Liverpool Love Song (33 page)

‘Come at twelve o’clock, that’ll give us time to have a drink first.’

‘Mum doesn’t drink any more.’

‘She’ll toy with a glass of sherry, Chloe, if one is put in her hand. She says she enjoys listening to us talk even if she doesn’t join in as much as she used to.’

On Sunday, Chloe helped her mother dress in a smart blue dress she’d hardly worn. She looked better than she had for weeks, more her old self. When Auntie Joan led them into the dining room, Helen was full of praise for the silver displayed on the sideboard.

‘I’ve seen it before, of course, it’s very impressive. No, I haven’t seen it all. Those eggcups and spoons on a stand, that’s new, isn’t it?’

Chloe got up to take a closer look. ‘And the candlesticks.’

‘Yes,’ Walter said. ‘You knew I was going to that big antique silver auction held in Liverpool last week?’

‘Yes,’ Chloe said. ‘Auntie Joan told me you’d both been and bought more pieces.’

‘Yes, I was bidding for a pair of Victorian candelabra and I’m almost sure they were knocked down to our Mr Clitheroe.’

‘What? Does he share your love of silver?’

‘I don’t know. He’d asked me for time off that day to see his dentist. I thought I’d caught him out going to the sale instead.’

‘He was really there?’ Chloe asked.

‘I thought it was him, but …’

‘Adam Livingstone was there, Chloe,’ Joan said. ‘He said he knew him, and it wasn’t our new accountant. He turned out to be someone quite different, a collector of fine silver.’

Chloe blanched at hearing her speak of Adam. Of course he’d attend an important sale like that. She tried to ignore his name.

‘When I first caught sight of him, I was so sure it was Clitheroe,’ Walter said. ‘But when I was paying for what I’d bought, I could see the name of the person who’d paid for the lot before, and it wasn’t Clitheroe. Adam was right.’

Chloe could feel herself stiffening. ‘Did Adam say anything? Ask after the children?’

Walter was hesitant. ‘I believe he did. Didn’t he, Joan?’

‘Yes.’ She was collecting the used soup bowls and hurried off to the kitchen with them.

‘Did he help you?’ Chloe demanded. ‘Did he come here again and sell you that egg stand and that claret jug?’

‘Well, yes, he did.’ Joan had placed a leg of lamb in front of Walter and he was noisily sharpening his carving knife on the steel.

Chloe was angry. ‘You probably paid more than those pieces are worth. I told you he was dishonest. That’s one reason why I left him.’

‘He was kind, Chloe.’

‘If he was taking money from you, he’d be at his most charming.’

‘I’m sorry.’ Joan put an arm round Chloe’s shoulders. ‘We didn’t want to tell you we’d seen Adam. We were afraid you’d be upset.’

‘I am upset. I’m afraid he’s swindled you.’

‘We love what we bought from him,’ Walter assured her, ‘and I didn’t feel we paid over the odds.’

‘If you’d taken me with you, I’d have helped you buy it at the auction price, and you wouldn’t have had to pay an extra percentage to Adam.’

‘Sorry, Chloe,’ Walter said. ‘It was all a bit rushed, and it was easier for me that way.’

She took another angry breath. ‘If—’

Rex put his hand on her arm. ‘Let it go, Chloe. Put Adam Livingstone out of your mind. He’s not worth worrying about.’

Chloe felt annoyed with herself. Silently she began to eat her roast lamb, but she was no longer hungry. Her outburst had cast a cloud on the lunch party. The happy atmosphere had cooled and couldn’t be revived.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

T
IME WAS PASSING AND Leo was feeling richer. Up until now, the boss had made no comment when he’d put the monthly figures on his desk. But the result of what he was doing was becoming more obvious. The capital in the company accounts was shrinking.

Leo was growing more nervous about handing over the figures. He told himself he was being silly, that the whole point of him being here was to take the money. He had to do this. He picked up the copy of last month’s trading figures taken from his ledgers, slipped it discreetly into a file cover and went to give it to Mr Bristow.

He found him in the secretaries’ office, where they were all laughing over some joke. Leo tried to hand him the file and leave.

‘Ah, Mr Clitheroe,’ he said. ‘Come into my office for a moment. I have something I’d like you to do.’

