by Unknown
She didn’t think the wide-eyed toddler in the pushchair had even noticed her, but that was nothing new. Short and dark, even playing a guitar, didn’t get a second glance beside tall and golden haired with a voice that turned heads a hundred yards away.
Ellie wasn’t complaining. Jocelyn was a good mate and they made far more money busking together than they ever would alone. “Have we got time for another one?”
“Not really. Anyway, there’s Callum.” Jos nodded to a familiar figure clutching a violin case on the edge of their audience.
“Fair enough.” Ellie unplugged her guitar from their portable amp while Jocelyn gathered up the microphone and stand.
“Cheers.” Callum hurried forward so no other busker could claim this particular pitch for the next hour.
“Where next?” Ellie scooped their latest takings into one of the paper bags they filched from the supermarket’s self-service bread display. She wrote the time and place on the side before zipping the cash inside the black satchel they kept tied to the amp. “By the church?”
Jocelyn hunched her shoulders against the cold breeze. “Someone will be there by now. How about a break and we head for St Michael’s at four?”
“Okay.” Ellie led the way down the alley across the street toward the cafe they had discovered in their first year. Not an international chain offering students a place to sit with their laptops and drink overpriced variations on espresso, but an old-school greasy spoon favoured by taxi drivers and delivery men, as oblivious to the university as that venerable institution was to the city that housed it.
“If we stay at St Michael’s till the last shops shut, we’ll make more than we would if we head for the bus station now—”
Ellie held the cafe door open. “You don’t have to convince me.”
Jocelyn kept a spreadsheet of all their takings, week by week and pitch by pitch. A scientist to her core, she couldn’t do anything without gathering and analysing data. So now they knew exactly how to make the best of the designated spots in the city centre where the local council decreed licensed musicians could play for an hour at a time. That gave everyone a chance at the most lucrative pitches and saved shopkeepers from a whole day with a talentless trombone outside their door.
Jocelyn headed for a corner table with their equipment. Ellie propped her guitar against a chair. “Tea or coffee?”
“Coffee, please.” Jocelyn unbuttoned her coat and loosened her scarf. The cafe window was misted with condensation as the warmth met the wintry cold outside.
Ellie joined the queue at the counter and smiled at the waitress. “One tea, one coffee and two ham and cheese toasted sandwiches, thanks.”
The waitress poured her tea first. While she was tutting over a chipped mug and finding another one, Ellie ripped open two packets of sugar and dumped them into the steaming liquid. It had already been a long, cold Sunday and they’d spent Saturday outside as well. Worth it though, over these weekends in the run up to Christmas.
Well worth it. As the waitress returned with Jocelyn’s coffee, she reached into an inside pocket for the bank notes they’d earned. They always tucked those safely away, in case of some gust of wind or a thief trying to snatch some cash.
Ellie handed over a twenty and carefully picked up both mugs with one hand, waiting for her change.
Instead the waitress handed the note straight back, with a shake of her head and tightened lips. “I can’t take this,” she snapped. “Not legal tender. Not for years.”
“What?” Ellie stared at her.
The waitress showed her the Queen’s head before flipping the note over to reveal the moustachioed gentleman on the back. “Elgar? He’s had his day, love. Been keeping this under your mattress?” Her sarcasm verged on accusation.
“What? No, sorry.” Ellie wondered how she’d ever felt cold. Now she was red-faced and sweating with embarrassment as she put down the mugs and fumbled for her wallet.
The waitress sniffed as she accepted a different twenty, examined it closely and then counted out Eleanor’s change. “You want to keep your eyes open. It’s not like they’ve just issued the new notes.”
So now the woman just thought she was a fool rather than a fraud. Mortified, Ellie shoved her change into a coat pocket and picked up the mugs. “I’m really sorry. I didn’t realise—”
“I’ll bring your toasties over when they’re done.” The waitress looked a little less severe.
“What was that all about?” Jocelyn accepted her coffee.
