A Little Bit on the Side (12 page)

With the initial analysis work completed, Jack sent out requests to borrow all thirty-eight files from the tax districts, plus a thirty-ninth request all of his own to have the Campion tax file on loan. When this was received he immediately locked it away in his briefcase, and took it home with him at the end of the day. Having made his examination he returned it to the district the following morning with nothing but a brief note of thanks. As the other files were received they were parcelled out around the group for scrutiny. Three were identified as large enough and serious enough to be registered for investigation by the group and retained.

All the others were returned to the districts with a note of the information obtained from the Stevens’ papers and photocopies of the incriminating invoices and supporting documents. All would be investigated as time and resources permitted. And as they went their way Jack was increasingly intrigued that Stevens had singled out the Campion papers for special treatment. Would he have had his own private list of those firms who enjoyed his special arrangement, Jack wondered, and if so would he have been on the phone to all or some of them as soon as, or even before, Jack had left his office.

Amongst those returned to the districts were two files going to the District Inspector in Barlow. One contained invoices for three consecutive years for the partners in Bayley, Bayley and Bedgood, who had handled Jack’s conveyancing, and he thought of Hilda Genner, and wondered how long it would be before news of any tax investigation into the firm’s affairs filtered back to the hill. The other was for a Major Thompson, who with his wife ran one of the larger farms at the foot of the hill. Jack didn’t know them well, but had met them on a couple of occasions, and had no doubt that they, like the solicitors, were well aware of his vocation.

It was perhaps a month after the files had been returned to the districts, and while Jack was still finalising his enquiries into Campion, that he was not altogether surprised to receive an evening telephone call at home from Bayley Senior. He apologised for disturbing Jack at home, but wondered whether it would be convenient for him to call in to the firm’s office the following Saturday morning, as there was something he would like to discuss. He was reluctant to give any more details on the phone, but was sure it would all become clear when Jack called in to see him. Jack agreed to call into the offices at eleven and left it at that.

With just one very recent exception, Jack kept no professional secrets from Kate, and she was already well aware of the background to Bayley’s call. As curious as Jack to find out what he was after, she insisted on travelling with him to Barlow, and phoned at once to book a table for lunch at The Parish Pump.

‘You’ll notice he’s asked to see me on a Saturday when the office is usually closed,’ said Jack. ‘He’s making sure that Hilda and none of the staff will be there to see me arrive.’

The following morning he phoned the District Inspector in the Barlow office to ask if anything had happened on the case, and was told that so far, pressure of work had meant that it had not been possible to take it up. Curiouser and curiouser, thought Jack.

Promptly at eleven the following Saturday, leaving Kate to her own devices, Jack rang the bell at the door of the fine Georgian house the firm occupied on Priory Hill, the best street in Barlow, where a great many of the other fine Georgian houses were similarly to be found in professional occupation. He was welcomed inside by Bayley Senior, who led him through to the principal reception room overlooking the street, where only the Bayleys, father and son, were present, Bedgood being a sleeping partner, having died many years earlier.

‘Kind of you to call in Mr Manning,’ said father. ‘Can I offer you a sherry?’

Well this is one up on being a conveyancing customer, thought Jack, accepting a generous glass of a fine amontillado, and settling into the armchair offered, as father opened the dialogue.

‘Can I say first of all that I fully understand that in your professional dealings, as with mine, there are restraints of confidence on what we can and cannot say, and I have no wish to breach those in any way.’

‘I quite understand,’ said Jack.

‘If I were to mention that a couple of weeks ago we were in Wolverton with the intention of booking our winter break with Scott Stevens you might, perhaps, have an idea where I am going.’

Jack assumed as bland an expression as he could, and waited for Bayley to continue — he was quite enjoying the situation.

‘We’ve been using the firm for many years, and John Stevens and I trust one another enough for him to mention that his business had recently been the subject of a revenue investigation. He mentioned your name in fact. Perhaps he shouldn’t have done that, I don’t know, but there you are.

