‘What do you want, Julian?’
‘For you to be Chairman, of course.’
‘What do you want?’ repeated Alexander, his voice rising with every word.
‘I thought a little break in the sun while you’re moving up a floor. Nice, Monte Carlo, perhaps a week or two in St Tropez.’
‘And how much do you imagine that would cost?’ Alexander asked.
‘Oh, I would have thought ten thousand would comfortably cover my expenses.’
‘Far too comfortably,’ said Alexander.
‘I don’t think so,’ said Julian. ‘Try not to forget that I know exactly how much you’re worth, and that’s without the rise in salary you can expect once you become Chairman. Let’s face it, Phil, it’s far less than the News of the World would be willing to offer me for an exclusive. I can see the headline now: “Rent Boy’s Night with Chairman of Family Bank”.’
‘That’s criminal,’ said Alexander.
‘No. As I was under age at the time, I think you’ll find it’s you who’s the criminal.’
‘You can go too far, you know,’ said Alexander.
‘Not while you have ambitions to go even further,’ said Julian, with a laugh.
‘I’ll need a few days.’
‘I can’t wait that long – I want to catch the early flight to Nice tomorrow. Be sure that the money has been transferred to my account before you go into the board meeting at eleven, there’s a good chap. Don’t forget it was you who taught me about electronic transfers.’
The phone went dead, then rang again immediately.
‘Who is it this time?’ snapped Alexander.
‘The Chairman’s on line two.’
‘Put him through.’
‘Phillip, I need the latest figures on the Russian loans, along with your assessment of the McKinsey report.’
‘I’ll have an update on the Russian position on your desk within the hour. As for the McKinsey report, I’m broadly in agreement with its recommendations, but I’ve asked Godfrey Tudor-Jones to let me have a written opinion on how we should go about implementing it. I intend to present his report at tomorrow’s board meeting. I hope that’s satisfactory, Chairman?’
‘I doubt it. I have a feeling that by tomorrow it will be too late,’ the Chairman said without explanation, before replacing the phone.
Sir William knew it didn’t help that the latest Russian losses had exceeded £500 million. And now the McKinsey report had arrived on every director’s desk, recommending that seventy jobs, perhaps even more, should be shed in order to make a saving of around £3 million a year. When would management consultants begin to understand that human beings were involved, not just numbers on a balance sheet – among them seventy loyal members of staff, some of whom had served the bank for more than twenty years?
There wasn’t a mention of the Russian loan in the McKinsey report, because it wasn’t part of their brief; but the timing couldn’t have been worse. And in banking, timing is everything.
Phillip Alexander’s words to the board were indelibly fixed in Sir William’s memory: ‘We mustn’t allow our rivals to take advantage of such a one-off windfall. If Critchley’s is to remain a player on the international stage, we have to move quickly while there’s still a profit to be made.’ The short-term gains could be enormous, Alexander had assured the board – whereas in truth the opposite had turned out to be the case. And within moments of things falling apart, the little shit had begun digging himself out of the Russian hole, while dropping his Chairman right into it. He’d been on holiday at the time, and Alexander had phoned him at his hotel in Marrakech to tell him that he had everything under control, and there was no need for him to rush home. When he did eventually return, he found that Alexander had already filled in the hole, leaving him at the bottom of it.
After reading the article in the Financial Times, Sir William knew his days as Chairman were numbered. The resignation of Maurice Kington had been the final blow, from which he knew he couldn’t hope to recover. He had tried to talk him out of it, but there was only one person’s future Kington was ever interested in.
The Chairman stared down at his handwritten letter of resignation, a copy of which would be sent to every member of the board that evening.
His loyal secretary Claire had reminded him that he was fifty-seven, and had often talked of retiring at sixty to make way for a younger man. It was ironic when he considered who that younger man might be.
True, he was fifty-seven. But the last Chairman hadn’t retired until he was seventy, and that was what the board and the shareholders would remember. It would be forgotten that he had taken over an ailing bank from an ailing Chairman, and increased its profits year on year for the past decade. Even if you included the Russian disaster, they were still well ahead of the game.
Those hints from the Prime Minister that he was being considered for a peerage would quickly be forgotten. The dozen or so directorships that are nothing more than routine for the retiring Chairman of a major bank would suddenly evaporate, along with the invitations to Buck House, the Guildhall and the centre court at Wimbledon – the one official outing his wife always enjoyed.
He had told Katherine over dinner the night before that he was going to resign. She had put down her knife and fork, folded her napkin and said, ‘Thank God for that. Now it won’t be necessary to go on with this sham of a marriage any longer. I shall wait for a decent interval, of course, before I file for divorce.’ She had risen from her place and left the room without uttering another word.
Until then, he’d had no idea that Katherine felt so strongly. He’d assumed she was aware that there had been other women, although none of his affairs had been all that serious. He thought they had reached an understanding, an accommodation. After all, so many married couples of their age did. After dinner he had travelled up to London and spent the night at his club.
He unscrewed the top of his fountain pen and signed the twelve letters. He had left them on his desk all day, in the hope that before the close of business some miracle would occur which would make it possible for him to shred them. But in truth he knew that was never likely.
