The Homecoming

by Rosie Howard

  They all thought silently for a minute.

  ‘Anyway,’ said Ben, standing up and stretching. ‘I’ll leave you girls to it – got to go and mark essays again. Going to be a late one.’

  ‘I’m not going to be keeping this child up for long,’ said Serena to Ben. ‘She needs her sleep.’

  Ben nodded. ‘There are lots of studies on sleep and healing,’ he told a sceptical-looking Maddy. ‘The general finding was you need lots of the first to facilitate the second. Remember, you’ve got the appointment where you’re hopefully getting rid of your cast in a couple of weeks.’

  ‘Am I?’ said Maddy. ‘Yay!’

  ‘Sleep,’ said Ben, giving Maddy a hug. ‘And don’t think about Kevin.’

  ‘Ah, but you see now I’m thinking about Kevin. It’s like when people say “don’t think about elephants” and then all you can think about is elephants.’

  ‘Fine,’ said Ben. ‘Don’t think about elephants, then.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Hunched over Maddy’s laptop, she and Serena discovered they were a better match for the funding criteria than Maddy had first thought.

  With trepidation and a sense of fatalism she attached the document to the email address and pressed send.

  ‘Do you think we’ll get it?’ she said, sitting back in her chair with a sigh.

  ‘Definitely,’ said Serena. ‘I’ve never been surer about anything in my life.’ She paused. ‘Except what a great couple you and Ben make, of course.’

  ‘We’re not,’ protested Maddy, blushing.

  ‘Then you should be,’ said Serena. ‘I’m very fond of you both and I just happen to think you’re very well matched plus – I admit – I’d dearly love to see Ben settled.’

  ‘That’s so maternal. You can’t feel motherly,’ Maddy protested. ‘You’re not old enough.’

  ‘I blinking am,’ Serena insisted. ‘I’ll have you know I was very precocious – and very naughty too. I could easily have had a baby in my teens and he or she would be your age. Lucky I didn’t, though.’

  ‘I don’t think of you as my mum’s age. She had me in her early twenties,’ said Maddy. ‘Actually, when I first saw you and Ben together I was a tiny bit jealous,’ Maddy confessed. ‘I thought you had a thing.’

  ‘Me and Ben!’ hooted Serena. ‘He’s like my little brother.’

  ‘Ben told me about Andrew. I’m really sorry.’

  ‘I know. It was crap.’

  ‘But at least you’ve got Giles.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Serena. ‘I have.’

  They were silent for a moment.

  ‘So,’ said Serena, brightening, ‘what gives between your mother and Patrick, then?’

  ‘You’re quite the matchmaker, aren’t you? Honestly, there’s nothing … whatever you and Ben would like to think. He’s about fifteen years older than her, for a start. I hadn’t even met him until I came here to study. Mum just said he was an old friend from when she was younger, that they’d lost touch but that I should look him up and he would look after me. And he did. That’s all.’

  Serena pursed her lips, knowingly. ‘Just keep telling yourself that. Personally, I think there’s more.’

  ‘Yeah well, you think me and Ben are an item too and we’re not – so your strike rate isn’t great, is it?’

  ‘You’ll see,’ said Serena.

  Maddy didn’t share Serena’s confidence about the funding. In her mind’s eye she could imagine Giles’s contact coming into work, opening his email and opening up their application. What if they had entirely missed the point? Not done enough? Failed to impress in some fundamental and irrevocable way? She realised, sipping her coffee, that she minded failing with the Bespoke Consortium very much indeed. It wasn’t just the thought of letting down all the artisans she was creating a platform for, it was – she admitted to herself – the crushing disappointment she would feel if this, the most exciting project she had ever worked on, flopped. Patrick was improving daily and, with luck, her efforts to renegotiate a lease for him would be successful … By Christmas, just a few weeks away, her reason for staying in Sussex, within a community she felt increasingly at home with, would have disappeared. She would have no purpose. No excuse to stay.

  She was also hurt that Patrick and Helen were so enthusiastic about her moving out.

  ‘What about you?’ Maddy had said to Patrick. ‘You don’t want to be here on your own, do you?’

