Acts & Monuments Read online

And then the figure, clearly agitated, turned to go down the stairs, taking the baseball cap out of his pocket, but facing the camera full-on for a brief moment before he put it on his head.

  “Freeze it there!” Gemma said, urgently. “Back a bit… just a bit more… there. That’s it.”

  Barry looked intently at the image on the screen.

  “Oh my God! Is that Adam Furst?” PC Rathbone asked.

  “Yes, I think it probably is,” replied Barry.

  Adam Furst was another of the lost young souls who had been washed up at The SHYPP. Barry hadn’t realised that Adam had known Chris Malford, but, given that they were both ‘well-known to the local police’ it wasn’t that much of a surprise. Indeed, the whole Furst family were notorious for being behind much of the crime in the north of Solihull, particularly in the suburb of Chelmsley Wood where they hailed from, and where The SHYPP was located.

  “So you know Adam Furst?” Gemma asked.

  “Yes. He lives at The SHYPP.”

  “The one in Chelmsley Wood?”

  “Yes. That’s the only one there is. Or the only one in Solihull, at any rate. There’s one in South Herefordshire that we nicked the name from.”

  Gemma turned back toward the screen and stared intently at the small, black rucksack in Adam Furst’s hand. “What’s in that bag, I wonder?” she asked no one in particular.

  “That, I’m afraid, I don’t know,” Barry replied. “Sorry.”

  “I’m just trying to work out if it’s big enough.”

  “For what?”

  “I don’t know. It’s just that when we went into the bedroom I could have sworn there was a gap in the dust on the dresser, as though someone had recently removed something. I couldn’t find anything in the flat, so I wondered if someone had taken it. I’d be jolly interested to know what it was and where it’s gone.”

  Barry felt the colour drain from his face and a film of cold sweat cover the surface of his skin. The box file. It was, he now remembered, still sitting in a small compartment in the boot of his car. Barry had deposited it there the previous Thursday in order to keep it out of sight. Unfortunately, not only was it out of sight, with everything else that had happened since, it had also been completely out of Barry’s mind. He’d never actually got round to handing it over to social services as he’d intended. Now it seemed that PC Rathbone was interested in identifying its whereabouts.

  “And we’ve found no background stuff at all. We’d normally pass all that stuff on to social services to help them, but there’s nothing. I’ll have to let them know we couldn’t find any papers, but it’s very odd.”

  Barry’s plan to drop the box file off at social services was instantly put on hold. At the moment, they had no reason to doubt the provenance of the box file, but if the police told social services that there were no personal papers in the flat they would naturally want to know why Barry seemed to know differently.

  “Anyway, thanks for letting me see that,” Gemma said. “Can you download it onto disk for me? I just need to talk this through with my colleague.”

  “Not a problem,” Barry said. “But I haven’t got administrator rights, so I’m afraid I’ll need to get one of the IT guys to do that for you.”

  “That’s OK. You can just post it through,” Gemma replied. “I just wish I knew what had been on that dresser, though.”

  “It was probably nothing,” said Barry.

  “You may well be right, Mr Todd, but I’d love to know who’s got whatever it was now. They’d have some explaining to do. Could be looking at fifteen months for tampering with evidence.”

  At which point Barry decided that not only would the box file not be going to social services, it would also not be handed over to the police.

  Barry didn’t feel that he was like Adam Furst. Adam made his living from theft, burglary and the occasional bit of fraudulent trading. And, for the past few weeks, he’d also been dealing in drugs. The little rucksack, the contents of which contents had so intrigued Gemma Rathbone, had actually contained, not a mysterious rectangular object, but an array of powders and pills that he had begun to sell.

  Even without knowing the detail of Adam Furst’s latest business venture, Barry would have confidently said, without any sense of self-deception, that his misdemeanour could not be compared to those of Adam or any of his relatives. But he now realised that he had unwittingly become a criminal. His hope was that, by simply destroying the box file, he could destroy all evidence of that fact. After all, he reasoned, if there was no evidence, then surely it would no longer be true?

  PART 2

  “The line dividing good and evil cuts through every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?”

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  The Line Through Every Human Heart

  26th October – 2nd November 2015

  Twelve

  Barry returned to his desk. On it, the invoice to The SHYPP sat accusingly. It was so frustrating. As Monument used a standard twelve-point Arial font across all of their software packages, it would have been a relatively simple task for him to amend the invoice if he’d known the new payment details that needed to be inserted. He could have printed them out and then pasted them onto the PDF. If he’d run the amended invoice through Monument’s colour photocopier, no one at The SHYPP would have been any the wiser. It might have technically been a breach of due process, but if the association received its money more quickly, who would honestly have cared?

  Just then he heard a distinctive ‘ping’ go off in his jacket pocket, indicating the arrival of a text. He checked his phone and saw that it was from Lauren. “Hey Dad, I was wondering if you’d sorted out my money yet? U owe me 400 now. Thx. Lol xxx”

  “Your mum’s already said,” he texted back. “I’ll sort something out this week. Sorry.”

