It took a while for him to assess his options. It was only once he had mentally exhausted every other option that he reluctantly came to the conclusion that he would have to ask the question that he generally sought to avoid asking at all costs.
“What’s the matter?”
“She says she’s not coming back for Christmas. Lauren. She says she’d rather spend it with her boyfriend’s family than with me.” At which point she dissolved into tears.
Barry now had nowhere left to go. He wanted to tell her that everything would be all right – that he would explain to Lauren that he’d managed to steal nearly £50,000 from work and he would treat her to whatever she wanted if she just agreed to come home over the festive period. But he knew that wouldn’t be a good idea.
The fact was, Barry now realised, that money couldn’t solve this kind of problem. Not really. He could buy sex, he could buy a new car, he could possibly even buy Lauren’s physical presence in their lounge for a few hours on Christmas Day, but somehow none of that was enough.
Barry looked at his wife. Then he turned round and looked into the empty kitchen. He didn’t know where to begin. He’d travelled so far down the road he was on, he didn’t know the way back now. He was hungry, but he knew he was hungry for the wrong thing. Somehow though, he just couldn’t stop himself.
“It’s all right, love. I’ll phone for a pizza.”
Thirty-Eight
The argument had hung in the air for the rest of the evening like the lingering smell of Barry’s garlic bread; stultifying and pungent. She had said nothing more to him, but instead had taken out her frustrations on cupboard doors and a few hapless pieces of crockery, whilst shooting the occasional loud stare in Barry’s direction. He didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t as if she were making an accusation to which he could respond, but he felt accused nonetheless. Not of doing something – or even of not doing something – but of something altogether more elusive. Where once he had been the shiver in her spine, now Barry sensed that he had become the darkness behind her glower. He didn’t know quite how it had happened, but he could sense that it had.
But he tried to put all that out of his mind as he arrived at work the following morning. He had his fortnightly supervision session with Langley to contend with, which was an altogether less-ambiguous proposition. As he approached Langley’s office, however, he could hear that his boss was on the phone.
“But why would I want to carry on paying for a Subaru when I’ve got a Jaguar for free?”
Barry hovered by the door. It felt like a bad time to enter.
“Yes, I know I signed an agreement, but that was twelve months ago – I needed a car then. I don’t need one now… Well, can’t I just cancel the agreement? I can drop the keys round whenever… Settle it in full? And how much would it cost me to do that?”
It appeared that there was at least one downside to getting a company car – you still had to pay for your own car if you’d signed a forty-two-month personal contract plan to that effect barely twelve months previously.
“How much? There’s no way I can afford to pay that! I haven’t got that kind of money… Yes, but I can’t afford to carry on paying for this car and getting taxed for my new company car as well. I have bills to pay. Surely there’s got to be another way round this?”
It appeared that there wasn’t.
“Well, I’ll just sell it then,” said Langley, defiantly. “I can settle up with you when I’ve done that… But how can you stop me doing that? It’s my car! OK, so I don’t technically own it fully yet, but—”
As he listened, Barry felt a certain sense of satisfaction. Langley had taken great pleasure in ensuring everyone knew when he had bought his flame red Subaru BRZ SE Lux sports car twelve months previously. He’d even made repeated, none-too-subtle reference, to how much he’d paid. Now, however, it appeared that it was something of a burden, and one that he was desperate to be relieved of.
“Well, can’t you sell it for me then?… What? And how much do you think that shortfall might be?… And I’d have to pay that? But that’s ridiculous; the car’s immaculate – and barely a year old!
“Look, Phil, I’m desperate. I need to resolve the situation soon. I’ve got another payment next week and I just can’t afford it. I’ve got my mother to look after, and with Christmas coming as well…”
Finally, Langley noticed Barry standing outside his office through a gap in the patterned frosting.
“Look, I’ve got someone waiting for a meeting with me, but I’m sorry, this is just not acceptable. I entered into that agreement in good faith. You can’t insist I keep paying for a car I don’t need, then stop me from selling it myself, and then penalise me if you sell it for me. I shall be speaking to Nigel about this. I’m very disappointed!”
As Langley hung up, a thought occurred to Barry. What Langley needed in order to get himself out this unfortunate position was someone in desperate need of a flame red, mid-range sports car, who knew him and who would, therefore, trust him enough to buy the car off him without feeling the need to check whether or not he actually owned it. The purchaser would also need to be prepared to pay slightly over the odds for the car in order to minimise (and ideally eliminate) the shortfall between the settlement figure on the agreement and the value of the car. And he would have to be prepared to wait a couple of days after paying – in full – for the car whilst Langley paid off his contract and could therefore safely notify the DVLA of the change of ownership without the dealership picking up on what he’d done.
It seemed, at best, a tall order. But the idea occurred to Barry that, now he was in want of a replacement vehicle, it wouldn’t be unreasonable to assume that he might be in the market for something like a… Subaru BRZ SE Lux, for instance.
“Problem with the car, Langley?” he asked as he entered the office.
“Not a problem, exactly. More of a challenge, Barry. A challenge waiting to be risen to.”
