[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.The moment seemed ripe when Friedman (via Druce) suggested the Zurich brokerage firmof Inland Alkaloids.Friedman had rung Alban Feeds several times, trying to reach Druceabout outstanding business; but Craze says he made no connection between such calls andthe sudden appearance of a buyer for his stockpile.Alban Feeds had several telephoneconversations with representatives of Inland Alkaloids.Documents for the sale were finally sent off to Switzerland, but nothing happened.Thepapers were sent again, but still there was silence.The kilos were bought on loan thechemicals assigned to the bank as collateral and Craze checked in Hamburg to ensure allwas well.The chemicals were not to be collected without proper authorization but Craze hadnot been specific enough in his instructions and the ergotamine tartrate was gone.A pleasant young Englishman had walked into.the German firm and presented documentsfor the order.Dressed in a pinstripe suit and clutching a briefcase, he seemed eminentlyrespectable.The firm released the chemicals which he packed in his briefcase.It was thesame man who showed Kemp papers for 9 kilos of ergotamine tartrate, and who worked forStark.Ergotamine tartrate worth over £19,000, and many thousands of pounds more whenconverted into LSD, was on its way to France.Inland Alkaloids was nothing more than a front company with a Swiss postal box number.The directors were Friedman and Stark's man, but the guiding spirits were Stark and Sand.Craze was soon on their trail.Alban Feeds was overextended and the bank wanted itsmoney back.Within a couple of months, Druce had been ejected from the firm by Craze andthe other partner.In a business putsch, the two then struck at Charles Druce Ltd, using avan to cart away papers in the hope that they could track down what had happened to theirpromising company.Craze wrote threatening letters to Sand, Friedman and Hitchcock.In the autumn of 1970, the three conspirators began a strategy of promises and threats, inthe hope of silencing the English businessman, with meetings scattered all over London.Then they simply faded away.Craze and the third director went bankrupt and have never recovered financially.Druce justabout stayed afloat, becoming a van driver.If the episode sank the partnership in AlbanFeeds, it did little to improve that between Sand and Stark.After all his trouble Sandthought he should have got the ergotamine, or at least reimbursement but Stark refused,and at one point relations were so strained that Stark thought Sand would kill him.Twoyears later Stark, recalling the incident, claimed the ergotamine was still safely tucked awayin the free port of Tangiers.It is more likely to have been used in Stark's second Frenchlaboratory.Having moved out of Paris, he had set up base at Orléans, but 1970 was notgoing well for Stark.Kemp was being difficult, too.83The Orléans site was in the outhouses of a stomach-potion firm where Kemp had gone backto his work on THC.At Orléans, Kemp became bored and angry: the good life in France hadgrown stale.There was a time when Stark had been fascinating, going into bars and pullingout a pocketful of change from so many countries that he had trouble sorting it out beforepaying for anything.Now Stark seemed merely bizarre.A man with both homo-andheterosexual tastes, his boyfriends flitted in and out of Stark's various homes with impunity.Then one night Stark climbed into Kemp's bed claiming to be ill, and the chemist grewparanoid.Stark was getting a little too rich for the Briton's taste.Matters were not improved by Stark's contradictory views on security.He never worriedabout his boyfriends but he strongly disapproved of Dr.Christine Bott, Kemp's girlfriend.Kemp had met her while she was still a medical student at Liverpool, and the relationshipblossomed.He introduced her to drugs but she retained her career in England while he wentto France [ Pobierz caÅ‚ość w formacie PDF ]