A Little Bit on the Side (10 page)

That fiasco, and the entertainment it provided far and wide, was more than enough for Jack and Kate. Stock rearing was abandoned for less demanding pursuits, and Davey had the run of the land for whatever stock he chose.

From his seventh floor office at the heart of Wolverton’s vibrant commercial centre, as the council’s PR department liked to describe the undistinguished cluster of buildings, Jack lit his first cigarette of the day, and cast a jaded eye across the urban sprawl that lay between him and the distant flush of autumn colour through which he had just driven from Barton Hill.

His early-start, early-finish routine suited him fine when he was able to get down to a little work at his desk before the interruptions of the day began, but this morning it meant that he had time to kill as he awaited the arrival of Tony Bewley, his companion for the day, who kept more conventional hours.

In the street below the morning traffic was beginning to build towards the town’s modest rush hour, and a few other early birds like Jack were making their way towards the entrance to the building. Tony was not amongst them, and would not be for almost another half-hour, and so turning from the window to his chair, Jack settled himself as comfortably as the official issue permitted, put his feet on the desk and drew deeply on his cigarette while he considered his position.

Despite more than four years on the hill, the move from town to country which he had hoped might relieve his restlessness had achieved nothing, less than nothing, as the restlessness had grown with the years, and he now had the sense to see that the problem lay not with his private life, but with his job and nowhere else. Almost twenty years in taxes, much of it on investigation work, had corroded his soul and left him with a cynical distrust not only of the people with whom he had to deal, but the nature of the work itself and the world in general.

His boil of discontent had finally burst the previous Saturday evening when what started as a quiet pint with Jimmy had turned into two when they were joined by Larry Breakwell, and then three or more when Ada’s two sons and two or three others joined in as the session proceeded.

Neither Jack nor Jimmy could remember afterwards how tax dodging came to be mentioned in the first place, but by the time the topic came up Jack was well-oiled, fully primed and ready to run, as Jimmy described things afterwards. It was perhaps unfortunate though that Jack’s little diatribe was triggered by an innocent remark from the well-intentioned but naive Rev Larry Breakwell.

Ted Sutton had been going on at some length about the tax fiddles enjoyed by a pal of his who was on the lump in the building trade. Larry, presumably simply repeating something that he had recently read in his newspaper, said that things surely couldn’t be as bad as Ted said, and that historically the British were a nation of relatively compliant taxpayers.

‘Oh Father, Father,’ said Jack with a groan, ‘I forgive you for you are not of this world, and speak out of deep ignorance, but that is complete and utter bull-shit’

He got a dig in the ribs for this from Jimmy.

‘That’s all right Jimmy,’ said Larry. ‘Let him get it out of his system. I think this could be quite interesting.’

‘Relatively compliant?’ said Jack. ‘Relatively compliant? Relative to a banana republic perhaps. Christ everyone who can is at it. Have been for more than a century, except for the poor bloody wage-slave of course, and he gets his pocket picked by the Chancellor before he even gets his money. Clever stuff that PAYE — beats the Artful Dodger.’

Jack had by nature a big voice, indeed he was often accused of shouting when in what he would have described as normal conversational mode. Now, fuelled by the beer, he could be heard throughout the bar, and in no time Albert was hanging over the counter earwigging, as were most of the other customers standing nearby, and Jimmy, who initially had felt inclined to try and check Jack, had changed his mind and decided to enjoy himself. He’d heard most of what he guessed was to come at home over a few glasses of his home brew, and thought it might not be a bad thing if it had a broader audience.

‘Oh come on Jack,’ he said. ‘You’re not telling me that our Albert here or Bill there in the grocers is at it, as you say.’

Deep as Jack was in his cups, he wasn’t going to fall for that one.

‘No, course not. Not our Albert, not our Bill naturally. Not even Jackson’s Agricultural eh Davey?’

That earned him a laugh.

‘What, skim a little cash off the top — never. Forget to pay for those choice little items taken from stock and the three-hundred mile holiday in the business car. Pay wages to a wife who does sod all: I mention just three for starters. Perish the thought eh boys. But Barton Hill men excepted, God-fearing, law-abiding taxpayers to the last, they’re all at it: John O’Groats to Land’s End. They might not call it fiddling. Some might not even know it’s fiddling, but fiddling it is, and it builds up, it builds up.’

