Silent Money Page 24

  Michael needed to be sure. For all he knew, this could be a play by Dick; he could be the traitor. He called his driver in Glasgow, the man who chauffeured Ron around when Michael was in Surrey. Michael asked him if he could pass a message on to Ron as he wasn’t answering his phone, telling him to call. Michael felt his chest tighten when the driver told him that Ron wasn’t in Glasgow, he was down south with Eddie, and wouldn’t be back until the middle of next week.

  Michael called Dick. ‘You wouldn’t have had much joy trying to track Ron down in Glasgow,’ he said. ‘He’s holed up with Eddie, waiting for the call I’ve been taken out, no doubt putting four hundred miles between himself and my murder. That clinches it. Call Los Zetas.’

  Dick said to leave everything to him, and that was that. Michael put the phone down and stared into the distance. He thought back to that first meeting with Ron in the bank, when his initial hostility turned into a partnership that had made their fortunes. Then the last dinner with Eddie, talking about the future. Soon they’d be breathing their last. One word to Dick, that’s all it had taken. He shivered at the thought.

  Killing Ivan in cold blood, abusing Roberta’s feelings for him and making her flee for her life, now signing two death warrants. Michael tried to tell himself he hadn’t become a monster. He repeated Nietzsche’s morality of consequences philosophy like a mantra, but to no avail. His world was toxic, evil. And now he was too.

  He received a quick call from Dick the next day.

  ‘Our friends have gone on an extended holiday together,’ Dick told him. ‘We need to discuss their replacements. I’ve got a couple of names we could consider. Can we talk?’

  ‘Dick, put in whoever the hell you want. The operation is yours.’

  He’d had enough of this life. He wanted out, and as quickly as possible.

  1977

  chapter twenty-six

  Under the new set-up, Michael stepped back from the day-to-day running of the money-laundering operation and concentrated on the legitimate side of the Mallards business. He identified the key numbers that defined how well a store was operating, had every store manager mail him these figures once a month and collated these into a ledger so that he had a quantitative snapshot of every Mallards branch and how they compared to each other. He visited a different store every week, finding out why one store was overperforming against one parameter, or underperforming against another. He walked around the shop floor, chatting to customers, finding out what they wanted from the store and where Mallards was letting them down. He would talk to anyone in the operation who had a good idea as to how to cut costs or make things more efficient, the best suggestions earning the originator a bonus, no matter what level in the organisation the initiative came from.

  He was turning a failing company into a going concern, and he found it curiously compelling. Month after month there was a slow, steady improvement and when, after fifteen months, Jenkins produced a set of accounts that showed they had made a small but real profit in the previous quarter, Michael was delighted. The first time Mallards had made a profit in five years. Just under ten thousand pounds, but it meant more to him than the eight million he’d laundered in the same time.

  It was time to get out. If he could make a company like Mallards profitable, Michael reasoned, he could do the same again. Make a clean break from all that he had been involved with in the past, find a new business to run that was entirely legitimate from day one. He just had to convince Dick.

  Dick said no.

  ‘Michael, this is the life we have chosen for ourselves,’ he told him. ‘It has its advantages, but it also comes with restrictions. And the biggest one is that you can never say goodbye. Someone always comes knocking at your door, asking for one last job. The only way you can escape from the past is to do time, usually a lot of time, and keep a low profile when you get out. That’s not an option I want to contemplate. And I don’t think you do either.’

  ‘How would it be if I was to be around on an advisory basis, leave running the business to someone else? If I were to get someone to take over from me, someone you could trust, wouldn’t that be pretty much the same as we’ve got at the moment? And I’d always be just one phone call away if you wanted the processes updated. That could be our deal, couldn’t it?’

  ‘Get me somebody I can trust and who can run the business? Tall order, Michael. I’d take a lot of convincing. We trusted Ron and Eddie, remember?’

  Michael knew better than push Dick too far until he had a concrete proposal. When he did, he flew out to Spain to persuade Dick of his plan: Eric Jenkins to be the new managing director. Dick was unimpressed.

  ‘He’s a bean counter, Michael. An empty suit. We need to grow the Mallards business, so the revenue from the furniture sales keeps up with the rest of the operation. Jenkins doesn’t have your drive, your ambition. Take it as a compliment that I say no.’

  Michael had anticipated Dick’s reaction. ‘All you need is someone who knows how our processes operate and can keep on top of the money flowing through the business. We ship in the same furniture every month, sell it at the same prices in the same stores. The business is so straightforward, you don’t need a real managing director, you need someone who’s good at hiding money. And Jenkins has been doing that for years. He’s got it down to a fine art. He might not be the most dynamic businessman in the world, but he knows what’s going on, he does what he’s told, and he’s good at what’s important. That’s all that matters.’

  ‘But he’s not you, Michael. We need more than that.’

