Cross organised his files neatly and perfectly equidistant from the edges of the interview table. Only then did he look up at Nick Cubitt and his solicitor.
‘So, Robbie. I’m sorry, Nick. It might take me a little getting used to as I’ve been calling you Robbie these past few weeks. You look very different to the photographs we had. Very different, but I think you knew that. Otherwise you wouldn’t have stayed around so long.’
‘Well, prison will do that to you,’ Cubitt replied.
‘I knew someone at school called Paul who later became an actor,’ Cross continued. ‘He had to change his name to John. When I saw him years later, I just couldn’t get used to it. Kept calling him Paul, but he didn’t seem to mind. How did you know Brother Dominic Augustus, Nick?’
‘I met him at St Eustace’s Abbey while on retreat,’ he replied.
‘Ever met him before?’ Cross asked.
‘No.’
‘Why did you choose St Eustace’s, out of interest?’ Cross went on.
‘I just came across it on the internet when I was looking for places to go on retreat. I liked the look of it,’ Nick replied.
Cross looked at him. He was deciding which path to take in this interview. Obviously, he wasn’t going to produce all their evidence to Cubitt and charge him. He wanted to help the prosecution case as much as he could in this room. Construct a narrative that could be used convincingly in court. Paint a picture of Nick Cubitt as well as provide the evidence.
‘We all, with the possible exception of your lawyer, know that’s not true,’ he said.
Cubitt made no response.
‘All right, let’s move on to what we know is irrefutable. The painting. The Victorian religious painting of the Virgin Mary. Why did you steal the painting from the abbey?’ Cross asked.
‘I didn’t.’
‘But you were arrested with it in your possession,’ Cross pointed out.
‘That doesn’t mean I stole it.’
‘That’s true. So why don’t you tell me how it came to be in your possession?’
‘It was a gift.’
‘A gift from whom?’ asked Cross.
‘Brother Dominic.’
‘Oh, I see. Did you tell anyone it was a gift before you took it from the church?’
‘I did not.’
‘Why was that?’
‘I don’t know,’ replied Cubitt. ‘It didn’t seem necessary.’
‘All right, let’s work on the basis that that is the truth. Why did you sell it?’ asked Cross.
‘For the money, obviously. I’m not big on religious art.’
‘Did you need the money?’ asked Cross.
‘Not particularly.’
‘Why did Dominic give you the painting? Did he give you any reason?’ asked Cross.
‘He wanted it to be a memento, if you like, of my time at the abbey.’
‘Which you promptly sold.’
‘It reminded me of the terrible thing that had happened to him. I didn’t want to have it around anymore. It upset me,’ replied Cubitt.
‘I can understand that, or could understand it, were it not for the fact that you didn’t remove it from the abbey till after his death,’ Cross pointed out.
‘It was a confusing time.’
‘Of course. Why did you return to the antique shop to get it back yesterday?’
‘I changed my mind.’
‘Did that have anything to do with the Lucien Freud bill of sale we found concealed in Dominic’s bible?’
‘It did not.’
‘It didn’t occur to you that possibly a piece of art worth several millions was hidden behind the religious painting you had sold for six hundred pounds?’
‘It did not.’
‘How was your time in prison?’ Cross asked, suddenly changing the direction of the interview.
‘How do you think?’
‘I have no idea. My experience goes no further than a few hours now and then in an interview room within a prison,’ replied Cross.
‘Well, I wouldn’t recommend it,’ came the terse reply.
‘Are you resentful about your time there?’ asked Cross.
‘I don’t understand the question.’
‘How do you feel about the sentence you received? Do you feel it was justified?’
‘I do not.’
‘I thought that might be the case. Even though you committed serious fraud?’ asked Cross.
‘That’s one way of looking at it,’ replied Cubitt.
‘Well obviously it was the way the court looked at it. How do you see it?’
‘I was in the middle of a process far too complex for even a judge and jury to understand, let alone a detective sergeant of the Avon and Somerset police,’ Cubitt replied witheringly.
‘Indulge us,’ said Ottey.
‘I was managing millions of pounds across several currencies in an array of different financial instruments. That involves movements up and down, and in basic terms you have to balance the books,’ Cubitt replied.
‘Balance the books? You took money from people’s client accounts without authorisation and moved it simply to cover your enormous losses,’ Cross pointed out. ‘Is that what you mean by balancing the books?’
‘My client was tried for this and served time. What exactly has this got to do with the arrest today?’ asked the lawyer.
‘Frankie Davis,’ Cross stated.
‘What about him?’ asked Cubitt.
‘Do you know him?’
‘Obviously.’
‘How?’
‘We shared a cell for a while when I was inside.’
‘Is he ever in contact with you?’
‘No.’
Cross took a sheet out from his file.
‘I have a copy of your mobile phone records here. Would you like to reconsider your answer?’
‘He was in touch quite recently, now I think about it.’
‘Why?’
‘He wanted help. Getting a job.’
‘And he thought you could help? What, by giving him a job?’
‘Either giving him one or putting him in touch with someone who needed labour.’
‘What is your business these days?’ asked Cross.
‘Property development.’
‘Were you able to help Davis? Furnish him with a job?’ asked Cross.
‘I was not in this instance, no.’
