by Stan Mason
He shook his head firmly. ‘I wouldn’t accept that line of argument for one minute, Betty,’ he returned calmly. ‘Not when idiots like Grover complain of their inability to handle a situation.’ He stopped for a few moments think carefully on his words. ‘I’m sorry,’ he continued apologetically. ‘Please forget that I called Grover an idiot. I shouldn’t make disparaging remarks about a fellow manager.’
The telephone rang to break up the conversation before either of them suffered further embarrassment. ‘Someone called Ken Bamburg for you on line two,’ she announced gently.
He frowned for a moment as if reluctant to take the call as she held the receiver waiting as he paused inanely. ‘It’s a solicitor,’ he told her softly as though the man at the other end of the line might hear his voice. He took the receiver and took a deep breath before speaking. ‘Hello, Ken! How are you? Haven’t heard from you recently.’
‘I think we ought to have a spot of lunch together, John,’ returned the solicitor curtly. ‘There’s a matter I’d like to discuss with you in private.’
‘About Diane,’ guessed Rigby. ‘Is she starting trouble again?’ His blood-pressure began to take an upward turn. He had spoken to the woman just a short while earlier and now there was going to be trouble. Unnecessary trouble!
‘I’d prefer not to talk about it over the ‘phone. Can we discuss it in private?’
‘Not for a few days, Ken. I’m sorry. I’m very busy at the moment.’
The sound of diary pages being turned could be heard on the line before the solicitor spoke again. ‘I’m pretty busy myself over the next six days, Look... can you come to my office this afternoon. I have a vacant slot then.’
Rigby shook his head sadly and decided to press the other man for information. ‘We’ve been friends for a long time, Ken... from the time we were at school together. Don’t beat about the bush. What’s she up to this time?’
Bamburg drew a deep breath and decided to capitulate. ‘Her solicitor contacted me. She’s willing to do a deal but I don’t like it because it’s unethical.’
‘What does she want?’ enquired the banker trying to hustle the other man into revealing the terms of the deal.
‘She knows that you want a divorce and she’s willing to let you have it... but there are conditions.’
‘Why am I not surprised. Go on... hit me! I can take it!’ His tone was breezy but in reality he was waiting for the axe to fall.
‘She wants all the proceeds from the sale of the house.’
Rigby reacted quickly. ‘That’s pretty mean even by her standards,’ he managed to say, controlling his temper very well. ‘If I refuse, I can still get a divorce, can’t I?’
‘It’s not as simple as that. You see she claims that the marriage hasn’t broken down. She’s willing to go to Court and offer to return to the marital home to live with you as husband and wife. If the woman you live with left you, the situation could become very complicated. You’d be in no-man’s land.’
There was a long pause as Rigby released a loud sigh of distress and he drummed the fingers of one hand on the desk. ‘She’s a bitch! I know her game. She wants to see me financially destitute and unhappy. It’s only because I’m living with Sandra. If I was on my own there would be no problems.’
‘If you weren’t living with Sandra, you wouldn’t be asking Diane for a divorce. That’s the truth of it.’
‘She’s taking this too far!’
The solicitor believed that it was time to drive home the need of a meeting. ‘You need to weigh up all the facts and decide what you really want to do.’
The banker experience confused emotions at the prospect of losing the proceeds on the sale of his house. He had become particularly sensitive to financial matters lately and the setback struck him to the core. ‘I suppose we’ll have to meet,’ he replied eventually. ‘Let me sleep on it and I’ll get back to you.’
‘Don’t take it to heart,’ advised Bamburg calmly. ‘I mean you only have to refuse and that’s the end of the matter.’
‘That’s far too simple, Ken. What about Sandra? What do I tell her?’
‘I’m sure she’ll understand. Ring me when you want to meet,’ concluded the solicitor. ‘There’s no hurry except that I understand you’ve found a buyer for your property.’
