George was clearly grumpy at being disturbed, but perked up noticeably when he heard about the written statement. He came round to Cynthia’s bungalow with alacrity and re-occupied his chair in the kitchen. “It’s better here than at my place—I’ve got all my financial stuff out,” he explained. Then he read through the statement with care, going through the text twice before he sat back, pushing his glasses on to the top of his forehead. “Hm, well that’s his confession in writing, which pretty much confirms what he told you. A copy of this will have to go to Andy Croft. I’ve heard of Jack Metz. He’s in my memory bank somewhere, although not as strong as Charlie Willis.”
“What about your boxes—would they help?” Cynthia prompted.
“Hm possibly. They’re still in a bit of a mess. I was lucky to find the info on Charlie. It could take me all day to find Metz. He’s a similar ilk to Willis—that’s all I can say.”
“It sounds like we need to sort them out some day—the boxes I mean.”
“That would be a good idea. They’re all stacked up in the garage just as they were when we moved here. I’ll talk to Andy about Metz. It’s an unusual name so he should be able to track him down despite the passage of time. Do we know when Charlie’s funeral is?”
The two women exchanged glances. It wasn’t something they’d really thought about, and the question rather took them aback. “No, we don’t,” Gladys answered eventually. “Why?”
“You should think about going.”
“But we hardly knew him.”
George put his glasses away in their case, which he snapped shut. “That’s not the point, is it? He trusted you with this document.” He tapped the statement with two fingers of his right hand by way of emphasis. “It was arguably one of the most important documents he ever wrote. Also, his sister will most likely find ways of spreading the news of his death among his former associates. You never know who might turn up.”
“Including Jack Metz, perhaps?” Cynthia put in.
“Precisely. If I tell Andy one or both of you are going, that may take the pressure off them having to send somebody. We can always report back anything of interest afterwards.”
“All right,” said Gladys. “I’ll go back and ask about the arrangements.” Her voice sounded a little less certain than usual.
“Good,” George said. “If they only have a small family affair in mind, that will be that.”
Cynthia nodded. “But it’s worth a try.” She took Gladys’s arm. “Look, I’ll take this on if you like. You’ve your deadline to meet.”
“Oh, thank you, dear.” Gladys’s relief was tangible. “I’m rather up against it and I suppose we’re not used to this kind of pressure anymore.”
“No, but it’s exciting, isn’t it?” Cynthia declared.
She waved the other taskforce members off, George to carry on figuring out exactly what level of nest egg he might be able to conjure up to catch the attention of Claude Flynn of Gonzalez and Co., and Gladys to listen through the recording several more times and produce her script from it. Cynthia had been pleased with the photos, which she delivered round to Gladys’s bungalow. One in particular of Shamira Iqbal by her desk with a half-smile on her face looking directly into the camera caught her attention and she put that one on top. Then she made a mug of tea and sat down at her kitchen table to compose her email to Maria Willis. It seemed strange to be there without her two colleagues to put in their thoughts and she deleted several drafts before she told herself to stop overthinking the task and to keep it short and simple.
Dear Maria,
Thank you for sending us the statement which Charlie signed. Gladys and I value very much his trust in us.
We were so sorry to hear about his passing and would like to pay our respects by attending his funeral. Could you therefore please let me know the arrangements.
Best regards,
Cynthia Tilling
Yes, it was fine, she thought, as she read it through. She remembered the terse farewell they had received from the brother and sister when they left the cottage. Obviously they had made more of an impact than they had realised but was this really a sensitive step to take, to muscle in on the funeral? Would she have done it without George to make the running? Almost certainly not, but Charlie had called her and Gladys two old biddies. It was a term of endearment, wasn’t it? She pressed the “send” button.
After that she spent the rest of the afternoon deciding what to wear the next day for her excursion with George. An outfit which had cut the mustard for a law office should surely be good for a City bank, she reasoned, so she did a variation on a theme and pulled out a powder blue suit this time with the rest of the ensemble to be the same. She gave a little prayer of thanks that her clear-out of her wardrobe hadn’t been over-ruthless before her move to the Village. She was sure David would have approved of her outfit and she wanted him to be proud of her. Then she performed her final job to book the taxi, which she’d offered to do to leave George to concentrate on his finances.
Going on the experience of the previous day she organised the timing to catch a train two in advance of what was really necessary. She always believed in sticking with a formula which worked.
