Lies and Desperate Measures ( Paperback )

Tuesday, 17th March 1914

Harvey Wheeler smiled at the woman on the other side of the counter and handed back her passbook. The smile vanished as soon as she turned away, only to reappear immediately as the next customer stepped up to the grille.

How long had he been doing this? Wheeler wondered as he went through the motions of a chief clerk – taking the passbook, counting out coins and banknotes, updating the balance, stamping the date, handing it back, moving on to the next… Fourteen years, was it? He tried to remember when he had got his promotion from clerk to chief clerk, and found he couldn’t recall the date, only the joy he’d felt believing he was on his way to the top. And yet here he was, all these years later, still waiting for his own bank to run.

‘Mr Wheeler?’ a voice behind him called.

He turned and raised his eyebrows at the secretary. ‘Yes, Miss Hurst?’

‘Mr Fowler wants to see you.’ Miss Hurst led him to the manager’s office before he could utter a reply. ‘You can go straight in,’ she told him as she resettled herself at her desk.

Wheeler opened the manager’s door and poked his head inside. ‘You wanted to see me, Mr Fowler?’

‘Yes, come in.’ The bespectacled man in the black three-piece suit at the desk waved him to a chair. ‘Sit down.’

Wheeler did so and watched as the bank manager lifted an envelope from the pile of post on his desk and laid it before him. ‘I’ve had a letter from Head Office about you,’ he began, and Wheeler’s breath caught in his throat. ‘It seems you’ve applied for a new position?’

His heart sank. This could only mean he had been unsuccessful. ‘They’ve written to you?’ he said, a little indignantly. ‘Why did they do that?’

‘I expect they thought I had a right to know my chief clerk was looking for a new position.’ Fowler fixed him with a hard stare. ‘It seems there are no suitable vacancies at present.’

Wheeler groaned. What do I have to do, for heaven’s sake? ‘But they will keep my application on file?’

‘They don’t say.’ Fowler set the Head Office’s letter aside. ‘I understand this hasn’t been your only application for promotion. In fact, it was your fourth. I must say I am surprised.’

‘I’m entitled to apply,’ Wheeler said defiantly.

‘Quite frankly, Wheeler, I’m surprised you think yourself capable of running your own branch when your running of the floor has hardly been exemplary of late. You’re supposed to keep an eye on the staff, yet you failed to notice the new clerk wasn’t filling in his paperwork correctly. That oversight resulted in miscalculations that took weeks to correct—’

‘He assured me he knew what he was doing,’ Wheeler protested.

‘And then there was all that trouble with Mrs Gormley,’ Fowler went on. ‘Your handling of her complaint made the situation far worse than it should have been. As a result, we lost both her and her husband’s accounts.’

‘They’re no great loss,’ he muttered sulkily.

‘Any loss is an unacceptable loss, Wheeler. Not just in financial terms, but in the loss of our good name. The Gormleys have taken their accounts to the London & South-Eastern.’ Fowler’s lip curled in vexation. ‘I know because Mr Fyfield has taken great delight in informing me of that fact.’

Wheeler rolled his eyes. What did he care if another bank manager had gloated in the pub?

‘In view of this,’ Fowler continued, ‘I think it would be wise for you to stop applying for promotion and concentrate on improving your performance here. Otherwise, I may be forced to reconsider your position at this establishment.’

Wheeler’s hands curled into fists on his knees at Fowler’s last words. Who the hell did he think he was, talking to him as if he was a naughty schoolboy who hadn’t done his homework properly? And was Fowler actually threatening him with the sack? After all the years of service he had put in? Why, he had a good mind to—

‘That’s all, Wheeler,’ Fowler said. ‘You can go.’

Punch him, Wheeler told himself. Smash his face in and show him you won’t take this from him. Go on. Do it.
He glared at the bank manager, who was reaching for the telephone and who had already dismissed Wheeler from his mind as well as his office.

Fowler glanced up at him, an eyebrow raised at Wheeler still being there. ‘I said you can go, Wheeler.’

Wheeler’s fists uncurled. He’d never thrown a punch in his life and he knew he would only make a fool of himself if he tried, and end up losing his job and then where would he be? Forty-nine years old, thrown on the rubbish heap, destined to join the great unwashed. Dejected, Wheeler rose and left the office without a word.