CHAPTER 57
The Wallingford house was left as a crime scene and Ritchie was driven, with his father, to the Easy Trading warehouse where a search was ongoing. This was no ordinary Customs and Excise inspection. When Ritchie arrived, the nondescript building, on a well-known, local trading estate was taped off and surrounded by police and customs vehicles.
Keith Nolan was waved through the barricade and met by a senior fraud officer. “My son, Ritchie,” Nolan said. “Ritchie, meet the SFO’s Chief Operating Officer, Steve Bryan.”
The officer smiled at Ritchie. “How was Bangkok?”
Ritchie first looked at his father. “OK,” he said, “I’d go back if required.”
“What have we got, Steve?” Keith Nolan asked.
“So far? Twenty drums labelled ‘Coconut Oil Produce of Indonesia’. Talcum powder which we suspect is not talcum powder. A hundred or more boxes of Calvin Klein men’s underwear which might or might not be genuine and a filing cabinet of invoices and other paperwork that will take time to go through.”
“Any tea and coffee?” Ritchie asked.
“A rack full. Ceiling high. Is it genuine tea and coffee?
“Some is probably not. What about cosmetics?”
“Lots of plastic bottles of unlabelled hand creams and shampoos.”
“Anything labelled Vital Cosmetics?”
“In the ‘goods in’ area. More boxes.”
“They’ll need analysing and may not tally with items coming from the Vital factory in Oxford,” Ritchie said. “I think they’re mixing fake imported with genuine. When Professor Higgins returns, we’ll ask him to check.”
“And the staff here?” Keith Nolan asked.
“All seven have been taken to Oxford for questioning. At least some of them must have been aware of what was going on. Lester could not have been doing it alone.
“And the other directors?” Ritchie asked.
“Patience, Ritchie,” said his father. “Unless Lester has told them something – and we’ve been monitoring his calls - they may know nothing. We need to talk to Kathrine Johnson. Colin Asher will break the news. He met her earlier today. And Mark’s been watching everything live via a satellite link. He’ll tell Isobel Johnson. You could have waved to him when you came out of the house with Olga and Novak.”
Mark had seen enough. He and Eddie had watched the ambulance come and go and nothing more was happening at the Wallingford house. He switched the link off and called Colin direct on the phone.
“We need to involve Singapore,” he said. “Some on the Malaysian side have just gone over the bridge.”
“We’re waiting on something right now,” Colin replied. “You remember the note Pascale found in Trieste? The instruction signed by Medinski to someone called Oreshkin to transfer 835,000 dollars to a Bangkok Bank Singapore account? Ching has contacts in the Police Commissioner’s office from when she worked there and if Jeffrey pushed the Malaysian police and threw in names of some of those wanted by Singaporean police for several years - and Maxim Novalk is one – I guarantee we’ll get action.”
It was 4am and Eddie was still listening in. “I’ll do it,” he said. “I owe Datuk Abdu Rahim bin Hassan a favour for not charging me.”
Mark wondered if that made sense but then handed him his phone. “There you go Eddie. Give him a call. Wake him up. I’ve got things to do.”