GoodBye Morality Page 2

  Paul welcomed this promising new customer and made the usual enquiries about his background and current ventures, learning that Aaron was a Polish Jew who for the last thirty years had made his home in Paris, Rome and London. His firm, Nicholstein’s Developments, was a property company with considerable experience in green field sites and redevelopment work.

  ‘I have just two associates Steve Chaplin and Robert Crane – young, keen, hungry, with good practical backgrounds. I take care of the money end, Steve’s background is quantity surveying, and Robert’s our marketing genius.

  ‘For the time being I will just leave the money in your good hands. Place it in a holding account with good interest. It’s up to you.’ Nicholstein was evidently not in any hurry.

  ‘We have found a fantastic new site in Camden: an old brewery with water frontage, close to the High Street,’ he told Paul with obvious excitement two months later. ‘We envisage a fashionable warehouse conversion, thirty units, all shells – apart from the show flat to pull the customers in.

  All the light and space of a Thameside conversion with none of that endless schlepping through the East End. Can’t fail!’

  A loan application followed for the warehouse development. As security Aaron proposed both his own house in St. George’s Hill, Weybridge, which the bank’s surveyor estimated to be worth £2 million with only a small mortgage outstanding, plus the warehouse site in Camden. The loan was approved and the development went like clockwork, all units being sold within three weeks of the opening of the show flat.

  After a few months Paul was approached again by Nicholstein’s for help financing a development near Marbella, and the bank’s Spanish branch was brought in to oversee the legal work and securities though the kudos for the new business remained Paul’s.

  This time Nicholstein’s was handling the construction of a residential marina development. Paul took several trips over to check on the project, usually managing to spend an enjoyable afternoon at a local golf club afterwards. It was after one of these rounds, as he and his client relaxed over drinks and the dinner menu, that Aaron made his next proposal.

  ‘I’ve got something in mind, Paulie. I just hope you won’t be offended... The show flat at the Marina – in a couple of months it’ll have served its purpose and the boys and I were wondering whether you’d like to take it off our hands? I mean, strictly kosher of course. Wouldn’t want to put you in schtuck with the bank, would we? But the company’s made a killing on this development, as you very well know, and we can afford to be obliging to our friends. If we can continue to have the use of the flat for the next couple of months, or until the last one is sold, we thought thirty thou’ – no deposit, ten years’ repayment, easy terms.’

  ‘But that’s not enough! The cheapest flat at the development’s going for fifty thousand,’ Paul protested.

  Aaron puffed his cheroot and for a moment thick blue smoke obscured his smiling face and keen black eyes. He said nothing.

  It was a decisive moment for Paul. Until then it had been strictly a banker‑client relationship between them, but he realised that if he accepted this inducement, then somewhere along the line a favour would be asked. Could he grant it and still come up smelling of roses with the bank?

  As if he could read Paul’s mind, Aaron hastened to reassure him: ‘This is strictly a private arrangement, naturally. No need for BCCI to hear of it. Use a company to buy it in. And speaking of the bank, I’ve a new proposal that your loan’s committee will jump at. A golf course in Surrey...’

  So far as BCCI went, Nicholstein’s Developments never put a foot wrong. For each proposal they submitted, they always provided a detailed financial forecast from top‑notch accountants, supported by a legal assessment from a reputable City solicitor. The golf course was rubber stamped and shortly afterwards Aaron told Paul that someone important desperately wanted to buy a two‑bedroom marina flat, and was willing to offer £80,000 for one just like Paul’s... Maybe he could help them out? The sale was speedily concluded with Aaron acting as intermediary. When he handed over the cheque, drawn on a Gibraltar bank, he suggested that Paul might like to invest in Nicholstein’s for a short period.