‘Venial sins, venial sins surely,’ said Jimmy, stirring the pot a little. ‘Wouldn’t you agree Larry? You know about these things. Sins I mean.’

Larry just shook his head with a smile, and waited for Jack’s response, which was a little slow in coming as he was sipping a whisky and soda Albert had brought round.

‘On the house Mr Manning,’ he said. ‘To whet your whistle.’

‘Well you’re bloody forgiving Jimmy for someone who pays no tax,’ continued Jack, after a nod of thanks to Albert, ‘But the rest of us pick up the tab for what you call venial sins, and I’ve only touched on the all-pervasive, low-level stuff. I won’t addle your heads with the more inventive frauds the pros in the big league get up to: millions, hundreds of millions, billions in fact if the truth about avoidance was known, and bugger all gets done about it’

‘But I thought that was what you did Jack: something about it I mean. Not on your own of course, but your department,’ said Larry.

‘Window dressing, window dressing: pea-shooters against an elephant, just scratching the surface, nothing more. Short on powers, short of staff. Many of the best get the experience they need and then sod off and join the opposition. Better money, good fringe benefits, and a chance to fiddle a bit for themselves. Now that must be very satisfying. I mean if they don’t know how to do it who does?’

With that he fell abruptly silent.

‘Have a pint on me Jack. We’ve just about got time.’

Jack cast a bleary eye up at the speaker.

‘Ah! Mr just-mention-my-name Davey. Very civil of you. Many thanks, but make it a Scotch again will you?’

Davey nodded to Albert to bring the same again, and pulled up a chair to join the group around the table. Jack, however, was now sitting in silence, gazing vacantly at the empty glass in his hand. Nor did he seem inclined to return to his theme when another Scotch arrived.

‘What about avoidance Jack,’ said Jimmy responding to a mute plea from the others to prime the pump again. ‘Tell them about avoidance.’

‘What’s to tell?’ said Jack. ‘Anyway my game’s fraud and evasion. You tell them Jimmy, you’ve heard me often enough — must know it all off by heart’

‘Can’t do that Jack. I’m the soulless bugger: you’re the man of letters. Remember?’

Jack emptied half his scotch and soda and embarked on a dissertation for his audience which as Jimmy later reported, was somewhat rambling, but had an underlying coherence.

‘Avoidance: born 1908, unnatural offspring of supertax. A fecund, libidinous little sod eagerly adopted and nurtured by the rich and super-rich. Spawned a whole generation of weasily, devious little bastards all duly legitimised by the judiciary, with Law Lord Clyde leading the charge.

Ten thousand pounds to spare? Wash a few bonds boys: keeps it clean, and it’s money in the bank. Strip a few dividends instead perhaps. Sounds dodgy, but it pays well. Spread your wings lads, try a bit of hobby farming and live like a lord while the rest of us pay for it. Not difficult, just ask the experts. Need a bit of cash to start with though. Oh there’s no bloody end to their devices: on and on and on ..... to the last bloody syllable of recorded time. Ooops sorry … too many bloodies there.’

Here Jack fell silent again and it looked as though the Shagger’s seminar on taxation might have come to an end until one of the youngsters at the back of Jack’s audience chipped in.
‘Can’t they pass a law against it then?’

Jack cast a long and compassionate look of pity at his young questioner before turning back to his intimates at the table, and continuing in the unduly slow and measured tones of one who knows he has drunk not wisely, but too well.

‘I assume that by “they” our young swabber means Parliament. All our honourable members at Westminster…. And Brutus was an honourable man … Oh they can pass laws alright. They pass them almost as frequently as they pass water, and to about as much purpose. Or to quote one celebrated Right Honourable, and I think I’ve got this right, “Advisors find new loopholes as soon as Parliament has closed the old ones.” QED. Here endeth the lesson.’

Jack’s heckler was not deterred.

‘But surely they could do something if they really wanted to.’

