman was lean and moved jerkily. A nervous type. Logan gave up the badges.

  ‘Can we sit down?’ asked the man.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ answered Logan, indicating two chairs facing the desk. ‘It’s because of Saunders, right? I read the news right now in the paper.’ The two cops looked at each other’s eyes but said nothing.

  ‘Can I get you something?’

  ‘No, thanks,’ said the man. He answered for both. No doubt he was the one with greater seniority.

  ‘We learned that on Friday evening you went to dinner at Saunders’ apartment in Knightsbridge.’ It wasn’t a question.

  The woman had taken a notebook and a pen from the inside of her jacket and prepared to take notes.

  ‘Yes, of course.’

  ‘Can you tell us about the events? What did you talk about?’

  Logan gave a general description of the evening, excluding the attempt of blackmail by Saunders and his threats against Mortcombe. The two nodded and the woman kept taking notes.

  ‘At what time did you leave the apartment?’

  ‘About eleven o’clock. To reach my home in Surrey, it takes about an hour and a half, if there isn’t too much traffic.’

  ‘And when you left the apartment, Saunders was alive?’

  The question caught him by surprise. ‘Of course,’ he said, but something didn’t add up. If Saunders had been the victim of a robbery gone wrong, why all those questions?

  ‘And you didn’t return to Saunders’ home later?’ continued Corrigan in a monotone voice.

  ‘No, I spent the weekend in Brighton.’

  ‘Can anyone testify you were in Brighton?’ asked the woman. She had a shrill voice and a northern accent. Probably Liverpool.

  ‘I shall have to think about it. But what matters where I’ve been during the weekend? I left at eleven, so the burglary must have happened after that time.’

  The woman re-read out loud her notes and then asked, ‘Do you confirm what you have declared to us?’

  ‘Yes.’

  At that point, the man pulled out from a leather bag a manila envelope, the same one Logan had seen in the hands of Saunders the Friday evening before. He felt the blood stopping for a moment in his veins.

  ‘Who is this woman?’

  Logan’s face darkened. ‘If you want me to answer any more questions, we’ll do it in the presence of a lawyer.’

  The two looked at each other again. ‘As you wish,’ said Corrigan. ‘You are under arrest on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything, but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned, something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’

  With that said, the two agents stood up, and the man pulled out a pair of handcuffs from his back pocket. Logan said nothing but stood up in turn. He knew that before an arrest he couldn’t do more than satisfy the agents but meanwhile, mentally, he began to think about who could help him in his defence.

  They escorted him out of the building amid the dismay of the other employees.

  CHAPTER 8

  1990

  Gregg Potter disliked prisons, let alone Wandsworth. An abomination built in the mid-nineteenth century and modernised badly. From the outside, it looked almost like a castle, with those two towers of brownstone alongside the main door and the two others at the corners. Behind them, there were other more modern buildings where the prisoners were housed.

  He never violated the law, and the mere thought of ending up in that jail gave him the creeps. He did not know Ryan Logan, but due to the insistence of an old friend from university, he had decided to accept the case. It rarely happened that he would take lost causes, but this would bring him minimum visibility and it was a favour for someone he owed a lot to. From the files and the evidence collected up to that point the court wouldn’t take long to convict the accused.

  He was escorted through corridors painted in cream that could lead someone to think about being in a hospital if it weren’t for the iron bars. Everywhere. Cream coloured too. The guard’s heavy footsteps resounded in the corridor making it even eerier. One hundred and twenty pounds of muscle, necessary to quell riots, to block violent inmates. Wandsworth gave him the jitters. He handed his bag to another guard and was searched before passing through a metal detector. They left him the case files and a notebook but not the fountain pen. Metal. He received a temporary one made of plastic. Then they accompanied him to a room about four meters square. A laminate table in the middle and two metal chairs fixed to the floor. The walls were cream coloured as well, freshly repainted. As in hospitals.

  ****

  Ryan Logan arrived in the visiting room several minutes later. He wasn’t handcuffed, as seen in the American TV series, and he did not even have a uniform. Only a grey T-shirt and gym pants, grey too. In some places, it was better to stay grey, in every sense. Inconspicuous, not to attract the attention of other crooks. Certain colours helped a person to survive in those places. Potter had some documents scattered on the table in front of him.

  ‘What is the situation?’ asked Logan.

  ‘Honestly? Simply put, you are stuffed. The police, after having found the corpse, raided Saunders’ apartment. They have photos of you with a woman, although they haven’t discovered her identity. They’ve decided not to give the photos to the newspaper for the time being, but they may do in the future. Depends on the situation. They also found one of your cufflinks, with your initials, covered in the victim’s blood, under one of the sofas. No fingerprints on the knife but they can be erased. Following the search of your home, they found the second twin cufflink tucked away in a closet. Needless to say, also covered with blood, and half a kilo of cocaine.’

