Paper Money (18 page)

good show. There was a repair shop back of the pumps.

A tanker was discharging on the far side.

The attendant approached, cleaning his spectacles on an oily rag, "Five

quids' worth," Jesse said. "Where's the khasi?"

"Round the side."

Jesse followed the jerked thumb. A rough concrete path led alongside the

garage. He found a broken door marked

"Gents" and went past it.

Behind the garage was a small patch of waste ground where newish cars in

for repair jostled with rusty doors, buckled wings, and discarded

machinery. Jesse could not see what he was looking for.

The back entrance to the repair shop gaped open beside him, big enough

to drive a bus through. There was no point in being furtive. He walked

in.

It took a moment to adjust to the gloom after the sunlight outside. The

air smelled of engine oil and ozone. A Mini was on a ramp at head

height, its entrails hanging down obscenely. The front end of an

articulated truck was wired up to a Krypton tester. A Jaguar on chocks

had its wheels off. There was no one about. He looked at his wristwatch:

they would be having their dinner.

He looked around.

He spotted the things he needed.

A pair of red-and-white trade plates stood on an oil drum in a corner.

He crossed the floor and picked them up. He looked around again, and

stole two more things: clean overalls hanging on a peg in the brick

wall, and a length of dirty string off the floor.

A voice said: "Looking for something, brother?"

Jesse jerked around, his heart in his mouth. A black mechanic in a grimy

overall stood on the far side of the shop, leaning on the gleaming white

wing of the Jaguar, his mouth full of food. His Afro haircut shifted as

he chewed. Jesse tried to cover the trade plates with the overalls. "The

khasi," he said. "Want to change my clothes."

He held his breath.

The mechanic pointed. "Outside," he said. He swallowed, and took another

bite out of a Scotch egg.

"Thanks." Jesse hurried out.

"Any time," the mechanic called after him. Jesse realized the man had an

Irish accent. Irish spades?

That was a new one.

The pump attendant was waiting beside the van. Jesse climbed in and

threw the overalls and their contents over the seat into the back. The

attendant looked curiously at the bundle. Jesse said: "My overall was

hanging out the back door.

It must be filthy. How much?"

"We generally charge a fiver for. five quids' worth. I didn't notice

it."

"Nor did I, for fifty bleeding miles. I did say five quids' worth,

didn't I?" "That's what you said. No charge for the bog."

Jesse gave him a five-pound note and pulled away rapidly.

He was a little off his route now, which was good. The area was quieter

than the places he had traveled through earlier. There were oldish

detached houses on either side, set back from the road. Horse-chestnut

trees lined the pavements.

He saw a Green Line bus stop.

He needed a quiet lane in which to perform the switch. He checked his

watch again. It must be fifteen minutes since the accident. There was no

time' left for finesse.

He took the next turning. The street was called Brook Avenue. All the

houses were semis. He needed somewhere less exposed, for Christ's sake!

He Could not switch plates in full view of sixty nosy housewives.

He took another turn, and another--and found a service road behind a

little row of shops. He pulled in and stopped. There were garages and

garbage cans, and the back doors through which goods were delivered to

the stores. It was the best he could hope for.

He climbed over the seat into the back of the van. It was very hot. He

sat on one of the money chests and pulled the overalls up his legs.

Jesus, he was nearly there: give me a couple more minutes, he

thought--it was almost a prayer.

He stood up, bending over, and shrugged into the garment. If I'd blown

it, Tony would have slit my throat, he thought. He shuddered. Tony Cox

was a hard bastard. He had a bit of a kink about punishment.

Jesse zipped up the overalls. He knew about eyewitness descriptions.

The police would by now be looking for a very big, vicious-looking

character with desperate eyes, wearing an orange shirt and jeans.

Anyone actually looking at Jesse would just see a mechanic.

He picked up the trade plates. The string had gone-he must have dropped

it. He looked around the floor. Damn, there was always a piece of rope

floating around on the floor of a van! He opened the toolbox and found a

length of oily string tied around the jack.

He got out and went to the front of the van. He worked carefully, afraid

to botch the job by hurrying. He tied the red-and-white trade plate over

the original license plate, just as garages usually did when taking a

commercial vehicle for a road test. He stood back and examined his work.

It looked fine.

He went to the rear of the van and repeated the job on the back plate.

It was done. He breathed more easily.

"Changing the plates, then?"

Jesse jumped and turned. His heart sank. The voice belonged to a

policeman.

For Jesse it was the last straw. He could think of no more wrinkles, no

more plausible lies, no more ruses. His instincts deserted him. He did

not have a single thing to say.

The copper walked toward him. He was quite young, with ginger sideburns

and a freckled nose.

"Trouble?"

Jesse was amazed to see him smile. A ray of hope penetrated his

petrified brain. He found his tongue. "Plates worked loose," he said.

"Just tightened them up."

The copper nodded. "I used to drive one of these," he said

conversationally. "Easier than driving a car. Lovely jobs."

It crossed Jesse's mind that the man might be playing a sadistic

cat-and-mouse game, knowing perfectly well that Jesse was the driver of

the hit-and-run van, but pretending ignorance so as to shock him at the

last minute.

"Easy when they're running right," he said.

The sweat on his face felt cold.