Leo was fighting to look calmer than he felt, but old Bristow hadn’t looked at the figures yet, so it couldn’t be that. He began to breathe normally again when he found that the boss wanted him to continue paying an employee in the factory his full wage although he was working only half the day. It seemed his wife was very ill and he had to look after her.

He returned to his own office and scribbled a reminder of that. He couldn’t settle to do anything else; he’d seen Bristow open the file he’d given him. If he had anything to say about his figures, it would be soon. With his mouth drying, he watched the internal phone on his desk, expecting it to buzz at any moment. When it did, he jumped. Bristow’s voice asked him to come back to his office.

‘Bring your books with you. I’d like to look through the credit day book, the general journal and the trial balance if you’ve done it for this month.’

‘Yes, sir,’ Leo said, hurriedly getting them together. His heart was racing, but he went to knock on the boss’s office door, forcing himself to smile.

‘I’m a bit concerned about this.’ Bristow pushed the monthly bank statement in front of Leo, who hadn’t yet seen it. ‘We don’t seem to be making as much profit as we used to.’

‘I had noticed that last month,’ Leo agreed, opening the books he’d brought in front of the boss. He knew that he mustn’t look as though he had anything to hide. ‘I’ll do a bank reconciliation.’

‘You haven’t made a mistake somewhere?’

‘I don’t think so, sir. I hope not.’ He pretended to be willing and obliging.

Together they spent the morning checking through the figures. Leo knew that unless Bristow unearthed one or more of the six fictitious companies now sending in regular big invoices, it was unlikely he’d find out where the money was going.

The following week, Mr Bristow called a mid-morning meeting of senior staff in his office. Leo knew what it was about, though he didn’t think it would unearth anything new. He made his way to the boss’s office three minutes before the meeting was due to start, with a copy of all relevant figures for each person attending. He’d already voiced his concern at the drop in profits and he thought Francis Clitheroe was still in a fairly safe position. His step was jaunty; he was in confident mood.

Take care, he told himself. He ought to look worried with such bad figures to explain. It was not the moment to let any of them see the satisfaction on his face.

‘Good morning,’ Walter Bristow was already at the table, sipping a cup of coffee. His secretary was there too.

‘Would you like a cup of coffee, Mr Clitheroe?’ Chloe asked.

‘Please.’ He examined her anew. A pretty girl, with her tawny hair done up in a rather insecure bun on the top of her head. It suited her, made her look innocent, though he was sure she couldn’t be that. He’d heard she had two children and had never been married. She was exactly the sort of girl that would suit him if circumstances were different.

‘Can I take a chocolate biscuit?’ he asked.

She smiled; it lit up her face. ‘Help yourself.’

He took two and went to sit down. Other men were waiting to get their coffee: John Walsh, Don Tyler and the sales team.

When they were about ready to start, he watched Chloe pour a cup of coffee for herself and pick up her shorthand pad and pencil. As she sat down, her bun wobbled attractively.

The message from Walter Bristow was strong. It was what Leo had expected. Profits were falling, they must practise strict economy from now on: cut back on expenses, cut waste.

‘We have plenty of orders coming in, sales are up and we are all busy,’ he told them. ‘I really thought we were doing well, but our profits are falling.

‘Mr Clitheroe and I have been through the accounts with a tooth comb and it seems that running costs have expanded almost out of control.’

Chloe’s pencil was flying across her pad. She was taking notes of what the boss was saying. Bristow was trying to motivate them all to do their duty.

The production manager had new ideas on how to cut down waste. The buyer was going to negotiate cheaper contracts when they came up for renewal. He was dealing with two new suppliers who were offering lower prices. The sales manager thought they could widen their market by adding a new line of food for guinea pigs.

‘It needn’t add much to production costs, since we do a line for rabbits and hamsters already.’ He then went on to detail his plan at boring length. The poor sods didn’t realise that none of that would touch the problem.

Leo doodled on the paper in front of him. He knew exactly how much he’d managed to seep out of the company coffers. If he hadn’t succeeded in doing that, he reflected, they’d have made a very decent profit. He was doing all right here; nobody had the slightest suspicion that he was responsible.

As soon as the meeting ended, Chloe slipped out to her desk and began to type up her notes. Later that day she took them in to Uncle Walter.

