Outstripped (26 page)

"We're
just having your, er, item X Rayed madam. Shouldn't take a moment."

There
were whispers all around. Charlie could hear people calling her name over the
barriers. The words guilty, drugs, air stewardess and vibrator were clearly
audible. Over and over they went. Actually it was all in her head. She
was
flushing, however, getting hotter,
then colder, then hotter again. Nervously chewing the insides of her cheek,
gritting her teeth, raising her face to the ceiling tiles.
Huffing
and puffing.
But why?
There was
nothing
to discover.

The iron
lady came back. She handed the vibrator over to Brian and whispered something
to him.

The
phrase "Bet you're jealous of that baby, aren't you, bitch?" was
venomously running through Charlie's mind when Brian interrupted.

"The
X Ray showed that there's something other than batteries and machinery inside
madam. We need to take it apart."

"What?"
Charlie's worst nightmare had just broken. "I don't understand. There's
nothing inside it. At least nothing I know about."

"We
need to dismantle the vibrator madam." There, he said it this time.
"There is something inside. I need to ask you again. Is this yours
madam?"

Charlie
was almost at panic stations. Had someone planted drugs on her?
In her vibrator, of all places?
Just like that lady said at
the party. Was this her vibrator? It had to be. She never let it out of her
sight. Well not literally. But
.....

"Um
........
I think so, but there can't be anything in it. I'd
know, surely? I've changed the batteries a few times." And with that she realized
she'd just confessed, not only to merely owning such a mechanism, but also to
some serious, avid usage thereof. She could now add embarrassment to the long
list of uncomfortable feelings currently under experience.

By this
time Brian had already unscrewed the bottom and was busy extracting the
battery. It was one of those nine-volt square variety ones. He measured it up
against the length of the toy and it was comparatively tiny, even to Charlie,
now she came to think of it.

Taking
tools from his female colleague (who by now was giving Charlie the evil eye.
You could almost see her snapping the surgical gloves ready for an assault of
the very personal kind), he dove deep into the bottom of the toy and un-clicked
some ‘clicky’ things. Out fell a very small but false interior bulkhead, and to
follow, fell a small, clear plastic bag with what looked like a very tight roll
of U.S. Dollar Bills.

Charlie
nearly fell over. She went bright red, furrowed her brow and gave off all kind
of mixed messages. Not surprisingly.

"What
the hell
....?
I mean where did
....?
How
....?
I've never seen that, errrrr
......
ever." She was quite convincing with her
innocent bystander routine, but the evidence was there. And she had only
just,
moments before, categorically confirmed it was hers.

Brian laid
all the parts and inserts down on the podium top. Charlie went to pick up the
money roll, but was stopped and advised otherwise.

He
slowly unfastened the plastic zip lock bag and took out the contents. As it
turned out there were three thousand, two hundred and fifty eight dollars,
mostly in fifties and hundreds, and at the centre of the roll was a small hand
written note. The little missive was written in capital letters and detailed
bank account numbers, international swift codes and the letters W.A.I.F.A.
Obviously it was an aide-memoire. Had the money been withdrawn or was it to be
deposited? No one knew, least of all Charlie. But there it was in her
possession.

Dogs
don't normally sniff out money, and the vibrator was clean, so the catalyst for
getting the little tail wagging was also a mystery for Charlie. As it turned
out the plastic bag had definitely carried some form of pot, hashish, dope or
other marijuana derivative on a previous occasion, but this wouldn't come out
until further testing had been done whilst Charlie answered some stern
questions in a very un-salubrious little room without windows.

Now, on
the face of it, the money was private. It couldn't be assumed to be illegal,
underhanded, stolen or anything other than personal funds for that matter,
except for a few observations and suspicions, determined and dreamt up by our
diligent crew from Her Majesty's Customs and Excise.

No one
would ever know they'd been tipped off. It would always remain on record as a
chance discovery, unearthed during routine and random checking procedures.

The
significance of the miniature haul was unknown. Our customs guys just
knew
there was something 'not quite
right'. Charlie's denials seemed believable but the subsequent testing of the
vibrator, the money and the note confirmed that she had used it recently, the
bag had been carrying marijuana and the note detailed a bank account held in
London by a certain individual known as Luke Banner. The questions 'why' and
'why' were posed for the second two but they all knew the answer as to why
she'd used the vibrator.

The Iron
Lady did get her chance to try out her new rubber gloves on Charlie after all.
There was nothing to be discovered of course. Then a further twelve hours was
endured in a holding room whilst the world waited for a bowel movement. She was
eventually released pending further investigations into the money and the bank
account. At this point the matter was handed over to the police.

Charlie
was dumbfounded.

"Of
course I know the name Luke Banner," she told Suzanne on the phone.
"I've not seen him in ages, but what's he got to do with all of this, and
how did that stuff get into my vibrator?"

"I've
no idea."

"It
was rhetorical," she almost shouted.

"Okay,
Okay, I'm only trying to help," added Suzanne. "What, have they said
happens next?"

"They
didn't, really, except that they'd be investigating things. And then they said
I wasn't allowed to leave the country, or town for that matter. What the hell
do I do? I'm supposed to be going to L.A. on Wednesday. What do I tell the
office?

"I'm
not sure. Would you like to come over and stay for a few nights?"

"Is
that OK? Only I really don't feel good about this. I haven't done anything but
how am I supposed to prove it? It would be good to have some company."