"Well, you've done it now. On your way, you're blocking the road."

Like a sleepwalker, Jesse climbed into the cab and started the engine.

Where was the copper's car? Did he have his radio switched off? Had the

overalls and the trade plates fooled him?

If he were to walk around to the front of the van and see the dent made

by the bumper of the Marina.

Jesse eased his foot off the clutch and drove slowly along the service

road. He stopped at the end and looked both ways. In his wing mirror, he

saw the policeman at the far end getting into a patrol car.

Jesse pulled into the road and the patrol car was lost from view. He

wiped his brow. He was trembling.

"Gawd, stone the crows," he breathed.

EVAN JONES was drinking whiskey before lunch for the first time in his

life. There was a reason. He had a Code, and he had broken it--also for

the first time. He was explaining this to his friend, Arny Matthews, but

he was not doing too well, for he was unused to whiskey, and the first

double was already reaching his brain.

"It's my upbringing, see," he said in his musical Welsh accent. "Strict

chapel. We lived by the Book. Now, a man can exchange one Code for

another, but he can't shake the habit of obedience. See?" "I see," said

Arny, who did not see at all. Evan was manager of the London branch of

the Cotton Bank of Jamaica, and Arny was a senior actuary at Fire and

General Marine insurance, and they lived in adjoining mock-Tudor houses

in Woking, Surrey. Their friendship was shallow, but permanent.

"Bankers have a Code," Evan continued. "Do you know, it caused quite a

stir when I told my parents I wanted to be a banker. In South Wales the

grammar-school boys are expected to become teachers, or ministers, or

Coal Board clerks, or trade union official--but not bankers."

"My mother didn't even know what an actuary was," said Arny

sympathetically, missing the point.

"I'm not talking about the principles of good banking--the law of the

least risk, the collateral to more-than-cover the loan, higher interest

for longer term--I don't mean all that."

"No." Arny now had no idea what Evan did mean. But he sensed that Evan

was going to be indiscreet, and like everyone in the City he enjoyed the

indiscretions of others. "Have another?"

He picked up the glasses.

Evan nodded assent, and watched Arny go to the bar. The two of them

often met in the lounge of Pollard's before catching the train home

together.

Evan liked the plush seats, and the quiet, and the faintly servile

barmen. He had no time for the newer kind of pub that was springing up

in the Square Mile: trendy, crowded cellars with loud music for the

long-haired whiz kids in their three-piece suits and gaudy ties,

drinking lager in pints or Continental aperitifs'.

"I'm talking about integrity," Evan resumed when Arny came back. "A

banker can be a fool, and survive, if he's straight; but if he hasn't

got integrity . "

"Absolutely."

"Now, take Felix Laski. There's a man totally without integrity."

"This is the man who's taken you over."

"To my everlasting regret, yes. Shall I tell you how he got control?"

Arny leaned forward in his seat, holding a cigarette halfway to his

lips. "Okay."

"We had a customer called South Middlesex Properties. They were tied up

with a discounting outfit we knew, and we wanted an outlet for a lot of

long-term money. The loan was too big for the property company, really,

but the collateral was vast. To cut a long story short, they defaulted

on the loan."

"But you had the property," Arny said. "Surely the title deeds were in

your vault."

"Worthless. What we had were copies--and so did several other

creditors."

"Straightforward fraud."

"Indeed, although somehow they managed to make it look like mere

incompetence. However, we were in a hole. Laski bailed us out in

exchange for a majority holding."

"Shrewd."

"Shrewder than you think, Arny. Laski practically controlled South

Middlesex Properties--. Mind you, he wasn't a director. But he had

shares, and he was employed by them as a consultant, and the management

was weak ..

"So he bought into the Cotton Bank with the money he'd borrowed and

defaulted on."

"Looks like it, doesn't it?"

Arny shook his head. "I find that very hard to credit."

"You wouldn't if you knew the bugger." Two men in solicitors' stripes

sat at the next table with half-pints of beer, and Evan lowered his

voice. "A man totally without integrity," he repeated.

"What a stroke to pull." There was a note of admiration in Arny's voice.

"You could have gone to the newspaper--if it's true."

"Who the hell would publish it, other than Private Eye? But it's true,

boy. There is no depth to which that man will not sink." He took a large

swallow of whiskey. "You know what he's done today?"

"It couldn't be worse than the South Middlesex deal," Arny goaded him.

"Couldn't it? Ha!" Evans face was slightly flushed now, and the glass

trembled in his hand. He spoke slowly and deliberately. "He has

instructed--instructed, mind you--to clear a rubber check for a million

pounds." He set down his glass with a flourish.

"But what about Threadneedle Street?"

"My exact words to him!" The two solicitors looked around, and Evan

realized he had shouted.

He spoke more quietly. "My very words. You'll never believe what he

said. He said: "Who owns the Cotton Bank of Jamaica?" Then he put the

phone down on me."

"So what did you do?"

Evan shrugged. "When the payee phoned up, I said the check was good."

Arny whistled. "What you say makes no difference; It's the Bank of

England who have to make the transfer. And when they discover that you

haven't got a million--"

"I told him all that." Evan realized he was close to tears, and felt

ashamed. "I have never, in thirty years of banking, since I started