The New Collected Short Stories

by Jeffrey Archer

  Janice had wanted to invite Roger and his wife round to dinner, but Chris had been against the idea from the start.

  ‘Why not?’ she had demanded. ‘After all, you both support Chelsea. Is it because you’re afraid he’ll turn you down, the stuck-up snob?’

  To be fair to Janice, it had crossed Chris’s mind to invite Roger out for a drink, but not to dinner at their home in Romford. He couldn’t explain to her that when Roger went to Stamford Bridge he didn’t sit at the Shed end with the lads, but in the members’ seats.

  Once the letters had been sorted out, Chris placed them in different trays according to their departments. His two assistants could cover the first ten floors, but he would never allow them anywhere near the top four. Only he got into the Chairman and Chief Executive’s offices.

  Janice never stopped reminding him to keep his eyes open whenever he was on the executive floors. ‘You can never tell what opportunities might arise, what openings could present themselves.’ He laughed to himself, thinking about Gloria in Filing, and the openings she offered. The things that girl could do behind a filing cabinet. That was one thing he didn’t need his wife to find out about.

  He picked up the trays for the top four floors, and headed towards the lift. When he reached the eleventh floor, he gave a gentle knock on the door before entering Roger’s office. The Head of Personnel glanced up from a letter he’d been reading, a preoccupied look on his face.

  ‘Good result for Chelsea on Saturday, Rog, even if it was only against West Ham,’ Chris said as he placed a pile of letters in his superior’s in-tray. He didn’t get any response, so he left hurriedly.

  Roger looked up as Chris scurried away. He felt guilty that he hadn’t chatted to him about the Chelsea match, but he didn’t want to explain why he had missed a home game for the first time that season. He should be so lucky as only to have Chelsea on his mind.

  He turned his attention back to the letter he had been reading. It was a bill for £1,600, the first month’s fee for his mother’s nursing home.

  Roger had reluctantly accepted that she was no longer well enough to remain with them in Croydon, but he hadn’t been expecting a bill that would work out at almost £20,000 a year. Of course he hoped she’d be around for another twenty years, but with Adam and Sarah still at school, and Hazel not wanting to go back to work, he needed a further rise in salary, at a time when all the talk was of cutbacks and redundancies.

  It had been a disastrous weekend. On Saturday he had begun to read the McKinsey report, outlining what the bank would have to do if it was to continue as a leading financial institution into the twenty-first century.

  The report had suggested that at least seventy employees would have to participate in a downsizing programme – a euphemism for ‘You’re sacked.’ And who would be given the unenviable task of explaining to those seventy individuals the precise meaning of the word ‘downsizing’? The last time Roger had had to sack someone, he hadn’t slept for days. He had felt so depressed by the time he put the report down that he just couldn’t face the Chelsea match.

  He realised he would have to make an appointment to see Godfrey Tudor-Jones, the bank’s Chief Administrator, although he knew that Tudor-Jones would brush him off with, ‘Not my department, old boy, people problems. And you’re the Head of Personnel, Roger, so I guess it’s up to you.’ It wasn’t as if he’d been able to strike up a personal relationship with the man, which he could now fall back on. He had tried hard enough over the years, but the Chief Administrator had made it all too clear that he didn’t mix business with pleasure – unless, of course, you were a board member.

  ‘Why don’t you invite him to a home game at Chelsea?’ suggested Hazel. ‘After all, you paid enough for those two season tickets.’

  ‘I don’t think he’s into football,’ Roger had told her. ‘More a rugby man, would be my guess.’

  ‘Then invite him to your club for dinner.’

  He didn’t bother to explain to Hazel that Godfrey was a member of the Carlton Club, and he didn’t imagine he would feel at ease at a meeting of the Fabian Society.

