Crossfire

17

I spent much of the night downloading Alex's files and e-mails onto my laptop using the Internet connection in my mother's office.

I had let myself into the kitchen silently using Ian's key. The dogs had been unperturbed by their nocturnal visitor, sniffing my hand as I'd passed them and then going back to sleep, happy that I was friend, not foe.

I worked solely by the light of the computer screen and left everything exactly as I'd found it. I didn't know why I still thought it was necessary for my presence to be a secret from my mother, but I wasn't yet ready to try to explain to her what had been going on.

It might also have been safer for me if she didn't know where I was.

After I had left Julie to drive herself home in the white BMW, I'd taken Ian's car slowly up the driveway of Greystone Stables. My two telltale sticks on their stones were broken. Someone had been up to the stable yard, someone who would now know I wasn't dead, someone who might try to kill me again. But they would have to find me first.

I slept fitfully on Ian's sofa, and he left me there snoozing when he went out to morning stables at half past six on Monday morning.

By the time he returned at about noon, I had read through all of Alex's downloaded information on my laptop. Most of it was boring, but amongst the dross, there were some real gems, and three standout sparkling diamonds.

Maybe I wouldn't need to use my lever after all.

One of the diamonds was that Alex, it transpired, was not only the accountant for Rock Bank (Gibraltar) Ltd but also one of the signatories of the company's bank account, and best of all, I had downloaded all the passwords and user names that he needed to access the account online.

I would try to log in to the account tonight, I thought, when I had access to the Internet from my mother's office.

The other diamonds were the e-mails sent by Jackson Warren to Alex Reece concerning me, the first a message sent on the night of Isabella's kitchen supper, and the second after the races at Newbury on the day Scientific had won. The first had been sent in a fit of anger, and the second as a warning, but nevertheless, it amazed me how lax people could be with e-mail security.

In the army, all messages were encrypted before sending so that they were not readable by the enemy. Even cell phones were not permitted to be used in Afghanistan in case the Taliban were listening to the transmissions and gaining information that could be useful either in a tactical way or simply to undermine the morale of the troops.

No parents, having been called by their soldier offspring one evening from a cell telephone in Helmand province, would welcome then receiving a second call, this time from an English-speaking member of the Taliban, who would inform them that their son was going to be targeted in the morning, and that he would be returning home to them in a wooden box.

It had happened.

Yet here was a supposedly sensible person, Jackson Warren, sending clear text messages by e-mail for all to read. Well, for me to read anyway.

"What the bloody hell do you think you were doing talking so openly in front of Thomas Forsyth?" Jackson had written soon after storming out of the supper. "His mother was one of those who invested heavily in our little scheme. KEEP YOUR BLOODY LIPS SEALED-DO YOU HEAR?"

Capital letters in an e-mail were equivalent to shouting, and I could vividly recall the way Jackson had stormed out of the room that night. He would certainly have been shouting.

The second e-mail was calmer but no less direct, and had been sent by Jackson to Alex at five o'clock on the afternoon of the races. He must have written it as soon as he arrived home from Newbury.

"Thomas Forsyth told me this afternoon that he wants to contact you. I am making arrangements to ensure that he cannot. However, if he manages to be in contact with you before my arrangements are in position, you are hereby warned NOT to speak with him or communicate with him in any way. This is extremely important, especially in the light of the company business this coming week."

I knew only too well what arrangements Jackson had subsequently taken to stop me from speaking with Alex-my shoulders still ached from them. But what, I wondered, had been the company business? Perhaps all would be revealed by access to the company bank account later.

So how are the horses?" I asked Ian, as he slumped down onto the brown sofa and switched on the television.

"They're all right," he said with a mighty sigh.

"What's wrong, then?" I asked. "Would you like me to leave?"

"As you like," he said, seemingly uninterested in the conversation as he flicked through the channels with the remote control.

"Bad day at the office?" I asked.

"Yeah," he said. "You could say that."

I said nothing. He'd tell me if he wanted to.

He did.

"When I took this job I thought it would be more as an assistant trainer rather than just as 'head lad.' That's what Mrs. Kauri implied. She told me she doesn't have an assistant, as such, so I thought the role of head lad would be more important to her than to other trainers."

He paused, perhaps remembering that I was Mrs. Kauri's son.

"And?" I prompted.