Charlie
did go to stay with Suzanne and her little boy, and as it turned out, within a
matter of days, she too needed the support and the company.

The
unexpected knock on the half open stable door turned out to be some plain
clothed detective double act.

"May
we come in?" One of them asked, after first determining he was speaking
with Suzanne.

"Yes
of course. What's this about? There's not been an accident has there? She was,
naturally, oblivious to the predicament about to unfold.

"No.
We're not uniform madam." He said as she ushered him in to the kitchen.

Charlie
shoulder propped herself on the adjoining door frame from the lounge with her
warming cup of coffee held securely in both hands, and looked in on the
developing scenario.

"So,
you're here too madam?" The other detective spoke up as mutual recognition
became apparent between himself and Charlie.

"Just
visiting." She responded before blowing on her drink and taking a sip.
"What's this all about?"

"Yes,
what's this all about?" Suzanne added taking back control of her own
impromptu kitchen confab with the fuzz.

"This,"
he paused, "is all about your association with Luke Banner, and the rest
of your little crowd in that photo, there." He was pointing to the large
frame on the opposite wall. It was the picture of Suzanne, Charlie, Maddy and
Carmel on their prom style school disco night about eight years earlier with
their larger than life partner in all things anti-establishment, namely Luke.

"What
do you mean
association
? I haven't
seen him in years." And she turned to Charlie to corroborate and gain a
similar response.

"What's
he done? In fact what are
we
supposed
to have done?" Started Charlie who was now feeling highly concerned for
herself. This was the second time she'd been confronted in only a few days.
Things were getting weird and worrying.

"So
where d'ya get the picture from then?" The detective asked bluntly. He
knew it was only two years old since the cops already had three other versions
of the same item in their possession.

"He
sent it in the post some time ago. I tried to get in touch but he never
answered his phone and I couldn't be bothered anymore after leaving loads of
messages. He never did ring back. It is a good picture though."

Then
Charlie chipped in with, "He sent me one too, but I only left one message.
Couldn't be arsed."

"We
know madam."

"How
do you know?"

"We
have it." He replied, with a hint of sadistic one-up-man-ship style of
pleasure in his voice. "And before you get all high and mighty, I need to
inform you that we have tried for several days to get in touch with you, but
you're not too good at responding to messages yourself."

"Yeah
well," she said, casually and quite dismissive.

"We've
got a lot of questions to ask you, and we needed to search your apartment. So
we did."

"Don't
you need a warrant for that?" Suzanne interjected again.

"You
mean like this one?" He said pulling some carefully creased high gram
paper from his inside pocket. "This one’s for your house. Here and
now."

"Hang
on a minute.......... Just what the hell is this all about? You still haven't
said why you're here or what we're supposed to have done."

"Money
laundering." The other one said.

"Money
laundering, internationally. With a whole heap of sordid goings on to
boot." added copper number one. "And what we're here for is that
picture. Funny you all have one just the same. The others are full of little
secrets."

"Eh?"

"They've
all got something inside. Something that connects you all and something that's
likely to get you put away."

"It'll
get your dirty laundry and your sordid shenanigans aired in public."

Charlie
came over to join and console with Suzanne, since she was stopped in her tracks
when she went to take the photo off the wall for a closer inspection.

After
informing Suzanne of their full intentions, one of the detectives went outside
to advise his evidence team it was now appropriate to conduct their search. And
in they came. They might as well have had surgical gloves snapped and ready,
plastic bags over their shoes and cameras flashing for Africa. But actually
there were only two of them, and it was pretty low
key
.
Not some C.S.I. 'solve everything with D.N.A. test results in an afternoon and
home for tea' kind of operation with highly unrealistic yellow and blue
lighting everywhere.

There
wasn't a great deal to be found, or removed, other than the photo frame and its
incredible contents of old soiled knickers, flight schedules and notes allegedly
from Luke.

Suzanne
was genuinely astounded when the backing was removed from the picture, and
according to the police she gave a very convincing display of feigned
innocence. As did Suzanne, when they explained what was discovered in her
version of the photo. Way out of date Dutch Guilders that is.

The
little boy was farmed out to Suzanne's mum and dad whilst she and Charlie
humoured
the police down at the station
with their explanations, alibis and ignorance. Their problem, however, was that
none of it meant one iota of difference in the face of such comprehensive
condemnation by the catalogue of evidence set before
them.

During
their separate interrogations they were advised that Luke, Carmel and Maddy,
had also undergone the same trip down memory lane in pursuit of the
truth.
The truth as the police knew it
anyway, since, according to a certain well-used phrase, 'The evidence simply
does not lie'.

They too
were asked about their relationship since school and their collective
involvement in a fairly sizeable money laundering operation, seemingly
masterminded by Luke. He had set up the bank account, the phones and the
lockup. He somehow obtained the ill-gotten gains. And it was he who conducted
all but the initial stage of the complex and multi faceted currency cleansing
operation.

"Quite
a clever little
plan
really." The police had
commented of the long drawn out, small numbers game they'd all been a part of.
"Large enough figures to make the exchanges and the efforts worth while.
But not too large so as to draw attention."

The nail
in the coffin for them all wasn't the pictures themselves, or the contents, or
even the bank account. It was the key in Maddy's picture. It matched the one on
Luke's car key ring.