  The final blow had come on Saturday evening, when the headmaster of Adam’s school had phoned to say he needed to see him urgently, about a matter that couldn’t be discussed over the phone. He had driven there on the Sunday morning, apprehensive about what it could possibly be that couldn’t be discussed over the phone. He knew that Adam needed to buckle down and work a lot harder if he was to have a chance of being offered a place at any university, but the headmaster told him that his son had been caught smoking marijuana, and that the school rules on that particular subject couldn’t be clearer – immediate expulsion and a full report to the local police the following day. When he heard the news, Roger felt as if he were back in his own headmaster’s study.

  Father and son had hardly exchanged a word on the journey home. When Hazel had been told why Adam had come back in the middle of term she had broken down in tears, and proved inconsolable. She feared it would all come out in the Croydon Advertiser, and they would have to move. Roger certainly couldn’t afford a move at the moment, but he didn’t think this was the right time to explain to Hazel the meaning of negative equity.

  On the train up to London that morning, Roger couldn’t help thinking that none of this would have arisen if he had landed the Chief Administrator’s job. For months there had been talk of Godfrey joining the board, and when he eventually did, Roger would be the obvious candidate to take his place. But he needed the extra cash right now, what with his mother in a nursing home and having to find a sixth-form college that would take Adam. He and Hazel would have to forget celebrating their twentieth wedding anniversary in Venice.

  As he sat at his desk, he thought about the consequences of his colleagues finding out about Adam. He wouldn’t lose his job, of course, but he needn’t bother concerning himself with any further promotion. He could hear the snide whispers in the washroom that were meant to be overheard.

  ‘Well, he’s always been a bit of a lefty, you know. So, frankly, are you surprised?’ He would have liked to explain to them that just because you read the Guardian, it doesn’t automatically follow that you go on Ban the Bomb marches, experiment with free love and smoke marijuana at weekends.

  He returned to the first page of the McKinsey report, and realised he would have to make an early appointment to see the Chief Administrator. He knew it would be no more than going through the motions, but at least he would have done his duty by his colleagues.

  He dialled an internal number, and Godfrey Tudor-Jones’s secretary picked up the phone.

  ‘The Chief Administrator’s office,’ said Pamela, sounding as if she had a cold.

  ‘It’s Roger. I need to see Godfrey fairly urgently. It’s about the McKinsey report.’

  ‘He has appointments most of the day,’ said Pamela, ‘but I could fit you in at 4.15 for fifteen minutes.’

  ‘Then I’ll be with you at 4.15.’

  Pamela replaced the phone and made a note in her boss’s diary.

  ‘Who was that?’ asked Godfrey.

  ‘Roger Parker. He says he has a problem and needs to see you urgently. I fitted him in at 4.15.’

  He doesn’t know what a problem is, thought Godfrey, continuing to sift through his letters to see if any had ‘Confidential’ written on them. None had, so he crossed the room and handed them all back to Pamela.

  She took them without a word passing between them. Nothing had been the same since that weekend in Manchester. He should never have broken the golden rule about sleeping with your secretary. If it hadn’t rained for three days, or if he’d been able to get a ticket for the United match, or if her skirt hadn’t been quite so short, it might never have happened. If, if, if. And it wasn’t as if the earth had moved, or he’d had it more than once. What a wonderful start to the week to be told she was pregnant.

  As if he didn’t have enough problems at the moment, the bank was having a poor year, so his bonu
s was likely to be about half what he’d budgeted for. Worse, he had already spent the money long before it had been credited to his account.

  He looked up at Pamela. All she’d said after her initial outburst was that she hadn’t made up her mind whether or not to have the baby. That was all he needed right now, what with two sons at Tonbridge and a daughter who couldn’t make up her mind if she wanted a piano or a pony, and didn’t understand why she couldn’t have both, not to mention a wife who had become a shopaholic. He couldn’t remember when his bank balance had last been in credit. He looked up at Pamela again, as she left his office. A private abortion wouldn’t come cheap either, but it would be a damn sight cheaper than the alternative.