‘There is another way,’ rallied the banker brightening up a little. ‘A means of putting a spoke in her wheel. I could withdraw the house from the market. Then she’d get nothing.’
‘Neither will you.’
‘But I have the joy of living in it. In any case, if I agreed to her terms, I’d get nothing anyway. So I’m better off staying put.’
‘I’ll wait to hear from you.’
The line went dead leaving Rigby with the impression that his friend was leas than eager to enter into the game. Bamburg seemed to take a dim view of Diane attempting to blackmail his client and an even worse one of the banker taking the house off the market.
‘Make me a cup of coffee please, Betty,’ he asked after the conversation had ended. ‘Do you know what my wife has done? She’s offered me a divorce providing I give her all the proceeds from the sale of our house. She used to criticise me for my hard negotiating skills. Maybe I was too good a teacher.’
‘Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,’ recited his secretary tritely hoping to avoid becoming involved in his personal life. As far as the bank was concerned, she would work hard, stay late, and suffer certain minor privations, but his personal life was not her concern.’
‘There was no scorn,’ he echoed rather surprised that she had used that particular phrase. ‘We parted mutually. No one else was involved. There was no sordidness. Everything was above-board. Then, as soon as I met Sandra, Diane declared total war. It’s sheer jealousy.’
‘You can’t really blame her, can you?’ retorted Betty Brewer finding herself drawn into the defence of the other woman against her wishes. ‘After all those years of marriage. One would have to be pretty thick not to be jealous.’
‘I suppose you’re right,’ he conceded. ‘But what would you have done if you were in my shoes? I met another woman and fell in love for the second time.’
‘I can’t answer that,’ she replied indignantly. ‘If push came to shove, I should imagine I’d accept the divorce and forego the money. But I’m speaking with my heart and not with my head.’
He smiled at her reaction. ‘That’s all very well but a lot of money’s involved.’
‘How much is love worth? It depends on whether you want peace of mind and happiness or financial interest. I mean you’ve got a well-paid job here. It’s not as if you’re on the bread-line. And there’s another point you need to bear in mind. If you married again, you may wish to start a family.’
He stared at her for a moment as if she had wounded him. ‘That’s been the trouble all along, Miss Brewer.
Suddenly she showed a degree of embarrassment. Whenever he called her Miss Brewer he withdrew quickly into his shell. It was a whim he employed to admit defeat that was understood by both of them. His secretary, however, was angry with herself for having entered the fray in the first place. ‘You can always earn money,’ she managed to say, trying to conclude the discussion, ‘but there’s only one Sandra. But then, as I said, I speak from the heart and not from the head.’
‘Come on!’ he demanded, pretending to be annoyed at the delay. ‘Where’s the coffee?’
She had put the facts in a nutshell and he knew the decision that he had to make. It angered him that his wife would gain financially for no other reason than jealousy. Her actions were unethical but there was nothing he could do about it. He pondered the dilemma for a few moments as if in a daydream and then returned to reality as other thoughts flitted through his mind.
‘I’ll give you one guess who tipped off the Old Man this m
orning concerning computer fraud and put Functional Control in the forefront, he blurted as a bubbling sound emerged from the electric kettle.
She looked up at him with mixed feelings of anger and despair. ‘I knew he would. That Mr. Elliott’s impossible!’ Her face broke into a smile as she realised what she had said. ‘You’ll have to forgive me for making disparaging remarks about a senior member of staff but that man makes my blood boil!’
The electric kettle forced a continuous stream of steam from its spout and she halted her work to deal with it. She poured out a cup for the senior man and placed it in front of him.
‘Do you remember that attractive young lady who interviewed me about six months ago?’ he asked innocuously. ‘She was a reporter from one of the computer magazines. Latched on to me because no one else in the bank would talk to her.’
His secretary picked up the office diary and turned the pages rapidly. ;’Jennifer Webster,’ she advised him shortly. ‘Computer Today magazine. A tall slender lady dressed in a grey two-piece suit. Fair hair tied up in a bun.’
