The Mallorcan Bookseller (The 3R International Series Book 1) Read online

  SEVEN

  Jasvinder Kaur was sat at her desk in a smart set of offices in BKC, the now de-facto central business district in Mumbai.

  Looking over the monthly figures of her operation, she was pleased with the data she was seeing, especially from her pilot project. Her company, Direct Solutions, now employed over one hundred and twenty staff and ran four call centres, with offices in Mumbai and Chennai and the business was growing fast.

  The youngest child of Gurnum Singh, Jaz, as she was known, had been well educated, finishing her business degree in the US. She had found that being brought up in a family where your father was the boss of a criminal gang, had brought with it a good deal of advantages. There were only occasional downsides, sometimes disputes with other gangs and very, very occasionally, the unwanted attention from the police when they felt they needed to demonstrate they hadn’t given up on holding organised crime at bay.

  One of four children, but the only girl, she had learned to fight and stand up for herself as she was growing up. Her parents soon gave up on the idea of any sort of arranged marriage for their daughter. She was headstrong and after returning from the US with her Masters in Business, she made it clear that she was going to make her own way. Whilst her brothers, who were happy to go into their father’s ‘family business’, made fun of their little sister, they also knew she had the same ruthless streak as their father running through her.

  Four of her call centres were fully operational legitimate businesses trading under the name of Direct Solutions, providing first point customer contact services for a variety of companies in the UK and in the USA. She had been successful in building this side of the business. Turnover was growing fast and so now investors were sniffing around, she knew she needed to keep the business under her sole ownership to avoid prying eyes. She didn’t mind the company getting a profile in the media as she enjoyed the limelight that came with it, so was happy to be pictured in the social media handing over cheques for local community projects. It provided the cover she was looking for with Intertech, her other business, where she ran six further call centres, but the ownership of these was buried deep within a network of spurious company names, that would make it very hard, if not impossible, to track ownership of Intertech back to her.

  The call handlers in these centres had been carefully selected. She had recruited the early ones, but now her managers knew what she wanted and they did the job well. There were plenty of people out there who wanted a well-paid job and she made sure this paid better than the salaries in her legitimate business. However, she did expect them to earn it, by cheating and deceiving vulnerable and unsuspecting people through the IT scams and with no qualms or morals. The profit sharing incentive she rewarded them with also ensured total commitment from her team and she smiled at how she was putting her learning from her business degree to such good effect.

  The scam was simple. Victims would see a pop-up appear on the screen of their laptop or desk computer that without the right course of action, could block the screen. The victim then sees an IT Support telephone number, which when dialled is answered by the Intertech call centre call handlers, who pressure and intimidate the caller to pay money, often significant sums of money, to solve their IT issue.

  Also based in Mumbai and Chennai, her Intertech business was providing a far higher turnover and profit ratio than Direct Solutions. She checked the figures again for Intertech, yes, business was good. After overheads, she was clearing over ten million rupees a month in net profit, about a £100K in sterling she calculated and it was growing. She smiled again and wondered what her brothers were making under their father? It certainly wouldn’t be anything like that. One final thing. She should check the pilot that was going on in the Balearics. She wasn’t sure at first that it was a good deal to get involved with. It was a strange tie-in, linking Indian call centres to an Armenian OCG, but the figures showed it was working.

  Her Intertech call handlers took the addresses of the people they were scamming and then during their downtime, they researched them. They produced a summary for their supervisor, outlining the estimated property value, likely number and age of the occupants and any access details for the location, such as security cameras. They could also add to the report by including additional information they may have gained whilst speaking with the scam victim, such as whether or not they liked fine art or sculpture.

  In reality it was a small return for her business. She was getting around two hundred and fifty thousand rupees, about £2.5k sterling, for each address, however, there was a strange element of trust that was growing between her and her Armenian partner in Mallorca which she found interesting, almost refreshing, like honour amongst thieves. If the address paid off and the Armenians got a good haul, they would give her another ten percent of what they made, starting at one hundred thousand rupees, so it could be quite lucrative, but again if nothing came of it, she only returned half of her fee. As with the main scam, the call handler and their supervisor also took a percentage of the fees, however, she never asked them to repay their money if the Armenians didn’t get anything. Generous, yes, but the staff did know that too many addresses without a good return on investment could result in them being dismissed, so the incentive was there to do a really good job.

  The pilot had been going three months now and was due for a review, so she should probably go back to Mallorca to see Sonny. It was a good time of the year to get out of Mumbai for a few days anyway. No doubt they thought it was hot in Mallorca, being their summer season, but it was still nothing like the incessant humidity of Mumbai. She had been in Mallorca for a long weekend’s break earlier in the year and had met him in a smart bar one night. Five to ten years older than her, he was big, very imposing and he hadn’t been slow in coming forward and that always suited her, at least when they first met. She wasn’t into long term relationships as she saw them as an unnecessary distraction. When she needed company, she generally looked for European businessmen staying in the up market luxury hotels for one night stands, sometimes two if they were good.

