The knife descended slowly, guided by a patient and skilled hand. It was
very sharp, with just enough of a serration to make it glide easily through the
meat, like a freshly stropped razor through a two day growth of stubble. It
touched the surface and then started the cut. It sliced slowly down through the
muscle tissue, and, as it sawed around the bone, the blood oozed out of the
wound and mixed with the other fluids.
There was a
triumphant grin on the face of the diner as the cube of meat was successfully
separated from the sirloin steak on his plate. He speared it with the fork in
his left hand, wiped it in the puddle of peppered gravy and lifted it slowly to
his mouth. He chewed indulgently to savour the just-cooked, rare flavour – exactly
to his liking. There were vegetables on his plate, if you class mushrooms,
small and thinly sliced with a heap of fried onion rings, as vegetables. It was
Friday and therefore steak was on the menu. It was usually a 10 ounce sirloin, fresh
that day from the butcher, carefully selected and cut to his own specification,
which the butcher now knew. He was a regular customer for steak on a Friday.
He was a tidy man. He had a menu for the week, each
day had its own evening meal. He lived on his own; who would put up with his idiosyncrasies? He enjoyed his food
during the week but always looked forward to a steak on a Friday. It was the
highlight of his week – unless he ruined it by overcooking, of course. That was
liable to spoil his enjoyment of the complete weekend.
He took his empty plate to the sink in the small
kitchen, just off the living room in his small flat, meticulously washed the
plate, knife and fork and the other cooking utensils. He then rinsed them to
get rid of the washing up detergent. He stacked them on the draining board for
ten minutes to drain before drying them with a freshly washed cloth and then
carefully put away each item in its allotted place. He then dried the draining
board with the tea towel and placed it in the washing machine, ready for the
weekly wash on Sunday. He rather enjoyed his OCD, it made him good at his job -
both of them in fact
Opening up and switching on his lap top, he deleted
his e mails, cancelled the old account he had used for the last week and set up
his new, pre-arranged account to see if he had any ‘off the books’ work for the
weekend. He had one potential contract so he deleted everything, cancelled his
new e mail account and shut down the lap top. He knew that spending longer than
was necessary on a live account was to risk exposure. He would telephone his
agent later from a public telephone, one he had not used before.
*
William was born on a farm in Wales. His Mother was
Rhianon; his Father, Gerwhyn. The family name was William so young William was
always known as Bill Bill. It wasn’t that funny and it annoyed William
immensely so his peers carried on with the joke and it stuck.
It was run as a hill farm, sheep was the only crop
apart from a few vegetable sold to the neighbours when the kitchen garden was
producing a summer glut. It was on the Cambrian Mountains, near Plynlymon, the
source of the Severn.
He did well at maths at school. This was lucky because
the farm was not big enough to support him as well as his parents and sister so
he had to find a job to bring in some money. He didn’t like being poor, even
less being dependent on the hill farming subsidy from the EU so he was
determined to find a well-paying job and then work out a way of making a lot of
money. He didn’t enjoy working - especially what people called honest work
which, as far as William could see, just meant it was hard, sweaty, dirty and
didn’t pay much. It didn’t really have much to recommend it as far as William
was concerned. There had to be an easier way to make some money, he was
determined never to be poor once he grew up. As he was good at maths, he really
worked hard at it, always coming top of his class in the numerous tests and
exams at the local school which was in the Bethesda Chapel, in the village near
the head of the valley. He thought maths might be his ticket out of farming and
out of the valley to his rich future.
He was a lonely boy, he only had one real friend,
Tegwyn Evans from the next valley. He spent most of his free time either
working on his Dad’s farm or studying maths. Tegwyn had a similar distaste for
hard work and found sheep farming to be irksome and wanted something easier
that brought in more money so he and William were natural allies all the way
through school. They schemed about the future but separated at the age of
fifteen when they both left school and went their separate ways.
