I was still in Boniface’s office reading through my statement concerning the morning’s grim find when Dee came in with a Detective Sergeant from the financial crimes team. Boniface gestured to them to sit down, but they both seemed excited. They handed a sheet of paper to me and to Boniface and asked us to read it to ourselves. It read;
Breitling Research: Dee Conrad & DS Peter Fellowes.
The Navtimer watch was introduced in 1952 and went out of production around 2003. The Old Navtimer edition was produced in the period 1993 to 2002. The Mecanique was a special French limited edition of just 1000 pieces. Breitling HQ is in Grenchen Switzerland.
DS Fellowes has been in touch with Breitling HQ in Grenchen, Switzerland and they confirmed that the majority of owners do register with them to guard against theft and forgeries. They said, “When you are paying thousands of pounds for a watch you want to know it is genuine.”
Each Old Navtimer Mecanique is marked with the model reference number, A11022 and a unique Breitling registration number. Of the 1000 Mecanique watches 143 are unaccounted for or have never been registered. Most are registered in France, where they were predominantly marketed but 78 are registered to people currently living in the UK, 66 of the UK based owners are French nationals and 4 are known Breitling Dealers. That leaves 8 in British private ownership. Unfortunately Breitling cannot give us names or addresses without an international warrant, which is unlikely to be granted as we are on a fishing expedition here.
However, there is a ray of hope. Breitling watches are serviced and maintained at Tonbridge Wells and Dee Conrad has been in contact with the manager there. He has maintenance records of 12 watches bearing the reference A11022. He was not keen to share that information but after a bit of sweet talking he agreed to email Dee a list of the names and the towns to which the serviced watches were returned. He said we will need a warrant if we want any more than that. Here is the spreadsheet he sent.
NAME TOWN
D. Allinson Edinburgh
S. Bentley Oxford
F. Cozee London
A. Hickstead Leeds
L. Houlier London
D. Julliard St Helier
H. Laurent Manchester
T. Morrissey Wigan
K. Pascal Glasgow
N. Van Doren Rotterdam
G. Weissman London
A. Wasir Birmingham
I decided to be the first to make an observation.
“If my reasoning is correct, we have potentially eight watches registered to individuals who are not French and are not dealers. The spreadsheet you’ve procured has eight people who appear to be non-French. Even if I’m wrong on a couple of the names, it means that our man is almost certainly on that list.”
“That would be right if one hundred and forty three of the watches were not registered. The unregistered watches could all be in London,” DS Fellowes countered.
“Or none of them could be in the UK at all. It is at least a lead,” I said optimistically.
Dee chirped up. “Am I the only one seeing this? The fifth name down, L Houlier of London, whose initials are LH.”
The room fell silent.
Chapter 19
Pendolino Train, First Class Carriage, Kings Cross. 5pm.
Bob sat in the seat and relaxed. The East Coast line was experimenting with the Pendolino that had proved such a success on the West Coast route. He was a regular rail traveller across Europe and found the Pendolino less comfortable than the Eurostar or the old GNER 225s.
He closed his eyes and pondered as the odours of dinner cooking in the dining car permeated the carriage. This line was one of the last to preserve the dignity of passengers by offering a Silver Service dinner in a dedicated dining car.
Bob idly wondered whether the slimy Abasi Nour was in jail yet. He doubted that the Egyptian would ever get his hands on the two hundred and fifty grand that had been used to secure the diamonds. Sir Max had once let slip that Nour had provided him with some investment gems, no questions asked, along with a legitimate diamond studded tiara for his daughter’s ‘coming out’. Bob remembered being amazed that Debutante Balls for the privileged classes still took place in the twenty first century.
The diamonds were now secure in a safety deposit box in London, and all signs of Bob, his alter ego, had been eliminated.
Bob was content that neither the CCTV nor the photos in the passport or on the driving license could be used to trace him. He had barely recognised himself with the glasses, wig and moustache. He imagined that the best description the police would get from Abasi Nour was that his ‘Josh Hammond’ was a tall middle aged man from East London.
Of course, Bob couldn’t have done all of this on his own. Faik Al Khufi, his faithful young friend, an Iraqi asylum seeker, had proved to be a talented photo editor. His photoshopping skills had produced a masterful passport photo page and a convincing photo card driving license.
Bob would use his influence to keep Faik in the UK, at least until he had outlived his usefulness. He began to drift off as the train left the station. He was looking forward to a weekend with the family, and soon Richard Wolsey Keene would receive his forty eight hour ultimatum. Bob had little doubt the spineless banker would pay the one million pounds he was demanding, especially when he discovered that Sir Max had paid such a heavy price for being stubborn.
Chapter 20
Brompton Place, Knightsbridge, London. Friday, 6:15pm.
As we turned off Brompton Road into Brompton Square I marvelled at the beautiful buildings facing me. They were town houses, but town houses that were so large it was hard to imagine that they could exist in London, where property was so expensive.
DS Fellowes and Dee had driven into the City to speak to Andrew’s boss before he departed for the weekend. Inspector Boniface, his driver and I were looking for the house where Mr L Houlier lived.
The car pulled up outside a magnificent porticoed house with four floors. The house was immaculate. The grey granite stone walls had been cleaned and renovated some time in the recent past. The stone steps were worn. They were rounded at the edges and the entrance to the house itself had a depression in the stone where generations of tradesmen, deliverymen and visitors had stood, waiting to be attended to. Inspector Boniface left the police constable in the car and walked up to the door. I tagged along. The Inspector was just about to press a white pearlescent button surrounded by a ring of intricately cast brass-work when the door opened.
A young man of Latin appearance stood inside looking at us. He smiled.
“I saw you coming up the steps on the CCTV,” he said, answering our unasked question, pointing at a carved Lion’s head which looked as though it might have been an original fixture but which, on closer inspection, contained a tiny lens in the lion’s open jaws.
“Mr L Houlier?” Inspector Boniface asked.
“I’m one of them,” the young man replied. “My father is also L. Houlier. He is Leon and I am Luc. Which one of us do you want to see?”
“Actually we would like to speak to whoever owns an Old Navitimer Mecanique watch.”
“Ah, my Grandpa’s old Pilot Watch, the Breitling, yes?”
“Indeed. May we come in and have a chat about the watch?” Boniface showed the young man his warrant card and introduced me as a colleague.
“So, you too are French, Monsieur Boniface?”
“Not for three generations, Luc.” The Inspector fell silent as we stepped into the cathedral-like space that served as the entrance hall. It was a glorious pastiche of gold and Italian marble. Every metal surface was gilded to an identical patina and had the look of ancient, much buffed gold. But it was a clever deception because the air conditioning grilles looked exactly the same. The marble flooring did look original, as it was the same kind of old brown marble flecked with grey that one associates with London Museums. In places it had cracked and had been expertly repaired. The wooden staircase, the tall skirting boards and carved picture rails were a rich dark hardwood and in the middle of the edifice was an astounding chandelier, which was suspended from two floors up by a long gold coloured rod and chain.