"And nothing," he said. He turned off the TV and swiveled around on the sofa to face me. "I was wrong, that's all. It turns out she doesn't have an assistant because she can't delegate anything to anybody. She even treats me the same as one of the young boys straight out from school. She tells the staff to do things that I should be telling them to do, and often it is directly opposite to what I've already said. I feel worthless and undermined."

Story of my life, I thought.

At least, it had been the story of my life until I'd left home to join the army. It seemed to me that Ian was already on the road to somewhere else. It was a shame. I'd seen him working with the horses, and even I could see that he was good, calming the younger ones and standing no nonsense from the old hands. He also had a passion for them, and he longed for them to win. Losing Ian Norland would be a sad day for Kauri House Stables.

"Have you been looking?" I asked.

"There's a possibility of a new stable opening that's quite exciting," he said, suddenly more alive. "It's some way off yet, but I'm going to keep my options open. But don't you go telling your mother. She'd be furious."

He was right, she would be furious. She demanded absolute loyalty from everyone around her, but sadly, she repaid it in short measure, and she wasn't about to change now.

"Which stables?" I asked.

"Rumor has it that one of the trainers in the village is going to open up a second yard, and he'll be needing a new assistant to run it. I thought I might apply."

"Which trainer?" I asked.

"Ewen Yorke," he said. "Apparently, he's buying Greystone Stables."

He'd have to fix the broken pane in the tack-room window.

The statements of the bank account of Rock Bank (Gibraltar)

Ltd were most revealing.

I had spent the afternoon rereading all the e-mails that I had downloaded from Alex Reece's computer inbox and sent-items folder, as well as the Gibraltar folder. Quite a few of the e-mails were communications back and forth with someone named Sigurd Bellido, the senior cashier at the real Gibraltar bank that held the Rock Bank Ltd account, discussing the transfer of funds in and out. Unfortunately, there were no references to account names and numbers from which, and to which, the transfers were made, although strangely they all discussed the ongoing health of Mr. Bellido's mother-in-law.

When, at two in the morning, I logged on to the online banking system in my mother's office, I could see that the recent transfers discussed with Mr. Bellido were reflected in the various changes to the account balance.

As Alex had said, money periodically came into the account, presumably from the "investors" in the UK, and then left again about a week later. If Alex was right, it disappeared eventually into some secret Swiss account belonging to Garraway or Warren.

I looked particularly at the transactions for the past week to see if they showed any evidence of the "company business" that Jackson had referred to in his e-mail.

There had been two large deposits. Both were in American dollars, one for one million and the other for two million. A couple more mugs, I thought, duped into investing in a nonexistent hedge fund.

One of the deposits, the two million dollars, had a name attached to it-Toleron. I knew I'd heard that name before, but I couldn't place where, so I typed "Toleron" into the Google search on my computer, and it instantly gave me the answer.

"Toleron Plastics" appeared across my screen in large red letters, with "the largest drainpipe manufacturer in Europe" running underneath in slightly smaller ones. Mrs. Martin Toleron had been the rather boring lady I'd sat next to at Isabella's kitchen supper, who would, it appeared, very soon be finding out that her "wonderful" husband wasn't quite as good at business as she had claimed. I almost felt sorry for her.

Had that really been only eleven days ago? So much had happened in the interim.

I searched further for Mr. Martin Toleron. Nearly every reference was connected with the sale of his company the previous November to a Russian conglomerate, reputedly adding more than a hundred million dollars to his personal fortune.

Suddenly I didn't feel quite so sorry for his wife over the loss of a mere two million.

As Alex would have said, they could afford it.

Early on Tuesday morning, while my mother was away on the gallops watching her horses exercise, I borrowed Ian Norland's car once more, and went to see Mr. Martin Toleron.

According to the Internet, he lived in the village of Hermitage, a few miles to the north of Newbury, and I found the exact address easily enough by asking directions in the village shop.

"Oh yes," said the plump middle-aged woman behind the counter. "We all know the Tolerons round here, especially Mrs. Toleron." Her tone implied that Mrs. Toleron wasn't necessarily the most welcome of customers in the shop. I thought it might have had something to do with the never-ending praise of her "wonderful" husband or, more likely, was just straightforward envy of the rich.

