Although Henry had written the rulebook, Angela had insisted on adding a subclause. Nothing would be deducted from any organization which failed to reach the previous year’s total. Despite this addendum, which incidentally Henry heartily agreed with, he rarely left a function with his Gladstone bag empty.
The two of them still met once a year at Mr Preston’s office to go over Ms Forster’s annual accounts, which was followed by a dinner a week later at La Bacha. Neither of them ever alluded to the fact that she had siphoned off £267,900, £311,150 and £364,610 during the past three years, and after each function deposited the latest cheque in different bank accounts right across London, always in the name of Mrs Ruth Richards. Henry’s other responsibility was to ensure that their new-found wealth was invested shrewdly, remembering that he wasn’t a gambler. However, one of the advantages of preparing other companies’ accounts is that it isn’t too difficult to predict who is likely to have a good year. As the cheques were never made out in his or her name, any subsequent profits couldn’t be traced back to either of them.
After they had banked the first million, Henry felt that they could risk a celebration dinner. Angela wanted to go to Mosimann’s in West Halkin Street, but Henry vetoed the idea. He booked a table for two at La Bacha. No need to draw attention to their new-found wealth, he reminded her.
Henry made two other suggestions during dinner. Angela was quite happy to go along with the first, but didn’t want to talk about the second. Henry had advised her to transfer the first million to an offshore account in the Cook Islands, while he carried on with the same investment policy; he also recommended that in future whenever they cleared another hundred thousand, Angela would immediately transfer the sum to the same account.
Angela raised her glass. ‘Agreed,’ she said, ‘but what is the second item on the agenda, Mr Chairman?’ she asked, teasing him. Henry took her through the details of a contingency plan she didn’t even want to think about.
Henry finally raised his glass. For the first time in his life, he was looking forward to retirement, and joining all his colleagues for a farewell party on his sixtieth birthday.
Six months later, the chairman of Pearson, Clutterbuck & Reynolds sent out invitations to all the firm’s employees, asking them to join the partners for drinks at a local three-star hotel to celebrate the retirement of Henry Preston and to thank him for forty years of dedicated service to the company.
Henry was unable to attend his own farewell party, as he ended up celebrating his sixtieth birthday behind bars, and all for a mere £820.
Miss Florence Blenkinsopp double-checked the figures. She’d been right the first time. They were £820 short of the amount she had calculated before the uninvited guest dressed in a pinstriped suit had walked into the ballroom with his little bag and disappeared with all the cash. It couldn’t be Angela who was responsible; after all, she had been one of her pupils at St Catherine’s Convent. Miss Blenkinsopp dismissed the discrepancy as her mistake, especially as the takings were comfortably up on the previous year’s total.
The following year would be the convent’s one-hundredth anniversary, and Miss Blenkinsopp was already planning a centenary ball. She told her committee that she expected them to pull their socks up if they hoped to set records during the centenary year. Although Miss Blenkinsopp had retired as headmistress of St Catherine’s some seven years before, she continued to treat her committee of old gals as if they were still adolescent pupils.
The centenary ball could not have been a greater success, and Miss Blenkinsopp was the first to single out Angela for particular praise. She made it clear that in her opinion, Ms Forster had certainly pulled her socks up. However, Miss Blenkinsopp felt it necessary to triple-check the cash they had collected that night, before the little man turned up with his Gladstone bag and took it all away When she went over the figures later in the week, although their previous record had been broken by a considerable amount, the cash entry was over two thousand short of the figure she had scribbled on the back of her place card.
Miss Blenkinsopp felt she had no choice but to point out the discrepancy (two years running) to her president, Lady Travington, who in turn sought the advice of her husband, who was chairman of the local watch committee. Sir David promised, before putting the light out that night, that he would have a word with the chief constable in the morning.
When the chief constable was informed of the misappropriation, he passed on the details to his chief superintendent. He sent it further down the line to a chief inspector, who would like to have told his boss that he was in the middle of a murder hunt and also staking out a shipment of heroin with a street value of over ten million. The fact that St Catherine’s Convent had mislaid — he checked his notes — just over £2,000, wasn’t likely to be placed at the top of his priority list. He stopped the next person walking down the corridor and passed her the file. ‘See you have a full report on my desk, Sergeant, before the watch committee meet next month.’
Detective Sergeant Janet Seaton set about her task as if she was stalking Jack the Ripper.
First, she interviewed Miss Blenkinsopp, who was most cooperative, but insisted that none of her gals could possibly have been involved with such an unpleasant incident, and therefore they were not to be interviewed. Ten days later, DS Seaton purchased a ticket for the Bebbington Hunt Ball, despite the fact that she had never mounted a horse in her life.
DS Seaton arrived at Bebbington Hall just before the gong was struck and the toastmaster bellowed out, ‘Dinner is served.’ She quickly identified Angela Forster, even before she had located her table. Although DS Seaton had to engage in polite conversation with the men on either side of her, she was still able to keep a roving eye on Ms Forster. By the time cheese and coffee were served, the detective had come to the conclusion that she was dealing with a consummate professional. Not only could Ms Forster handle the regular outbursts of Lady Bebbington, the Master of Hounds’ wife, but she also found time to organize the band, the kitchen, the waiters, the cabaret and the voluntary staff without once breaking into a gallop. But, more interesting, she seemed to have nothing to do with the collecting of any money. That was carried out by a group of ladies, who performed the task without appearing to consult Angela.
When the band struck up its opening number, several young men asked the detective sergeant for a dance. She turned them all down, one somewhat reluctantly.
It was a few minutes before one, when the evening was drawing to a close, that the detective sergeant spotted the man she had been waiting for. Among the red and black jackets, he would have been easier to identify than a fox on the run. He also fitted the exact description Miss Blenkinsopp had provided: a short, rotund, bald-headed man of around sixty who would be more appropriately dressed for an accountant’s office than a Hunt Ball. She never took her eyes off him as he progressed unobtrusively around the outside of the dance floor to disappear behind the bandstand. The detective quickly left her table and walked to the other side of the ballroom, coming to a halt only when she had a perfect sighting of the two of them. The man was seated next to Angela counting the cash, unaware that an extra pair of eyes was watching him. The detective sergeant stared at Angela, as the man carefully placed the cheques, the pledges and the cash in separate piles. Not a word passed between them.