  It was strictly outside the bank’s code of practice for Paul to invest his own money with a client – but the company was doing so well, and no one was in a better position to appreciate that than Paul himself, who was one of the few people allowed to see the company’s internal monthly management accounts. With an inward qualm, he invested £40,000 with Nicholstein’s and banked the remaining £10,000 in a Spanish company account. His investment doubled in value in six months, whereupon he agreed to sink £90,000 into a shopping mall that the company was developing in Birmingham. The proceeds from that were such that his Spanish bank account was swiftly joined by others in Switzerland, America and the Cayman Islands, and when asked, Paul obligingly helped Aaron, Steve and Robert bank some of their profits out of the country too.

  By now Nicholstein’s borrowing amounted to £6 million. For helping to arrange the latest tranche, Paul personally received a sweetener of £150,000. He bought another flat in Spain, installed a pool and expensive conservatory in his otherwise modest suburban Virginia Water home – he couldn’t move, it would be too obvious – and banked the rest abroad.

  It seemed to him that the good times would just roll and roll...

  And then, over lunch one day, Aaron asked him to help push through a top up of £1 million on the latest Spanish hotel development. There was some legal hold up on the site; a charge registered on it had turned up out of the blue despite BCCI’s Spanish branch supposedly checking it out. It had to be paid off right away, before construction could continue. The loan was sanctioned the same on a full guarantee from Nicholstein’s. Aaron’s house was mortgage free and valued at £3.5 million. No problem.

  Three days later Aaron called Paul and asked him to come to Nicholstein’s office that afternoon.

  Paul had visited the exclusive offices in Mill Street, Mayfair, on several occasions, but this time they seemed strangely quiet. At just gone five the place had a deserted air. There was no receptionist behind the desk in the anteroom; the flower arrangement on the pedestal table was wilted and dead. Aaron sat on the edge of a leather‑covered sofa, impatiently drumming his fingers on its arm. He jumped to his feet on seeing Paul.

  ‘Listen,’ he said, in a voice quite unlike his usual amiable tones. ‘You’ve helped us considerably over the last few years and we’ve looked after you financially. I thought you might appreciate a warning. Everything is going to blow up in the next few days.’

  ‘Wh‑what do you mean?’ asked Paul in a shaky voice.

  ‘The guarantee for one million we gave for the land in Spain isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. I sold the St. George’s Hill house privately some days previously, which you will discover when you try to register the guarantee. The company is now empty, only a shell. The shares aren’t worth the paper they are written on. None of the loans secured on other assets will be repaid either. All the documents you were given within the last two weeks were forged: solicitors’ letters, architect’s declaration, share certificates, land registry forms... everything.’

  With a sinking lurch of his stomach Paul realised that the bank was down £7 million, and that every ounce of blame for it would land back at his door. The bastards had set him up for this right from the start.

  Aaron seemed to be changing shape before his eyes. The once round and ruddy face with a habitual genial expression looked pale and severe now, though there was a glimmer of something that could almost be pity in those dark, deceptive eyes.

  ‘You – you filthy bastards! You and your crooked friends have ruined me... How could you?’

  ‘If so we regret that,’ Aaron said smoothly. ‘Steven, Robert and I are civilised men, and on a personal level we liked you, Paul. But we are part of a very powerful organisation which has financed this enterprise. If we don’t repay their investment in us... let’s
just say, our credit would be terminated. With utmost prejudice.’

  ‘I’ll go to the police,’ Paul blustered, though even as he said it he knew he could never bring himself voluntarily to confess his own criminal actions.

  Aaron shook his head sorrowfully. ‘No, Paul, that would be a mistake. You know the way the system works. Banks will do anything... cover up anything...to avoid upsetting their investors. It would be much smarter for you to tell your bosses what I have just told you – that Nicholstein’s has defaulted and vanished without trace. With any luck everything will be quickly hushed up without the police even being involved. And if they are, how were you to know the whole thing was a sham from day one? It was, after all, very skilfully done.’

  ‘Because I took your money!’

  Aaron raised his eyebrows. ‘And how will anyone find out about that?’ He began to sound irritated. ‘We’re the only ones who know, and none of us is likely to say anything.’

  He stepped closer. He was only a small man but suddenly he looked distinctly menacing.