Martin Toleron's house, near the edge of the village on the Yattenden Road, was a grand affair, in keeping with his "captain of industry" billing. I pulled up in front of the firmly closed six-foot-high iron gates and pushed the button on the intercom box fixed to the gatepost, but I wasn't quite sure what I was going to say if someone answered.

"Hello," said a man's voice through the box.

"Mr. Toleron?" I asked.

"Yes," the man said.

"Mr. Martin Toleron?"

"Yes." He sounded a little impatient.

"My name is Thomas Forsyth," I said. "I'd like to-"

"Look, I'm sorry," he replied, cutting me off. "I don't take cold calls at my gate. Good-bye." There was a click, and the box went dead.

I pushed the button again. No reply, so I pushed it once more, and for much longer.

Eventually, he came back on the line. "What do you want?" he asked, with increased impatience.

"Does Rock Bank Ltd of Gibraltar mean anything to you?" I asked.

There was a pause before he replied, "Who did you say you are?"

"Open the gates and you'll find out," I said.

"Stay there," he said. "I'm coming out."

I waited, and soon a small, portly man emerged, walking down the driveway towards me. I vaguely remembered him from Isabella's supper even though we hadn't spoken. Looks, I thought, could be deceiving. Martin Toleron didn't give the appearance of being a multimillionaire captain of industry, but then again, Alexander the Great had hardly been an Adonis, having reputedly been very short, with a twisted neck and different-colored eyes, one blue and the other brown.

Martin Toleron stopped some ten feet from the gates.

"What do you want?" he demanded.

"Just to talk," I said.

"Are you from the tax authorities?" he asked.

I thought it a strange question, but perhaps he was afraid I was going to hand him a summons.

"No," I said. "I was at the same dinner party as you, at Jackson and Isabella Warren's place last week. I sat next to your wife."

He took a couple of paces towards the gates and squinted at me.

"But what do you want?" he said again.

"I want to talk to you about Rock Bank Ltd and the investment you have just made with them in Gibraltar."

"That's none of your business," he said.

I didn't reply but stood silently, waiting for curiosity to get the better of him.

"And how do you know about it?" he asked, as I knew he would.

"I think it might be better for us to go inside to discuss this rather than to shout a conversation through these gates where anyone could overhear us. Don't you agree?"

He obviously did agree, because he removed a small black box from his pocket and pushed a button. The gates swung open as I returned to Ian's car.

I parked on the gravel drive in front of the mock-Georgian front door and pillared portico of his modern redbrick mansion.

"Come into my office," Martin Toleron said, leading the way past the grand front door to a smaller one set between the main house and an extensive garage block. I followed him into a large oak-paneled room with a built-in matching oak desk and book-cases behind it.

"Sit down," he said decisively, pointing to one of two armchairs, and I glimpsed for the first time the confidence and resolution that would have served him well in his business. I resolved to ensure that Martin Toleron became a valuable friend rather than a challenging enemy.

"What is this about?" he said, sitting in the other chair and turning towards me, jutting out his jaw.

"I believe that you have recently sent a large sum of money to Rock Bank Ltd of Gibraltar as an investment in a hedge fund."

I paused, but he didn't respond. He just continued to stare at me with unfriendly eyes. It was slightly unnerving, and I began to question if coming here had been a mistake. I suddenly wondered whether Toleron was, in fact, part of the conspiracy. Had I just walked into the lion's den like a naive lamb to the slaughter?

"And I have reason to believe," I went on, "that the investment fund in question does not actually exist, and you are being defrauded of your money."

He continued to sit and look at me.

"Why are you telling me this?" he demanded, suddenly standing up. "What do you want from me?"

"Nothing," I said.

"You must want something." He was almost shouting. "Otherwise, why are you here? You didn't come here to give me bad news so you could simply gloat. Is it money you're after?"

"No, of course not," I said defensively. "I came here to warn you."

"But why?" he said aggressively. "If, as you say, I have already invested money in a fraud, your warning would then be too late. And why is it you believe I'm being defrauded anyway? Are you the one who's doing it?"

Things were not going well.

"I just thought that you would like to know so that you didn't send any more," I said, again on the defensive. "I am not involved in the fraud other than being the son of another victim. I had hoped that you might have some information that would be helpful to me in trying to recover her money. That's all."

He sat down again and remained silent for a few seconds.

"What sort of information?" he asked eventually, and more calmly.

"Well," I said, "with respect, my mother is no financial wizard, far from it, and I can see how she was duped, but you…" I left the implication hanging in the air.

