The Toymaster's Castle

Chapter Seven - Understanding

Next thing I knew, he was sitting on my bed and rubbing my shoulder to wake me up... rubbing it gently and tenderly as if he was a nice person or something.

Then he took me along to the gym for my exercise session.

At first, he was pretty gentle with me. He had me on the running machine for twenty minutes then, after some stretches, he took me out for another swim. And, this time, he got me to pump up the speed a bit. He even sat on the side of the pool and sort of cheered me on.

And, by the time I was done, I was gasping for breath.

But then I realised that I was smiling at him. That just felt so totally wrong.

He fiddled with the controls so that the pool was doing its hot-tub thing and told me to relax. Then he disappeared for a moment and, when he reappeared, he was wearing a pair of swimming trunks and carrying a couple of glasses. He put them on the edge and climbed in with me.

Of course, that made me feel pretty nervous but he just laughed. "Nothing is going to happen, Constantia," he said. "Relax and try this. It's a gin and tonic."

"Erm... I don't really drink."

"I managed to work that out after our last quarterly so I made you a weak one."

"Oh... OK... thank you, I suppose." It tasted a bit funny but, after a couple of sips, I decided that I could get used to it.

By now, the water was pleasantly warm and, after sitting together for a couple of minutes, sipping our drinks, he turned on the bubbles. I couldn't help giggling when my breasts started jiggling around - it sort of tickled.

And I noticed that he had noticed the jiggling too!

"Master," I said at last, "I have a question."

"You may ask," he told me. "But I don't promise to answer."

"What's really going on?" I said. "I mean... I don't know all that much about business but I'm pretty sure all this stuff with the flogging and everything isn't normal... and the bit about prostitutes and things..."

He had to think about that then gave a bit of a shrug. "Marchwood Enterprises is nothing but a front for a much more significant criminal operation which was founded by my father," he explained. "We operate in sectors such as drugs, prostitution and Government corruption. Marchwood's principal role in this is to legitimise the money we make from the other operations."

I sort of stared at him for ages then said, "Legitamise?"

"A large fraction of the money we receive, particularly from the drugs and prostitution side of our operations, comes in the form of cash. Now our low-level drug dealers are happy to receive their commission in that form but my higher-level operatives - and me - need to receive our money by traceable bank transfer so we can use it to pay for high-end executive apartments and that sort of thing," he looked towards the flat and smiled.

"And, of course, you can't simply turn up at the bank with a suitcase full of five pound notes without attracting all sorts of unwelcome attention. So we have to 'legitimise' the money - transform it from that suitcase of notes into 'legitimate' money in a bank account."

"And how do you do that?"

"Market stalls, low-end off-licences [liquor stores] and bookies [betting shops]... essentially any operation that has large amounts of cash passing through their hands. It helps if you own a bank which doesn't ask too many inconvenient questions."

"So your father is the big boss?"

"No. For the last three years, I have been obliged to run the entire operation."