Dave was up at 08.00, Sally watched him from the bed, “what are you doing?” “We are going out today, had you forgotten?” “No, I didn’t realise it was an early start, where are we going?” “To the seaside, Hunstanton, we will be day trippers.” They left at 10.00 in Sally’s car, Dave was driving, most of the way there, he had to hear about the conversations from last night, Sam was no longer going back to Peter and would be staying with her mum until the divorce was sorted. As they joined the queue to drive into Hunstanton, Sally finally stopped when she caught a glimpse of the sea. “It’s so blue! Can we paddle in the sea?” “Not if the tide is out, it’s a long walk.” When they got out the car, it felt warm, there was a gentle breeze and the sun was shining. The prom was packed, the tide was half way in, people were on the beach, kids paddling in the sea. Power boats and jet skis were further out. Sally was holding Dave’s hand as they walked along. She led him down a ramp onto the beach, “time for a paddle,” the water felt cold, it wasn’t long before they decided they had spent enough time in the water, soon they were back up on the prom. When they reached some wide concrete steps leading down to the beach, they sat down and watched everything that was happening. A thought came into Sally’s head, it was a week ago that Dave was in the flat in London, was this why he wanted to spend the day here, anonymous amongst normal people. Whatever the reason, she was enjoying it. Dave left her and returned with two ice creams, further along was the funfair, Sally suggested they go there next. There was lots of squealing and shouting, the smell of burgers and hotdogs hung in the air. Everyone was smiling and laughing. Sally held on to Dave’s arm as they watched the different rides. He asked if she wanted to go on The Waltzer, “no way, I’d much rather watch everyone else coming off dizzy.” From the funfair, they headed back along the seafront towards the old pier. It was long gone, destroyed in a storm years ago. There was a smell of fish and chips, Dave said he felt hungry, he spotted the chip shop and they walked towards it and joined the queue. Sitting on The Green, they were able to eat their food and watch the sea. Sally glanced round all the couples and families doing the same, it felt so normal, they were a couple like the others, but at the same time very different. The next stop was the ‘penny arcade’, neither of them had been inside one since they were children. Nothing was a penny any longer, many of the machines were modern but there were a few they recognised. At a little kiosk, he exchanged £5.00 for a cupful of 2p coins, they headed for the older machines. Sally took a handful of coins and was putting them in the ‘Penny Falls’ machine. There was very little coming out compared to the amount she was putting in. Dave was further along and being more careful with releasing his coins. He wasn’t having any more luck than Sally, but his were lasting longer. Sally came for more coins, hers were gone and she wanted more. He gave her what he had left and went off to change another £5.00. They spent an hour inside, when they left, it was beginning to get dark. “If we’re lucky, we might see the sun set.” “This is the east coast, the sun sets in the west.” Dave said that Hunstanton was the only place on the east coast where you could see the sun set. He explained as they walked down towards the front about ‘The Wash’, the way it cut into the land. Sally thought she understood but would look at a map when she was home. There was a crowd all watching the sun as it set. Dave stood with his arm round Sally, they watched as it sunk below the horizon. He felt goosebumbs on her arm. He pulled her in closer. “Time to go, you’re feeling cold and we have two hours to drive home.”
Sally didn’t take long to fall asleep, it gave Dave a chance to think. There was something still bothering him about the events of the last two weeks. The Brigadier had said the case was closed, he himself thought it was closed, however there was something, he didn’t know what it was, but it would come to him.
Sally was still asleep as Dave pulled up in Loughborough, when the engine stopped, she woke, “where are we?” “Home, you slept all the way.” She half stumbled in through the front door and slumped down on the sofa in the living room. “It must have been all the sea air that knocked me out, thank you for a lovely day, it’s years since I have been to the seaside. I’d forgotten how much fun it is.” “A drink and then bed, do you want a milky coffee?” “A milky one, yes please.” “I’ll bring it upstairs, you go on up and get into bed.”
Dave woke around 04.00, he had slept fitfully, the thought that there was still something to do wouldn’t go away. Slipping out of bed silently and taking Sally’s dressing gown, he went into the spare bedroom and switched on his laptop. The first job was to email Cyrus Grantly to find out if there was any update on the names he had sent over and if the Americans wanted the iPhone, he wrote that he was in London on Tuesday and could drop it off.
