Acts & Monuments Read online

  Barry sighed with relief.

  “I’m sorry, Barry. I don’t want to burden you.”

  “Oh, no, no, no. Sorry. No, I’m happy to listen – honestly.”

  This was all the invitation Saleema needed. “Well, you know we’ve been looking to go back to Pakistan to look after my father. We need to get over there soon – he’s very frail now and he needs me. The hospital is chasing payment for his bill and he has no money to pay, so we were going to use my redundancy payment to clear his bill.”

  “Is there a problem?”

  “Not with that, no. But he needs ongoing treatment and specialist care. You don’t get those things for free in Pakistan. You have to pay, and he only has a small pension. It’s barely enough to keep the roof over his head. We’ve been trying to get the money from my mother-in-law’s estate released – it’s quite a lot of money and we’ve been waiting over two years already. That would give us more than enough to pay his bills and leave us something to live on while we’re out there. It all seemed to be working out exactly as we’d hoped.”

  Indeed it did. Barry was struggling to see what the problem could be.

  “We thought everything was ready. They said they could release the money as soon as we got out there – Samuel has even booked the flights. The timing was perfect; providential. But now…” Saleema tailed off in despair.

  “What?”

  “Now the lawyers are saying they can’t release my mother-in-law’s money until we’ve paid the necessary ‘taxes and administrative fees’ – that’s ten per cent of the estate! There’s no way we can find that sort of money.”

  “Well, can’t you just get them to deduct the ten per cent off the amount that they pay you?”

  “Oh Barry,” she said as though he were a small child to whom she was having to explain that not everyone in the world was a nice person. “They’re not really taxes and administrative fees.”

  “Aren’t they?”

  “No! They’re bribes: backhanders.”

  “Oh.”

  “And they can’t just take ten per cent off the payment they make to us because that will show what they’ve done, and they obviously don’t want to show that. That’s why they’re insisting that we have to pay them in cash – up front – before they’ll release the money.”

  “Have you been to the police? Surely that’s against the law.”

  “Oh Barry. This is Pakistan. We’re Christians. No one cares. The police probably wouldn’t even investigate, or if they did they’d ask us for an even bigger bribe to do anything about it. It’s the way things are done.”

  “So what are you going to do?”

  “That’s just it. We don’t know what to do. We can go out there, but without the money there’s no way we can pay for my father’s treatment. And without that…” The silence she left spoke for itself.

  “But it’s your money,” said Barry, feeling affronted at the iniquity of it all. “Surely they’ve got to let you have it at some point?”

  “We could go to the courts, but there’s no Legal Aid. It would cost us a small fortune in legal fees and take years – and we still might not win. But, even if we did, my father hasn’t got years. He needs the treatment to start now. Somehow, we’ve just got to find that ten per cent.”

  “Can’t you try to negotiate them down a bit?”

  “That’s what we’ve been trying to do for the past year. We thought we’d got them to see sense, but ten per cent is as low as they’ll go. It’s normally twenty per cent for Christians!”

  “Have you thought of taking out a loan? I mean it would only be for a few weeks, wouldn’t it?”

  “That’s what my husband has been trying to do, but none of the English banks will loan us any money once he tells them we’re going to Pakistan indefinitely. And none of the Pakistani banks seem interested in loaning money to Christians so that they can pay a bribe.”

  Barry could see their point, to be fair. “Family?”

  “We’ve tried that and we’ve managed to raise something, but it’s nowhere near enough. The estate’s quite big because of my late father-in-law’s business – about 80 million rupees – so ten per cent is a lot of money to find.”

  Barry wasn’t fully conversant with the exchange rate of the Pakistani rupee, but 80 million of them sounded like a lot.

  “Gosh,” he said, conscious that he had nothing else to suggest. “You are in a pickle. Sorry.”

