Dying on Principle (20 page)

‘See what I mean?' Peggy asked, over my shoulder. ‘And you see that there? That's supposed to be his expenses: £25,000. Hmm,' she said meaningfully, while I whistled. ‘And see, here's that little toad Curtis. Too-poor-to-give-to-Oxfam Curtis. We thought he was doing well to get £40,000, and there he's got £65,000,
and
£15,000 expenses.'

I pointed to the second Curtis column: Dep. Ch. Exec.

‘Quite!' Peggy said. ‘Getting that sort of job. I told you he's not got a qualification to his name.'

‘An unqualified success, you might say.' And then I was suddenly serious. ‘Are you sure about that? Surely you must need all sorts of accountancy exams to get to his level?'

‘Well, you only need an art diploma to run the place,' she said tartly. ‘That and a measly BEd. No,' she continued, ‘Ellen, she was the receptionist before me, always swore that Mr Curtis never got above Ordinary National Certificate. Her nephew or someone was at college at the same time.'

‘But he claims to be – got any college notepaper there? Let's look at the letter heading. He claims to be CIPFA and FCA. Have you ever mentioned this theory to anyone?'

‘Never thought it was any of my business, dear. And in any case, even if it was my business, who would I speak to? Mr Blake? He always looks so harassed these days. Sophie, what's the matter? What have I said?'

‘Nothing. Peggy, you wouldn't know which college Ellen's nephew went to, would you?'

She shook her head. ‘And she died a year last Christmas, poor soul. Cancer,' she mouthed, as if saying it out loud might spread the disease.

I nodded solemnly, then added, ‘I know this may seem an odd thing to say, but if you've kept quiet this long, it seems to me the sensible thing to keep quiet a little longer.'

I didn't rub my hands with glee until I got back to my office, and then it was a very silent rub. My little ploy had worked. I wouldn't have needed to use such underhand tactics back at William Murdock – they had a policy of open files on such matters, so if anyone wanted to know how much anyone was getting it was simply a matter of asking. Not for the first time, the tatty, underfunded old place glittered like an oasis.

I actually enjoyed teaching for the rest of the afternoon. At last I'd seemed to have persuaded the students that they, not I, would be taking the exams, and a gratifying number had produced essays for me to mark. I celebrated with a quiet, uninterrupted evening's marking at home. Quiet, that is, apart from Beethoven and Brahms played very loudly on the radio, which I carried with me wherever I went.

If the listeners had bugged my bedroom, I hope they enjoyed the World Service which I left on all night to provide a lullaby.
Today
kept me company over breakfast.

Most of Friday was a perfectly ordinary day, which I found disconcerting in itself. I'd have expected some repercussions from my activities with the staff records, but the college had sunk back into its usual sullenness. I taught; I worked conscientiously on the project; and at last I had one idea. What about checking Curtis's qualifications myself? Well, not quite myself. I wouldn't risk another visit to Personnel, but I did have another resource.

I found all the small change I could and as soon as I could decently leave Muntz headed for a public call box. At William Murdock was a colleague in the admin, team called Luke Schneider, with an unparalleled ability to pull figures out of his hat. He also had a long memory and a keen sense of justice.

He greeted me as if pleased to hear from me, though since it was only ten minutes before his weekend was due to start I might have been mistaken. Certainly he didn't seem to object that my enquiries after his health and wellbeing were perfunctory at best, and that I brushed aside his reciprocal questions.

‘Luke, I have the longest of longshots here, but I want your help.'

‘OK, girl, fire away.'

‘I want you to check someone's qualifications. About fifteen years ago, say, and probably on some local government ONC course. The sort that could lead on to accountancy qualifications. I'm just hoping he did his exams at Murdock, but the ONC's all I've got to go on.'

‘Fifteen years! But that's paper records, Sophie. We've computerised back to '86 now – but fifteen years!' Then his voice changed. ‘Is it important?'

‘Might be. I can't even promise that you won't be wasting all that time anyway.'

‘Not so much the time, more my dust allergy. Look, I won't promise, but if I can find anything I'll call you back. Home or Muntz?'

I was about to say home, but then I remembered.