William got his first job in an insurance company in
Swansea while Tegwyn found a position as an IT trainee with a company in
Birmingham. They inhabited different worlds so never met. William was
successful at the insurance company and quickly worked his way through the
accounts office and then into the actuarial department where he soon became
head actuary by dint of his detailed work with data, his capacity for hard work
and his accuracy which had a way of working through to and improving the
company’s profits.
*
William had had a hard week. As you would expect of such a fastidious,
fussy and neat man, he enjoyed being an actuary. One step up the boredom ladder
from an accountant if the urban legends were to be believed, but this wasn’t
William’s view of it at all. He enjoyed his job and didn’t find the work
boring. He liked inventing spreadsheets, populating them with figures for the
ages of death of thousands of people and then interrogating them with ‘what if?’
questions to see what effects various issues had on the age at death.
What age would you expect a man to die if he smoked 33
cigarettes a day, drank a bottle of red wine every day, exercised for 5 hours a
week, played no sport and worked as an accountant? Yes, Henry fully expected to
die at the age of 63. Some people would find this work tedious and a little
morbid, but he loved it. It felt like he had the power of life and death over
the people in his spreadsheets while, in fact, all he controlled was the size
of the premium they would pay for the life insurance they purchased from his
employer and so how much it would make. This assumed, of course that William’s
predictions were correct. They had been so far.
William was convinced that all this data had a value
to him but he hadn’t found how, yet.
Then he had the glimmer of an idea. He would steal identities and then
carry out something else as a different person, he was not sure what yet, but
it would probably be illegal, and profitable.
The spreadsheets
gave him access to those people who he predicted would die young. When a young
person died who was also a customer of William’s company, he would sometimes
find a reason for refusing the pay-out to the grieving relatives – often an
exclusion clause in the cleverly written, but unread, small print. He used the
company’s letter head to write to the family refusing the pay-out, but then
continue to pay the premium so that the company would think that person was
still alive. William would then assume that dead person’s identity and use his
documents to appear to carry on a normal financial life. He would hire a car
under that person’s name and use a forged credit card to pay for fuel and
generally assume their identity when necessary to carry out his other, weekend
nefarious work.
*
It was Friday
evening. George walked from his flat to a lock-up garage he had rented the
previous week in the name of a young man who had just died. William had assumed
his name and hired an anonymous - looking car which he had stored for a week in
the garage. He had made himself known to the neighbouring garage owners as
George Hammit, the name of his deceased customer. He got in and drove off. He
drove carefully, within the speed limit, he didn’t want to get pulled over or
photographed – the less records there were of him the better. After 32 miles,
he stopped at a service area and found a working telephone. He punched in the
familiar number. It was answered after four rings by the familiar, ‘yes?’
‘273’ responded
George, with the code of the day.
‘Sunday afternoon. 2
o’clock. Bridge, car accident. Photo. 583 592. £70,000’
‘No problem but price is £100,000, please confirm,’ said
George. He hung up, memorised the short instructions and put the OS ref into
his sat nav. to see that the site for the planned accident was Stannochy
Bridge, just outside Brechin on the B1934. He knew the area well. It was a nice
easy job to occupy the weekend – if the customer agreed the price.
He didn’t know why
the target was wanted dead by someone, he wasn’t interested. His job was to
make sure it happened and then to be sure he collected his fee. He trusted his
agent, they had worked together for more than five years. His fee would be
added to the growing pile in his several accounts in Freeport, Grand Bahama –
he used different names for each one of course. The total was over £2 million
by now, enough to fund his planned retirement in his villa on Andros Island
that he had bought some fifteen years before. This was planned to be his last contract, in
spite of his agent’s pleas to continue. George did not want to take his pitcher
too often to the well, like Rachel, and end up with a broken pitcher, or even
head perhaps.
He liked banks that liked to say ‘yes’ and even
better, didn’t like to ask questions. He never spent his fee money, he was
careful to live frugally, within his means as a salaried actuary. It was just a
job to him but sometimes he woke in the middle of the night and could see all
his victims lined up, just looking at him until he woke up in a sweat. He
thought he was getting too old for this job. He was getting forgetful and
liable to make mistakes. That could be fatal for someone in a trade such as
his.
