S32 E2: When Ron Met Ron | Sea of Lies

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There was a knock, there was a discovery, and then suddenly there were two Ronald Platts.

One dead in the coroner's freezer in Devon, and the other walking around, paying bills and charming neighbors in a small village in Essex.

The police had accidentally figured out that the man they had interviewed nearly two months ago, who they knew as David Davis, and who told them he was a close friend of Ronald Platt's, was now possibly living as Ronald Platt.

So now, a death which up until this point had been understood to most likely either be a boating accident or a suicide, was a big question mark, followed by an exclamation mark.

I guess it's at that point that you, I guess, a bit more switched on to, right, okay, we need to step this up a level.

For investigators, the doorknock revelation had so thoroughly flipped everything on its head that the detectives like Bill McDonald were forced to look backwards at the work they'd already done to see if there was anything that jumped out under this new light.

A new lead?

A new person?

And you then recall that there's been a conversation in the past about the deceased having some ex-partner.

MacDonald and his colleague Ian Clenahan had learned in the interview with Ron's big brother, Brian, that Ron Platt had an old girlfriend.

A woman called Elaine, Elaine Boys.

Elaine Boyes.

In suggesting Elaine Boise, I think he was hoping that she might be able to answer more of the questions that would help us.

And then it's right, okay, we need to find Elaine Boys.

They learned that Elaine was living in Harrogate, North Yorkshire, the same town in which the dead man's Rolex had last been serviced.

So a plan was struck for Clinahan to set up a meeting face to face.

The aim was to get as much information as we can about David Davis from Elaine.

David Davis had told police that he'd known Ron for several years, so they thought it likely that this Elaine and David Davis would know each other.

And therefore, the police had to be careful.

Because, you know, we didn't know what the relationship really was between Elaine and David Davis.

You don't know what you're walking into?

Were they still in contact?

Were they whatever?

He was firmly under our suspicions, but we just wanted to see what Elaine would tell us.

So Clenahan sat down with Elaine in a cafe up in Harrogate.

And very quickly, he would come to learn that Elaine was more important to this story than he could have possibly imagined.

We track Elaine down, and she tells us a fascinating and very interesting story.

Elaine was the key to everything.

Um, oh gosh, this is the difficult bit to talk about, to be honest.

I better be careful what I say on it.

Better be careful.

I'm Sam Mullins, and this is Sea of Lies from CBC's Uncover, Episode 2.

When Ron Met Ron.

When Elaine was young, she entered the workforce with a clear dream in her mind.

One day, she hoped to become the executive assistant to someone important,

capital S, capital I, a line of work she was a natural for.

Supremely organized, competent, and useful in the arena of business where big egos run amok, she was hardwired to please, hardwired to de-escalate and do whatever is asked of her.

Because I'd had a quite a difficult childhood.

My mom and my dad used to argue a lot and my dad used, could be quite violent.

You do everything to appease and you avoid conflict and that's what I was like.

This compliant female that's very friendly and outgoing on the surface, but underneath it, she's not going to ask too many questions.

While lots of peers were pairing off and getting married in their early 20s, Elaine didn't have the time or interest for a relationship.

A stance which, as we know from the first act of any romance, will not be sustainable.

Well, meeting Ron was interesting because it was a blind date.

I was introduced by two friends.

They kept pestering me actually for about a week.

They kept saying, We've got this chap, we'd like you to meet this chap.

So they set up a double date.

It was January 1980 or 81.

It was absolutely freezing and we met up in a pub.

Elaine walked into the dim warmth of the pub with her friends, took off her coat and there he was.

Oh gosh.

I would say he looked like

a good-looking Cliff Richard.

Cliff Richard is good-looking,

but he reminded me of Cliff Richard.

Hold up.

This reference is a little before my time.

Cliff Richard images search.

Oh, Elaine.

His eyes.

Again, it's his eyes.

Yeah, yeah.

He's got brooding eyes.

He's got...

He's got depth.

Ron was older than her, in his late thirties, trim, well put together, and as Elaine picked up on quickly, shy, painfully shy.