  ‘Here’s what I suggest. The Mallards business needs to be doing five million a year in revenue to hide as much money as you could ever want to launder. I’ll take a year to get it to that level, and at the same time I’ll put a marketing team in place who can supply all the creativity and imagination that’s missing with Jenkins. I give you my word I’ll always be a phone call away if there’s ever a problem you need sorting out. If I can do that, let me go. Buy out my part of the business for a million. It’s worth a lot more than that. All you have to do, going forward, is pay Jenkins a decent salary rather than me keeping my piece of the action. You’ll get the same as if I’m still here, but without any additional overhead. That was what Eddie was trying to achieve, but this way everybody’s happy. Everybody wins. It’s worth considering.’

  ‘Kenny McGowan said you were a persuasive bugger,’ Dick responded. ‘But the answer is still no.’ Michael grimaced. ‘Okay, to put a lid on this once and for all. You’re right. Five million a year of Mallards revenue would be enough to cover all the money we’d ever want to launder. Make it ten million and I’ll let you go, and you can take a million quid with you. But if we need you to sort out a problem, or think up some new schemes, you need to be there for me. And if Jenkins screws up, you come back and sort out the mess. That, I could sell to Los Zetas.’

  Michael got fired up to make it happen. He brought in a top design agency to give the stores a more modern image and a marketing team who knew what they were doing. He worked with a passion and ferocity that he hadn’t felt since the early days at Royal Clydeside. This time there was no prejudiced hierarchy to stop him. He had proved he could succeed using one kind of morality. Now he was going to succeed with a more conventional kind. Ten million pounds a year was the price of his freedom. The business plan said he’d get there in five years. He was going to get there in one.

  Advertising would be crucial to making that happen. Mallards were from the pile-it-high-and-sell-it-cheap school of retailing; their ads were cluttered and tacky, cramming as many photos of their product range into one ad as possible, announcing a new sale every other week and shouting about the best-ever discount if you bought your furniture now. Except that next month another sale would come along and say the whole thing all over again. Michael might be new to marketing, but he realised if Mallards were to ever to get to the sales he needed, they had to mak
e a break from the past, find a way to appeal to the fashion-conscious young professionals who were buying up new starter homes in droves. That meant finding the best advertising campaign money could buy and spending whatever it took to drive the new message home.

  He chose three ad agencies to pitch for his business: two of the biggest, who promised that their professionalism and experience would deliver the campaign he needed, and one of the newest and fastest-growing, who promised fresh ideas and radical thinking to solve his problems. They were called Campbell, Peters and Dixon, CPD, and Michael warmed to the managing director, Ben Campbell. Self-made entrepreneur, his agency had come along and shaken the big boys out of their complacency. They were the ones Michael thought would deliver.

  His intuition turned out to be well founded. He went to the big ad agencies’ presentations first: slick, well thought out, but lacking the spark of creativity that he was looking for. CPD was presenting the next morning; all his hopes were pinned on them coming up with the goods.

  The meeting was in London; Soho, nine thirty. Michael turned up a few minutes late, he’d had to finish off a phone call to Dick to sort out some supply issues, and the rest of his marketing team and the agency were already assembled when he arrived. Ben Campbell met him in reception and extolled the virtues of the work that was about to be presented as he escorted Michael to the meeting room. It would be headed up by one of the agency’s rising stars, Ben said, and he promised Michael he’d be amazed by what he was about to see.

  They walked into the room, and Michael was, indeed, astounded. The hot-shot account director presenting the ads was Roberta. Dressed all very businesslike, and still as beautiful as ever. Michael saw the colour drain from her cheeks as she stared at him in horror. So this was the new life she’d found for herself in London. Not working on the stage, but reinventing herself so she wouldn’t be discovered; a new career in advertising. And now fate had brought them together again.

  Ben did an opening welcome and handed over to Roberta. She was a disaster, fumbled every page of the presentation, dropped her pile of overhead projector skins, stuttered and stumbled over her words as she tried to focus.

  At the end, Ben stood up and took over. It was apparent he was trying to salvage something from the disaster. ‘I’ll just go over the final points, if that’s okay,’ he said to the room, pointedly ignoring Roberta.

  He finished. After an awkward silence, Michael spoke. ‘Thank you. I think we’ve seen enough.’ He picked up Roberta’s business card lying on the meeting-room table and left the presentation brochure behind. He stormed out, his bemused marketing team in his wake.

  Michael called Ben that afternoon and said his decision not to appoint them was down to the disastrous presentation. No way was he going to give his business to an agency who chose the office junior to run the account, Michael told him. He’d find another agency that took their business more seriously. Ben stammered out an apology that did little to disguise how furious he was with Roberta’s performance.

  When he got back to Surrey, Michael tried to push the day’s events out of his head while he went through the other agency presentations from the day before, trying to decide which one to appoint. Nothing was that great, and he cursed that there would be another delay while he briefed some more agencies. Then there was a knock, and his brand manager stuck his head round the door.

  ‘Michael, before you make any final decisions, I think you should look through the CPD pitch again. It might have been the worst presentation, but what they were recommending was good. See what you think.’

  Looked at dispassionately, it was indeed impressive. ‘Good taste never goes out of fashion’ was the slogan, the ads linking Mallards furniture to timeless icons of good taste. Every single part of the campaign – the ads, the magazines and programmes they would be advertising in – all tying back to and reinforcing the same core idea. Simple and powerful. Michael had a grudging admiration for the new skills Roberta had displayed. She understood his business and was clear about what was required to grow it.