He also mentioned the outcome of the investigation. Now I am not unaware of the implications of that, and to be frank have been expecting an approach either from the Barlow office or your own, but nothing has happened. I wonder whether, respecting in every way the restraints on what you can say, you could throw any light on our darkness. More sherry?’

‘Thank you,’ said Jack, ‘An excellent amontillado.’

He waited as Bayley topped up his glass, and savoured another sip before continuing.

‘Firstly I am sure you will understand that I can make no comment and respond in no way regarding any investigation the Revenue may have undertaken into the affairs of any other business. As far as your own affairs are concerned, however, I can certainly say something in general terms without breaching any confidence, and hope that will be of some help to you.’

‘I think that might be very useful,’ said Bayley.

‘Well if you read the newspapers it will come as no surprise to you if I were to say that the Revenue is overworked and in arrears, grossly so in some Districts. This means that it is not unusual for investigations to be deferred for some considerable time.

I can also mention, if you are not already aware of it, that the general rule with back duty investigations, criminal prosecutions excepted, is that a financial settlement is ultimately reached that embodies the tax lost, interest on that tax and a penalty element representing a percentage of the tax evaded.

Only the penalty is variable, depending on the promptness or otherwise of disclosure, the degree of cooperation and to some extent the nature of the irregularities. If a case is one of voluntary disclosure with full cooperation throughout, and the nature of the offence is not too heinous, then a maximum abatement of penalty would normally be given. I can’t put a percentage on the final penalty of course, but it would usually be quite bearable. I think that’s about all I can say.’

‘Well I’m really most grateful to you Mr Manning. I think I can now see where to go from here. Much appreciated. My very best wishes to Mrs Manning. We hope she is enjoying the country life and her teaching post here in Barlow’

Fifteen minutes later Jack was sitting in the bar of The Pump with Kate alongside him and a half-empty pint glass on the table, looking forward to Mrs Arscott’s plat du jour: steak and kidney pie, new potatoes, carrots and florets of romanesco broccoli.

‘Bayley’s a canny old bugger,’ he told Kate. ‘I’m pretty sure he knew the score, but just wanted some sort of hint where to go next. I couldn’t resist slipping in a reference to prosecution though, just for the fun of it. He keeps in touch too: knew you were working in Barlow now.’ He paused as he finished his pint. ‘Lovely little town this. Old Thompson’s got a nice cushy number here as DI. Wonder how long he’s got to go.’

The following Monday he telephoned Thompson.

‘I think that I ought to let you know that you are probably going to receive some sort of disclosure from the Bayleys before the end of the week.’

‘Ah I did wonder. More bloody work for the already overburdened. Thanks very much. Remind me to do you a favour some time.’

‘It’ll still qualify as voluntary I suppose.’

‘I thought your lot were the experts. I’ll let you know the outcome.’

It would not be long, however, before Jack received further news about Barlow district, and when it came it would not be about the Bayleys, but something of much more interest to Jack. There was however one further outcome of his meeting a couple of weeks later, when a case of amontillado was left at the back door while they were at work. It was unattributed apart from the words ‘Much appreciated’ scrawled on the top.

The Christmas and New Year celebrations that intervened before Jack was finally able to review the results of his own very private Campion enquiries and meet with Stevens again, would do nothing to diminish his general cynicism and a growing misanthropy. After a few years of finding increasingly unconvincing excuses, they could no longer avoid a duty Christmas with Jack’s parents without completely upsetting the family applecart and Jack had no wish to go that far.

Confining their visit to three nights would, he thought, make the occasion tolerably bearable, but he arrived to find that his brother and family were also of the party. Jack had little in common with his brother and less with his wife. Their three children when young he thought had shown some promise, but five years or more of nurturing from George and his wife had put paid to that, and he now regarded them as lost beyond redemption.

