Keeping his eyes open for the hair, Leo slid open the top drawer. He couldn’t see it and felt himself go cold. He moved the file pockets apart one by one and peered into them. It wasn’t easy to see a single mouse-brown hair; that was the whole point. No investigator would know it was there, or its importance, and it would just blow away and get lost.
Leo could feel himself panicking. This wasn’t what he’d been expecting. He told himself the hair might just have fallen inside one of the pockets in the cabinet, but when he checked the other drawers, the hairs had vanished from them too. He was frightened, knowing that without a doubt, his files had been disturbed; that there had been an overnight search in his office. He’d been suspicious that this had happened before, felt it in his gut, but now he was sure it really had taken place.
He could feel himself shaking as he sat down at his desk.
Walter Bristow must be suspicious, but had he worked out what Leo was doing? Had he found the proof? Leo wished he knew. He believed now that Bristow had done this before and found nothing wrong. He couldn’t have done, or he wouldn’t have returned last night. But for Leo, this signalled that the game was up.
What ought he to do now? He used the intercom to the kitchen to ask for a cup of coffee. When it came, he sipped it slowly, hoping it would settle his nerves. He might still be all right, but one thing was certain: he would not be able to work on here until the holiday he’d booked at the end of September.
Keep calm, he told himself. He had his escape route already set up. He felt sure he could disappear and that they’d not be able to find him to charge him with this fraud. He was disappointed, of course he was, that he wouldn’t be able to drag it out for longer. He hadn’t accumulated all the money he’d hoped for, but he had quite a sum and he’d have to be satisfied with that. His best plan would be to make this his last day at work. He’d write four more cheques, as large as he dared, and pay them directly into his accounts at lunchtime.
Damn! He’d told John Walsh he’d go to the café with him for soup and a sandwich. He used the intercom to contact him, but nobody lifted up the phone. Walsh would probably be out on the factory floor, and with the noise, he’d never hear it ring. Damn again. He mustn’t let frustration wind him up. He was feeling agitated. His nerves always let him down in times of tension like this. He wasn’t able to think straight any more; he needed to calm down.
If he wasn’t waiting for John Walsh at the appointed time, he was afraid he’d come here to his office. He tried again to contact him and this time he answered. Leo cancelled the lunch date. Apologised and told Walsh he had a prior appointment he’d forgotten.
That calmed him somewhat. Perhaps he was panicking for nothing, but he wouldn’t feel safe until he’d left this office and buried Francis Clitheroe for good. Once he was back in his bedsit, he’d be able to relax.
The cheques. No point in leaving without having one more stab at taking as much money with him as he could. He got out the files and the chequebook, then called in Lydia Tomlin to create the paperwork that would hide what he was doing. No point in leaving a trail for the police to follow. Bristow might not have got any further than having suspicions about him. As soon as he’d finished this, he’d take everything he owned from his desk, go to the bank to pay his cheques in and then go straight back to his lodgings and pack up there. He couldn’t take pressure like this; better to clear out now.
Miss Tomlin appeared with her shorthand pad. She was bouncing and talkative, and wanted to collect a contribution from him towards a wedding gift for some girl in the kitchen whose name he didn’t even recognise. He gave it to her to shut her up and started to dictate the short notes that would accompany the cheques. Except that he’d destroy the originals and just file the copies. It helped that he was doing a logical task for his own benefit. He heard footsteps and voices outside his office, but ignored them and went on dictating.
Two sharp raps on his door made him stop. The next moment his office was invaded by Mr Bristow, looking more a figure of authority than he ever had before. He asked Lydia Tomlin to leave, and then two men crowded in and were flashing warrant cards. It took Leo another moment to realise they were police officers in plain clothes. He felt himself break out in a cold sweat. Things had developed further than he’d supposed. He could hardly take in what they were saying to him; his mind was in chaos.
He pulled himself to his feet. He must not give in to this. He had to stay calm. He had his escape route; all was not lost yet, he could still get away with it.
