A Day at the Races (14 page)

“What was it?” said Fisher, sceptically.

“Something about a blockage in the fuel line, probably caused by dirty fuel. It didn’t take him long to fix it once he started, its just I had to wait until he surfaced, apparently he was drinking all day yesterday, so that what’s delayed me.”

Mike looked at him.

“Judging by the smell of your breath, he wasn’t the only one drinking yesterday.”

Moxie looked at Mike and thought he would use his trump card.

“Of course, you have all probably seen the news about the robbery at Wetherby and the involvement of a white van. Well I was worried about being pulled over, so I didn’t leave the hotel until late because there were Police everywhere, and I didn’t want to get stopped not with all the money on board. Anyway I figured I was outside the search zone, so I thought I had better make the effort to get here, so here I am.”

“Did it not occur to you to ring us and let us know what had happened?”

“Well its like this, my mobile has been cut off because of my financial situation as I haven’t paid the bill for the last two months. Plus the fact it was always locking up or I couldn’t get a signal, it was a piece of shit and about as much use as a fucking chocolate teapot.”

“Why the hell didn’t you say something before you left I could have loaned you a phone?

“Well I didn’t like to say, it’s a bit embarrassing being bereft of funds, but you wouldn’t know because you have never been in that situation.”

“You could have compromised the whole operation and you should have made an attempt to contact one of us at least to keep us in the picture. You had us all worried that something had gone wrong especially when the news about the robbery at Wetherby broke. I made repeated attempts to ring you but to no avail. Why didn’t you ring from the Cuthbert Arms or did they not have such a thing as a phone in that flea pit?”

“Look Mike don’t get on you high horse with me ok? The phone in my room wasn’t working, and because of the sensitive nature I didn’t want to make a call from the front desk in the hotel… alright?”

Mike didn’t believe him and Fisher certainly didn’t, especially as he was dedicated to making sure his vans were always serviced and in tiptop condition. You can’t afford to have a vehicle break down in their kind of business.

OK things do go wrong from time to time, but a fuel blockage was out of the question, as they had their own diesel tanks and service bay.

Fisher didn’t push it though, he could see Moxie was hopping from one foot to the other, and Mike was really annoyed so he said nothing.

Moxie looked at all the people in the room and thought it best not say anything further, as it was getting a bit tense.

He saw that they had made good progress so far, large stacks of money neatly piled on one table in £5’s-£10’s-£20’s and £50’s and a bucket full of coins. It had never occurred to him that there would be so much change given in coins. He held out his holdall and the overcoats and asked Mike where did he want it.

“Just place it over there on the table by the window, we will get to it next.”

They spent the rest of the day counting and collating the money, all the dud fifty-pound notes had been placed in large holdalls.

“Moxie do something useful, go with Maurice down to the boiler house and make sure all this money is burned, including all the overcoats and the holdalls.”

“No problem Mike.”

Kenny looked a bit concerned.

“Is that really necessary Mike, to burn all the coats?”

“Look Kenny I know you spent a lot of time making those overcoats, and they are beautiful, but how many Crombie overcoats do you know that have twenty pockets sewn on the inside. If the police ever found them they would know instantly they had been used for something dodgy. No they will all have to be destroyed, I am sorry Kenny.”

The two of them picked up the holdalls and headed down to the boiler room. At one stage Maurice left Moxie alone for a short time while he went for the dumper to get a fresh load of coal. He looked at the thousands of notes and thought what a shame to burn all this. Eventually Maurice returned with the dumper full of coal and stoked up the furnace. Once it was blazing furiously they threw the overcoats and holdalls into the furnace, and checked to make sure everything had been disposed of.

Mike and the rest of the team spent the remainder of the evening, sorting and counting the money. It took well into the late evening to count all the cash, and to make sure it had been sorted properly and that all the dud money had been removed and disposed of.

Mike did one final check to see if Maurice and Moxie had got rid of everything, then totted up all the sheets with the various totals on and was very surprised at the amount.

