To the hilt [en]

On Monday I went by train again to Reading and did the rounds of the offices.

Life had moved on for Tobias and Margaret, who were already dealing with the next unfortunates down the line, but they each gave me half an hour and information.

'Old Quorn's dead!' Tobias exclaimed. 'Then where's the money?'

I said, 'I thought you might be able to work it out.'

He gave me his best blank outer stare concealing furious activity within.

'I followed him to Panama…' he said thoughtfully.

'How many stops to Panama?' I asked.

'Wait.' He turned to one of his three computer monitors, sorted out a disc from an indexed box, and fed it into a slot, pressing keys. 'Here we are. Wire transfer from the brewery to a bank in Guernsey… six transfers in one day, each from a different brewery account - it was as if he'd collected everything available into those six accounts, then he sent all six separately into the same account in Guernsey, and the bank there already had instructions to transfer the whole amount - multiple millions - to a bank in New York, which already held instructions to wire the money onward to a bank in Panama, and that bank cannot say where the money went from there.'

'Can't or won't?' I asked.

'Quite likely both. All these banks have unbreakable privacy laws. We only know the path to Panama because Norman Quorn had scribbled the ABA numbers on some rough paper and neglected to shred it.'

'Remind me about ABA numbers.'

Tobias chewed a toothpick. 'They identify all banks in the United States and roundabout areas like the Caribbean. They're part of the Fedwire system.'

Tobe - what's Fedwire?'

'There are three huge worldwide organisations dealing with the international transfer of funds and information,' he said. 'Fedwire - ABA included - is the Federal Reserve Bank's institution. They have nine-digit routing numbers, so any transfer with a nine-digit code is likely to have been seen to by Fedwire.'

I sighed.

'Then,' Tobe said, 'there's SWIF'I - the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication. And third, there's CHIPS, Clearing House Interbank Payments System, which is operated also through New York and has special identifier codes unique to their customers, ultra secret.'

'God.'

'Take your pick,' Tobias said. 'All the systems have identifying codes. The codes will tell you the bank, but not the account number. We know the brewery money went to a branch of Global Credit in Panama, but not into which account there.'

'But they must know,' I said. 'I mean, they can't have millions sent to them every day from New York. The amount, the dispatcher, the date… they could surely work it out.'

'Perhaps, but it's against their law to pass the information on.'

'Not to the police? Or the tax people?'

'Especially not to the police or the tax people. A lot of banks would be out of business at once if they did that.' Tobe smiled. 'You're an infant, Al.'

I acknowledged it. 'But,' I said, 'what if the money just sits in Panama for ever, now Norman Quorn is dead?'

'It may do,' Tobias nodded. 'There are billions and trillions of loot in unclaimed accounts sitting in banks all over the world, and you can bet your soul the banks profit from them and are in no hurry to look for heirs.'

'Henry VIII syndrome,' I said.

'What?'

I explained about gold church treasures hidden in fields.

'Just like that,' he said.

I left him pulverising a toothpick over someone else's problems and presented myself on Margaret Morden's doorstep.

I told her what few details I knew of Norman Quorn's exit. 'Poor man,' she said.

'So you don't think,' I asked, 'that the wages of sin is death?'

'Are death, surely? And where have you been for the last fifty years? The wages of sin nowadays are a few years of full board and lodging at the country's expense with a chance to study for a degree, followed by tender loving care from ex-prisoners' aid societies.'

'Cynical.'

'Realistic.'

'What about the victims?'

'The wages of a victim is to be blamed if at all possible for a crime committed against her - I regret it's often a her - and seldom to be offered compensation, let alone free board and lodging and a university education. The wages of a victim are poverty, oblivion and a lonely grave. It's the sinners the tabloids pursue with their cheque-books.'

'Margaret!'

'So now you know me better,' she said. 'Norman Quorn robbed little old widows of their pathetic dividends and I don't give a shit if he died of a guilty conscience.'

'Little old widows are a bit mawkish…'

'Not if you happen to be one.'

'Well… if the little old widows' dividends are languishing in a foreign bank somewhere, how do we find them?'

She said, 'What's in it for you?'

I looked at my hands. What could I say? She would consider it mawkish in the extreme whatever I said.

'I don't mean that, Al. I'm in a bad mood today. I'm dealing with yet another deliberate bankruptcy whose sole aim is to dodge paying small-scale creditors, who may themselves go out of business through the loss. The people I'm dealing with will dump the suppliers in the shit, declare the business bankrupt and closed, and go off and start all over again under another name.'

'But,' I said, 'is that legal?'

'Legal, yes. Moral, you must be kidding. I'm not used to people like you. Go away and leave me to my disillusions.'

'I wanted to ask you,' I said, 'about that possible trial run. Do you remember any of the trial's destinations?'

She frowned, then, as Tobias had done, consulted one of her row of computer faces and tapped instructions into the keys.

'It's possible,' she said finally, but with doubts, 'that Quorn sent a fairly small sum to a bank on an island in the Bahamas, who forwarded it to a bank in Bermuda, who sent it back to Wantage. The transactions weren't backed up by signed documentation, and half the information - like the actual account numbers - is missing. If the brewery's money is in either of those banks, which is doubtful, you're not going to find it.'

'Thanks a bunch.'

'Cheer up. First thing this morning I consulted your committee of creditors. The agreements they signed with you will remain unaltered by Norman Quorn's death.'

CHAPTER NINE

I walked to the office of Young and Uttley, half expecting to find it locked, but when I knocked and turned the handle, the door opened.

I walked in. The occupant that day wasn't a skinhead or a secretary or Mr Young with moustache or even the football coach Uttley, but a straightforward-looking man of about my own age dressed much as I was myself in jeans, shirt and sweater: no tie, unaggressive trainers and clean hands. The chief difference between us was that he had very short light brown hair, while mine still curled on my shoulders.

I smiled at him slowly, and I said, 'Hello.'

'Hello.'

'What's your name?' I asked.

'Chris.'

'Chris Young?'

He nodded. 'I've done a bit of let-your-fingers-do-the-walking for you,' he said.

His accent was unchanged. The skinhead, the secretary and Chris Young all spoke with the same voice.

'And?' I asked.

"There was a goldsmith name of Maxim working in London in the eighteen hundreds. Like Garrard's or Asprey's today. Good name. Ritzy. Made fancy things like peacocks for table ornaments, gold filigree feathers with real jewels in.'