  This was, if truth be told, more of an aspiration than a firm commitment. The pay freeze Monument had implemented for staff below director level, allied with his wife’s redundancy and now his increased mortgage costs had severely limited Barry’s scope for manoeuvre in respect of additional expenditure.

  Barry felt as though he’d failed. He didn’t mind failing Langley, but he did mind failing his daughter. Particularly given that he’d already failed his son. So he felt the necessity for extra income growing up around him like a creeper, wrapping itself around his chest like swaddling bands.

  The simplest thing to do, of course, would just be to overwrite his own bank details onto the invoice sitting in front of him. That way he could have the £50,000 due to Monument paid directly to him. Barry chuckled at the ridiculous simplicity of the idea. Of course, he knew that, ultimately, it would be a stupid thing to do – the moment Monument failed to receive their money and spoke to the staff at The SHYPP, they would speak to their bank and discover what Barry had done.

  But a small seed of an idea began to germinate in his mind. What if there was a bank account that wasn’t in his name, but which he controlled? And what if he could have the money paid into that account? Then, when the money was discovered to be missing, no one would have any reason to suspect him of being involved.

  He decided to have a look through Chris Malford’s papers. He would do that, Barry determined, before proceeding to destroy them as planned, obviously. This would be done purely as a theoretical auditing exercise to test his hypothesis that the existence of a ‘dummy’ bank account could allow someone – not Barry, of course, but someone – to divert money from one party to a third party without it reaching the intended second party.

  There were thirty-three unread emails sitting in his inbox, so this was not a thought experiment that he could continue at that moment. But, as part of his dedication both to his job and the company, Barry decided that he would continue it in his own time. Naturally, this required him to take both Chris Malford’s box file and Saleema’s
draft invoice home with him for further inspection.

  *

  That evening, after he’d got home from work and had his tea, Barry took the box file up to what he grandly called the home office. Actually, it was Christopher’s old bedroom with some second-hand office furniture in it (much to his wife’s chagrin). Barry closed the door behind him and inspected the paperwork. He wasn’t disappointed by what he found. Not only were there bank statements with Chris’ sort code and account number at the top, but there was also a cheque book for the account. In addition, there was a letter headed “Welcome to online banking”, which contained details of the username for Chris Malford’s account. The letter went on to say that when he first logged on he would be prompted to set a password. This, the letter reminded him, should not be written down or disclosed to anyone. Barry strongly suspected that Chris would be no more able to remember all of his various passwords without writing them down than anyone else. Sure enough, on the back of the letter Barry saw “HidingMyTears82” written in Chris’ untidy scrawl.

  Barry stopped for a moment. He’d never considered that computer passwords might carry emotional weight, yet Chris’ password felt like the saddest one that Barry had ever seen. There was a particular poignancy, he felt, in the fact that the thing that had finally unlocked Chris and given Barry an insight into the person behind the tattoos and belligerent stare, was the one thing that Chris could never reveal.

  Barry continued rifling through the box file and eventually came across another letter, this one with a grey, translucent slip at the bottom onto which was etched the PIN for Chris’ debit card. He didn’t have the debit card itself (which, as PC Rathbone had suggested, had probably disappeared along with Adam Furst), so he tried to log in to Chris’ bank account with the intention of ordering a new one. Unfortunately, logging in required knowledge not only of Chris’ username and password but also of his ‘online banking access code’. Barry didn’t know what this was and after three failed attempts to guess it his computer advised him that his online access had been suspended.

  Barry was surprised at how frustrated he felt; after all, it was not as if he wanted to steal the money. But he was intrigued to know if he could. He had set himself a challenge and now he was determined to meet it. After a few moments’ thought, therefore, he decided to ring the bank’s customer call centre, the number for which was prominently displayed on the bank’s correspondence. He put Chris’ account number, sort code and then PIN into the phone when prompted by the automated system. He was then transferred to a call handler and was quite easily able to confirm Chris’ full name and address, date of birth, and the second and fourth characters of the account password. He thought he’d convinced her, but then she said, “And, finally, can you just give me the answer to your secure question?”

  Barry thought for a moment that his attempt was once again doomed to fail. But then something occurred to him. Monument too had a security system that they used when divulging customer information to callers over the phone. Each tenant was asked to answer three security questions, one of which they were asked each time they called. Those details would be on Chris’ account. It seemed possible – indeed, probable – that one of those questions might also be the one that he used for the bank. Barry decided to stall for time whilst he quickly tried to log on remotely to Monument’s server.

  “Ooh, secure question… Now, I know this. It’s going to be one of three answers, because I always use one of those three questions, but I can never remember which one I’ve used for which account. So you might have to bear with me.”

  “That’s quite all right, Mr Malford. I can give you three attempts anyway.”

  Barry’s computer continued its slow progress. “Just let me check. I’ve got them locked away here in a drawer somewhere…”

  Barry thought he heard a sigh on the other end of the line. Finally, he got onto Monument’s server and quickly searched for Chris’ account.

  “So is it ‘Aston Villa’?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  “‘Bishop Wilson Primary School’?”

  “Yes, that’s the one! Thank you. So how can I help you, Mr Malford?”