William was a hit
man or, as he preferred to think of himself, a self-employed removal
specialist. He moved people from this world to the next, a sort of twin world
Pickfords. This was, of course, in complete contrast to his day job and he was
the last person anyone would think of being a contract killer. He had none of
the underworld characteristics that the general public associated with a hit
man, with his precise, somewhat prissy persona and OCD. It wasn’t the sort of
job that you replied to an advert in the local paper sent in your CV and then
took the job if the interview was successful.
It had all started
with a telephone call one Sunday afternoon.
‘Hello.’
‘Ring me back in 15
minutes on this number from a public phone, use coins not a credit card and
mention no names.’ The line went dead so William replaced the handset and then
thought about it, intrigued. He tugged on his jacket and walked down the road
to Tesco where he knew there was a public phone. He rang the number. A voice
said ‘If I tell you that my dog was called Shep, do you know who this is?’
‘Yes,’ said William.
‘OK then. Can you
meet me this afternoon, in Queen’s park, on the bench by the duck pond?’
‘Yes,’
‘Four o’clock OK?’
‘Yes, but what-‘
‘-I’ll explain everything then.’
William put the phone down and thought a moment. Should he go or not? He
walked back to his flat, deep in thought. By the time he got back he knew that
he had to go and find out what all this was about. He couldn’t bear the thought
of never knowing if he had missed an opportunity, shrouded in mystery as it
was.
*
At the agreed time, he approached the appointed bench and at down,
joining the figure on the other end of the bench. There was no one else in
sight so he thought it was safe to use names.’
‘Hello,‘ he said, ‘I
haven’t seen or heard from you for more than ten years.’
‘Hello,
William, you’re looking well. Yes, it must be about ten years and after today,
we will never see each other again.’
‘What’s all this
about then, why all the secrecy?’ asked William.
‘Well, I’ve set up a
sort of agency and I wondered if you would like to make a lot of money quite
quickly? I am sure that job you have is steady and secure but it is never going
to make you rich is it?
‘Have you been
snooping on me?’ asked William.
‘Oh yes, I’ve spent
a year and a lot of money having you really well checked out. I know, for
example that you have set up quite a few false identities for yourself but you
haven’t exploited them yet.’
‘Oh, now I
understand, you want to blackmail me. Is that it? How much do you want?’
‘No, no, far from
it. I want to help you to make full use of those identities and also make you a
very rich man.’
‘How?’ asked
William.
‘I have a lot of
contacts so if someone wants someone killed, they eventually come to me and I
arrange it. That is why all the secrecy is necessary. We work through cut-outs
and never meet each other. All the contact is by telephone, in code on
temporary pay- as- you go mobiles and short term e mail addresses.’ He said.
‘Before I go any further, are you interested? If you’re not, we will both
forget this meeting ever took place.
‘I like the sound of
making a lot of money quickly, so go on, what would I have to do?’
‘I will send you an
e mail from a temporary account to your temporary agreed account and then you
will telephone me from a telephone you have never used before and quote the
current code number. I will then give you the details of the job and the price.
You can then accept or reject the job. If you accept and complete the job
successfully, I will then pay your fee into any bank account you specify.’
‘What happens if we
don’t get any customers?’ asked William.
‘That’s where it
gets very clever. As I say, I have a lot of contacts so we make up stories and
rumours to get two people at each other’s throats until it gets so bad that one
guy then goes with a planted suggestion from one of my contacts to take out a
contract on the other guy. Then we follow the usual procedure. Please bear in
mind that most of the people we kill, society would judge as being better off
dead anyway. Not really very nice people, so we are doing society a service –
they just don’t know about it. We usually make the deaths look like accidents
unless it is to make an example of someone but, of course, that costs extra.’
‘I have a question,’
said William.’
‘I bet it is “how
much do you charge?”’, grinned the agent.
