Taking Stock

Chapter 2: Fraud

Chapter 2: FraudGoing back to work on the Tuesday after Easter was hard. Peter had been stalwart. He’d come and helped Richard move all this things out the previous day while Phil went to visit his Aunt Mary as he usually did on bank holidays, and he’d said that Richard could stay with him while he sorted himself out.

Phil wished it was as easy as that. He felt dreadful. He’d gone out to dinner with Percy and Adrian when he got back from Aunt Mary’s and opened his heart to them. He’d known Adrian since school and he and Percy were a couple.

“That’s youngsters for you,” Percy said, glumly. “Can’t keep it in their trousers. Not like us old married chaps.”

Adrian threw a cube of sugar at him across the restaurant table. “I remember a time not all that long ago when you couldn’t keep it in your trousers,” he said.

“Not after I hitched up with you!” Percy said, affronted. “I mean. I know people do. But it just seems like a good way for everyone to find out and for you to lose your job. I know they say you can’t get arrested any more…but I don’t want work to find out, thank you very much.”

Percy taught sciences at one of the local schools.

“It’s not that part that bothers me,” Phil said. “I’ve had my fair share of those sorts of encounters. It’s that I thought we were being faithful. And he brought people to the flat.” He knew the horror in his voice was evident. He loathed people who weren’t close friends in his space. It had been a mark of his infatuation with Richard that he had invited him to stay.

It had been a perfect storm for poor Richard a few weeks after they’d met. He’d to move out of his digs after some drama with his landlady and a miniature poodle that Phil hadn’t felt the need to fully investigate. He’d already been spending nearly every night at Phil’s Barbican place and it had seemed the right thing to do for Phil to offer to put him up until he got a new place. And Richard had just…never left.

“I feel such a fool,” he said, taking a mouthful of his cabernet sauvignon. “I’m looking back over it all now and wondering how often he was doing it. I’m away quite a bit. He’d have had the opportunity. And he didn’t seem to think it was a problem until I asked him to leave.”

Adrian patted his hand comfortably. “Don’t worry about it, old thing,” he said. “He’s a very plausible young chap. I don’t think you have anything to reproach yourself for. He seemed like he was really keen on you. I never saw him looking at any one else when we were with you. And even the once or twice he was there and you weren’t he didn’t make eyes at anyone.”

“Knew which side his bread was buttered,” Percy muttered and then flinched as Adrian indiscreetly kicked him under the table. “Sorry,” he said. “I never really liked him. He did come on to me once, sometime last Christmas. It wasn’t anything overt. Just a general feeling that I’d be welcome to…well. Welcome to whatever.”

Phil pulled a face. “Not that you’re not a very attractive bloke, Percy, but why would someone do that? To a friend of your boyfriend, I mean.”

“No idea. I could have been mistaken. He was quite subtle. Might just have been flirting and I misinterpreted. I was quite drunk.” He looked ruefully into his empty glass of wine. “Unlike now.”

“School tomorrow,” Adrian reminded him. “Coffee instead?”

“Yes, please.”

* * * *

Phil got through the next week with sheer grit and determination. He arrived as usual at six in the morning and stayed until his regular eight at night. He went out for drinks after work three times and on Saturday he cleaned the flat from top to bottom despite his cleaning lady already having been through it as thoroughly as she usually did. He found four of Richard’s ties mixed with his in the wardrobe and a book on party locations on the French coast that he took pleasure in putting in the bin.

By the following Monday he felt that he’d regained some of his equilibrium, despite spending part of nearly every day listening out for Richard’s voice in the main office. He’d never been Richard’s direct supervisor, but they worked in the same area and Richard was a junior member of the same team.

The office was quiet when he got in. He didn’t pick up on the fact that there was anything wrong until his boss, Reginald Portnoy, put his head around his door shortly after the floor opened.

“McManus old chap, could I have a word in my office?”

“Of course, sir, I’ll be right there.”

Portnoy was standing by the window overlooking the square, fidgeting with his pipe, when Phil tapped on the open door and went in.

“The thing is, McManus, there’s been complaint.” He went straight for the throat as he turned. Phil felt his breath catch.

“What?” he said, intelligently.

“A complaint. About you.”

“A complaint?” Phil felt a bit faint. He grabbed at the back of the chair in front of him.

Portnoy gave him an assessing look, pipe in hand. “Sit down,” he said, finally, gesturing to the chair in front of the desk. He watched Phil with shrewd eyes for a moment and then went to take his own seat behind it.