**
On the following morning when she walked out to meet George she gasped. He was wearing a smart stone-grey suit accompanied by a pale salmon shirt and what looked like an old school tie. His black shoes shone in the sunlight. Sometime during the previous afternoon he must have had his hair cut as it was neatly trimmed as was his beard, from which all the straggly bits had disappeared. She knew he couldn’t have taken advantage of the service provided by the Village because the hairdresser came on a Monday and this was Wednesday, so to change his appearance must have entailed a journey into town. Even his eyebrows, which were wont to expand luxuriantly in a variety of directions, had been cut back. She suddenly realised that all she’d ever since him wear before were oversized cardigans and sweaters paired with trousers which didn’t look exactly new. Crumbs which didn’t get caught up in his beard were often captured by the folds of the cardigan or the sweater. Now he looked completely different. She was pleased she’d taken trouble herself with her own appearance with a little more make-up than usual, a touch of lipstick and hair patted in place. She felt confident in her suit and trusty trench coat with a scarf at her neck.
“My word, you look nice,” was George’s greeting as the taxi pulled up beside them.
“You don’t look so bad yourself,” was her response.
“Shows we can still polish ourselves up when we want to. I decided I needed a change of image. I stopped smoking two days ago as well.”
“I’ve never seen you with a cigarette,” Cynthia responded carefully.
“That was because I’d cut it back to two or three a day at home. You must have noticed the smell on my clothes though. You’re far too fastidious not to have done. I bet you’ve never smoked.”
“You’re right—I haven’t.”
“Do you know how I stopped? I kept the last butt I smoked in an ashtray and kept looking at it. It looked disgusting.”
“I’m glad you have, stopped, I mean”
“Are you? Good—that makes me all the more determined there’ll be no backsliding.”
He opened the door for her to climb in before he got in himself on the other side. “The way we look we should be able to impress the bank that we’re quality clients.”
The driver was the same one who had taken Cynthia and Gladys to the station two days previously and he was wearing the same sweater. The car’s odour of stale tobacco was stubbornly persistent. Cynthia was pleased that it wasn’t just her who would be struck by it. “Two trips to London in three days,” he commented as they swung out of the Village gates. Cynthia could see his eyes focussed on her through the rear-view mirror. The gap between them and the oncoming traffic was even tighter than it had been on the Monday. “Just like London buses, isn’t it? You know, you don’t see one for ages and then two come along at once. Some of the shopping must have been left undone.”
“We decided to go out for the day as the weather was nice,” Cynthia responded quickly before George could intervene.
“Anywhere special?”
“Maybe the National Gallery,” said Cynthia giving the first place which came into her head. “I see you’re still wearing your sweater.” She thought they had probably fully harvested the sweater the last time but she was wrong.
“Yes indeed, it’s my favourite thing. And we’re planning to go back this year, weather permitting and everything…” The explanation continued all the way to the station, where they hastened to get out.
“Whatever was that about?” George asked as he insisted on buying their train tickets. “That was one of the ghastliest sweaters I’ve ever seen.”
Cynthia gave him the Fair Isle story, ending by telling him she had once owned a Fair Isle sweater herself which had lasted for years. “You have to choose colours which suit you,” she finished.
“Shame no one told our driver that.” They laughed together as they boarded the train and chatted all the way to London, so that Cynthia completely forgot to worry about signal and points failures, defective trains, driver changes or any other potential sources of delay. George efficiently piloted them through two changes before they emerged at Bank, between the Royal Exchange and the Bank of England. Because of Cynthia’s forward planning they once again had ample time to stop for coffee before George led them under an archway into a small pedestrianised square. In one corner was a grey six-storey building with a modest gold sign against a blue background announcing that here were the headquarters of Gonzalez and Co. Against the name on the sign was a picture of a seated gold lion. The building looked solid but otherwise unremarkable and lacklustre. Once inside they were whisked upstairs to a meeting room on the fifth floor set out with a boardroom table and leather-bound chairs with tall sash windows giving views out over the square. The only other furniture was a dark wood sideboard on which rested a metal tray laden with tea and coffee making equipment and plastic bottles of water. Two portraits were hanging equidistant from each other near the door and Cynthia went over to examine them while George patrolled in front of the windows.