  Barry explained that he was no longer in possession of the debit card for the account. In response to the call handler’s question, he confirmed that, yes, it may well have been stolen and that the police were aware.

  “Hmm… Yes, I can see there’s been a failed attempt to log in to your account online tonight, Mr Malford. No harm done, but you might want to change your online password. I’ll stop the debit card for you now. Do you think the PIN’s been compromised?”

  “Oh, I’m absolutely sure that no one other than me knows the PIN for that card.”

  “Great. Well, I’ll get a new card out to you straight away. It’ll have the same PIN, but you can change it if you want to be absolutely sure. It should be with you by Friday.”

  Given that Barry had a master key for the wall of postboxes in the lobby of Neville Thompson House, it would be a relatively simple matter for him to pick up the new card. He hung up and took a deep breath.

  Adopting, for a moment, the persona of a hypothetical auditor, Barry looked at the facts in front of him. He had the account details and cheque book for a bank account that was in the name of someone who was now, sadly, deceased. But the bank clearly did not know that the account holder was dead, nor would anyone know that the bank even had to be notified of his death because no one outside of the bank had any reason to know of the account’s existence – except, of course, for Barry. The account would therefore continue to be operational unless and until Barry advised the bank that it needed to be closed.

  He had several examples of Chris Malford’s signature on documents in his tenancy file and so he could easily copy it onto a cheque if he ever felt inclined to (although he couldn’t see why he would). He would shortly have a debit card for the account, and so, using the PIN that was already in his possession, he could soon withdraw money from it. To all intents and purposes, therefore, Barry concluded that he had control of Christian Malford’s bank account.

  For their part, an auditor would determine that a less-honest person than Barry would be able to divert funds intended for Monument into it by the simple expedient of overlaying Chris Malford’s bank details onto an otherwise legitimate invoice that had been prepared by Monument. All suppliers had just been notified of an impending change to the association’s payment details, so such an action wouldn’t arouse undue alarm or suspicion. Any money thus diverted would therefore be under the effective control of whoever controlled Chris Malford’s bank account, which, at this moment in time, just so happened to be Barry.

  He felt a strange sense of exhilaration flood his body. He had done it. He’d beaten the system. And he’d not even had to lie, not really. But then a sickness rose in his stomach that reminded him of being caught copying his homework by a teacher. Surely it couldn’t be that simple? It just couldn’t be. Could it? But, try as he might, Barry couldn’t see how anyone would be able to work out from the information that would be available, who had been responsible for the diversion of the money. Surely they wouldn’t blame Barry? After all, he’d been involved with The SHYPP for fifteen years, and in that time every single quarterly payment had made its way safely into Monument’s bank account.

  No, if fingers were going to be pointed, it seemed natural to conclude that they would be pointed in the direction of Langley Burrell. It was he, after all, who had insisted on changing the invoicing arrangements at precisely the time that any halfway competent manager should have seen there was the potential for confusion.

  So, as he typed out the sort code and account number for Chris Malford’s bank account in twelve-point Arial font, Barry didn’t see himself as attempting to steal £48,558. No, he actually saw himself doing Monument a favour. They would learn some important lessons from this about financial protocols that would pro
tect them in future from people less scrupulous than Barry. And they would also learn that Langley Burrell – who was still within the probationary period for his new post – was perhaps not quite the brilliant cost-controller and income-maximiser that they thought he was.

  And if Langley did happen to be blamed, would that really be so unfair? It was certainly no more unfair than the wardens of Monument’s sheltered housing schemes losing their jobs despite having done nothing wrong except expecting to be paid a decent salary.

  He printed off Chris’ account details and cut the two numbers out precisely. He then carefully pasted the new sort code and account number into the appropriate slots in the invoice Saleema had forwarded to him for approval. He could run the amended invoice through the colour laser copier at work. That, he mused, would produce an amended invoice that would be virtually indistinguishable from a genuine one. And if it wasn’t, well, he didn’t have to send it, did he? And even if he did send it, Sally didn’t have to pay it if she was suspicious; that was, after all, the primary purpose of the exercise – to test the robustness of the financial checks that were in place.

  Barry hid Chris Malford’s cheque book in his home safe. He then proceeded to destroy the rest of the papers by running them through the paper shredder under his desk. Next, he took the shredded papers outside. Recycling day was Tuesday in Walmley, so he wouldn’t have to wait long before all evidence that Chris Malford’s papers had ever been in his possession was taken away by the city council and pulped. As an extra precaution, he dropped the box file in the bin too.

  Barry slept fitfully that night. He swam so deep in his own thoughts that he felt them pressing in on him like an ocean. He found himself repeatedly having to come to the surface of his sleep in order to gasp for air. His wife slept on, just inches from him, yet he felt as though he were about to embark on a perilous journey alone. No one knew – no one could possibly know – what it was that he was contemplating. But it felt as though he was not alone in his thoughts; as though there was an unseen companion alongside him, not judging him, but simply holding up a mirror into which he was invited to look. Yet whenever he opened his eyes there was nothing there.