Unravel a Crime - Tangle With Women (3 page)

On the left hand side of the
desk were two large piles of files. On the floor were two others. In front of
him was a an old fashioned ink blotter which quite clearly had had some use,
and waiting for him on the blotter was a printed list of the files. He picked
it up.

"As you see, I have
summarised all the files, and indicated what I believe the action to be taken
is.”

Brakespeare noted how
precisely Margaret spoke. He nodded.

"If I may, I will take
you through the notes in more detail". For the next half hour Margaret
professionally explained the stage that each case had reached; what needed to
be done, and the degree of urgency.

At the end of her tour de
force, Margaret looked up at him. She smiled. "Not a lot is there?"

"Not a lot - plus Mr.
Newberry?"

She avoided the question.
"I'm sure that you'll cope. And now I expect that you'd like some tea.
"

"I was wondering
when." It was 9.45 and Brakespeare had had nothing to drink since his
breakfast at 7.00.

"Cup or mug?"

"Mug, please. White, no
sugar."

Margaret got up to leave. As
she did so the room door opened and a girl came in. From the way that Margaret
nodded politely at her, but otherwise ignored her it was clear that people
clearly came in two shades for Margaret; bad and good, and that she no more
approved of the girl than she did of Mr. Newberry.

"Hi", said the girl,
extending a hand. "I'm Lisa." There was a transatlantic twang to her
otherwise standard English accent.

Brakespeare stood up from his
seat, and walked round to the other side of the desk to greet her.

"Hello, I'm Jonny".

Lisa saw a thirty something
man; medium build with mousy hair and blue eyes. Pleasant looking without being
handsome. She liked the way his face crinkled when he smiled, but he looked,
well, sort of world weary she thought. He also seemed very tense.

Brakespeare saw a slight
figure with long dark black hair, parted in the centre and curtaining the sides
of her face. She wore a loose flowery blouse, and a long dark skirt and flat
shoes, so that it was impossible to gauge her figure. She seemed, well, dreamy;
the sort of girl who’d rather like to be a lawyer, rather than the aggressive
type of person that a lawyer needs to be. He’s always found the best female
lawyers to be bovine in nature.

She was probably in her mid
twenties; attractive but not obviously so. What he did seize upon were her
eyes; large, dark and expressive. He immediately knew that he liked her.

"You're the paralegal
"

"Yeah, I've been working
with Gordon. He's great." she said with enthusiasm.

"Aha", thought
Brakespeare, detecting an attraction, but said only, "And you have a
degree, from where?"

"West Country University,
Bristol"

Brakespeare must have looked
puzzled and the girl picked up his thoughts.

“
I have dual nationality;
British and U.S. I was born and raised in the States. My father’s American –
from Ploughskeepie – New York State. My mother came from Bristol, and father
met her while she was working as a secretary in New York”.

The statement sounded as if it
had been well rehearsed, and Lisa looked directly at him, as if challenging him
to ask more. Brakespeare simply nodded and noted that her background would be
something to possibly explore later in the chatting up process.

"And you couldn't get a
solicitors training contract?" he asked, continuing the conversation.

"No, I only got a lower
second, and when you're up against people with first class honours degrees from
the major universities, you don't stand a chance of getting one.” She rattled
of the sentence quickly, as if that was another rehearsed statement.

"Well I'm afraid that the
solicitors' profession is a little overcrowded. There was a pause, and Lisa
moved her gaze to the floor and back again into his eyes, and smiled
determinedly. "I'll make it, don't you worry." There was another
pause as she looked at him.

"Well, anyway," she
said." Here I am, ready willing and able to help."

"I'm not sure what you
can do at the moment until I plough my way through this pile of files, and I’m
supposed to get on top of those boxes in the cupboard."

"OK, well call me if you
need me. I'm just down the corridor and up the stairs. I've a pile of files
just like yours, but my tasks are merely clerical - and they make me do my own
typing."

With a smile she swung round
on her heels, and waltzed to the door.

"She’s nice" was
Brakespeare’s automatic thought, wondering if there was an opportunity there,
and he sat down at the desk. Apart from the brown girl, he had had no
involvement with the opposite sex since his divorce, and was now beginning to
regret it. It would be nice to find someone who would be a soul mate; to fall
in love with – no that’s a girl thing.

The sex that he did have was
purely recreational, although he sometimes fantasised that with Mel it could be
more than that. With a big sigh he reached for the first file, just as Margaret
brought in the tea.

Dick Ridley came into the
office. Perhaps in his late thirties or early forties he was the dullest of
men. His concern was domestic conveyancing; the buying and selling of houses. A
journeyman solicitor, thought Brakespeare. His dark green suit was crumpled and
shiny, but it was the woollen waistcoat that spoke volumes about him.

He seemed slightly nervous and
unsure of himself. Brakespeare found conversation with him to be hard work, as
Ridley needed to pause for thought before he spoke; clearly not a lawyer who
made regular appearances in Court, and who has to think seconds ahead of his
mouth. That was no doubt why Ridley stuck to the desk job of conveyancing.

After about 5 minutes of
polite platitudes, there was an even longer pause, and then the reason for the
visit came out.

"I don't suppose by any
chance that you've been able to look at the Newberry papers. "

“
I’m afraid not, although I
understand that they're pressing. "

A pause. Brakespeare decided
to take the initiative.

"How come you're
interested - I mean you don't deal with litigation, do you." Ridley seemed
to have found a mental accelerator, and came back immediately.

