Sue for Mercy - Veronica Heley Page 0,56

could get it without proof. If he’d told me straight out, for instance, that he suspected my son Julian of being a crook and having framed Oliver for the fraud, I’d have thrown him out on his ear. Look at it from my point of view... one of my oldest friends, in whom I could have sworn I could have placed every confidence, had not only been arrested for fraud, but had confessed to it! Then the cleverest of his sons, whom I had last seen established in a good job in London, swanning around in a Mercedes, with a dozen suits in his wardrobe, comes to me for a job right out of the blue. Not only had he traded in his car for a cheap job, but also his wrist-watch and he didn’t appear to have much left in the way of clothes. Naturally I was suspicious. Even if Julian hadn’t been hinting that Charles had been involved in the fraud case, I’d have been suspicious.

“He said he’d lost money on the ‘Change. It was possible, of course, but somehow it didn’t sound right. I offered him the job at half his previous salary and he took it on condition he could use any information he came across while working for me, to help him recoup his losses. That amused me! The nerve of the lad! So I took him on. I’ll admit I gave him a rough time at first, because my confidence in him had been shaken. I didn’t know what to believe. Then about a month after he started with me, he brought me a cheque for £1,500, payable to me, and explained that he wanted me to pay that into my bank account, and give him an open cheque for the same amount. I asked why. He said he believed that Robert and Ruth had framed his father for the fraud case. He said that it was at Robert’s suggestion that he, Charles, had applied to me for a job, and that Robert wanted him to milk me. He didn’t mention Julian’s name at all, which was wise of him. Even so, I said I didn’t buy it. He said it would be easy to prove; if I paid the cheque for £1,500 into my bank account, and gave Charles a cheque for the same amount, we should see where it turned up by asking the bank to return all cancelled cheques to me in future. Charles filled it out for £1,500, but left the payee’s name open. He made the point that if Robert paid the cheque into his own bank account and didn’t ask me for an explanation as to why I should pay him so much money out of the blue, then there was my proof.

“I agreed. I had nothing to lose, and I’ll admit I was curious. Charles’ cheque was cleared through into my account, I gave Charles my cheque, and it was duly cleared through into Robert’s account. I was all for calling in the police there and then, but Charles wouldn’t have it. One more cheque, he said. This time it was for five thousand pounds...”

“But did he really earn that much?”

“Of course. He has a natural flair for handling money, forecasting trends... Well, what he didn’t tell me was that that second cheque was to be made payable to Julian. He let me find it out for myself.” The old man stared down at the table, placing his hands together and folding the fingers of one hand over the fingers of the other. Then he looked up, banishing memory of the shock which that cheque had given him. “I didn’t want to believe that my son was involved, but as soon as I saw that cheque, I guessed what had been going on. After that, Charles told me everything he knew about the fraud case, the blackmail, and the way they wanted him to obtain money from me. He told me his plan, and I agreed to co-operate. I wanted to lend him the rest of the money he needed, but he wouldn’t have it; he had to buy the firm back himself.”

“But surely,” I asked, “the law doesn’t allow a criminal to profit from his crimes nowadays? Couldn’t he have got Robert to return the firm by going to the Courts, once he’d proved fraud?”

“Not so easy,” said Ronald. “Dad sold the firm to Robert in a perfectly straightforward manner, and it might have taken the