  Sonny had been a good two night stand and it was probably because they spent some of the second day together that she found out enough about his business to understand the potential for a tie-in. He had told her that he thought she just owned a call centre business, so he had been surprised when she made the proposal. The figures she projected had made sense to him and she knew he was keen to show his boss that he could manage a bigger In-Country operation, maybe even North America. The prospect of taking the partnership into the States was enticing, but enough of work she thought to herself, time for some rewards. She looked around and saw Ekam and motioned for him to get the car ready to take her home. She wanted to celebrate with a meal out and maybe some fun.

  *****

  Later that evening Ekam took her to one of her favourite hotels. As an attractive and rich young woman, it was never difficult to engage with one of those guys you could nearly always find having a meal alone and then a drink in a hotel bar after a day with their clients. She was always cautious with these encounters, but once she’d make it clear she was available and they’d got back to his room, she liked to take control, but this one tonight had taken her by surprise.

  At first she thought he just liked things a bit rough, or maybe he thought she was actually one of the high class hookers operating in some of the top end hotels. But then he started to slap her and hit her hard. She tried to fight him off, but couldn’t and it only stopped when Ekam heard her cries of pain as he waited outside the room door, something he always did once Jaz had texted him the room number. Ekam didn’t bother knocking. He was a big, athletic man and he leaned back and kicked at the door lock, the weakest part of the door and the door gave way. The man was still semi-dressed and looked up in surprise as Ekam stood there. Jaz scrambled out from under the man and ran to the bathroom.

  “Who the hell do you think you are coming in here? Look, I’m sorry if she’s your wife or something, but
she offered herself to me on a plate, what can I say?”

  He didn’t say anymore as by that stage Ekam had walked across to where the man was now standing by the side of the bed. He didn’t stop walking, but his right arm moved slightly back and then he punched his fist forward quickly into the man’s stomach. The man was around the same age as Ekam, about forty and looked reasonably fit and well built, but the punch took him to his knees. He then had no defence to what followed as Ekam hit him again, this time to the head, with a hard punch to his temple, followed by a low left hook that straightened him back up again. The man was trying to talk and trying to defend himself at the same time, but with blood coming from his nose and his head spinning from the punches he was completely disorientated.

  “Look, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It was just a bit of fun, can’t we sort this out, I have money.”

  Ekam had been given responsibility for looking after Jasvinder Singh when she was born and he was just eight years of age. He was her companion and lived with Jasvinder’s family.

  When they left him at this strange and much bigger house than he had ever seen before, he was told by his parents that it was a great honour and that they would never forget him. He cried for a week, but he had a bed to sleep in and food every day, something he didn’t always get at home.

  He learned many years later that his parents hadn’t given him away, but had asked Jasvinder’s father, Gurnum Singh, to take pity on them and to take their son and give him a better life than they could afford. Once he knew, Ekam had wanted to find and then help his parents and when he finally could, he was truly content with a life he had dedicated to looking after Jasvinder.

  He would do anything for her and in this case, the man in front of him had hit her, hit his beloved Jasvinder and he would be punished. As she came out of the bathroom, he saw some reddening around her cheeks. He checked with her that she was otherwise okay. She nodded at Ekam, who then looked at the man.

  “Sit down and do not move.”

  The man did as he was told and Ekam quickly made a phone call.

  “Balnoor will be here in just a few minutes. He will meet you downstairs.”

  “Thank you,” said Jaz.

  Her voice was quiet. He could see she was shaken, but couldn’t bring himself to put his arm around her. He had not touched her, even to comfort her, not since she was thirteen and starting to turn from a girl into young woman. He knew he could never have or at least never show feelings of love for her, as to do so would threaten his very ability to be able to defend her. Instead, he waited whilst she quickly let herself out of the room, pulling the smashed door behind her, before he turned to the man, who looked like he was expecting him to say something, so he was taken aback when Ekam punched him again in the stomach.

  “Just let me go, please,” he pleaded, before realising he hadn’t been punched. He had been stabbed.

  “Christ, you’ve stabbed me!” said the man. His hands went down to the wound and he tried to stem the blood, looking in vain for help from the man who had just stabbed him.

  He started to move to the hotel phone until he saw Ekam rip it out of the wall and then pick up the man’s mobile phone and walk to the other side of the room and turn and hold it out, as though offering it to the man. The man tried to stagger towards Ekam.

  “What are you doing? Just give me the damn phone. We can still sort this out. Please help me.”

  “Come, come for your phone. Or has it occurred to you that by keeping moving, you are keeping the blood flowing into, or rather, out of your wound? So in effect my friend, you are now killing yourself,” said Ekam.