  ‘I don’t need a nursemaid,’ he had said brusquely. ‘And even if I did,’ he had added, ‘I’ve yet to get rid of your mother.’

  Maddy was packing. When her phone rang, she scrambled for it, finding it under a folded pile of clothes just before it went to answerphone. It was Libby.

  ‘You’ll never guess,’ said Libby.

  ‘Probably not,’ agreed Maddy. ‘What?’

  ‘Okay, so …’ Libby stalled, for dramatic effect, ‘I think we’ve got the little git.’

  She paused again.

  ‘Go on,’ said Maddy. ‘Spit it out!’

  ‘Okay, okay,’ she relented. ‘So, I took the stocktake and we already had the clue that turnover for Kevin’s shift was lower than it should be, so that made me think … what about if I compare the retail value of the entire year’s worth of stock sold against the entire year’s worth of turnover and guess what?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The retail value of the stock exceeds the turnover. Quite a lot. Several thousand pounds, in fact.’

  ‘Oookaaay,’ said Maddy, scratching her head.

  ‘So-o,’ she went on, ‘that tells us there’s a hole in our turnover.’

  ‘Someone’s been stealing stock, maybe?’

  ‘Possibly,’ said Libby. ‘But to my mind it’s more likely they’ve been selling everything but not all the money is making its way into the turnover figures, which also explains why it looks lower than it should be, given your hunch that the bar actually seems quite busy …’

  Maddy slowly ran it over in her head.

  ‘But how?’

  ‘That’s the final piece of the puzzle,’ said Libby. ‘You physically can’t put money in the till or give change unless you’ve keyed in the transaction because it won’t be open.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Maddy at last. ‘Bingo! Did I mention it’s been noticed that Kevin has a habit of keeping the till drawer open? We couldn’t work out why.’

  ‘We know why now, alright,’ said Libby grimly. ‘If he’s taking money for drinks and not ringing it into the till, then all he has to do at the end of the night is make the money match the till roll and then pocket the extra.’

  ‘No wonder the takings look as if they’re low,’ said Maddy. ‘And no wonder he insists on cashing up himself,’ she added.

  ‘So, now we get him,’ said Libby. ‘Is he onto us, do you suppose? If he knows we’ve done the stocktake he’ll guess.’

  ‘Actually, by sheer lucky chance, I don’t think he does,’ said Maddy. She had been irritated at his message on the answerphone claiming to need a day off to attend his grandmother’s funeral. She strongly suspected Kevin was working his way through a positive rugby team of grandmothers but it meant he was unware of the stocktake.

  ‘Don’t breathe a word to anyone,’ she said to Libby. ‘Not yet.’

  ‘Wouldn’t dream of it,’ agreed Libby. ‘I want you to get him, though. I’ve always hated that man. He’s evil.’

  ‘I trusted that little shit,’ said Patrick, flushing with annoyance. ‘And this is how he repays me.’

  Patrick relaxed visibly when Maddy outlined the likely figure stolen by Kevin over the last six months.

  ‘That’s the kind of money we should have been making,’ he said. ‘I knew it! Top Taverns might get their outrageous rent after all.’

  ‘Have you had the revised lease?’ asked Maddy. ‘You never said.’

  ‘It came this morning,’ admitted Patrick, rifling through the papers on the kitchen table and handing the A4 envelope to Maddy. She slid the paper
s out impatiently and flicked through to the page she was looking for.

  ‘Bloody cheek,’ she said, when she saw the sum they wanted. ‘Makes the one with the beer ties look like a good deal.’

  ‘It is high,’ agreed Patrick, ‘but if the kind of sums Kevin has been helping himself to actually stayed in the business, we could afford it. Just.’

  ‘Plus you get rid of the ghastly beer tie.’

  ‘Quite so,’ said Patrick, his eyes alight with the possibilities. ‘If I get in beers that taste better and have a higher margin, I reckon we could increase our profits, even with the higher rent. I could get in guest beers, a beer of the month … Plus, with a bit of money in the pot we could actually hire a band every once in a while. Live music always draws the crowds …’

  ‘One other thing, though,’ said Maddy. ‘Now we’ve got him on that, maybe you can explain something else.’ She told him about the apparently low spirits consumption.

