The Borough

by Steve Dockray

CHAPTER EIGHT

  Even on Tuesday morning Winner wasn't sure whether he would be going to the funeral service in the afternoon, though he had worn a dark suit and sober tie just in case. He had hoped to avoid it, not wishing to intrude on the private family grief, but in the end Westerman had asked him to go as his representative.

  Sitting waiting in the church, it occurred to Winner that in a lot of murder mystery films that he'd seen on television, the police would be there, just to see who turned up. Of course, this wasn't a murder, but Stewart had been up to something irregular that might have involved others. Winner looked around. There were several people from his own office, which was hardly surprising, and a scattering of people from other departments. He discreetly jotted down the names of those he recognised, including three councillors.

  "What's that for?" Peter Vaughan asked him softly.

  Winner looked up, unaware he was being observed. "Just in case the Treasurer asks me who was here."

  "That's Nigel's brother over there," said Vaughan, nodding his head in the direction of an older looking version of Stewart. "I was talking to him before we came in. I couldn't believe what he said. Apparently, Nigel's wife got home from making some arrangements yesterday afternoon and found that the house had been broken into. The police think the burglars must have been disturbed and left in a hurry, because there wasn't much taken. The house was in an incredible state, though, with drawers turned out and stuff pulled out of cupboards. It must have been a terrible shock, coming right on top of Nigel's death."

  "Awful. It makes you wonder whether they knew. There are some warped people about."

  Further conversation was stopped by the start of the service. Drawers and cupboards turned out. Not much taken. Winner wondered if anything at all had been taken. Probably not if the intruders had been looking for a diskette, a notebook or an envelope containing ten thousand pounds. How long would it take them to work out that the next most likely hiding place would be Stewart's office? Of course it was just possible that whoever it was had already had a look through Stewart's desk without making a mess. Anyone in the general office would have legitimate reasons to look through the drawers and it might be possible for someone else to linger in the Town Hall until everyone had gone. What if they found out that he, Winner, had been the first to look through the desk. Would they try to recover the items from him? They could never be sure that someone else hadn't got there before Winner. It might pay to be a little cautious, though. Not do anything out of the ordinary for a while.

  Winner stood up and sat down along with the rest of the congregation, only listening to the service with half his mind as he mulled over the possibilities. The brother got up and spoke for a few minutes. He looked fairly calm, but Winner could see the white knuckles gripping the lectern and hear the emotional waver in the voice. A thought was beginning to take shape in the back of Winner's mind. Just supposing that he had only discovered some small part of what was going on? Was it possible that Nigel Stewart's death hadn't been the nasty twist of fate that everyone supposed? And how on earth could he find out? From what he had heard, the police had very quickly decided that it must have been an accident. There had been no suggestion of brakes tampered with, or anything like that. In fact, as far as he knew, all that could be seen were two skid marks leading to a hole punched in the safety barrier. Out of the question to go to the police suggesting otherwise, unless he turned in the ten thousand. No, it was impossible. Organised killings just didn't happen in sleepy little places like Sharmouth and Greycliffe.

  The organ had eventually wheezed into life for the last time. The widow and brother would be going on to the crematorium, but the rest of the congregation were already dispersing. There were quite a few people waiting to get out of the doors. Stewart must have had a wide circle of friends and family. Different from a person dying in old age when their contemporaries were either dead or too frail to travel to the funeral. Winner and Vaughan shuffled towards the exit together.

  "When did you say the break-in happened?" Winner asked.

  "Yesterday afternoon, I'm not sure when. Why?"

  "Just curious. Most burglaries occur in the daytime, don't they?"

  "I suppose so. It's not a line of work I've ever seriously considered."

  Winner almost laughed, but remembered just in time where he was. What Vaughan had said was relevant, though. If a member of staff had broken into Stewart's house, he would have to have been absent from the office. In a week's time, when all the data was on the system, Winner would be able to call up a report on his terminal showing who had been sick or on holiday that afternoon and check which areas the staff who travelled around were supposed to have been working in.

  Just as they were leaving the church, Winner felt a tug at his sleeve. It was Sally Travis.

