The Recoverer (13)
by
Angharad.
After my involvement with the murder and fraudulent insurance claim, I settled to work through a backlog of outstanding work while Stephanie recovered from her gender confirmation surgery. It was relatively harmless stuff, claiming our expenses, but necessary for the firm's prosperity. What was painful was consulting our accountant and paying out taxes and her bill but she keeps us out of trouble with the VAT people who require we pay it every three months. I keep forgetting that our fees do not include VAT and while some insurers try to wriggle out of paying it, we do remind them that they can reclaim it from the government as we do for all the VAT we pay on anything, things like car hire, forensic services, or legal costs - that is probably the dearest of them but I hope it means we don't get caught for court bills, costs there can be astronomic and could bankrupt us, I do pay an insurance against it, but I'm not sure how effective it would be as I'm sure there is a limit to how much they would pay, but they never tell me what it is.
My accountant send out the bills for our fees, so the VAT is never forgotten, she also banks the paid fees or sends out reminders, so she knows exactly what we earn and what income tax, corporation tax and every other bloody tax we are liable for, sometimes I think we're paying off the national debt by ourselves, but then my income seems to increase every year and salaries I pay also increase, so Mike and Stephanie do okay. Since we had the accountant deal with billing and taxes, it has enabled me to deal with money generation through dealing with cases and less paperwork.
Much of our bread and butter comes from little cases, where people are claiming for damage to property, stains from supposed accidents or other damage, these are usually seen by insurance assessors and only come to us when the assessor isn't happy with something and thinks the damage is fraudulent, ie deliberate as a way of generating income by the claimant, so I'm not having to validate claims for every broken water pipe or water damage to ceilings from leaky shower cabinets.
Any for the claim of theft of valuables or objet d'art, such as jewellery or paintings, sculpture, that sort of thing come to me almost as soon as the police have visited the crime scene and decided it's better for tax-payers if I investigate rather than them. It's a no brainer really, they aren't that interested and I solve more of them, more quickly. They do have warrant cards, arrests when fraud is detected require their cooperation for subsequent prosecution but they are so behind with everything because they are short staffed, inefficient, uninterested or lazy, and with the larger forces, corrupt. The number of bent coppers is increasing, we have also discovered but not resolved, tip-offs from the internal investigations team warning them to clear away the evidence, dump objects and check their bank accounts. If they start off with anonymous bank accounts or offshore ones, we know they were planning this criminal activity with a view to obscuring or evading detection. It makes it much harder and only the police or government have the resources to investigate foreign bank accounts. They are also undermanned or womanned if they want real progress, during which some very unsavoury activities come to light, including prostitution, people trafficking, drug running , intimidation and occasionally actual physical harm and murder, not to mention sexual assault and full-blown rape.
Coppers are not angels, they suffer the same stats of disreputable characters as the overall population, perhaps they mix more often with the nastier side of life because of the work, and temptation must be very inviting, after all they don't earn that much legally, so bribery is very real if evidence becomes lost or invalidated, DNA is easy to spoil, or a blind-eye is turned at an opportune moment. It's impossible to root out completely because so many of us are dishonest if the rewards are big enough, but I report suspicion of it every time, because it can affect my own investigations and therefore, my livelihood. It has me on several nasty people's list of persons they'd like to do harm to either physically, psychologically or financially. Receiving threats of what someone would like to do to you is not nice, especially as a woman. I know women politicians and those in the public-eye receive them all the time because a significant proportion of the population are sick, perverted or just plain nasty and misogynist, sending anonymous emails or social media smears or accusations is relatively easy and only become investigated if violence or a definite threat is recognised. It's still disgusting and such people should be treated by the full force of the law, which often is too lenient because of the cost. So, we accuse accountants of spoiling everything but this is one area where I suspect they actually do.
While corruption shouldn't be tolerated neither should misogyny, why should half the population be subject to all sorts of abuse purely because they are female, if it was men, misandry would be stamped out pretty quickly. Men won't tolerate things that we as females have to suffer, such as inappropriate sexual approaches, I think the approacher could end up missing several teeth before finishing his chat-up line, so why do women. Because men are bigger, stronger and more violent and while not all men are violent, they are generally more so than women. I'm preaching to the converted, I know but if we say it often enough, perhaps things will change.
The reason this came to mind was that I had an encounter with an amorous male who I was investigating and who thought if he gave me a good seeing to, I'd be less interested in looking at his claim. He was wrong on both counts. He obviously had an inflated idea of his' god's gift to women' ego but was actually a middle-aged balding drip of a man, who I wouldn't sleep with if he was the last man on earth, he obviously didn't know my history but I was glad it was me who met him and not Stephanie, who is more naïve than I, and less able to defend herself.
He started by pushing past me and then 'accidently' stroking my bum. I complained accusing him of inappropriate touching. He tried to sound indignant over it, then he said, "Come on, I know you're dying for it."
"Being dead is probably the only way you're getting near my body," I almost spat at him.
"Don't talk rubbish, you know you really want it," he sounded even more slimy than before.