Tuesday was going to be a busy day, he wanted to visit Skifford Hall, somehow, he thought the key to whatever it was that was nagging at him was there. On Google Maps, using the satellite view he looked at the estate, the house was at the end of a drive probably about a quarter of a mile long. There was a gatehouse next to the road that ran along one side of the estate. Switching to Streetview he viewed the gatehouse from the roadside, he flicked backwards and forwards between two images of the gatehouse, he was trying to see if it was occupied. He thought it was but couldn’t be sure. He pulled up the estate agents listing for the hall which had been downloaded when they were trying to match the location to the images. It was in Buckinghamshire, not far from Seer Green train station, an easy walk for anyone, like Freddie, who didn’t have a car. The roads nearby were quiet country lanes, if you didn’t know the house was there you would never find it. He found details of the property on the local council website, Stuart Ogilvy’s name was listed as the occupant, the address was the gatehouse. Dave leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes. He went over in his mind the outgoings from the bank account. There were no payments that could be connected to the Hall. He went back to the screen to see if he could find out where the payments had come from. He wasn’t sure where to search, eventually the page with the account information came up. There was a sort code and an account number. He took a screenshot of the page then logged out of the council site. He checked the sort code with a Google search, ‘Goodings and Co. Private Bank’, Dave had never heard of them and checked to find out more information. The address was near the Bank of England. Google said little else, He was just about to try to find a way into the admin area when he heard a scream from the bedroom and Sally frantically calling his name. he hurried across the landing and into the bedroom, she started to cry when she saw him, “I woke up and you weren’t there, your side of the bed was cold, where were you?” By now, he was sitting beside her and holding her hand, “I couldn’t sleep, something was on my mind, I went into the spare room to do some work, I’m sorry if I scared you.” He saw it was just after 06.00. “Why are you wearing my dressing gown, you look ridiculous?” “It was cool when I got up, it was all I could find to keep me warm.” Standing up, he took it off and got into bed. “Sorry,” “I was frightened, all sorts of things went through my mind, I thought…” she didn’t finish what she was going to say. Dave pulled her close, “I’m not going anywhere, if that’s what you thought.”
It wasn’t long before they were both up, over breakfast Sally wanted to know why he couldn’t sleep. Dave explained that there was something more about the case that he couldn’t figure out, “I’ll tell you tonight when I have dug deeper.”
He was back at the laptop by 08.30, he changed the VPN location to Russia, hopefully if the ‘break in’ was spotted, it would be put down as Russian hackers. It took nearly thirty minutes for the software to gain access to the backend of the bank, he thought at one point that it wasn’t going to work. He typed in the account number and waited, when the screen changed to show the information, he gasped. He gasped for several reasons, The names on the account and the balance. He raced to download the statements before anyone in the IT department spotted his visit. There were almost fifty statements, the balance on the account was nearly £5.5m. The account was held in the name of Stuart Ogilvy and one of the Chinese names he had given Cyrus Grantly. Going through the statements there were regular amounts being paid in every month. A few to begin with, it increased every few months, on the last statement, over £150K had been paid in from over thirty different accounts. Beside each payment was a reference, it was just a jumble of letters. Going back on previous statements, the references were consistent. Without the code that had been used, there was no way he could work out where the money was coming from. He went for a coffee and returned to the screen. He suspected the money was from Stuart Ogilvy blackmailing those who attended the party. He went back downstairs to make lunch, his phone was ringing, he raced back upstairs, Cyrus Grantly was calling. “Hi Dave, are you OK to talk?” “Yes, go ahead.” “Your two Chinese names are spooks, they work for the MSS, according to our records, one is in Shanghai, the other is in London. The one called Liu Ching-ling is the one in London,” Dave checked the bank statements, the name was next to Stuart Ogilvy. “I hope that helps, can you be at the embassy by 09.00 tomorrow, I can collect the cell phone from you then.” “Yes, there will be two of us, Sally Fellowes will be with me, you met her when we had dinner.” “I will let them know.” With that the call ended.
He took the phone with him when he returned to the kitchen, sitting in the lounge afterwards, he closed his eyes to think. He was woken at 17.00 by Sally, “you were sleeping when I came home, I left you until now.” “Shit, I have to make a phone call,” his phone was still in his hand. “Sir, sorry to ring you so late in the day, I need to speak to you about the meeting tomorrow, can it be in a private room, possibly one of those in the basement, just the two of us and Sally Fellowes to join us later? I have more information I would like to discuss with you. I am not sure what the next step should be, I would appreciate your views and guidance.” “Very well, come to my office as planned at 11.30 and we will take it from there.” “Thank you sir.”
Sally had been listening, “what was that all about?” “I’ve stumbled across something that is way out of my league. I knew there was more to this and I found it this morning. Come upstairs and I will show you.”