‘No! No, I'll phone you, Luke! Don't try to—' But my money had run out and I had to hope he'd heard.

It occurred to me that if I had to live my working and home life within constant earshot of others, the less time I spent in either location, the better. Friday night was rehearsal night, of course, and then there'd be the pub afterwards. As for the weekend – well, there was a handwritten note from Richard Fairfax on my mat when I got home. Apart from brief surprise that he hadn't got his secretary to type it, my main emotion was gratitude. He was offering me a day out on the river. Which river wasn't specified, but I'd bet my life it wasn't Birmingham's mucky old Rea.

There were two messages on my answering machine when I got back from choir practice. The first was from Simon: if we were having a recycling competition (were we?), then I ought to go with him to a car-boot sale he'd spotted. He'd collect me at ten on Sunday. The second was from Aberlene. She and Tobias were now known to be an item. They'd like to make a foursome with me and Chris (would they indeed?) for a meal. And since when had George Muntz College, Birmingham, had an outpost in Bradford?

It was too late to phone back and ask what on earth she meant. I'd hung on as late as I could at the Duke of Clarence, though Luigi and Maria had left it to the tender mercies of their macho son while they went to a family wedding back home and the temperature of the red wine would have made Luigi weep. Jess (Brum for Guiseppe) had also let the jukebox loose. It was only the thought of the eager listeners wasting hour upon hour waiting for me to say something significant that kept me out of my home.

Still assisted by the World Service I slept deeply, only to be woken by my alarm. Saturday, and I'd set the alarm? I slapped it irritably but then heard the paper arrive. And soon I realised it was a sunny day and I was supposed to be spending it with Richard Fairfax. I'd set the alarm because he hadn't mentioned what time he'd be collecting me. For once it had nothing to do with my irritating overpunctuality; I simply didn't choose to be caught dishevelled and off guard with sleep.

As it was, I was very dishevelled and completely off guard after showering and washing my hair when the doorbell rang. Surely not Fairfax already? I was tempted to let it ring; but then, at this hour, it might simply be the postman. Decent in my dressing gown, but my hair dripping because I'd put down my towel somewhere, I hurtled down the stairs. Not Fairfax; not the postman: Dave Clarke, he of the jeans and genitals, stood there. He stepped uninvited into the hall.

‘News for you, sweetheart,' he said. ‘About your big fraud case.' His voice rang out as if he were giving advice to a striker at the Hawthorns.

‘Come on in. Make yourself some coffee,' I said, pointing him in the direction of the mugs. ‘I'll be down in a minute.'

I put on the sort of jeans that wouldn't disgrace me. My trainers were new anyway, though of course they should have been espadrilles. I had a terrible feeling that I probably ought to look cutely nautical, with a little anchor motif in a prominent place on a horizontally striped T-shirt, but my wardrobe was sadly lacking: I found I didn't have a navy-blue blazer, either. Actually, now I came to think of it, a neatly cut jacket wouldn't come amiss. I felt spring coming on, and with it a strong desire to buy clothes. Meanwhile, I towelled my hair a little drier, and prayed that Roy's cut would carry it through.

‘Did anyone ever tell you how sexy you look with your hair all tousled?' Dave bellowed.

Clearly Chris hadn't told him about the bug; did this mean I shouldn't either?

‘It's a nice morning,' I said. ‘Why don't we take this out on the patio?'

‘Good idea. Might as well take some toast too. Honey or marmalade?' he asked, opening and shutting cupboard doors. He reached for both.

‘Would you like to join me for breakfast, Mr Clarke?' I asked sarcastically.

‘Thought you'd never ask, sweetheart.'

I shut the patio door carefully behind us. Surely that would be insulation enough? But then, I might not hear the doorbell. Hang the doorbell!

‘OK, shoot,' I said.

‘The Mondiale, right? With that lucky bastard Chris? You sure picked one hell of a waiter to pass your Barclaycard to. Photographic memory, he's got. One look at your number and it's there.' He patted his temple. ‘So when he's bowed you nicely off the premises – and I bet you left him a fat tip – he slopes off and makes a phone call. There's a pay phone for staff use. And he tells his contact all about your card. So they go off and make another card with your number and name.'

