Chapter 25

They eyed each other off in the coffee shop in the main street of Glasgow. Hidden in plain sight, it looked like two friends or two business acquaintances just chatting. The older man in his ill-fitting suit looked somewhat tense and had cut himself shaving, but spoke quietly to the waiter who had just delivered their coffees, saying that they wouldn’t be long and weren’t staying for lunch. Ewan McAllister had said that more for the benefit of the man opposite him than for the waiter’s. He had put a limit on the conversation and hinted that they would ignore any niceties and get straight to the point.

“I have run into a bit of trouble in Inverness. Nothing that I can’t handle though. There could be some competition making inroads and may indeed come looking for a supplier. I trust that you have been content with our business relationship and would want to see it continue, especially as I pay over the market rates to you. That can continue, but right now for the next week I need not to be seen. So, I am asking two favours for which you will be handsomely rewarded. The first is a safe house filled with everything I need from new clothes, secure phone through to a new passport. The second favour is the most critical. I have access to a lot of money, some of which I need now. I am unable to get it personally. What I need from you is not a loan, but someone to get some of that money and give it to me. Your fee will be part of that amount of money. There is no need to threaten you if you decide to take all of that money, because you know what information I have about your operation and I actually know more than you think. There is no need to threaten me because you don’t know what plans I have already made to release that information. This is a trust issue. I am offering a chance to continue the business relationship after yet another week of hiatus. I am offering you a great deal of money to do a few things on my behalf.”

“How much are we talking about?” the taciturn man asked.

“Two hundred thousand pounds,” Ewan replied.

“Three hundred thousand,” was fired straight back.

“Two hundred and fifty,” Ewan said with some finality.

The dance was over and both men smiled for the first time. It was a fair price and each had played the game. When Ewan was asked, where and how much money was to be picked up, the supplier grunted, but wished he’d asked for more. One point five million stored in a very old large biscuit tin on a shelf in a garage in Inverness was not his idea of banking. Still, it left no trail for others to follow and if that was just one of his reserves, then the man opposite him was indeed a wealthy client who was worth retaining. He was a bit wary though, because there had been a police blitz in Inverness on the type of product he was selling. He would have to tread warily. He knew the right person for the job. As for the safe house, that was no problem, neither was the passport. He even offered Ewan the option to have a professional makeup artist doctor his looks for the photo and for any travel he may want to do on that passport. He’d throw that in for free. It wasn’t really for free, as both men knew. His client always paid more than he needed to. Doing so bought anonymity and respect. It bought nothing else. Both were businessmen, first and foremost. Directions to the safe house were given and Ewan was told that he would receive a few callers later in the day who would give him what he needed. The money would be delivered within a couple of days. That part was more difficult to arrange and more critical that there be no slipups. Ewan merely nodded. That still left him a couple of days to help his brother. The bruised and bloodied body in his former prison had told him the critical date before lapsing into unconsciousness.

The men didn’t shake hands when they parted. Both knew that they wouldn’t see each other again. A deal had been struck over a cup of coffee and both left with vastly different things on their mind and agenda.

By day’s end, Ewan was safely ensconced in a safe house. A tailor had been and taken all his measurements. Food was laid on and work had begun on his passport. All this had taken place without his supplier even collecting the money. Ewan felt that his overpayment for the drugs, disguised as printers’ dye powder, had paid dividends. He just hoped that the tin was still there. The cash had been accumulated over a number of years and placed in the tin. Various nuts and bolts covered it inside the tin and anyone who had been able to break into his garage would have just seen it as just another tin full of bits like the others around it. No-one would have taken it given what it was. Even the Walkers Shortbread logo had worn so badly, it was hardly a collectable item. His lathe tools were smaller and infinitely more valuable than the tin, if you didn’t count the money tucked safely inside of course.

The following morning arrangements had been made with the taxation department and past accounting reports were emailed to Inverness on the seventeen companies. All four of the Inverness team set to work. The information was divvied up and three sets of eyes would review each accounting. The companies would then be ranked again. There were some rises and falls in the rankings, but Glasgow remained number one and by a mile. Somehow the company was still in business despite the fact that records indicated that it should have died an ignominious death years before. Either someone was kicking in lots of money and prepared to take a loss, or there was some undeclared income. If it was the latter then it may have been from laundering of criminal money, payment for services of an illicit nature or just cooking the books. Whichever way it was, it was suspicious and so it was determined that tax investigators would step in straight away, supported of course by two police officers not from Glasgow, to prevent any idea of collusion, and two Australian tax experts over in Scotland on sabbatical.

