"Oh, don"t let"s talk business," said Angela, touching his hand.

"It"s not business," Henry a.s.sured her.

When Angela woke the following morning, she smiled as she remembered what a pleasant evening she"d spent with Henry. All she could recall him saying as they parted was, "Don"t forget that any winnings made from gambling are taxfree." What was all that about?

Henry, on the other hand, could recall every detail of the advice he"d given Angela. He rose early on the following Sunday and began preparing an outline plan, which included opening several bank accounts, preparing spreadsheets and working on a long-term investment program. He nearly missed matins.

The following evening Henry made his way to the Hilton Hotel on Park Lane, arriving a few minutes after midnight.

He was carrying an empty Gladstone bag in one hand and an umbrella in the other. After all, he had to look the part.

The Westminster and City Conservative a.s.sociations annual ball was coming to an end. As Henry entered the ballroom, party-goers were beginning to burst balloons and drain the last drops of champagne from any remaining bottles.

He spotted Angela seated at a table in the far corner, sorting out pledges, checks and cash before placing them in three separate piles. She looked up and couldn"t mask her surprise when she saw him. Angela had spent the day convincing herself that he didn"t mean it and, if he did turn up, she wouldn"t go through with it.

"How much cash?" he asked matterof-factly, even before she could say h.e.l.lo.

"Twenty-two thousand three hundred and seventy pounds," she heard herself saying.

Henry took his time. He doublechecked the notes before placing the cash in his battered bag. Angela"s calculation had proved to be accurate. He handed her a receipt for 19,400.

"See you later," he said, just as the band struck up "Jerusalem." Henry left the ballroom as the words "Bring me my bow of burning gold" were rendered l.u.s.tily and out of tune. Angela remained transfixed as she watched Henry walk away. She knew that if she didn"t chase after him and stop the man before he reached the bank, there could be no turning back.

"Congratulations on another well-organized event, Angela," said Councillor Pickering, interrupting her thoughts. "I don"t know how we"d manage without you."

"Thank you," said Angela, turning to face the chairman of the ball committee.

Henry pushed his way through the hotels swing doors and out onto the street, feeling for the first time that his anonymity was no longer a weakness but a strength. He could hear his heart beating as he headed toward the local branch of HSBC, the nearest bank with an overnight safe deposit. Henry dropped 19,400 into the safe, leaving 2,970 of the cash in his bag. He then hailed a taxianother departure from his usual routineand gave the cabby an address in the West End.

The taxi drew up outside an establishment that Henry had never entered before, although he had kept their accounts for over twenty years.

The night manager of the Black Ace Casino tried not to look surprised when Mr. Preston walked onto the floor. Had he come to make a spot-check? It seemed unlikely, as the company accountant didn"t acknowledge him but headed straight for the roulette table.

Henry knew the odds only too well because he signed off the casino"s end-ofyear balance sheet every April, and despite rent, rates, staff wages, security and even free meals and drinks for favored customers, his client still managed to declare a handsome profit. But it wasn"t Henry"s intention to make a profit, or, for that matter, a loss.

Henry took a seat at the roulette table and saw red. He opened his Gladstone bag, extracted ten ten-pound notes and handed them across to the croupier, who in turn counted them slowly before he gave Henry ten little blue and white chips in return.

There were a number of gamblers already seated at the table, placing bets of different denominations, five, ten, twenty, fifty and even the occasional hundred-pound golden chip. Only one punter had a stack of golden chips in front of him, which he was spreading randomly around the different numbers.

Henry was pleased to see that he held the attention of most of the onlookers standing round the table.

While the man on the far side of the table continued to litter the green baize with golden chips, Henry placed one of his ten-pound chips on red. The wheel spun and the little white ball revolved in the opposite direction until it finally settled in red 19. The croupier returned one ten-pound chip to Henry, while he raked in over a thousand pounds" worth of golden chips from the gambler on the other side of the table.

While the croupier prepared for the next spin of the wheel, Henry slipped his single chip in the left-hand pocket of his jacket, while leaving his original stake on red.

The croupier spun the wheel again and this time the little white ball came to a halt in black 4, and Henry"s chip was raked in by the croupier. Two bets, and Henry had broken even. He placed another ten-pound chip on red. Henry had already accepted that if he was to exchange all the cash for chips, it would be a long and arduous process. But then Henry, unlike most gamblers, was a patient man, whose only purpose was to break even. He placed another ten pounds on red.