‘But they'd need more than that: what about my signature?'

‘On the carbon, of course.'

‘And all that gubbins on the magnetic strip on the back?'

‘Oh, they'd use someone else's info for that. Your details on the front, but someone else's gold-account details on the back. I take it –' he paused delicately – ‘that your credit limit wouldn't run to an Audi? A nice, new, shiny Audi, not a beat-up wreck from down the Soho Road?'

‘You take it correctly.' I waited. Surely neither lust nor a simple desire to report on a job well done had brought him out before nine on a Saturday. ‘It's very kind of you to come and tell me all this,' I said at last.

He leaned forward, pushing his plate and mug to the middle of the table. Suddenly he was transformed into the sort of professional Chris would have approved. When he looked at me his gaze was shrewd, appraising.

‘You're a bright woman,' he said. ‘I only fancy bright women, come to think of it. Anyway, I wanted to ask a favour. I had a drink with a bloke the other day. In your line of country. Colleges. He reckoned his gaffer was –' he gestured expansively – ‘let's just call it being a bit creative in his accounting. Claiming money from somewhere for students he didn't have, that sort of thing. Where do colleges get their money from, now they've left the local education departments? The FEFC, right?'

‘Yes. Further Education Funding Council. Colleges have become more like a business. The more bums on seats, the more money.'

‘Well, these seem to be real seats, but rather small bums,' Dave said. ‘This guy reckons his boss has enrolled all his staff's children on to courses. And the kids in the crèche too. And they get extra money for them because they can't read or write – something like that.'

I nodded. ‘Special Needs students, they call them. Lots of extra dosh, I should think. A friend of mine teaches at a place where they've got a load of blind students: she reckons the money they've brought in paid for …'

‘Go on.'

‘She was only joking, of course.'

‘And she reckoned the money had been spent on something other than these blind people? Hmm. OK, Sophie, that's only hearsay anyway. But you've got a foot in two colleges, right? Let's just say, if you come across anything at George Muntz that you don't think they'd do at your old place, you'll phone me and we'll have that drink you promised me. And make sure you're wearing those jeans, eh? Didn't realise anyone so short could have such long legs.'

For anyone else I'd have brought fresh rolls and salad and drinks as my contribution. But not for Fairfax. I had a sense that he would want it to be his set piece – in reality, probably organised by his secretary – and that he'd think the less of me for my interference. And I also felt quite strongly that he wanted my company more than I wanted his, and that I was therefore absolved from making much effort.

When Fairfax presented himself at ten, I thought he was coming to call the day off. His face took me back to my mother's illness; it was grey and glossy with sweat. He wasn't the sort of person to appreciate a rash enquiry into his health, but my face must have shown my concern.

He managed a pallid smile. ‘Damned shellfish,' he said. ‘Only takes one to be off, they say.'

‘But—'

‘Complained, of course: getting the public-health people in. Not that they'll do anything except talk. That's all you get from these people.'

His bitterness was like Mum's too. Suddenly I heard her voice: ‘You'll need a sweater. Can be cold on the water.' And yet the nearest she ever got to the water was the towpath of a cut.

If Mum had lived, she'd have been about his age. What was I doing with a man not much younger than my dad? Going out for a day on the river, that's all, Mum. And keeping my eyes and ears open for Chris. It wasn't because I was attracted to the man; this wasn't the sort of dislike that indicates, Mills and Boon-like, a deep fascination for a dominant, sexy male. This was complete incomprehension, not least of why he should want my company. The word ‘using' crept unbidden into my mind. If I were using him, to get me out of my house for the day, how was he using me?

He hadn't got round to telling me where he was taking me, but we slipped out of the city as if we were heading to the M5. Worcester? No, we took the A456 and picked up the Halesowen bypass. This is a good, fast road, but I was surprised when he chose to take it at ninety. Even when obeying the speed limits in Hagley or Blakedown, he was still of the Boadicea school of motoring, intent on pushing his way through no matter what the hazard. I braked hard on the carpet, time and again, yards before he did it for real. My knee ached with the effort. He took the downhill dual carriageway to Kidderminster at a hundred and ten.