Way Beyond A Lie, page 19
As he passed the living room door, he called out, ‘I’ll make us a coffee, Sal.’ He carried on into the kitchen and busied himself making the drinks.
A few minutes later, carrying the coffees on a wooden tray, Ross nudged open the living room door with his elbow. He was surprised to find the room almost in darkness, only illuminated by a few flickering candles that Sally had obviously lit while he was out of the room. He felt immediate tension in the pit of his stomach, as if all his internal organs in that area had been shrink-wrapped. Sally was kneeling on the carpet, sitting back on her heels, her skirt flared out on the floor behind her. That was all she was wearing. Her recently discarded top lay in a crumpled heap on the arm of the sofa, one creased and crooked arm gesturing towards the floor. A cream-coloured lacy bra with enormous cups lay twisted on the carpet, a pair of matching knickers tangled in the strap. Sally wasn’t a tall woman, barely five foot two, but she was carrying lots of extra pounds. She had a big bum, with the thighs and tummy to match. Her boobs were huge. To Ross, who hadn’t ever experienced a woman of Sally’s proportions, they looked like two flesh-coloured rugby balls.
‘Sally, Sally, Sally. I’m sorry, pet, but this is just not happening.’ He laid the tray down. ‘I’ll be back in a minute. Please put your clothes back on.’
Ross deliberately used the upstairs bathroom to kill some time and when he came back down, Sally was fully dressed and was calling a contract taxi. He tried to speak to her but she was having none of it, throwing a talk to the hand gesture at him. Ten minutes later he poured two lukewarm coffees down the sink.
What he couldn’t have known was how intense her temper remained on her journey home, muttering things like: ‘Fucking selfish rotten bastard. How fucking dare he turn me down. He doesn’t know who he’s fucking fucking with.’
The taxi driver was mightily relieved it was a contract hire. Had it been a cash fare, he wasn’t sure madwoman in the back would have paid.
Martin and the twins came round for dinner too, a far more sedate affair. The girls loved their ‘uncle’ Ross, and were glad to see he was almost back to his usual self.
He hardly ever saw Didier and Amelie but he knew they were still there, closeted behind their perpetually closed vertical blinds.
He resumed his tennis matches with Barry, had a few pints with his mates after a midweek football match, and told Joe that Carla was gone for good and wouldn’t be back. When Joan heard the news, she adopted the snooty air she reserved especially for circumstances like this. ‘I always knew she was just a gold-digger, and I’ll be telling Ross that at the earliest opportunity.’
Joe told her she would be doing nothing of the sort and she should keep her nose out of other people’s business, ‘For once in your life, woman.’ She wasn’t happy, and started back at him, ready for an argument. Normally, he didn’t argue back but this time was different. ‘Joan, be quiet, and go and make the dinner.’
Martin organised a beer and curry team night out, which they did from time to time, so no one suspected it was mainly for his friend’s benefit. Ross was grateful for the gesture, it gave him the chance to spend some social time with Elspeth. He normally only saw her on Wednesdays. They chatted for ages in the pub before and after the meal. He was in stitches at some of her stories, mainly concerning the bedroom and bathroom habits of her ex-husband. Some of them sounded quite disgusting.
Elspeth was in her early forties. She dyed her hair a silvery grey, and had a healthy suntan that, conversely, didn’t look like it had come out of a bottle. In days gone by she’d have been described as buxom but she wore her clothes on the loose side to conceal rather than accentuate her curves.
While they were blethering away, Ross noticed her peculiar habit of ripping up beermats into odd shapes and arranging them on the table like soggy miniature jigsaws. At one stage, three of these pieces of art decorated the table top in front of her. She slid them carefully to one side and swiped the last mat while Ross was taking a drink. He clanked his glass down on the unprotected table and scowled at her but Elspeth appeared oblivious.
A few minutes later, a young barman stopped to lift some empty glasses from their table. He made to sweep the torn mats onto his tray. ‘Leave them!’ said Elspeth, as if she were speaking to a misbehaving puppy. The barman froze, his arm held out, looking at her as if to say Are you serious? She held up one stern index finger and kept it there until he walked away, shaking his head.