When he finally took the letters through to his secretary, she had already typed the recipients’ names on the twelve envelopes. He smiled at Claire, the best secretary he’d ever had.
‘Goodbye, Claire,’ he said, giving her a kiss on the cheek.
‘Goodbye, Sir William,’ she replied, biting her lip.
He returned to his office, picked up his empty briefcase and a copy of The Times. Tomorrow he would be the lead story in the Business Section – he wasn’t quite well enough known to make the front page. He looked around the Chairman’s office once again before leaving it for the last time. He closed the door quietly behind him and walked slowly down the corridor to the lift. He pressed the button and waited. The doors opened and he stepped inside, grateful that the lift was empty, and that it didn’t stop on its journey to the ground floor.
He walked out into the foyer and glanced towards the reception desk. Haskins would have gone home long ago. As the plate-glass door slid open he thought about Kevin sitting at home in Peckham with his pregnant wife. He would have liked to have wished him luck for the job on the reception desk. At least that wouldn’t be affected by the McKinsey report.
As he stepped out onto the pavement, something caught his eye. He turned to see an old tramp settling down for the night in the far corner underneath the arch.
Bill touched his forehead in a mock salute. ‘Good evening, Chairman,’ he said with a grin.
‘Good evening, Bill,’ Sir William replied, smiling back at him.
If only they could change places, Sir William thought, as he turned and walked towards his waiting car.
CAT O’ NINE TALES
For Elizabeth
Foreword
While I was incarcerated for two years, in five different prisons, I picked up several stories that were not appropriate to include in th
e day-to-day journals of a prison diary. These tales are marked in the contents with an asterisk.
Although all nine stories have been embellished, each is rooted in fact. In all but one, the prisoner concerned has asked me not to reveal his real name.
The other three stories included in this volume are also true, but I came across them after being released from prison: in Athens – ‘A Greek Tragedy’, in London – ‘The Wisdom of Solomon’, and in Rome my favourite – ‘In the Eye of the Beholder’.
The Beginning
MR JUSTICE GRAY STARED down at the two defendants in the dock. Chris and Sue Haskins had pleaded guilty to the theft of £250,000, being the property of the Post Office, and to falsifying four passports.
Mr and Mrs Haskins looked about the same age, which was hardly surprising as they had been at school together some forty years before. You could have passed them in the street without giving either of them a second look. Chris was about five foot nine, his dark wavy hair turning grey, and he was at least a stone overweight. He stood upright in the dock, and although his suit was well worn, his shirt was clean and his striped tie suggested that he was a member of a club. His black shoes looked as if they had been spit-and-polished every morning. His wife Sue stood by his side. Her neat floral dress and sensible shoes hinted at an organized and tidy woman, but then they were both wearing the clothes that they would normally have worn to church. After all, they considered the law to be nothing less than an extension of the Almighty.
Mr Justice Gray turned his attention to Mr and Mrs Haskins’s barrister, a young man who had been selected on the grounds of cost, rather than experience.
‘No doubt you wish to suggest there are mitigating circumstances in this case, Mr Rodgers,’ prompted the judge helpfully.
‘Yes, m’lord,’ admitted the newly qualified barrister as he rose from his place. He would like to have told his lordship that this was only his second case, but he felt his lordship would be unlikely to consider that a mitigating circumstance.
Mr Justice Gray settled back as he prepared to listen to how poor Mr Haskins had been thrashed by a ruthless stepfather, night after night, and Mrs Haskins had been raped by an evil uncle at an impressionable age, but no; Mr Rodgers assured the court that the Haskins came from happy, well-balanced backgrounds and had in fact been at school together. Their only child, Tracey, a graduate of Bristol University, was now working as an estate agent in Ashford. A model family.
Mr Rodgers glanced down at his brief before going on to explain how the Haskins had ended up in the dock that morning. Mr Justice Gray became more and more intrigued by their tale, and by the time the barrister had resumed his place the judge felt he needed a little more time to consider the length of the sentence. He ordered the two defendants to appear before him the following Monday at ten o’clock in the forenoon, by which time he would have come to a decision.
Mr Rodgers rose a second time.
‘You were no doubt hoping that I would grant your clients bail, Mr Rodgers?’ enquired the judge, raising an eyebrow, and before the surprised young barrister could respond Mr Justice Gray said, ‘Granted.’
Jasper Gray told his wife about the plight of Mr and Mrs Haskins over lunch on Sunday. Long before the judge had devoured his rack of lamb, Vanessa Gray had offered her opinion.
‘Sentence them both to an hour of community service, and then issue a court order instructing the Post Office to return their original investment in full,’ she declared, revealing a common sense not always bestowed on the male of the species. To do him justice, the judge agreed with his spouse, although he told her that he would never get away with it.
‘Why not?’ she asked.
‘Because of the four passports.’
Mr Justice Gray was not surprised to find Mr and Mrs Haskins standing dutifully in the dock at ten o’clock the following morning. After all, they were not criminals.
