Banker's Draft

by Clive Mullis

  ‘Civilians are not allowed to scrutinise official police documents, Sergeant.’

  Both MacGillicudy and Frankie looked up and saw Sergeant Grinde looking down.

  ‘Youse know the rules, Sergeant MacGillicudy. I don’t wish to report one of my fellow sergeants, but I will if I have to. Got to set an example to all our young hofficers.’

  ‘Grinde, you can just sod off,’ steamed MacGillicudy. ‘If you wish to speak to me then get off your fat arse and come down here; if not then get back to what you do best, and that is being the worst bloody feeler in the history of the force.’

  Frankie, a little surprised with the vehemence of MacGillicudy’s reply, could only agree with the sentiments, but MacGillicudy was normally more tactful than that.

  Grinde’s face went puce; he didn’t know what to do. Someone speaking to the senior sergeant like that, when he was only doing his duty, went far beyond his comprehension. ‘What d’you say, Sergeant MacGillicudy? Would you mind repeating that, as I’m not sure if everybody ‘eard.’

  ‘I said, Grinde. Get your fat arse down here. Are you sodding deaf as well?’

  Grinde slapped down his pencil and began to climb down the ten steps that led up to his domain, shivering with indignation. Frankie looked from one to the other and then cast his eyes around the area. There appeared to be eleven feelers who were unsure if they had heard correctly, their faces registered dumb shock, but then one or two began to grin with anticipation.

  ‘Think about this, Jethro,’ Frankie said quietly. ‘Time and place and all that.’

  ‘Don’t worry, Frankie, I am thinking.’

  Grinde reached ground level and then drew himself up to his full height of five foot four; his beard bristled like the hackles of a dog and he stabbed a finger into MacGillicudy’s face, jutting his head forward at the same time. ‘Sergeant, do I have to repeat that civilians are not allow… OH… OW!’

  Sergeant Jethro MacGillicudy did what everybody else had been longing to do for years. He grabbed the jabbing finger in one hand and bent the digit back whilst at the same time bunched up a fist and let fly, straight into the face of Sergeant Grinde. A sort of schmock sound reverberated, reminiscent of a sock full of wet horseshit being slapped against the wall and Sergeant Grinde’s face erupted with a spray of blood. The digit still pointed, but not in the right direction, as the sergeant slumped to the floor.

  ‘See, Frankie, I told you I was thinking.’ For some reason, years of pent up frustration and animosity had erupted as Grinde had called down, the red mist descended and it triggered a primal reflex that MacGillicudy could not deny; it said slap the bastard.

  A silence, so complete, fell on those witnessing the event, so much so, that you could’ve heard a feather land on a fresh pile of snow and it seemed to go on forever, until someone started to clap his hands. Very quickly, everybody else joined in, and Frankie wondered if there was to be an encore. Grinde started to come around and the applause cut off just as quickly as it began. Frankie caught a blur of movement from behind him, and he supposed that somebody had gone off to tell Captain Bough.

  ‘There goes my pension.’ observed MacGillicudy solemnly. ‘Right, Frankie, let’s have a look at the crime reports, it’s probably going to be my last chance.’

  They did, and found that a coach fitting the description had been stolen yesterday from across the river. Frankie scribbled the address down just as Grinde pulled himself to his feet.

  ‘Youse, MacGillicudy, are history. I’m going to ‘ave you for that, in front o’witnesses too. You’ll be drummed out of the force,’ he spluttered through loosened teeth. ‘Drummed out of the force!’ Suddenly, Grinde grabbed his hand as the pain hit and he cried out; it was a little delayed as it must have taken a wrong turn somewhere, but eventually it found the spot. Frankie grinned at his discomfort.

  ‘What’s going on?’ yelled an authoritative voice. All eyes turned as one. Captain Bough, having been fetched by a young feeler, came in; he had been talking to Constable Wiggins in the corridor and was there in moments. He looked at the face of Grinde and groaned, but then he saw the finger and winced in sympathy. From what the feeler had told him, and what he saw, he had a fair idea of what had happened and thought quickly. ‘Everyone, back to your duties. Grinde, get that finger sorted out and then report to me. Wiggins, you are now acting Sergeant, get up there and start processing that lot,’ he pointed to the reception on the other side of the wall. ‘Sergeant MacGillicudy, I think I’d better have a word with you.’