Dave opened up the laptop and showed Sally the bank statements. “Fucking Hell, that’s a lot of money.” “Look at the names at the top of the statement.” Sally swore again as she saw Stuart Ogilvy’s name, “Who’s the Chinese name.” Dave explained his involvement in the purchase of the hall, “he works for MSS, the Ministry of State Security, the Chinese equivalent of our security services. You can see why I need to speak to the Brigadier.” Dave pointed out the payments into the account, “they are in some sort of code, I have no idea how to work it out.” Sally stared at the screen, she had an idea, “move out the way, let me sit down.” She wrote down the eight-letter reference from one of the payments, Dave watched as she searched Google for an online program she could use, she typed in the reference letters into a box on screen and pressed ‘Go’, within seconds there was a list of the possible permutations of the letters. Scrolling down she stopped at one that looked like a name. She wrote it down and carried on, “I think it’s an anagram of the name and possibly an initial or two.” “Try a different one” Dave suggested. Sally tried another with only one vowel, RHRCYITS, she thought that would give fewer answers, one was RCHRISTY. It did. “I recognise that name, he’s on the MOD phone list, I think he works in Whitehall.” Dave opened up the other laptop, he logged into the MOD, he headed for the personnel section. He typed in the name Sally had found, up came a file with the details of one of the senior civilians in procurement, Richard Christy. “Can you stop and help me now, we need to search through the USB sticks. Go for the ‘men only’ parties.” Sally was loading sticks into the laptop and checking to see which ones she needed. There were five. It was going to take some time. “What about food? We need to eat.” Dave suggested that since we are dealing with them, let’s eat Chinese. Sally ordered the food and returned to the screen. Dave had printed her out a picture of who they were looking for, he took one of the sticks and started. He was flicking through the images as fast as the laptop would let him. He stopped when he thought he had a match, comparing the two images, then he would carry on. It was on the fourth stick that he found the match, he asked Sally to check, she agreed, the doorbell was ringing, she went to collect the food and plate it up. Dave stayed upstairs trying to find additional images, he found five in total and possibly three more. He printed out the five certainties and went downstairs to eat, it was 19.30, other than the couple of hours he slept in the afternoon, he had been at it since 04.00. “Your eyes tell me you are worn out, is there much more to do?” “With all this new information, it needs to be written up into a presentable form for tomorrow. There is also a change of plan, I have to be at the US Embassy for 09.00.” “Eat your dinner, I will go put your presentation together while you soak in a bath. Once you have read through it and think it’s OK, I will print it out.” Eating mechanically, Dave finished his food, Sally was already upstairs running a bath, he stepped in, lay back and closed his eyes.
Sally had a good idea of how she was to set out the presentation, she would use the same format as Dave had done earlier. Sitting down at the laptop, she started listing all the facts she knew to be true, Facts that were assumed to be true, conjecture, the last one was conclusions.
With it printed out, she went into the bathroom to speak to Dave, he was asleep in the bath, the water was now cool, dipping her hand into the bath, she dripped some of the water onto his face, “wake up, you can’t sleep in the bath.” His eyes opened and he shivered, Sally pulled out the plug and reached for a towel, standing up he took it from her and stepped out the bath, “I’ve never done that before, I have slept in a bath a couple of times, but never in one full of water.” “Dry yourself, I will get you a coffee.” When she returned, he was wearing her dressing gown for the second time that day, it was far too tight for him, but it saved getting dressed. Handing him a mug of coffee, she waited for him to have a drink before giving him the rough copy of the presentation. “It’s very good, but can you change a few things and add in some other bits.” They both went back into the spare bedroom, “if we do this quickly, then I can get into bed, we need to be up by 05.00 and gone by 06.00.”
Sally opened up the document again, this time they went over each item with Dave changing some of the text. It wasn’t long before the corrections had been done. “Go to bed, I will finish this off and print out five copies, I will put the statements on to a new stick, do you want more copies of the images?” “Yes please, four more copies, and can you do the same number of copies of the personnel file for Richard Christy. I’m not sure how many the Brigadier may call in to the meeting.”
When she had finished, she printed out one copy and sat reading it.
Facts known to be true
- The images were taken at Skifford Hall in Buckinghamshire.
- Skifford Hall is owned by a shell company located in Singapore.
- One of the owners, Lui Ching-ling, is a joint bank account holder with Stuart Ogilvy. Current location is in London.
- There is around £5.5m lodged in the account at Goodings & Co. Private Bank. Statements are on a separate USB stick.
- Last month approximately £150k was deposited.
- Lui Ching-ling is a member of MSS, (Chinese secret service).
Facts assumed to be true
- Stuart Ogilvy and Lui Ching-ling were/are involved in blackmail.
- The payee references in the bank account are anagrams of those being blackmailed.
- One civilian employee in a high-level position in procurement is being blackmailed for money, see separate images and bank statements
Conjecture
- The blackmail for money is being done as an aside to the political objective of the Chinese. If the attendees at the parties were of no use politically then they were blackmailed for money.
- There are many more people being blackmailed other than the former Home Secretary.
Moving Forward
- The images and the bank statement require more investigation to find out how many in Government circles are involved.
- Skifford Hall requires investigation, there may be more information to be gathered.
- The bank account needs to be frozen immediately.
- The decision to arrest or not, Lui Ching-ling will be a political one.
Conclusion
This investigation is only just beginning, the scope and range will be far and wide. It is not something that I am willing to be part of. I suspect it will cross many departments of the Government. I returned to assist with one investigation which was successfully concluded. I am willing to liaise and help whichever department takes over the investigation.
© 10210ken 2024