The judge raised his head, stared down at them and tried to look grave. ‘You have both pleaded guilty to the crimes of theft from a post office and of falsifying four passports.’ He didn’t bother to add any adjectives such as evil, heinous or even disgraceful, as he didn’t consider them appropriate on this occasion. ‘You have therefore left me with no choice,’ he continued, ‘but to send you both to prison.’ The judge turned his attention to Chris Haskins. ‘You were obviously the instigator of this crime, and with that in mind, I sentence you to three years’ imprisonment.’ Chris Haskins was unable to hide his surprise: his barrister had warned him to expect at least five years. Chris had to stop himself from saying, thank you, my lord.
The judge then looked across at Mrs Haskins. ‘I accept that your part in this conspiracy was possibly no more than an act of loyalty to your husband. However, you are well aware of the difference between right and wrong, and therefore I shall send you to prison for one year.’
‘My lord,’ protested Chris Haskins.
Mr Justice Gray frowned for the first time. He was not in the habit of being interrupted while passing sentence. ‘Mr Haskins, if it is your intention to appeal against my judgement—’
‘Certainly not, my lord,’ said Chris Haskins, interrupting the judge for a second time. ‘I was just wondering if you would allow me to serve my wife’s sentence.’
Mr Justice Gray was so taken aback by the request that he couldn’t think of a suitable reply to a question he had never been asked before. He banged his hammer, stood up and quickly left the courtroom. An usher hurriedly shouted, ‘All rise.’
Chris and Sue first met in the playground of their local primary school in Cleethorpes, a seaside town on the east coast of England. Chris was standing in a queue waiting for his third of a pint of milk – government regulation for all schoolchildren under the age of sixteen. Sue was the milk monitor. Her job was to make sure everyone received their correct allocation. As she handed over the little bottle to Chris, neither of them gave the other a second look. Sue was in the class above Chris, so they rarely came across each other during the day, except when Chris was standing in the milk queue. At the end of the year Sue passed her eleven-plus and took up a place at the local grammar school. Chris was appointed the new milk monitor. The following September he also passed his eleven-plus, and joined Sue at Cleethorpes Grammar.
They remained oblivious to each other throughout their school days until Sue became head girl. After that, Chris couldn’t help but notice her because at the end of morning assembly she would read out the school notices for the day. Bossy was the adjective most often trotted out by the lads whenever Sue’s name came up in conversation (strange how women in positions of authority so often acquire the sobriquet bossy, while a man holding the same rank is somehow invested with qualities of leadership).
When Sue left at the end of the year Chris once again forgot all about her. He did not follow in her illustrious footsteps and become head boy, although he had a successful – by his standards – if somewhat uneventful year. He played for the school’s second eleven cricket team, came fifth in the cross-country match against Grimsby Grammar, and did well enough in his final exams for them to be unworthy of mention either way.
No sooner had Chris left school than he received a letter from the Ministry of Defence, instructing him to report to his local recruiting office to sign up for a spell of National Service – a two-year compulsory period for all boys at the age of eighteen, when they had to serve in the armed forces. Chris’s only choice in the matter was between the Army, the Royal Navy or the Royal Air Force.
He selected the RAF, and even spent a fleeting moment wondering what it might be like to be a jet pilot. Once Chris had passed his medical and filled in all the necessary forms at the local recruiting office, the duty sergeant handed him a rail pass to somewhere called Mablethorpe; he was to report to the guardhouse by eight o’clock on the first of the month.
Chris spent the next twelve weeks being put through basic training, along with a hundred and twenty other raw recruits. He quickly discovered th
at only one applicant in a thousand was selected to be a pilot. Chris was not one in a thousand. At the end of the twelve weeks he was given the choice of working in the canteen, the officers’ mess, the quartermaster’s stores or flight operations. He opted for flight operations, and was allocated a job in the stores.
It was when he reported for duty the following Monday that he once again met up with Sue, or to be more accurate Corporal Sue Smart. She was inevitably standing at the head of the line; this time giving out job instructions. Chris didn’t immediately recognize her, dressed in her smart blue uniform with her hair almost hidden under a cap. In any case, he was admiring her shapely legs when she said, ‘Haskins, report to the quartermaster’s stores.’ Chris raised his head. It was that voice he could never forget.
‘Sue?’ he ventured tentatively. Corporal Smart looked up from her clipboard and glared at the recruit who dared to address her by her first name. She recognized the face, but couldn’t place him.
‘Chris Haskins,’ he volunteered.
‘Ah, yes, Haskins,’ she said, and hesitated before adding, ‘report to Sergeant Travis in the stores, and he’ll brief you on your duties.’
‘Yes, Corp,’ Chris replied and quickly disappeared off in the direction of the quartermaster’s stores. As he walked away, Chris didn’t notice that Sue was taking a second look.
Chris didn’t come across Corporal Smart again until his first weekend leave. He spotted her sitting at the other end of a railway carriage on the journey back to Cleethorpes. He made no attempt to join her, even pretending not to see her. However, he did find himself looking up from time to time, admiring her slim figure – he didn’t remember her being as pretty as that.
When the train pulled into Cleethorpes station, Chris spotted his mother chatting to another woman. He knew immediately who she must be – the same red hair, the same trim figure, the same . . .
The New Collected Short Stories Page 24