  Bough turned and marched out, closely followed by MacGillicudy. They went down the corridor and up to his office, where Bough collapsed into his chair with a sigh of resignation.

  ‘Okay, Jethro, close the door and tell me what happened.’

  MacGillicudy slammed the door shut and stood to attention right in front of the desk. ‘Accident, sir. Sergeant Grinde did annoy me, I admit to that, but then he came down from his lectern and started pointing his finger at me. I took exception to that, sir, and grabbed hold of it; but then he seemed to stumble, sir, so I reached out quickly to stop him falling, and, I’m sorry, sir, him being a short arse and all, I missed and connected with his face. Pure accident, sir.’

  Bough stared at MacGillicudy for a few moments and then wiped his face with his hand. ‘Jethro, if that’s going to be your official response, then fair enough, you will write a report and hand it to me this morning, but we have known each other for years, so please, don’t take the piss. Now give me the unofficial version.’

  ‘Unofficial, sir?’ asked MacGillicudy innocently, staring fixedly into space.

  ‘Sit down, Jethro, and yes, I want the unofficial.’

  MacGillicudy flicked his eyes to Bough and then hesitated for a few moments, as if weighing up his Captain. He came to a decision and then let his shoulders sag before slumping down into the chair. ‘All right, Harold. The bastard had it coming to him; you know that. I just decided that the time had come. I was just going through the crime reports with Frankie Kandalwick when he started to shove his nose in. I saw red, and thought bollocks to him. He stood in front of me, his finger wagging, and I just wanted to ram my fist down his throat — so I did.’

  Bough grinned. ‘You and everybody else.’ He picked up his pencil and began to tap out a rhythm on the desk, thinking quickly. ‘So,’ he said eventually. ‘He provoked you?’

  MacGillicudy’s eyes lit up. ‘Oh yes, a great provocation, it was; he was breathing, ain’t that enough?’

  ‘Jethro, I’m going to have to interview everyone who saw it; if anyone tells me the truth then I’m not sure I will be able to do too much about it. Tell Frankie Kandalwick not to leave, I’ll need to speak to him too. Why were you going through the crime reports with Frankie anyway?’

  ‘Someone tried to run Cornwallis down last night, nearly succeeded by all accounts.’

  Bough looked shocked. ‘Really? Well I never.’

  Frankie sat at a desk playing at flicking little paper balls around the room when MacGillicudy came back in. Another feeler followed behind him and began to line up all the witnesses to the “occurrence” to drag them off to see the Captain.

  ‘Well?’ asked Frankie, raising his eyebrows as MacGillicudy sat down.

  ‘Who knows? He wants to see you too, and you ain’t allowed to leave until he does.’

  ‘Oh bollocks. I’ve got to look for that stolen coach and all; I can’t be sitting here all day.’

  ‘Sorry, Frankie, I shouldn’t have tapped him.’ MacGillicudy smiled ruefully.

  Frankie flicked another ball of paper and got rewarded by an ‘Oi, stop that,’ when he came to a decision. ‘Can I borrow one of your better youngsters to get a message to Jack that I’m tied up here?’

  ‘I suppose I still have the authority. Write it down and I’ll get it sorted.’

  Grinde came back in with his finger in a splint; he shot Frankie and MacGillicudy an evil look and then mimed a rude gesture with his good hand.

 
; Frankie laughed and called out. ‘You get a lot of practise doing that, don’t you, Grinde?’

  There were a few sniggers, but Grinde ignored them all and carried on walking through. He intended to have his say now, and when he got back, the whole lot of them were going to find out pretty quickly that they couldn’t mess with him and get away with it.

  CHAPTER 7

  ‘Gentlemen, we must call this meeting to order. Are we all present?’

  A murmur of agreement came from all those assembled. They were sitting around the table in the boardroom at the Gornstock Bank, drinking coffee and nibbling on a selection of biscuits and small fancy cakes. Mr Abraham Dumchuck rattled his small hammer on the table and everybody looked up.