  ‘Unless you are stupid enough to go to them, you could come out of this relatively unscathed.’

  Paul was silent. Aaron was right, damn him. If Paul claimed he had made an error of judgment in trusting Nicholstein’s then the worst that could happen would be his dismissal for incompetence. And he had getting on for £200,000 banked offshore to say nothing of the Spanish flat...

  The other man continued: ‘If it blows up in your face, do what you can to make it easy on yourself. We’ll be long gone and they’ll never trace us under these or any other names. If you need our help, we won’t forget our debt to you. We’ll monitor your situation, and if we can, we’ll help, you’ll see. Trust me on that.’

  Paul laughed bitterly. He was still laughing, bent double and with tears running down his face, when Aaron stepped lightly round him and left the building, bound for Heathrow.

  Paul wanted desperately to confess but two things kept him back: shame at revealing his own pitiful gullibility, and fear that his shady financial dealings would be uncovered.

  A few days later Head Office rang to make the announcement that his branch had been chosen for a random audit. He could expect the bank’s investigative control team sometime later that day. Paul did not believe it was random and went straight home after receiving the call, claiming he had a cold. It was just bad luck. There was no time for him to take the initiative and explain. On Monday morning, the police raided his house. The notebook with the foreign bank accounts details, found by the police in spite of being carefully taped under the bathtub, made any defence impossible.

  Far worse than the shame of this was realising for the first time the terrible price his beloved wife would have to pay for his own deceit and wrongdoing.

  Paul came to trial on February 21st 1986, and despite the practised pleadings of his QC, was sentenced to seven years in prison for conspiracy to defraud.

  Two hours later he arrived at Wandsworth Prison from the Old Bailey. The inmates working on reception treated all new arrivals badly on principle. All had to learn the prison hierarchy, and the sooner the better for everyone. Paul’s regulation uniform was two sizes too large, he had no socks and his shoes no laces.

  The door to his cell was slammed behind him. The 8’ by 6’ space he found himself in was painted dark blue but, incongruously, there were white stars painted on the ceiling.

  Someone was lying on the bottom bunk. The huddled figure gave no indication that he was even aware of another presence. Paul dumped his few things on the top bunk and hauled himself up after them.

  That night was the worst he had ever spent – worse even than his first night on remand in Brixton. Then at least there had been the faint hope that his brief would get him off lightly.

  Next morning he received a post card, unstamped, unsigned but correctly addressed, even down to his prison and cell numbers. It had obviously escaped the censoring process, and contained only the cryptic message:

  ‘WILL IMPROVE YOUR ACCOMMODATION’.

  A week later, at seven, his cell door was unlocked by a warder. ‘You’re a lucky bleeder, Dockett. Start packing your gear. You’re off to the Hilton of Her Majesty’s Prison Service, Ford Open Prison in West Sussex.’

  * * *

  Paul stepped out of the ‘meat‑wagon’ into bright sunlight. He had to blink to convince himself that what he was seeing was real: neat wooden huts to the right of a large cricket green, red brick buildings to the left, and a sign over reception which read ‘Welcome’.

  A man in a blue prison overalls rode up to the group of new arrivals on an old bike. ‘Hi there! The reception officer will see you when he’s had his lunch. I’ll get you some sandwiches.’ He pedalled off, whistling.

  An hour later Paul and his companions were dressed in uniforms which fitted and then taken to the induction hut where they would stay for the first week, before being allocated permanent places. By four o’clock they had been told the prison rules and shown around.

  The dining hall buzzed with conversation and laughter, a far cry from Wandsworth where Paul had picked up his food on the ground floor and taken it to his cell on the third landing, eating with the cell door locked, in utter silence, except for his cell mates’ endless belching and farting. Here the prisoners waited patiently, chatting amiably, before selecting what they wanted to eat, taking their food on a tray to a table in the large dining hall, and sitting with friends.