‘You’ve got it in
one,’ said William
‘My fee structure
varies with how much work I have do. It will be between 10% and 35%. There is
no VAT payable of course…’
‘OK, I have heard
enough, I’ll give you my answer before next Sunday.’
‘Give me call on
this number, remember the rules; just give me the code number then yes or no.
If it is no, you will never hear from me again. If it is yes, you will never
see me again but I will try and get you your first job soon. Good to see you
again William.’
‘You too.’
They shook hands and left in opposite directions.
William rang the number and accepted the job after two
days thinking about it.
*
The radio was perched on top of the rows of pigeon holes, tuned to ‘Farming
Today’ with Charlotte Smith. Pat was fascinated by the story about livestock
breeding at the Devon County Show. He considered himself something of an expert
in all things agricultural even though his garden at the back of his house in
Shobrooke was less than a quarter of an acre. Most of his information was
garnered from Radio 4 every morning at 6.30. His practical agricultural experience was
limited to growing vegetables.
Pat O’Brian was in
the sorting office at the back of the Post Office in Crediton, sorting out his
post deliveries for the day. He had the Crediton number 5 round. Pat had been
doing this round for nearly twenty five years so knew all that was going on
there and called each of his customers by name and always had time for a chat.
He wasn’t the fastest postman in the West but the round suited him, he enjoyed
a chat with his customers, who seemed to like him.
He was very
surprised, therefore to see a letter addressed to John Evans at 12 Landscore
Gardens. He knew that John had died from lung cancer about five years ago. He
would still deliver it but take time to have a comforting chat with John’s Dad,
Eric. He didn’t want to take the chance of his mother seeing it first. It might
be too upsetting for her. He took care to place the letter on its own so that
he wouldn’t miss it out on his round.
*
George had his Friday dinner, steak of course, a couple of hours sleep
and then set off in his hired car for the long, overnight drive to Stannochy
Bridge. He always was scrupulous in carrying out a recce and researching his
target. He found that the bridge was fairly high and crossed the South Esk
River. It was built in the 19th century of Devonian Scone sandstone
– probably from the nearby quarry. It was also a listed building so hadn’t been
kept in very good repair
He parked the car in
the disused quarry, out of sight of passers-by, and walked to the bridge. He
carried a rucksack and tucked his trousers in his red socks so that he looked
like a hiker. He sized up the bridge and saw that it would be fairly easy to
create an ‘accident’ for a driver travelling towards Brechin from the South. A
swerve to the left, just before the bridge would be enough to ensure that the
car would crash through the badly maintained parapet on the narrowing road and
end up in the river. All it needed was for the driver to see an obstacle on the
right hand side of the road and then to swerve to avoid it. George knew just
the thing to give the impression of an obstacle, he had managed a similar
scenario before.
*
Pat rang the bell at 12 Landscore Gardens. Mrs Evans opened the door. Pat
was a little taken aback but soon recovered, ‘err, I’ve got a letter that has
to signed for by your husband,’ lied Pat. ‘Is Eric in?’
‘Just a minute Pat,
I’ll get him for you, he’s in the garden.’ She disappeared into the house.
After a moment, Eric appeared.
‘Can I have a quiet
word with you, Eric? I didn’t want to upset your missus, I know she is a little
fragile as far as John is concerned. There is a letter here addressed to him so
I thought you should see it first in case it is something upsetting.’
‘Thanks Pat, that’s
very thoughtful of you, I’ll open it out here to see what it is.’
It was from Stephen Moore, Customer Service Manager at the insurance
company where George worked.
‘I’m not a great fan
of theirs,’ grumbled Eric, ‘after them turning down our claim about John, it
made things harder than necessary in my view. Now he has the nerve to send us a
letter and put John’s name on it instead of mine. Anyway, let’s see what he has
to say.’
‘That’s why I thought
it a little strange and so I made sure you would read it first, before Mrs
Evans.’
“Dear Mr Evans
As part of our commitment to improving our customer service, we are
writing to our long standing customers to offer a 10% reduction in premium on
your Life Insurance.