But luckily, Elaine is the perfect antidote to shyness.

I managed to get him to talk about photography and things that he's interested in, and we hit it off quite well, yeah.

A chatty few pints later, the four of them stumbled out of the pub, back into the cold, when Ron, perhaps with a little liquid courage in him, took Elaine aside to shoot a shot.

When we left the pub, he said to me, He said, How do you fancy meeting and going to York tomorrow for the day?

And I thought, Oh, that'd be nice.

So we did.

On the day in York, as they strolled through the quaint medieval city's cathedral and cheese shops, Elaine felt a profound comfort with Ron.

The man was a good egg.

I felt safe in his company.

Ron was very placid, very quiet.

He seemed very caring, and I felt safe with him.

I felt safe around him.

When they got back to Harrogate, Ron invited her to his flat.

They'd spoken so much about photography, he wanted to show her some of his stuff.

There was a portrait he'd taken of a friend's cat he was especially proud of, but there was something he was even more excited to show her.

He had this rack system.

One of his main passions was hi-fi equipment.

It was a pioneer rack system with these huge speakers.

I've never seen anything so big.

And he was so proud to put it on and show me his hi-fi equipment.

It looked like jewellery, and he touched the what do you call them, the knobs, like they were jewellery.

And the first track he put on was Paul Simon, I am a rock.

I I love this detail so much.

And after learning everything I have about Ronald Platt, I'm convinced that this track selection was no accident.

This was Ron revealing himself.

It's all there in the lyrics.

This was him saying, I'm a rock, I'm an island, Elaine.

This fortress is steep and mighty.

I'm a heavy cat.

Can you dig it?

And she could.

It was heaven.

It came out of those speakers, the sound, and it was like, well.

And that was it.

They became Ron and Elaine.

And to those who knew Elaine well, this came out of nowhere.

She didn't have a boyfriend, and then suddenly she was really excited because she'd met this guy.

This is Chris Idol, one of Elaine's best friends.

And then when I actually met him, I think I was sort of a bit shocked because he was so attractive.

Not that Elaine wasn't, but certainly from a physical perspective, he was a good catch.

She looked like she'd done a good job.

High five to Elaine.

They complimented each other in a way because she was sort of really quite an extrovert and he was completely the opposite.

They just really seemed to be meant for each other at that time somehow.

They built a life together.

But even from the very beginning, it was clear that there was something missing for Ron.

He loved Elaine very much, but his heart was always somewhere else.

Canada.

With Ron, it was always about Canada.

And who better to describe Ron's lifelong connection to Canada than his one surviving family member, Jeff Platt?

He was my big brother.

My parents emigrated to Canada in 1955, where my dad was a teacher in various small towns.

Ron and Jeff's folks had been struggling to make ends meet in post-war England for years and were desperate for change.

Because they were living in a converted bus in Birmingham.

So when the opportunity to teach in Canada came up, they leapt at it.

But the Platts were cursed from the beginning.

A few days before their first Canadian Christmas, their house burnt down, nearly with Ron in it, and they lost everything.

But instead of taking it as a sign that they'd made a horrible mistake by coming here, this incident would be recorded in the pliable young brain of Ron Platt as a foundational positive memory because of what happened next.

The neighboring farmers rallied to help this new family of strangers.

They took the Platts in, gave them their coats, and helped them salvage their first Christmas and survive their first real winter.

Even though we were pretty isolated in small Canadian towns, that's where his romantic love for Canada came.

This was the Canada that Ron Platt was never able to shake, the Canada in his heart and tattooed on his hand.

the one that he would describe to Elaine.

But the Platts remained a family constantly on the brink of financial ruin and existed in a permanent state of limbo.

If you asked me, where do you go to school?

I'd say name a year.

Every year was a different school in a different town.

Some years it was even a different country.

My mom didn't like Canada when she was there and didn't like England when she was here.

And we went several times.

Ron grew up bouncing between England and Canada with his folks.

And then when he became an adult, he kept doing the same thing on his own.

He tried joining the Canadian Army, but they wouldn't take him.

So he went all the way back to England to join the British Army.

