Each Day I Wake: A gripping psychological thriller: US Edition (8 page)

Looking round the room at the start of the day’s morning meeting, Evan Hamilton was more convinced than ever that they were in need of a breakthrough.

It wasn’t that everyone in the team wasn’t working hard. The results just weren’t coming.

He asked everyone to provide an update on progress right from the beginning, without much expectation that something they’d missed would be uncovered, more out of hope that there ought to be some reward for being thorough and systematic.

Jason Blair had the look of exhaustion they’d come to expect of the office lothario. So routine had become his shift from one tryst to another that people had long stopped bothering to comment on the details of his latest conquest.

He’d been looking at the registration details for OAM Securities held at Companies House and failing to make much impression on the labyrinth of concealment he’d found there. “You know, Evan, I don’t believe in dressing things up. So, here are the facts, straight. If you’d set out to establish a company that was impenetrable to an outsider, this is it. OAM Securities is a subsidiary of Declan Holdings, which is a subsidiary of Ronicer Corporation. Declan Holdings is registered in the name of proxies in the British Virgin Islands and Ronicer Corp is registered in the state of Delaware, again with proxies serving as directors. Neither jurisdiction is prepared to reveal anything other than the barest of details. And since OAM itself is privately owned with no shareholders, it publishes no reports. In a word, it’s opaque.”

None of this was news to Hamilton. “You’ve been checking on the US connection?”

Blair nodded. “Our contacts in Delaware are cautious, scared of what might happen if the authorities get to know they’re even talking to us. I’m convinced they’ll deliver useful information on Ronicer, who really runs it and who benefits from it, but they’re going to need time.”

Something else that Hamilton was too used to hearing. “And that’s just what we don’t have.”

He turned to Tim Mason, seated to his right. “Anything on the tax situation, Tim?”

Tim Mason had been one of the first to join the team. In fact the team would not have been brought together if it weren’t for him. He’d delivered a string of scoops when the banking crisis had brought the world economy close to its knees and had been promoted three times on the strength of that. Some said he’d inherited money and didn’t need to come to work but came anyway.

Mason made a great show of shuffling the pile of notes he’d brought with him. This in itself was annoying. Where everyone else had gone digital, Mason preferred to remain a pencil and paper man. When he began to speak, it was clear he was going to take too long to get to the point. “Their tax arrangements are as complex as you’d expect. They’re offshoring in the Cayman Islands and in Bermuda. Governments there are reluctant to give details. It’s against the law for their banks to disclose anything about their clients.”

Hamilton interrupted. “We know that, Tim. Have you found anything untoward? Unless I’m mistaken, that’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?”

“Evan, you did say right from the start.”

“OK, OK. But get to the point.”

Mason looked back over his notes once more. “If we’re talking about wrongdoing, then I have to say that’s going to be hard to prove.”

Hamilton cut in again. “Do they pay tax here?”

“As a company, I’d have to say the answer is no. What they pay is in the Cayman Islands jurisdiction. It’s not more than a few per cent. But you couldn’t say that was illegal. Shady, morally reprehensible but not illegal. Nothing that a growing number of the finance business in London aren’t also involved in.”

“And what about Montague himself? What about his tax arrangements? He lives here. He must pay his taxes here.”

Mason paused to read through his notes again. “Not according to anything I can discover from the Revenue. He’s resident in Jersey and spends less than the maximum allowed number of days here. That means he pays his taxes there. Once again, morally reprehensible but not illegal. There are thousands of high net wealth individuals like him doing just the same.”

“So, I take it we’re not going to get him on what did for Al Capone?”

“Looks unlikely. The tax affairs of OAM and Montague are everything you’d expect.”

Hamilton shrugged. “Yes, we get it. Shady. Morally reprehensible but not illegal.”

Hamilton turned last to Geoff Tunny who’d been listening in silence to what amounted to a catalogue of failure. “Any breakthrough on the investors front, Geoff?”

Tunny shrugged. “At the last count there were sixteen major ways that companies, with the right auditors, can cook the books. Most are in use. Many are regarded as merely questionable rather than illegal. The net effect is that companies that are running at a loss can be made to look profitable. A number are household names. So, to an investor, OAM looks like a good, safe bet. Returns are high, risk is low. The money flows in. The returns flow back to the investors.”

Hamilton could not help interrupting. “But, as we’ve suspected for too long now, Montague knows well how to walk the line between truth and reality.”

“And he could be using a combination of measures to cook the books. He has a willing accountant, after all.”

“Albert Emery. Where do we stand with him?”

Tunny smiled. “I’m sure he’s the weak link. He’s starting to look and sound like a man under pressure.”

“So, what will it take to reel him in?”

“One piece of hard evidence and he’ll crack. The threat of taking that to the police will break him, I’m sure.”

“How soon can we have that?”

It looked for a moment as if Tunny was about to tell the team about the bug he’d planted. “It’s going to mean unconventional means of inquiry.”