Cross made diligent notes every time a question was unanswered which gave the interview an uneven tempo. A deliberate ploy on Cross’s part. He found it often made the interviewee impatient and anxious.
‘Had you given him work at any instance in the past?’
‘No.’
‘And you didn’t this time?’
‘No.’
‘So why did he persist in calling you?’ asked Cross.
‘He’s very persistent.’
Cross looked at Cubitt, deciding whether he was attempting to be humorous. He couldn’t tell.
‘Except that it wasn’t him who initiated contact was it? It was actually you. He didn’t call you looking for a job at all.’
Cubitt didn’t react.
‘Where were you on the thirty-first of March this year?’ Cross went on.
‘I have no idea. I’d have to check. You could ask my secretary. She’d know.’
‘Mandy? We already have. She’s not very happy at the moment.’
‘Is that right?’
‘Yes, apparently you haven’t been around much the last few months. Keep disappearing. She also hasn’t been paid in three months. Bit of an odd way to treat someone you seem to be intimate with,’ Cross observed.
‘Fluctuations of business. I have a small cash-flow problem at present.’
‘Presumably a smaller one than you had at Cubitt’s bank,’ Cross commented. ‘Do you not deal in stocks and shares? Not have your own little portfolio for a rainy day?’
‘I do not.’
‘Well, I suppose that’s unsurprising really,’ observed Cross looking directly across the table. If he was trying to get a rise out of his suspect, he didn’t succeed. ‘Trading wasn’t exactly in your skillset as an investment banker. Not something you excelled at. Something, in fact, you failed at spectacularly to your own cost and that of your family. After all, that’s why you got into trouble in the first place and is why you’re sitting opposite us today.’
Cubitt made no response.
‘You don’t have an alibi for the thirty-first of March, according to your unpaid secretary,’ Cross informed him.
‘So?’
‘So that is the date of the abduction and murder of Brother Dominic.’
‘And what exactly has that got to do with me?’
‘Well, that’s hopefully what we’re here to ascertain,’ Cross replied.
‘Can I ask a question?’ said Ottey, jumping in at the appointed cue. Cubitt turned slowly towards her. ‘What’s it like to destroy a successful family business that’s been around for over three hundred years, in less than eighteen months?’
‘That strikes me as completely irrelevant,’ said Cubitt’s lawyer.
‘What you think is relevant or irrelevant is neither here nor there,’ she replied. ‘How is your relationship with your father?’
‘There is no relationship,’ replied Cubitt, shifting his weight slightly in his chair.
‘That must be difficult. Presumably you were close at one time. As his only son and heir,’ she said.
‘To an extent. He’s quite old-fashioned. Edwardian even. Not given to displays of affection,’ Cubitt replied.
‘In better times you had use of a cottage on your father’s estate.’
‘I did.’
‘But not anymore.’
‘No.’
‘You used to go down there with your children,’ she said.
‘That’s correct.’
‘Did Charlotte help with them? The children?’ she asked.
‘Charlotte? On occasion, yes, if our nanny was on holiday.’
‘You were close to Charlotte. Are you still?’
‘We’re in touch, yes. She was like a second mother to me.’
‘That’s exactly how she put it. Have you been down to the cottage recently?’ Ottey went on.
‘I have not.’
‘Beautiful estate, Coxton Hall. You must have looked forward to inheriting it. But not any more. That mistake you made in the City really was so costly in the end. That must haunt you,’ she observed.
‘I’ve moved on,’ he asserted.
‘Really? Are sure about that? I’m not sure I’d be able to be so sanguine. Especially if I believed, as you seem to, that I’d done nothing wrong. Even though your actions did bring down a bank.’
‘I didn’t bring down the bank,’ he answered testily.
‘It still annoys you that people like me think you did though, doesn’t it? Do you hold anyone else responsible?’ she went on.
He didn’t answer.
‘According to our research, your robbing-Peter-to-pay-Paul scheme was exposed by one of your own traders when you made the mistake of raiding his client accounts to disguise your losses. And we’re talking hundreds of millions of pounds here, not petty cash. Money which didn’t belong to you. Didn’t belong to the bank. But unlike you, this trader had a sense of responsibility to his clients.’
‘Does that sound familiar?’ asked Cross. ‘His name was Alexander Mount.’
Cubitt said nothing, so Cross turned to the lawyer.
‘Alexander Mount was a big star in the City, brilliant mathematician. The Lionel Messi of city traders and a must-have for your clients’ investment vehicle. And your client got him. Offered him the most extraordinary deal to lure him away from HSBC. Huge signing-on bonus, performance bonuses, and that’s before his eye-watering salary and commissions. But he was worth it, wasn’t he, Mr Cubitt? Initially, at least.’
‘Again, I have to ask why this is relevant?’ persisted the lawyer.
‘Well, Alexander Mount withdrew from the City after the implosion of Cubitt’s. But he was very much the secret whistle-blower who had drawn attention to this, in the end, catastrophic fraud. He withdrew from the City and pretty much from view. He entered St Eustace’s Abbey and took the monastic name Brother Dominic Augustus.’
Nothing was said but the lawyer struggled to conceal his surprise.
‘Tea?’ Cross suggested brightly as if he was hosting a very polite bridge party in Clifton.