He worked in the Signal Corps for many years as a radio technician, where he learned he had a gift for understanding electronics.

He was one of those people who wanted to know how things worked.

While electronics made made perfect sense to him, there were many things in his life that didn't.

He struggled socially.

He couldn't seem to hold down a job or ever find a baseline of happiness.

In the moments that he'd examine his life like it was an electronic on his workbench, he always seemed to arrive at the same diagnosis.

This isn't running properly.

There could be a missing part, or more likely, it must be in the wrong place.

I think he was a man who very much was trying to find a place in the world and could never really find it.

So it was into this lifelong will they or won't they between Ron and my home nation that Elaine first entered Ron's life.

During the first decade that they were together, he'd make plans for them to lay roots in Canada.

He'd fly there by himself and try and get established so that Elaine could join him.

But it would never work out.

He'd have visa issues or couldn't land a job and have to return.

But he couldn't let the Canadian dream go.

As time went on, he got depressed and I came to realize that he probably would never be happy until he went back to Canada because he would be constantly talking about it.

So if Elaine wanted a future with Ron, she knew that eventually she was going to have to join Ron's Canadian dream.

So they made a long-term plan to finally get to Canada properly.

They were going to take their time, work hard to save up as much money as they could, and when the moment was right, they'd go together.

And nothing made Ron happier to think about.

So this is Ron and Elaine in the year 1991.

Still very much in love with a Canadian plan,

but unbeknownst to them,

everything

was about to change.

That year, Elaine was 31 years old and working as a receptionist at a fine art auctioneer's in Harrogate.

One day she was on the phone behind the desk in the showroom when in walked a man she'd never seen before.

A well-dressed man.

A man with whom she'd be linked for the rest of her life and beyond.

In walked this gentleman, and he inquired about, well, it was a painting that was in a display cabinet outside on the pavement there.

The piece that caught his eye was a pastoral Scottish scene by the artist Alfred de Branski.

And we had a chat about auctions and about fine art, and that was really how I met him.

The man grinned, extended his hand, and said, I'm David Davis.

He seemed like a gentleman.

Well-spoken, polite.

He had a presence about him, and he seemed very warm.

He came across as American.

He said he was living in London.

He didn't like London.

He didn't like the smog.

He didn't like the dirt.

That's actually what brought him up to Harrogate, he said.

He was looking at real estate and trying to get a feel for the area.

But even for someone house house shopping in an affluent spa town, he seemed like he had all the time in the world.

An hour of conversation passed in a blink when finally...

He said, I'm thinking of setting up a business locally,

and I think you'll be a great person to work for me.

Sorry, you want me, art auction secretary, to work for you?

Just based on us chatting right now?

That was a bit...

of a shock, really.

He said, I like you.

He said, I like your attitude.

I like your friendliness.

He said, I really could do with somebody like you working for me.

So Elaine was like, what kind of business are we even talking about here?

First of all, he said,

we could set up an antique business selling antiques.

And I said, well, to be perfectly honest, I don't know anything about antiques.

So he said, well, what about a secretarial agency?

Do you fancy running a secretarial agency?

And I said, no way.

That's the last thing I'd want to do.

So after a few more volleys from Elaine, he's like, well, if not those, then what, Elaine?

I said, if I was really honest and I wanted to set up a business, I would set up doing photography because that's something I had considered.

Elaine had honed her photography skills with Ron over the past decade and even went back to college for a couple of years to study.

So he said, that is absolutely brilliant.

We could do that.

He said, and what I could do is send you to Geneva and you could photograph the fountains of Geneva.

He said, because they've got the most amazing fountains.

He said, we could do one of these coffee table books with all the fountains of Geneva.

He said, that would be absolutely brilliant.

And it's here at Geneva Fountain Coffee Table Book that Elaine says what anyone in their right mind would have said.

And actually said, you don't know me from Adam.

I said, you don't know anything about me.

I could be the worst photographer in the UK for all you know.

And besides, Elaine knew that this whole exercise was moot anyway.