We would ask that
you contact us to confirm that you are happy to take up this offer and please
do not hesitate to ask if there is any way we can be of help to you..
Yours
sincerely
Stephen
Moore
Customer
Service Manager.
‘But, but we didn’t get anything at all when John died and we cancelled
the Direct Debit for the insurance five years ago. They said there was
something in the small print that would stop us claiming. We were in such a
state at the time that we didn’t query it and just made the best if it. After
all, money wouldn’t bring John back to us, would it, Pat?’
‘Well no, I suppose
not but it is money that is due to you and John would have wanted you to have
it. Look upon it as a present from him.’
Eric turned away, with tears in his eyes. ‘Thanks Pat, I’ll talk it over
with the missus and we’ll decide what to do. I suppose a letter to Mr Moore
wouldn’t be out of place would it?’
‘I’ll leave it with
you then. Will I see you on Saturday for the carp competition at Shobrook Lake?’
asked Pat
‘Wouldn’t miss it,’
said Eric. ‘I’ll see you there, it’s your turn to supply the beer.’
‘Yes, I hadn’t
forgotten and I see you haven’t either,’ said Pat, angrily, as he winked at his
old friend.
*
George drove to Aberdeen airport, where he returned the hire car and got
back in his own car for the 2 hour drive to Edinburgh Airport where he parked
it in the far corner of the long term car park.
He sorted out his
identity before leaving his car. He chose one of his personas from the twenty
or so he had in stock. He was now Malcolm Green, complete with passport and
driving licence. He took the flight-approved carry on case from the boot,
loaded with clothes to make it feel the right weight and wheeled it off to the
departures area of the terminal. He then walked along to the café where he
enjoyed a coffee while he waited for the incoming Easy Air flight from Bristol
to arrive. When he saw the stream of arriving passenger, he merged with them,
pulling his trolley bag along behind him. The Hurtz man behind the car hire
desk saw him coming from arrivals and prepared to sort out a car for him.
‘Hello, my name is
Green, Malcolm Green. I phoned you yesterday about hiring a small car for a
couple of days?’
‘Yes Mr Green, I
have an Escort for you, waiting out on our car park, fuelled up and ready to
go.’
‘Great,’ said
Malcolm. He completed the formalities, accepted the keys and walked out to the
car park where he put the bag in the boot and set off.
He drove home, only
stopping in Dundee at an internet café, to print out the photo of his latest
target from his current e mail account and checked that his customer had
increased the price in accordance with George’s demands. 20% of the increase
went to his agent, of course, so George knew he would negotiate well. It is
worth a few minutes of arguing to get anything up to £20,000 – tax free.
He did some
research, timed his target’s movements on Sunday and checked the type of car.
He would be driving a Skoda Yeti, License number XZ13 6FG. He would reach
Stannochy Bridge, driving North at about 9pm – nicely dark and after most of
the day’s traffic. The ideal time to carry out a contract.
He then drove back
to his Scottish lock up garage where he busied himself with some plywood, a
jigsaw and some white paint and rope, before driving the escort into his garage
and securely locking it for the night before walking around the corner to his B
& B, ready for the job tomorrow.
*
Colin Read put his head around the door of Stephen Moore’s office and
said, ‘you wanted a word. Steve?’
‘Yes, come on in
Colin, pour yourself a coffee and sit down. Now let me tell you a story. As you
know, I started in this job about a year ago and it has been going very well. I
have really enjoyed my time here. This was until I started our loyalty
programme. This was the idea that life insurance is a long term business and if
you play fair with your long standing customers, you will reap the benefits and
perhaps pass you on to their children, so you get the next generation of
customers.
I looked into our
data base for all those people who had been with us for more than five years
and wrote them a letter, offering them a 10% discount on their premiums. Most
people wrote back saying they were happy with our service and they would be
delighted to accept the discount. Then the unhappy letters started coming back.