The first portrait was of a man dressed in a long black cloak with a frilly shirt underneath. He had a dark swarthy face with a broad nose and mouth, coal-black eyes staring into the middle distance and long flowing black hair. The second was much more modern, this time of a man in a business suit. There was something threatening about him which made Cynthia catch her breath for a second. It was all in the eyes, she decided, blue eyes which seemed to stare out at you and follow your movements. This was a portrait of a person who exuded power and wasn’t to be trifled with. “The one you were looking at before is our founder Alejandro Gonzalez,” announced a deep voice from behind her. “He came here from Colombia almost exactly two hundred years ago. In fact, our anniversary is next year. That one in front of you now is Richard Pennington, our former CEO.”
Cynthia turned to see the owner of the voice shaking hands with George, a man who she judged to be sixty-plus dressed in a dark suit with an open, friendly face topped by a thatch of grey hair. He came over to join her in front of the portrait. “I’m Claude Flynn,” he explained. “It’s a strong picture, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” Cynthia agreed, “someone who looks as though they’re in charge.”
“Well, he was—for twenty-five years here.”
“Until he was murdered.”
“So you know the story. Most people do, I suppose. Those tragic events haven’t been forgotten. I was working here at the time as a junior but they’re still fresh in my mind. The case is one of the most notorious unsolved crimes. It was featured in the papers again recently.”
“Yes, we saw it,” George told him. All the while Cynthia continued staring at the portrait. Up until this point Pennington had been a concept, an object of study around which they’d built a taskforce. Now he was an actual being, a person whom she could see.
“You’re obviously taken with the picture,” Flynn observed.
“It’s very compelling.” Cynthia finally turned away.
“Well, let’s sit down, shall we?” Flynn put down a ring-binder which he’d been carrying on the table as an indication of where he planned to sit with his back to the door and his visitors moved round opposite him. He busied himself with their drinks orders, tea for George and water for Cynthia, before he sat down and opened the binder. “We don’t waste money here, as you can see.” He waved his arm round in an expansive gesture. “That was the founder’s hallmark from the start. Our purpose is to look after our clients’ funds, not to spend them on ourselves. In that regard we’re different from some other private banks. The same applies to our products, which are designed to be simple and streamlined. Now, the first question to the two of you, whose funds may we be looking after?”
“We are partners,” George replied, “but the funds concerned will be mine.”
“That’s fine, Chief Superintendent. Perhaps I should confirm at the start that, as I told you on the phone, our minimum entry point is one hundred thousand pounds.”
“Yes, I understood that and the sum I have available is in excess of that. By the way, I’m retired so I no longer have a rank. With the police it’s not like the army where you can still walk around calling yourself brigadier, not for me anyway.”
“Very good, so it’s Mr Skelton then and… er… Ms Tilling.”
“Correct,” said George after glancing at Cynthia.
“Good, well now we have that sorted out let me tell you about our products.” He turned pages in the binder, which Cynthia noted was in the same blue colour as the sign outside the bank. “Our standard funds which most clients go for are low risk, either based on UK investments or international. Then we have what we call silver and gold which carry greater levels of risk.” He sprang open the binder and extracted pages which he handed to them. “All the information is in there and you’ll see our basic management charge is one percent, again designed to be simple.”
“I thought you had another level called Reserve.”
“We do but I didn’t realise that was mentioned in any of our publicity.” Flynn gave George a curious look.
“Oh, perhaps I heard about it from a friend.”
“Entry to the fund is by invitation only—and invitees tend to be very rich.” Heavy stress on the last two words suggested that it would take a fair few million to pass muster.
“I know.” George snapped his fingers. “It came up during the investigation of Richard Pennington’s murder. The client who threatened to kill him, wasn’t he one of those top ones? And there were three altogether who wanted to sue the bank, isn’t that right?”
“You’re very well informed.” George gave a small smile. “Perhaps you were involved at the time.” George’s smile widened. Flynn paused before he continued. “I suppose you can’t tell me but you’re right. Pennington ran the Reserve Fund personally so when they incurred large losses, the men concerned blamed him.”
“Wasn’t it a famous footballer who threatened Pennington?”
“Right again—Cauley Mortimer was his name.”
“Ah yes, the Deadly Dragon.”
Flynn brightened. “He was.”
“What’s this all about?” Cynthia broke in.
“He played many times for Wales,” George explained.
“Why deadly?”
George looked pained while Flynn’s body language became considerably more relaxed. “Because whenever he got the ball in front of goal he scored.”
“Oh, I understand. I don’t know much about football,” Cynthia added unnecessarily.
“Who were the other two—of the ones who complained, I mean?” George asked casually.