“Beckett’s made an allegation of impropriety,” he said.

Phil felt his jaw drop to the floor. “He what?” His voice was explosive. “What sort of impropriety?”

Portnoy was suddenly very busy pushing Dunhill Dark Flake into the bowl of his pipe.

“Financial, old boy,” he said, not meeting Phil’s eye. “Only financial.”

Oh. Portnoy knew about him then.

“He took it over my head,” Portnoy said. “I’ve been in meetings about it all weekend. They,” he gestured over his head to the floor above where the Board had their offices, “want a full investigation. He’s told them he suspects you’ve been fiddling the books.”

Phil felt his face go from pale to red with fury. “He what?!” He did raise his voice this time. “Fiddling the books?!”

“Well quite. That was my reaction too. I know you’re honest as the day is long, old boy, but they want me to go through all your trades for the last few months and double-check them for short-selling with tips you shouldn’t have had.” He struck a match and started trying to get his pipe to draw. “They don’t want to involve the police if they can avoid it, obviously, although the little s**t was threatening to go to them himself if they didn’t act.”

Phil drew in a deep and steadying breath.

“Right,” he said. “Right. No police. Well, I suppose that’s something.” He dragged a hand over his face.

“Only if we don’t find anything, of course.” Portnoy looked up from his pipe and met Phil’s eye. “Which we won’t, will we, McManus?”

“No sir. I swear.”

“Good.”

“I can’t believe…” Phil trailed off.

“Me either. You’ve not been very sensible, old chap. People have noticed. Well, I’ve noticed. And if I’ve noticed…I never notice anything; I make a point of it usually. But I did.” He coughed. “Well, anyway. Salutatory lesson, I suppose.”

“Yes sir. Indeed. Er….” Phil could feel his blush disappearing into his hairline. He was furious and embarrassed now.

“They want you out of the building until I’ve done the audit. Now please. It’ll be a week or two, I expect. Take a holiday. Go birdwatching. Visit your mother. Don’t worry about it. He’s making trouble and the little s**t will get what he deserves when the evidence comes back straight as houses.”

Phil swallowed as he stood up. “Very good, sir. What shall I do with my ongoing work?”

“I’m bringing Peter Norman over to the team to help with it and assist with the audit. He’ll pick up easily enough.”

Phil nodded. “Yes sir.” That was a relief. Peter would sort it out.

* * * *

Peter was already in his office when Phil opened the door. He was sitting on the edge of the desk, smoking. “Sorry, Phil,” he said. “I didn’t know until this morning. He called me in first.”

Phil shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. There’s nothing to find.” He dug his briefcase out from under the desk and started putting his coat on. There wasn’t anything else to take home, he didn’t keep anything personal here. “Is that bastard out there?” He nodded toward to big office he’d have to walk through to get to the exit.

“Yes. He’s still staying with me. He doesn’t have anywhere else to go.” Peter looked at his feet, a bit shamefaced. “I don’t want to throw him out on the street.”

“No, of course not. Can’t he stay with Kevin or Jimmy?”

“Apparently not.” Peter cleared his throat. “Portnoy said I’m to escort you out so there’s no trouble.”

Phil grimaced. “He’s not worth it, the little sod.”

The room was silent as he and Peter walked through. Richard was watching from his desk, his eyes glittering with spite. Phil looked back steadily. “See you all in a couple of weeks,” he said with a smile, to break the tension.

There were murmured assents and farewells.

“I’ll keep you posted,” Peter said at the door to the corridor. “I’m not allowed to talk to you in detail about the audit. But I’ll come round tonight. We can have a drink.”

Phil shook his head. “I’d rather you didn’t, if that’s all right with you. I need a few days to wallow in it, I think. Next weekend, maybe? And perhaps it’ll all be done by then.”

Peter nodded. “I’ll phone. Enjoy the time off.” His smile was part grimace, as was Phil’s returning one.

“Yes, I’ll do that.”

* * * *

It wasn’t as easy as that, of course. He puttered uneasily round the flat for the rest of the day, unable to settle, alternating between fury and despair. And a kind of grief for himself. He’d begun to put his heart in Richard’s hands and Richard clearly a) didn’t return that and b) wasn’t the person Phil had thought he was.

He ended up sat on Adrian and Percy’s doorstep waiting for them to get home from work. Percy arrived first, juggling a load of exercise books and his briefcase. “What’s happened?” he said, in lieu of greeting.