  It would all have been so different if he had taken over as Chief Executive. He’d been on the shortlist, and at least three members of the board had made it clear that they supported his application. But the board in its wisdom had offered the position to an outsider. He had reached the last three, and for the first time he understood what it must feel like to win an Olympic silver medal when you’re the clear favourite. Damn it, he was just as well qualified for the job as Phillip Alexander, and he had the added advantage of having worked for the bank for the past twelve years. There had been hints of a place on the board as compensation, but that would bite the dust the moment they found out about Pamela.

  And what was the first recommendation Alexander had put before the board? That the bank should invest heavily in Russia, with the cataclysmic result that seventy people would now be losing their jobs and everyone’s bonus was having to be readjusted. What made it worse was that Alexander was now trying to shift the blame for his decision onto the Chairman.

  Once again, Godfrey’s thoughts returned to Pamela. Perhaps he should take her out to lunch and try to convince her that an abortion would be the wisest course of action. He was about to pick up the phone and suggest the idea to her when it rang.

  It was Pamela. ‘Miss Franklyn just called. Could you pop up and see Mr Alexander in his office?’ This was a ploy Alexander used regularly, to ensure you never forgot his position. Half the time, whatever needed to be discussed could easily have been dealt with over the phone. The man had a bloody power-complex.

  On the way up to Alexander’s office, Godfrey remembered that his wife had wanted to invite him to dinner, so she could meet the man who had robbed her of a new car.

  ‘He won’t want to come,’ Godfrey had tried to explain. ‘You see, he’s a very private person.’

  ‘No harm in asking,’ she had insisted. But Godfrey had turned out to be right: ‘Phillip Alexander thanks Mrs Tudor-Jones for her kind invitation to dinner, but regrets that due to . . .’

  Godfrey tried to concentrate on why Alexander wanted to see him. He couldn’t possibly know about Pamela – not that it was any of his business in the first place. Especially if the rumours about his own sexual preferences were to be believed. Had he been made aware that Godfrey was well in excess of the bank’s overdraft limit? Or was he going to try to drag him onside over the Russian fiasco? Godfrey could feel the palms of his hands sweating as he knocked on the door.

  ‘Come in,’ said a deep voice.

  Godfrey entered to be greeted by the Chief Executive’s secretary, Miss Franklyn, who had joined him from Morgans. She didn’t speak, just nodded in the direction of her boss’s office.

  He knocked for a second time, and when he heard ‘Come,’ he entered the Chief Executive’s office. Alexander looked up from his desk.

  ‘Have you read the McKinsey report?’ he asked. No ‘Good morning, Godfrey.’ No ‘Did you have a pleasant weekend?’ Just ‘Have you read the McKinsey report?’

  ‘Yes, I have,’ replied Godfrey, who hadn’t done much more than speed-read through it, checking the paragraph headings and then studying in more detail the sections that would directly affect him. On top of everything else, he didn’t need to be one of those who were about to be made redundant.

  ‘The bottom line is that we can make savings of three million a year. It will mean having to sack up to seventy of the staff, and halving most of the bonuses. I need you to give me a written assessment on how we go about it, which departments can afford to shed staff, and which personnel we would risk losing if we halved their bonuses. Can you have that ready for me in time for tomorrow’s board meeting?’

  The bastard’s about to pass the buck again, thought Godfrey. And he doesn’t seem to care if he passes it up or down, as long as he survives. Wants to present the board with a fait accompli, on the back of my recommendations. No way.

  ‘Have you got anything on at the moment that might be described as priority?’

  ‘No, nothing that can’t wait,’ Godfrey replied. He didn’t think he’d mention his problem with Pamela, or the fact that his wife would be livid if he failed to turn up for the school play that evening, in which their younger son was playing an angel. Frankly, it wouldn’t have mattered if he were playing Jesus. Godfrey would still have to be up all night preparing his report for the board.