Hamilton tried not to show signs of alarm. “No need for the detail, Geoff.”

Tunny smiled. “Indeed. All I need to say is I have reliable information that will show where Emery and Montague are at right now.”

Hamilton prepared to wind up the meeting by giving his own summary. “OK. We’re making progress, but not fast enough. My next meeting with management will be no easier than the last. But I’m determined to keep the investigation going. There’s no one but us to bring Montague down. Everything points to the fact that he went Ponzi over a year ago. We need to find a way into the evidence.” He paused. He didn’t know how the rest of the team would take this. “We need more manpower. I’ve arranged with the Editor-in-Chief for Tom Markland to become a full member of the team, starting this week. He’s been doing well for us while co-opted in from criminal investigation and I’m sure he’ll bring in a fresh perspective once he’s fully inside our team.”

Hamilton looked at their faces as he made the announcement. Only Mason showed any sign of surprise or discontent. Perhaps it could be expected that he would fear being displaced by a newcomer’s arrival.

If the meeting with Brogan had proved anything to Ty Montague it was that the time was fast approaching when he should be getting out of the finance business. The way the security guard was so confident in using the threat of involving the police made it clear that rumors about OAM Securities and the propriety of its business practices were now becoming widespread. It was a warning every bit as emblematic as that given to John D Rockefeller ahead of the Wall Street crash when his shoe shine boy asked him for share tips and, on the strength of that, the millionaire had decided next day to sell all his shares, saving the family fortune. The shoe shine boy effect. When the help gets to know about these things, it’s time to cut and run.

Even if, in this case, what they were saying about OAM was untrue.

As if Tyrone Montague would be seen dead running a Ponzi scheme? Who would fall for such a blatant con these days when so much was known about failed schemes of the past? OAM had over 900 million in investments. Many of its investors were household names – insurance companies, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds. The very mention of Ponzi was an insult to himself, his company and all it stood for.

Who was he fooling? That was the public face he was so successful at maintaining.

In truth, of course, OAM
was
a Ponzi scheme, though it had not started out that way. The first five years had been all sure-fire success, generating the best returns the City had seen in a generation. When the downturn came, when the investments began to fail, there were only two choices. Own up, face bankruptcy and the shame of telling the truth to the investors, many his friends, that all the money had been lost, bringing disaster to some, misery to many. Or, arrange to massage the figures to show that the company was still doing well, to continue paying good returns to all those investors, using the money of new investors, keen to get a slice of the action of such a successful company, to pay the returns to those existing investors, many still his friends. No one needed to know. So long as enough new investment came rolling in.

What would anyone have done? The choice had been clear. If they called that a Ponzi scheme, so be it. Everyone was happy. So long as no one knew.

And now Emery was threatening all that. Albert Emery, the small time accountant that Montague had given everything in exchange for massaging the OAM books. The man who was now stricken with an act of conscience and who was threatening to bring the whole house down.

Emery, the man who had threatened only the day before to go to the press with proof that OAM was a well-disguised scam.

Time to snuff this out.

Montague picked up the phone and speed dialed Mike Quinn.

“We have a problem.”

The voice on the other end of line showed no emotion. “Emery?”

“He needs someone to get him to see sense.”

“Leave it with me.”

Stella DaSilva readied herself.

There were times when life had been hard, when she’d done things that she would never have imagined, but this was worse.

He was coming to see her again.

The one she knew who had killed and, she was sure, would kill again.

Strange to think that to the outside world he was respectable, unremarkable, a pillar of society, even. Here in this darkest of dark places the animal beneath that untarnished outer skin was about to reveal itself once more.

She’d thought of running away. That wouldn’t help her. He’d find her and kill her. And, in any case she was tied to him by more than chains.

She’d thought of pleading with him to not see her any more. That wouldn’t help either. He’d told her more than once in that cultured voice of his that he was besotted with her. And she needed him as much as he needed her.

Thinking back, it was a mistake to have done nothing when he confessed the first of his murders to her. She didn’t know if what he was saying was real or if it was just a story he’d invented to scare her and give a cutting edge to what they did together. When, the second time he confessed to her, he provided detail – so much detail – she began to wonder if what he was telling her could indeed be true after all. The girl, her name, where he’d first seen her, where he took her, how he took her, the precise sexual details, how he killed her and buried her. When he told her about his second and third victims in the same detail, she was even more convinced that what he was telling her could be real.

Her client was a killer.

He had killed and would kill again.

When she first met him she was attracted to him. That was the mistake she regretted now with all her heart. He was so likable, so respectful, so different from most of her clients.

To be honest, for a short while, she’d fallen head over heels for him. To be honest, she still loved him in some way she knew she could never shake.

Even when their pillow talk, as he would call it, turned to what she convinced herself were his fantasies about killing young women.

And even if she did consider telling someone, he could always demonstrate his power over her because he had made it impossible for her to go to the police.

She depended on him.

More than she could say. More than she would admit to anyone, more than she could admit to herself.

