The richest judge us, yet thrive from our own existence. Well, no more.
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Alex King looked back at the house. It was more of a compound, really. Or a Beverly Hills style estate. The house had been designed on three levels, each one looking out onto a terrace, with the swimming pool and patio on the top level and the lower floors each opening out to well-tended gardens. The entire plot was walled, although the details of the property indicated that it was set inside a further fifty-acres of Cornish countryside. It was prime real estate, on the Roseland Peninsular. A finger of land protruding from the south coast of Cornwall with a tidal river and large body of water on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other. It was an area with less population per acre than much of the country and rolling hills of lush farmland and patches of woodland. To King, it didn’t have the same feel as the rest of the county and reminded him of Wiltshire or Hampshire. There wasn’t the bleakness of the north Cornwall coast, or the granite to the west of the country and the harsh moorland to the east.
He glanced back at the house behind him. This one was more low-key. In keeping with the setting, but still worth way north of a million. The three doors, equidistant to each other along the front façade of the building, were indeed six-feet-six-inches high. He imagined the owners frowning over the Beverly Hills style ‘McMansion’ across from them. Imagined some period granite farmhouse getting demolished in favour of the California treatment with white-wash, accentuating red brick, glass and Perspex and chrome, patios and pools, hot-tubs and a gymnasium. He doubted the owners of this period house had lodged a complaint. Too refined to object. Poor show.
King could see the helicopter landing pad beyond the California house with the black Sikorsky in the centre. He guessed the pilot was now out of a job, as were the five rugby-player back row bodyguards wearing ill-fitting suits over musclebound frames.
There were two vehicles parked at the farmhouse. A Range Rover and an Audi. Both were new and expensive. He had seen an Audi dealership on the drive in from Newquay airport. The Range Rover had a dealer’s sticker in the window whose address was Truro. It looked like the owners of the farmhouse were keeping it local. He had also noticed the dead man’s cars at the California house. British, American, German and Italian-made exotica, gleaming in their underground garage. There weren’t any of those high-end car dealerships in Cornwall, he was sure about that.
He had earlier read a dossier, hastily put together at Thames House. Sir Ian Snell (OBE), owned fourteen homes around the world. Each was equipped with his favourite cars, and identical helicopter. Fourteen helicopters, although he doubted there was a helicopter and the necessary landing pad at his property in Chelsea, so maybe this was an exaggeration. Even so, thirteen helicopters were still a squadron more than some country’s armed forces could muster. Each helicopter was assigned a pilot earning over one-hundred-thousand pounds a year. Ian Snell wanted the best, and he paid for it too. These pilots were on retainers. King doubted half of them flew for Snell each year. The aircraft would still need regular flying, regardless if nobody needed to be taxied to meetings or events. A pilot’s dream. These pilots must have felt like rock stars. And then there was the security factor. Snell employed a private company with access to somewhere between thirty and fifty security personnel. From security advance parties (SAP) to personal bodyguards, chauffeurs, static guards and even intelligence analysts. Many were former special forces, all were ex-military men and women. Ironically, Snell felt safest in Britain, and because of the country’s stringent firearm laws and his security’s inability to carry weapons of any type, his security detail was always kept low-key. When in Britain, he chose not to make his whereabouts public, and never worked to a schedule. Not only that, but he had always felt he could take a step back, lower the order by which he functioned in the rest of the world. And as he felt safer in Britain than anywhere else, did not need the security detail worthy of a US president. It wasn’t a cost-saving exercise, merely one of practicality. Money was never an option.
Snell’s wealth did not end there. He owned the third largest, and second most expensive yacht in the world. It sailed constantly, changing course in keeping with his ever-changing schedule. It was now steaming towards Falmouth from Monaco, manned by a full-time crew of twenty. It was equipped with a landing pad on board, along with a full-time helicopter and pilot. King supposed this was number fourteen. Thames House must have been correct after all.
Behind every multibillionaire man was a special kind of woman, and Snell had been no different. King had once read in a newspaper that Sir Ian Snell’s Russian wife had thrown a quarter of a million-pounds worth of glassware and crockery overboard this behemoth yacht because she wanted some by another design house. King mused that she was a self-made woman in her own right, owning a fashion business and design studio in
