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  But try as he might, nothing happened. Duffy cheerfully blustered his way through the office day, seemingly without a care in the world. No matter to what depths of incompetence he plummeted, he seemed untouchable. Michael’s only solace was a new type of memo that started arriving for Duffy, sealed in the brown intracompany envelopes with red edges that signified confidential information, marked Addressee Only. Michael ached to know what they contained; if they were merely some sensitive financial or personnel information, or whether they were the beginnings of the recriminations and warnings that would give him hope that his strategy was working.

  But the consequences of opening them were too great, the risks too high. Every time Michael saw one, its presence would gnaw away at him. Duffy never mentioned them. Whenever one arrived, whatever was inside the envelope was never on display when he stopped by Duffy’s office later in the day. Spirited away into some filing cabinet somewhere, Michael concluded, but no sign of where. Duffy locked the door each evening, and there were too many comings and goings to look for the memos during the day, even if the room was empty. Finding and reading them would be tricky.

  Tricky, but not impossible. There was one opportunity. Duffy never locked his door when he went for a business lunch, as his secretary was always popping in and out to drop off whatever she had finished for him. Michael realised he could go into his office on the pretext of leaving a note on his desk about some matter or other. There would be a precious thirty seconds, a minute at a push, when he could open a filing cabinet and check the contents. It would take ten, maybe fifteen visits, but eventually he would have the briefest of glimpses of what was in every drawer.

  After the third sweep, he found what he was looking for. Every folder in the filing cabinet immediately behind Duffy’s desk had a neatly typed label, and they were arranged alphabetically by Duffy’s diligent secretary. But one was labelled Correspondence in Duffy’s own handwriting. Michael glanced inside. Sure enough, an Addressee Only stamp on each memo.

  He steeled himself. To complete the next stage of his plan, he would need time to read what was in there. That meant swiping the folder from the office when Duffy went for lunch, finding a place where he could read it without fear of detection, and getting it back before Duffy returned. The next business lunch seemed like a long time coming, but then one Friday, around midday, Michael glanced up from his desk and saw Duffy struggling into his Gannex raincoat. This was it.

  He stood outside Duffy’s office door, gave a quick look to left and right. Everyone had their heads down, focused on their work. He slipped in, went straight to the filing cabinet, dropped the correspondence folder into a manila envelope, placed a note with some anodyne update on Duffy’s desk and was back outside the door, all in a few seconds. A quick catch of his breath and he headed for the gents. He locked himself in a cubicle and gave a long exhale as he opened the envelope.

  Memo after memo, more and more frequent – initially, gently pointing out to Duffy that he needed to get a grip on things, then becoming increasingly terse. Michael smiled as he read the one about the debacle at the last managers’ meeting. He had intercepted a memo telling Duffy about an imminent interest rate rise in response to a Bank of England base rate hike, only for his ignorance to be exposed at the meeting. The admonition was all the more telling for being curt and direct, lacking any of the pleasantries of the earlier correspondence, which had tiptoed around raising the ungentlemanly notion that Duffy wasn’t up to the job. Michael felt an unalloyed satisfaction that his strategy was working. It looked as if one more push would be all it would take to send Duffy on his way.

  But first, he needed to return the folder. Duffy’s secretary was peering at a handwritten memo, obviously having difficulty in deciphering some handwriting. Michael slipped into the office, glancing back at her to check his presence had gone unnoticed. Then he turned and saw Hector Duffy sitting at his desk.

  ‘Hector. Gosh. Sorry, should have knocked. I thought you’d gone for lunch.’

  ‘Turned up at the restaurant and found the bugger had cancelled. Bloody bad manners if you ask me.’ Duffy gave a grump of annoyance. ‘Anyway, you look in a hurry. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Never stops,’ Michael said, giving himself some time with a chuckle of exasperation. ‘I left a note on your desk to ask if you wanted any help getting ready for the regional meeting this week. I was going to add that the revenue forecast is also due, in case you need any input.’ He leant over to point to the note he had left earlier, tucking the envelope under his other arm.