“That’s a grand total of £968,000 just short of the million, that includes the £277,000 left over from our previous excursion, much better than I expected, you have all done admirably to manage all this.

Right, I think that’s as much as we can do tonight I suggest we all go home. I know Brenda will be wondering what the hell have we been up to, two days on the trot, and at this stage I am running a bit thin on plausible excuses.”

Once the money had been counted, Fisher placed it in the vault for safekeeping, he secured and locked the old accounts office and left with the rest of them for home. They would decide later how to introduce this into the fund.

The following days, the media was still full of the daring robbery at Wetherby racecourse, it was reported that Police forces in Yorkshire and Lancashire, had launched extensive investigations to bring the culprits to justice.

Lancashire Police had identified one gang who could have pulled this off, they were known as “Mc Alpines Fusiliers” a particular nasty bunch of criminals led by Dermot Mc Alpine, a hardened criminal originally from Dublin, known to be into armed robbery, drugs and prostitution and someone you crossed at your peril.

It was established that the staff in the Tote office at Wetherby, had taken the serial numbers of most of the notes before they placed them in the tills. This was a precaution that they took since the same office was robbed at gunpoint six years previously. The Police wanted to keep this information under wraps in the hope that some of the notes would turn up in due course and lead them to the culprits responsible for this vicious robbery.

Police in Yorkshire and Lancashire held a high level conference and had the various suspects under close observation within a few days of the robbery.

Dermot Mc Alpine was photographed in the company of John Miller at Greenmount golf course. Some of his senior gang members had been photographed and recorded visiting Central Cars on more than one occasion. It would however be some time before they had any hard evidence, that Dermot Mc Alpines Fusiliers were involved in the heist.

Chapter 17

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It was a wet and windy day on the 10th January, when a courier rode into the car park at Central Cars and parked his motorcycle, and then went into reception. He deposited a large holdall onto the counter top.

“This is for Mr Miller, it’s from Mr Reichert and there is a letter of instruction inside.”

“Do you want me to sign anything?”

“No that’s ok, I am in a rush, and anyway he will know what it is in connection with.”

With that he strode out of the reception area, mounted his motorcycle and rode out of the car park down Manchester road.

“Mr Miller, a chap has just left a bag in reception for you, he says it’s from a Mr Reichert.”

“Stop him and don’t let him leave, I will be straight down!”

“Sorry Mr Miller, he has already left.”

Miller raced down to reception.

“What did he look like?”

“I couldn’t see properly, because he had one of those visors that came down over his face, but he was tall and spoke with a foreign accent, he sounded French.”

Miller picked up the bag and took it straight back to his office and emptied the contents onto his desk.

There were bundles of £50 notes, and he sat down and proceeded to count it all. It came to a total of £660,000 and he sat smiling at the pile of money.

In his haste to count the money, he had overlooked an envelope and eventually he spotted it opened it and it read:

“Dear John

Here is the balance of the money for my order for executive cars. I will be in Korea for the next three weeks, so seeing as the delivery of my cars is imminent and I will be away, I have decided to give you the funds early so you are not stretched financially. I have asked one of my senior principals Emanuel Odibodi of Mamba Freight, which is part of our group, to take care of everything for me, I would like you to make out all the paperwork in his name.

When you have the cars in stock and the paperwork ready, you are to put an advert in the Manchester Evening Chronicle in the personal section for 5 nights saying:

“Mercedes is ready to meet Emanuel” and when he sees it, he will contact you with delivery instructions.

Yours Truly

Richard Reichert III”

Jesus thought Miller, talk about cloak and dagger, here I am holding £660,000 I have no idea who this guy is, and I still don’t know who is behind it all, or where I have to deliver the cars to.

In all his years, he had never had to deal with anyone in this manner.

Then he thought, the Yanks were always a bit odd from his experience, and they were always a bit paranoid and over the top, and maybe he had to be this way to give his staff a tax break.