He was the one who provided her with the heroin that fed her habit.

The real thing that had kept her sane when she did what she had to do in this life in which she found herself.

She shivered.

She thought of the John Lennon song.
Cold Turkey
. Yes, it had her on the run.

She hated herself for being this weak but she knew she would never be able to tell anyone about those girls.

There were times when the way he looked at her made her think she might be next.

But the only thing that mattered now was that he’d soon be here bringing her next fix with him.

He gave a false name when making the appointment.

Didn’t everyone?

Marshall Brogan
wouldn’t do. Not for booking a date through Diamond Escorts.

He chose Daniel Gillespie. It had the right ring to it, somehow.

They showed surprise when he wanted to be specific. Why would only Stella DaSilva do? The Agency discouraged repeat dates. That was regarded as inappropriate when it was made clear from the start that the escorts were not allowed to enter into relationships. Why wouldn’t he accept their suggestion?

When he told them his was not a repeat date, the authoritative sounding woman on the other end of the line wanted to know where, then, had he learned of Stella?

Brogan took a chance and told her it was a recommendation. When he was asked who had given it, he took another chance and said it was Tyrone Montague.

There were no more questions. He was offered a choice of days when Stella would be free. He chose the first one available and here he was in a hired suit waiting for her in the lounge of the Richards Hotel, feeling nervous, looking at his watch, trying to play down the churning nausea in his stomach that told him that after all these years he was at last to make contact with his sister.

He looked down as she approached so she would not see his face and have the chance to run away before he could speak to her.

As she came near and sat opposite him, he raised his head and looked at her for the first time. He could see what the men who used the Agency saw in her. She was, by any account, a woman of real beauty. Raven black hair. Bright, shining eyes. Slim, not too thin.

Della started when she saw him and began to get up in order to leave.

He reached forward and took hold of her wrist. “Della, I’d given up hope that I’d ever find you. And here you are, in London all the time.”

She tried to pull away. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”

He tried to calm her by making her smile. “You know I could really fancy you if you weren’t my sister.”

She didn’t smile. “How did you find me?”

“Does it matter?”

“I need to know.”

“Tyrone Montague.”

“Now, why would he tell you about me?”

“Let’s say I tricked him. What does it matter now? We’re together. I’ve found you.”

She breathed deeply. “How much did you pay for the privilege?”

“The usual rate.”

“You must think badly of me. Knowing what I do.”

Brogan shook his head. “I could never think ill of you, sis. We’ve both had to survive. I’m none too proud of where I’ve been and what I’ve done.”

As he paused, he could see tears forming in her eyes. She reached for a tissue from the small dress bag she carried and used it to prevent her eyeliner running.

When they began to talk, the words came rushing out and resonated between them as if they’d never been apart. He told her about the homes he’d suffered through, his time in prison, life on the boats, the places he’d seen around the world.

She asked questions without passing judgment. “You were angry?”

Brogan nodded. “Doesn’t matter how you describe it. I thought what happened to us was bad luck but the more I saw, the more places I visited and the more people I talked with, the more I realized that what happened was nothing more than par for the course. What happens to a million and one people every day on this god-forsaken world we’ve made for ourselves. Built brick by brick with our own hands. It made me bitter. And more angry than I could ever tell.”

“But you’re less bitter now.”

“How could I be now I’m here with you?”

He sat beside her on the couch and held her. He kissed her on the forehead. “I give you a promise. On our father’s grave. Nothing’s going to come between us again.”

She pulled away. “Marshall, you need to know the kind of woman I’ve become. What’s the good in reminding me of those times in Nottingham when the whole world was so different. I’ve had to put those days behind me.”

He tried not to show any distaste for what she was about to tell him. “I don’t need to know, sis. I just want to help you find a way to make a fresh start. I don’t have much but all I have is yours.”

She gave him a look he would never forget. It was the look of bravado concealing despair and it chilled him to the bone. “You’re not trying to reform me, are you? Just like all those well-meaning jerks I’ve had to fight my way past half my life?”

“I only want to help.”

Her eyes were flaming now. “Who says I need help? Who says I don’t enjoy this life I lead?”

“With men like Montague?”

“He’s good to me. Without him I’d still be on the street.”

“You’ll never be able to trust a man like that. He’ll use you and dump you once it suits him.”

“I’ll take my chance.”

Brogan knew he was in danger of losing her. He shouldn’t have come on so strong. It was time to apologize. “I didn’t mean to pass judgment. Let’s accept each other for what we are.”

She looked doubtful but relieved. “OK, brother, I’ll take you at your word. But criticize me and the people I choose to be with at your peril. Do that and the deal is off. Understand?”

He didn’t like this but he knew he must accept it. “OK. Let’s start all over again.”

They went upstairs to the hotel room and sat and talked through the night.

They recalled hot summer evenings playing in the fields at the rear of their parents’ house. Climbing the Bash Tree, jumping to the ground with the other children, pledging their lives together forever as blood brothers and sisters.