  It was as though Ekam had punched the man again. He stopped suddenly and looked down at his wound. He couldn’t stop the flow. He looked around for something he could use as a bandage. ‘Why hadn’t he thought of doing that before?’ He started to scramble at the bed to get one of the sheets off to make a makeshift bandage. Ekam let him do it. He knew the length of the knife had gone deep into the man’s stomach and that no bandage would stop the bleeding sufficiently to keep him alive. He would be dead in another five minutes or so. He wanted the man to feel the helplessness Jaz had felt when he was attacking her, but this time he would have no one coming through the door to help him.

  Ekam sat down in the chair and watched the man frantically trying to apply a bandage. By now the man’s strength was going and he had forgotten Ekam had his phone. He had started sobbing and was begging for his help.

  “My friend, you had my angel delivered to you on a plate. She chose you and she would have let you have her. You cannot know how much I have dreamed of doing the very thing that she gave you,” said Ekam.

  The man looked up at Ekam.

  “So you’re a jealous shit, who is too much of a coward to do anything about it. Ha! That’s it, you’re just a coward, you bastard!”

  “Sticks and stones,” said Ekam and he smiled. “Not long now my friend. If you’re lucky your body will go into shock and you won’t feel any more pain. If I had my way, you would be screaming in agony by now. Maybe I’m losing my touch?”

  The man wasn’t listening, his eyes were opening and closing. The blood loss was now reaching a critical stage. Then he slumped to one side. Ekam checked for a pulse. It was faint. He started to clean the room and bathroom, removing any evidence that he and Jaz had been there and by the time he had finished that the man was well and truly gone.

  He made one more call to one of Gurnum Singh’s men who he knew looked after this hotel. He needed the CCTV for the past six hours ‘accidently’ removed and for the Duty Manager to remove the reservation he had made for dinner in Jaz’s name. By the time Ekam was being picked up by one of his drivers as he left the hotel, the man he had called had made all of the arrangements asked of him, leaving the police with no leads of any significance to go on when the body was found during the early hours as the hotel security did their rounds. They could only surmise that the man may have been murdered because he wouldn’t pay for the services of a high class hooker.

  As the car took Ekam back to Jaz’s home, he got a text from her ‘Come and see me when you get back.’

  He wished he could read more into this than he knew he could. She had always looked at him as another older brother. That should have been enough for him, given his upbringing and the difference in their positions in life, but it wasn’t. However, he knew what was had to be. His job was to protect her and he had done that tonight.

  He knocked gently on her door and heard her voice.

  “Come in Ekam,” said Jaz.

  She was feeling settled again now. Jaz knew that she actually liked the risk of what she was doing, picking up men for sex in hotel bars. It gave her a rush, a thrill and it wasn’t just the sex, it was the chase of picking a man she didn’t know. It was the same with her business. She actually found the legitimate business pretty boring, but the Intertech side of things was much more exciting. She didn’t care about the people being scammed. ‘They shouldn’t be so stupid and gullible,’ she thought. She knew she had much of her father’s ruthlessness in her and so it was with the man tonight. She hoped Ekam had punished him, had hurt him, really hurt him and yes, she hoped, no expected him to be dead.

  “Did he take long to die?” she said.

  “Long enough to feel pain and helplessness and to know he should never have hurt you,” said Ekam.

  “Thank you, I made a mistake, I’m sorry I put you in this position Ekam.”

  He had never heard Jasvinder Singh apologise for anything, to anyone. Ekam flushed at the thought she had apologised to him. She must feel something for him, he thought, but of course, she has her position and cannot show anything. He felt so proud.

  “It is my honour to protect you Miss Kaur, there is nothing to apologise for, I wish you a peaceful night’s sleep,” said Ekam as he stepped out of her room.

  She smiled. He had looked after her since he was eight years old and he had always called her Miss Kaur, even as children.
‘Like a guardian angel,’ she thought as she settled down in her bed.

  EIGHT

  Sam turned and looked at his mother as Greg Chambers walked out the door of Sa Petita Llibreria.

  “Okay Mum, come on now, spill the beans. I’m out the door for a couple of minutes and a charming and handsome Englishman is here when I get back,” he smiled as he described Greg.

  “I said he’s just an old friend. He was looking for you, not me, so I think he was as surprised as I was to see him. Gosh it’s been over thirty years. Now stop looking at me like that young man,” said Anna.

  “Like what Mum?” said Sam.

  “You know only too well. Stop digging. He was a friend from when I was in the FCO,” said Anna.

  “Well he doesn’t seem the Foreign and Commonwealth Office type to me. Especially not running a business called Risk Reduction and Resolution! What was he, Security Services or something?”

  “Now, how would I know?” said Anna. “He worked in one of the embassies I think.” She immediately regretted going down a storyline that had no truth in it. Always, always, make the lie plausible. That was what they told her in her training. Silly mistake and she was right, Sam wasn’t giving up.