But what the hell why should he be worried, he could do with a deal like this every week, after all he had been paid up front for all of the cars. He put a call through to Neville Freely and took the money straight down to Froyds Bank.

“Well John it’s the same as the last batch, it’s the genuine article, looks like we will be spending another weekend in Germany.”

Miller had a broad smile across his face.

“Fabulous, I will ring Klaus now and advise him, I know he has all the cars ready, all he has to do is load them with the necessary. We will all be very happy people, not to mention a weekend of debauchery in Frankfurt, can you put this in my safety deposit box along with the previous lot?”

Freely nodded and they both smiled and hugged one another in a warm embrace.

Manchester Evening Chronicle Monday 25th January, an ad appeared in the personal section and it read.

“Mercedes is ready to meet Emanuel.”

The following morning, Miller received a phone call from Mr Emanuel Odibodi.

“Odibodi is my name, I believe you have some cars for my boss Mr Reichert?”

“That’s correct Mr Odibodi, where would you like us to deliver them?”

“That’s not necessary, I will send two car transporters down to your garage today, please make sure you have all the paperwork ready and it is made out in my name, and you have all the keys to the vehicles.”

“OK Mr Odibodi everything will be ready for you, we look forward to meeting you.”

Fuck it thought Miller, once again I have no idea who the hell these people are, what a way to carry one, I only hope it all doesn’t go pear shaped at this stage.

Later that day, the two transporters arrived at Millers garage and loaded up the consignment of cars, all the time Miller was hovering around and asked the drivers who was behind this. It didn’t do him any good though, as both drivers seemed to be Polish or foreign at least and had very little English. All they said was for Mr Odbod good ya, but before they left, one of the drivers handed Miller a letter, it was from Richard Reichert III and it read:

“Dear John

Thanks for all your help in organising this transaction and respecting our confidentiality. We are delighted with the way you have responded, from start to finish, in helping us organise this for our staff.

My associates have noted your willingness to cooperate as you have in this manner, and as a result there will be further business for you in the future.

Have a successful New Year and I hope you achieve all your aspirations.

Thanks once again

Yours Truly

Richard Reichert III”

Miller gave a broad smile and greed showed on his face, maybe it was a great deal all along and who knows, they may well be interested in some of his other business.

Later that day, Richard Reichert drove down the M62 to the Granada Service Station, to meet Emanuel Odibodi. As he entered the car park, he saw Odibodi in his silver Range Rover waiting for him, so he parked up beside him. Emanuel climbed out of his car and walked around to meet him.

He was a very heavy set Nigerian of the Yoruba Tribe. He had lived in England since 1968 arriving just after the Biafran war started in Nigeria.

Odibodi had married an Igbo Princess called Precious Oluckwani in Onitsha in the east of Nigeria in 1964. The war started, when Lieutenant Colonel Ojukwu declared an Independent Republic of Biafra, then broke away from the Federal Republic of Nigeria on the 30th May 1967 and the civil war started on the 6th July 1967.

This was after long negotiations had failed, and Ojukwu cited his action because of the current governments inability to protect the Igbo people of the East. However the fact that oil had been discovered in the area was felt as a more compelling reason for the breakaway.

The Federal troops were mobilised, and a vicious war started that was to last until the 15th January 1970, when the Biafran rebel resistance finally collapsed and its leader Ojukwu fled the country.

An estimated three million people died, as a result of the war and mass starvation.

It was during the war, that Odibodi was afraid for his wife’s wellbeing because of her position, so he applied for political asylum in the United Kingdom.

Her Father was a Chief of one of the Igbo Tribes in the east, and oil had been discovered on parts of his land just before the war started. He had sold out the rights of this land, to one of the Dutch oil companies, for eight hundred million US Dollars. He had political influence, both in Nigeria and the United Kingdom, and it was thought that due to his intervention, Odibodi and his wife were granted political asylum in the UK.