The other thing is, we're saving up to go to live in Canada with my boyfriend because he's crazy about Canada and he wants to move to Canada.

So if I took a job for you, I wouldn't be working for you for very long.

But instead of David Davis letting it go, The Canada thing only seemed to make him more excited.

It would be great, he said, because you could save up.

I could pay you more than you're earning a year, and you can then save up to go to Canada.

You get there quicker.

It was just like he wanted me, he wanted to do a business that I would be happy doing.

You know, if I'd have said, let's do a sweet shop, I bet you would have done that.

As bizarre and thrilling as this conversation had been, Elaine had to get back to work.

But it was clear that Davis wasn't going to take no for an answer.

Like he wouldn't leave unless I'd agreed to work for him.

It felt like that.

So I said, look, I said, tell you what, I'll give you my business card and let me have a think about it.

You go back to London.

You give yourself some time to think about it.

And the next time you're up in Arrogat looking for properties, give me a call and we'll go from there.

So David Davis finally took his cue and then Olaine's business card.

which he wielded like a golden ticket as he backed away.

And he said, you know, this is a really, truly serendipitous meeting, he said.

And he was so full of joy.

He bid her adieu, and Elaine watched him stride away in disbelief.

Elaine wouldn't fully understand why David Davis seemed so thrilled to have found her that day until five years into her future.

He appeared in her life as an express lane that would deliver her and Ron to their Canadian dreams ahead of schedule, the answer to her problems.

But in reality, she was the answer to his.

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After work, Elaine had to relay to Ron what had happened at the shop.

I didn't know what to think, to be honest.

And I really thought it was just a bit of a fantasy or a joke.

I thought, this isn't really happening.

This isn't really true.

When she got home to Ron, she launched into it.

I said, you would not believe it.

This man's walked in and has offered me a job doing virtually anything I want.

As the words left her mouth, she could hear how it sounded.

An American stranger who thinks I'm special wants to start a business with me.

That's what it came across as.

And Ron said, oh, you want to be careful.

You don't know anything about him.

You want to be really careful.

As they talked it through a bit more that night, Elaine safely drifted all the way back to Earth.

Of course, she thought, this was probably just an eccentric having a laugh.

Yeah,

it was nothing.

He's gone back to London, and that'll probably be it.

A week went by, then two.

And then, to be honest, I went back to work and I completely forgot about it.

But then

a phone call out of the blue, and it was David Davis.

Oh, hi, he says,

it's David Davis from London.

He said, I'm coming up to Harrogate a week on Thursday.

How about we meet up and go for a coffee?

So I said, yeah, that'll be fine.

So on the Thursday, Elaine meets up with Davis in a cafe, not really knowing what to expect.

He asked me about the job.

Had I considered the job?

Did I fancy working for him?

What did Ron think about it?

So we had conversations around that, and he could tell that I was a bit hesitant,

wasn't sure.

David Davis was self-aware enough that he could totally appreciate how his offer must look through the eyes of her significant other.

It made perfect sense for Ron to be skeptical.

How it must sound.

So Davis proposed a solution.

He said, well, I think really it would be a good idea if I met Ron and then he could see and meet me and then he might feel more comfortable.

So the three of them went out to dinner and when he walked in Davis seemed genuinely thrilled to meet Ron.

It was

amazing actually.

They just clicked really.

They hit it off together and it was the it was the North American accent.

And of course Ron actually I could see he was coming out speaking with a soft North American accent and he was in his element.

They were sat there chatting like buddies.

If you were to glance at their table that night, you might assume that the two were brothers.

They were the same height, same build, same hair color, age.

Even their dialects seemed to be winking to each other over the mid-Atlantic somewhere.

Once they'd made fast friends, Davis turned the conversation to the business at hand.

He just turned to me and said,

how do you fancy working for me then?

So I looked at Ron and said, what do you think, Ron?

And Ron just shrugged his shoulders and didn't really say anything.

Classic, Ron.

So I said, well, why not?

What have I got to lose?

Why not?

Okay.

So he said, great, it's great to have you on board.

So the three of them raised a glass and they had a deal.