‘This is worrying me,’ he said. ‘I’ve never seen the trading situation change as quickly before. There’s no reason for it and there was no warning.’

‘The factory is busy.’

‘I know, it’s positively humming,’ he said. ‘We should be making a good profit. I don’t understand why it’s dropping back to nothing.’

‘You’re running the business differently?’

Walter shrugged. ‘No, hardly anything has changed. We’re spending more on raw materials, but that must give us more stock to sell. Turnover is much the same as last year, but our cash reserves are draining away.’

‘Have you taken it up with the bank?’ Chloe asked. ‘It’s not caused by an error there?’

‘No, you made me an appointment to see the manager last month. They’ve checked back through their figures and sent me duplicate statements for the last six months. Mr Clitheroe and I went through their figures and we can see nothing wrong there.’

‘Mr Clitheroe is new,’ Chloe said. ‘Is he drawing up the figures in the same way? Or has he made changes that are giving you a different picture?’

‘That was the first thing I thought of, but no, not that I can see. I even requested a mid-year audit to make sure. Clitheroe says he’s following exactly the method Tom Cleary demonstrated to him.’

‘He’s a strange fellow, Uncle. Not popular with the staff.’

‘Why not?’

‘He’s prickly, on edge.’

‘I don’t find that.’

‘He won’t let me near his files and Mrs Parks says the same. She says he won’t allow her to file anything away, though she did it all for Mr Cleary.’

‘Clitheroe came with good references. I quite like him.’

‘I don’t, and he doesn’t like me.’

‘Nonsense, Chloe, you’re imagining that. He’s very hard-working. Conscientious even.’

‘Mrs Parks is very happy to let him get on with the filing. It’s a routine chore and a pain if you can’t retrieve things when they’re wanted again. Why would he want to take that on?’

‘You’re saying he might be doing something he wants to hide?’

‘I’m just saying it’s unusual behaviour for a busy accountant.’

‘It is.’

Chloe watched Uncle Walter unlock a large drawer in his desk and take out a lot of files. She knew he kept senior staff files in there and that he personally controlled everything to do with them.

He lifted from the pile a file with the name Francis Lovell Clitheroe neatly printed on top, opened it up and pushed it over towards Chloe.

‘Because he’s drawing up the accounts and he’s fairly new here, it’s the obvious place to search for an answer. But I can’t see it and I’ve already looked several times. He’s very well qualified: a chartered accountant with a degree in economics. He should know what he’s doing.’

‘I see there’s a letter here from the Institute of Chartered Accountants confirming he is a member.’

‘He’d lost his certificates, but I took no chances when I took him on. I even did a police check to make sure he had no record.’

‘Really?’

‘He’s handling my money, Chloe.’

‘Age thirty-six.’ She frowned. ‘He looks younger than that. You’re not suspicious in any way about him?’

Her uncle gave her a wry smile. ‘I was when I first noticed there was less in the bank account than I’d expected. But everything about him seems rock solid. He’s polite and very deferential to me. His mother’s a novelist. Joan enjoys her books; she’s read several of them.’

‘Yes, she bought Mum one once for her birthday, and she praised it so much we all read it.’

‘How is Helen?’

Chloe shook her head. ‘She’s not at all well, has a lot of pain. She’s not able to read much any more and asked me if I’d read to her. That was the book she wanted.
Serenade at Midnight
by Rosamund Rogerson. We’re about halfway through and enjoying it over again.’

‘You won’t find any clues in that.’

‘No, the only way is to have a long, hard look through Clitheroe’s files when he isn’t around.’

‘You think he could be hiding something?’

‘I don’t know. The only other way is to ask the auditors to run another check on what he’s done.’

‘But I can’t keep doing that. It would tell him I don’t trust him, wouldn’t it? I’ve thought about this. I think I’ll come in this weekend and have a nose through his books. I wish I knew what to look for.’

‘Shall I come in too, Uncle? I know a bit about accounts, and two heads are better than one.’

‘Would you mind? You can take time off later.’

On Saturday morning, Aunt Goldie was cross because Chloe was getting ready to go to work. ‘Peggy won’t be in today, you’re leaving me to do everything here,’ she complained. ‘It’s not easy, you know, to look after two children as well as your mother. I expect you find sitting in front of a typewriter more restful.’