  "Have you got your car here?" she asked.

  "No, I walked. There's nowhere to park round here."

  "If you're walking back to the office, I'll tag along with you, if you don't mind. I don't like walking on my own after dark."

  "That's all right. I think a lot of people are going straight home. It's nearly five o'clock."

  "Barry asked me to get all my work up to date as much as possible, so I've been working on a bit into the evenings. It seems I'll be coming to work for you for a while."

  "When did you hear that?"

  "Barry told me he'd already seen it coming, then Westerman called him in this morning and didn't give him any choice in the matter."

  "Did he say when?"

  "Next Monday, as far as I know."

  They walked in silence for a short way, alone now that Vaughan had cut off through a side road to head for the car park. They turned the corner into the High Street, still busy with late afternoon trade now that Christmas was only two weeks away. The decorations and glitter were a strange contrast to the sombre atmosphere of the church and the budget difficulties at work. Winner stopped to look at the computers in Dixons shop window. Frosty The Snowman was blasting out through the open doors.

  "Thinking of getting a computer?" Sally asked, raising her voice above the racket.

  "No, I've got one already. I might be getting one for my son for Christmas. He's only ten, but he seems to have a flair for them. Mind you, most kids do these days".

  "That's true. It's unbelievable how hard it is to get some of the older staff to use their terminals."

  "A lot of them just got passed by. Their clerks and typists had to learn a while ago and now they're embarrassed to show their ignorance. That's why we need you up in the accountancy office. Quite apart from Nigel's regular work, there are some systems problems that need sorting out. I haven't got anyone else with the necessary skills."

  "I'll do my best. What sort of problems?"

  "I can't really talk about it here. How long did you intend to stay in the office this evening?"

  "An hour or two, maybe."

  "Why not come along and see me when you've had enough and we could go and have something to eat at the Dog and Duck?"

  Sally turned away, as if to look in the shop window they were passing. It was a butcher's, which already had large turkeys hanging on display. What on earth did you do with a turkey between now and Christmas, she wondered. The thing would start rotting. Didn't she want to keep a reasonable distance between herself and Winner? It might be tricky to get too close. Her mind drifted to the seafood pie that was waiting at home for microwaving in her rather chilly and empty semi. The Dog and Duck sounded rather appealing. Besides, what did Winner know about the systems problems? She turned back to him, suddenly aware that her interest in poultry might appear a little strange.

  "OK, that sounds nice. I'll try to get along for about half past six."

  Back at his desk, Winner sat in a pool of light from his desk lamp, the room light off and the general office in darkness. A soft glow came from the screen of his personal computer, where he was entering ledger totals on a spreadsheet. He would hav
e to tell Sally everything he knew, apart from his finds in Stewart's desk. If their investigation revealed cash payouts to Stewart or anyone else there was no way it could be tied in to Winner. After about an hour he had finished tapping in the data. He entered the formula to get a total, then copied it across the columns. There was no doubt. There was exactly fifty thousand pounds less in the individual accounts that made up the ledger than there was in the overall total. A few years ago the discrepancy would have been more obvious, but that was in the days when any of the accountants or auditors could easily have looked at the complete ledger as one document. Now people looked at the ledger on a need to know basis. Separate sections were kept for the semi-autonomous trading divisions and access was restricted for commercial competition reasons. Fifty thousand pounds. It could be a bug in the program, but it could also be the source of the ten thousand keeping warm in Winner's flat. So where was the other forty thousand?

  Winner turned on his bubblejet printer and used the mouse to mark the area of his spreadsheet that he wanted printed. Within a couple of minutes he was able to tear off the two page report. There was no substitute for seeing it in black and white. He looked at it for a while, then folded it and tucked it in his inside jacket pocket.

  There was a knock on his door and Sally Travis walked in.

  "I almost thought you'd gone, it's so dark around this part of the building."

  "I quite like the feeling of being on my own," he told her.

  "That's not my choice," she said. "I like to put all the lights on and fight away the winter gloom."

  Winner turned off the equipment and grabbed his coat from the stand in the corner.