Scary lady, thought Ross. He was amused by this little quirk but didn’t quiz her on it.
As he was walking home, Ross realised he had thoroughly enjoyed his evening and hoped Martin would arrange another event reasonably soon.
For their part, Mel and Andrew ticked off as many boxes as they could. They spoke to Ross’s work colleagues, several players at the tennis club and tracked down Ross’s fellow season ticket holders at Easter Road. Everyone sang the same song. Lovely guy, totally genuine, gentleman on court, doesn’t even shout at the ref. Can’t imagine he would hurt a fly.
Mel quizzed Ross about Carla’s behaviour towards his male friends. Did he think it was over-friendly? But in Ross’s opinion, it was simply the difference between the emotionally castrated British, and the Continental freedom of expression in relation to public affection.
Andrew was eventually able to contact Facebook, the warrant had done its job. An extremely cooperative lady with a strong Dutch accent and perfect English took responsibility for the enquiry and confirmed a few days later that most of Carla’s friends appeared to be false, including her sister, Caterina. They were all tied in to random Hotmail accounts but emails to those addresses bounced back. Facebook closed down public access to Carla’s page within the hour.
Andrew also canvassed a few of the gym classes. He spoke to women who said they knew Carla, but admittedly only to chat to. But there was something they were all agreed on: ‘There’s no doubt Carla could be a wee bit off from time to time.’
Andrew thought, no wonder. Maintaining the deception must have put her under a considerable amount of strain.
They also spoke to Martin. Had Carla ever made a pass at him? He was amused by the possibility but was forthright with his answer. ‘No. And I’d have put my foot up her arse if she’d tried.’
Eventually, they dropped the whole idea that Ross had assaulted his wife. It just didn’t hold water. Mel was secretly pleased.
Mel and Andrew discussed all this with DI Hunter, who congratulated them on being so thorough but then said exactly what they expected him to. Ross was almost certainly the victim of an organised crime group, or OCG, so Jeff told them to pass the case on to their colleagues in the Economic Crime Unit. Some of the older cops still called it the Fraud Squad. He agreed they should stay in touch with Ross, just in case anything new came to light, but this was definitely a backburner job from now on. They had other cases bubbling away.
And Carla’s black Puffa jacket never did turn up.
One Friday evening, four weeks to the day that Carla disappeared, Ross came home from work. He sifted through the mail on his way to the kitchen. Two or three were advertising bumf, which he slung in the recycling. There was a postcard from Martin’s daughter, Gail, who had been skiing in Argentière, in the French Alps. He’d never heard of the place but apparently the talent was, ‘Hot! Hot! Hot!’
The last item was an A5 white envelope with IMPORTANT: THIS IS NOT JUNK MAIL in bold across the envelope, front and back. What’s this then?
Ross slit the envelope with his thumb, and flipped open the folded letter inside. His attention was immediately grabbed by the header. In red, bold and underlined, it shouted at him: Payment Overdue. For Your Immediate Attention.
Creases appeared on his forehead as he skimmed the page, hardly taking in the words. His entire body became a crazy, unfathomable mixture of freezing cold and roasting hot. He tottered over to the worktop, straightened the paper back against the fold and spread the pages out. Page two was a statement but he couldn’t make sense of the figures.
He had to brace himself against the kitchen unit to stop himself collapsing. The bones in his legs felt like they had been replaced with liquorice, his eyes stung from the sweat that cascaded like liquid pepper from his forehead, and his elbows although locked tight, shuddered and trembled from the strain of holding him upright.
Ross forced himself to concentrate on the content of the letter. Finally, the fog dispersed and he was able to comprehend the story it told.
‘Bitch!’ he spat. ‘Fucking, pox-infested, fucking, bitch.’
The kitchen surfaces, as usual, were totally clear of all accoutrements. Except for the brushed chrome and cream kettle. He picked it up, twisted round, and with all of his might he smashed the kettle into the fridge door.