  ‘Ah yes. I was going to talk to you about that. Maybe I should be doing more of this stuff myself,’ Duffy said, his face reddening. ‘I need to spend more time at the coal face. Can’t have you doing all the work.’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ Michael replied. ‘You shouldn’t be getting tied up in the day-to-day stuff. I’m happy to handle it.’

  ‘And I’m happy to let you.’ Duffy sighed. ‘But it seems I need to be a walking encyclopaedia about the habits of every single one of our customers these days. I’ll be expected to know what they’ve had for breakfast next.’

  ‘Very unfair, these information requests that keep coming in. When do they think you’ll find time to run a bank if you have to deal with all that nonsense?’

  ‘Quite. And that forecast you mentioned. “Where will the business be every month for the next year?” How the bloody hell am I supposed to know?’ Duffy shook his head. ‘I mean, who do they think I am, Nostradamus? I tell you, Michael, this banking lark is changing out of all recognition. Used to be about people. Now it’s results, results, results. Very wearing.’

  ‘I tell you what, let me do the forecast. Don’t worry; I’ll keep it between ourselves. It will be good for me, great learning experience.’

  Duffy didn’t need convincing. ‘Would you? Not my cup of tea doing that sort of thing. But mum’s the word if you don’t mind. I’ve got to make it look like my work.’

  ‘No problem. Only too glad to help. Do you want me to be a bit bullish, or err on the side of caution?’

  ‘Good God, dear boy! Caution. I know you’re an ambitious fellow, but I don’t want to create a rod for my own back. This job is tough enough already.’

  Michael headed back to his desk, clutching the stolen file so tightly his knuckles were white. He slipped it into the top drawer of his desk and waited for Duffy to vacate his office. And waited. The knowledge that at any moment Duffy could open the filing cabinet made it impossible for him to concentrate on anything else. If Duffy found the folder gone, even he would be suspicious – he might even have the wit to start speculating on who had taken it, and why. Michael cursed the man’s pomposity. He never ventured from his office. Everyone came to see him.

  But he was still human. When Michael saw him heading for the toilet, he slipped in to replace the file. No time to wait until he was sure no one would come in behind him. He closed the door to give himself a few precious undisturbed seconds to replace it, already prepared with his embarrassed chuckle that he’d closed it absent-mindedly, should Hector return too soon. But the operation went smoothly. Michael collapsed into the chair back at his desk, a few seconds before Duffy emerged from his ablutions.

  He worked on the forecast that evening, finishing it in the early hours. It showed a massive drop in business to anyone who was familiar with the recent state of the branch’s revenue. Which, of course, was not Duffy. He grinned as he finished it. The finest suicide note any bank manager would ever produce.

  Michael slipped it surreptitiously to Duffy the next morning. Duffy disappeared into his office to rewrite it, so that it would be in his handwriting when he handed it to his secretary to type up.

  ‘Sounded very professional,’ he confided to Michael. ‘And I’ll have it in before the deadline. Keep the buggers off my back for a while at least.’ He patted Michael on the back. ‘Thanks again, old chap. Wish you could sha
re in the glory, but needs must, eh? Rest assured, my man, I’ll remember your help when the time comes.’

  * * *

  It was a red-faced Duffy that called Michael into his office when he came back to the branch after the meeting.

  ‘I think there was a communication breakdown between us, old boy. When I said “conservative”, I didn’t mean that conservative. Caruthers had it in for me. Made me swear blind I’d done the calculations myself, that I totally believed in the numbers, and then he showed me the branch would effectively be closing down if what I’d forecast became a reality. Asked me to explain myself, and I must admit I floundered. For God’s sake, Michael, what were you playing at?’

  ‘I gave you the worst-case scenario, so you could top it up to a level you felt comfortable with.’ Michael fished out a carbon copy of the covering memo from his briefcase. ‘Just there.’

  Duffy groaned. Michael’s eyes widened.