  A thought struck him, ridiculous at first, but then seeming to make more and more sense. He needed a marketing director who had drive and creativity. He needed someone he could control. The people on the business side of Mallards were shielded from the real operation it was hiding, but there was always a theoretical risk that one of them could figure out what was going on. Roberta already knew, or at least could work it out, and she would never betray her part in what was going on and what had happened in the past. And now she had shown she could do the job; it would be her plan they would be implementing. She would be perfect.

  Michael went back to CPD’s offices the next day, asked the receptionist to tell Roberta he was there and wanted to talk to her.

  ‘I can’t tell him that, he’s seen me talking to you,’ Michael heard the receptionist say on the phone. Despite the tenseness of the situation, he smiled to himself. After fifteen minutes, Roberta appeared. First a nervous glance from the stairwell, then she strode towards him, a defiant look on her face.

  This had to be handled carefully. ‘I need to apologise for telling your boss you were the reason CPD didn’t get our advertising, Roberta,’ he said. ‘That was a bit harsh. I hope it didn’t cause any problems for you.’

  ‘What do you want, Michael?’

  She’d got tougher since he last saw her. That meant he could be tougher in response.

  ‘Quite direct, aren’t you? Well, in that case, let me tell you. We’ve got … an indiscretion in our past; I’m sure you remember what I’m talking about. All the other indiscretions that I used to commit when you knew me in Glasgow – they’ve been swept away. The smurfs are gone, and my services are now channelled through genuine businesses. Mallards is a legitimate company, and I’m its very respectable managing director.’

  ‘I’m sure you are, Michael. Very respectable.’

  ‘Look I know what you’re thinking,’ he replied. ‘You think I had something to do with the tragic death of the detective we used in the little game we played. But it was a bizarre coincidence.’ He looked over, saw her shaking her head in denial. ‘Oh, I admit it was convenient. I was looking to get out of smurfing, and the detective’s death did help. Some of the smurfs came to the same fanciful conclusion you did, and kept quiet during the investigation. No doubt due to a misguided belief that, if I could kill a cop, I could do the same to them.’

  He could tell she didn’t believe a word of it. He toyed for a moment with telling her about Ivan, that McDonald was a crooked cop who had met his end at the hands of his gangster paymaster, but decided not to. He could win her round with only what she already knew.

  ‘Coincidences do happen, Roberta,’ he went on. ‘I mean, look at our meeting like this. I must admit I was upset you ran out on me. I trusted you with my secrets, just as you trusted me with yours. I thought that bonded us together. So I had some of my people ask around to see if they could find you. Even hired a private detective to look for you in London.’

  ‘I know you did, Michael. I’ve spent the last fifteen months being chased by him, in case you’ve forgotten.’

  ‘Don’t be angry, Roberta. Yes, I had him look for you when you first moved down here. A last attempt at a reconciliation. But when I realised you didn’t want to be found, I said to myself, no more. Even when I had new leads about where you might be in London, I stopped following them up. I’d given up on ever seeing you again, until our fortuitous encounter yesterday.’

  ‘Michael, this is the biggest load of baloney I’ve ever heard in my life. You want me to believe DCI McDonald’s death was a coincidence? Give me a break.’

  She was getting more and more worked up now. Michael let her get all of her anger out of her system.

  ‘And what about Duncan?’ she cried. ‘You had him beaten up so badly he ended up in hospital. And the disgusting room where you had someone photograph me having sex?
Do you expect me to believe you knew nothing about any of that?’

  ‘I didn’t authorise any violence. Big Jockie got carried away, and let me assure you I was as shocked as you when I found out. But yes, I knew about the room and the two-way mirror. I was worried a previous girlfriend was being unfaithful, and the layout of the flat was convenient for setting up a surveillance operation. You know how I like to keep an eye on people, for their own good. But when she moved out, I had it locked up and had forgotten about it. I was mortified when I was told about the broken mirror and realised you’d found it. I can see how you could’ve jumped to the wrong conclusion.’

  Michael knew this was the weakest point of his argument, so he quickly pressed on. ‘Our deceased friend is ancient history now. Something no one wants to bring up again. I admit it looks unfortunate, our little game coinciding with such a tragic event. But think of how deeply involved you were with me back then, how long you’ve had these suspicions and haven’t said anything. You talk to anyone about this and the police will think you were part of it as well.’

  He paused to see her reaction.

  ‘I would never do that, Michael.’

  He detected the slightest faltering in her resolve. It was time for the mildest of threats.

  ‘It’s not me you have to worry about, Roberta. I just run a slightly unconventional financial services company. As I’ve always told you, I’m not into the blood business. It’s my clients who should scare you. My operations would expose them to the authorities, and they would take a dim view of anyone who had the potential to make that happen. A very dim view. That’s why I wanted to keep you close to me, why I made so much effort to track you down.’

  He leant over and took her hand. She didn’t pull it away.