‘Pandora Papers? Panama Papers? Mossack Fonseca?’
‘I’m more of a practical housebreaker than a theorist,’ I say, a bit defensively. ‘But you’re saying the owners of all these places are … crooks? Overseas crooks?’
‘Not necessarily. Plenty of people in Britain use complicated overseas structures as well, to own properties in Britain. Not that they’re automaticallynotcrooks. The whole point is that it completely disguises your identity. And it used to be unbelievably easy.’
‘How easy?’
‘Until a few years ago, if you were an overseas buyer, you could hide under three or four nested companies and buy twenty million pounds’ worth of property without anyone blinking. Then they tightened the rules, so now estate agents have to gather detailed information on buyers before proceeding with a sale. You can’t just buy a place under a company name any more. They need proof of ID, address … all of it.’
‘But Davy must have known whose companies he was dealing with, surely?’
‘Of course, but he doesn’t seem to have written it down anywhere, unless it’s on this laptop of his.’
‘So assuming he was knowingly helping people who wanted to stay anonymous buy properties, how would he help them get around the rules?’
‘Easy,’ Jonny says. ‘He’d use a cut-out. You hire a stooge, get them to sign the paperwork in exchange for a few hundred quid, and they go on the agent’s forms as the property’s new owner. Most likely the forms won’t be checked.’
‘Nice racket.’
‘Very nice. But here’s the thing – last year the government introduced a Register of Overseas Entities to try and shut the racket down. Every overseas company that owns a property in the UK now has to identify the “ultimate beneficial owner”, log their details with Companies House, and keep the details updated.’
‘And what’s the ultimate aim here?’
‘Well, it’s all to stop money-laundering.’
‘Sorry, Jonny,’ I say. ‘Can you just … remind me what that is again?’
Jonny puts his hand to his face. ‘I have explained that twice already.’ He would not make a good teacher.
‘Yes, I know. But if you could just …’ To be fair, I didn’t ever make a good student. Em and Elle groan, and Em takes the reins.
‘Al, it’s for people with hot money. Let’s say you’re the recipient of ten million quid in bribes from a dodgy mine scheme in, say, Angola.’
‘Good for me.’
‘Not if you can’t spend it. You need to keep it somewhere safe. You want it to look impeccable. So if you can buy into the British property market, maybe hold on to your investment for a few years, then sell it, suddenly you’ve changed “dodgy Angolan mining money” into “Knightsbridge townhouse money”. Just by using Davy – assuming that’s what he was doing.’
‘So Davy was laundering dodgy money into prime properties. And to get custom from the people legitimatelysellingthe properties, he slashed his commission and did it off the books at his firm.’
‘Right. He doesn’t need the commission on the sale, because he’s looking out for a much bigger pay packet, paid to him some other way.’
‘Wait,’ I say. ‘What about that notebook of his? Did you have it last, Em?’ She goes to her bag, in the corner of the room, and fishes it out. ‘Look in the back page again.’
She opens it up and passes it round. As I remembered. There are large sums of money scattered all over the place – some in the millions, a few in the tens of millions. Each one has initials scrawled next to it. Most of the sums are crossed out. ‘I can’t believe we didn’t remember this. Maybe these are his commissions. Jonny, have you checked them?’
‘No. Hand them over. Nice one, Al.’
For a moment, I feel genuinely useful, and I pass him the notebook.
‘All right, Jonny, can you just tell us the exciting news?’
‘Not until I’m sure you get it.’
‘I get it,’ I say, a trifle defensively. ‘Criminal A has dodgy money. He approaches our Davy. Davy finds a sellable property, thanks to his impeccable connections in the property world and thanks to his name being on the plate at Harcourt and Wallace. He discreetly secures sellers by playing on their greed, like Sir Simon from earlier. The sellers are now his clients. But the crooks buying the places are therealclients, because they’ll pay a bonus price to conduct a transaction secretly. Dodgy solicitors at either end of the deal help it all go through. Then Davy helps Crim A set up an anonymous company based in a secretive Caribbean island somewhere …’
‘Or the Channel Islands.’
‘… right, or the Channel Islands, and Crim A is the ultimate beneficial owner of that company. Crim A pays their dodgy money into that company, and the company buys the huge property.’