The impact made one hell of a racket, and no small amount of mess, but Ross was way past caring.
Chapter Forty
A report with a clear Perspex cover and spiral binding lay precisely in the centre of the desk.
Miroslav didn’t do “dress down Friday”. Today he wore a dark suit, immaculate white shirt and understated tie. He enjoyed the professional image his style portrayed. And although he was sure his new beard suited him he intended to keep it trimmed short. It had to complement his attire.
He pulled the document a little closer. It was an ad-hoc financial report, requested by him and prepared by his accountant. The first page was a summary. He ran his index finger down the right hand column. The individual totals were interesting, of course, but they were all bit-part players to the star of the show.
The ‘A-list’ celebrity on the page was the figure in the rightmost position on the lowest row. It was the cumulative profit for the eleven years since he and Danijela had launched their organisation and it had just passed a significant milestone. He’d known it was approaching fast, which was why he’d called the accountant.
He read the figure once, then checked it again. Just to make sure.
Then he leaned way back in his chair, raised his arms and locked his fingers behind his head.
The year was 1998, and Miroslav and Danijela had been bumming around Australasia and the Far East for about two years after they left Prague. It was a suffocating hot night in Bali, and they were almost at the stage of checking for loose change down the back of the furniture. They agreed it was high time they devoted their energies not to survival but to prosperity. And they didn’t give a toss how they would achieve that.
They were sitting on a low wall outside their crappy studio apartment when they spotted two stunning European women, wearing fewer and skimpier clothes than a Bangkok hooker. They were wrapped around two American businessmen with bellies that strained their shirt buttons to popping point. Curious, Miroslav and Danijela followed them. They watched, fascinated, as the Yanks lavished their dates with cocktails, a banquet meal that covered two tables, and enough wine to bathe a family of hippos. Sadly, and unbeknown to them, it was the men who drank most of the wine. And while one of them was arguing almost incoherently with the waiter over the composition of the bill, the two women flashed one last tantalising eyeful of cleavage at their hosts and disappeared off to ‘the bathroom’. From their viewpoint way out at a corner table on the terrace, this turned out to be a side exit from the kitchen. Danijela and Miroslav laughed as they watched the women putting plenty of distance between them and their soon-to-be-aggrieved married businessmen abroad. ‘That must happen every night of the week in places like this.’
They watched the two men stomping around the restaurant becoming louder and angrier. But even in their advanced state of befuddlement, it eventually became obvious to them that they’d been well and truly had.
‘Hmmm,’ from Danijela. ‘You don’t suppose …?’
They couldn’t see how they would be even remotely successful as a couple so they split up and agreed to meet back at their apartment at two in the morning, latest. Despite his tanned body and GQ front cover abs and pecs, Miroslav was home, somewhat deflated, by just after midnight. He’d chatted up dozens of women, from teenage to middle age, with absolutely zero success. Apart from a couple of quick gropes from a plastered English woman who was convinced he had played Dr Luka Kovac in the US hospital drama, ER.
At five past two, he was just about to go out searching for Danijela when she fell in the door wearing a grin as broad as a Sumo Wrestler’s backside. She was loaded up with a gigantic takeaway, two large bottles of full-fat Coke and a litre of Stolichnaya.
He stared at her, aghast. ‘Where the fuck …?’
But she silenced him with a flat palm in his face. She jammed her hand into her back pocket, swung it round in a wide flourish and tooted a fanfare as she dumped a fat, ragged bundle of mixed currency notes on the breakfast bar. Miroslav fanned them out. There were hundreds of New Zealand dollar bills, a healthy selection of Indonesian rupiah, some euros and, incongruously, a single UK £20 note.
Danijela planted a kiss on his cheek. ‘I couldn’t eat another thing so the food’s for you. Get stuck in and I’ll make us a drink.’
‘How do you know I haven’t eaten?’ The huffy tone said it all.