  The Dog and Duck was fairly quiet, pausing in the lull between workers having a drink on the way home and the evening influx of pre-Christmas socialisers. Winner asked for a half pint of lager, Sally wanted a white wine. They ordered cottage pie from the menu and chose a table near the open log fire, a feature always guaranteed to put Winner in a good mood.

  "Did you hear about the Mayor?" Sally asked, once they had piled their coats on a spare seat and sat down.

  "No. What about him?"

  "When we got back from the funeral, Barry told me the Mayor was supposed to have been there, but the limo broke down the other side of Greycliffe and they had to wait an hour for the AA. He wasn't very happy."

  Winner laughed. "Serves them right for giving the contract to those cowboys. The cheapest doesn't always work out the best value."

  "Everything's down to price these days. Quality of service is specified, but there are always some critical items left out of the contract specifications. Just look at that fiasco with the grass cutting. In half the locations they forgot to specify the surrounding banks and fiddling little areas and we ended up with a neatly cut area bordered by four foot high weeds."

  "I noticed. You have to fight your way through the nettles to get down some of the cliff paths now."

  "I think I'll just slip into the ladies' room before the food arrives."

  Winner watched her as she walked across to the door on the far side of the bar. She must be just past her mid thirties now, he thought. The last time he had worked with her he had been happily married and, as far as he knew, she had been living with one of the men who worked in the Planning Department. That was a couple of years ago, and the planning man had moved on to a job up north somewhere. She gave the impression now that she was resigned to being an unmarried career woman. Not that she was un-attractive. Far from it. She was about five foot six tall, slimmish, with a slightly elfin appearance accentuated by what Winner thought of as a pixie-style short cut to her blond hair. No doubt it was a lack of dependants that meant she could afford good clothes. She would bring a much needed splash of style back to the office. Strange that someone so attractive seemed to be unattached. Worth checking up on.

  Sally arrived back at the same time as the food. For a while they were silent, concentrating on the cottage pie. After a few minutes, Winner pulled the print-out from his jacket and spread it out on the table so that Sally could see.

  "What do you make of that then?" he asked.

  She looked down at the figures, while Winner watched for her reaction. Fifty thousand pounds, she thought. Two weeks ago it had been forty thousand. What had Nigel been doing? She had said stop and he had agreed. Worse than that, he had said there was no way anyone was going to detect the difference until the financial year end next March. She took her time finishing off the mouthful of cottage pie.

  "Are you sure you've copied the figures down properly."

  "I've double checked them all. The adding up's by IBM, not me."

  "Well then, it means one of two things. Either there's a fault in the program, which is failing to add transactions into one side or the other, and the ledger balances, but doesn't show it, or some discrepancy is being covered up for some reason."

  "Barry told me the other day that our systems are vulnerable and that money could already have gone missing. Do you think that's possible?"

  "What, stolen? I suppose so. It seems a bit far fetched for a sleepy place like Sharmouth though, doesn't it."

  "I'm not so sure. Westerman called me in yesterday and confessed that his Special Project team had lost money in some dodgy financial transactions. Barry's busy with some special investigations. Sharmouth isn't the well organised place it used to be."

  "How about some dessert, David?" Sally asked him.

  Winner started to get out of his seat. "What would you like?"

  "No, I'll get this. You paid for the pies. I can recommend the chocolate gateau."

  Winner nodded his agreement and sank back into his chair.

  Sally walked over to the bar and watched Winner out of the corner of her eye while she waited for the barman to finish serving another customer. How old would he be? Eight or ten years older than her, perhaps. Local government was reasonably kind to its workers, keeping them indoors away from too much harsh weather. Not too much stress, either, although that had changed of late with the new commercial practices that were being introduced. Winner looked quite good for his age, despite the slightly receding hairline. He certainly wasn't overweight and he only seemed to need glasses for reading small print. It was his rather dry sense of humour that appealed. Perhaps it would be sensible to try and keep clear of him, but there was no way the evidence could point to her. It might be better to keep close and be well informed about what was going on. Yes, that seemed like a better idea. The barman appeared and she ordered the desserts and fresh drinks.