“I haven’t had a chance to sort myself out yet, as it happens. You haven’t got one going spare have you?”
Langley’s eyes sparked into life. “Well, as a matter of fact I have, Barry; as a matter of fact, I have. You wouldn’t be interested in a nearly new Subaru BRZ would you? SE Lux. Barely twelve months old, only 12,000 on the clock. Nearly a full year’s tax on it and no MOT due for two years. Top of the range, all the whistles and bells.”
Barry had never thought of buying a sports car before. But the more Langley went on about the twin-tail muffler cutter and keyless access system, the more it confirmed in Barry’s mind the idea that Langley might unwittingly be presenting him with the perfect opportunity to spend a large amount of the money currently waiting for him in the Bhattis’ bank account without any of it passing through his own.
“How much?” he asked.
Langley stopped speaking and blinked. He hadn’t yet extolled the virtues of the four-sensor/four-channel ABS system and yet it appeared that Barry was already sold. There was, however, the small matter of the bill.
“Well, this is a twenty-six/twenty-seven grand car, Barry,” Langley said, carefully quoting (and slightly exaggerating) the new-car price that he had paid twelve months previously, rather than the more meaningful nearly new price for a car that was now a year old. “But, obviously, as a colleague, I wouldn’t dream of charging you anything like that, even with all the optional extras I paid for. I’ll just have to take a hit on those, I suppose.”
“That’d be very generous of you. Thanks.”
“The thing is though, there’s only so far I can go. I could sell it on eBay and get a lot more than I would charge you. But I really appreciate what you’re doing – filling in on Maxine’s old patch and all that – so I guess I could let it go for… twenty-two-and-a-half.”
“Sorry?” Barry was incredulous. Given that Langley had made no secret of how much he’d paid for the car, Barry co
uld calculate that that was a good £2,000 more than the car’s actual resale value.
“Twenty-two and a half,” repeated Langley, unapologetically. “I appreciate it may be a lot less than you expected, but – for you – I’m prepared to do it for that price. Cash – in advance.”
Barry’s initial instinct was to politely decline. But then he reminded himself that, as it wasn’t actually his money he would be paying with, he could hardly complain that he was being robbed. The fact that he would be paying Langley with money that he had stolen from under his nose added a certain schadenfreude to the whole transaction that couldn’t be gained elsewhere and that, Barry concluded, was worth the small extra cost. Nevertheless, he felt the need to make at least some attempt to protect himself from Langley’s naked profiteering and show his boss that he wasn’t a complete fool.
“Twenty-one and half.”
“Twenty-two.”
“Done.”
And you certainly have been, thought both men simultaneously.
Thirty-Nine
Having just overcharged him £1,500 for a car, Langley appeared less willing than usual to give Barry a hard time over his teams’ performance. He was also under strict instructions from Ruth not to raise the issue of the missing payment from The SHYPP; this was now being investigated by the police, so it would be inappropriate to speculate on who might be to blame, or for The SHYPP to be put under any pressure by Monument staff, Langley had been told. This meant that Barry’s supervision session went much better than he had been anticipating; so well, in fact, that by the end of it he felt emboldened to ask Langley the question that had been playing on his mind for the last few weeks since Maxine’s sudden departure.
“I was wondering if there was any decision yet – about the future. It’s just that, when I got asked about taking over Maxine’s team, you said it would only be a temporary thing for a couple of weeks. Well, it’s been quite a bit longer than that now, and – as you can tell – I’m finding it all pretty tough, running two teams and everything. So, I was just wondering if there’d been any decisions yet. Sorry.”
Langley exhaled slowly. “I believe there are still a couple of things to finalise, but we’re nearly there.”
“And?”
“An announcement will be made when it’s all sorted.”
“Which will be when?”
“I think the plan is to make it before Christmas, as long as everything is sorted.”
That was as much as he would say. But, when he finally got Barry out of his office, Langley went straight in to see Angela. The upshot was that late that afternoon an email came round from Andrew advising all managers not to allow any leave or book any appointments for the following Wednesday afternoon. Any existing appointments should be rearranged. There would be a staff update given to all staff then, and attendance would be mandatory. Team members were to be advised accordingly.
The moment Barry left his supervision meeting he immediately texted Saleema with the bank details that Langley had given him, and asked her to arrange for £22,000 to be sent to that account. He had omitted to mention that the account holder was Langley, but – as Saleema had assured him banks didn’t check the names, only the account number and sort code – it didn’t seem to matter. Saleema texted back straight away and said that they would arrange an international money transfer immediately; Mr Malford should have his money within twenty-four hours. Barry thought it churlish to correct her. Instead he told Langley that he had arranged a transfer of funds and that his boss should keep an eye out for the money arriving in his account the next day.
Sure enough, by lunchtime the following day, Langley saw that the money had arrived in his account. He immediately phoned up his car finance company and arranged to make the settlement payment on his contract. That would take three working days to clear, then Langley could send the V5 through to the DVLA and Barry could have his car.
