Дик Фрэнсис - Banker

Gordon however said thoughtfully, ‘It’s perfectly possible, though, to set up a company and lend it money. All it would take would be paperwork. I could do it myself. So could anyone here, I suppose, up to his authorized ceiling, if he thought he could get away with it.’

John nodded. ‘It’s ridiculous of Tim and Alec to make a joke of this,’ he said importantly. ‘The very reputation of the bank is at stake.’

Gordon frowned, stood up, took the paper off my desk, and went along to see his almost-equal in the room facing St Paul’s. Spreading consternation, I thought; bringing out cold sweats from palpitating banking hearts.

I ran a mental eye over everyone in the whole department who could possibly have had enough power along with the opportunity, from Val Fisher all the way down to myself; and there were twelve, perhaps, who could theoretically have done it.

But... not Rupert, with his sad mind still grieving, because he wouldn’t have had the appetite or energy for fraud.

Not Alec, surely; because I liked him.

Not John: too self-regarding.

Not Val, not Gordon, unthinkable. Not myself.

That left the people along in the other pasture, and I didn’t know them well enough to judge. Maybe one of them did believe that a strong fiddle on the side was worth the ruin of discovery, but all of us were already generously paid, perhaps for the very reason that temptations would be more likely to be resisted if we weren’t scratching around for the money for the gas.

Gordon didn’t return. The morning limped down to lunch-time, when John bustled off announcing he was seeing a client, and Alec encouraged Rupert to go out with him for a pie and pint. I’d taken to working through lunch because of the quietness, and I was still there alone at two o’clock when Peter, Henry’s assistant, came and asked me to go up to the top floor, because I was wanted.

Uncle Freddie, I thought. Uncle Freddie’s read the rag and will be exploding like a warhead. In some way he’ll make it out to be my fault. With a gusty sigh I left my desk and took the lift to face the old warrior with whom I had never in my life felt easy.

He was waiting in the top floor hallway, talking to Henry. Both of them at six foot three over-topped me by three inches. Life would never have been as ominous, I thought, if Uncle Freddie had been small.

‘Tim,’ Henry said when he saw me, ‘Go along to the small conference room, will you?’

I nodded and made my way to the room next to the boardroom where four or five chairs surrounded a square polished table. A copy of What’s Going On lay there, already dog-eared from many thumbs.

‘Now Tim’, said my uncle, coming into the room behind me, ‘do you know what all this is about?’

I shook my head and said ‘No.’

My uncle growled in his throat and sat down, waving Henry and myself to seats. Henry might be chairman, might indeed in office terms have been Uncle Freddie’s boss, but the white-haired old tyrant still personally owned the leasehold of the building itself and from long habit treated everyone in it as guests.

Henry absently fingered the newspaper. ‘What do you think?’ he said to me. ‘ Who ... do you think?’

‘It might not be anyone.’

He half smiled. ‘A stirrer?’

‘Mm. Not a single concrete detail. Same as last time.’

‘Last time,’ Henry said, ‘I asked the paper’s editor where he got his information from. Never reveal sources, he said. Useless asking again.’

‘Undisclosed sources,’ Uncle Freddie said, ‘never trust them.’

Henry said, ‘Gordon says you can find out, Tim, how many concerns, if any, are borrowing from us at five per cent. There can’t be many. A few from when interest rates were low. The few who got us in the past to agree to a long-term fixed rate.’ The few, though he didn’t say so, from before his time, before he put an end to such unprofitable straitjackets. ‘If there are more recent ones among them, could you spot them?’

‘I’ll look,’ I said.

We both knew it would take days rather than hours and might produce no results. The fraud, if it existed, could have been going on for a decade. For half a century. Successful frauds tended to go on and on unnoticed, until some one tripped over them by accident. It might almost be easier to find out who had done the tripping, and why he’d told the paper instead of the bank.

‘Anyway,’ Henry said, ‘that isn’t primarily why we asked you up here.’

‘No,’ said my uncle, grunting. ‘Time you were a director.’

I thought: I didn’t hear that right.

‘Er... what?’ I said.

‘A director. A director,’ he said impatiently. ‘Fellow who sits on the board. Never heard of them, I suppose.’

I looked at Henry, who was smiling and nodding.

‘But,’ I said, ‘so soon...’

‘Don’t you want to, then?’ demanded my uncle.

‘Yes, I do.’

‘Good. Don’t let me down. I’ve had my eye on you since you were eight.’

I must have looked as surprised as I felt.

‘You told me then,’ he said, ‘how much you had saved, and how much you would have if you went on saving a pound a month at four per cent compound interest for forty years, by which time you would be very old. I wrote down your figures and worked them out, and you were right.’

‘It’s only a formula,’ I said.

‘Oh sure. You could do it now in a drugged sleep. But at eight ? You’d inherited the gift, all right. You were just robbed of the inclination.’ He nodded heavily. ‘Look at your father. My little brother. Got drunk nicely, never a mean thought, but hardly there when the brains were handed out. Look at the way he indulged your mother, letting her gamble like that. Look at the life he gave you. All pleasure, regardless of cost. I despaired of you at times. Thought you’d been ruined. But I knew the gift was there somewhere, might still be dormant, might grow if forced. So there you are, I was right.’

I was pretty well speechless.

‘We all agree,’ Henry said. ‘The whole board was unanimous at our meeting this morning that it’s time another Ekaterin took his proper place.’

I thought of John, and of the intensity of rage my promotion would bring forth.

‘Would you,’ I said slowly, ‘have given me a directorship if my name had been Joe Bloggs?’

Henry levelly said, ‘Probably not this very day. But soon, I promise you, yes. You’re almost thirty-three, after all, and I was on the board here at thirty-four.’

‘Thank you,’ I said.

‘Rest assured,’ Henry said. ‘You’ve earned it.’ He stood up and formally shook hands. ‘Your appointment officially starts as of the first of November, a week today. We will welcome you then to a short meeting in the boardroom, and afterwards to lunch.’

They must both have seen the depth of my pleasure, and they themselves looked satisfied. Hallelujah, I thought, I’ve made it. I’ve got there... I’ve barely started.

Gordon went down with me in the lift, also smiling.

‘They’ve all been dithering about it on and off for months,’ he said. ‘Ever since you took over from me when I was ill, and did OK. Anyway I told them this morning about your news from the cartoonist. Some of them said it was just lucky. I told them you’d now been lucky too often for it to be a coincidence. So there you are.’

‘I can’t thank you...’

‘It’s your own doing.’

‘John will have a fit.’

‘You’ve coped all right so far with his envy.’

‘I don’t like it, though,’ I said.

‘Who would? Silly man, he’s doing his career no good.’

Gordon straightaway told everyone in the office, and John went white and walked rigidly out of the room.