The visit over, and relieved to be back in the peace of the countryside, he poured them both a drink, left Kate to her own devices in the kitchen, topped up the log-burner against the coming night, and dropped into his armchair. Much as he was looking forward to the coming New Year’s Eve get-together with Jimmy and Celia he was increasingly aware that Barton was changing fast, and knew that things would never again be quite as they were in their early days.

Their first visit to a village pantomime had also been their last. The two brothers who had been the driving force behind it had accepted an offer they couldn’t refuse, sold up, and left the area soon afterwards, and in the absence of their energy, enthusiasm and understanding of the locals, the one half-hearted attempts to revive it had been a total flop. Its place was taken by a disco, which suited the youngsters, but nobody else.

It had been the death of Ada Sutton, however, in the autumn just a little over a year earlier that seemed to knock the stuffing out of the older generation in the village. Much as she might have wished to emulate old Tom and make her last exit from the garden privy, it was not to be.

‘Luckily for me, at any rate,’ said Jimmy, who found her, and carried the news to her sons. ‘That would have been embarrassing.’

He’d been with her in the afternoon doing a bit of fencing in the garden while she fussed around on the veg plot until tea-time, when she left him, saying that she was going to put a match to her first fire of autumn, and then put the kettle on for tea. Having worked on for some time but had no call from Ada, Jimmy walked up to the house to find the fire lit and burning well, tea and scones on the table, and Ada lying dead on the floor alongside her chair.

A week later, after a fifteen year separation and a service from Larry that would have delighted the old lady, Ada and Tom were reunited in the grave that Ada always said had the finest view in the county. ‘I’ll always be sure of visitors where I’m going,’ she used to say.

But on the New Year’s Eve following her death, however, there were to be no visitors for Ada, or for any other of the inhabitants of St Matthew’s churchyard. Ted and Charlie had made it clear that they had only made their visits in previous years because Ada wanted it for Tom’s sake. ‘They’re up there now together,’ Ted said, ‘With each other for company. No call for all of us to go up there disturbing them at this time of year.’

Next Albert, who normally presided over the Shagger’s New Year’s proceedings, went missing, confined to bed with flu. From then on the proceedings were doomed, and for the first time in many years the churchyard stayed silent and in darkness. That’ll be the end of it, thought Jack. One break in the tradition will be enough, it won’t be resurrected.

Before Ada died, however, Ted and Charlie, with some generous help from the archivists for the Shropshire Light Infantry and the Churchill papers, had researched their father’s war service in South Arica pretty thoroughly. His progress through the Colony with the Shropshires had now been well documented, and was twice found to coincide on date and place with Churchill’s movements. Proof that they had actually met on those occasions was not, however, forthcoming.

Not that that made any difference to the final value of the book, as contrary to most expectation
Ian Hamilton’s March
was not offered for sale by Ted and Charlie, but as a tribute to Tom was passed to the Shropshires’ museum together with his medal and the few newspaper cuttings that were found in the case. His regimental badge and the pincushion they placed in the coffin and buried with Ada.

Changes in the world at large had brought changes too in the public bar of the Shagger, where local gossip and market prices had now largely been replaced by heated discussion of the potential impact of the ‘bloody EEC (it was never anything else but bloody) on their subsidies and improvement grants.

Devaluation of the pound and the Act to decimalise currency they had accepted as part and parcel of the deep-laid socialist conspiracy to be expected from Wilson, and the arrival of Heath was originally welcomed as a return to the old ways, despite his want of the patrician hauteur of MacMillan which so impressed them. In the event he proved to be a sad disappointment to them when he took the country into the EEC with all that entailed for hill farmers.

There was plenty of angry discussion and resentment too at city dwellers who were increasingly favouring second homes in country areas, and pushing up prices so much that young locals were unable to buy houses or farms in the areas where their families had lived for generations.

But when Martin Golightly decided that he had had enough of the hill life, and put his house and few acres on the market, there was general derision in the bar of the Shagger at the price he was asking.