For a man who had been assured that he had nothing to worry about, Barry still found himself spending an inordinate amount of time being worried. Wherever he went, his worry seemed to follow. Like the smell of Iulia’s cigarettes, it clung to him, working its way into the weave of his clothing, refusing to be forgotten. And nothing he could do seemed able to wash it out.
He had agreed with Langley that neither of them would mention their agreement or its terms to anyone else. But, as Barry waited the apparently interminable three working days for Langley’s payment to clear, he found his mind continually circling the issue of what could go wrong. As he did so, the thought occurred to him that if it was clear that it was he who had caused the money to be placed in Langley’s account, it didn’t much matter that the money hadn’t actually gone through his own account first. It would be obvious, surely, to any half-decent investigator what had happened. What he needed to do, therefore, was pre-emptively spike Langley’s guns, so that if his boss attempted to suggest at any point in future that Barry had had anything to do with the £22,000 appearing in Langley’s account, he could rely on the cover story he had already created.
Barry’s brain ached as he thought about it, but, after a couple of sleepless nights, he decided to go and see Angela.
“Oh, hi Barry. How can I help?”
“Well, there’s two things, really. I know you’ve given me till Christmas to hand the car back, but it looks like I’ve got myself sorted with a new one, so I can probably hand it back this week – if that’s OK? One less thing to worry about, with Christmas and all that.”
“Well, if you’re sure. How did you get yourself sorted out so quickly?”
“Well, that’s the other thing I wanted to talk to you about. Can I talk to you confidentially?”
Angela leant forward and slipped effortlessly into ‘tilty head’ mode. “Of course.”
“It’s just that… well, Langley has offered me his car.”
“Not his company car?”
“No, no, not his Jag. His old car: the Subaru.”
“Oh, very nice! So what’s the problem?”
“Well, the thing is…” Barry paused for a moment and sighed for dramatic effect. “I just wondered if there were any rules about that kind of thing.”
“Oh good grief, no. That’s entirely a private matter between you and Langley. If he wants to sell you his old car and you’re happy to buy it—”
“Well, that’s just it. He doesn’t want to sell me the car. He wants to give it to me – for free.”
“Give it to you?” Angela said, dropping the pen that she’d been idly twisting between her fingers.
“Yes. He says he doesn’t need it anymore – not now he’s got the company Jag – so he thought I may as well have it. It’s just sitting on his drive otherwise, he says…” Barry tapered off, not sure what else he could say.
Angela appeared somewhat taken aback. She picked up the pen and began scribbling furiously. “Well, that really is very generous. Did he say why?”
“Not really. I think he feels a bit bad about taking my company car off me. And for not being able to pay me for covering the extra team, which has dragged on longer than he thought. And, of course, he had to block my VR application too. It doesn’t look good; he can see that, I guess.”
Angela didn’t appear to know quite what to say. “Has he asked you for anything in return? Not money necessarily, but maybe something else – to do something for him, perhaps?”
“Well, no… not yet, at any rate. He just said I’d be doing him a favour. Said he needed to get shot of it quickly. Urgently, in fact. I don’t quite know why.”
Angela’s brow steepled into a concerned frown. “Do you want me to have a word with him about it?”
“Oh God, no!” Barry said, with what he immediately realised was perhaps slightly too much alarm. “I mean, he’s sensitive about it. He doesn’t want people to know what he’s done. And to be honest, neither do I. As far as everyone
else knows, I’ll have paid him for the car. It’s a bit embarrassing for me – to take someone else’s charity like that. I just didn’t want you to think that I was taking advantage of him.”
“Thanks for making me aware of this, Barry,” she said, a slightly awkward, fixed smile appearing on her face. “I obviously won’t say anything to anyone about this—”
“That’d be great. Thanks.”
“But I do want to make a note about our conversation – if that’s OK with you?” she asked, looking at Barry in a way that suggested it wasn’t really a question.
“A note?”
“Yes. It’s to protect you really. To show that you did the right thing… if, for any reason, anybody tries to say later on that you didn’t.”
“But you won’t mention anything to anyone, will you? I promised that I’d keep things between the two of us. I wouldn’t want him to think I’ve gone behind his back.”
“Oh, absolutely not. I understand that, Barry. Not a word. To anyone. I promise.” Then she put her pen down on the table with a deliberation that seemed to suggest an unwritten agreement was also being entered into. “But you must promise me, if you’re asked to do anything because you got the car that makes you feel uncomfortable in any way, you must come to me immediately. Can you promise me that?”
“Absolutely,” agreed Barry, with a smile.
“Great,” she said. Then she fixed him with a firm stare, as though she were trying to bore her words into Barry’s soul. “You’ve done the right thing, Barry. I hope that you know that. And I know that you would never try to take advantage of someone. So don’t worry, you won’t get in trouble for any of this, I promise – because we’ll have the note.”
As Barry left Angela’s office he expected to feel relieved. After all, she had just told him that he’d done the right thing and promised him that he wouldn’t get into any trouble. But he also felt like a fraud. In fact, he didn’t feel like a fraud; he felt that he was a fraud. It was as if his crime had somehow crept inside of him when he wasn’t looking and taken him over.
Acts & Monuments Page 22