He stood up from the chair again and went to the desk. He picked up a large white envelope and tossed it into my lap. It contained the glossy offering document for what it called the "opportunity-of-a-lifetime investment." I skimmed through the brochure. It was very convincing, and certainly gave the impression of being from a legitimate organization, with photos of supposed business offices in Gibraltar and graphs of past and predicted investment performance, all of which moved in the right direction, and with wonderful glowing testimonials from other satisfied investors.

"Why do you think it a fraud?" he asked.

"I know of two separate cases when people, including my mother and stepfather, after investing through Rock Bank Ltd, have lost all their money. They were both told that the hedge fund in which their money had been placed had subsequently gone bankrupt, leaving no assets. I have reason to believe that the funds never actually existed in the first place and the money was simply stolen."

I flicked through the glossy brochure once more.

"It's a very professional job," he said. "It gives all the right information and assurances."

If they were after "investments" in million-dollar chunks, it would have to be a professional job.

"But did you check up on any of it?" I asked.

He didn't answer, but I could tell from his face that he hadn't.

"Why didn't your mother complain to the police?" he said. "Then there might have been a warning issued."

"She couldn't," I said, without further clarification.

I thought back to his strange question at the gate about me being from the tax authorities, and his rather belligerent attitude towards me since. "Mr. Toleron," I said. "Excuse my asking, but are you being blackmailed?"

As in my mother's case, it wasn't the loss of his money that worried Martin Toleron the most; it was the potential loss of face because he'd been conned.

If I thought he would thank me for pointing out that his investment was a fake, then I was mistaken. Indirectly, he even offered to pay me not to make that knowledge public.

"Of course I won't make it public," I said, horrified by his insinuation.

"Everyone else I know would have," he said, with something of a sigh. "They would gleefully sell it to the highest bidder from the gutter press." He may have been a highly successful businessman, and he had clearly made pots of money, but he'd obviously been accompanied by precious few real friends on the journey.

He was not being blackmailed, at least he denied he was to me, but he did admit that someone had recently tried to extort money from him, accusing him of falsifying a tax return that stated he was not a tax resident in the UK, when in fact he was.

"I told him to bugger off," he said. "But it took me a lot of time and money to get things straightened out. The last bloody thing I want is an audit by the Revenue."

"So you are fiddling something, then?" I asked.

"No, of course not," he said. "I'm just sailing close to the wind, you know, trying it on with a few things."

"VAT?" I asked.

"As a matter of fact, yes," he said. "Is that why your mother didn't go to the authorities and complain?"

"Is what why?" I asked.

"She was being blackmailed."

I simply nodded, echoing my mother's belief that in not saying anything out loud, it somehow diminished the admission.

"Did you know someone called Roderick Ward?"

"Don't you mention that name here," he said explosively. "Called himself an accountant, but he was nothing more than a damn bookkeeper. It was thanks to him that I nearly copped it with the Revenue."

I wondered how on earth a captain of industry had become tangled up with such a dodgy accountant.

"How did you come to know him?" I asked.

"He was my elder daughter's boyfriend for a while. Kept coming round here and telling me how I could save more tax. I should've never listened to the little bastard."

Oh! What a tangled web he weaved, when first he practiced to deceive!

"Do you know what happened to him?" I asked.

"I heard somewhere that he died in a car crash."

"Actually, he was murdered," I said.

He was surprised but not shocked. "Not by me, he wasn't. Although I would've happily done it. Good riddance, I say!"

"He was murdered by someone else he stole money from."

"Well done, them." He smiled for the first time since I'd been there. But then the smile vanished as quickly as it had arrived. "Hold on a minute," he said. "Didn't Ward die last summer?"

"Yes," I said. "In July."

"So who is robbing me now?"

"Who gave you the offering document? Who was it who recommended the investment to you?"

"How do you know someone did?" he asked.

"No one invests in something from a cold call, or from a brochure that just drops through their letter box. Certainly not to the tune of two million dollars. You had to be told about it by someone."

He seemed slightly surprised I knew the exact size of his investment.

"Did Jackson tell you the amount?" he asked.

"So it was Jackson Warren who recommended it," I said. "You asked me who was robbing you, and that's your answer-Jackson Warren, together with Peter Garraway."

He didn't believe it. I could read the doubt in his face.