And almost immediately to Elaine and Ron, the door to a more exciting life seemed to swing open.

Just before he went to get the train back to London, he said, How do you guys fancy in a few weeks' time coming down to London?

And we'll put you up in a hotel for the weekend.

And he said, You can meet my daughter, Noel, and we'll go out for dinner.

And we said, Oh, wow, that'd be great.

We went to a restaurant called the Thai Elephant in London, and it was amazing.

The decor was like you were in Thailand.

Elaine and Ron met up with David and his teenage daughter, Noel.

The story was that Davis had been a high-powered finance guy in New York and then later all over Europe.

But now he was all but retired and was in the midst of what sounded like a very messy divorce.

He had other children too, but Noel chose to live with her dad instead of with her mom and siblings back in the U.S.

To Ron and Elaine, it was pretty easy to see why a kid would choose him.

He seemed like a good dad, and she, a sweet kid.

She had his features.

She was a very polite young lady, very attractive young lady.

Didn't say a lot, really.

Didn't say a lot.

She was sort of a bit in awe of her dad.

Her dad did all the talking, to be honest.

She was deferential to her dad, but so were Ron and Elaine.

There was no mistaking the dynamic.

He was the man in charge.

He took over.

He got the menu and he chose.

He said, what we'll do is we'll have the set menu for four.

Ron hadn't had anyone treat him to a fancy dinner like this because he was a TV repair man.

But it's important to remember he was a TV repairman with a Rolex.

There, ticking on his wrist, powered by the unprivileged movements of his life, was his Rolex.

A real one that he bought with with his own money, his most prized possession.

He'd wear it in the shower even.

When he'd pose for pictures like a model who believes they have one good side, the Rolex side was the one he wanted people and the camera to see.

In Ron's life, he wouldn't have many moments where he got to experience the finer things, the luxuries.

But then in walked David Davis, refined, classy, a man who from where Ron was sitting must have appeared to be the Rolex of people.

And it was easy to tell that Davis liked Ron too.

And more than that, Davis was starting to see potential in Ron.

Back in Harrogate, after the whirlwind weekend in London, Ron went back to his job and Elaine had to return to hers at the art auctioneer.

She'd given her notice was on the hook for a few more weeks.

The days dragged for Elaine as the movie of her future jet setting and photography played on a loop in her mind.

She and Davis still needed to iron out some of the details of the work itself, and he encouraged her to name her own salary, which wasn't something Elaine was comfortable with.

So she called her old friend Chris for some guidance.

Said, oh, just double what you're earning now.

Because she was thinking it was somebody really wealthy, and she was really excited at at the thought of this.

But something about the job Elaine was describing wasn't adding up.

It didn't seem to be much of a job.

It w it was sort of, well, what what are you actually doing?

And it made me really

suspicious of him.

I thought he was either on the run, involved in some sort of witness protection programme or with the CIA or something.

He may on the other hand have just been some harmless eccentric who didn't know what to do with his money.

Bear in mind, I read a lot of crime novels.

But I will definitely have said, Elaine, what is it?

And

she was just sort of in awe of him, really.

Elaine named her salary.

Davis accepted.

She worked her final shift at the auctioneer.

And finally, it was time to start her work with David Davis.

And in our interview with Elaine, when we got to this part and asked her about her work with Davis over 30 years later, you can hear, it's still too hot to touch.

Oh, gosh.

Oh,

oh, it is really, it's a difficult one, this one, because I've got to talk about

how what he did, really, how he approached it.

Let me put myself back there.

So here's what happened.

For the first trip for David Davis, the plan was go to Geneva and then on the way back, swing by France to meet with a real estate agent who was going to show her some properties that David Davis was interested in buying.

Photographs of the fountains of Geneva and photograph the properties.

That was the initial

job.

And then what happened was, at the first time going, he said he would meet me at King's Cross.

Davis said, I'll meet you there.

We'll go for lunch and then I'll take you out to the hotel by the airport so that you can fly for Switzerland in the morning.

So when we get to the airport hotel he signs in, he pays for the room and then this is the difficult bit to talk about to be honest.