"What I want is to demonstrate that you are a liar and attempting fraud on this claim, and you have all the sexual attraction of a jelly-fish, not that I have anything against coelenterates personally, it's just you." With my riposte he became aggressive and as he made a move towards me I stepped back, grabbed his wrist and dislocated his shoulder, goodness did he squeal - well it is painful, I suppose. I immediately rang the police and they sent a woman constable to us. He was still groaning but she told me that he had been accused of several unsuccessful sexual approaches to other women in the last couple of years. She was sympathetic to his pain but not his ardour. I offered to put his shoulder back but she stopped me, probably because she knew it was very painful, she took him off to hospital leaving me in his house. Naturally, I searched the place and found enough evidence to show he was a fraud as well as a sex-pest.
After about half an hour a woman let herself into the house, she asked who I was and I told her, she told me that she was his wife. On asking where he was I told her the truth that he was down the hospital with a woman copper because he had tried it on with me and I dislocated his shoulder. She shook her head mumbling something that sounded like 'not again' She told me he had assaulted several women and she was seriously thinking of leaving him. She said she'd better get down the hospital to see what was happening and I left, went back to the office, scanned the evidence I had and sent it through to the insurance company. I got a very positive reply back. It would mean that I had to involve the police but fraud is a crime and they need to see about prosecuting him. I emailed them and a day later the same female copper came to see me, "You know he is talking about charging you with common assault?"
"Just as well I recorded it all on my phone, isn't it."
"I played it to her she shook her head and said, "We've got him on two counts now, attempted sexual assault and fraud." He's going to wish he'd stayed in bed. He certainly yelled when you grabbed his arm."
"I took defence classes in Keysi, or a development of it; it's designed for close contact fighting, I have my own version of it which you can see is quite effective."
"Would you say you have martial arts training?" Knowing that this would be stupid to declare, I simply told her, no, just in self defence.
I told her that, "I will defend myself but I'm not interested in play-fighting in fancy clothes, if someone attacks you, do you have to ask them if you can go home and get your karate-gi before you set to?" She laughed at that and said she was glad I didn't martial arts because it would have counted against me. I didn't tell her any more about myself, I didn't want her to know that my instructor taught me how to kill if it was necessary, but also taught me how to assess whether it was necessary. Apparently, you don't do it unless fearful for your life, and once decided upon, you don't relent. Pretty frightening stuff, eh?
I have only been in what I consider was life-threatening situation, it was a few years ago and I was investigating a case of suspected fraud, and I didn't know also concerned illegal drug importation and distribution. I had talked my way into a warehouse that had claimed a forklift had damaged a load of goods and shelving. The original insurance surveyor called me because he considered something wasn't quite right and also they were claiming £100k plus. I was left alone for a few minutes when the phone rang for the bloke who was showing me round, and I began to explore things that he would probably have stopped me doing, I found some white powder, managed to gather a small sample in small sealable plastic bags I carry in my handbag. They sell them in craft shops for people who use them for keeping small baubles in but I believe they are also used by drug pushers for things like coke and heroin. If they were supplying drugs, I could be in danger and I just wanted to leave while I was in one piece.
I had just stood up after collecting my sample when he came back and looked at me and saw the small quantity of powder. He suggested they damaged a bag of dental plaster of Paris and that's what it was. I knew he was lying and when another man came into the warehouse, both of whom were much bigger than me, I was almost shitting bricks and I was planning which to try and take out first, if I put them down, they'd have to go first time and stay down. The damage to the shelving was pretty bad and it would probably run to many thousands so I used distraction, suggesting me that they got a builder to price the repairs and send it to the insurers. I did ask why the damage was so extensive and they suggested the man who was using the forklift had a some sort of mental episode and he lost control of the forklift. He was now in hospital and they seemed to understand they would have to submit medical information if that was the case.
"We told all this to first guy who came, so why are you here."
"Because if we settle with you the size of the claim is above his authority."
"So they send a woman to do it, ha, no wonder the world is in such a mess, fucking women."
I stepped back from him before saying, "I resent your sexist view of the world, but the evidence tends to suggest you're wrong and that most of the problems are caused by men." He laughed aggressively at me and I was relieved when his colleague grabbed him and steered him away from me. I escaped a few minutes later suggesting they send in all the details the insurers requested.
I drove straight to the nearest copshop and handed in the white powder giving details of it's provenance. A detective from the drug squad who was in the building came out and tasted a few grains, "It's coke, I'm almost certain." when he saw where it came from, he shook his head and said ,"We've been trying to get something on them for ages." I showed him my photo on my phone of the spilt powder, he nodded and said to his colleagues, need a warrant and get there before they clean it up.
Needless to say the claim was disputed, the police got their warrant and found enough evidence to prosecute, also the forklift driver with problems was found to have high levels of cocaine in his blood, so the claim was disputed further for the firm allowing someone who was under the influence of intoxicating substances access to a large forklift.
I saved them thousands, probably many and they rewarded me appropriately. I have seen since then the warehouse has been demolished and hoses built on the site.
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