Ellie grimaced. “We got an old note this morning. She thought I was trying to pass it off onto her.”
Honestly, how could she have missed it? Of course she knew Edward Elgar had been replaced by Adam Smith, the last time the Bank of England had redesigned the currency and withdrawn the old notes after the requisite grace period.
Adam Smith, Eighteenth century, Scots philosopher and economic theorist. Ellie was a history undergraduate after all, even if Medieval France was her period.
“Never mind, we can still pay it into the bank, can’t we?” Jocelyn shrugged. “Now, shall we mix things up a bit by St Michael’s? Do you reckon it’s too early for carols?”
“Yes, I do,” Ellie said with feeling. “It’s barely a fortnight since Halloween.”
oOo
Their takings didn’t suffer for lack of Christmas carols, Ellie thought with satisfaction as they arrived back at their flat. She dumped the black bag on the table with a solid thud and the muffled chink of coins. Resting her guitar against the sofa, she shrugged off her coat.
“Tea or coffee?” Jocelyn yelled from the kitchen.
“Tea! Two sugars!” Ellie unzipped the satchel and lined the paper bags up on the old oak table, the wood ringed by countless careless students’ hot cups. Emptying the first, she began counting pennies.
“Not too much copper.” Jocelyn grinned as she set down the mugs. Pulling up a chair, she began searching for tuppences.
They always did it this way; pennies and tuppences stacked in tens and fives, ten stacks making a quid. Then fives and tens, then twenty and fifty pence pieces. Finally, one and two pound coins, all neatly ranked on top of each paper bag showing which pitch had earned them what, ready for bagging up in plastic to take to the bank.
“I can pay this lot in tomorrow morning,” Ellie offered. “My first lecture’s not till ten.”
“Thanks.” Jocelyn would be in the lab by nine on a Monday. “Oh, here’s a foreigner.”
She flicked a battered coin across the scuffed table. Ellie studied the Cyrillic writing.
“Ukraine.” She fetched the box they kept on the book case. They had small change from countries as far away as China now. Along with enough Euro to come in handy when they went travelling next summer.
Two months exploring Europe, that’s what they were saving up for. No history essays for her, no chemistry practicals for Jos. A chance to forget about the decisions they’d have to make after the summer. When Ellie’s mum and dad would be expecting her to take the Civil Service entrance exam or think about teacher training.
Ellie had her heart set on a music course at the local technical college. Just for a year. To learn about production and mixing tracks properly, instead of working it out by herself. Just for a year. She could use the money Gran had left her to pay for the course. She could decide what to do with the rest of her life after that, couldn’t she?
Jocelyn had her laptop open and was entering their totals on her spreadsheet. “How did we do for notes? Apart from that old one.”
Ellie grabbed her coat and reached into the inside pocket. “Another twenty, two tens and three fivers.”
“Then we’ve earned three hundred and thirty five quid! Okay, where were we playing when we got them?” Jocelyn’s hands were poised to enter the data.
Ellie told her, then looked more closely at the ten pound notes in her hand. “Hang on.”
Charles Darwin was easily recognisable on one but Jane Austen? She flipped the
famous authors over. There was the Queen, on all the money ever since Ellie could remember. Ever since her parents could remember. But backing Jane Austen? The Prince of Wales as King, greyer and craggier than ever?
“Someone’s playing silly buggers.” She handed over the note.
“What—?” Jos looked up, puzzled. “What is it? A prop from some play? Is drama soc doing science fiction this term?”
“Maybe it’s from a game?” Ellie shook her head, disbelieving. “Two duff notes in one day.”
“The bank will take that old one,’ Jocelyn reminded her. “So we’re only down a tenner.”
She hit the keyboard with a decisive gesture. Screwing up the fake ten pound note, Jos launched it across the room at the waste paper basket. The stubborn paper was already uncrumpling itself to fall short of the waste paper basket. She ignored it.
