But, unfortunately, it explains nothing else. Why did Peter Fenton vanish? Is he alive or dead? Was he a spy, a philandering husband or a cuckold? Can we really believe that love for Verity transformed him from ambitious materialist to loving husband and stepfather? And, if he loved her as much as his stepchildren claim he did, what did he do before he left for Washington that sent his wife into such a spiral of despair that she killed herself? More intriguingly, in view of its anonymity and the absence of an envelope, was Verity's suicide note addressed to him or to someone else?
The truth may well lie in what Jean Fenton wrote in her diary on his fifth birthday: "How Peter does love acting. Today he's playing the part of the perfect child. Tomorrow it will be the devil. I wish I knew which of these various Peters is the real one."
The Case of the Absconding Merchant Banker-James Streeter
James Streeter was born on 24 July 1951, the elder son of Kenneth and Hilary Streeter of Cheadle Hulme in Cheshire. He was educated at Manchester Grammar School and Durham University, where he read modern languages. On graduation, he took a job in Paris with Le Fournet, a French merchant bank, where he remained for five years before moving to a sister bank in Brussels. While there, he met and married Janine Ferrer, but the marriage lasted less than three years and, following his divorce in 1983, he returned to Britain to take a job with Lowenstein's Merchant Bank in the City of London. In 1986 he married a promising young woman who was seven years his junior. Kenneth and Hilary Streeter describe the marriage as a bad one. "They had very little in common," said Hilary, "which led to rows, but it's ridiculous to suggest that depression over his marital problems prompted James to become a thief. In any case, if the police are to be believed, he began embezzling before his marriage, so the facts don't even add up. It makes us so angry that our son's reputation can be destroyed like this simply because they have taken everything at face value. It's his employer who deserves to be reviled, not James." Taken at face value, James Streeter's disappearance is as self-explanatory as Lord Lucan's for, within days of deserting his desk at Lowenstein's Merchant Bank on Friday, 27 April 1990, and in his absence, he was charged with defrauding his employers of ten million pounds. The case against him appears a strong one. Only weeks before he vanished, certain irregularities were noticed by the bank's auditors and were drawn to the attention of the board. At issue was a ten million pound discrepancy which seemed to stem from Streeter's department and, worse, to stretch back over a period of five years. In simple terms, the theft involved the creation of fraudulent accounts which were set up as conduits for large international transactions and then creamed of interest. Their operation relied on the bank's failure to introduce proper security functions into its computer system, with the result that the false accounts went unnoticed and the interest creamed over the years was substantial.
The board's decision, a mistaken one as events proved, was to authorize a clandestine in-house investigation in order to avoid panicking the bank's customers. It was badly handled, with its secrecy compromised from the start, and the outcome was a failure to identify the responsible employee, while at the same time alerting him/her to the existence of the investigation. When James Streeter chose to run on the night of 27 April, the conclusion drawn was that he had 'got away' with a fortune, particularly as his abrupt departure followed within hours of the board's reaching its belated decision to turn the investigation over to the police.
However, despite lengthy questioning of his wife and a prolonged investigation into his financial affairs, no trace of Streeter or the stolen money has ever been found. Sceptics argue that his escape route was in place for weeks, months or even years, and that the ten million pounds were transferred out of the country into a safe haven abroad. Supporters, most notably his parents and brother, argue that James was a scapegoat for someone else's criminal activity, that he was murdered to shield the real culprit further investigation. In defence of their son, they quote a handwritten facsimile that was sent from James's office at 3.05 p.m. on Friday, to his brother's office in Edinburgh.
Dear John [it reads], Dad's pushing me to rent a room for the Ruby Wedding 'do'. He's suggesting the Park Lane, but I remember Mum saying that if they ever celebrated a major anniversary she'd like to go back to the hotel in Kent where they had their reception. Am I imagining this? And did she ever mention the name of the hotel to you? Dad says it was somewhere in Sevenoaks but, needless to say, can't remember details. He claims his memory's going, but I suspect he was pissed as a rat the whole day and never knew where he was. I've tried the aunts and uncles, but none of them can remember either. Failing all else, I think we'll have to blow the surprise and ask Mum. You know what she's like. It'll offend her Puritan soul if we spend a fortune on something she doesn't really want, and then she won't enjoy herself. I know it's still a long way off, but the earlier we book the less likely we are to be disappointed. I shall be home all weekend, so give me a bell when you can. I've told Dad I'll call back Sunday lunchtime. Cheers. James.
"Whatever the police may argue," says John Streeter, "my brother would not have written that fax if he was planning to leave the country the same evening. There were a hundred better ways of allaying official suspicion about his alleged intentions. More likely he'd have referred to the visit that I and my family were making to him in May. 'See you in two weeks' would have been far more telling than 'give me a bell when you can.' And why mention Dad? He couldn't afford to have two members of his family worried about nonexistent phone calls."
The police take a more sceptical view. They cite the climate of suspicion that already existed in Lowenstein's and James's need to neutralize concern about his movements that weekend. Despite the supposed secrecy of the bank's in-house investigation, most of the employees noticed that security had been stepped up and that reports and transactions were being closely monitored. Gossip suggested at least two people in Streeter's department are on record as saying they knew before he fled that some kind of fraud had been done and that suspicion centred on them. If, as police believe, Streeter was biding his time until the investigation became serious enough to him to run, then the fax to his brother was part of the smoke-screen he threw up to the Lowenstein investigation. Almost every call in the weeks preceding his disappearance contained invitations to business colleagues for dates in April, May and June. His wife told that around the beginning of April James was uncharacteristically sociable, encouraging her to organize dinner parties and weekend visits with friends, work colleagues and relations until July. According to the police, he was working to an agenda. They point to the fact that his secretary was instructed very early on in the investigation to keep his desk diary up to with social engagements, including private ones, and it is noticeable that April, May, June and July 1990 are significantly fuller than in the previous year. His brother admits this behaviour was unusual.