  Potter raised his eyes from the papers and looked at his client’s face. He looked tired. Motionless. Then he saw the fear in his eyes.

  ‘I’ve been set up, Potter. I don’t own monogrammed cuffs, those are made for hacks who think they are important. As for the cocaine, I don’t know what to say. I’ve never used it, nor have I done any trafficking. I’m earning a mountain of money legally. Saunders made a lot of use of the stuff. If you were to find drugs, his house was th
e most suitable place. I tell you, I’m being framed.’

  Potter scratched an eyebrow. Ninety per cent of his clients said they were innocent. Some were, most not. Yet this Logan seemed to speak the truth. ‘The police’s main hypothesis is that Saunders was blackmailing you because of the photos. Who is the woman?’

  ‘The wife of Bruno Mortcombe, the banker. We spent the weekend together.’

  ‘Damn! There has been a recent merger between the two companies, right? By the rumours I hear, he is not exactly a commendable fellow. His name turns up from time to time when there has been some crime or other, but nothing that can be proved,’ said Potter. ‘Maybe we could use her as a witness, but there would be a motive for both of you to kill Saunders. Are there witnesses of your weekend in Brighton? In the documents, there is no mention.’

  Logan slumped on the back of the chair and stared at the ceiling for a moment, trying to remember the events. They had brought food from home, and they had cooked together in the apartment. No theatre or cinema, and if anyone had seen them by chance walking on the waterfront, they would have no way to track them. They were two ordinary passers-by to whom nobody paid attention.

  ‘No witnesses.’

  ‘If you plead guilty, maybe we can reduce your sentence,’ said Potter.

  Logan clenched his fists until they become white. They were at that point. An obvious case to the investigators. Occam’s razor would do the rest: why seek a convoluted explanation when all the evidence led straight to him? But pleading guilty was a compromise he couldn’t live with. Pamela was pregnant. What Mortcombe would do with her remained to be seen. He would raise the child as his own, or perhaps he would have divorced her, leaving Pamela in the middle of a road. Neither hypothesis was comforting.

  Seeing the doubts growing over Logan’s eyes, Potter said, ‘Look, let me talk to the woman. I can put a private investigator on the case, but it will take time to look for alternative evidence, at least aiming for the legitimate doubt. You are a lawyer, I do not think it necessary for me to explain to you what kind of mess we are in.’

  Logan assented. Neither of them had anything more to add.

  ****

  Potter returned several times to Wandsworth. He informed Logan of conversations held with Pamela Mortcombe. After insistence, she revealed that her husband, Bruno Mortcombe, was the mastermind organiser of Saunders’ murder. She didn’t know the reasons that had impelled him to kill Saunders, but he certainly knew of the relationship between Logan and Pamela. He gave her an ultimatum: continue playing the good wife, showing up at gala parties and in return Logan would serve his prison sentence without accidents. Apparently, Pamela would not testify. From what the private investigator had been able to ascertain through the underground of London, those threats had a foundation and Mortcombe could, in return for payment and the right contacts, do anything he wanted. Kill Logan during a scuffle in prison, Pamela could die in a car accident. Anything.

  Logan was sentenced to life in prison. A judgment he wouldn’t appeal.

  CHAPTER 9

  2011

  Billy Frazier, known as ‘the brick’ laid on the bed in his cell at Wandsworth, staring at the ceiling. He wouldn’t serve the eight remaining years of his sentence for armed robbery. He wouldn’t spend another month in that place, according to the doctor. Pancreatic cancer. Sadly, he’d been neglected by the doctors in Her Majesty’s prison service and diagnosed when it was too late. Billy was a chain-smoker and if he had to die of cancer, he at least expected the beast to take it to the lungs. Of lungs, there were two of them, after all. Fifty per cent chance of dying. Of pancreas, instead, there was only one. He didn’t even know what the pancreas was for. They explained to him that the pancreas produces hormones and enzymes, but he didn’t know what those were. Hormones were the ones which transvestites used to grow breasts, but he couldn’t explain how the pancreas would serve a man.

  One month to live. Maybe two according to the doctor. But perhaps just one.

  He didn’t even need to go through chemotherapy as the tumour was too far progressed and that afternoon they’d moved him to the infirmary. They would fill him up with morphine until he was dazed, the only thing left to do was to wait for death to take him away. If it had happened five years ago, he wouldn’t have ended up in the hospital. He would have gone to blacks, punched one of them in the face and waited for a sudden knife to the kidneys. In a hallway or in a shower. That would have been a better death. But now, he was sixty years old and had converted to the Protestant religion. Getting killed on purpose was equivalent to committing suicide. He had never been religious, but as the years passed and the fear of dying at any time in that prison, had changed him. He turned slowly to religion, talking to the priest in prison. His cellmate said it was because he was getting old.