Three hours later, by which time he had managed to exchange all 2,970 of cash for chips without anyone becoming suspicious, Henry left the table and headed for the bar. If any one had been following closely what Henry had been up to, they would have observed that he had just about broken even. But then that was his intention. He only ever meant to exchange all the surplus cash for chips before he could execute the second part of his plan.

When Henry reached the bar, his Gladstone bag empty and his pockets bulging with chips, he took a seat next to a woman who appeared to be on her own. He didn"t speak to her and she showed no interest in him. When Angela ordered another drink, Henry bent down and deposited all of his chips into the open handbag she had left on the floor beside her. He was already walking toward the exit before the barman could take his order.

The manager pulled open the front door for him.

"I hope it won"t be too long before we see you again, sir."

Henry nodded, but didn"t bother to explain that the whole exercise was about to become part of a nightly routine. Once Henry was back outside on the pavement, he walked toward the nearest tube station, but didn"t start whistling until he"d turned the corner.

Angela bent down and closed her bag, but not before she"d finished her drink. Two men had propositioned her earlier in the evening and she"d felt quite flattered. She slipped off her stool and walked across to join a short queue of punters at the cashier"s window. When she reached the front, Angela pushed the pile of ten-pound chips under the steel grille and waited.

"Cash or check, madam?" inquired the teller, once he"d counted her chips.

"A check please," Angela replied.

"What name should the check be made out to?" was the teller"s next question.

After a moment"s hesitation, Angela said, "Mrs. Ruth Richards."

The cashier wrote out the name Ruth Richards, and the figure, 2,930, before slipping the check under the grille. Angela checked the figure. Henry had lost 40. She smiled, remembering that he had a.s.sured her that over a year it would even out. After all, as he had explained often enough, he wasn"t playing the odds, but simply exchanging any traceable cash for chips, so that she would end up with a check which no one would later be able to trace.

Angela slipped out of the casino when she saw the manager chatting to another customer who had clearly lost a large sum of money. Henry had warned her that the management keeps a much closer eye on winners than losers, and that as she was about to embark on a long and profitable run she shouldn"t draw attention to herself.

One of Henry"s stipulations was that there should not be any contact between the two of them, other than when he came to collect the takings, and then again for that brief moment when he deposited the chips into her open bag. He didn"t want anyone to think that they might be an item. Angela reluctantly agreed with his reasoning. Henry"s only other piece of advice was that she should not be seen collecting the cash herself during any function.

"Leave that to the volunteers," he said, "so that if anything goes wrong, no one will suspect you."

There are one hundred and twelve casinos located across central London, so Henry and Angela didn"t find it necessary to return to any particular establishment more than once a year.

For the next three years, Henry and Angela took their holidays at the same time, but never in the same place, and always in August. Angela explained that not many organizations hold their annual events in that particular month. During the season Henry had to make sure that he was never out of town because from September to December Sunday was the only night Angela could guarantee not to be working, and in the run-up to Christmas she often had a lunchtime event, followed by a couple more functions in the evening.

Although Henry had written the rulebook, Angela had insisted on adding a subclause. Nothing would be deducted from any organization which failed to reach the previous year"s total. Despite this addendum, which incidentally Henry heartily agreed with, he rarely left a function with his Gladstone bag empty The two of them still met once a year at Mr. Preston"s office to go over Ms. Forster"s annual accounts, which was followed by a dinner a week later at La Bacha. Neither of them ever alluded to the fact that she had siphoned off 267,900, 311,150 and 364,610 during the past three years, and after each function deposited the latest check in different bank accounts right across London, always in the name of Mrs. Ruth Richards. Henry"s other responsibility was to ensure that their new-found wealth was invested shrewdly, remembering that he wasn"t a gambler.

However, one of the advantages of preparing other companies" accounts is that it isn"t too difficult to predict who is likely to have a good year. As the checks were never made out in his or her name, any subsequent profits couldn"t be traced back to either of them.

After they had banked the first million, Henry felt that they could risk a celebration dinner. Angela wanted to go to Mosimann"s in West Halkin Street, but Henry vetoed the idea. He booked a table for two at La Bacha. No need to draw attention to their newfound wealth, he reminded her.

Henry made two other suggestions during dinner. Angela was quite happy to go along with the first, but didn"t want to talk about the second. Henry had advised her to transfer the first million to an offsh.o.r.e account in the Cook Islands, while he carried on with the same investment policy; he also recommended that in future whenever they cleared another hundred thousand, Angela would immediately transfer the sum to the same account.

Angela raised her gla.s.s. "Agreed," she said, "but what is the second item on the agenda, Mr. Chairman?" she asked, teasing him. Henry took her through the details of a contingency plan she didn"t even want to think about.

