CHAPTER 2
Colin Asher often ate his lunch with his feet on his office desk. For the eighteen hours or so he spent staring at his bank of computers each day, putting his feet up for ten minutes felt like home, but the arrival of the Pret a Manger takeaway next door to the office on Edgware Road had been a disaster for Asher’s waistline.
On the morning Eddie had called, it had been an egg and cress sandwich. “Asher and Asher,” he’d said with his mouth full. “Who am I speaking to, please?”
“At this stage, it’s an enquiry,” the voice said.
“We all have to start somewhere,” he replied. “How may I help you?”
You’re calling Asher and Asher. We’re international commercial crime investigators and I’m Colin Asher. How may I help?”
“I was given this number by a friend. I understand you are a sort of private investigator.”
“In a way that’s true but there’s nothing ordinary about Asher and Asher, sir.”
“That is what I was told. I’m calling from Oxford University.”
“You’re a student?” Colin asked although, to be fair, the caller hadn’t sounded like a student. “A mature one perhaps?”
“Mature is one way of describing me.”
“Nevertheless, a name would get us started.”
“Huggy. Will that do for now?”
“Huggy?” Asher repeated as if unsure if he’d heard correctly.
“I’m a little unfamiliar with your type of business. It sounds unusual. You understand?”
“The learning curve has to start somewhere, Mr Huggy and as I said there’s nothing ordinary about Asher and Asher. International commercial crime, fraud and similar misdemeanours is our speciality. If it’s a simple domestic matter I can refer you to a friend. What’s the problem?”
Eddie had paused to reconsider his approach. It was such a long pause that Colin Asher wondered if he’d gone. Then: “I suppose I should be frank. Mr Asher. I’m not a student. My name is Edward Higgins, often referred to as Eddie, sometimes known as Huggy. More formally I’m professor of tropical plant science and head of the mycology research centre at Oxford.”
“Head of what, sir?”
“Mycology, Mr Asher. Fungi to you. The study of those millions of essential living things that inhabit the air you breathe, the water you drink, the soil beneath your feet and thrive on human detritus and other decaying matter to keep both you and the rest of the planet alive and in a relatively healthy state.”
“Ah, like the blue fluffy stuff on an old sandwich.”
“That would probably be a type of Penicillium, Mr Asher. Without which and the keen observations of Alexander Fleming, you probably would not have survived much beyond childhood let alone long enough to enjoy your sandwich. Be eternally grateful for blue moulds.”
“Righty ho,” Asher replied wondering how the caller knew he was eating a sandwich. He tossed the remains of it in the bin. “So how can I help you, Professor Higgins?”
“Cosmetics industry, Mr Asher. Health drinks industry. Scandalous businesses that rely on false promises and human weakness for their very existence. But I’ve been acting – after some arm-twisting I admit - as a scientific adviser to one such business. There are things that concern me.”
“Would you like to elaborate?”
“You operate over open phone lines, Mr Asher? I assumed you’d provide a certain amount of confidentiality.”
“We do, sir,” Colin Asher replied. He coughed and then removed his feet from the table. “We normally advise face to face discussions at all stages. I like to get a feel for the problem before arranging one.”
Eddie decided he’d been a little frivolous calling himself Huggy but he’d never had to engage the services of a private investigator before, let alone one specialising in international commercial crime. “Well, that’s good to hear,” he said. “I’m not a businessman of course but I could list a few things, if you like.”
“Go ahead.” Asher said taking a deep breath and already regretting throwing his sandwich away.
“Insufficient and inaccurate labelling of cosmetics, use of uncontrolled substances in skin preparations, the ludicrous inclusion of unnatural and unhealthy ingredients in so-called health drinks. Dubious origins of imported raw materials and semi-finished product. The repackaging and re-labelling of same. Exaggerated claims, impossible claims and utterly false claims. I could go on. Is this the sort of thing you deal with?”
“Counterfeiting is a particular speciality of ours, Professor. What you describe is not dissimilar. Do you have evidence to back up your concerns?”
Despite the south London accent he was hearing Eddie’s confidence was slowly rising. Evidence was also what good science depended on.
“I’m a scientist with access to world class laboratory facilities, Mr Asher. I’m also capable of distinguishing between the well-researched, well-tested and properly approved pharmaceutical products you get with a prescription and products sold freely over the counter at extortionate prices that make claims to impossible miracles. I’ll give you an example. The claim to stop the ageing process in its tracks, remove all wrinkles and return you to a form of beauty you only dream about or see advertised in glossy magazines. Am I making my point?”
“Very clearly, sir. You say you are an adviser to one such company?”
“A local, Oxford-based company called Vital Cosmetics. Arm-twisted as I said and, fortunately, not required to waste too much time on it. I’m their token real scientist, Mr Asher, useful to mention now and then whenever it suits them. But I have to admit that I thought at the time of my appointment it might prove useful in getting to know how these businesses operate.”
“You have strong opinions about such business, professor?”
“Which I could continue to expound on if you so wished.”
“Perhaps later. But we’d still need evidence.”
“South East Asia,” Eddie said without hesitation. “I’m a frequent visitor.”
“OK,” Colin said slowly. “Can you explain just a little more?”
“Field trips, looking for naturally occurring, biologically active compounds that might have some use as fungicides, insecticides and so on.”
That may not have been enough but Colin settled for patience. “Are you successful?”
“It takes time,” Eddie said. “The hunting, the finding, the sampling, the testing. Then someone comes along and undermines it all. They hear about a scientific paper suggesting a possible active ingredient from, say the nuts and bark of a subspecies of a krabok tree growing in a protected forest in northern Thailand and before you know it, another untested, unproved product is on the market as a miracle cure with little or no scientific evidence to support it.”
“That must be frustrating,” he commiserated.
“And Vital Cosmetics have some staff that I find are - what shall I say? - unprofessional, Mr Asher.”
“Evidence again?”
“Cutting of corners on quality control, deliberately overlooking sound evidence that ingredients don’t work.”
“It’s commercial pressure. Not unknown I’m afraid.”
“Directors with close links to Asian producers of similar products.”
“It happens.”
“One of the Asian businesses has links to Russian criminal gangs.”
“You sure of that?”
“I ran a few checks of my own, Mr Asher.”
“I see. Anything else?”
“There’s plenty more, but do you see why I’m calling you? Because I can tell you, Mr Asher, it’s not just the cosmetics industry that concerns me. The health foods and energy drinks firms are just the same, aided and abetted by the supermarkets and High Street chains of course.”
That last comment triggered something with Colin Asher. One of their current clients was a Taiwanese company struggling with counterfeit energy drinks. “You hold some strong opinions about these businesses I see, Professor.”
“Different viewpoints are essential if we are to evolve into better animals, Mr Asher.”
Colin Asher took a breath. “Then perhaps a face to face might be useful. As it happens my partner has just left on a business trip to Taiwan and Malaysia. We’re extremely busy at present but I’ll ask Mark to call you when he returns. Mark Dobson’s the field man. I just sit in the office and twiddle the knobs of a bank of computers. Would that suit you, Professor?”
“I hope it won’t be too long.”
“About a week or so. Would that be acceptable?”
“I suppose I’ll have to wait. Meanwhile, thank you. Call me Eddie.”