The raid on the children’s watercolour paint factory had more officials than workers. It was a small automated business that basically took in various ingredients, mixed them according to a various formulae, packaged them in tins of powder or bottles of thick liquid, labelled them, placed them into cartons and sent the orders off. The people working there were involved in orders and delivery and management. Only one person ran the machine which did all the work. Her job was to make sure the tubs of base colour, the material they were to be mixed with and the packaging materials were kept up to the cravings of the machine. The factory used to be much larger and employ over thirty people, but people cost money so the owner decided to lay off people and invest in a machine that did nearly everything. This huge capital outlay had not been factored in and loans needed to be repaid. Depreciation of the machine helped allay some of the initial tax burden, but the machine was old now and had been written off. Once staff were paid, there was little left to meet the obligations of the loans. The factory had been mortgaged to the hilt and it was only the stubbornness of the owner which kept the doors open. According to the figures that he presented to all the ‘tax experts’ there, he was still down the tube a fair bit and was told just that by them. That was when Donald McPherson stepped in and told him frankly that he was to be arrested for tax evasion and fraud. The owner’s face paled. He blubbered about this being his grandfather’s business and he was the third generation. His father had accelerated the downturn by keeping people on despite drops in profit. He had made the difficult decision to sack people, but by then it was too late. The machine was supposed to be the saviour and it was more a millstone around the company’s neck.

“So how is it that you can afford to keep going?” Donald asked, “Your paint sales are getting less. You barely make the minimum payments on loans and your staff are still needing to be paid?”

Defeat was noticeable in the man’s body posture. There were surrender flags in his eyes. He knew he was beaten and not only would his family business die and his staff be laid off, but he could be sent to prison. His accountant had suggested bankruptcy five years ago, but pride wouldn’t let him take that merciful course.

“So where is the extra money coming from? If you tell us, then the court may look upon you more leniently and I will make a statement to them accordingly,” Donald added the final piece of pressure on the man who had lowered himself into his old worn-out business chair.

“A client approached me last year asking if I could manufacture some paint off the books. I caved into his requests, because the staff wages couldn’t be met. The arrangements were that I would deliver the ground up powder paint to his warehouse and I would be paid in cash. I have used that cash for five years to ensure the staff were paid. The legitimate sales brought in just enough to pay off the interest on the loans and take a little bit home for myself, not that that has been necessary for a while. My wife took off with the kids three and a half years ago. She said that I had chosen the family name over them. She was probably right. If I give you the name of the client and where the paint was delivered, what happens then?” the distraught owner asked.

“I would say that you could end up with only a rap over the knuckles and these tax agents will probably go after the bigger fish who coerced you into breaking the law,” Donald said, “Of course I can’t guarantee this, but I think that if you liquidated the company, paid the staff out with the sale of assets, the tax office would in all likelihood see that you are taking positive action at last.”

The man dumbly nodded. He didn’t want the factory closed. He had sold his soul and paid a dear price to meet the expectations of his father and grandfather who both had died young. Their deaths may have been due to the pressure of running a family business, he finally conceded to himself.

“By the way,” Amelia asked, speaking for the first time, “Was there anything special about the orders the man asked you to fill?”

“Yes, the man said looking up,” For some strange reason he just wanted me to make four colours; a purplish red, a greenish blue, black and yellow. Those four every time. He even specified how fine the powder had to be. I didn’t question him about these requirements. After all he was paying me in cash and at a slightly higher rate than I would normally wholesale them for. He was also the sort of man, that you didn’t ask questions of.”

With a name and an address in hand as they left the factory and the troubled man and his stunned staff, Donald made the decision to cancel the other raids on paint factories. It wasn’t quite by chance that they had stumbled on the answer the first time. It was through the excellent team work of his group and the intelligent thoughts of his two Australian colleagues. They had just bought themselves a whole heap of time. Sarge and the others knew that the address would be an empty warehouse used for the transfer only. The name wouldn’t be real, but the description of the man would deliver the goods. Donald had in his pocket Sarge’s hand-drawn sketch that the owner had asserted was a very good likeness.