  Afterwards Paul and a man called Tom, who had also come from Wandsworth, took a walk round the cricket pitch, unable to believe their good fortune. They sat on a bench and watched other inmates strolling leisurely past as if it were a Sunday afternoon in the park.

  ‘Are you Paul Dockett?’

  He looked up in surprise to see two men in front of him, one tall and lantern‑jawed, the other short and overweight. For a moment he was reminded of Laurel and Hardy. ‘We’d like a word with you. In private.’

  Tom got up straight away, threw Paul a quizzical look and walked off quickly.

  ‘Do I know you?’ Paul asked nervously.

  ‘I’m Harold and this is Jeffrey.’ The tall man spoke in an upper‑class accent. His uniform fitted him perfectly, as if it had been exclusively tailored. By contrast, the smaller man’s trousers were loose, flapping round his ankles. He had a well‑trimmed moustache and rather protuberant eyes which stared at Paul without blinking, making him feel uneasy.

  ‘It’s a bit of a change, isn’t it?’ Harold went on. ‘However, when you’ve been here a while you’ll find the novelty wears off and it becomes just another prison. I’m going to tell you what you can do to make things easier for yourself.’ He sat himself down next to Paul, smiling at him.

  ‘I’m not sure I understand?’

  ‘You don’t need to understand. Just do as we say and you can live quite comfortably here.’ Harold beamed at Paul while Jeffrey continued staring at him. ‘Let me put you in the picture. There’s nothing that goes on in this place we don’t know about. Both Jeffrey and myself are old hands here. If you do as I suggest, you’ll have no problems with the screws. Most of them are just whiling away the time until they can draw their pensions. As long as we don’t interfere with them, they don’t interfere with us. We run the whole show. You’re one of the lucky ones, Paul. You’ve been singled out for special treatment.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Has no one told you by now not to ask questions?’ Even though Harold was still smiling, Paul sensed a threat under the words. He noticed that no one passed by without making some form of acknowledgement to his companions, who were obviously held in high regard.

  ‘Let me put your mind at rest.’ Jeffrey spoke at last, sitting down on the other side of Paul. His voice was soft but unexpectedly deep. He put his hand on Paul’s thigh; it was small and perfectly manicured. There was something mannered, almost feminine in his movements.

  As if reading Paul’s mind, he said, ‘Harold doesn’t share my interest in yo
ung men. He’s married with two daughters and a house three miles from here, which is handy, as Ford is a second home to us. We’re guests here every twelve years, on average. Specialists in long‑firm operations all over the world. That’s when a company is built up – or, more usually, taken over – which has a good trading history. It pays its bills slowly but regularly. Then suddenly it increases its buying of all kinds of products and soon afterwards goes into liquidation, leaving a string of unpaid suppliers. We’ve sold off its assets the week before, naturally.’

  Paul sat unmoving, conscious of Jeffrey’s hand on his leg, while Harold explained about the various prison jobs Paul could apply for, and which of these carried extra benefits. There were also activities such as poker, backgammon, gambling on horses.

  ‘The best job is that of cinema and entertainment orderly. You get to see as many films as you want and the screw in charge of entertainment is a regular bloke. Sounds good, eh? You aren’t usually offered that job until you’ve been here at least a year. It’s yours if you want it.’

  Paul nodded, bemused. Jeffrey squeezed his knee then removed his hand.

  ‘Right. So that’s settled.’ All the while Harold chatted, he was still graciously acknowledging the deferential greetings of passers‑by. ‘Now, the next thing is your accommodation. We’ve arranged for you to get a single room when you come out of induction on the VIP side. If we can help you in any other way, just let us know.’

  Paul hesitated. Now the time had come, he was not sure if he was up to the task of clearing the air. He moved a few inches away from Jeffrey and took a deep breath.

  ‘What is it you want in return?’ There was silence. He tried again. ‘You must want something from me. What?’

  ‘We have a proposition,’ Harold said calmly.

  ‘What kind of proposition?’

  ‘A business proposition.’

  ‘I think I’d better hear it before I accept any favours.’