  ‘That old trick!’ exploded Patrick. He shook his head. ‘Can’t believe I didn’t spot it … of course! I can’t remember the last time I had to place an order for spirits, but it just didn’t occur to me, what with all the other stuff to worry about …’

  ‘What?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘Oh,’ Patrick waved a hand dismissively, ‘it’s the oldest pub trick in the book. A dodgy barman will sell his own spirits and hive off the income. The markup’s good, you see?’

  Maddy didn’t really.

  ‘And,’ Patrick went on, ‘I bet I know where he’s buying it from. We occasionally get blokes showing up flogging cheap vodka and Scotch. It’s probably counterfeit. Could be anything. Could be laced with antifreeze, anything … I just send them packing, obviously.’ He looked concerned. ‘If there’s any chance we’re selling counterfeit spirits we need to sort it out.’

  ‘One thing at a time,’ said Maddy. ‘We can’t arouse his suspicions; not yet.’

  ‘Fine, one more night and he’s out. I’m more than ready to get back to pulling pints,’ said Patrick. ‘And it wouldn’t do your mother any harm to lend a hand for a few days. Just like old times, it’ll be.’

  ‘Did she work here before?’

  ‘She did,’ said Patrick, staring into space and smiling fondly. ‘It’s how it all began. She turned up with her sandals and her hippy smocks wanting a summer job. I said yes and, my goodness, we worked hard. There was a music festival that year, I remember …’

  ‘… and a heatwave,’ said Helen, coming into the room and putting her hand on Patrick’s shoulder. ‘We all absolutely boiled. The pub was so rammed we set up a temporary bar in the car park, just to give us a bit more space. Do you remember?’

  ‘Ah yes, I remember it well,’ sang Patrick, tilting his head to look at her.

  They didn’t want to arouse suspicion by turning out in force that night. Patrick had been persuaded to stay upstairs with the argument that he would give the game away too soon if he exploded in rage the first time Kevin did it. Ben had the idea that they might need objective proof. That stumped them all for a while, until Maddy remembered the camera trained on the door.

  ‘We have to have them on the outside of the pub, just in case, but when Patrick got them installed he decided to have one inside too, trained on the door to catch people who run away without paying for their food. Not that many people do, I might add.’

  Ben stood on a chair to take a look.

  ‘It’s easy enough,’ he said. ‘If I unscrew it and put it the other way around it’ll cover most of the bar. If I get the angle right it will just about see whether the till drawer is open. It’s not ideal, but I think it’ll do and I can’t imagine Kevin will notice anything’s changed.’

  ‘I’d not noticed it at all until now,’ Helen said, ‘but he will if he sees the screen showing the footage, won’t he?’

  ‘Actually,’ admitted Patrick, ‘the monitor broke a couple of years ago but I think the footage is saved onto a hard disk or something highly technical. If I ever needed it – and I never have – I could retrieve it providing I do it within twenty-four hours. It automatically deletes after that to make room for the next lot.’

  ‘I’m impressed,’ said Maddy, at this show of technical know-how.

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Patrick. ‘I’m not just a pretty face, you know.’

  ‘Not even a pretty face,’ said Helen. ‘Shouldn’t we just check we can get the footage off the hard disk?’

  ‘No time,’ said Ben, jumping down off the chair. ‘He’ll be here in a minute. You lot skedaddle and Maddy and I will pretend to act casual.’

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The evening session started off quietly. A few of the local shopkeepers popped in for a post-work drink and were quickly on their way home to supper, but by about seven o’clock the bar was beginning to fill. Maddy was bringing Ben up to speed on her and Serena’s application for funding.

  ‘It’s a great idea,’ said Ben, ‘and I’m sure he’ll see that.’

  Neither of them wanted to stare too fixedly at what Kevin was doing.

  ‘Ridiculous that we’re the ones feeling guilty,’ commented Maddy. ‘What if we confront him and he goes mad?’ she asked.

  ‘We don’t have to do anything tonight. Getting the evidence is enough for now.’

  ‘I don’t trust Patrick not to blow a gasket on him once we know.’

