A Suitable Lie (21 page)

Steve, the team leader at one of the Personal Banking units, provided me with my only problem of the morning. A customer had come in late on Friday and demanded a refund on an erroneous charge she had noticed on last month’s statement. The narrative on the entry read ‘Safe Custody’. The customer had never used that particular service. Steve had investigated, verified the customer’s claim and found a debit slip, initialled by me. The writing was not mine and I could not therefore offer an explanation as to why the customer had been charged. I authorised a refund and dictated a letter of apology.

The stack of mail on my desk was daunting and with little enthusiasm for the job I started to read. Two hours later, having absorbed very little indeed, neck sore, eyes sore, I decided to give myself a
break. A coffee and a wee chat with a friendly face was in order. Although I had very little to say for myself, I would be more than happy to listen.

‘Where’s Malcolm?’ I asked Sandra at the reception desk.

‘Don’t know, Mr Boyd.’ Sandra was very much of the old school of banking. Managers must still have worn bowler hats when she joined the bank for no amount of cajoling would encourage her to call me by my first name. Today, however, any reminder that I could wield some power was welcome.

‘His mother phoned in for him. Said he was sick,’ someone said.

‘That’s pathetic,’ someone else said.

‘What is?’

‘That a guy in his mid-thirties is still getting his mum to phone in for him.’

‘I’ve always wondered about him.’

‘Yeah, living with his mother at that age. Must be a poof.’

Another member of staff swivelled on their chair to talk to me. It was Sadie Banks. She and Anna had been friends of sorts at the last branch they worked together, or so Sadie thought. She was a quiet girl, keeping pretty much to herself. I thought she saw a similarity between her and Anna.

‘How’s Anna?’ she asked. ‘Haven’t spoken to her for a while.’

‘She’s fine,’ I answered. ‘You should give her a call. She’d be delighted to hear from you.’

Leaving the staff to their speculation, I went back to my office. I had lost count of the times that I had overheard variations of the conversation about Malcolm. At times I butted in, defending him, saying that it was a shame that people felt they had to speculate on his sexuality based on such a cliché. So much for living in more enlightened times. Or, I would cite simple economics, the guy couldn’t afford a house of his own, the bank didn’t pay him enough. Today, I didn’t have the energy.

S
heila continued to inhabit my thoughts. I scanned my brain for any excuse to call her. Each one I rehearsed sounded more pathetic than the last. Why was I bothering? She would want nothing more to do with me. She’d witnessed what kind of a man I really was. I was a sham, an embarrassment to my gender. She’d had enough problems with men in the past. A bully and a drunk were what she had seen in action. I was simply a taller version of what she was used to.

Anna should have been enough reason for me to put Sheila out of my mind. But her image persisted. Like a child with its comforter, I would imagine pulling Sheila to me. Strangely, not once was the thought sexual. Each time I held her in my imagination, I was seeking comfort, trying to borrow strength.

S
heila phoned me.

‘Andy, I heard about the investigation. How are you?’ she asked.

‘Oh, you know. Shite.’

‘Don’t worry about it. Everything will blow over.’

‘Although I don’t agree with you, the thought is appreciated. Where are you?’ I asked, grateful for the call. It heartened me to know that there was someone on my side. There was no way that I could explain to Sheila what was going on but the hope that she might understand, if I did tell her, was a help.

‘I’ve been sent to Troon, to do an audit.’

‘Someone else been naughty?’ The petty thought occurred to me that if someone else was in trouble it might take the spotlight off me.

‘No, just routine stuff.’

Silence sang in my ear as I thought of something else to say. Sheila spoke first.

‘So how are you, Andy? Really?’

‘Worried about my job.’ A part-truth was a safe answer.

‘If you need a chat, any time, give me a call. I’ll be happy to listen.’

‘Thanks.’ I hung up. As far as I was concerned the offer would remain on a shelf like a forgotten memento. Occasionally, I would pick it up, blow off the dust, think ‘what if…’, but ultimately put it back in its place, unused.

