Chapter 9

The Finance Officer told him, “Our Head of Security went with me to the Chemistry Department and demanded to see the department ordering book from the Technician. Surprisingly, he quickly went and brought it to us, and we went over it. There were none of the expected large orders that we know were supplied, and I questioned him on it. He gave me a story that I am inclined to believe.

He only orders what the lecturer responsible for supplies, a man named Proudfoot, tells him to. BUT he believes that the lecturer also places orders that he doesn’t see. He gets this idea based on comments by another lecturer. Now, he tells me that if such orders were made, they don’t arrive in the regular way. They certainly do not come through his hands, he insists. He says he has suspicions, but won’t say what these suspicions are.

My own interpretation, now that I see what peculiarities can happen, is that the order is placed, but the delivery van man does not deliver the materials to the university, but instead diverts them to another venue. Someone has to sign for them, so either someone is signing with the Technician’s name, or they are signing with an unidentifiable scribble.

It leaves me without a trail to follow, I am sorry to say.”

Reg was silent for so long that the Finance Officer became alarmed. “Are you listening, Mr Robertson? Did you hear what I said?”

“Yes, I did. I was thinking. Would these larger deliveries arrive on a pallet?”

“Well, of course. All the lager deliveries come on a pallet. It makes moving them much simpler if you a have a small forklift, or there is one attached to the van.”

“Do the pallets go back to the company?” Reg questioned.

“I expect so. They don’t pile up anywhere, I can vouch for that.”

“If one didn’t go back to the supplier, how would they know?”

“You are being opaque, Mr Robertson. What are you getting at?”

“If I was running the suppliers, and some of my pallets were not returning, I would want to know where they are. Small tracking devices are pretty cheap nowadays, so sticking a tracker inside a pallet would be a useful measure. Why don’t you ask the supplier if they did that to any deliveries to the Chemistry department?”

“You think they will listen to me, Mr. Robertson? They may fob me off as I have no direct link with the Chemistry Department. They may see me as just an interfering official. Why don’t you ask them yourself? You are an investigating company, so you have better justification to ask.”

Reg saw the logic of this request, so quickly agreed.

“Very well. If you give me the supplier’s name, phone number and contact person, I’ll take it on.”

The man did so, and Reg noted it all down. Once he had rung off, he thought about his approach, and then phoned the number.

“Allied Chemicals. How can I help you?”

“May I speak to your head of security about some missing deliveries?”

“One moment, please.”

He was swiftly put through.

“Halliwell.”

“Mr Halliwell, good day. Robertson, MD of Recovery Enterprise Group. We have a contract with [XXXX] university to look for and recover cash and materials that may have been criminally taken from the university. Our current interest lies with the Chemistry department, where certain supplies seem to be ordered but never arrive at the department. We are assuming diversion to another site, which makes recovery difficult.”

“I get you. What do you want from this firm, sir?”

“Our abilities lie in the accurate knowledge of what is possible, and in this case, I have made a deduction that in certain instances where products have been disappearing, you might install a discreet tracking device to follow the next load to its new destination, and thereby be in a position to recover your material. Am I right in my assumption?”

“That is an interesting deduction, Mr Robertson, and one that we could discuss further, if you can give us details to work on.”

Reg cottoned on to the security man’s reticence about giving away secret information.

“As the orders did not go through the official order book, we do not have any order number, simply the address of the Chemistry Department, which must have been the originating source. The loads should be identifiable by the much larger size of the orders; and as I understand the pallets get returned to you, are some pallets unreturned that may have gone with such loads? I can’t imagine the receiver of stolen goods offering the empty pallet back to you!”

“I see. So there would be a combination of a large order – large relative to the norm for that department – along with a lack of pallet return?”

“That is so. Can you help?”

“I am accessing our records as we speak. Without confirming or denying any assumptions that you have made, we do have an interest in oddities among our shipments. From time to time we might – on your assumption – add a tracking device to a shipment, inside the pallet, to see where the load ends up. One presumes these tracking devices will show a GPS location, right?”

“One would work on that presumption, certainly. Purely as a thought experiment, where might you imagine such a GPS tracker would show its location, and would you not take action?”

“As I see the bill was paid for the shipments you mention, we cannot accuse anyone of theft, except for our pallets not being returned, and that happens quite innocently at times through new staff at receiving venues not knowing the correct procedures. As a result, such a potential GPS location would be more of interest for future problems should they arise.

Purely as a thought experiment, as you say, let’s assume this location:” and he stated a GPS location. “Now, if that happens, by sheer luck, to be a distribution hub for a transport company, someone might be reselling the goods from a van based there to some small retail shops. One might venture to assume it was the same driver who normally delivered to your Chemistry department.”

“Thank you for your thoughts, Mr Halliwell. They are very useful and worthy of further consideration by my staff. We might be able to give you some good news before very long. Farewell for now.”

Reg sat back and thought about what could be done about the new information that had been unofficially passed to him. Diverted chemicals possibly held in a distribution centre; probably unknown to the building’s operators, and then resold from a delivery van to some unknown retailers. It seemed credible, but difficult to prove.

Reg was stuck for a solution that was worth their while. The diverted chemicals may by now have all been resold, so little evidence of them might still exist to form evidence of a crime.

