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NATHANIEL GLITTERS

 

      One of the benefits of being a malefactor is the possession of finely tuned sensibilities. We appreciate fine foods, and fine wines, beautiful women and beautiful music - though sacred music rather tends to pass us by - and fine art and artefacts. I like to think of myself as a member of the cognoscenti when it comes to appraising silver, and I have a good eye for furniture. I also own some nice paintings: a small Turner, a rather pretty Seurat, and a picture of a past love who sat for Augustus John. But one of the downsides of possessing a sense of the exquisite is the pain one can suffer at having to part with treasures. Jealousy often pursues me with considerable enmity, and I sometimes have to sell up and move on at speed, or even just move on wholly empty-handed, leaving all behind me. It can be very hard to part from treasured memories if you have been around for many hundreds of years. However one sometimes has no choice, for whilst malefactors may be immune to the ageing process that moves human beings through life, we can also die, if  taken in the right manner. I always shiver imperceptibly when I watch Dracula films and see men hammering stakes at the witching hour. It is better to continue, albeit with nothing.

   Fortunately witch-hunts and exorcisms seem to have gone out of fashion. People in the know now queue to use my skills, and growing economic prosperity has begun lining my pockets with gold as new millionaires seek to trade in the respectable wives of their youth for rather glitzier later models, whilst the respectable wives fight by every means they can to secure the best possible settlements. Increasingly cut-throat international markets have also channelled a whole new ethos into industrial espionage and related activities.

   I have recently been feeling more secure than for a long time, and have amassed a fair bit on the side. I like to keep it hidden about the house, because taxmen can take an embarrasing interest in large cash flows. But new wealth has also made me determined to cut a dash amongst my acquaintance, and I embarked not long ago on a passionate affair with a powerful woman called Catherine working at Sothebys, the prestigious London auction house, alongside some more run-of-the-mill amours. We met at one of Sothebys’ special views, the glossy catalogue events where every lot seems to carry a five figure estimate. She was telling an American the history of a really glitzy diamond necklace, and she plainly knew her subject. I smiled, and flashed her one of my special looks – she was rather a plain woman, smartly dressed, but large and lumpy and very Irish, and I knew she would find me impossible to resist. She told me she ranked as Sothebys’ top jewellery expert, and I thought my charms might help me both collect and cash in, because auctions are a strange world, where insiders carve up all the best prizes. However I made a sad mistake.

   Sexually, of course, she was insatiable. Unmatched women in their forties often are. But I knew that skimming promised the real prizes, and I wanted Catherine to cut me in. I told her I had collected a little working capital, and lunched her at the Caprice.

   She made it sound very easy. ‘It’s really simple, Nat.’ She lowered her voice as she leaned towards me: expensive restaurants always seem to have ears everywhere. ‘Little old ladies come in, and ask us to handle their family heirlooms: sometimes they have stuff that’s really impressive.’

 

 

 

 

   She smiled a conspiratorial smile as she toyed with her Quenelles de Langoustine a l’Oseille - expensive prawns dolled up as maritime gold. ‘We treat them like duchesses if they know what they’re offering. Otherwise we treat them like shit. ‘Quite nice, for the period, but nothing fantastic,’ we tell them. Then we price it all up at a couple of grand, charge them a couple of grand for photography and insurance, put the stuff in a sale with the barest of descriptions, buy it all in for pennies, ship it out to New York or Geneva, and clean up.’

   It sounded so easy. All I had to do was hand over some cash, and collect half the profits. I was enchanted. But I was also fooled.

   The first couple of sales went very well. I chipped in a case filled with pinkies, Catherine paid me back with a great big wad of Swiss thousand franc notes. I reckoned I was making seven or eight times my outlay. Then she came up with a big one.

   She called me on my mobile one morning, and she sounded excited. ‘Nathaniel, I’ve got it.’

   I made encouraging noises.

   ‘It’s an important private collection, a stately home in Ireland.’

   I should have been on my guard, of course, because Irish collections often [n1]  often oft prove misleading: the Emerald Isle houses some unmitigated blackguards prepared to sell their grandmothers for less than the cost of their coffins. I once heard an Irish country dealer bamboozling a couple interested in a rather warped wardrobe by telling them the wardrobe had been kept by an old lady living in cold, damp conditions.

   ‘Sure you are, when you look at it, ‘tis a little akimbo,’ he had trilled. ‘Tis the ice that lived in that old woman’s bedchamber. But ‘tis mere comfort that it’s needing. Some warmth, and a nice dry atmosphere, and t’will stretch out again and straighten its poor old bent shape, and none’ll be the wiser.’

   However I agreed to fly to Cork for a quick view. Catherine said that the collection was still being catalogued, and told me that a quick cash offer might swing a deal.  She met me with a big shiny Mercedes, with two burly men in dark glasses escorting her, and we drove to a big house with more burly men prowling the grounds. They were wholly taciturn, but they bore the stamp of Republican hard men, and I should have known better. But I was greedy for more thousand franc notes.

   Anyway, she showed me a truly magnificent collection of rocks – diamonds as big as bantam eggs, emeralds strung out in rivieres, sapphires the colour of mermaids’ eyes, and the lot must have collectively added up to at least a couple of million.

   ‘We need five big ones,’ Catherine whispered, in a voice that was wholly seductive, and I crumbled, though half a million is a sizeable sum by anyone’s standards. I raced home to gather together all my Swiss francs, all my pinkies, and every penny I could find in readies. I poured myself a nice measure of John Jameson, and counted, and I was just there. I stuffed all the cash into carrier bags and drove to the West End. Catherine met me in Bond Street, and we shook hands on our deal.