  “I know, and I was so sure that this was all God’s doing,” said Saleema with real conviction. “But unless we can find someone to lend us £40,000 then it looks like everything is going to fall apart, and my poor father…” She descended into tears again.

  Barry, however, was no longer concerned about Saleema’s welfare because he was experiencing something that felt like an epiphany.

  “I’m sorry, but how much did you say you needed?”

  “Forty thousand pounds,” Saleema replied through her tears. “We need to find 8 million rupees in total – about £60,000. We think that between the three children we can probably raise £20,000, but that leaves us £40,000 short.”

  “You need £40,000? But you can pay it all back within a couple of weeks?” He wanted to be absolutely sure that he’d heard her correctly.

  “Yes. Why? You don’t happen to know someone who’s got £40,000 to spare, do you?” Saleema asked with uncharacteristic sarcasm.

  “As a matter of fact, Saleema,” Barry said, his heart racing, “I think I just might.”

  Twenty-Eight

  The moment Barry got home, he raced upstairs to the home office and shut the door. On his way out of Monument’s offices, he had quickly slipped Chris Malford’s tenancy file under his arm. There were plenty of examples of Chris’ signature on the file. This meant that all Barry had to do was practise copying it until he was confident that it would fool whoever was tasked with checking it at the bank.

  His plan was simple: Saleema would check with Samuel, her husband, the precise amount of money they needed. She would then calculate the transaction fees that would have to be paid to convert that money into Pakistani rupees and transfer it to their Pakistani bank account. Barry would write a cheque for that amount from Chris Malford’s account and give it to them. Once the solicitor released the estate, Samuel and Saleema could repay the money.

  Barry spent much of the rest of the evening perfecting his impression of Chris Malford’s signature. It took several attempts before he was able to get something anywhere near, but his art-school training was put to good use, and, after a while, he found himself able to produce a passable signature. He couldn’t believe that a bank teller would be able to detect that any of his later attempts was a forgery.

  All that he needed now was a text from Saleema confirming the amount of the cheque. Eventually, Barry’s phone pinged.

  “Thank u so much Barry. If Mr Malford is still willing/able to loan us the money, we need exactly £41,845. I hope that is OK? Thank u 4 sorting. God bless, S.”

  Barry texted back to say that, indeed, it was OK. He inserted the figure into the appropriate places in the cheque and went downstairs. He now had a reasonable chance of laundering nearly £42,000 of the money currently sitting in Chris Malford’s account. Assuming he kept withdrawing £250 per day in cash from various cashpoints, the £6,746 that wasn’t being paid to the Bhattis could be withdrawn before Monument were likely to notice that the money was missing and, crucially, before anyone was likely to discover the existence of Chris Malford’s bank account and have it frozen.

  That night, his sleep was filled with dreams of being pursued. Wide, open boulevards became narrower streets, became slender lanes, became threadlike alleys, which culminated in dead-ends. In his dream, he felt the darkening presence of his pursuer fall across his shoulder, but, as he turned to face him, Barry woke up. He tried to think of something else, some
thing other than the money, but, every time he slipped back into sleep, the dream was always the same. He never saw his pursuer, but Barry knew exactly what he wanted.

  The consequence was that, when he arrived at Monument’s offices the next morning, Barry already felt as tired as he normally did after a full day’s work. He had barely sat down and booted up his computer when his phone rang. It was Saleema’s cheery voice that greeted him.

  “Good morning, Barry. I saw your car pulling up on the car park, so I thought I’d just give you a quick ring.”

  “Ah, yes. Errr… Good morning, Saleema; obviously, yes. Uh… sorry,” Barry replied, somewhat flustered. It was early enough, and he was tired enough, to still be occupying that awkward, pre-coffee hinterland between the world of wake and the world of sleep. Whilst his body had familiarised itself with the sensory world around him, his mind was still distracted by the shadowy presence of his dreams; the one that lurked just behind him and whispered of menace.