He then says I thought it would be a good idea if we had dinner at the hotel.

So we have a nice dinner at the hotel at the airport hotel and then he goes to reception, he pays for the bill and I'm thinking that any moment now he's going to say goodbye and he's going to go away.

And

he's struggling to part.

And then he says,

he says,

is it okay to have a look at your room?

And I sort of thought, what?

To myself?

And he says, yeah, he says,

I'm curious to have a look at your room.

And I'm thinking, well, I can't say no, can I?

As they walk toward the elevator and get in, Elaine feels the the feeling that has been quietly present with her from the moment she first met Davis.

A small niggling part of her that she'd been brushing to the side.

I don't know how to say this, but there was a sense of fear.

On the surface, everything had been so warm and pleasant and exciting.

There was nothing he said that made Elaine afraid of him.

There was nothing that he did.

to make her fear him.

But there was something she couldn't explain.

The The subtlest of feelings.

Like an ancient whisper from the animal part of her that said,

you're not safe.

Before she showed up this day in London, she almost acted on this feeling.

I did consider contacting the local police in Harrogate and asking if there was any way they could do like a background check on him.

And then I thought to myself, they won't be able to do that.

That doesn't, people don't do that.

And also, I did think to myself that if I asked the police to do a background check on him, to suss out who he was, who was David Davies, that

he might find that out.

And if he found out that I was suspicious of him in any shape or form,

I just had a feeling that that wasn't a good thing.

That wouldn't have been a good thing, would it?

It wouldn't certainly have been a good thing, that

they walk down the hallway toward Elaine's door, her mind cataloguing every possible meaning of the phrase, can I look at your room?

He can't really be looking at rooms.

He said he travels here and travels there.

So why on earth would he want to look at a room?

Elaine opens the door and Davis slides past her in the doorway.

He does a half-hearted lap of the unremarkable room and then saunters over to the bed.

And he sits on the edge of the bed nearest the window, and I'm near the door.

And there he is, the man who's offered Elaine so many things,

leaning on the bed of the hotel room he just bought for her.

And then he sits on the bed and says, Well, I really hope you have a good time in Geneva.

And I hope

you look at this as a bit of a holiday for you as well.

Yeah, sure, totally.

And

he said but while you're there could you do me a favour

and uh and i said

what what what do you mean

he says well and he reaches into his jacket pocket and he pulls out an envelope with some swiss francs in it

swiss francs

well he pulls it out and it says i've got swiss francs he said would you change this money for me into sterling it appeared to be a formidable stack a serious amount of cash.

And I looked puzzled and a bit shocked and I said, oh, I don't know, David, I don't think this is this is legal.

He smiled his warm smile.

He says, in Geneva, there's bureau decisions everywhere.

People are doing this all the time in Geneva, changing money.

That's what goes on.

That's what Geneva is about.

He said, this is my money, and all I'm asking you to do is change my money from Swiss francs into sterling.

So I reluctantly said, okay.

I had to get rid of him, basically, out of the room.

But I was very, very perturbed about it.

Once the door clicked behind him, Elaine went straight for the phone.

As soon as he'd gone, I phoned Ron.

I said, phone me straight back, won't you?

Because it was going to cost, obviously, hotel, telephone bills.

So I said, phone me straight back.

And I explained what had happened.

But Ron was already the head of the David Davis Appreciation Society.

And he put me at ease.

He said, look, he knows what he's doing.

He's a businessman.

He's obviously done this before, you know.

And just, I said, oh, okay, then.

So that's, that's how it all, that's how that started, really.

It had started.

Elaine didn't know it, but the photography, looking at the real estate, even the changing of currency were not what David Davis was really after with Elaine and Ron.

But of course, I never realized that he had a secret agenda.

Well, he really did have an agenda, didn't he?

Yeah.

Elaine had a bad feeling.

She didn't know if she trusted David Davis.

She didn't know if this job was real.

But whatever she felt didn't matter, because she'd made a series of decisions that led her here, to this plane seat, with tens of thousands of Swiss francs in a bag beside her.