  ‘Surely you didn’t present the base case numbers? Hector, it’s my fault. You did say you wanted to be left alone with the report, finish it off yourself to make sure it looked like it came from you. That’s why I left you that last bit to complete. I’m so sorry. I should have made everything clear.’

  ‘Yes, you should. But no use crying over spilt milk. Maybe I should have checked the numbers before sending them on, but it was a busy time. Anyway, I know when to do the decent thing. They want me to quit the branch, do some office job in Edinburgh. Said yes, I’d be delighted, even though I couldn’t for the life of me understand what the job was. World’s getting too complicated. Don’t understand a bloody word of most of what I read from head office these days.’

  ‘You and I both know you’ve done a fine job at the bank. And I’ll tell anyone who asks just that.’ Michael gave his assiduously cultivated smile of support. ‘And your efforts won’t be wasted, Hector. I’ve run the branch at short notice before. Happy to do it again. Make sure the ball doesn’t get dropped.’

  Duffy sighed. ‘If only things were that simple, Michael. I’m afraid all my flannelling about trying to explain the numbers has led them to believe the branch is all over the place. They’re catapulting that bloody whizz-kid in from Edinburgh. Ian Mason, you probably know him. Crisis management, they call it. Bloody cheek. I told them you would have my full confidence to run the branch; that I’d taught you all I know and I’d stake my reputation on you doing a splendid job. But they were having none of it. Sorry, old bean.’

  Michael’s smile turned into a bitter grimace. Just when things couldn’t get any worse, they just had.

  chapter three

  Michael was alone in his flat. Shostakovich’s Symphony No 10 filled the air, the music whirling with a mad frenzy, the brooding strings reflecting his despair, the fury of the brass and percussion fuelling his anger. He had torn off his tie and was slumped down in a chair. The light was fading; he sat motionless as the room descended into darkness.

  The record finished playing and the stylus stayed nestled in the playout groove, replacing the soaring music with a repetitive, insistent click, like a clock ticking away the seconds of his life. He let the turntable turn twenty, maybe thirty times before he stirred himself into action and switched it off.

  ‘I will not let them beat me,’ he said aloud, each word filled with the fire of conviction. ‘I will not let them beat me.’

  That evening there was to be a Second Chance charity event. Duffy had stopped Michael using the bank’s money to make showy donations, so now he would do so from his own pocket. It was an expensive ritual he couldn’t really afford. Away from other people he tended to live an ascetic existence, but in the public gaze he was cultivating a new image; someone successful, generous, with taste and culture. These trappings did not come cheap, and he had to scrimp and save to afford the silver cufflinks, the monogrammed cigarette case and the tailored suits. Charity events gave him a stage to play out his new persona, to be fêted as a dignitary, a favourite of the fresh-faced impressionable young students who formed the bulk of the volunteers. Second Chance had made Michael a trustee, a big responsibility for someone in their early thirties, and at every fundraising event he was treated with deference and admiration, a champion of the disadvantaged and underprivileged. For a few hours at least, he could step into a world where he enjoyed everyone’s respect and esteem.

  And he was, if he could ever admit it to himself, even a little supportive of what the charity was about. He saw a lot of his own background in the failed lives of the people they were trying to help. He remembered his confusion as a child, when his mother tried to cover up her alcoholic stumbling when he came home from school, and when the domestic chaos of her addiction brought out his father’s violent temper. Michael would hide in his room until the shouting and screaming subsided. He had never touched alcohol as a result.

  He took a long shower to wash away the negativity of the day, then slipped on a blazer with a pocket square over his crisp white shirt and skinny tie; plaid trousers and loafers completing the look. He still had the hard, muscular body he had developed from his years doing the physical work of a kitchen porter; the clothes hung well on him. It was maybe a touch too formal for the occasion, but he liked it. It gave him gravitas.