  “I just wondered if everything was still OK? With Mr Malford.” There was a pause whilst Saleema waited for Barry to respond. “The cheque?” she asked.

  “Oh yes, the cheque. Yes, sorry… Yes, everything’s fine. I’ve got it with me here. Do you want it now? I kind of assumed—”

  “Oh, yes, please, Barry! That would be wonderful. I’ve arranged for my husband to come in with me so that he can pick it up and pay it in immediately,” Saleema said, before adding in a whisper, “I don’t really want him hanging around here, if I’m honest. People might start asking questions.”

  “Oh, right. Yes, of course. We don’t want that. OK… I’ll just pop up now then. Sorry.”

  “There’s no need to apologise. I’ll see you in a minute. Bye!”

  A few moments later, Barry arrived at Saleema’s desk. He was relieved to see that none of her colleagues were at their desks, although other staff were starting to arrive.

  “Well, here it is. As requested.” He proffered the cheque to Saleema in a plain white envelope in order not to draw too much attention to exactly what he was doing. He felt uncomfortably warm, but wondered if that was just because Saleema had adjusted the comfort cooling system.

  She opened the envelope and took a surreptitious look at the cheque, wary of anyone else seeing. Her hand went up to her mouth and her eyes began to water. She couldn’t say anything; she looked too emotional. Instead, she handed the envelope to her husband. Samuel Bhatti was a short, portly man with swept-back, greying hair and a toothbrush moustache. Despite retirement, he still wore a blazer and tie, like an off-duty army major. He took the envelope impassively and also quickly scanned the cheque. His face didn’t register so much as a flicker.

  “Thank you, Mr Todd,” he said. “And you’re sure the cheque is good?”

  “Samuel!” Saleema slapped her husband’s arm.

  “Oh, absolutely. I’ve seen proof of funds.” Barry was conscious of talking in a barely audible whisper.

  “Wonderful! Thank you so much, Barry,” said Saleema.

  “Yes, I don’t know if my wife explained to you, but it may take a few weeks for us to release the money,” Samuel whispered. “We need to pay the cheque into our account here and then transfer the money over to our account in Pakistan. We fly out to Peshawar at the end of next week; hopefully, by the time we get there the money will be waiting for us. Then we’ve got to arrange to withdraw it in cash and take it to the solicitors. They should release our money immediately, but it might take a few days to clear. We can wire the money back to Mr Malford’s account as soon as it does. I assume the details on the cheque are the ones that we use?”

  “Ah, yes… about that. It’s not quite as simple as that, I’m afraid.”

  “Really?” Barry sensed Samuel Bhatti’s antennae begin to rise. The fact was, Barry needed the Bhattis to repay the cash into his own account. If they simply repaid it directly to Christian Malford, then Barry would be no better off. But he needed to come up with a plausible reason as to why it would be necessary to pay the money to him. He could sense that Samuel Bhatti was considerably less trusting than his wife and knew that his carefully worked-out plan could all fall apart if what he said next wasn’t perfectly chosen.

  “No. The thing is… the money needs to go into a… different… account,” said Barry, sensing, even as he did so, two sweat patches beginning to spread underneath his arms. “It’s a business account or something… I’m not sure.”

  “Well, that’s not a problem,” said Saleema matter-of-factly. “Just give us the sort code and account number, and we can pay it into that, if that’s what Mr Malford wants.”

  “Great,” said Barry. “But what about the account name? I assume you need that.”

  “Not really. With electronic payments they never check them – as long as the account number and sort code are legitimate ones, they just transfer the money across anyway,” Saleema replied.

  “Really?” said Barry, with slightly more enthusiasm than he felt he should have shown for what was basically an obscure technical detail.

  “Really! It’s incredible,” Saleema replied. “I’ll say the money is supposed to be going to Christian Malford, but the only thing they check is that the account details are linked to a real account.”