Henry finally raised his gla.s.s. For the first time in his life, he was looking forward to retirement, and joining all his colleagues for a farewell party on his sixtieth birthday Six months later, the chairman of Pearson, Clutterbuck & Reynolds sent out invitations to all the firm"s employees, asking them to join the partners for drinks at a local three-star hotel to celebrate the retirement of Henry Preston and to

thank him for forty years of dedicated service to the company.

Henry was unable to attend his own farewell party, as he ended up celebrating his sixtieth birthday behind bars, and all for a mere Miss Florence Blenkinsopp doublechecked the figures. She"d been right the first time. They were 820 short of the amount she had calculated before the uninvited guest dressed in a pinstriped suit had walked into the ballroom with his little bag and disappeared with all the cash. It couldn"t be Angela who was responsible; after all, she had been one of her pupils at St. Catherine"s Convent.

Miss Blenkinsopp dismissed the discrepancy as her mistake, especially as the takings were comfortably up on the previous year"s total.

The following year would be the convent"s one-hundredth anniversary, and Miss Blenkinsopp was already planning a centenary ball. She told her committee that she expected them to pull their socks up if they hoped to set records during the centenary year. Although Miss Blenkinsopp had retired as headmistress of St. Catherines some seven years before, she continued to treat her committee of old gals as if they were still adolescent pupils.

The centenary ball could not have been a greater success, and Miss Blenkinsopp was the first to single out Angela for particular praise. She made it clear that in her opinion, Ms. Forster had certainly pulled her socks up. However, Miss Blenkinsopp felt it necessary to triple-check the cash they had collected that night, before the little man turned up with his Gladstone bag and took it all away. When she went over the figures later in the week, although their previous record had been broken by a considerable amount, the cash entry was over two thousand short of the figure she had scribbled on the back of her place card.

Miss Blenkinsopp felt she had no choice but to point out the discrepancy (two years running) to her president, Lady Travington, who in turn sought the advice of her husband, who was chairman of the local watch committee. Sir David promised, before putting the light out that night, that he would have a word with the chief constable in the morning.

When the chief constable was informed of the misappropriation, he pa.s.sed on the details to his chief superintendent. He sent it further down the line to a chief inspector, who would like to have told his boss that he was in the middle of a murder hunt and also staking out a shipment of heroin with a street value of over ten million. The fact that St. Catherines Convent had mislaidhe checked his notesjust over 2,000, wasn"t likely to be placed at the top of his priority list. He stopped the next person walking down the corridor and pa.s.sed her the file. "See you have a full report on my desk, Sergeant, before the watch committee meet next month."

Detective Sergeant Janet Seaton set about her task as if she was stalking Jack the Ripper.

First, she interviewed Miss Blenkinsopp, who was most cooperative, but insisted that none of her gals could possibly have been involved with such an unpleasant incident, and therefore they were not to be interviewed. Ten days later, DS Seaton purchased a ticket for the Bebbington Hunt Ball, despite the fact that she had never mounted a horse in her life.

DS Seaton arrived at Bebbington Hall just before the gong was struck and the toastmaster bellowed out, "Dinner is served." She quickly identified Angela Forster, even before she had located her table. Although DS Seaton had to engage in polite conversation with the men on either side of her, she was still able to keep a roving eye on Ms. Forster. By the time cheese and coffee were served, the detective had come to the conclusion that she was dealing with a consummate professional. Not only could Ms. Forster handle the regular outbursts of Lady Bebbington, the Master of Hounds" wife, but she also found time to organize the band, the kitchen, the waiters, the cabaret and the voluntary staff without once breaking into a gallop. But, more interesting, she seemed to have nothing to do with the collecting of any money. That was carried out by a group of ladies, who performed the task without appearing to consult Angela.

When the band struck up its opening number, several young men asked the detective sergeant for a dance. She turned them all down, one somewhat reluctantly.

It was a few minutes before one, when the evening was drawing to a close, that the detective sergeant spotted the man she had been waiting for. Among the red and black jackets, he would have been easier to identify than a fox on the run. He also fitted the exact description Miss Blenkinsopp had provided: a short, rotund, bald-headed man of around sixty who would be more appropriately dressed for an accountant"s office than a Hunt Ball. She never took her eyes off him as he progressed un.o.btrusively around the outside of the dance floor to disappear behind the bandstand. The detective quickly left her table and walked to the other side of the ballroom, coming to a halt only when she had a perfect sighting of the two of them. The man was seated next to Angela counting the cash, unaware that an extra pair of eyes was watching him. The detective sergeant stared at Angela, as the man carefully placed the checks, the pledges and the cash in separate piles. Not a word pa.s.sed between them.