Flynn looked uneasy. “Oh, that’s privileged information. I couldn’t possibly tell you—even if I knew,” he added hastily.
“But you can surely tell us how it happened and why these people suffered large losses, so large that they were seriously upset.” George responded. “What I don’t really get is, surely if investments went wrong in the fund, wouldn’t they all suffer equally?”
“It depends on the level of risk they wanted to take. I have to say I’ve never been in the group dealing with the Reserve Fund. I’ve always dealt with the regular clients. That fund is run by the CEO with three associates. They operate from the floor above us.” Flynn pointed upwards to emphasise his words.
“You mean by the successor to Pennington?”
“Indeed—he was succeeded by Marcus Miller, his son-in-law.”
“And the losses were all put right?”
Flynn shrugged. “I can’t tell you exactly what happened about the losses but in some way the three people concerned were persuaded to agree to a public statement put out by the bank acknowledging they were content. They were all individually invited to lunch by the bank. Cauley Mortimer was the one who generated the bad publicity at the time, because he was famous, I suppose. But anyway, we need to get back to your personal needs.”
“Ah yes.” George sounded enthusiastic. “My preference would be the least risk.”
“Very good.” Flynn reached over to detach one of the shiny pieces of paper from the others. “That’s the information about the UK fund.”
“Thank you, but I won’t be making a decision today.”
Flynn’s bonhomie rapidly disappeared and his face assumed a practised look of gloom as though he’d suddenly heard Christmas had been postponed for six months. “I assume I can take this with me,” George went on, holding up the relevant piece of paper, “and I can call you with any questions I have?”
“Of course.” Flynn checked his watch. “My number is on the top of the sheet.”
“Is it all right if I use the toilet before we go?”
“Just outside the door.” Flynn inclined his head. “The second door.” He scraped back his chair. “I’ll show you.”
By the time he got up George had already disappeared, closing the door behind him. The first door was marked “Private” and acting on instinct George pushed it open. A flight of stairs reached up in front of him and he started up them. At the top was another door, which was ajar. Through the gap George could glimpse four figures crouched over computer screens. Around the walls suspended from wires was an untidy series of chits reminiscent of a restaurant where the orders were multiplying and had to be placed in the correct order. One of the computer operators leaped up as soon as he saw the door move. He came charging towards George.
“What are you doing here?” the man demanded, his face red and angry.
George took a step back almost falling down the staircase. “I’m sorry—I was looking for the toilet.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m a potential client. We were having a meeting downstairs.”
“Who is the meeting with?”
“Claude Flynn.”
“I’ll have a strong word with him. He knows this is a closed area and should have shown you where the toilet is. You’re speaking with the chief executive of the bank, by the way. Now the toilet is down there, the next door to the one you took.”
George started his retreat. “Very sorry again for the disturbance.”
The other man watched him go until he was back out in the corridor. George used the toilet and then returned to the meeting room. Flynn was on his phone, a picture of concern. “What were you doing upstairs?” he asked as he disconnected.
“I just took the wrong door. I didn’t realise it would be such a big deal.”
“Well, it was. The door is marked private. You must have seen that.” He rose from his seat as George didn’t reply. “The CEO is very put out. We need to terminate this meeting now so that I can deal with him.”
“I’ll get back to you then.”
“Of course.” Flynn looked and sounded sufficiently flustered that whether or not George chose to become a customer was the least of his concerns at that precise moment. “I really must talk to the CEO. You’re welcome to keep the literature.”
Without any further ceremony Flynn escorted them both out of the meeting room past the door marked “Private” which was now firmly shut, into the lift and out of the building. He just about managed a curt “goodbye” before the outer door was closed behind them as well with a snap. George gave Cynthia a comforting smile and squeezed her arm. “So much for that,” he said. “I think we ruffled some feathers in there.” Without waiting for her reply he led her surefootedly across the square and along several other small streets before they came to a restaurant. From the reception inside George was clearly well-known and equally clearly he had made a reservation. He was greeted as Chief Superintendent and this time he didn’t demur. They were taken to a table by a window which overlooked a small courtyard and they sat down opposite each other.
“As we’re partners for the day,” George said, “I thought we should have a nice lunch together, which will be especially welcome after that unpleasantness at the bank. Food at the Village is fine but it’s good to get out from time to time. I hope you approve. It’s my treat of course.”