I received thirty six in total saying that they had expected to be recipients
of a policy that paid out when one of their relations had died but that the
company refused to pay on the grounds of some detail in the small print.
I checked back
through the policies and found that, according to our records, they were still
in force, the insured person was in good health and the premiums were still
being paid. This set alarm bells ringing, hence this conversation with you,
Colin. Here is a copy of one such letter from Mr and Mrs Evans of Crediton in
Devon. We obviously have a communication problem within the company and also
seem to be getting a bad name through no fault of ours.’
‘I’ve been here as a
fraud investigator for fifteen years, Steve, and this is a new one on me.
Normally I investigate claims for deaths on policies that have recently been
taken out, not someone trying to keep a policy going. The only reason I can
think of is to use the dead person’s identity for some criminal purpose. Shall
I look into this?’
‘Yes, definitely.
Why not start with these customers in Crediton and try to find out what is
going on?’
‘OK, Steve. I’ll
have a sniff around and dig up some information.’
*
Malcolm was ready to go by 7 o’clock. He walked round to his garage,
loaded the car with the plywood figure – the paint had dried overnight – and
set off in the car. He had a moustache stuck on with spirit gum. He was wearing
a tweed jacket with a flat cap and he had smeared mud over the car number
plates so it would be difficult to identify him. He drove to Stannochy Bridge
and parked the car in the same quarry as the day before, behind a stand of ash
trees. It was February so it was already dark. He walked the short distance to
the bridge and set up the wooden figure just behind the right hand parapet.
The time was 8-30. He waited. He saw a Yeti nearing
the bridge. He ducked down behind the parapet. He waited. He pulled sharply on
the rope. The driver of the Yeti saw a sheep suddenly appear in his headlights.
He swerved to the left to try to avoid the animal. The car smashed through the
ancient parapet and careered down the steep slope into the river where it turned
over and then stayed still, jammed against a rock by the fast – flowing, peaty
water.
Malcolm collected
the wooden sheep and ran down to watch the drowning car. After ten minutes
there was no sign of life so he walked over to his car in the quarry, loaded
the sheep into the boot and started back the way he had come, towards Edinburgh
airport.
He stopped in a
layby after fifty miles and rammed his moustache, cap and tweed jacket into a
black plastic sack and pushed it to the bottom of the litter bin. He took the
sheep into the wood behind the layby and left it behind a tree.
He then drove on to
the airport, parked the car in the Hurtz car park and dropped the keys into the
box after checking the car over for any signs that he had left behind. He
pulled his wheeled carry-on over to the long term car park and retrieved his
own car for the long drive South.
He was glad to get
back to his flat after a busy, but profitable, weekend.
*
There was a meeting planned in the board room for 1030. Steve was there,
with Colin. The Financial and Managing Directors were there to be briefed on
the security lapse and the possibility of the company’s good name being dragged
through the mud.
‘Would you start the
briefing please Colin, then we’ll ask questions to fill in the gaps as we go
along. Is that OK with you two?’ asked the MD.
‘No problem.’ said
Steve, as the FD nodded and opened his notebook.
‘I visited Mr and
Mrs Evans and asked them all about the death of their son, John. They were very
open and forthcoming although they were very puzzled as to what had happened. I
told them that the company would now pay their claim in full with a 20% bonus
as long as they didn’t talk about it to anyone, as the investigation was still
ongoing. They are a very honest couple and didn’t want to accept the bonus
until I asked them to accept that it was a gift from the company in partial
recompense for all the pain they had gone through over the last five years.
I then talked to the
bank who paid the monthly direct debit for the premium. They would not disclose
the account holder without a court order but I found out who it was by other
means. I don’t think you should know how I did that but it is a Peter Clarke
who lives in the Bahamas. I tried to trace him but the trail only led to a
‘brass plate’ bank in Nassau so the trail ended there.
