Lewi's Legacy (24 page)

24
Mikhail exposed

Court band tie

The day before Victor and Louis were to be going up to London, Louis had got the family’s agreement that Victor could stay at the Novotel in Southampton on the Tuesday night as he felt that the driver would have fewer problems if he had only one pickup. After getting the agreement he confirmed with Stephen the lawyer what the change of plan was. He promised to inform the driver of the car. Stephen also told Louis that he would be attending the interview with the barrister in the Middle Temple so that it would put his two clients at ease.

The black Lexus RX450 Sports SUV slid through the gates of the Temple and it slowly carried them around the perimeter of the ornate square. Louis felt that it seemed like sacrilege to drive over the old cobblestones, and as they looked through the windows they could feel the power of English law emanating from every stone of each edifice. Across the square they could see a dark suited man standing in a doorway, Louis recognised him. The car drew up alongside him and they alighted from the powerful car.

‘I am so pleased to meet you Victor.’ Stephen shook the young man’s hand and then Louis’s. ‘Please follow me.’

They walked single file through the doorway and up some wooden stairs, winding at the top. Each step creaked enough to wake the dead, and Louis was surprised at the state of the place, considering the level of top legal luminaries who practised in such a place. Stephen held the door open to a tiny room, with just enough space for three chairs and a desk which was heavily laden with piles of papers bound up with red silk tape. The room was empty and when Stephen gestured for them to sit on the small hard dusty chairs they both sat in silence amazed at the state of the whole scene. Victor looked like he was just about to say something to Louis when the door burst open and in walked a tall figure dressed in a long black gown, wig in hand and with the usual court band tie, looking rather stern. He proffered his limp hand to Louis who shook it with a strong grip. ‘My name is Joshua Samuels and I…’

Victor seemed a little upset by the man, but didn’t want to be upstaged ‘I think you need a secretary Mr Samuels, looking at the state of your desk.’ He pointed to the piles of bound paper. ‘Anyway who does your cleaning, look at this bloody chair, it’s disgusting.’ The two lawyers laughed very loudly and Joshua shook Victor’s hand vigorously.

‘I think that you and I are going to get on well. Victor, isn’t it?’ They both smiled at each other and the ice was broken.

The barrister moved a couple of piles of paper bundles and sat on the end of the desk. He told Victor that he represented the interests of some very important people, some of them Victor knew personally. Victor was puzzled at first, but it dawned on him in a flash when the barrister hinted that they were very rich individuals. When Victor whispered, ‘Russians’ to Joshua, he nodded in response. Victor looked at his older friend and shuddered. Joshua told him that three of Victor’s old employers were in his interview room at that moment, but if he didn’t want to go ahead, he would quite understand.

Louis intervened at that point, and asked the barrister what business had they to do with all of this. Victor said that he thought that all of the items that Leah and he had disposed of were originally owned by the oligarchs, but Mikhail had never discussed with him whether the ownership had passed to him before any of the auctions had taken place.

Victor passed the question on to Joshua asking him if he could throw any light on the ownership question. He said that he didn’t know, but Victor made it clear he didn’t believe him. He did say to Victor, that meeting the three men in the other room should go a long way in getting ‘the monkey’ off their backs. Louis and Victor looked at each other and without speaking, stood up indicating their intention of proceeding. They had come that far, and it had to be resolved, face to face.

A much bigger room was waiting for them on the next floor, big enough for ten matching chairs and a large oval table. At the far end three large men in suits stood up as the four of them entered. Joshua spoke first to them introducing Stephen first, then Louis and finally Victor. At the sound of Victors name they all spoke in Russian, smiling and came around to shake Victor’s hand. Victor spoke back to them in Russian and all three of them hugged him Russian style. Joshua asked Victor if he would act as interpreter for the meeting and he agreed. Joshua wanted to let them know that as much as possible they would like to ask simple direct questions, and Victor came back saying that was pleasing for the three of them.

Joshua asked Stephen to pass to them a copy of the police photograph and for the Russians to tell them honestly if they recognised anyone on it. They all instantly recognised Mikhail, and one of oligarchs recognised one of the two men following behind. Victor asked them if they recognised the girl and they all said that they didn’t.