Once Henry had double-checked the amount of cash, he didn"t even give Angela a second look. He placed the notes in his bag and handed her a receipt. With no more than a slight bow of the head, he retraced his steps round the outside of the dance floor and quickly left the ballroom. The whole operation had taken him less than seven minutes. Henry didn"t notice that one of the revellers was only a few paces behind him, and, more important, her eyes never left him.

DS Seaton watched as the unidentified man made his way down the long drive, through the wrought-iron gates and on toward the village.

Since it was a clear night and the streets were empty, it was not difficult for DS Seaton to follow the progress of the man with the bag without being spotted. He must have been supremely confident because he never once looked back. She only had to slip into the shadows on one occasion, when her quarry came to a halt outside a local branch of the Nat West Bank. He opened his bag, removed a package and dropped it into the overnight safe. He then continued on his way, hardly breaking his stride.

Where was he going?

The young detective had to make an instant decision. Should she follow the stranger, or return to Bebbington Hall and see what Ms. Forster was up to? Follow the money, she had always been instructed by her supervisor at Peel House.

When Henry reached the station, the detective sergeant cursed. She had left her car in the grounds of the hall, and if she was to continue pursuing the bag man, she would have to abandon the vehicle and pick it up first thing in the morning.

The last train to Waterloo that night trundled into Bebbington Halt a few minutes later. It was becoming clear that the man with the bag had everything timed to the minute. The detective remained out of sight until her suspect had boarded the train. She then took a seat in the next carriage.

When they reached Waterloo, the man stepped off the train and made his way quickly across to the nearest taxi rank. The detective stood to one side and watched as he progressed to the front of the queue. The moment he climbed into a cab, the detective walked briskly to the top of the queue, produced her warrant card and apologized to the person who was about to step into a cab. She jumped in the taxi and instructed the driver to follow the one that had just moved off the rank.

When the driver pulled up outside the Black Ace Casino, the detective remained in the back of her cab until the man had disappeared inside.

She took her time paying the cab driver before she climbed out and followed her quarry into the casino. She filled in a temporary membership form, as she didn"t want anyone to realize that she was on duty.

DS Seaton strolled onto the floor and glanced around the gaming tables. It only took her a few moments before she spotted her man seated next to one of the roulette wheels. She took a step closer and joined a group of onlookers who formed a horseshoe around the table.

The detective sergeant made sure that she remained some distance away from her quarry because, dressed in a long blue silk gown more appropriate for a ball, he might spot her and even wonder if she had followed him from Bebbington Hall.

For the next hour she watched the man remove wads of cash from his bag at regular intervals, then exchange them for chips. An hour later the bag was clearly empty because he left the table with a glum look on his face, and made his way toward the bar.

DS Seaton had cracked it. The anonymous man was siphoning off money from the evening events in order to finance his gambling habit, but she still couldn"t be sure if Angela was involved.

The detective slipped behind a marble pillar as the man climbed onto a stool next to a lady in a blue suit with a short skirt.

Did he have enough money over to pay for a prost.i.tute? The detective stepped out from behind the pillar to take a closer look, and nearly b.u.mped into Henry as he began walking back toward the exit. Later, much later, DS Seaton thought it strange that he had left the bar without having a drink. Perhaps the woman on the stool had rejected him.

Henry stepped out onto the pavement and hailed a taxi. The detective grabbed the next one. She followed his cab as it made its way across Putney Bridge and continued its journey along the south side of the river. The taxi finally came to a halt outside a block of flats in Wandsworth. DS Seaton made a note of the address and decided that she had earned a taxi ride home.

The following morning, DS Seaton placed her report on the chief inspector"s desk.

He read it, smiled, left his office and walked down the corridor to brief the chief superintendent, who in turn phoned the chief constable. The chief decided not to mention it to the chairman of the watch committee until after an arrest had been made, as he wanted to present Sir David with an open-and-shut case, one that a jury could not fail to convict on.

Henry deposited the cash from the b.u.t.terfly Ball in the overnight vault of Lloyds TSB just a couple of hundred yards away from the hotel where the Masons were holding their annual dinner. He must have walked about another thirty yards before a police car drew up beside him. There wouldn"t have been much point in making a dash for it, as Henry wasn"t built for a change of gear.

And in any case he had already planned for this moment, right down to the last detail. Henry was arrested and charged two days before the watch committee was due to meet.

Henry selected Mr. Clifton-Smyth to represent him, a solicitor whose accounts he had handled for the past twenty years.

