Café Boris – Dmitri’s millions

At Dmitri’s insistence they had put the share certificate back in the chest, replaced the floorboards and finished the removal job.

 

“We can look at these properly at home,” Dmitri had said, “and decide what to do then. There is no point being caught here.”

 

Sergei had consented, recognising the logic of this and the rest of the clearance was completed in virtual silence.

 

On a whim, Sergei took an empty box from the van and filled it with Dmitri’s post. “You never know,” he said, “there might be something interesting here.”

 

They Drove to Danya’s yard and unloaded the furniture. After they had finished, and only after they had finished, Dmitri took the chest out of the van. Sergei took the box of post. The three of them went into Danya’s flat. Danya took out a bottle of vodka and proposed a toast to their new wealth, but Dmitri refused to drink.

 

“I am not toasting,” Dmitri said, “this is not my wealth, it is another man’s.”

“Let us at least see what we have,” Sergei said brightly. “We have the chest, we might as well look inside.”

 

They opened the chest again. The first paper was the share certificate for 137,239 shares in Misha Electronics.

 

Sergei took the next certificate from the box. In spite of his distaste for this adventure, Dmitri couldn’t help but look.

 

“But that is also for Misha Electronics,” he said, surprised.

 

“It is,” Sergei agreed. “Just 78,239 shares. Hardly worth bothering.”

 

The box was emptied. In total there were eleven share certificates, all for Misha Electronics and all made out to Dmitri Stodnik, in total he owned exactly one million shares.

 

“What was that share price Danya?” Sergei asked.

“Two hundred and thirty seven.”

 

“That’s Two hundred and thirty seven million Hyvennas.”

 

“The man was a millionaire,” Dmitri said. “Yet he lived in this little flat with a few pieces of cheap furniture. How did you know he had the shares, Sergei? Where did he get them?”

 

“Relax Dmitri. I knew about his shares from the postman. He’s a friend of mine, he sometimes drinks in Café Boris. He recognised the name, Dmitri Stodnik.”

“The postman told you! But how could he know about the shares?”

 

“An envelope with a dividend payment fell open. The postman happened to look. That’s why he asked me, he wanted to find out if you were a secret millionaire.”

 

“But how could you know he’d hidden the shares in the flat?”

 

“I guessed, Dmitri. Got lucky. He was living in that grotty little flat, which meant that his wealth was secret.”

 

“But why was he keeping them secret? What did he have to hide? Who killed him?”

 

“Calm down, Dmitri. There was nothing suspicious about his death. Clearly nobody knew about the shares, they were so easy to find, which means nobody else looked for them.”

 

Dmitri had to admit the truth of this. If Dmitri had somehow double-crossed some gangsters, then they wouldn’t have been left there in his flat in a very obvious hiding place. The room showed no signs of having been searched, or of being broken into, and the fact that the key was kept under the flower pot suggested that Dmitri hadn’t lived in perpetual fear of assassination. Also, of course, he had had his dividends delivered to his home address, not some box office number, so clearly he hadn’t felt the need to hide.

 

However, there was something suspicious about the shares, to say the least. The hiding place for one thing, and the fact that they weren’t part of his ‘estate’. Not to mention the fact that a man with that much wealth lived in a cheap, grotty flat.  

 

“I’m not playing your game Sergei. These are not my shares. If I claim them for myself it would be theft.”

 

“Theft from who? From a dead man?”

“From his estate. From his next of kin.”

 

“He died intestate. His next of kin is nobody. The money would go to the government. It is not theft to steal from the government. Not from this government.”

 

“Even so, two hundred and thirty seven million Hyvennas is too much money, it will draw attention.”

 

“Maybe, which is why we won’t be greedy, we won’t try to sell the shares. You simply transfer the share ownership into a bank account, cash the dividend payments, nobody will notice. The dividend payments won’t make us rich overnight, but they will give us a steady income. Enough for the three of us to be able to sleep at night.”

 

“But to open a bank account I need to show my id. To give my address.”

 

“Yes Dmitri, and no Dmitri. You need to show two forms of ID – your driving licence with your photo on it and proof of your address – for which you simply bring along a bill with the other Dmitri’s address on it. You were wise to bring his mail.”

 

They went through Dmitri’s post. Sure enough there were a number of bills that could be used as evidence of address. There were also eleven dividend cheques from Misha Electronics.

“These are recent,” Sergei said, “it looks like the company doesn’t know Dmitri is dead.”

 

They added up the cheques. It came to 1.2 million Hyvennas.

 

“There you are Dmitri, what did I tell you? There is no need to sell the shares, we’re rich already, just from this payment. A three way split. You cash the cheques and divide the money between the three of us.”

 

“You have clearly thought this through Sergei, but the problem is thinking isn’t your forte. I can cover my tracks to an extent, open a new bank account, use a fake address, but I’m the only Dmitri Stodnik left alive in Luhansk. How hard could it be to track me down?”

 

“Okay then, open a bank account in another town. You could go over the border to Russia. You have a Russian name and it’s a Russian company.”

 

“But my Ukrainian passport and address will attract attention if I try to open an account there. But you are half right. If I opened an account in Kiev …”

 

 “I am going to Kiev, Dmitri. Just next week. A bit of business with shoes.”

 

“Shoes? I thought you were into removals and secondhand furniture.”

 

“Yes, but people always need shoes, Dmitri. I could drive you to Kiev …”

 

“Drive? All that way. I was going to take the plane.”

 

“What, check through passport control, leave a paper trail, so that anyone looking into the account just needs to cross-reference it to that day’s flights? Now who’s the one who doesn’t think?”

 

Dmitri nodded, appreciatively. “Very well. But leave it to me to make my arrangements there. I have a friend in Kiev who will pick up mail for me, take money out of cashpoints and send on.”

 

“You will give another man your pin number and card? Who is this man, your wife?”

 

“You think I am a fool, Sergei. I would never trust a wife with my credit card. But this man, I won’t name him, but I saved his life once. He won’t cross me.”