A Day at the Races (7 page)

No thought Frank, but I could come up with a name.

“Well Chief Inspector if you cant prove that it was Miller who was responsible, even though you know it was arson, Miller will probably get paid.”

“Yes we know that, but our investigations are on ongoing, and we still have a lot of things to look into yet.”

The Chief Inspector stood up and walked over to the door.

“Thanks a lot Mr Bishop, you have been very helpful in our investigations so far, and it’s because of your initial suspicion that we investigated further and have arrived at our conclusion that it was arson. For your initial help and assistance we are very grateful and we thank you, and we will keep you updated with any progress we make.”

Frank thanked the Chief Inspector for the visit and for the information. He had thought himself at the time it all looked a bit suspect, but the assessor was very young and inexperienced, and far from happy when he was with him the day after the fire. Frank had many years experience and had used his knowledge to help the young assessor, pointing out certain details that indicated all was not as it should be. Franks suspicions had been correct now this had all been confirmed.

What the hell was Miller doing, he owned numerous businesses, and surely to God he didn’t have to stoop to defraud the insurance company, or even get involved with drugs.

He walked over to the filing cabinet and pulled the file on the Steel Brick Company. The claim was in excess of two million pounds for the rebuilding of the various damaged units alone, plus all the plant and machinery and vehicles that had been completely gutted.

His loss of profits policy was substantial and the total cost of the claim, including all the vehicles, was approaching three million pounds.

The company still wasn’t back in production producing high quality baked brick, although his staff were covered for salary. Most of them had been kept employed on site clearance, once the forensic people gave them access, after their initial fire investigations were complete.

Jesus Miller will be extremely annoyed, when he realises there is a possibility he might not be paid if they prove he had something to do with it.

That would surely give Moxie a boost after all that Miller had done to him, unfortunately he would have to hold back on that information for the time being.

It was the end of September, when Maria Murphy walked into the offices of Hurricane Press and into reception.

“Hello Susie I wonder if I could speak with Mike please, if he is not too busy?”

“Hi Maria of course, it’s not often we see you over here, if you go through to his office I will let him know you are on your way.”

Maria thanked her and turned and walked up the stairs to Mike’s office.

“Hi Maria it’s very nice to see you here, take a seat, what’s up?”

“Well Mike I hope you don’t mind, but some of us in the Duke have been talking, and we want to organise a fund for Rachel. We all know about the treatment in America, how much that will cost and we want to help.

She is a lovely child and has had a lousy time these past few years. We know the kind of treatment she needs is expensive, and we figure we can help so we have put together a committee of people, who are willing to donate their time to this cause.

We have recruited Judge Farnham from the District Courts, Ken Colby from Livingstone’s Bank, Paul Dunlop from the accountants Dunlop, Argyle and Pierce. Alice Scholes the head of the Ladies Guild, plus a stack of other people as well as myself.

I will be in charge of the sporting side of the fund raising, and as you know the Duke have three teams in the Lancashire Darts League, two of which are currently lying at the top in their respective leagues, and the other lying third. Also we have the ladies and gents crown green bowling teams that are unbeaten in over two years.

Our soccer team have been champions of the Lancashire Northern A league for the last two years.

They have all agreed to raise funds at their various matches; the ladies guild will organize bring and buy sales as well as cake and flower shows.

Ken Colby has agreed that all the local branches of Livingstone’s Bank, will take donations, and he will open an account for the Rachel Ireland Fund.”

Mike looked stunned; he could feel himself getting emotional and began to choke up.

He hadn’t expected this and didn’t quite know how to respond, momentarily he just sat there trying to take in what Maria had just told him, slowly he got up from his seat.

“Maria I don’t know what to say, all these people willing to give their time to help save our daughter. It’s a lovely gesture and it has taken me completely by surprise, don’t think I am ungrateful, but £500,000 is an awful lot of money to raise.”

“We know that Mike, but firstly your family are thought a lot of in the area and Rachel is such a great kid, and when I asked the various people, they didn’t give it a second thought.

We know it’s a lot of money to raise, but we feel we can do it, I just wanted to let you know, that you and Brenda are not on your own and that people care and want to help you.”

Mike walked over to Maria and embraced her, and could feel tears rolling down his cheeks, he was overwhelmed by this gesture of generosity.

“I don’t know what to say, you have taken the wind out of my sales I didn’t expect this, you have made me speechless. All these people prepared to help us; it’s just too much to take in. You are a lovely girl Maria and such a good person for organising all of this, all I can say is that Brenda and I will be forever grateful to you and the rest of the organisers and the committee, of course Rachel will be really overjoyed.”

“OK that’s settled then, if you are in agreement, we are holding our first committee meeting in the Duke this coming Friday at 7.00 p.m. It’s the soonest I can get everyone together, would you and Brenda come?”

“Of course Maria, we will be delighted, plus it will give us chance to thank everyone personally.”

Mike walked Maria to reception; he thanked her again for organizing it all and gave her another hug. He left the office early and went straight home to give Brenda the news.

They discussed it until the early hours of the morning, and the fact that all these people wanted to help, made Brenda feel that it wasn’t charity but fund raising for a good cause.

“Bren I think we should make contact with Mr Mohammed later today, and tell him what has happened and ask him to set the wheels in motion, what do you think?”

Brenda agreed that they should do it without delay.

Whilst they lay in bed, Mike thought that he should abandon the hair brain idea of the fake currency.

How could he contemplate doing something so bad, when all these people had volunteered to do something so good, it was against all his principals, was insane, stupid and against everything he had ever thought was right and proper.