“I’ve been an i***t, that’s what’s happened. And Richard is a bastard.” Phil ground out the Embassy Light he’d been listlessly smoking and brushed the dust off his trousers as he stood up.

“Come in. I’ll put the kettle on.”

“Thanks, Perce.”

Slumped in a chair at the little Formica table in their kitchen and staring into a cup of tea, he summarized what had happened.

“That fucker!” Percy said. “Adrian will be back in a minute. Drink your tea and wait to tell the rest of it until he gets here. You don’t need to go through it twice. Are you staying for supper?”

Phil drank some tea. “If that’s okay. I don’t really know what to do with myself.”

“It’s only beans on toast, mind. I ate at the dining hall at school and Ade usually lunches with clients. Come and sit in the other room, I’ve got some marking to do and I like to spread it out on the dining table.”

It was a comfortable evening. His friends both shared his fury and distaste at the whole debacle.

On the way home he tried to frame it as an unexpected holiday. Peter and Portnoy would go through the books, the transactions would all track, and he’d be back at work in a fortnight.

He thought he might go and see Aunt Mary out at Chislehurst for a night or two and then carry on and get a ferry over to France for a few days. Clear his head completely.

Mary was his last surviving family member, his mother’s youngest sister. He’d been a surprise late arrival to his older parents and they’d both passed on when he was in his twenties. Mary was in her seventies and unflappable. She lived in a bright modern semi-detached bungalow with a neat garden and he’d been bringing his troubles to her since he was old enough to talk. He thought she had probably guessed he was that way early on when she never questioned him about girlfriends…and he had a sneaking suspicion that she might be on the other bus herself. They’d never discussed it.

For him to visit her on a Tuesday was unusual. He usually drove down at the weekends.

“Is everything all right?” she asked on the phone in the morning when he rang to see if she was at home to visitors. “Is something the matter?”

“Nothing dreadful,” he replied. “I’ll tell you when I see you rather than on the phone. Nothing to worry about.”

Sitting in her tiny, bright kitchen as she poured tea into china cups from the Brown Betty and fussed about pink wafer biscuits was very comforting. He didn’t want to upset her, but he desperately wanted to confide in her as a maternal figure.

She finally arranged the teacups and biscuits to her satisfaction and seated herself opposite him.

“So tell me,” she said. “Is it work? It must be, if you’re here on a work-day.”

“In a sense,” he said. The whole sorry story poured out.

She listened in silence, stirring her tea and occasionally taking a sip. He couldn’t make himself meet her eyes for fear of what he’d see in them and when he finally looked up after pouring them both another cup from the cooling pot on the table between them, he was unsurprised to see anger. Disappointed, but unsurprised.

He was surprised, however, when the first thing she said was “Well! What an unpleasant little creep!” She saw him staring and continued. “Honestly, Philip, did you think I was going to be shocked? Emmeline and I lived together for twenty years before she was killed in the blitz. I know it’s easier for women than men. But you might have guessed.”

He coughed. “I did wonder,” he said. “Sorry Aunt. I should have asked. Or I should have told you, so you could tell me.”

“It didn’t seem like something you wanted to talk about, so I didn’t bring it up,” she responded. “No need to talk something to death if there’s no need.” She proffered the biscuits at him. “Go on. Have another. It looks like you haven’t been eating. When did this all happen?”

“Erm…” He thought back. “When I got home from visiting you the weekend before this one. He’d had someone at the flat and it turned out it wasn’t the first time.”

She sniffed. “Classy chap.” Then she corrected herself. “Sorry. I know you must have liked him a lot to invite him to live with you. I don’t think you’ve ever had anyone like that before, have you?”

“No. And it looks like I didn’t really have that now. I think he’s probably a gold digger. I don’t know what he’s going to do when this investigation comes up blank. He’ll lose his job unless he’s very careful. Presumably he doesn’t want to out himself to the Board any more than I want to be outed.”

She looked at him shrewdly. “If he’s a gold digger and knows that you don’t want to be outed, then he has a hold over you.” Her eyes dimmed a little. “That happened to a friend of mine. Years ago. Before the war. He killed himself.” She patted his hand, suddenly. “Don’t do that, will you, dear?” she said. “You’ll always have a place here with me.”

He swallowed an unexpected urge to cry at her kindness. “No, Aunt Mary. I won’t do that. And thank you.” He put his hand on hers where it rested on his own. “I was thinking I might swing over the channel for a few days tomorrow. Would you like to come? We could potter round the Pas du Calais for a few days and have a holiday.”

“That sounds lovely, dear. I’d be delighted.”