Someone Who Isn't Me by Danuta Kot (romance novel chinese novels .TXT) 📕

Curwen heard back from Dom Maskall. His accountant friend had really come through for him.

As Curwen listened, he began to realise just how much of a mistake he’d made with Carl Lavery. The raid on the pub had been a botch from the start. If he’d done his homework, he could have got Lavery without putting Andy at risk at all.

But that was water under the bridge.

‘Docklands Holdings,’ Maskall said. ‘On the surface, there’s nothing dodgy going on. Money comes in, money goes out. Most of it’s done with cash, so the records might be a bit off; the businesses are a bit more profitable than I would have expected, but there’s nothing there that would make anyone want to look more closely.’

‘But?’

Maskall laughed. ‘Exactly. But. Your man obviously knows what he’s doing. Now there is something from the accounts three years ago. Docklands Holdings sold a couple of properties in Bridlington and one in Hull. They got five hundred thousand overall – made a small profit on each one on paper, but once you took running costs into account, they made a loss, so there was no tax liability. Now this is where it gets interesting. Did you know your man is a philanthropist?’

‘Lavery?’ If there was one thing about Maskall that drove Curwen mad, it was the way he dangled information, teasing, wanting a reaction.

‘I mean he gave three hundred thousand of that money to a charity.’

Curwen’s jaw dropped. That was crazy. He would have been less surprised if Lavery had been caught sacrificing seaside donkeys to the rain gods. ‘That makes no sense at all.’

‘Believe me, it makes a lot of sense once you start looking. I haven’t managed to get a close look at the charity yet, but you can be sure that when it spends that money, some of it will be coming back to your man.’

Curwen still didn’t get it. ‘He gives away three hundred grand and gets some of it back? Why not just keep the money? It’s accounted for, you said so.’

‘That’s how it looked. Now listen. The charity banks with the Bridlington Building Society – it’s just a small organisation, local, you know? They did the checks and their Money Laundering Reporting Officer put in a report saying the money coming from Lavery via Docklands Holdings was legit, which it was. Except the MLRO missed one important point. The company that bought the properties is called… hang on, hang on…’ There was the sound of a keyboard tapping. ‘There you go. CaLa. It’s called CaLa.’

‘Carla? You mean like a girl’s name?’

‘No. CaLa.’ Maskall spelled the name out. ‘It’s based in Hull, but like your Brid business, it does holiday lets, car washes, things like that – businesses with a high cash turnover and a clientele that is hard to track. They have a “massage” parlour as well. You know?’

Curwen could hear the inverted commas round the word. He knew all too well what Maskall meant. ‘So what did the MLRO miss?’

‘The owner of CaLa is your man, Carl Lavery. No one checked the money that came from CaLa.’

So if the money from CaLa was dodgy, Lavery had cleaned it up by selling some property to himself. ‘OK, he made the cash legit, so why give it away?’

‘Because it isn’t a one-time operation. He can’t keep on selling stuff to himself – he’ll get caught. But once a charity has a record of regular donations from a checked and legitimate source, how hard is anyone going to look? What you need to see is a breakdown of the charity’s outgoings. Somewhere on there, hiding behind a big wall, you’ll find Carl Lavery.’

‘So Lavery keeps donating and no one checks after the first time?’

‘Not if they’ve squared off the MLRO. Cash? Girls? There’ll be something. He’s got a report that shows the first donation was fine. After that, he can do soft reports that won’t turn up anything, but if anyone starts asking questions, all the paperwork is in place. He’s in the clear, just looks as though he’s not very good at his job.’

‘How do I get to see the charity’s books?’

‘You don’t, without a warrant. Can you get one?’

Curwen thought about it. Did he have enough? He just wasn’t sure. Maskall wouldn’t go public with this – the information was strictly between him and Curwen, and as it wasn’t a legitimate search, Curwen couldn’t use it himself. ‘I’ll need more, from a source I can show my boss.’

‘OK. I’ll tell you what. I know the firm that does the accounts. I’ll give them a ring, ask a few questions, see what I can come up with.’

‘When?’

‘I’ll do it today and get back to you.’

‘Don’t let them know you’re onto them.’

‘Don’t worry – I’ll say I’ve got a potential donor wants to know. There’ll be something there you can use.’

So it wasn’t the drugs. It was the money from the drugs. Money that came in as cash, untraceable money, but money that had to be cleaned up and accounted for.

It was as simple as that. Curwen didn’t need Becca the Barmaid. He didn’t need the pub. He just needed to start tracking the money until he had enough evidence for a warrant. ‘What’s the charity?’

‘It’s based in Hull. It’s a drugs charity. Tania’s House.’

Maskall rang off.

Chapter 31

Hull

Kay got into the office early on Monday. Her case files – after a couple of days of hard work – were now up to date. She wanted time to get on top of things before her clients started arriving. That afternoon, Poppy should be there for her appointment and Kay was hoping to find out more about what had gone so wrong.

She also had things to sort out about the house. It was simpler to call from here. The phone signal was just too unreliable from Sunk Island. After her walk yesterday, she’d almost called the police to tell them about the possible break-in and the empty compost bag blowing around