Joshua asked Victor to say that the photo was the last one before the girl was murdered and Louis was her father. After he had told them, they stared again at the picture. One of them asked if they thought Mikhail might be involved and Victor told them about his abduction in full detail emphasising how he was close to death afterwards. Joshua said there was no doubt that Mikhail was involved, but they did not respond. Joshua was not surprised at this point but now he played his ace card. He looked at Stephen again and he handed them all the pages that Victor had printed at the Ringwood library. Joshua asked if they recognised anything on the list.

Pandemonium broke out as they shouted every time that an item listed had been identified. Victor called for silence, and asked them a simple question.

‘Did you give Mikhail all these artefacts for him to sell for himself?’

They answered that everything was to be kept in England in a safe place so that they could reclaim them at a later time. Nothing was given to Mikhail. Victor translated everything, word for word to Joshua. Joshua then asked Victor to tell the Russians that Mikhail had got over one billion pounds from the sale of the artefacts in numbered Swiss bank accounts. After Victor had translated Joshua’s statement, the whole room erupted. Victor looked at Joshua and raised his eyebrows.

‘I don’t think that I need to translate that Joshua.’ He said with a wry smile.

Louis asked Victor to ask them what they intended to do now that they knew everything. A hush settled in the room.

Firstly one of the billionaires spoke to Joshua in English, and instructed him to inform the English police of the identities of the men in the photograph. He added that they would get the names of the other two men in the morning for him. Secondly, he said not to worry anymore about Mikhail, he would be taken care of shortly, and there was no escape for him. Thirdly he turned to Louis and apologised for his countrymen and what Mikhail and company had done, causing him such grief, saying that he was a family man too.

Victor told the billionaire that he had met a Swiss banker called Philippe from a bank in Zürich who was Mikhail’s go between for setting up the accounts, but that was all he knew.

The English speaking Russian asked Joshua to send any legal bills to him and said that he would settle them personally. The Russians left the room after Stephen gave them a photocopy of the lists as they left Joshua’s office, leaving the four of them in the meeting room to talk, and tie all the loose ends up. Joshua told Louis that he would deal with the police and he would ensure that his daughter’s body would be released within the week. He thanked Victor for his great assistance in the meeting, and he gave him his business card should he have any need for his services.

The driver dropped Louis off first at the Novotel, and before he left, he told Victor that he would be in touch in few days.

25
A surprise for Louis

Waiting for his dinner

When Louis entered the hotel the man at the reception passed him an envelope, and when he opened it there were just two lines handwritten. ‘Telephone messages Room 601, Please meet me at the beach at 9am Friday, important – E.’

Louis loved mysteries and this certainly looked like one. He was at Southbourne just after 9 and walked to the cliff top near the cliff lift and looked over the wire fence, to see the magnificent stretch of sand arcing towards the Hengistbury escarpment. About a mile along the stretch, he could just make out a man and his dog as two little dots. The smaller one running forward and then back to its master. He knew that that was his friend. He hurried down the zigzag and on to the soft sand, and began to follow their tracks. The sea was very calm that day, and as he looked at the horizon, he could make out two tall-masted ships. As he continued, something else caught his eye, he just had to stop and stare at it.

As the first of the groynes jutted out into the water, there was a shoal of fish jumping out of the water as if they were playing. At the end of the groyne a ten foot high piece of metal stuck out of the wooden structure. Perched on top of this was a large black cormorant, beak down watching the shoal. Suddenly and silently the bird dived in the water and scooped up a fish, it was a large fat mackerel. The cormorant must have felt that he was in heaven, he thought to himself, and was so glad to have witnessed such a spectacle. As he climbed over a couple more groynes, he could see that the two figures on the beach were getting closer, and they were heading his way.

Over the last obstacle, Edmund stopped walking and pointed out to sea. Louis turned in the direction, south westerly towards Shell Bay on the Studland coast. About halfway distance, Louis perceived that there looked like a flock of sea birds circling above the water that was all. He was just about to turn his head towards Edmund, when suddenly a large family of bottle-nosed dolphins began jumping out of the sea. The whole incident took about ten minutes, and the two men watched, each dolphin seemed to be trying to outdo each other with their jumping skills. Although the animals were about half a mile out at sea the splashes were huge as they re-entered the water. As quickly as they came, they were gone, and the two men gasped in admiration of the spectacle that they had witnessed.

In a few minutes they were on the same stretch of sand and Zowie recognised Louis and chased towards him, then ran a circle around his feet and lay down, nose on the ground, a perfect sheepdog’s rounding up procedure. As the two men walked together towards the zigzag pathway, Louis told Edmund about the shoal of fish and the cormorant, and remarked that it had been quite a morning already.

