That Saturday was one big long wasted day as I look back on it. We left Harry Caplin’s and returned to the house, to find one of Flackyard’s flunkies had phoned to inform us that the hand-over would not be taking place.
Instead, Mr Dillon was invited to call by at Mr Flackyard’s this evening to collect the samples for Mr Levenson-Jones in London to inspect. Charlie and Miss Price played backgammon arguing continuously about almost everything; eventually they agreed to disagree and went off to La Café for a drink. The Rumples had gone into town.
I cursed myself for forgetting the package of counterfeit Euros the night before. A repeat visit to Flackyard’s house was something I was definitely not looking forward to. On Rumple’s return, we had the expenses to discuss, as he was the only one LJ trusted with the bookwork as well as being in charge of the diving.
It was when Rumple was locking the accounts backup discs in the writing desk drawer that he noticed it.
We checked, sat down and thought about it, but Rumple found broken woodwork and then there was no doubt at all. Everything was as we had left it, the sea charts, Charlie’s sketches of the ocean bottom, but someone had stolen the photos that Rumple had taken of the Gin Fizz.
There is no alternative in situations like this. It wasn’t something that either of us found enthralling. In fact it was a sordid little job of the sort that constitutes much of our work. Rumple and I began to search everyone’s room. Apart from the usual personality insights that these searches always provide, there was only one remarkable thing. Among the several articles in Fiona’s room that a young single woman in the employ of a mundane Government department shouldn’t have in her possession was a small revolver and silencer, together with about twenty rounds of ammunition.
LJ had sent one of the company’s helicopters down to take Charlie and me back to London. It was a fine clear night when I went out to the airport via Flackyard’s house. There were lights on, and outside in the sweeping drive there was a silver Mercedes and a red Ferrari, each brand new with local plates. Further along the exclusive road under a flowering cherry tree was Harry Caplin’s old black Mk1 Jaguar.
I knew that, as surely as sugar is sweet, a blue Porsche would be somewhere near by. It was. This only reinforced my suspicion, that there was more to Caplin than he was portraying, and that he had deliberately gone out of his way to introduce himself to Charlie and me, that day in La Café.
A bell jangled deep in the interior and echoed back like a laughing hyena. I rang again. Finally and to my surprise, Flackyard himself opened the door, and he passed me the package from his inside jacket pocket. It was still wrapped in brown paper and held together with clear tape. Charlie had the motor running when I got back to the Mercedes.
As we drove to the airport, we discussed the assignment and how we thought it was going in light of recent developments. Both Fiona Price and the Rumple’s names cropped up in the conversation a number of times. We found our reserved parking space with ease, slotting the Mercedes in one manoeuvre. The warm night air held the aroma of aviation fuel that had been spent through hot jet engines, and as we approached the main terminal building I spotted our pilot standing over by the entrance. Once we’d scrambled aboard the sleek Bell Jet Ranger helicopter the rotors were engaged and within a minute we were airborne. Before I knew it we were skirting the Gatwick air traffic control zone. In the small cabin the instruments glowed and with a sudden leap the pilot had taken us through the low clouds. The bright lights of the city cut through the fine mist that was now shrouding London as we descended towards the heliport. My thoughts were bizarrely, where the hell was Charlie staying tonight?
Chapter 9
Levenson-Jones picked one up and held it under the banker’s lamp on his desk. The note was as perfect a forgery as you’re likely to get anywhere.
“Just gave you a bundle of these, did he?” said LJ. He opened a fresh packet of cigars and lit one. “Very good, he obviously took what I had to say to him seriously. This really is an excellent piece of work,” he continued still holding the note to the light.
The phone rang. Zara said she’d run out of ground coffee and would instant do. It was gone midnight and LJ told her to go home and get some sleep, but she brought up the coffee for us, and her smile was like a shaft of summer sunshine. LJ handed her the forged Euro note. The paper was crisp and rustled as she turned it over in her elegant hands.
Zara studied each side of the note carefully, and looked up at me and then at LJ.
“Isn’t it just as I said, Mr Levenson-Jones?”
“Yes, you were right, Zara,” said LJ. “A quite exceptional forgery.”
“But didn’t I tell you that it would be? When that Mr Flackyard visited the Partners that time, he had a wad of these with him. I knew I was right.”
So the Partners had already seen the quality of the counterfeit notes before we had even started the assignment. No wonder they were so keen to get involved.
Zara trotted off home at 1.30am and over our coffee LJ and I sat down and talked about the situation in Dorset and how the budget was going and how many days to his family holiday in Tuscany. That it all seemed a lot of expense for two weeks away, but his wife and kids liked it; then LJ suddenly said, “You never relax, Jake; it’s getting you down, this job?”
It wasn’t that he’d change it, if it was, he just liked to know it all.
“I can’t make it fit together,” I said, “and some things are too convenient.”
“Convenience, dear boy, is just a state of mind,” said LJ.
“It’s understanding that’s important. Understanding the symptoms you encounter will refer you to just one disease. You find a man with a pain in the foot and the hand and you wonder what he could possibly be suffering from with two such disparate symptoms.”
“Then you find that while hitting a nail with a hammer one day he slips and whacks his hand, dropping the hammer which lands on top of his foot.”
“OK,” I said, “so much for ER. Now listen to my problems. First of all, why are we even talking to these nutty old retired Italian generals? Do they really think that they could possibly take over the Mafia in Sicily, and why are the Partners getting involved with such a foolhardy enterprise anyway? Because of this, I’m ordered to dive into a sunken boat that belongs to a coke sniffing member of Parliament, and who just happens to be involved with a south coast gangster, to retrieve his plates that will produce counterfeit money.”
“Why? To give to the generals, and which will ultimately save the firm millions.”
“So far so good, but while I am returning from Bournemouth two cars follow me up the motorway. The first, we discover is owned by a Private Investigator working for our Minister, and the other’s owned by Flackyard and driven by two of his suited goons. When I ask for files to be pulled on both, what do you know they never appear…”
“They will,” said LJ patiently, “It’s only that Special Branch are involved on both counts. That’s hampered my progress in obtaining them, that’s all.”
I gave him the curly lip treatment. “OK, so what about Fiona Price. Is she just a lowly employee of HMG? Or is she in reality something quite different? After all, she does sleep with a silenced pistol under her pillow?”
“I must admit I’ve run another check on her and she appears to have an exemplary career record; in fact it’s totally without blemishes. I’d say it was almost certainly fictitious.” LJ offered.
“Yes, perhaps it’s too perfect, but I’m at a complete loss as to who she is working for and why she has been landed on my assignment. Oh, and I agree, her work record is completely false without a doubt, but her ability and expertise is real enough.”