"Surely not?" he said. "Why would he? Jackson Warren's got lots of money of his own."

"Maybe that's because he steals it from other people."

"Don't be ridiculous," he said.

"I'm not. I'll show you. Do you have an Internet connection?"

But how did you get access?" Martin Toleron was astounded as I brought up the recent transactions of Rock Bank (Gibraltar) Ltd on my laptop computer screen. "You must be involved somehow."

"I'm not," I said.

"Then how did you get the passwords?"

"Don't ask," I said. "You don't want to know."

He looked at me strangely, but he didn't ask, simply turning his attention back to the screen.

"Whose is the other investment?" he asked.

"I was hoping you could tell me," I said.

"I've no idea. I've only spoken about the fund with Jackson Warren."

"Did he raise it, or did you?"

"He did. He told me at that supper that he had a great investment tip for me."

"Did he indicate that he was going to invest in the fund himself?"

"He told me he had made his investment sometime in the past, and he claimed that it had performed very well since, very well indeed. That's why he was so keen on it." He paused. "I believed him, and to be fair, you haven't shown me anything substantive to contradict that belief."

I opened one of the e-mails from Alex Reece's inbox from the previous week.

"Alex," it said. "We should expect a two-unit sum into the account this coming week from our drainpipe friend. Please ensure it takes the usual route, and issue the usual note of acceptance. Your commission will be transferred in due course. JW."

"That doesn't prove it's a fraud," Toleron said.

"Maybe not directly," I said."But did Jackson Warren tell you that he was actually running the fund that he was so keen to promote?"

"No. He did not."

"But he clearly must be running it if he's ordering the issuing of acceptance notes to investors." I paused to allow that to sink in. "Is that enough proof for you? If not, there's plenty more."

"Show me," Toleron said.

I pulled up another of Alex Reece's e-mails to the screen, this time one he had sent to Sigurd Bellido, the chief cashier in Gibraltar, about a transfer.

"Sigurd. Please transfer the million dollars, received into the Rock Bank Ltd account last week from the UK, into the usual other account at your bank. I trust your mother-in-law's health problems are improving. AR."

Martin Toleron read it over my shoulder. "That doesn't prove anything."

"No," I said. "But read this."

I pulled up another e-mail from Alex's Gibraltar folder, this one to Jackson Warren, sent on the same day as the previous one.

"Jackson. I have issued the instruction to SB (and his mother-in-law), and the funds should be available in your usual account later today for further transfer. AR."

"What's all that mother-in-law business about?" he asked.

"I don't know," I said. "But it appears in all the e-mails sent to SB, that's Sigurd Bellido, the chief cashier who makes the transfers in Gibraltar. Funny thing is, he doesn't ever mention her in his replies."

Toleron thought for a moment. "Perhaps it's a code to prove that the transfer request really is from this AR person."

"Alex Reece," I said.

"Didn't I meet him at that dinner party? Ginger-haired fellow?"

"That's him," I said. "Slightly odd sort of person. He's Jackson Warren's accountant, but he's up to his neck in the fraud."

"But Warren must surely know that I would suspect him if the fund went bust and I lost all my money."

"But he would simply apologize for the bad investment advice and say that he'd also lost a packet and, if the newspaper reports of your company sale are to be believed, you would have been able to afford the loss more than he would. In fact, I bet you would have ended up feeling sorry for him, rather than accusing him of stealing from you."

"Don't ever believe what you read in the papers," he said. "But I get your point. The very fact that it was a relatively small investment is why I did it in the first place. I can afford to lose it. Not, of course, that I want to."

How lovely it must be for him, I thought, to be so rich that two million dollars was a relatively small investment, and one that he could afford to lose.

"So all we need to do now is to get this Alex Reece chappy to e-mail SB in Gibraltar and get him to return the money whence it came." Martin Toleron smiled at me. "Then I'll have my money back. Shouldn't be too difficult to arrange, surely?"

He certainly made it sound easy, but I'm not sure that Alex Reece would play ball. He might be more afraid of Jackson Warren and Peter Garraway than he was of Martin Toleron, or even of me and my syringes.

"I have a better idea," I said. "We could send an e-mail to SB, pretending to be Alex Reece."

"But that's not as easy as you think," Martin said. "Not without his e-mail account password."

Now it was my turn to smile at him. "And what makes you think I don't already have it?"