  Dumchuck would have described himself as portly; everyone else would have said fat. In his fifties, years of over indulgence had taken its toll. Jowly with little piggy eyes and just a few strands of thin hair covering his pate, he thought he cut an elegant figure in society. He dressed finely, as only the rich can, to hide his ever expanding waistband.

  ‘We have this morning received into our possession the loan kindly given to us by the Gornstock Assembly. It is a substantial sum and it will allow us some degree of freedom to resolve our obligations. It is my intention that we use this money wisely. There are many diverse investment opportunities which I’m sure will yield a substantial profit, and allow us to continue to be the lifeblood of the city. It is unfortunate that circumstances have dictated that we required a loan in the first place, but world markets have fluctuated, and in some cases ceased altogether. We also were too free with depositors’ money when it came to small personal and business loans, but steps have been taken to resolve these unfortunate dealings by offering them to certain financial institutions. Any questions so far?’

  ‘Yes, we’re out of ginger crunchies at this end. Could someone pass the plate please? Oh I say, are they cupcakes? We didn’t have any of those up here.’

  Dumchuck waited patiently while the required confections slid along the table; when they settled again, he continued. ‘We have to decide now what constitutes our most urgent requirements, seeing as we now have money in the bank, ha, ha, ha.’ He waited for a response to his joke, but it died as it left his lips and he could already hear the gravediggers shovel. He coughed to hide his embarrassment and carried on. ‘So, gentlemen, your suggestions please.’

  ‘I suggest that we bring in the wine, if we are going to be here all day. Is there going to be lunch supplied? I have a dickey tummy and I have to eat regularly, don’t you know. Little and often is what my doctor tells me, little and often.’

  ‘Yes, Mr Bloomtit,’ answered Dumchuck, ‘so you have told us, on numerous occasions. I’m hopeful that we can conclude our business this morning though, if that’s any help.’

  ‘No lunch then? No wine?’

  ‘No to both, Mr Bloomtit.’

  ‘Bugger.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it, Mr Bloomtit. However I’m sure you can manage for just a short while.’

  ‘What about our bonus?’ asked Mr Jacobson. ‘We’re bankers, and we’ve put a lot of work into all this over the last few weeks.’

  Dumchuck smiled benevolently. ‘I heartily agree, Mr Jacobson, we have indeed. It has been tough work too, lots of stress in making all these decisions, and it is not our fault that it all went wrong. I suggest that we should pay the full bonus that we are due; and perhaps a little extra for the anguish we’ve all suffered. Do we agree?’

  The ‘here here’s’ were plentiful, with laughter, lots of foot stamping and banging of the table, the motion carried unanimously. Dumchuck wrote it down in his book.

  ‘Now gentlemen, there has been a request from one of the financial institutions that I spoke of, for a small loan of liquid capital. The Gornstock Trust and Holdings have generously bought some of our worst debtors off us, but they have now run into a little difficulty. It is my opinion that we agree to this request, as the rate of return that they are willing to pay is two per cent above rate, which constitutes a good return for our investment. Are we agreed?’

  The bankers in the boardroom were still congratulating themselves on passing the motion for the bonus payments and were hardly listening to Dumchuck as he spoke; however, thinking that perhaps he was asking for only a small amount, they all agreed without another thought. Dumchuck wrote it down in his book.

  ‘Thank you, gentlemen. I will prepare a draft for them, a Banker’s Draft,’ he waited, but the shovel came out again. ‘Anyway,’ he hurriedly continued, ‘that now concludes the main business of the morning, so it’s just the little sundry items to deal with now.’

  Dumchuck conducted everything else to his satisfaction; there were no dissenters as they were all still pleased with the bonus payments. More tea and cakes came in which pleased a few, but within a couple of hours they had finished the business, agreeing that from there on in they should be frugal with the bank’s money.

  He closed the door as the last one left and smiled to himself, rubbed his hands in glee and then began a little jig. It had all gone so easily that he felt just a touch guilty; good old Mr Jacobson, he needed to get them in a good mood and bringing up the bonus payments worked perfectly. He thought he might have struggled to get the loan through to Gornstock Trust and Holdings, but it went through on the nod: all in all an excellent morning’s work.