O
nly lunchtime and it felt like I’d been back at the office for a month. One more customer complaint about an incorrect Safe Custody charge arrived on my desk. Again, I wrote an apology. Again, the monies were refunded.

I wasn’t hungry. The thought of putting anything to my mouth was enough to make me nauseous. Instead, I bought myself a newspaper and sipped at a coffee while I skimmed over the major events of the previous day. A cat in Kazakhstan could have triggered a nuclear explosion and I doubt if I would have really noticed.

After lunch, there was another complaint. The member of staff on the reception desk was so frustrated at having to field another unhappy customer’s comments that she came and demanded that I speak to them.

‘I mean, it’s not as if it’s even my fault,’ she said with a sniff, arms crossed tight. ‘I think the manager should deal with this.’

‘Okay.’ I stood up slowly, ‘Who is it this time?’

‘Mrs Johnson-Smythe. She emptied her Safe Custody items out the year before last and is about to close her account after further evidence of our ineptitude. I mean, I don’t even know how to spell that word. Anyway, the snooty cow is in one of the interview areas.’

Mrs Johnson-Smythe was another of my old adversaries. She and I had had various discussions over the years. Her accounts with the branch were rather impressive, so we normally did as much as we could for her. She had struck me as someone who realised the value of a loud voice when issuing a complaint, especially when doing so in person and particularly in public. The interview area would suit
her just fine, it was little more than a three-sided cube with five-foot-high partitions. Our other customers would have no trouble at all in listening to what she had to say.

She was standing beside one of the three seats when I approached. Obviously she felt that her voice could carry further when her lungs were not constricted by a seated posture.

‘Mr Boyd,’ she announced. ‘So glad that you could join me.’

‘Mrs Johnson-Smythe, I am so sorry about this small error…’ I began, willing energy into my voice, but she interrupted.

‘A small error, Mr Boyd? This is a matter of thirty pounds. Not a sum to be sneezed at when you are a poor pensioner.’ No one standing in the vicinity would have believed that the voice they heard came from a ‘poor pensioner’.

‘I meant small from the point of view that it could be easily fixed, Mrs Johnson…’

‘I hope it will be easily fixed. Because if the money is not in my account before I leave this office, then I will be leaving this office with every penny I own.’

‘The money will be in your account immediately.’ I prayed that I did not sound as if I was grovelling. ‘I will just go and see that the entries are made and…’

‘…and I will wait here until you provide me with proof in black and white that matters have been rectified.’

B
y the close of business that day I had refunded a further three such complaints. Each customer had been charged thirty pounds, each was as indignant as the last. Forehead resting on my palms, I tried not to look at the evidence on my desk. Six dark-pink slips punctuated the wood of my desk like warning signs. Stop. Warning. Look no further. They all bore the same handwriting – Malcolm’s – and they were all authorised by me. I had no recollection of having initialled them.

I couldn’t understand how Malcolm could make such an elementary error. When writing out the debits for such a charge, the
member of staff quite simply copied the names and account number from the Safe Custody register. Not one person who had complained was even on the register.

‘What else is going to go wrong?’ I asked the empty room. I’d had enough. Time to go home, I could investigate this further in the morning, when I had a clear head.

H
aving slept very little, with the worry of everything happening in my life, I was back in the office at eight-fifteen the next morning. The pinks slips sat where I had left them. The cleaner must have only aimed the duster at the desk and gone on to something else. Foreboding hung at the edge of my every movement that morning like a border of heavy cloud. Something was not right and I was going to be implicated in it.

The first thing I looked for was the processing report for the day in question. This was a paper printout of every entry made on any given day. I scanned the pages for the entries relating to the pieces of paper in my hand. Nothing. This was very odd. Each and every debit or credit slip had to have a corresponding entry on the report. I checked again. Still nothing. I looked at every batch of entries on every page, slowly and carefully, to no avail. But then I noticed a strange sequence of entries.