Mr. Clifton-Smyth listened carefully to his client"s defense, making copious notes, but when Henry finally came to the end of his tale, the lawyer only had one piece of advice to offer him: plead guilty.

"I will of course," added the lawyer, "brief counsel of any mitigating circ.u.mstances."

Henry accepted his solicitor"s advice; after all, Mr. Clifton-Smyth had never once, in the past two decades, questioned his judgment.

Henry made no attempt to contact Angela during the run-up to the trial, and although the police felt fairly confident that she was playing Bonnie to his Clyde, they quickly worked out that they shouldn"t have arrested him until he"d gone to the casino a second time. Who was the woman seated at the bar? Had she been waiting for him? The Special Crime Unit spent weeks collecting bank stubs from casinos right across London, but they couldn"t find a single check made out to a Ms. Angela Forster, and even more puzzling, they didn"t come up with one for a Mr. Henry Preston. Did he always lose?

When they checked Angela"s events book, they discovered that Henry had always taken responsibility for counting the cash, and signed the receipt. Her bank account was then picked over by a bunch of treasury vultures, and found to be only 11,318 in credit, a sum that had showed very little movement either way for the past five years. When DS Seaton reported back to Miss Blenkinsopp, she seemed quite content to believe that the right man had been apprehended. After all, she told the detective, a St. Catherine"s gal couldn"t possibly be involved in that sort of thing.

With the murder hunt still in progress, and the drugs stash not yet unearthed, the chief superintendent sent down an instruction to close the St. Catherine"s file. They"d made an arrest, and that was all that would matter when they reported their annual crime statistics.

Once the Treasury solicitors had accepted that they couldn"t trace any of the missing money, Henry"s solicitor managed to broker a deal with the CPS. If he pleaded guilty to the theft of 130,000, and was willing to return the full amount to the injured parties concerned, they would recommend a reduced sentence.

"And no doubt there are mitigating circ.u.mstances in this case that you wish to bring to my attention, Mr. Cameron?" suggested the judge as he stared down from the bench at Henry"s Silk.

"There most certainly are, m"lord," replied Mr. Alex Cameron QC as he rose slowly from his place. "My client," he began, "makes no secret of his unfortunate addiction to gambling, which has been the cause of his tragic downfall.

However," Mr. Cameron continued, "I feel confident that your lordship will take into account that this is my client"s first offense, and until this sad lapse of judgment he had been a pillar of the community with an unblemished reputation.

Indeed, my client has given years of selfless service to his local church as its honorary treasurer, to which you will recall, m"lord, the vicar bore witness."

Mr. Cameron cleared his throat before continuing. "M"lord, you see before you a broken and penniless man, who has nothing to look forward to except long lonely years of retirement. He has even," added Mr. Cameron, tugging at his lapels, "had to sell his flat in Wandsworth in order to repay his creditors." He paused. "Perhaps you might feel, in the circ.u.mstances, m"lord, that my client has suffered quite enough and should therefore be treated leniently." Mr. Cameron smiled hopefully at the judge, and resumed his seat.

The judge looked down at Henry"s advocate, and returned his smile. "Not quite enough, Mr. Cameron. Try not to forget that Mr. Preston was a professional man who violated a position of trust. But first let me remind your client," said the judge, turning his attention to Henry, "that gambling is a sickness, and the defendant should seek some help for his malady the moment he is released from prison." Henry braced himself as he waited to learn how long his sentence would be.

The judge paused for what seemed an eternity, as he continued to stare at Henry. "I sentence you to three years," he said, before adding, "take the prisoner down."

Henry was shipped off to Ford open prison. No one noticed him come and no one noticed him go. He led just as anonymous an existence on the inside as he had outside. He received no mail, made no phone calls and entertained no visitors. When they released him eighteen months later, having completed half his sentence, there was no one waiting at the barrier to greet him.

Henry Preston accepted his 45 discharge pay, and was last seen heading toward the local railway station, carrying a Gladstone bag containing only his personal belongings.

Mr. and Mrs. Graham Richards enjoy a pleasant, if somewhat uneventful retirement on the island of Majorca. They have a small, front-line villa overlooking the Bay of Palma, and both of them are proving to be popular with the local community.

The chairman of the Royal Overseas Club in Palma reported to the AGM that he considered he"d pulled off quite a coup, convincing the former finance director of the Nigerian National Oil Company to become the club"s honorary treasurer. Nods, hear-hears and a sprinkling of applause followed. The chairman went on to suggest that the secretary should record a note in the minutes, that since Mr. Richards had taken over the responsibility as treasurer, the club"s accounts had been in apple-pie order.