‘See if you can get hold of her, will you? She might be able to throw some light on modern-day computer fraud.’ He sipped his coffee thoughtfully as the current problems seared through his mind. So much was happening in the effluxion of one single day that he wondered how far he could be pressed before he realised that he couldn’t cope. Yet Clement Davies appeared to have handled everything in his reign in such an exemplary manner with almost no effort at all. Rigby was now certain that the role of benchminder was no easy task. That fact alone was becoming evident very swiftly.
‘I have Miss Webster on line one, Mr. Rigby,’ announced his secretary shortly.
‘Jennifer Webster,’ he began cheerfully. ‘John Rigby, Imperial Bank. We had lunch together some six months ago. I’m the tall dark handsome man who you interviewed for your magazine.’ He heard her laugh at the other end of the line. ‘Would you mind doing me a favour? I need a run-down on computer fraud. Can you do it over the telephone or fax me some information. I have a meeting soon and it’s your subject. You know all about it.’
‘Computer fraud in banking. Hm... that would be a good story.’
‘I didn’t actually say that, Jenny,’ he cut in with an element of alarm.
‘Well,’ she responded, ‘most computer frauds are as yet undiscovered. That’s the big problem, If all the computer frauds in this country came to light, the nation would be on its way to bankruptcy.’
‘Is it really as bad as that?’
‘Perhaps on laying it on a bit too thick but the result could be quite extensive. For example, it’s so easy for the expert to undertake something like the salami method.’
‘The salami method... like the sausages?’
‘That’s right. The computer operator slices off little pieces. Consider all the accounts that need to be rounded up... say those that end will one penny. Well the computer criminal will round up the figure passing the one penny into a separate account... his own account. You’d be surprised how much that would add up in say a major supermarket chain.’
‘What other computer frauds are there?’
‘Well there’s date diddling... or the logic bomb... ’
‘Like the Trojan Horse method,’ interrupted the banker, boasting that he had some knowledge of the subject.
‘That’s right... and Trapdoors.’
‘What on earth is that?’
‘It can be employed in the hardware... that’s the machinery... or the software... which is the computer program. By the Trapdoor method, one can gain access in forbidden areas of the computer system. Some years ago, an employee of a company in the United States use the method to receive details of unauthorised shipments of goods by the company. He stole nearly a million dollars by selling telephones to the company that never existed, buying them back at a lower rate, reselling them again to the company, and so on. Then there was the case where some sixty thousand bogus insurance policies were written and reinsured, totalling two billion dollars. You can see that the final figures could be quite frightening without a penny piece being changed physically.’
‘That’s horrifying!’ commented Rigby with a deep foreboding about his own bank. ‘Horrifying!’
‘Computers are a people-security problem. A high element of trust is required to run operations properly. Sadly one has to consider temptation and the greed in man.’
‘Chief Inspector Church on line three,’ cut in Betty Brewer urgently.
‘Sorry, Jenny,’ apologised Rigby. ‘I must go. An emergency on the other line. Thanks for the brief run-down. Appreciate it. We must have lunch again some time.’ He switched to the other telephone. ‘Yes, Chief Inspector!’ he uttered tiredly.
‘Any further developments yet, Rigby?’ The policeman’s voice sounded grim and there was a veiled challenge in his tone.
‘Not yet!’ he uttered tersely, gritting his teeth at the impatience of the other man.
‘I think I’m forced to consider alternatives.’
‘What alternatives?’ asked the banker staring up at the ceiling tiredly. It had become patently obvious that Scotland Yard was going to sit on his tail all day long until the matter was resolved one way or the other.
‘Well one alternative is to get a marksman to shoot the blighter from the bank opposite.