I then searched
the internet for any mention of ‘John Evans’ in the last five years in
Crediton, this company and then the UK. There were many John Evans in the UK
but it was interesting to see that a John Evans had hired a car from Edinburgh
Airport five years ago. I took a trip up there and got a copy of his documents
from the guy on the desk. His address was in Dundee. I looked up the address
and found that a George McCaig lived there. I then contacted the DVLC in
Swansea and got a photo of this guy and, believe it or not, I recognised him.
He is our chief actuary, Henry Williams.
I then started digging into the other cases, all 36 of
them and found that he has been carrying out the same scam with them. I don’t
know why he wants all these identities but I am sure he is up to no good with
them.
He has two weeks holiday booked in a month’s time and
also has a flight booked to Miami. I can’t find out where he is going after
that but I suspect it is the Bahamas – I will find that out in the next couple
of days.’
‘Extraordinary! Who would have thought it of Henry, he
is such a boring fellow. I think you have done an excellent job, Colin. Now,
what do we think should be done about it?’ Asked the MD.
‘I think we should immediately make payments to the 35
other beneficiaries with a 20% bonus in return for silence. Just the same as
the Evans,’ offered the FD. ‘We should then turn the details over to the police
to investigate. I think it is too serious to keep it in-house, he obviously has
some scam going on with all these identities. Suppose he has killed someone?’
They all laughed at the thought of meek and mild Henry killing anyone.
‘OK, are we all agreed on that? Right, I think you
should stop investigating Colin in case Henry gets wind of it. This should stay
here in this room and I will deal with the police directly. We must see justice
done while protecting the good name of the company.’
*
Inspector Jenkins and Sergeant Smith stood by the departure gate at
Heathrow. The flight to Miami had just started boarding. They were waiting for
the tip-off from the gate staff when Robert presented his ticket and boarding
card, just in case they didn’t recognise him.
Harry Roberts strode up, quite unsuspecting. The
Inspector took him by the arm and said the usual words, ‘I am arresting you,
Henry Williams, in connection with fraud. You do not have to….’
Harry said nothing as Sergeant Smith clipped on the
handcuffs in front of the disbelieving other passengers.
*
Harry had packed just enough clothes to look as if he
was going on holiday, not leaving the country for good. His flat was left to
give the same impression. Even his lap top was left behind but when the police
got a warrant to search the place and confiscate his computer, they found
nothing. Harry had taken the precaution of replacing his hard drive with a new
one and deleted the data on the old one with a hammer. It was the only type of
deletion he really trusted. He rang his agent to tell him of the successful
conclusion to the job and wished Tegwyn a final ‘Good-bye.’
When the interview started, the police had no real
evidence of fraud, just that William / George / Henry / had stopped the pay-outs to 36 customers and
had taken over the responsibility of the direct debits. They tried to get out
of Henry the reason he had done this but he kept schtum. His lawyer summed up
by saying, ‘you have no information that my client committed fraud. In fact he
saved the company many large pay-outs and continued to pay the direct debits.
It seems to me that Henry saved the company several million pounds and cost
them nothing. I think he is free to go, unless you have evidence that shows my
client has committed any offence? The only offence that I can see he committed
was to be too diligent in his job, he didn’t like paying out the capital.’
‘Err, well, I suppose so,’ said the inspector.
‘In that case, I expect the police to reimburse my
client for the cost of the flights that he missed because of the arrest,’ said
Peter Mason. ‘Goodbye.’
*
William sat back in his seat in the first class cabin
of the Airbus A380 and ruminated on the events of the last five years. He had a
total of over $3 million in various bank accounts and he would spend the rest
of his life on Andros Island, in his villa, surrounded by clear blue seas,
gently lapping on long sandy beaches. Just the occasional 10 minute flight to
Nassau when he wanted a change or a visit to one of his banks.
He regretted the 36 lives that had enabled all of this
but he thought he could live with the occasional nightmare, after all, no one
had ever complained about the customer service he provided. It was better than
herding sheep after all.
‘Not bad for an actuary,’ he thought as he sipped his
complementary glass of chilled Sancerre, after a lunch of sirloin steak.
‘It’s not even Friday,’ he silently gloated to himself