"No, no, of course not,
but David introduced a lot of work to this firm through his contacts, and well,
quite frankly, since all this mess started, it's dried up."

"So your interest is
purely mercenary?" Brakespeare regretted saying it before he had finished
the sentence.

A deep frown filled Ridley's
face, and mildly, but in what for him would be a serious tone, he said "I
say, that's a bit steep. I know David well, and I am interested in his welfare
also. "

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean
it like that. Was he a key player?"

"A key player?"

"Did a lot of work come
from him?"

"An awful lot, yes.

"And you're a partner in
the property company?"

Ridley looked surprised.
"Bill Mortimer told you about that?”

"Yes"

"Well then, yes I
am."

"So really this firm has
a lot hanging on the result of the case?"

Ridley looked uncomfortable.
"Well, yes, I suppose that you could say that, yes.”

He looked at the floor for a
few moments, nodding to himself as he thought. Then he looked up, half smiled,
and left.

After dictating on a few files
in order to give Margaret some work to do, Brakespeare felt able to look at the
boxes of files. He soon found that the task of coming to grips with the case
was not going to be as bad as he had first anticipated. In one box was a list
of witness statements and the statements themselves. The remaining boxes
consisted of reams of documents being produced as prosecution exhibits, and to
which Brakespeare avoided doing anything other than noting that they were
there.

As was usual in a conspiracy
case, the Prosecution had included everything that they appeared to have in
their possession from David Newberry's working files, to the Developers working
files; the Developer’s solicitors working files - everything and anything.

None of the documentation
seemed to go to the heart of the prosecution case. At first blush, from the
statements, it seemed a little vague to Brakespeare as to what they were trying
to prove. However as the picture painted by the prosecution became clearer, he
began to experience that familiar feeling of dread that his forensic antennae
always generated - mission impossible

The first document he looked
at was the conspiracy charge itself and it's complicated particulars drawn in
the old fashioned language that lawyers seem to be unable to avoid:-

"David Newberry conspired
together with Jonathan Levy and Simon Simmons to dishonestly defraud the
National Building Society by agreeing with the said Jonathan Levy and Simon
Simmons that he would ensure that the said National Building Society accepted
as good and valuable security for any loans that they might make, properties
which did not represent the value attributed to them, had the said properties
been valued at a proper and fair market price, and in doing so he failed to
inform the said National Building Society of his financial interest and/or
personal involvement in the company known as Clearfield Properties Limited
controlled by the said Jonathan Levy, it's subsidiaries or associated
companies"

Brakespeare blinked. What on
earth did this gobbledeygook mean? Levy must be the builder and Clearfield
Properties his company. Newberry was supposed to have a financial interest in
the company? It wasn’t the company the partners were involved in was it?

Was that it?! Were they a
hairs breadth of being involved in the conspiracy?!

His thoughts were interrupted
when Mortimer came into the room without knocking, something Brakespeare would
soon learn was a non endearing trait.

“
Cracked it yet?” he asked
jovially, but clearly with deadly purpose.

“
I don’t suppose that you can
explain this case to me in simple English, can you?”

Mortimer looked at him with a
slightly worried look.

“
Just to save some time? The
charge is as clear as mud.”

“
Yes, of course”, and Mortimer
quickly helped himself to a chair on the opposite side of the table. Another
non endearing trait, Brakespeare would learn, was that Mortimer loved an
audience.

"So what's it all about -
in a nutshell?" asked Brakespeare.

Mortimer relaxed in his chair,
and started to enjoy himself.

“
As I said, David is a
Surveyor, and in fact he was, or technically still is, the head of National
Surveyors Greater London region. He has about 30 other staff surveyors working
under him.

"Did he work in London -
and live in Malvern?"

"Yes. His was mainly a
desk job. Anyway, before the National Bank converted from a Building Society, a
couple of years ago, but - and this may be important, - according to David, after
the decision to change had been taken in principal…,” Mortimer spoke slowly to
emphasise his point, “Your friend Masters apparently decided that the Society
needed grow rather rapidly, and so they decided to become involved in
commercial lending to raise the profitability. This is where we think the
Americans came in. Masters led them to believe that there were some fast bucks
to be made out of the conversion to a Bank.

So, according to David, there
was an all out push in this direction, and he, by introduction, met a London
property developer, called Jonathan Levy. Apparently Levy specialised in buying
up old Victorian Houses in West London, and converting them into flats. He had
been doing this in a small way, but was quite successful, and in order to
expand, he needed more capital.

David came up with a scheme,
which he says was fully approved by the National, to agree 80 percent mortgages
based on the estimated final value after the conversion work had been
completed, and to be loaned initially as to 80% of the purchase price when the
property was bought, and the balance in stage payments as the conversion
gradually took place. "

"That sounds slightly
risky, if I may say so."

"Possibly. It meant that
the National was financially exposed far more than the developer, but this was
at the time when property prices were rising quite fast, and according to
David, his estimates of the final value were conservative."

"His estimates"

"Yes, David carried out
some of the surveys for the National himself. Only a small number, he says.
"

"So he both found the
borrower and carried out the valuations?"

Mortimer smiled once more at
the young man. "Yes, sounds odd doesn't it, but remember that the National
were keen to acquire this business. David himself didn't approve the lending
applications, and the National were charging high rates of interest to reflect
the speculative lending. Like all banks, as we now know, they were taking
risks."