Rigby sat up straight in his chair as though a bolt had been thrust through him. ‘That would be unwise to say the least, Chief Inspector,,’ he snapped. ‘He‘s holding wires in each hand. You’d have to be sure of killing him outright and also make certain that he didn’t touch the wires in his hands with each other when he fell. What other alternative do you have in mind?’
‘We could rush him. I would need more details of the layout of the branch before we could consider that line of action.’
The face of the banker showed anguish at that idea. ‘You want to charge into the Manager’s office? Are you out of your mind? He has a bomb on his lap!’
‘It’s our belief that he hasn’t got a bomb in that holdall. We consider it might be a hoax.’
‘It might be and it might not be! Are you willing to take that chance?’
‘Why would a man trying to rob a bank be willing to blow himself up? You answer me that one!’
‘Because he’s a lunatic... out of his mind! Either he gets the money and lives a life of leisure or he sends himself to hell because this life isn’t worth living! Don’t you get it?’
‘We’ve checked all the lunatic asylums and mental hospitals. No one has escaped so it follows that the man’s rational.. In that case he would be crazy to blow himself to kingdom come. He hasn’t got a bomb at all.’
‘What happens if you’re wrong?’
There was a pause at the other end of the line before the police officer replied. ‘That’s why we haven’t taken any action yet.’
The banker was unable to contain himself any longer and vented his anger over the line. ‘If you dare take any action, Church, I’ll personally... repeat personally... report the matter to the Home Secretary of your incompetence. I won’t stand for any meddling when people’s lives are at risk!’
‘You do what you like, Rigby,’ came the response. ‘We maintain law and order. It’s our responsibility!’
Rigby placed his hand over the receiver, glaring at his secretary. ‘I wish this flat-foot would go out and clobber a few motorists with parking offences just to get him off my back!’ He inhaled deeply retaining his coolness before removing his hand from the mouthpiece. ’I told you before, Church! Everything’s being done to establish the identity of the man. It’ll take time to get results. You’ll just have to be patient. ‘
‘But if anything goes wrong,’ agreed Church reluctantly, showing displeasure in his tone, I shall personally... repeat personally... contact the Chairman of your Board
to tell him of your stubbornness and refusal to co-operate with the police. Be it on your own head!’
‘As long as we understand each other,’ replied the banker rashly, rising to the occasion by accepting the challenge. He realised the impact his action would have on his career if failure occurred but there was little alternative. He puffed out his cheeks as the conversation ended to meet the gaze of his secretary. ‘The man’s a fool!’ he remonstrated. ‘An utter fool! Here we are with a crisis on our hands and all he wanted to do is to play vendettas. How’s the Assistant Manager getting on at Croydon?’
‘Do you want me to contact him?’
‘I think so. We ought to show interest and keep in touch although I’m beginning to dread the sound of his voice. It’s my responsibility now and if I get it wrong, I’m condemning the poor man to his death.’
‘You’re doing the best you can,’ consoled Betty Brewer. ‘The bank should be proud of you. I mean the action you’ve taken is commendable. I wouldn’t have thought of doing the things you’ve done so far.’
‘But it’s not enough, Betty. ‘There are lives at risk. Until they safe, the situation is a hazard. I would like to contact Mr, Brown at Croydon branch but I don’t think that’s wise.’
She tapped out a number on the telephone and waited for a reply. Rigby walked over to the window to watch people streaming out of their offices, eddying into the maelstrom of workers on their way to lunch. In normal circumstances, he would be glancing at his wristwatch in his old office, toying with the thought of going to the Manager’s Refreshment Club on the sixth floor of the building. Dining there had become one of his favourite habits. They always served ample helpings of food and he met the same people at the same tables every working day, discussing a variety of subjects from banking to cricket. Now it had all been stripped away from him. There was no time to dine and sit around talking to other managers. He was doomed to suffer the proverbial sandwich and a quick cup of coffee in the tense atmosphere of his new office. There was a reprieve in sight although he would have to wait for three months to pass which was the deal he made with MacDonald.