The Fund. Jeff Edwards
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‘That she had some high-placed friends.’
‘Very high-placed friends,’ agreed Sloane. ‘Friends who could offer a level of protection that was almost unprecedented. The only mention of Jade Green in the police files was as a stabbing victim.’
‘An upset client?’
‘Apparently not. It happened in a park.’
‘A mugging?’
‘Muggings are a modern phenomenon. Robberies took place back then, but robberies with violence, especially to women, were almost unheard of.’
‘So you think she may have known her attacker?’ asked Bree.
‘On the law of averages I’d say she would have and I believe her friend Colleen Dunkley knew him as well.’
‘Why wouldn’t she tell the police?’ asked Sam.
Bree grinned. ‘I’ll take much pleasure in watching the former Colleen Dunkley’s face when we put that exact question to her.’
The directors of The Fund met for a final board meeting before going their separate ways. There was an air of excited expectation in the room as Brian and Toby prepared to call and pick up Fred Marks on their way to the Jersey ferry while Suzie and Lana were preparing to take their younger colleagues, Justine and Eliza, under their protective wings to indoctrinate them in the matter of secret women’s business as conducted in the city of Paris.
Unfortunately, they had to delay their departure for a couple of days as Lana had been unable to secure accommodation in their selected hotel due to the influx of visitors to Paris for the spring showings of the world’s leading couturiers.
When Brian found that out he groaned inwardly. Letting women loose in Paris at that time of year could prove absolutely disastrous to a company’s credit card. He was just glad that he would not be present to witness the raw passion and utter concentration exhibited by a pride of shopping lionesses.
Chuck Towner was present at the meeting, handing out watches, satellite phones and laptop computers to each of the directors including Ali and Nori Akuba while he answered their questions and made sure that each one of them understood their new toy’s many secrets.
Eliza Strang reported to the board that she and her father had conducted interviews and were now assembling a team to man the central computer that had been installed in a secure office upstairs and to which each laptop was now connected.
Skills criteria for each of their new staff included an extremely high proficiency in the IT field, with a special emphasis on the art of hacking.
Teddy and Eliza had quickly realised that the future of The Fund may rely on the dark arts that this group could bring to bear on problems and they had convinced the others on the board to pay these people a salary that was commensurate with their talents. The Strangs felt sure that the original heavy outlay of funds would pay for itself many times over.
As soon as Chuck had ensured that all their devices were activated, everyone said their goodbyes and Brian and Toby climbed into Brian’s new Jaguar and drove off.
The bullet holes and shrapnel damage in Brian’s beloved old Land Rover had finally been the death knell for his old and faithful friend.
Faced with the necessity of replacing the car, Brian had looked at updating to a new model, but after test driving several he felt that the new models were just too luxurious and polished to risk fording rivers and scraping past rocky outcrops. He finally decided that on the days he wanted to go off-road he would simply hire a car for the day and selected a town car for his day-to-day needs.
Now the pair settled into the thickly padded leather seats for their whisper quiet trip south.
‘This will be the first time Suzie and I have been apart since the night we met,’ said Toby with a long face as he selected a suitable music CD for the journey.
Brian felt much the same way himself. He and Lana hadn’t been married all that much longer than Suzie and Toby and their times apart had been few and far between as well. Nevertheless, he tried to cheer his partner up. ‘It’s for the best. You don’t want to be around the women when the shopping urge is upon them, especially when you have four of them operating in a pack. One woman, a man might be able to handle, but a pack would tear him apart if he accidentally placed himself between them and a designer outfit.’
‘I’ll miss her.’
‘Of course you will and she’ll miss you too, but that won’t stop her from indulging in maximum retail therapy.’
‘So, what do we do to get over the blues?’
‘We concentrate on the job in hand.’
‘Which is?’
‘Well, Fred will be doing the accountancy work. While he does that we’ll be concentrating on the mechanics of the whole thing to see if there’s anything that could be of interest to us. Remember, information will be our stock in trade and banks hold more than information than most businesses.’
‘And we record everything?’
‘Everything that we can get our hands on.’
‘That’ll be a hell of a lot of information to go through.’
‘Our new computer experts will look after most of that. Chuck tells me that they’ll have filters that will spit out anything that looks important for further analysis.’
‘I’m glad they’re looking after that end. I’d be useless at something like that.’
‘So would I. That’s the beauty of having plenty of cash to work with. We’ll be able to hire the best and can expect to get the best results,’ replied Brian.
Chapter 10
Brian and Toby collected Fred Scott from outside his apartment block, and as he was placing his bags in the boot he noted the laptops.
‘What’s the hardware for? I thought I was going to be the only one doing the book work.’
Brian smiled at his friend of many years. ‘Toby and I have a few tasks to perform and we’ll be able to keep in contact with the office via the Internet.’
Fred worked for Brian’s family in their accountancy firm, a position that was supposed to have been occupied by Brian; however, he had chosen to study law, much to his family’s distress.
‘How has my grumpy old father been treating you?’ asked Brian as they drove down the motorway to meet the ferry.
‘Wonderful! You can congratulate me. I’ve been made a full partner thanks to Toby and The Fund. Introducing Toby and his millions as a new client was a real feather in my cap, but when you selected me to take over the accounts for The Fund your father nearly passed out in delight. We’ve had to start a completely new section just to look after the two businesses.’
‘Have you reached a final figure for Mrs Green’s estate?’ asked Toby.
‘I’ve just about sorted out all the money she held in this country.
There were a few problems because she used a number of shelf companies, but I think we’ve managed to track it all down. I’ll be able to give you a full accounting of all that in a few weeks. However, I can’t see any light at the end of the tunnel for the assets and money she had overseas. That’s why I need to get down to Jersey and Jamaica. Hopefully the two banks will be able to give me a clue where to look. So far, I’ve found substantial amounts of stocks in a variety of US corporations, property in New York, Boston, and San Francisco as well as more holding companies in offshore countries like Bermuda, Jersey and the Bahamas.’
‘So, who did all her bookkeeping for her?’ asked Toby. ‘I know I never saw her doing anything that remotely looked like big business in the entire time I knew her.’
‘That’s