Bristow, with a face like thunder, was taking files from the cabinet and pushing Leo away to take the cheque stubs from his desk drawer together with the cash books and journals he made his entries in. It horrified Leo to find they believed they had cut-and-dried evidence against him, and that they wanted to take him to the police station.
‘What are you accusing me of?’ he asked, trying to sound as though he had no idea.
‘At this stage it’s just to help us with our inquiries,’ he was told. But he couldn’t help but notice that Bristow was picking up from his desk the six files he’d made for the ghost companies.
Leo knew then that his situation was dire, that they had all the evidence they’d need. It had a sobering effect on him. His mind grew coldly clear, and he knew that everything now depended on him keeping his wits about him.
He protested his innocence, appeared willing to answer their questions, raised no objection to being taken to the police station. His attitude must be one of helpfulness, of let’s get this misunderstanding cleared up.
His confidence had taken a knock by the time they were entering the police station. He hated these places, hated these men who were pushing him about. The first questions were about his bank account. He thought he had little to fear here. He’d made Francis Clitheroe’s account look as normal as he could, withdrawing enough money for it to look as though he was living on the salary that was paid in.
‘Who is Alistair Jackson?’ the inspector asked. Leo felt gutted and badly shaken when they began asking him about that bank account, but he stayed icy calm, told them he knew nobody by that name, though he understood now something of the evidence they had to convict him.
He could see them checking the entries he’d written in the cash book against the chequebook stubs, and realised that the whole edifice he’d built up to hide his activities was patently clear to them. He’d stayed too long in the employ of Walter Bristow and was afraid he was going to lose most if not all of the sum he’d built up. He was fighting now for the last and much greater benefit, his own freedom.
The hours dragged on, but he continued to deny any wrongdoing. Eventually he was charged with fraudulently removing money from his employer’s bank account. He was told he must appear in court tomorrow morning but that he’d be tried at a later date. He was fingerprinted and photographed and they checked where he was living before they let him go home.
Leo felt reduced to a nervous wreck. He should never have allowed himself to be taken to the police station like that. Despite all his worries, he’d been overconfident. He should have left Bristow’s before this happened. Now that he’d been fingerprinted and photographed, they had evidence that could tie him to his true identity. It had been a big mistake to hang on so long.
But he’d admitted nothing to the police and he’d confirmed none of the facts they’d put before him. He was certain they believed him to be Francis Clitheroe, accountant. They’d given no indication that they even thought he might be somebody else. He could still escape their clutches by ditching that identity.
He was very late returning home, and his fellow lodgers had already eaten their tea and gone. ‘Where’ve you been till now?’ his landlady demanded.
He was depressed and exhausted, but he knew he mustn’t give up yet.
‘I had a phone call at the office,’ he lied. ‘My mother’s been taken seriously ill, a heart attack.’ He’d previously told her he’d come over from the Isle of Man to work in Liverpool. ‘I have to go home. I’ve booked myself on to tomorrow morning’s boat.’
She was sympathetic and had kept his meal hot for him. It was dried up, but he was glad to sit and eat it; he was ravenous. The police had given him a cup of tea but nothing to eat in all that time.
When the evening cocoa and biscuits was put out, Leo had his share and told the same story to his fellow lodgers. Then he went up to his room, pulled his two suitcases from under the bed and systematically packed everything that belonged to him. He was not planning to appear in court in the morning and knew he must leave nothing behind here lest it give some clue to the police. They’d certainly come here looking for him.
That done, he collapsed on his bed and tried to think of what he must do to stay one step ahead. But his brain felt full of wool. He was too tired; he would have to sleep here tonight. Anyway, the buses stopped running quite early out in the suburbs and he couldn’t walk far with his suitcases.
When his alarm went in the morning, he lay back listening to the rush of footsteps and the water flushing in the bathroom upstairs. He felt better; he’d had a good sleep and his head was working again. He was worried about the money he’d worked so hard to get. Since the police had questioned him about the bank account he’d opened in the name of Alistair Jackson, he could only assume that they’d frozen it and he’d never be able to get at the six thousand pounds or so he’d saved up.