  ‘When you get old you become religious,’ he said.

  In part it was true, he’d committed several crimes, but he wasn’t afraid to die. Not anymore.

  Eight years in Wandsworth or one month in a bed full of drugs. Maybe two. There was no comparison.

  The last time he confessed he had spat it out. All the crimes he had committed, even those he had never been convicted for. He saw terror in the face of the priest, while he recounted. He had no shame for what he’d done, only regret. If only things had gone differently.

  In the end, the priest gave him absolution but urged him to speak to the authorities about those crimes. He could take them to the grave with him, he already got the acquittal, but you could never know. Maybe on the other side, they had different rules. Better wipe his conscience clean before it was too late. Who knew where he would be, or in what condition, in a month. Maybe two, but probably one for how it felt that day.

  It was at that point that he knocked on the door and called a security guard.

  The prison officer winced at his request to speak with the director of the prison, but he finally agreed. He was heard on the same day, just hours before the transfer.

  Billy Frazier confessed to having committed five murders, never solved, several more robberies, violent crimes, racketeering.

  The director stood at the mention of a name, Newsham Saunders. He remembered that murder and the alleged culprit was in the same prison, although in a wing different from Frazier.

  ‘Tell me about the Saunders murder,’ he said.

  Billy ‘the brick’ Frazier didn’t know who had ordered the murder, but he was someone who had money to spend and wanted a job well done. The tip and a substantial advance had arrived from a mutual contact, now dead. That night, Frazier entered a flat in Knightsbridge someone had indicated to him. From his previous surveillance, he knew that the owner was alone. Opening the door was easy enough, but when the owner had awakened, Billy had stabbed him in the abdomen. He slumped to the ground. A second stab to the heart had ended his life. It had to look like a burglary and Billy did his best to collect as many valuables as he could. A bonus.

  The instructions said to leave a cufflink that had been previously delivered to him, at the scene of the crime. Staining it with the victim’s blood was his idea. He had thought of leaving it in sight, but then he had second thoughts, pushing it under one of the sofas. Unless the police hadn’t sent a band of incompetents, they’d have found it easily. He wiped his fingerprints from the knife and the doorknob and walked, unseen, to his van, where he deposited the loot. That job had a second part. He travelled to a house in Surrey and planted the twin cufflink and a pound of cocaine. A waste according to him, a few ounces would have sufficed, but those people were no joke. Best to do as ordered.

  The director listened, hanging on every word that passed the lips of the villain, noting down every word. Would you make a sworn statement? He asked.

  Billy Frazier nodded.

  Billy repeated the same story to two apathetic policemen the next day. He signed a declaration, and when asked if he had more evidence, he spoke of the swag. Some objects, two paintings, and a statue were still held at home. No
one had ever asked, and he liked those three things, they had class. Something he had never had in his life. He gave a brief description of them, and the two cops eagerly took note. They visited Frazier’s apartment that same day for confirmation.

  Billy Frazier was transferred to the prison infirmary, and a few days later Ryan Logan was released.

  Logan had lost everything apart from his freedom.

  He did occasional work to survive, and slowly he put himself back together. Nothing comparable to what he had before prison, but now he had a rented room and some money for a meal. He had read the news about Pamela’s suicide years before, maybe he still had a daughter, but he wasn’t sure.

  The practice to be re-admitted to the legal profession was not complicated. A case of incorrect justice.

  There was still the void to fill, but Logan didn’t want to think about that. He kept himself busy, the more time he spent working for his clients the less he had to think about the loss he had experienced in his life.

  PART 2

  CHAPTER 10

  Domino Gravis entered the luxury Battersea penthouse, intent on reading a gossip article in the Sunday Times; she took off her shoes and headed for the bar. It was late afternoon, and a glass of white wine would help her to finally catch that thought that was slipping into her mind. She chose a chardonnay and headed for the armchair near the large window from which she could see the chimneys of the old power station.

  Battersea was renovating. Housing prices in the centre were skyrocketing, and slowly Londoners had moved to the suburbs. The neighbourhood seemed almost a construction site. New palaces stood at every corner, old buildings were torn down to make way for luxury condominiums for those who couldn’t afford to make the leap in the most exclusive areas of the capital. The apartment was newly built. There were also plans to convert the old power plant into flats, but until then nothing had yet been decided. She liked her apartment, looking right at the power station and it was like having a three-dimensional Pink Floyd cover available throughout the day.