‘Excellent,’ said Steven, ‘a dead body in the Negev has links to Russian expats here in London. Another link in the chain. Let me know if any Special Branch stuff turns up. I’m going to spend time with Tally before she leaves for DRC on Thursday.’
Jean nodded. ‘Wish her good luck for me.’
Steven drove Tally the seventy-five miles or so up to RAF Brize Norton on Thursday morning where she was to board an RAF flight taking supplies and volunteer medical personnel to the Democratic Republic of Congo. The nurses among the medics were NHS volunteers from all over the UK while the doctors came almost exclusively from the British arm of Médecins sans Frontierès.
As they gathered on the tarmac, Steven could see that Tally’s fellow travellers were of an age that suggested this might be their first experience of volunteering. Smiles and good humour were the order of the day, but, he suspected, this was covering a multitude of nerves.
Conversation between himself and Tally had been limited on the journey up, but not uncomfortably so. They had known and loved each other long enough to be at ease with silence and know what each other was thinking. Hugs before boarding were enough... although Steven did give in to asking, ‘Got your phone?’
‘Of course, I have,’ Tally assured him with an extra hug. ‘Talk to you later.’
Despite Tally’s assurance that she would be supplied with utilities like a phone, Steven had persuaded her to carry a satellite phone he had obtained for her and got her to agree that she would carry it with her at all times without advertising the fact. As a further security measure, it was only to be used one way — she should call him on it.
Steven answered a call from Jean Roberts on his way back to London. She reported that she now had the information gathered by Special Branch on Jeremy Lang’s Russian clients. Steven thanked her and said he would pick it up as soon as he got back. He ended the call on the car phone only for it to ring again. It was Scott Jamieson.
Jamieson began by asking, ‘Where the hell are you?’
Steven smiled at the sound of his friend’s voice. ‘In my car,’ he replied. ‘I’ve got the hood down.’
‘Still got the Porsche then?’
‘Can’t bear to part with it,’ Steven replied.
‘Must be getting on a bit now?’
‘To me, she’s as beautiful as the first day I saw her,’ replied Steven, talking about the second love of his life, a Porsche Boxster, he’d had for six years.
‘Fair enough,’ said Jamieson. ‘I’ve just been to see Mrs Field; we had quite a long conversation.’
‘How did you find her?’
‘Not too difficult to fathom, Upper middle class with all the usual attributes, hugely loyal to her husband, believed anything he said without question. She couldn’t think of any meetings he’d had with people she felt suspicious about and hadn’t noticed any changes in temperament come over him. She didn’t like speaking about money, of course — very vulgar. The bottom line is, I really don’t think she had any idea about how much hubby had squirreled away or where it came from. Boy, is she going to get a surprise one day soon, unless, of course, HMG find some way of confiscating it.’
‘Well, I think we can agree on all that,’ said Steven.
‘I’m going up to Leicester tomorrow to see Mrs Pashley. I don’t think you talked to her?
‘No.’
‘I’ll get back to you after I’ve seen her.’
The book that Special Branch had recovered from the late Jeremy Lang’s belongings must have been like a dream come true for them, Steven thought as he thumbed through the contents. It contained a list of all the clients he had acted for during the past three years, the properties they had purchased and the prices they had paid for some of the finest houses in London. Steven smiled as he imagined an estate agent’s windows displaying them.
Among the lists of Russian names, Steven found what had attracted Special Branch’s interest, the presence of two English names, Martin Field and Simon Pashley although no property purchase was mentioned. Steven started going through the Russian names, looking for those with no house purchase made. He was making a separate list of them when his sliding index finger stopped at a name that rang a bell and wasn’t Russian. Marcel Giroud was there and that was the name of the dead French investment banker who left a big bank to set up on his own before coming to a sticky end.
Steven felt that he’d made progress. He could now move his theory on. Russian expats living in London had invested in a scheme to make a lot of money. They had used Jeremy Lang, their tried and trusted money-launderer, to pay the two dead Englishmen for as yet unknown services. Lang had sub-contracted the task to Marcel Giroud because his own expertise was confined to property deals. He needed the expertise of an investment banker for manipulating investments. It was possible that Giroud had also been involved in paying Phillipe Lagarde, the World Health man and Samuel Petrov, the vaccine designer, although that had yet to be confirmed.
Apart from the investors, Steven knew the names, nationalities and professional expertise of all the players involved. He had eliminated two of them from his thinking — Lang and Giroud were solely concerned with the financial elements of the operation so he should be able to concentrate on the remaining four and figure out what they might be up to. An hour later, he was still thinking the same thing. What could a Russian vaccine designer, an English pain management consultant, a Swiss WHO strategist and an English prosthetic limb controller be collaborating over?
This being her first day away, the arrangement was that Tally would phone when she could because she wasn’t sure how long it would take to be briefed and settle in. Happily, there was only a one-hour time difference between DRC and the UK so that wouldn’t be a factor. The phone rang and Steven snatched it up. It was Scott Jamieson.
‘Steven hid his disappointment and exchanged small talk with Scott before asking, ‘How did you get on with Mrs Pashley?’
‘She’s one of these wives who assume their husband’s status in society should be their own — if he’s a big shot, she thinks she’s a big shot too. I think she feels that half his achievements were down to her.’
‘Is she a medic too?’ Steven asked.
‘No, a primary school teacher.’
‘Mm,’ said Steven, ‘did you learn anything?’
‘I don’t think she knew any more about sudden wealth than Martha Field, but I do think I made some progress.’
‘Really?'
‘I encouraged her to speak about her husband’s work and she was in her element, recounting what “they” had achieved. I suggested that her husband’s expertise must have been in great demand across the globe and she agreed.’
‘Smart move.’
‘She listed a number of countries and organisations that had sought his help. I appeared hugely impressed and suggested that there were probably not enough hours in the day for him to help everyone. How could he possibly choose? She told me that that was exactly the case — so much so that he had had to put his own clinical work on hold to help out with a recent important plea for assistance. I pointed out it must have been a very deserving cause to warrant that and she confided in me. She whispered, “It was an official request from the Russians”. I sat there wide-eyed in admiration and she explained that large numbers of Russian troops had returned from their ill-fated exploits in Afghanistan with limbs missing and they were desperate for help in designing decent artificial limbs. Apparently, Simon met with a “high-level Russian doctor” in London who had made out such a good case that he felt he couldn’t refuse.’