   That was the last I saw of her. I was busy at the time, and it didn’t fuss me at first to find her off line. But I grew a little worried when her assistant told me she had flown to New York, and then turned all coy when I asked when she would be returning. I called again, and found she had packed her bags quite completely.

   A very smooth police inspector called Nicolas Lindsay came to see me two days later. He knew all about the skimming, and smiled a knowing smile – I was tempted to blow him away for his smugness. ‘We think she has gone off with a very great deal of money,’ he told me.

   ‘Where is she?’ I demanded. I was hopping mad, and just wanted to jump on the next Concorde and fry her alive. I have this power, when I am really angry.

   The inspector shook his head. ‘She’s gone to ground, sir. Sothebys want her just as much as you do: they’re being buried under a mountain of writs. But we only know that some powerful people are protecting her.’

   I thought of the Republican hard men. We eyed each other, and he smiled. ‘I’m told that you are quite persuasive, sir.’

   Well, that was it. We talked for a while, and the inspector had a plan. I don’t know what people had told him about me – perhaps he thought of me as some kind of hypnotist. But he wanted to swing me, and I wanted to swing.

   ‘She has some friends looking after her.’ We were now Nathaniel and Nick, and swilling John Jameson – Lindsay had left his driver outside in an unmarked car. ‘They think they’re the real McCoy.’

   ‘Frightened of no one?’

   ‘They’ll pat you down.’

   ‘And blow me away?’

   Nick grinned at me. He could afford to, he wasn’t planning to take tea with the lions. ‘Go and make them shit in their pants, Nat.’ He helped himself to the bottle, and I looked away, because I can do nasty things to people who presume. It was plain the FBI had told him to set me up as patsy. I could just see it coming. The men in black combat helmets and bullet-proof Kevlar jackets would be waiting for the gunshots. Dead Nathaniel? How very convenient. They’d have the hard men on a watertight murder rap.

    I flew to New York two days after that. I wanted Sothebys to pay half the cost of my ticket, but their finance director demurred. He seemed to think I had done his firm down. I thought I was going to help Sothebys recoup its losses. I paid by credit card, and promised myself total recovery on my return.

   Scotland Yard fed me a list of numbers, but it took me some hard telephoning when I landed to set up a meeting. I think the hard men only agreed to see me because they thought me some kind of joke. Catherine must have gone off with her share of the takings, because she could have told them. Not many men are bifurcated.

   We met at a bar called Murphys on the Lower East Side. I was ushered into a private room at the back, and there must have been a dozen of them: all big, beefy, unshaven and most unpleasant looking. Some were wearing dark glasses. Some were not.

   One patted me down, then another had a go. I could tell they were not wholly confident. A small man named Vincent seemed to be in charge. He was not wearing glasses.

   He glowered at me. ‘Why the hell have you been calling us?’

   I wasted no time. ‘I want my money.’

   ‘What money?’

   I stared at him, just medium force, and I could see him wince. I held out my hand. ‘I want six big ones.’

  One of the big men stepped towards me. He was not wearing glasses, either, so I felled him with a look. I think I killed him, but confrontations are no time for feeling pulses.

   Vincent seemed a little taken aback.

   ‘Now I want seven big ones.’ I stared at him unwaveringly.

   Another big man thought to try his luck, and pulled out a gun. ‘Shall we wipe him, boss?’ I blew him away as well, and dealt Vincent a really bad migraine. I was starting to grow impatient. I knew I was really on form.

   ‘Now it’s a mill, and sterling, not dollars.’ I made my voice harsh. The hard men seemed bewildered, and I could see Vincent sweating profusely: it is a stage between migraine and demise. I filled in by taking out all his men not wearing glasses. I was having fun: I don’t think I have killed so many men at one time for many hundreds of years.

   Vincent made some calls on his mobile, and the cash arrived an hour later. I smiled wryly, because it came from a bank, in an armoured van. Then I made some calls, and the police crashed in. I think they found the corpses a little hard to understand, but then neither Vincent nor I were about to provide any explanations.

   I flew home the following day, and on to Geneva: a million in cash is rather a lot to hide under a mattress. Then I flew home again, and took a couple of days off, to recover. Killing looks can be very tiring, and jet lag never helps. I took myself to a light lunch at the Caprice, a nice bit of halibut with a couple of glasses of Chablis: I felt I deserved it. Then I walked up Bond Street to Sothebys. I must say that the finance director gave in very quickly, and paid not just half the cost of my trip to New York, but the full amount. He had glasses, but a bad habit of looking over the rims very sternly. I think I taught him to change his ways.

    I am told Catherine met a sticky end. Some say she lies at the bottom of the Hudson River wearing a pair of concrete bootees, others have whispered that she was last seen floundering in a Florida game park, playing with alligators. Either way sounds messy. Nick Lindsay came to visit me again about a week after my chat at Sothebys: I think he hoped to clear up some loose ends. But I sent him packing with a thick head. I hate people who presume.

   I spent my winnings on paying a deposit on a Loire Valley chateau, the ancestral home of the Marquis de Sade. It somehow seemed appropriate. I believe a small army of lawyers took Sothebys to the cleaners. But then auction houses can afford it.

   A contact then called me from New York to tell me that Vincent had snuffed it. Apparently his people gave him a hero’s funeral. I would have liked to have been there. I would have wiped the lot.