In her work and relationship with David Davis, the rubber was about to meet the Switzerland.

This would be the first of many trips Elaine would take where she didn't comprehend what she was really doing.

It was all very strange, to be perfectly honest.

There were other trips with other currencies and different deposits into different bank accounts.

Picture Elaine with her camera in one hand and Davis's thousands in the other, breezing through airports.

The work felt vague.

The dollar amounts she was exchanging felt gargantuan.

Elaine found herself wondering if this was all an audition of some sort.

One time he put extra money in the envelope for me to change.

So I thought, what's going on here?

So he was testing me.

He was testing my honesty.

Elaine felt that he was testing her in darker ways, too.

For example,

he once told me that he'd been in New York.

I don't know what it was, but he said he'd witnessed somebody being crushed to death.

And I thought, what a bizarre thing to tell me.

And it was just something he was discussing over lunch.

And I thought, is this something he's read in a book or is this something he's actually telling me?

And to me, I think it was instilling a sense of unconscious fear.

That's what it felt like.

Because it's like I would, normally you would say, well, what do you mean, David?

What do you mean you saw somebody crushed to death?

But something said,

don't go there.

Don't ask.

So I just didn't ask.

While his antics felt odd sometimes, for Elaine, all that mattered was that her paychecks were clearing and that her and Ron's dream of having enough money to get to Canada felt closer than ever.

One day, Davis told Elaine to meet up with him for lunch in Harrogate.

He said he had something important to ask her.

It was then that he told us that he'd bought a business off off the shelf.

Sometimes instead of incorporating your own business, you can just purchase a good as new existing corporation, Davis explained.

He said he was the happy new owner of an entity called the Cavendish Corporation.

And it was then that he told me that he wanted Ron and I to be directors.

Elaine was taken aback.

Directors?

Of a corporation?

Her and Ron?

I thought, well, why isn't he being a director?

He said, I want you and Ron to be directors because I don't want my name on any of the paperwork because my wife is after me.

As he laid it all out, Davis seemed genuinely distressed by the situation with his wife.

He said, I'm concerned because I think she's hired a private detective because she's after me for alimony.

She was going to take him for everything.

And thus, he needed Elaine and Ron's help.

If he sensed that I was maybe perturbed, he was able to deflect that and put the positive aspect on it.

You would be there in title only.

It wouldn't be more work.

You wouldn't be exposed to any liabilities.

You would just be doing me a favor, for which I would be very appreciative.

It was so convincing.

It was so plausible.

When he explained stuff, it sort of, oh, yeah, that makes sense.

Even though nagging in your back of your mind might be thinking, oh,

he was just so clever at being able to

put you at ease.

After this surprising ask, Ron and Elaine talked it through and thought, we could do that.

And they were named directors of the Cavendish Corporation, a corporation that did

what exactly?

He didn't really say.

It never really got discussed and was developed.

And from the moment that Elaine and Ron agreed to be directors, a current slowly started to pull them deeper.

Davis took Elaine to open a corporate bank account, and with the account, Cavendish was now a real thing.

As far as Elaine could tell, the corporation existed so that it could have a bank account, and the bank account existed so that he could acquire assets.

Assets that would happen to further entangle David Davis with Ron and Elaine.

It started with the apartment.

He encouraged Ron and I to purchase an apartment in Harrogate.

Davis was like, what are you guys renting for?

That's dead money.

You should buy and then in a year or two, sell it for a profit.

And that will help you get to Canada.

So we ended up buying an apartment.

Oh, my dear, it's complicated.

It really is complicated.

So what happened was I couldn't get a mortgage because I didn't earn enough money to pay for the mortgage on the apartment.

He said, don't worry about that.

He said, Cavendish will pay the other half

and you can pay me with your wages.

So he was actually getting his own money back.

So Elaine and Ron moved into their new place that they co-owned with a corporation that they still couldn't confidently describe the purpose of when Davis had another bright idea.

Can't believe I'm saying all this, to be honest.

One day, Davis calls Elaine excitedly and says, Elaine, come downstairs.

I'm outside in a taxi.