Edmund pulled out a piece of folded paper, giving it to his friend. Louis unfolded the paper to see that it was a whole page of the Southampton Echo entertainments guide. He stood for a moment and scanned the square adverts to try and guess what Edmund had spotted. Seeing that his friend was struggling, Edmund helped by pointing to the bottom right square with ‘What’s on at The Mayflower’ as the heading.

Louis read on.’ Lewis Owen violinist plays from his latest album, ‘For my absent father’ underneath was written the comment ‘Forty year old genius visits Southampton, not to be missed!’

Edmund pointed to the performance date which was the next evening, ‘The Mayflower is only a short stone’s throw away from your hotel Louis, and so would you like to go?’

‘I think you should come too Edmund as my guest. You can park at the hotel and we both could walk from there, what do you say?’ Louis asked, and Edmund nodded saying he wouldn’t miss it for the world. Louis picked up his mobile phone and ordered two tickets whilst they stood on the beach. They were given seats six rows from the front.

They walked into the theatre foyer and facing them was a huge picture of the violinist and Louis just stood and stared at it. Edmund smiled as he looked at his friend’s face.

‘Honestly Louis there is no doubt in my mind that he is your son, but how could that be?’ Louis did not reply to Edmund’s question, he just walked into the theatre and sat down at his seat. The performance was very good, and Edmund’s favourite Vaughn Williams’ ‘Lark ascending’ was played. Edmund asked Louis what was his favourite piece, but he got no answer again. All he could do was to stare at the man on the stage. It was if he was looking through a mirror. Tears filled his eyes, and when Edmund saw them he didn’t speak to him until the end of the performance.

‘Louis I’m sorry that I can’t stay behind, as I’ve got to get back.’ Edmund said as the violinist took his bow. ‘Let me know what happens next old chap.’ Edmund patted his shoulder and left with the rest of the audience. The stage was empty and so was the auditorium as Louis made his way back alone into the foyer. As he walked towards the trader selling the performers CDs he felt a pang of conscience, firstly he thought about Annie was she his mother? What would happen if he confronted the man, only to find that it was all a big mistake, how embarrassing would that be?

He paid for a CD and opened it to read the sleeve notes. ‘Born in 1965 in a mining town in South Derbyshire, and brought up by his late mother who was a successful business woman.’ He was thinking about asking the CD seller if he could try and see the artist, but at the last moment he had an idea. Instead he turned away and went back to his hotel.

The next day he drove to Burley in the hope of seeing Victor, and he was in luck. He and Sally had just started their walk on the moor and he quickly caught up with him. Louis took advantage of the quiet morning walk to tell Victor about his experience the previous night at the theatre, and showed him the CD that he had purchased. At the same time he offered him a short term assignment. The task he wanted Victor to do was act as his personal agent, to contact the violinist’s manager and offer him a sponsorship for a European tour in the spring.

One of the conditions was that he didn’t want Victor to reveal who was providing the sponsorship, and to make it look genuine, he was to haggle with the manager and settle on five thousand pounds per week and a thousand pounds per week show costs. Victor was so excited about the offer that he offered to do it for free, but Louis would not hear of it.

The following week was the funeral of Leah-May, and Louis invited Victor, his parents and Edmund to the service at the Southampton synagogue and the interment at the cemetery where her mother Esther and some of his relatives were buried. His dear friend Mark had arranged everything for him and even offered to play the music at the service, which Louis accepted readily. Concerning Leah’s estate, because she died intestate, all the proceeds were to be left automatically to Louis. Mark said it was a substantial sum. The funds from the sale of the Guarneri violin, the bungalow in Shirley, the cottage in the New Forest, and her commission from the work in Paris had amounted to a considerable amount, and she had never touched any of them.

Louis thought that his proposed sponsorship deal was to be the first step in repaying his son, for all those missing years.

Whilst the young violist embarked on his tour, Louis was also quite busy. It was not difficult to discover that his son had married in his late twenties to Sarah, and she had presented him with twin girls, now ten years old, and a son who had just started school at five. They lived in the pretty Derbyshire Spa town of Buxton, and Louis had found a pretty stone cottage a few miles north on the A6 in a little village called Chapel-en-le Frith. He spent much of his time in Buxton, and without much difficulty he was able to catch a regular glimpse of Sarah, sometimes with her children. On occasions he would be in the same queue in the Supermarket.