  The event was at Drumchapel, a thirty-minute drive, and when Michael turned off the A82 and onto the litter-strewn streets of a vast pebble-dashed housing estate, it occurred to him that whatever the desolation of his own upbringing, this was an even more brutal existence. Broken-down cars on every street, random pieces of industrial machinery rusting away on patches of front gardens choked with overgrown weeds. Smashed windows patched up with sodden chipboard, litter blowing over the broken, sagging fences. He parked his Ford Cortina under a street lamp and headed into the community hall.

  The evening was based around a talk by Kenny McGowan, a regular speaker at rallies to do with crime, rehabilitation and social injustice. He had been a career villain who had gone straight after serving a lengthy spell in Barlinnie, ‘Bar-L’ as it was known to the criminal community. McGowan had been notorious in the 1950s and 60s, a razor-wielding thug who had terrorised the mean streets of Glasgow’s East End with his gangland antics. Now he was a reformed character and gave talks about that time, as well as campaigning for prison reform and offender rehabilitation.

  The place was packed. A hundred and fifty people were crammed into the hall twenty minutes before it started. A small group of students from the university branch of Second Chance huddled together in a corner, the girls’ maxi skirts and the boys’ loon pants and tie-dyed shirts marking them out as a different tribe to the rest of the audience, who were clad in a drab monotony of brown and beige. A group of men in crumpled, ill-fitting suits and wide kipper ties looked to Michael like criminals; acolytes there to pay homage. He stared for a few seconds at a small man with the pocket-atom frame of a retired featherweight boxer, who was chatting somewhat incongruously to a burly colossus in a long overcoat. He smiled and turned back towards the students, recognised one of the charity volunteers and went over to join them.

  Someone walked up to the microphone and tapped it a couple of times.

  ‘Good evening.’

  Everyone ignored him.

  He tried again. ‘Good evening.’

  A few heads turned but the conversations continued.

  Kenny McGowan walked up to the microphone, strutting like Jimmy Cagney. ‘You’re no’ listening,’ he said to the crowd, a flat tone to his voice. ‘He said “Good evening”.’

  The crowd fell silent. McGowan smiled and handed the microphone back to the embarrassed charity worker.

  ‘Um, thanks, Kenny,’ the man said, fiddling with his tie. He cleared his throat. ‘It’s a very special night for Second Chance this evening, because we have two important guests. Michael Mitchell, one of our trustees …’

  He indicated Michael with an outstretched arm and there was a polite round
of stuttering applause. Michael raised his hand in acknowledgement, nodding a half-smile around the hall. He caught McGowan’s eye and saw a look of penetrating appraisal. McGowan’s lips loosened into a furtive smile. He knew exactly what game Michael was playing, and Michael looked away first, unsettled.

  ‘… And the person who doesn’t need any introduction at all, Drumchapel’s own Kenny McGowan. Over to you, Kenny.’

  The hall erupted with cheers.

  McGowan addressed the crowd with practised ease. He talked about his life of crime, starting at the age of eight, stealing sweets from the local corner shop, and graduating to smashing open cigarette machines by thirteen. Then crying for his ma when he was sent to a notorious List D school. But it was the story behind his life sentence that impressed Michael. McGowan was jailed for the murder of a fellow villain after refusing to name the friend of his who did the deed.

  ‘I’m from the Don’t grass on your mates school of thought,’ he said. ‘Meant I had to eat porridge for fifteen years. I’m no’ saying that’s right and I’m no’ saying that’s wrong. It’s just who I am.’

  The men in ties led the applause.

  ‘Aye, it’s good to see you agree with that.’ McGowan caught the eye of the pocket atom and they exchanged a meaningful look. ‘Because it’s all about respect. I had a fierce temper on me, especially when I’d had a dram or two, and I knew how to use my fists and even a chib if I had to. But that sort of respect disnae last. Any hard man can put the fear of God into the punters and get respect for that, until the next hard man comes along to take him out. But real respect, respect that lasts, that disnae come from your fists, that comes from in here.’ McGowan pointed to his head. The crowd applauded again.