“Right, how about firing up your laptop and I’ll kick your arse at Battlefield?”
“In your dreams,” Ellie scoffed, heading for her room to fetch her computer bag.
oOo
Maybe that hadn’t been the best idea. She had thrashed Jocelyn but getting to bed before midnight might have been more sensible at the start of the week. Eleanor yawned as she stood in the bank queue. That was one inconvenience paying in bags of coins; no computerised system to deposit them.
Though someone was having some trouble with the latest modern technology. She watched idly through the window as a weather-beaten, middle-aged man took a sharp step backwards from the ATM. Bemused, he looked at something white in his hand.
The black satchel was dragging at her shoulder. Three hundred odd quid in change was jolly heavy and she already had her laptop in her backpack. She lowered the bag of money to the ground as she watched the unfolding drama outside.
Another man waiting to use the cashpoint wanted to know what the problem was. The first man waved his hands, his gestures eloquent with frustration.
The second man took the wad of white paper and unfolded it. Ellie watched them both shake their heads in mystification. The first man came into the bank, indignant, the paper clutched in his fist. The second man joined the queue for the other ATM. When a woman came up to use the vacant one, he put out a hand and warned her off.
“What’s all this rubbish?” The indignant man went straight to the next vacant bank teller and slapped one of the sheets of paper down. “Some advertising stunt?”
“Excuse me! There is a queue.” The elegantly dressed woman at the head of the line glared.
“I’m sorry.” The hapless clerk tried to share her apology between both customers. “Sir, I’m sure the Enquiry Desk can help you?”
She sounded more hopeful than convinced to Eleanor.
“Thank you.” The lady who’d been waiting walked forward and claimed the counter with her sizeable handbag, knocking the crumpled paper to the floor.
An older woman in a smart suit hurried forward from the Enquiry Desk. “Can I help you, Sir?”
“What’s all this?” The middle aged man waved the papers still in his hand. “I wanted my money, not some daft leaflets!”
“I’m sure we can sort everything out.”
As the suited supervisor ushered the man away, Ellie looked at the piece of paper on the floor. It had landed close enough for her to see a swirl of ornate engraving around old fashioned letters. What on earth was it?
She looked at the queue of eight people. With only three counters open, no one was moving quickly and there wasn’t anyone waiting behind her. Darting forward she picked up the paper and reclaimed the end of the line.
Smoothing it out, Ellie frowned. The intricate printing said “Bank of England.” Britannia sat there proudly in her draperies, armed with shield and spear, endorsing the promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of FIVE pounds.
She looked more closely. There was a date. This had been issued in London on 19th March 1932. Ellie rubbed the paper between fingers and thumb. It didn’t feel like laser printer paper and it wasn’t a standard size she’d ever seen in packets of stationery.
“I tried to take some money out and got this rubbish instead!” The middle-aged man’s voice rose in exasperation.
“Could I just see your debit card, sir?” the supervisor asked, placating.
Ellie looked out of the bank window to the other side of the street. That’s where they’d been playing yesterday, when they’d got that weird tenner, with Jane Austen and the Prince of Wales on either side. The one Jos had guessed was a prop for a time travel play.
Except it had been incredibly detailed for something only going to be seen from a distance. From what Ellie remembered, the engraving was just as detailed as any of the notes she was about to pay in; all swirls and pinpoints and cross-hatching. There’d even been a silver hologram stamp and the paper had been too stiff to be easily scrunched up and thrown into the bin. Just like a real bank note.
But how could it be real? How could a bank’s cashpoint be issuing notes with a king’s head on the back? Bank notes from the future?
As that idea formed and lodged in her mind. Ellie’s first instinct was to dismiss it. Then she looked down at the white five pound note in her hand. They’d been playing opposite the bank on Saturday when they’d got that old twenty. She remembered that quite clearly. There weren’t many people so generous to buskers, no matter how cold it was, however enticing Jocelyn’s smile might be.
