CHAPTER 46
Sannan, working in his usual Russian bar in Pattaya, brought Mark Dobson a bill for his bottle of green Fanta at 11pm, said he was finished for the night and would wait outside.
Half an hour layer Mark and Sannan were standing within sight of the villa on Pratamnak Hill, where Sannan had been less than twenty for hours before. The white Toyota Camry had gone so someone now knew its driver had absconded with a complete set of car and house keys. Was anyone already inside, waiting? They needed to know.
The ornate metal gate to the villa was typical of the area – a sliding one with a call button next to a post box. Sannan made the move. Mark, sitting astride the motorbike on the street corner, watched him approach the gate and press the call button. Then he returned.
“There’s a Thai woman inside,” Sannan reported. “Probably the maid. She was asleep. I think she’s alone. I told her I’d made a mistake. Wrong villa. What now?”
“We go in anyway.”
They went around the back and found the usual pile of concrete rubble that Thai builders always left behind as a parting gift. Sannan used it to skim the six-foot-high wall. Dobson followed. A dim light shone behind vertical blinds in one of the back rooms. They moved to the front and, using the driver’s bunch of keys, quietly opened the front door. There was no noise, no deathly scream, but the alarm was flashing. Sannan pressed the security numbers and the flashing stopped. Sannan pointed to the faint light that shone beneath the door to the rear, walked over, opened the door and shone his torch. There was a faint squeal as the woman resigned herself to rape or death and then it went quiet.
Mark, following behind, looked in through the door. Sannan had stuffed a pillow over the woman’s mouth and was tying her to a bar on the window with his belt. “Right,” he said. “I need to talk to her.”
“Go ahead,” Mark said.
Sannan knelt down before her, shone the torch on his fake Thai Police card and started talking in Thai. Her wide, frightened eyes slowly grew less wide and she started to nod her head. Then he slowly undid the belt, removed the pillow case and she stared at Mark Dobson.
Dobson knew that the sudden appearance of a farang in suspicious circumstances could have one of two effects on Thais – either they were utterly respectful and courteous or so scared they shot you. Whatever it was Sannan said – and Dobson suspected it was threat of arrest - this one was courteous. She stood, put her hands together before her face and bowed her head respectfully. She still looked nervous but they had her full co-operation. Sannan translated.
“Her name is Noi. Chu, the Toyota driver is her part-time boyfriend. Olga and a Russian man were here this afternoon. They took the Toyota. Olga was angry. She wanted to know where Chu was but Noi didn’t know. Officially, Noi is housekeeper. Russians come most days but never stay long. They only use the room that is locked. Noi doesn’t have a key for that room. She’s now nervous because she thinks she’ll be arrested for not having the key. I told her it’s no problem. I was in there last night. Now she’s smiling. See? Thais smile a lot. She likes you.”
“Good. Ask her which of the Russians come here.”
“Olga, Yuri and Dimi.”
Dobson assumed Dimi was Medinski. “Any others?”
“She has seen several other Russians and other farangs, not Russian. She doesn’t know their names or where they came from.”
Dobson produced some photos on his phone and she picked out Enzo and Peter Lester. “Ok, let’s get started,” he said. “And Noi is a witness. We need to protect her.”
It was past 4am when they’d finished. Noi sat and watched. They cleaned up, locked the room, reset the alarm and locked the front door and gate. Sannan gave Noi enough cash to join Chu in Chiang Mai if she wanted to. Then he photographed her ID card, put her on the back of the motor bike and took her to the bus station. Mark took a taxi back towards Bangkok.
It was 5.30am when he woke the manager of the Bangwua Garden Resort at Bang Pakong to check in and wait for Sannan to join him. On the bed beside him in the dismal little room were three, full 7-Eleven plastic bags. It would take a while to sort them out but he already knew they’d hit the jackpot. Add that to Colin’s hacking of the warehouse computer and whatever Jeffrey found out they would need to move fast. As he’d warned Ritchie, Eddie and Isobel, tipped off and scared, the key players would just disappear into the ether.
There was one unexpected and big advantage, though: Eddie’s detention at the airport and what already looked like co-operation with the Malay police. To get the Thai police involved would only take a call from Sannan. Mark called Colin Asher.
“What have you got?” Colin asked.