  ‘Good. I suggest we meet up again at ten o’clock tomorrow morning, so you can brief me on how we should go about implementing the report.’ Alexander lowered his head and returned his attention to the papers on his desk – a sign that the meeting was over.

  Phillip Alexander looked up once he heard the door close. Lucky man, he thought, not to have any real problems. He was up to his eyes in them. The most important thing now was to make sure he continued to distance himself from the Chairman’s disastrous decision to invest so heavily in Russia. He had backed the move at a board meeting the previous year, and the Chairman had made sure that his support had been minuted. But the moment he found out what was happening over at the Bank of America and Barclays, he had put an immediate stop on the bank’s second instalment – as he continually reminded the board.

  Since that day Phillip had flooded the building with memos, warning every department to be sure it covered its own positions, and urging them all to retrieve whatever money they could. He kept the memos flowing on a daily basis, with the result that by now almost everyone, including several members of the board, was convinced that he had been sceptical about the decision from the outset.

  The spin he’d put on events to one or two board members who were not that close to Sir William was that he hadn’t felt he could go against the Chairman’s wishes when he’d only been in the Chief Executive’s job for a few weeks, and that had been his reason for not opposing Sir William’s recommendation for a £500 million loan to the Nordsky Bank in St Petersburg. The situation could still be turned to his advantage, because if the Chairman was forced to resign, the board might feel an internal appointment would be the best course of action, given the circumstances. After all, when they had appointed Phillip as Chief Executive, the Deputy Chairman, Maurice Kington, had made it clear that he doubted if Sir William would serve his full term – and that was before the Russian débâcle. About a month later, Kington had resigned; it was well known in the City that he only resigned when he could see trouble on the horizon, as he had no intention of giving up any of his thirty or so other directorships.

  When the Financial Times published an unfavourable article about Sir William, it covered itself by opening with the words: ‘No one will deny that Sir William Selwyn’s record as Chairman of Critchley’s Bank has been steady, even at times impressive. But recently there have been some unfortunate errors, which appear to have emanated from the Chairman’s office.’ Alexander had briefed the journalist with chapter and verse of those ‘unfortunate errors’.

  Some members of the board were now whispering ‘Sooner rather than later.’ But Alexander still had one or two problems of his own to sort out.

  Another call last week, and demands for a further payment. The damn man seemed to know just how much he could ask for each time. Heaven knows, public opinion was no longer so hostile towards homosexuals. But with a rent boy it was still different – somehow the press could make it sound
far worse than a heterosexual man paying a prostitute. And how the hell was he to know the boy was under age at the time? In any case, the law had changed since then – not that the tabloids would allow that to influence them.

  And then there was the problem of who should become Deputy Chairman now that Maurice Kington had resigned. Securing the right replacement would be crucial for him, because that person would be presiding when the board came to appoint the next Chairman. Phillip had already made a pact with Michael Butterfield, who he knew would support his cause, and had begun dropping hints in the ears of other board members about Butterfield’s qualifications for the job: ‘We need someone who voted against the Russian loan . . . Someone who wasn’t appointed by Sir William . . . Someone with an independent mind . . . Someone who . . .’

  He knew the message was getting through, because one or two directors had already dropped into his office and suggested that Butterfield was the obvious candidate for the job. Phillip was happy to fall in with their sage opinion.

  And now it had all come to a head, because a decision would have to be made at tomorrow’s board meeting. If Butterfield was appointed Deputy Chairman, everything else would fall neatly into place.

  The phone on his desk rang. He picked it up and shouted, ‘I said no calls, Alison.’

  ‘It’s Julian Burr again, Mr Alexander.’

  ‘Put him through,’ said Alexander quietly.

  ‘Good morning, Phil. Just thought I’d call in and wish you all the best for tomorrow’s board meeting.’

  ‘How the hell did you know about that?’

  ‘Oh, Phil, surely you must realise that not everyone at the bank is heterosexual.’ The voice paused. ‘And one of them in particular doesn’t love you any more.’