contracts.
‘But,’ he concluded with a flourish, ‘you could have plotted this decline on a flipchart many months ago.’
Grey’s thoughts, though not yet his gaze, turned directly to the man almost cowering at the back of the room, unsure as to what degree Keith Pitt was alluding that it was Mr Foy who should have spotted this pattern. After all, weren’t Aubrey’s one of the biggest accounts on his books? Didn’t he have a responsibility here?
‘So,’ Grey wanted the picture clear in his head with all its implications,’ if the finances were heading south as such a regular rate, then Aubrey, if not also Thomas Long, would have known this was coming this month?’
‘More likely Aubrey than Long, depending on what his role entails, how much responsibility he is given. But yes,’ continued Keith Pitt, ‘with the rate of decline so shallow, and payroll being a variable cost at the best of times — what with temporary staff, overtime, family leave, other absences — then they may have hoped for a couple of more months yet before things became critical.’
‘Or,’ Grey speculated aloud, the look of approval in Pitt’s eyes suggesting he was on the right track, ‘Aubrey may have been counting his lucky stars that this hadn’t happened already?’
‘Quite right, Inspector. The analogy would be of an aircraft looping ever lower over a mountaintop, itself covered in an ever-changing thickness of snow. You couldn’t say which swoop would bring calamity, only that it became more certain each time.’
Grey could not put it off any longer. However badly he felt for the bank manger — who was suffering something terrible at the hands of strangers within his own office, their unspoken judgement of his handing of the firm’s affairs implied in every portentous word — there was information needed, and only he could give it,
‘Mr Foy,’ Grey turned to him. ‘I wonder, had you spotted this situation developing? And did you speak to anyone at Aubrey’s office about it? Did Thomas Long know how bad it was?’
‘I can assure you,’ the bank manager quivered with indignation, ‘that any conversations I had with Mr Aubrey or his staff were of the highest confidentiality.’
‘But, we don’t care about the accounts, only if Thomas Long…’
‘Sir, I must insist, I can tell you no more presently!’
These weren’t merely words to end a conversation, but a psychological point in a man’s life. Realising Mr Foy had slipped into denial, and that he wasn’t going to get anywhere with him this evening, Grey tried another tack, turning from the man whose office this was to the one who now held the authority,
‘How is this going to work, Mr Pitt?’
The financial consultant spoke quickly and with experience, ‘It could go several ways, Inspector. My favoured solution, for the company’s sake, is to go through these monthly bills and find a friendly creditor, who if we encourage them to appeal to the court to appoint an Administrator, might fend off less happier creditors who want to appoint a Receiver. And none of us want that.’
‘You don’t have the authority,’ snapped the bank manager.
‘Then find me Aubrey, or another director of the firm,’ Pitt calmly retorted. ‘Tell them to appoint the Administrator. Mr Foy, there are only secretaries left in that office!’
‘Does your instruction by Mrs Marsh’s stretch to this?’ asked Grey.
‘We’ll soon find out. I’ll speak to her tomorrow, we’ll look into it then.’
Upon hearing these words, he sensed that was that for today, ‘All right then, thank you Mr Foy. I’ll let you get home now. Come on fellows, we’ve kept our man long enough. I presume, Mr Foy, you will be available to contact here tomorrow morning?’
The man nodded meekly, as Grey and the others (for young Gareth had been listening with fascination) filed out quietly from the room. They were almost at the stairs, waiting for their unhappy host to follow them down, to unbolt the door and release them to the empty shopping street, when he called from behind them in a voice as self-defensive as it was explanatory,
‘I told Alex, over and over. I told him that something had to be done. He would laugh off my fears, telling me there was something in the pipeline, money coming from somewhere, new business partners. And then each month — nothing. There comes a point, gentlemen, with even the most valued and loyal customer, where a bank manager has to consider…’
‘Foreclosing?’ Keith Pitt completed the sentence, the word being too obscene for Mr Foy to contemplate leaving his lips, the very antithesis of everything a bank manager tries to achieve in his professional life. He continued,
‘For Aubrey Electricals to have… gone that way, and at my hand! And with it meaning so much to the town! How could I have walked along the street, looked people in the eye? It would have represented my professional failure as much as Alex’s.
‘“It will be fine, it will be fine,” Alex kept telling me. “I’m working on it as we speak.”’ He shook his head, ‘He and his father have been such good customers, for as long as I have been at the branch. And he was a friend too, and a Clubman, and I’m sure you appreciate what that means, gentlemen.
Gentlemen, in plural? Grey looked at Keith Pitt, who answered his querying look,
‘I’m on the list for consideration, hoping to make it in the autumn selection.’
‘A mere formality, Mr Pitt,’ confirmed Foy. ‘I am on the panel. I suppose I shouldn’t really be talking about it outside the Club,’ he continued, ‘but then, so many of our secrets have been thrown out on the line for all to hear tonight, so what’s the harm of one more?’
Chatting over Club business seemed to have cheered the bank manager up; and it struck Grey he uttered that last line with something approaching sarcastic irony. The cheek! But it also struck him that there really was nothing more to be said, that the man’s tragedy was only matched by his reserve, and how boring would Macbeth had been if told with understatement? Either way, young Gareth was enjoying the exchanges like a boy being allowed to stay up and listen in on adult conversation.
With that the three men left, leaving only the manager, a broken man, reputation soon to be stripped from him, behind to lock up, while pondering the calamity apparent before him.
Grey himself pondered as he walked: How long do you feed the goose before you decide it isn’t going to lay a golden egg? Foy had kept feeding and feeding, and no gold was glimmering amongst the hay on that barnyard floor. Whether or not he lost his job over such a bad investment — would his bosses even judge he had done anything wrong? — the man Grey had seen that evening would never manage another bank. He had early retirement written all over him. And how much tougher would it be for any enterprise dealing with what was bound to be a younger, harder replacement? Grey could only be thankful he weren’t himself a businessperson in these straightened times.
It was still not time for turning in though, thought Graham Rase, hot footing it, at getting on for eight thirty in the now, to the one building bar the twenty-four hour garage on the edge of town that had a light burning any time of day or night. The face he nodded to behind the desk in the foyer had changed with the starting of the night shift, as had most of those in the office, as he let himself through the security doors and along to the mess room, where the officers and support staff his Sergeant and he worked with were based.
He was greeted though by one face still there from earlier, that of their administrative support officer Sarah Cobb. She had headphones on and was typing furiously as she smiled across at him,
‘Just transcribing the interview with Mrs Long,’ she said, reminding Grey he really ought to get around to reading that tomorrow, not that there could be very much of interest that Cori hadn’t already summarised for him.
Sarah turned to her notes, and quickly ran through the few developments there had been since he was last here: how they had tried Thomas Long’s mobile number, but that it seemed to be ringing out unanswered; meanwhile there were still no signs of life at Larry Dunn’s house, nor any sightings of his Land Rover, despite all officers being on the lookout; and finally, that a televised press conference, and an interview with the Inspector for the local news network, had been arranged for first thing in the morning.
Grey pondered these not particularly inspiring facts at the same time as admiring Sarah’s dedication in staying behind to help, what with so much happening today on top of her usual duties,
‘Thank you for this, I hope you didn’t have anything exciting planned for this evening,’ he asked with genuine concern for her young social life.
‘Oh, nothing special, just a drink with a girlfriend. I can still get there for nine.’ He had noticed this before, the young not even getting ready to go out until his evening would be half over; especially on a Friday, they arriving in town at ten and even eleven o’clock. He blamed the licensing laws and the surfeit of energy you carry at that age
