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 MarinaJesse 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.
21
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 officials-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 longhaired 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 Amy 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 newspapers-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 me-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 behind the counter of Barclays Bank in Cardiff, passed a rubber check. Until today." He emptied his glass and stared at it gloomily. "Have another?"