‘Fuck off.’ Her laugh was both mocking and riotous. ‘And while you’re eating, I’ll tell you about my evening.’ The crappy studio apartment didn’t stretch to ice or decent glasses so they made do with warm Stoli and Coke from chipped coffee mugs. But it tasted wonderful and didn’t hit the sides. Danijela poured a second round and told her story.
Within minutes of leaving Miroslav she chanced upon a group of twenty-somethings, fresh off a flight from Heathrow and two stops away from Rat-arsed Central. They provided her first two cocktails and the £20 note when one guy told her his mates had bet him £50 he couldn’t persuade her to flash her tits. He wasn’t quite as pissed as the others, and reckoned this was a win–win. Several selfies later, and £20 richer, she left them waving after her like palm trees in a tropical storm. They were destined to crash and burn within the hour. Time to move on.
The cocktails provided Dutch courage so she slipped off her bra and jammed it into her shorts’ pocket. A German tourist bought her a drink but as she was considering her next move, his wife turned up so that was that. Then a couple of Canadians chatted her up for a while but their wallets never saw the light of day. Time to split.
Finally, just before midnight, she pulled the lever one last time and a line of sevens came up. A group of New Zealanders crossed the road right in front of her and swarmed towards a restaurant with most of its tables outside. She couldn’t explain where the idea came from but she allowed one of the tail-enders to crash into her. She made a meal of bouncing off the edge of a table and landing pseudo-heavily on the floor. Immediately she was surrounded by several burly rugby players, who sported steel thighs and biceps like cantaloupes. The men were most concerned about her welfare so they whisked her to their table and fed and watered her until she was fit to burst. When she explained in a deliberately heavily accented and sexy voice, while struggling to hold back fake tears, that she’d completely run out of money and would probably have to sleep down by the beach, they had a whip-round. She made her excuses and left. One of their number gallantly offered to chaperone her but his friends ridiculed him for his unsubtle technique, and dragged him off to their hotel.
Then, the icing on the cake. On her way back to the apartment she met one of the English boys from earlier. He was so pissed he could hardly see but somehow he recognised her, and told her in language that possessed hardly any consonants that she could have all the money in his wallet if she would ‘Gimme a gobble.’ Before her nerve failed her, Danijela agreed and helped him stagger up an alley to an empty car park behind a derelict hotel. She insisted he proved there was money in his wallet, which, after a serious amount of fumbling in various pockets he was able to do. He handed it over.
For an instant, with his wallet in her possession, she considered honouring her side of the deal. Instead, she thought: ‘Fuck that.’ One reasonable shove on his chest sent him tumbling backwards down a slope and into a bush. She walked smartly away from the scene and headed for home.
And from small acorns, mighty oak trees grow. Over the next six years or so, the couple conned their way through the world’s major tourist destinations on every continent bar Antarctica. What started off with cocktails, the odd meal, and the occasional roll of a drunken tourist, evolved into an increasingly ingenious and sophisticated series of scams where they both played their parts. Rich travellers were separated from their cash, wallets, jewellery, currency cards, passports. Sometimes they were deprived of their virginity, their manhood, their inhibitions. And often they were left feeling embarrassed, used, shamed, violated, cheated, distressed.
In that period their schemes brought in a significant amount of money but eventually they realised they would never be seriously wealthy unless they scaled up. And, late in the summer of 2005, on a genuine holiday in La Rochelle on the Atlantic coast of France, Danijela allowed herself to be seduced by a lonely English widower while Miroslav was out surfing. This gentleman had property in Brittany, Normandy, Kent and Hampshire, no children or close relatives, his sex life had withered and died on the vine, and he fell hook, line and sinker for a blonde, blue-eyed Czech goddess who, apparently, worshipped the ground he walked on.
Having left her hopelessly love-struck English gentleman poorer to the tune of well over half a million pounds, she had designs on repeating the caper. But Miroslav’s fondness for Danijela dictated that he found the prospect rather distasteful, and he convinced her to concentrate on managing the burgeoning organisation.
Eleven years and one exceptionally lucrative international scamming operation later, Miroslav and Danijela had well and truly scaled up and their operation ran like a professional commercial organisation.
Which is precisely what it was.
