I cannot allow my legacy and the love of my wife to be destroyed by unfettered greed. That is all. Gilbert Lawrence.
Chapter 9
Ralph Lawrence rarely regretted any decisions that he had made in his life. He was a man with an unrelenting belief that life was what you made it, and luck had nothing to do with it.
As he sat on the chair in the back room of a disused warehouse in the east end of London, he was beginning to regret his philosophy. He had returned to England primarily because the Spanish authorities wanted him out of their country, but secondly because his father had died.
Not that he had felt any sadness. On the contrary, the man’s death, tinged with intrigue about how he died, gave him the best hope for the future. Yet now he was in trouble, and he knew it was not going to be so easy. The man sitting opposite him in the seedy back room that smelt of damp and decay was not likely to be swayed by smooth words.
‘Lawrence, I staked you money for your venture in the sun. Where is it?’ Gary Frost said.
‘I need time. There’s been a problem,’ Ralph said. On either side of him were two men who looked as though they were used to beating people for a living.
‘Gilbert Lawrence, a relative of yours?’ Frost said. He was a small man, quietly spoken. He was dressed in a navy-blue suit, a red tie, and a white shirt. He looked like a banker, and that was what he was: the banker of last resort.
Ralph had done the sums. The cost to set up the scam in Spain was more than four hundred thousand pounds. No use skimping on a cheap website, and then there were the advertisements, and transferring the money overseas, and the bribes, a lot of money in themselves. His Spanish partner, another charmer, still languished in a cell in Spain. He had also borrowed money, and it had been going well. They had managed to sucker over one and a half million out of the tourists, another two million to be followed up on. And the money was not there. Lawrence was not sure why, although he suspected the bribes they had been paying hadn’t been enough. No doubt his Spanish partner would be making a deal to get himself out of jail.
One of the men standing over Ralph grabbed hold of his shoulder, almost lifted him out of the chair. ‘You never answered the boss’s question.’
‘He was my father.’
‘Then why are we here having this unpleasantness,’ Frost said. ‘Let go of Mr Lawrence. He is our honoured guest. And what is four hundred thousand? How much was your father worth?’
‘Somewhere close to seven hundred million pounds, probably more.’
‘And your share?’
‘It’ll take time to realise on his money, but it should be three hundred million pounds.’
‘Why didn’t you tell us before? I was prepared to let my boys go to work on you. You know what that would have meant?’
Ralph flexed his legs, imagining the pain of a low-velocity bullet penetrating his kneecaps. ‘It may take time to get the money.’
‘What does it matter. We can wait. Six weeks, is that long enough for you?’
‘It is,’ Ralph said, hoping that it was long enough to get out of the country.
‘Give our guest a whisky,’ Frost said.
One of the heavies poured the drink and gave it to Ralph. The man now receiving the VIP treatment was shaking so much he was barely able to hold it.
‘I’m a reasonable man. It’s only business, you know that.’
Lawrence knew it wasn’t. It was sheer desperation on his part that had led him into the clutches of the loan shark. He was shaking now because he had just been saved from a savage beating, and his kneecaps possibly being shattered. He knew that once he was free of Frost and his men, he would be shaking until he had distanced himself from them. But what to do for money: he had none.
***
Caroline Dickson realised that her father had made a strategic error. A possible indication that the man had been slipping in his later years. It would have been understandable, given his advancing years and his morbid account as to what he had done to her mother, and how he had kept her in her room. She could imagine him up there with her, discussing business, updating her on the economy and what was outside, and how she was better off where she was.
Ralph may be a fool, and his outburst when the will had been read had not endeared him to anyone, but Caroline knew that the brother she had not seen for eight years had been right. Their father had been mad, but the medical and psychoanalytical reports showed clearly that the checks had been conducted correctly, and her father’s responses had been above average. How could that be? Caroline thought. Do I want to rock the boat?
She knew she had voting rights, and as a direct descendant of the dead man she had precedence over Dundas, but the man and his daughter had control. She had had to look up where the Marshall Islands were, as there were five million two hundred and fifty-nine thousand dollars in an investment fund there. The Cayman Islands she knew, as well as Cyprus and Mauritius. She needed the