They should abandon the whole sorry episode, ok Moxie would be upset, but he would get over it in time. But then, suppose in three or six months time there was a huge shortfall and they couldn’t raise the money what then? Time was not on their side, if this happened Rachel would be in a bad situation with no time to organise anything else.

No they would have to go ahead at least with printing the money, and if the situation changed between now and Xmas, they could abandon it before they actually distributed it, and just dispose of all the money. After all the only people who would be involved in producing the money would be himself, Tony and Derek who he would be talking to shortly.

Chapter 7

˜

Good morning, Central Cars can I help you?”

“Good morning, can I speak with Mr Miller please?”

“Yes, who’s calling?”

“It’s Richard Reichert the III”

“Putting you through Sir.”

“Hello Mr Reichert, John Miller here can I help you?”

“Yes Mr Millar I think you can, but please call me Richard. My Company are opening a new division in the north of England in the coming weeks, and we will be looking for cars for our senior executives.”

“You don’t sound like you are from this neck of the woods?” said Miller

“No Sir, my parent company Digital For All, is based in Seattle in the USA. We manufacture high tech components for the computer and electronics industry, and we will be setting up a manufacturing operation shortly in Trafford Park.”

“That’s very interesting Mr Reichert, what type of cars will you be looking for, because as you might be aware, we are agents for all the top manufacturers? Companies like Mercedes, BMW, Porsche as well as the typical family car like Ford, Toyota and Nissan.”

“We will require twelve cars mostly top of the range Mercedes, but a couple of my senior people want Porches’ and I will have the finalised list shortly.”

Millers eyes opened wide with delight, it wasn’t every day he got a call with a potential order worth almost three quarters of a million pounds.

“However Mr Miller firstly there is something I need to mention, that is that it will have to be a cash deal, does this present a problem for you?”

Miller liked the deal even more now; he could hardly contain his excitement.

“Not at all Mr Reichert, it makes no difference to us how people pay, it all goes through our books as we are a completely legitimate company. But can I ask why pay in cash?”

“Well John, can I call you John? Our people are some of the top men in their field. They will be here on contract in the UK for two years, and will pay during this time a huge amount of personal taxation. We as a company like to shield them from as much additional taxation as we can, so each of them will have a luxury car during their stay, but the cars will all be owned by a foundation and with some creative in house accounting the cars will be invisible.

The money will probably come from one of our Asian companies, it will be in large bills, but if you feel uncomfortable with this say so now and we will terminate this discussion.”

“Not at all Richard, when can meet to put pen to paper?”

“Firstly I will not put pen to paper, I will give you a large deposit, say ten per cent and the balance when the cars arrive. The transaction has to be transparent, the cars will all be registered in one of our officials names, and all the sale documents will reflect this, is this ok with you?”

“Absolutely, how can I get in touch with you?”

“Well it’s like this John, I am travelling to Korea tomorrow and will be away for about six to eight weeks, but on my return I will contact you and I will give you the order, along with the deposit. How long will it take you to get the cars in?”

“Not long, within two weeks from order and deposit we will have them all in stock. They will come from the continent direct, as soon as I place the order, my associates will act on it.”

“That’s great, but I must stress that this whole transaction has to be done in the strictest of confidence, and I need your assurance on that point.”

“You have my word on that, my word is my bond and I look forward to your return from Korea, goodbye Richard.”

“On that note I will say goodbye John and will be in touch with you when I get back.”

Miller put down the phone and he was shaking with excitement, they must have some good accountants if they could bury that amount of cash and avoid benefit in kind for all these employees, still it wasn’t for him to reason why.

Miller had been in the car business since leaving school fifty years previously.

He came from a poor working class family, his father had worked as a coalminer at Agecroft Colliery near Manchester from the age of twelve, and his mother was a cleaner for one of the well to do families in the area.

He was an only child, quite bright at school and was ambitious, but lack of money meant that his family couldn’t afford a better education for him, so he had to go to the local National School and to survive on his wits.

He had first started work as an apprentice panel beater when he was fifteen at a local crash repairs garage. He then graduated to sales for a couple of years, until he went on his own selling cars to the unsuspecting general public from a small showroom in Bury. Gradually he built up his business interests, moving to bigger and better premises, as he progressed up the ladder of success and he had been very successful in a wide range of activities.

He was a tall man about six feet three inches, but over his lifetime had grown massively overweight, he had developed a serious diabetes problem that required multiple daily insulin injections. He was a ruthless businessman and didn’t suffer fools gladly.

On his rise to the top he didn’t let anyone stand in his way, he had run the competition out of town on more than one occasion, and the ones that remained to pick up the crumbs he had a stake in.

His empire spanned a variety of different operations, from cars to gambling, nightclubs, brick making, launderettes, yacht and boat building, coffee bars and hairdressing salons although he didn’t need the services of the latter as he was a bald as coot.

He stayed within the law, or so it seemed, although he sailed very close to the wind at times.

He boasted friends in the Police force, as well as influential figures in Government; outwardly he seemed a pillar of the community.

Later that day he went for his usual game of golf at Greenmount, a prestigious course on the outskirts of Manchester. As he drove his Mercedes into the car park, he saw two of his partners for the day, Neville Freely and Charles Rathbone.

“Well gentlemen I have good news, I think I have an order for 12 imports for just after Xmas, so we need to contact our people in Germany to organise the necessary.”

“Charles, you will have to make another trip to Frankfurt at taxpayers expense, you should think of taking up residence there.”

Rathbone laughed, as they all walked onto the course.

Chapter 8

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Mike thought long and hard about everything over the next couple of weeks. The first charity committee meeting had taken place, the various members had been allocated their tasks, and the account for Rachel’s fund had been opened with various branches of Livingstone’s Bank.