What if whoever had given them that note had got it out of the same ATM? Bank notes from the past as well as the future?
“I’d better get the manager.” The supervisor hurried past.
Two more people got their turn at the counter. Ellie fished out her phone and brought up the web browser, ignoring the polite notice asking customers to refrain from using their mobiles and causing delays.
She searched for images of five pound notes from the 1930s. She compared the picture to the paper she held in her hand. Even allowing for the cramped image on the little screen, it looked exactly the same to her.
A forgery? How could old, fake notes end up in an ATM? Why would anyone do such a thing? She added “fake” to her web search. A moment later she nearly dropped the phone.
Collectors paid how much for Second World War forged fivers? Over two thousand pounds apiece? Then she saw how much ordinary old-style five pound notes were worth. She looked at the one in her hand. Two hundred and fifty quid?
“I have to say, these do look genuine to me.”
Ellie looked up to see the branch manager had arrived. A man about her Dad’s age was leafing through the customer’s sheaf of white paper.
“And you’re saying you got these out of our cashpoint?”
The weather-beaten man curbed his annoyance with visible effort. “I’m not just saying it. That’s what happened.” He began telling his story all over again.
Someone behind Ellie coughed pointedly. “Excuse me, love?”
She realised the queue had been moving while she was searching the Net. The next vacant teller would wave to her. She dragged her heavy bag along the floor and looked out of the window. No one was using the ATM issuing the bizarre notes.
“We do have his withdrawal recorded.” The supervisor turned the screen of the Enquiry Desk’s computer to show the manager.
“Next, please!” A bank teller looked over towards the queue.
Ellie hauled the weighty bag up and headed for the counter. But she didn’t set the satchel down and start unloading the coins. She handed over the white fiver instead, gesturing towards the Enquiry Desk.
“That gentleman dropped this.” It wasn’t her money after all.
She walked quickly towards the door. Not running, not rushing. Not attracting attention. Just someone who’d remembered something she had forgotten.
No one outside was waiting to use either of the ATMs. Ellie looked at the one closest to the door. It still looked as if it was working. The screen showed the usual logo and there were no red warnings over the slots. She took h
er bank card out of her wallet.
For a moment, she thought the machine wouldn’t accept it. The cashpoint had already been shut down. So that was that.
For an instant, she was relieved. It had been a mad idea. Then she realised her hand was shaking so much that she wasn’t actually getting the card into the slot. Drawing a deep breath, Ellie concentrated on getting the sliver of plastic into the machine.
The screen asked her for her PIN number. Personal Identification Number number. That unnecessary repetition always seemed so silly to her. She clenched her fists and spread her fingers and entered the digits on the keypad.
What service did she require? Ellie’s mouth was dry and her heart was racing. Was she completely insane?
But even if she didn’t make any profit, how badly could she lose out? It wasn’t just notes from a decade ago that banks would still honour for their face value. Even if she couldn’t find a way to sell any white fivers herself, she could just bring them back here. As long as they were genuine. The branch manager seemed to think they were. If they weren’t? Well, they’d already had one customer turn up with a handful and ask what was going on. Presumably her notes would be the same as his. They’d have an electronic record of her making this withdrawal. She’d just say she’d used the ATM straight after him and then had to rush off. Late for a lecture or a tutorial. Ellie could play the clueless student just this once.
But what if she got more of that other money saying Prince Charles was the king? Well that would be immediately obvious. She’d show the weird notes to everyone in the queue and then go straight into the bank with as many witnesses as she could muster. Maybe even force a few tears. A poverty stricken student with nothing to pay the bills. With any luck, some of those notes would have already been brought in this morning, if the machine had been issuing them on Saturday.
Was she prepared to take that risk? Ellie stared at the ATM screen. What service did she require? Cash, with a receipt, just in case she had to prove when and where she’d got fake money, to make sure she got reimbursed. She stabbed the button with a shaking finger.