‘Ah, now we’ve got there,’ said Jack. ‘Well of course they bloody could if they wanted, but they don’t want to do they, and I’m a bit too befuddled at the moment to go into the detail. Vested interests. Old boys’ networks. Blind trusts. Wheels within wheels. Powerful interests in the city. Party funding and favours not forgot. All that sort of thing. Friends and families. Their sisters and their cousins whom they reckon up by dozens. That vast, self-serving, self-preserving, monied establishment with far too much to gain from preserving the status quo which serves them so well.’

He paused to light a cigarette, and seeing his own glass empty took a long swig from Jimmy’s with every intention of proceeding, but Jimmy, responding to a meaningful look from Larry, intervened.

‘Don’t you think that’s enough for tonight Jack?’

‘Enough? Enough? I haven’t bloody got started yet. People don’t know the half of what goes on.’

‘I know,’ said Jimmy, ‘but some other time eh?’ and with Larry to assist him they ushered Jack from his chair and towards the exit.

‘Goodnight Mr Manning, and sleep well,’ said Albert. ‘I think we all really enjoyed that. Not sure we understood much of the tax stuff, but it certainly made a change from Saturday dominoes.’

It was with the memory of those Saturday night’s excesses fresh in his mind that Jack turned to the business of the day. Some eighteen months earlier he had opened up an investigation into the operations of a Wol-verton travel agency whose proprietors had been less than frank and forthcoming about the true level of their profits for taxation purposes.

Unlike most travel agents who tend to favour a reference to the nature of their business in their trading name, the company whose affairs Jack had in hand traded under the curiously bland and uninformative title of Scott Stevens (Wolverton) Ltd. While this may have been purely a matter of chance in the first instance, it had clearly been found to provide a convenient anonymity as the business flourished, and the eccentric but highly illegal services it offered became known both within and beyond the bounds of Wolverton.

In the early stages the case seemed to promise nothing more than a routine cash settlement, and the investigation followed what Jack would have described as a bog-standard approach. The directors were called in to an interview when the company’s accounts were formally challenged and the directors shown the instruments of persuasion, or the Hansard Extract to give it its formal revenue title.

They responded with the traditional, ‘It’s a fair cop guv, you’ve got us bang to rights,’ or words to that effect, and instructed their accountants (a national firm with international affiliates and therefore of impeccable probity) to conduct an investigation, and in due course submit to Jack a full and comprehensive report into the affairs of the company and its directors.

After a delay of six months or so the reports had been received. They were, as is traditional, constructed in such a way as to employ every conceivable device to minimise the extent of the fraud and diminish the character of the offence whilst staying (just) on the windy side of the law. It was all part of the game.

Once the many inevitable but unwarranted assumptions made in the directors’ favour had been reversed, agreement had been reached on a hefty figure of understated profits representing business takings siphoned off over many years to feather the directors’ nests with a variety of private investments and assets. A few supplementary enquiries were dealt with, and then it was time for the usual revenue examination of the books and records of the business. As was customary revenue practice, this would in the first instance be carried out at the business premises.

In addition to the relatively simple and attractive proceeding of putting a hand in the till, there were also a whole range of other inventive frauds and imaginative devices that businesses could employ to reduce liability to tax, all of them illegal. The nature of Scott Stevens’ activities, however, did not seem to be such as to lend themselves readily to such machinations, and Jack did not expect the examination to take up much of his time. In the event that would prove to be far from the case, and by the time Jack left at the end of the day he would have embarked on an entirely new path in his life that professionally and privately would be challenging, personally rewarding and downright criminal.

As was usual on such occasions, Jack was to take with him a fully qualified accountant to deal with any of those esoteric aspects of accountancy in which he was not fully versed. He’d chosen Tony Bewley, a senior accountant of long standing and up to all the dodges: all those that were detectable, that is. Neither Jack nor anyone in the department was in any doubt that there were dodges that weren’t. Indeed most of them could have designed one to order, if that had not been illegal.

Throughout the morning and into the afternoon they devilled away searching through those areas of the books and records most likely to reveal further fiddles. Apart from a few minor adjustments they found nothing, however, until Tony, who was casting an eye over a selection of copy sales invoices while Jack ferreted away elsewhere, called him over.