  Barry was so stunned by what he was hearing that he wanted to check that he’d heard it right. “But surely that’s a massive risk. You could get people to pay money meant for someone else into your own account and the bank would just do it because you’ve given details for a real account.”

  “Why do you think mandate fraud is so common?” Samuel said.

  Suddenly a number of things began to make sense. Barry had changed the bank account details on the invoice that Saleema has raised, but he hadn’t changed the account name. However, if the bank didn’t check the name of the intended payee, then it was an invitation for criminals to send false invoices to legitimate companies requesting electronic payment be made. And because it was such an invitation, there was no chance the police could possibly investigate all the crimes committed.

  So, Barry didn’t have to bother concocting some frankly implausible excuse for the money to be paid somewhere else because, as long as Samuel and Saleema thought they were paying the money back to Christian Malford, it didn’t matter.

  “Well, you learn something new every day,” he said, still somewhat stunned.

  “Absolutely,” said Saleema “We will make sure Mr Malford gets it back as soon as possible. Just let us have the payment details as quickly as you can. And please make sure he understands how grateful we are. This really is appreciated, Barry.”

  “Oh, absolutely. I’ve made sure he knows that.”

  It occurred to Barry that he could have just given Samuel his own bank account details there and then, but having the money in his bank account seemed a huge risk, despite what Alun had said. At the moment, there was still nothing to link Barry conclusively with the appropriation of Monument’s money. Once it was sitting in Barry’s account, though, the situation changed. Ideally, he needed to find a way to spend the money – or at least some of it – without it actually appearing in his bank account at all. It seemed a bit of a stretch, but the information that Saleema had just told him made it seem less implausible than it had done just a few moments ago.

  “What I can’t understand though,” Samuel said in measured tones, “is why Mr Malford would do this for us. Why would a complete stranger help us out in this way? He’s taking a bit of a risk, isn’t he?”

  “Oh Samuel!” said Saleema. “It’s because he’s a Christian. I’m sure the Lord has laid it upon his heart. Isn’t that the case, Barry?”

  Barry hadn’t really thought about this before. He’d been so eager to snap up the opportunity of getting the money offshore that he hadn’t thought about trying to explain why someone would go to such extraordinary lengths and take such extraordinary risks in or
der to help someone they’d never met.

  Barry didn’t really know a lot about Christians. He remembered Neville, who would do anything to help anyone. And, of course, there was Jean, who seemed to be someone who took the whole thing very seriously indeed; there was Sally, who was driven by a ferocious desire to champion the underdog; and then there was Saleema, who seemed simply incorruptible.

  None of those people appeared to Barry to have much in common, except perhaps that they persisted in the belief that bad things happened to people who did bad things, long after everyone else had given up the idea as charmingly misguided. But, given that Saleema knew more about Christians than him and she clearly thought that this was the most obvious explanation for Chris Malford’s largesse, it seemed simplest just to go along with that.

  “Yes, that’s it. Christian by name, Christian by nature,” Barry said, before realising that it sounded awfully lame. “Sorry.”

  “Anyway,” said Samuel, “I’d better be off. I’ll pay this in today. And please let Mr Malford know that we’ll be praying for him.”

  “I’ll definitely make sure he knows.”

  “Oh… and I hope it goes without saying,” Samuel added in a conspiratorial whisper, “we’d rather you didn’t mention anything about this to anyone else. We wouldn’t want anyone to get the wrong idea.”

  “Oh, absolutely not,” Barry assured him. “I understand. Your secret’s safe with me. And Mr Malford has asked for similar discretion from you. He doesn’t want everyone knowing what he’s done.”

  “Of course not. ‘Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret.’ Matthew chapter six, verses three and four. We understand,” Samuel replied. “Not a word, ever. We promise.”

  As Samuel left, Barry saw that Blessing, one of the other finance officers, had arrived. She seemed intrigued as to why Saleema’s husband had turned up to the office and why he was in conversation with Barry, so Barry quickly made his excuses and returned to his desk.