What began as a list of debit entries, all for sums varying from twenty pounds to forty pounds, ended on the following page with a run of cross-entries. Essentially every item on these pages was part of a cross-entry. Some had two debits and one credit, others had numerous credits and one debit. The problem I had noticed was a line of debits was missing a corresponding credit to balance them off. The machinist who processed this page could not have finished her work without it. So where was it? A quick search showed that there were no pages out of order. Then a small rag of paper round the elastic rope that bound the pages together caught my attention. That explained it. Someone had ripped out the pages.

By now the office was beginning to fill up. Staff were staring at me
as I shot through the office, mumbling to myself. Where would the pages have gone and would we have another copy? The fiche copy. Yes, that was it. A copy was sent to the branch each day on a small piece of plastic that could be viewed on a fiche. But as I walked to the cupboard where the fiches were stored, I became certain that the day I was looking for would be missing as well. Whoever was behind this would have also known about the fiche copy. Sure enough, there was a blank space in the folder where it should have been. I ran my finger down the folder to check if it had been misfiled and noticed that another couple of days’ reports were missing.

‘Has anyone seen Malcolm come in yet?’ I asked in the main office.

‘His mum phoned in sick for him yesterday,’ someone said.

‘I know that,’ I snapped. ‘Has he turned up today?’

Blank faces all round me was the answer. I went back to my office but not before I heard a couple of comments.

‘Somebody got out the wrong side of bed this morning.’

‘Maybe his wife kicked him out.’

Stifled laughter followed me into my room. I closed the door.

‘Malcolm, what the fuck have you been up to?’ I asked the four walls. It had to be him. He had written all of the entries. Pity I couldn’t remember authorising them. Then I remembered previous questions being asked about Malcolm’s honesty. Money had gone missing from the cash. To compound matters, I had defended him at the time. I sank into my chair. What was I going to do? I could simply do nothing and hope that the matter would not come to anyone else’s attention. I could stifle matters here at local level. No one else need know. Excellent, that was it decided, I would do absolutely nothing.

But what if there were others? This thought nagged me as I opened my mail. Why would he go to the trouble of stealing thirty pounds from six customers? It was hardly worth the effort. That was what made me certain that there must be more.

‘Could I speak to Sheila please?’ I had picked up the phone and
dialled almost without conscious thought. Sheila would know what to do.

‘Have you reported this yet?’ she asked once I had appraised her of the detail.

‘Are you off your head? I’m implicated here. This is the last thing I need after my boxing match at Campbeltown.’

‘But if you don’t report it then it could look even worse for you. I agree with you, Andy. It looks quite likely that there are more customers being debited than just these six. You’re bound to get even more complaints.’

Sheila was telling me what I already knew. It made it easier for me to face up to things hearing her say it.

‘Where’s Roy?’ I asked.

‘He’s in Glasgow.’

‘Right, I’ll phone him right now.’ Before I could change my mind, I punched in his number. I could almost hear the acid hissing in my stomach as I spoke to him. It raced up my gullet as he told me that he would be at the office within the hour.

‘I
t’s not looking good, Andy.’ Roy perched on the edge of my desk. ‘First, your writing is on each of these slips. Second, you kept this to yourself for a full day before informing Regional Office. Now this is not my opinion, but there are those who would say that this gave you plenty of time to dispose of any evidence.’

‘Roy, surely…’

‘I’m not saying that you’re involved, Andy. Just that it doesn’t look good for you. You and Malcolm have always been close. Then there’s this business of you assaulting people while at another branch.’

‘Shit, Roy, I would never steal…’

‘I know that, Andy, All I’m saying is that it doesn’t look good.’ He stood up. ‘I think it would be best if you went home for the day.’

‘What?’ I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

‘Make it a week. We’ll have to have a full investigation and you can’t be around to tamper with any more evidence. Not that I think
you would,’ he hastily added. ‘We just have to be careful, that’s all I’m saying. Why don’t you stay at home until I contact you? Just think of it as an opportunity to catch up on those odd jobs around the house.’ He smiled. ‘Spend some time with that lovely wife of yours.’