Cat O'Nine Tales and Other Stories - Jeffrey Archer [11]
Sue had to check the records to remind herself of the amount she had requested in the same week of the previous year—£40,000, which had turned out to be £800 more than she needed. This year she asked for £60,000, and waited for some comment from the credit officer, but the voice from headquarters sounded neither surprised nor concerned. The full amount was delivered by a security van the following Monday.
During the week Chris and Sue fulfilled all their customers’ obligations; after all, it had never been their intention to shortchange any of their regulars, but they still found themselves with a surplus of £21,000 at the end of week one. They left the cash—used notes only—locked up in the safe, just in case some fastidious official from headquarters decided to carry out a spot-check.
Once Sue had closed the front door at six o’clock and pulled down the blinds, the two of them would only converse in Portuguese, while they spent the rest of the evening filling in postal orders, rubbing out scratch cards and entering lottery numbers, often falling asleep as they worked.
Every morning Chris would rise early and climb into his aging Rover, with Stamps as his only companion. He traveled north, east, south and west—Monday Lincoln, Tuesday Louth, Wednesday Skegness, Thursday Hull and Friday Immingham, where he would cash several postal orders, and also collect his winnings on the scratch cards and lottery tickets, enabling him to supplement their newly acquired savings with an extra few hundred pounds each day.
On the last Friday in November, week two, Sue applied for £70,000 from head office, so that by the following Saturday, they were able to add a further £32,000 to their invisible earnings.
On the first Friday in December, Sue raised the stakes to £80,000, and was surprised to discover that there were still no questions back at headquarters: after all, hadn’t Sue Haskins been manager of the year, with a special commendation from the board? A security van dutifully delivered the full amount in cash early on the Monday morning.
Another week of increased profits allowed Sue Haskins to add a further £39,000 to the pot without any of the other players round the table demanding to see her hand. They were now showing a surplus of well over £100,000, which was stacked up in neat little piles of used notes, resting on top of the four passports buried at the bottom of the safe.
Chris hardly slept at night as he continued to sign countless postal orders, rub out piles of scratch cards and, before going to bed, fill in numerous lottery tickets with endless combinations. By day he visited every post office within a fifty-mile radius, gathering his spoils, but, despite his dedication, by the second week in December Mr. and Mrs. Haskins had only collected just over half the amount required to retrieve the £250,000 they had originally invested.
Sue warned Chris that they would have to take an even bigger risk if they still hoped to acquire the full amount by Christmas Eve.
On the second Friday in December, week four, Sue called the issuing manager at headquarters, and made a request for £115,000.
“You’re having a busy Christmas,” suggested a voice on the other end of the line. First sign of any suspicion, thought Sue, but she had her script well prepared.
“Run off my feet,” Sue told him, “but don’t forget, more people retire to Cleethorpes than any other seaside town in Britain.”
“You learn something new every day,” came back the voice on the other end of the line, before adding, “Don’t worry, the cash will be with you on Monday. Keep up the good work.”
“I will,” promised Sue, and, emboldened by the exchange, requested £140,000 for the final week before Christmas, aware that any sum above £150,000 was always referred back to head office in London.
When Sue pulled down the blinds at six o’clock on Christmas Eve, both of them were exhausted.
Sue was the first to recover. “We haven