He pulled Francis Clitheroe’s dressing gown from his suitcase, put on his heavy-rimmed glasses and went down to eat breakfast with the other men. He said goodbye to everybody and found that the landlady wanted him to settle his bill before leaving. Though he knew he could never return here, he wrote her a cheque on Francis Clitheroe’s account. Clitheroe wouldn’t be the sort to leave without settling his bill, and he still had to play that part. It reminded him that this account might also be closed by the police, once they knew he had not attended court.
When the other men had gone off to work, he picked up his suitcases and went out to the bus stop. The buses were crowded in the rush hour and he felt his cases made him conspicuous. He got off at Lime Street station and found his way to the left luggage department, where he deposited them.
Once he was free of the cases, he caught a bus to Bootle. To reach Lloyds Bank, where Clitheroe had his account, he had to pass the Bristow’s building. The sight of it made him shiver, and he was glad he didn’t have to go inside and pretend to work; that had really turned sour on him. He almost emptied Clitheroe’s account, leaving only shillings in it. Not enough to meet the cheque he’d given his ex-landlady. But he had cash in plenty now, over seven thousand pounds. In addition he’d bled money into the Arthur Worboys account in the Halifax building society. He wanted to kick himself. If he’d left a day earlier, he could have drained the Alistair Jackson account too.
Back at Lime Street, he picked up his suitcases, broke Clitheroe’s spectacles and dropped them in a waste bin, then had a cup of coffee in a café nearby. He didn’t want to meet the students living in his bedsit building as they rushed out to their classes. By the time he got there, the building was silent and deserted.
He felt safer as soon as he closed the door of his familiar room. He unpacked his cases, made his sofa into a bed and got into it. He reckoned the police would be unable to find him now.
Leo felt much better after two relaxing days in his bedsit. He was enjoying his unaccustomed leisure. Though his get-rich scheme had turned into a fiasco, he had managed to retrieve some of the money. It had been his own fault and it had scared him, but he had nobody to blame but himself. Next time he’d be more careful.
He spent a lot of time adding up the money he still controlled and making sure it was safe. By drawing large sums out in cash and paying them into an account in a different name at another bank, he’d made it impossible for it to be traced through the banking system.
He’d been thinking a lot about his future over recent months. He’d made plans in his head and now was the time to start putting them into action. In order to be Francis Clitheroe, he’d practised an upper-class accent and acquired all the clothes to look the part. He’d found he quite enjoyed being higher up the social scale; people treated him with more respect.
At his lodgings, the landlady had regularly taken the
Liverpool Post
and left it lying around for others when she’d finished with it. Leo had been perusing the properties for sale columns for weeks. He wanted to get away from Liverpool and had decided he wanted beautiful scenery and to be near the sea. He’d narrowed his search to north Wales, Anglesey perhaps. Then he’d seen advertised just the house he’d love to own. It was in the Colwyn Bay area, but he’d got no further than asking the agent to send him particulars. Now that he’d lost the Alistair Jackson account, that house would be more than he could afford, so he was glad he hadn’t got round to looking it over and starting to buy.
But he still had enough for a pleasant cottage, and he was looking forward to finding just that. It would be a good thing, as it would be another bolt-hole a long way away from here should he need it. He’d try and book a holiday in Anglesey towards the end of the month and have a good scout round.
In the meantime he was happy to be back in his bedsit. Today he’d eaten a good lunch in the Irish pub round the corner, had a game of darts with his landlord and won. Conor had been very affable, patting his shoulder and saying, ‘My friend, you play a very good game. When will I ever beat you?’
As it was Leo’s usual drinking hole, he’d met several old acquaintances there and had several more jars of Guinness. It had developed into a jolly social occasion and he’d thoroughly enjoyed it.
Outside, old Billy was selling newspapers as usual on the pavement. ‘Early
Echo
,’ he cried. Leo tossed his coppers into the cap and took one home. He threw himself down on his unmade bed to read it, but jerked up in horror when he saw his own face staring out at him and the story of how he’d swindled his boss printed alongside.