In the bustle of having her coat taken away, being helped into her seat, having her napkin spread across her lap and a menu placed in front of her, Cynthia hardly knew what to say apart from a rather strangled “thank you”. She chose salmon, which was one of the cheaper options on the menu, and was relieved when George followed suit. “They do a rather pleasant New Zealand sauvignon blanc here,” George went on. “Would that be OK with you?”
She nodded and in a flash the wine was produced, George gave it a quick taste, their glasses were filled and the bottle deposited in a capacious ice bucket next to the table. George raised his glass. “So,” he proclaimed, “to a highly satisfactory day.”
“Satisfactory?” queried Cynthia after quaffing the wine and putting down her glass. “We just got virtually booted out of the bank.”
“Very satisfactory I would say—it was all down to you really.”
“Me? I didn’t get us thrown out.”
“No, but you did two very useful things. Firstly, you became absorbed in those portraits, which gave our friend Flynn the cue to identify Pennington for us. I haven’t come up with any photos of him yet so I took a picture on my phone while he was messing around doing the tea and coffee. Having that puts a bit of flesh on the bones so to speak.”
Cynthia nodded, remembering she had felt the same way when the picture was in front of her.
“Then of course came your total ignorance of football, as you hadn’t heard of the Deadly Dragon. That caused Flynn to totally relax and then yield up some very useful information.” George leaned closer towards her. “He confirmed that there were three musketeers who were going to sue Gonzalez, even if he was only prepared to confirm the name of the one who actually issued the threat. He also confirmed that they were persuaded to agree to the statement afterwards. Then finally he failed to follow the rules for clients who are troublesome enough to want to use the facilities, which are presumably to accompany them to the door to make sure they don’t access the inner sanctum. What I saw up there was quite strange.” He described to Cynthia the wires with the hanging chits. “What kind of bank is it which has an area so secret that even employees of Flynn’s standing claim not to know what goes on there, that use outdated procedures and upbraid potential customers if they get anywhere near it? Banks may mistreat customers once they have enticed them in but they usually try their best to do the enticing in the first place before they make it abundantly clear they would like them to leave.”
Cynthia traced her finger round the top of her wine glass. “What are you suggesting here, George?”
“That Reserve Account they’re operating may be a kind of Ponzi scheme, you know, where the organiser pays returns to existing clients out of new clients’ money. That would account for why they’re so secretive about it.”
“Surely the authorities would rumble that, wouldn’t they, or their accountant?”
“It depends on how clever it is. There may be legitimate investments mixed in. Charles Ponzi started out legitimate and then branched out into the fraud. Bernie Madoff was the arch-developer. He used old-fashioned methods and limited client intake. He would turn down enough aspiring clients to make others desperate to join.”
“So Pennington was there for twenty-five years, the son-in-law follows and sticks to the same tried and trusted methods with a very small group of employees who are prepared to compromise themselves by joining in.”
“You got it exactly.”
“Where does this leave us with Pennington’s murder?”
“Of the three who made complaints, the only one we’ve identified is Cauley Mortimer, so we track him down. He would be able to tell us what took place if he chooses to do so. We have to remember of course he’s a suspect.”
“But he was compensated for his losses.”
“Well, we weren’t told that by Mr Flynn. That’s only a supposition at this stage. All we know is that they agreed to a public statement that their complaints had been resolved. As far as Mortimer is concerned, footballers have a short shelf-life and in the days he was playing the big money hadn’t arrived. It would have been very important to him to see his nest egg grow rather just stand still, and he certainly wouldn’t have wanted to contemplate losses. The resentment might not have entirely gone away.” George reached over for the bottle but before he could grab it a passing waiter topped up their glasses. “I have a friend at the Welsh FA so finding out Mortimer’s whereabouts shouldn’t be too hard. The real challenge will be how to get him to talk to us.”
Cynthia sipped at her refreshed glass. “What about an interview with Gladys?”
“I thought about that but we may be getting ahead of ourselves. To start with, her existing piece has to be accepted and not be pushed out by other stories. Also I wonder how much space the magazine is going to want to devote to the Pennington affair. One article may be enough. We need another taskforce meeting to discuss our options.”
He sat back as their food was delivered under silver salvers, which were ceremonially removed.
“This looks lovely,” said Cynthia looking down at her plate and really meaning it.
“Good. I meant to say that I like your outfit today.”
Cynthia fiddled with her napkin in an effort to disguise the pink tide rising up her face at the compliment. The napkin dropped to the floor but the waiter who was refilling their glasses quickly picked it up and spread out another one for her.
“Let’s eat,” George suggested.