“Evidence of a credit card factory - a few blank and stolen credit cards, photos of a thermal printer and holograms. We couldn’t carry the safe away but I photographed the contents: gold ingots and jewellery. We’ve got a ring binder with information inside on numbered bank accounts in nearly every offshore island you can name together with access codes. I suppose such things can’t be entirely left to one person’s memory so why not keep them in kid’s writing in a Winnie the Pooh folder in a barely used villa with swimming pool in Pattaya?
“Nice. But they’ll soon know it’s gone. Anything else?”
“Russian passports in several different names including two with photos inside that I swear look like Olga.”
“Anything else?”
“Invoices to Vital Cosmetics, Oxford from PJ Beauty Supplies in KL Invoices to Bio-Kal in Naples from Sara Enterprise, Bangkok. Invoices to Scatolifici Santo - which we think is SCAZ - in Trieste. And invoices to fifty or more other unknown businesses from Hong Kong and Taiwan to France, Holland and everywhere in the Middle East. It is probably false invoicing linked to money laundering, but we need help on what genuine prices should look like. And I’m still puzzling over the narcotics side.”
Colin Asher paused, thinking. “Where’s Eddie?”
“He and Isobel are now friends with the Director of the Commercial Crimes Investigation Department.,”
“Good move. And Jeffrey?”
“About to play back the contents of two bugs.” Mark said. “And you, Colin? The last time we spoke you were going out for some overdue exercise.”
“Ah,” Colin said, “I’m glad you asked. Your stuff is OK and no more than I’d expect from someone on your salary. Mine, on the other hand, is earth shattering.”
Despite the hour, Mark couldn’t help smiling at Colin’s enthusiasm. “Do you want to share it?”
“You remember we decided to abandon investigating KRJ Capital as it looked complicated and perhaps irrelevant? Well, looking inside Peter Lester’s home computer has made it a damned sight more relevant. Lester the Jester has other business in as many offshore places as your Russian friends. His wife’s KRJ Capital use one of them for their own purposes but Mr Lester has been branching out on his own. He has a company called Parklands Capital which has only one other co-director we can identify. Guess who? It’s one of the KRJ directors, the Italian, Maria Benelli. And when we explore that one, guess what? Maria Benelli is a director of Scatolifici Santo – which you think is SCAZ. And, wait for it, Maria Benelli is Enzo’s cousin. And Maria Benelli has another offshore company with a Russian called Maxim Novak and another with Valeri Pavlyuchenko. It’s incestuous. And who is Ritchie calling as soon as he turns up for work following his holiday in Bangkok? Maxim Novak.”
“Has Ritchie arrived?” Mark asked, having lost track of time.
“Some hours ago. I told him to take a nap and be here at seven in the morning. It’s now nearly midnight.” He paused, “But I haven’t finished telling you about Lester the Jester yet.”
“Go on. What else?”
“He’s on medication. Depression. Anxiety. Stress.”
“It’s probably irrelevant.”
“Wasn’t KRJ once irrelevant?”
“True.”
“And then there are letters I found on Lester’s computer that come and go from your solicitor friend Garland and McCready of St Aldgate’s in Oxford. They appear to be acting on behalf of Isobel’s sister, Kathrine Elizabeth Johnson and concern divorce proceedings against Peter Lester. Would that not make you feel a bit stressed?”
“It certainly wouldn’t improve them,” Mark admitted. “I’m always so surprised how complicated other people’s lives are.”
“I know what you mean,” Colin replied with a sudden seriousness that displaced all the previous enthusiasm. “I saw my ex by accident yesterday. She’s put on a hell of a lot of weight.”
Mark smiled to himself but said nothing, which, perhaps, was a pity considering Colin’s next comment. “By the way, I’m meeting Keith for lunch.”
“Keith? Keith Nolan? Ritchie’s dad? SIS Keith? For lunch? How did Keith get approval to take lunch with someone from the private sector? Who’s paying?”
“Don’t be petty,” Colin replied. “The important thing to ask is why.”
“OK. Why?”
“Keith’s working with both the NCA, the National Crime Agency and the SFO, the Serious Fraud Office.”
That surprised Mark. “Both? How convenient,” he said. “Our own Ritchie, cool and dark as the night on the front line with his father, his mentor in the back office.”
“Not so much back office, Mark. He’s out and about, suave and debonair. with a team of hero-worshipping bag-carriers. We live in seriously enlightened times. The first black James Bonds are not just around the corner but here right now in person. What a good movie that would make.”
“And serious competition, Colin. Should we change our name? James Bond and Associates is a lot more eye-catching than Asher & Asher.