  The door opened and Pelegrew Kintersbury, Secretary to the Treasury, member of the Assembly, and co-conspirator, came in. A tall thin man with a generous amount of light wavy hair, the same age as Dumchuck, had sharp pinched features and a jutting chin. At the moment, his distinguishing marks were some nasty looking scratches on both cheeks of his face.

  ‘How did it go, Abraham?’ he asked, as he sat himself down.

  ‘Like a dream, old boy, like a dream.’ He looked at Kintersbury’s face and his eyes widened. ‘What happened to you?’ he asked, looking at the scratches.

  ‘That’s good,’ he replied, ignoring the question for the moment. He helped himself to one of the few cakes left over from the meeting and chewed it slowly. ‘However, not everything has gone as well, I’m afraid.’

  Dumchuck stared hard at Kintersbury. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean that your little mistake has led to the demise of Roland Goup’s cleaner. If you hadn’t let your wife send all the paperwork to Goup, then we wouldn’t be in this situation. We’ve had to make Goup disappear as he is not the most robust of men if it came to an interrogation; I have him safe somewhere at the moment.’ He indicated his face with a slight wave of his hand. ‘I got this at his office; a cat seemed to take exception to me being there when I tried to burn the building.’

  ‘Oh Gods.’ Dumchuck looked horrified. ‘We only had to ask Goup for the paperwork back and then nothing like this would have happened.’

  ‘No, no, no. We couldn’t, as he had already sent in the return to the department. He would have been audited and it would have been found “missing”. We had to do the burglary to dispose of your mistake fully and completely,’ he explained. ‘I have already suggested that there were errors with the return, and thankfully, my Minister believes me. Dooley wanted to send in the dogs with the amount of money in that return, this way there is no evidence at all, and we can blame the police for their shortcomings. Unfortunately, Radstock happened to be at Scooters Yard for some reason and has put Cornwallis on to it, which could be a little problematic. However, we are tying up the loose ends; the burglar we used has already had his association with us ended,’ he smiled to show his meaning, ‘and we are hopeful that everything else can be resolved just as easily.’

  ‘Oh, I do hope so,’ said Dumchuck. ‘We can’t afford to let things go wrong now.’

  *

  Cornwallis waited in the office hoping that Frankie would return. He couldn’t give him very long as they needed to be back at Brownlow’s pretty sharpish. He’d had the message that Frankie had sent and he returned one of his own, suggesting that he unt
angle himself from the mess at Scooters Yard quickly. Cornwallis really did need him, and it was sod’s law that MacGillicudy had chosen this day of all days to land one on Grinde.

  Rose had gone to get the cat from the back of Goup’s office; they had thought long and hard on the way back from Brownlow’s as to how they would follow Maxwell; the chances of being able to follow on foot were remote, especially if the cart got up some speed. Two people running through Gornstock would elicit some worried looks, as anybody running in this city would be doing it to get away from the person holding a meat cleaver, who would invariably be chasing. He also considered the fact that he didn’t think he could run further than a few hundred yards without having to stop to draw breath, which would be seriously embarrassing, especially if Rose could. It was about time he got himself some hooves and wheels he thought, in the meantime, he would grab a cab, then try and get the cat on the back of Maxwell’s cart.

  He paced the office as the clock ticked on, waiting for the footsteps on the stairs. He wasn’t happy about letting Rose go, but the options were somewhat limited; someone had to stop at the office in case the cat couldn’t be found in time and he didn’t want her to have to go and follow the cart on her own. He couldn’t give her much longer now, he had to go, and soon.

  There were some footsteps on the stairs and Cornwallis breathed a sigh of relief, but then he noticed that unless Rose had put on an awful lot of weight in the last hour or so then the footsteps weren’t hers, they were far too heavy and slow for a girl of Rose’s proportions.

  ‘Good job you sent that note back, Jack,’ said Frankie, as he breezed into the room. ‘Managed to show it to Bough and he let me go. Poor old MacGillicudy is right in the shit now, but jeez, did he catch him a good ‘un.’ He mimed the punch that Grinde had received. ‘Best straight right I’ve seen for a long time. Here, where’s Rose?’