He said, I've got something to show you.

And we drive to an area in Harrogate,

pull up outside on this street, and there's this business that's empty.

And he says, What do you think?

And I said, What do you mean?

What do you think?

He says, Well, wouldn't it be suitable for Ron to set up a TV repair business?

Elaine and Ron were dragged deeper still.

Oh, I don't know.

I don't think he'd want to do that.

He wants to go to Canada.

He said, yeah, but

if you set up a business, you'd make some money to go to Canada.

And I said, yeah, but it takes time to build up a business.

Then he explained it to Ron, and Ron wasn't keen at all, but he managed to persuade him to do it.

And this is how Ron and Elaine came to be directors of Davis's corporation, co-owners of an apartment with Davis, and proprietors of a TV repair business.

I think it all happened within a year.

So, as they reached December of 1992, they were completely committed to the Davis relationship.

And with the business and flat, Canada seemed to be nudged into the future further than they'd originally planned.

It was obvious that Davis wanted to keep them around, which is why what happened next was so shocking.

At the end of a whirlwind year, Elaine and Ron became close enough with Davis and his daughter Noel that the four of them got together for Christmas.

They gave Noel a hug, and as the house steeped in the smells of turkey in the oven, the four of them sat down in the lounge.

We exchange a Christmas present to each other and then he gives us a card.

He gives me the card and I open the card and in it is this Christmas card that says

to

Ron and Elaine, I will purchase, pay for two flights to Canada if you go by the end of February.

If you go to Canada by the end of February.

When I read it, I'm actually quite shocked because I think, wait a minute, this is 25th of December, and he's talking about us going to Canada by the end of February.

For Elaine, this wasn't a thrilling development.

The whole idea was that they were going to save up enough of a nest egg to make the international move as smooth as possible.

And after a year of Davis pulling them closer and closer in embrace, this felt like a sudden shove out the door.

How on earth are we going to wind down a business, sell an apartment?

And it's also crickets weeks, isn't it?

What is with the haste?

So I was initially just shocked, and Ron just beamed from ear to ear.

Finally, I'm going to Canada.

He was happy as Larry, but I underneath it, I was camouflaging that because I didn't want to spoil Christmas Day.

As Elaine sat trying not to be a Christmas bummer, she kept thinking, the end of February felt so quick and oddly specific.

Why was the date imposed by him?

Merry Christmas, you need to leave all you've ever known in the next 60 days?

Why?

Why?

I find myself thinking of this scene, though, often, about the four of them sitting around that table for Christmas dinner.

These four souls whose lives would be completely blown up in the next few years.

There's Ron feeling elated.

Davis pleased.

Elaine pushing her food around her plate trying to mask her panic.

And Noelle.

Noelle is the one I wonder about the most.

How did she feel as she sat there knowing why they needed Ron and Elaine gone?

They were bound for Canada.

They were bound for ruin.

Coming up on Sea of Lies.

Ron said to me on the phone, he said, I'm coming back to England.

And he said, Mr.

Davies has offered to meet me at the airport.

And I had a horrible, dark feeling.

When people commit a crime, they they will always make a mistake.

Nobody commits the perfect crime.

And I firmly believe that because everyone will make a mistake.

Sometimes you've got to trust your gut instinct.

And my gut instinct said he was involved.

In what shape or form, I didn't know.

Obviously, I wouldn't know, but he was involved and he was covering it up.

And I have to say, I don't like people getting away with things.

Sea of Lies is produced by What's the Story Sounds for CBC.

It's hosted and written by me, Sam Mullins, and produced and reported by Alex Gadenby.

Mixing and Sound Design is by Ivan Eastley.

From What's the Story Sounds?

Our executive producers are David Waters and Daryl Brown.

At CBC Podcasts, the senior producers are Andrew Friesen and Damon Fairless.

Eunice Kim is our story editor.

Emily Cannell is our digital coordinating producer.

Executive producers are Cecil Fernandez and Chris Oak.

Senior Manager is Tanya Springer.

And the director of CBC Podcasts is Arif Nurani.

For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca/slash podcasts.