  ‘Tonight it is, then,’ said Ben, taking Maddy’s hand and giving it a squeeze. ‘It’ll be fine. He’s hardly going to compound the situation by doing anything silly.’

  ‘Should we involve the police?’

  ‘We could, but just sacking him solves our problem. We’ve got no realistic chance of getting the money back, whether he gets convicted of theft or not.’

  ‘What do you suppose he’s spending it all on?’

  ‘Gambling? Drugs?’ suggested Ben. ‘It could easily be drugs. Look at the state of him.’

  ‘I’d never thought,’ said Maddy. ‘But yes, he does look very unhealthy. I suppose I knew he smoked dope from when I was here before,’ she mused. ‘It didn’t occur to me it was anything stronger.’

  ‘Even marijuana can be pretty destructive,’ observed Ben. ‘He’ll have access to anything and everything, working in a pub. I reckon he’s on the hard stuff too.’

  ‘Here we go,’ said Maddy, grabbing Ben’s arm. Her eyes were fixed on the till. ‘Drawer open. Don’t look.’

  Ben casually rested his head on his hand and sneaked a glance before turning back to Maddy.

  ‘What now?’

  ‘Just watch, Keep it cool, keep it cool …’

  They both waited. Then Kevin took the customer’s ten-pound note, walked to the till, put it in the drawer and grabbed the change. He loped morosely back to the customer and tipped the change into his hand.

  Maddy and Ben looked at each other.

  ‘He didn’t ring it up,’ they said simultaneously.

  ‘Got him,’ said Ben.

  Maddy’s stomach lurched. ‘Let’s wait a little longer, see if he does it again …’

  The bar was busier now and Kevin was moving swiftly, dealing with customer orders, collecting glasses and loading the glass-washer machine. Most of the time he would ring up the transactions in the normal way but – now they were watching – it was clear to see that approximately every fourth transaction he would fail to close the till. The next time he took money he would hand out change without having tapped anything in.

  ‘He’s planning to keep something like a quarter of the money,’ said Ben in amazement.

  ‘Yep, that’s about it,’ said Maddy. ‘According to Libby it’s around twenty-two per cent down year on year. So, with inflation, a quarter is about right. And I’m not talking a quarter of the profits, I’m talking a quarter of the turnover.’

  ‘Must be nigh on all the profits then, after costs,’ mused Ben. ‘No wonder Patrick’s been in despair.’

  ‘So, what do we do now?’ asked Maddy.

  ‘Insist on cashing up?’ sug
gested Ben. ‘That’ll provide a bit more evidence, won’t it?’

  ‘Yes,’ agreed Maddy, ‘but I—if I do that …’ she trailed away. ‘What might he do? I’ll be …’

  ‘I’ll obviously stay here,’ said Ben.

  ‘What if … ?’ Maddy clasped her hands together to stop them shaking. Ben put his hand over them and gave them a reassuring squeeze.

  ‘You can do this.’

  Maddy took a deep, shuddering breath and nodded.

  To kill time until the end of the shift, they went upstairs to Helen and Patrick, who were getting ready for bed, and told them what they planned to do. It also gave them a chance to check out the CCTV footage and – after a bit of head-scratching and fiddling – Ben managed to save extracts onto a data key, picking out a couple of examples where it illustrated clearly what Kevin was doing. ‘I’m so frustrated I didn’t work it out weeks ago,’ commented Ben. ‘I saw him do it; I just couldn’t see why, or understand what was so significant about it.’

  ‘You have to be crooked to spot criminal behaviour,’ said Patrick, yawning. ‘Anyhow, it’s not your responsibility, it’s mine. The little git. To think I paid him a bonus last Christmas. I even gave him a pay rise, even though I couldn’t afford to. I just felt it was the decent thing to do with me not pulling my weight like I used to.’

  ‘You will again,’ said Helen. ‘Nothing would give me more pleasure than to know he won’t set foot behind that bar again, and I’m looking forward to getting back behind it myself,’ she said. ‘At least for a while …’ she added to Maddy and Ben. ‘You will be careful, won’t you?’

  ‘Yep,’ said Maddy, wiping her sweating hands on her jeans and trying to relax on the sofa. They still had an hour to go. It was worse than waiting for the dentist.