There would be times when his son Lewis would come home, when there was a gap between his concerts. He then could see what a lovely family they were, and it gladdened his heart. One incident in particular stuck in Louis’s mind. One rainy Saturday he was standing across the street, and Sarah’s little boy was in some distress, probably he had fallen, and was crying. He watched as she bent over to pick the boy up and console him. He then noticed that she was wearing a gold chain, and hanging from it was a large gold ‘Star of David’. As the little family walked on the zebra crossing and he purposely crossed in the opposite direction, smiled at her and she smiled back.

‘Shalom my child’ he said, and when they had reached the safety of the pavement, Sarah looked at Louis, and smiled broadly. He instinctively knew she was of the faith and promptly disappeared into the crowd.

There were, of course, times when Louis did not visit Buxton. On one of those times he had decided to make a ‘pilgrimage’ to his home town, only twenty miles away, where he had not visited for over forty years.

Many of the landmarks of his youth were no longer there. Scattergood’s Tailors, where his father worked, Gilberts Garage and Sanderson’s Tripe shop, all gone. There was still a newsagent on the site of Mr. Reynolds’s shop, so Louis called in, and being as it was a Saturday, asked for a ‘Green un’ results paper. Much to his amusement the new proprietor had never heard of it.

As he ventured up the steep High Street, he noticed many of the shop sites were closed and boarded up. Halfway up the hill, he recalled how he found the fifty pound note that a Dr Collins had lost. To his amazement, a passerby told him that Dr Collins was still in practice, the surgery was just down a side road. Quickly he walked down the narrow road and there it was.

He reached the Surgery door, and his heart sank. He realised that it was closed, being Saturday. The brass plate at the side of the door still had Dr. E Collins M.D., which was at the top of the list of practitioners. He looked back at the door which gave an ‘out of hours’ telephone number, which he rang on his phone. Having gone through the usual recorded message, he finally spoke to a human voice.

‘Is it possible to speak to Dr. Collins please?’

‘Would that be Junior or Senior sir?’ the voice asked

‘Senior please.’ He gasped.

The line went dead, and Louis seemed to be hanging on for ages, thinking that he had been cut off. Suddenly another voice came onto the line.

‘Hello, how can I help you? This is Doctor Collins speaking.’

‘Sir, I mean Doctor, can I come to see you on a personal matter? My name is Louis Owen.’

‘Louis Owen, are you on my list?’ he asked.

‘If I was to tell you that over forty years ago, I found a fifty pound note belonging to you. Probably a policeman brought it to you. I realise that you may be too busy to see me, but it is most important that I speak to you sir.’

There was another long period of silence, and Louis thought that the old doctor couldn’t remember this occurrence, when out of the corner of his eye; he saw the door of the property adjacent, open. A small white-haired man leaned out and waved at him.

‘Come in my boy, come in please.’

The doctor led his guest into the living room, where Louis introduced himself, and apologised for disturbing them. The old man introduced his wife Helena, and himself, Ernest to him. As they sat together in the comfortable lounge, Ernest said that he did remember the incident with the fifty pound note, and that the policemen did indeed bring it round, saying that a boy had found it. Sadly though, the officer did not divulge the boy’s name, so he was unable to make contact, and of course give him his just reward.

They all laughed when Louis said that he was not there for the reward. At that point, Helena invited Louis for lunch, which he gladly accepted, and then she excused herself and went into the kitchen to prepare it.

As the two men sat opposite each other, Louis told the old doctor about the recent discovery of a son that he hadn’t known about. He told him that his name was Lewis Owen and he was currently on a European tour as a violinist. At that point Helena came into the room clutching Lewis’s CD ‘For my absent father’

‘Helena, can I ask you if you knew Lewis’s mother?’ Louis asked.

‘Do you mean Annie Gilbert?’ She asked. Louis nodded. ‘So, you are Lewis’s father? But how could that be?’

‘Well it’s a long story Helena, but I was nearly eighteen when Lewis was conceived.’ Helena looked shocked, and went back into the kitchen.

Ernest told Louis that the whole Gilbert family were patients of his, including the baby Lewis. They had spent three hours filling in the last forty years of his son’s life, and Louis had revealed the past forty years of his own to them.

He left them with his home address in Chapel-en-le Frith, should they need to contact him, and so he left them with a song in his heart.