Reg had another idea pop into his mind. The perpetrator in the Chemistry building either had to have a physical order book, or sent the order digitally. In the first case, a police search might find this order book, and if a digital order, there may be some data within the order that would reveal the sender, or at least the machine it was sent from. Indeed, if it was sent as an email order, that would still be on the computer hard drive. A forensic examination would reveal what computer sent it. With luck, there would be few individuals with access to that computer, particularly if it was in an office.

As he went over these surmises, it struck him that the quantities involved from the Chemistry department were not large enough to keep a thief happy for ever. He would want much more than that, and in that case, he would need more sources of spurious orders that could be diverted. Again assuming such an example, other university departments would be logical targets.

But as there was only one department liable to order quantities of chemicals, either similar departments at other universities would be the logical targets, or another place that used a lot of chemicals, such as the cleaning staff around the university.

Were all the university departments cleaned by one overall group of staff, or by an outsourced cleaning firm? Who supplied the materials to be used? Often the cleaning firm merely supplied the staff, and the organisation hiring the firm provided the supplies. Perhaps the university accounts might reveal something of that nature.

He went back to the accounts printouts, to see what these might reveal. As regards cleaning, all it gave was a university-wide total for non-staffing costs, which did not help. It looked like the university employed its own cleaning staff, so probably ordered its cleaning supplies centrally. This was different from the Chemistry department’s operations, but understandable.

With a central ordering regime, was there a potential for a similar diversion scam, Reg wondered.

Time to quiz the Finance Officer again, it appeared, but he decided not to ask him today, for fear of annoying him even more.

After another night of exploring his recovery, Reg was ready to go back to his classes on the second day. Frances told him, “Fiona’s nausea is bad this morning, so she is staying at home. We can check on her at lunchtime. His own morning lectures were history and mathematics this time, with history being the topic of the birth and development of railways. This preceded his bugbear of topology. His offered comments on the topology of the universe met with a degree of derision.

“Robertson, I think you should stick to standard mathematics; it is more your style. The observable evidence shows the universe as mathematically flat, but flat in the sense of the torus and the Klein bottle being flat: one surface. All other postulated topologies are nothing more than theorising, until more facts are established one way or another to support or undermine them.

Perhaps you are not yet back to full mental health. We shall see later.”

Reg was himself flattened by this response. He was more used to being flattered by his lecturers. It did little for his physical and mental recovery.

Frances again drove him home at lunchtime, and left him in the care of the ladies, while she took Fiona to the university as she was feeling much improved. The remaining females pestered him to be calm and do as he was told, and even his new daughters bothered him about enhancing their studies, so he was happy to get back to company work at last.

His first call was to the Finance Officer, to ask about purchases of cleaning materials.

“Yes, they are all ordered by the one gentleman. He has been with the university for at least ten years, so is a respectable employee, Mr Robertson.”

“Nonetheless, sir, would you mind having a look at the amounts expended on cleaning materials in the last five or six years? My supposition is that if the delivery man is the same one as delivered to the Chemistry department, then your cleaning supplies will have rapidly increased in total cost over that period.”

“You think this is another diversion scam, do you?”

“It is possible, I say no more than that. I would like to see the figures before making such a claim.”

“Oh, very well. I can tell I am not going to get peace until you people finish your investigations.”

“Thank you, sir. Once you look at the figures, if you come to the same conclusion about the possibility, then perhaps we can have another talk about obtaining proof. Hopefully it will be simpler than the Chemistry supplies scam.”

As he put down the phone, Elizabeth came quietly into the dining room.

“Um, Reg ... Dad, I forgot to tell you: There was a call this morning from a Mr Phillips. He said to call back and ask for the sergeant. Sorry I didn’t tell you till now.”

“That’s all right, Elizabeth. We all have these moments of forgetfulness, so it is well to forgive them. I’ll give him a ring now.”

He rang through and asked for Sergeant Phillips, and was soon speaking to him.

“Thanks for ringing back, Reg. You timed it nicely. I have just got clear of a case.”

“Sheer serendipity, Terence. What was it you wanted to speak to me about? I thought we were up to date.”

“We were. I have been given an update on the Ferguson case, for my information, so I thought you might like to hear it. He is now claiming that he was given the building key, and the code to disable the alarm, from one of the lecturers. He says he was blackmailing the man.”

“Blackmailing him? Was the lecturer up to something?”

“I am assuming so. Ferguson says he had stolen an order book from the lecturer, and you can’t blackmail someone over an order book unless there is something more to it. He admitted having the order book, and the detectives went to his abode and retrieved it.”

“Excellent news, sergeant. We have been searching for that order book. It was used to commit fraud, by ordering chemicals which were then diverted and sold elsewhere. At least, that was our conclusion, but we did not have proof. Was there anything about the order book that links it to the lecturer?”

“At first, the detectives thought no, but then they thought about the handwriting in the book. If one can get a sample of the lecturer’s writing, they can be compared and that should be conclusive one way or another. You are at the university, so can you get a sample, surreptitiously, that we can make use of?”

“Better than that, Sergeant. I can have the university’s Finance Officer send you a certified example. He can find some of the guy’s writing quite easily, and have it identified as such, to make it reliable evidence. Oh, and the reason it would be a blackmail item was that as Ferguson is a Chemistry student, he would see from the book that the orders within did not reflect the actual availability of chemicals in the lab. That would be all he needed to put pressure on the lecturer.

Give me the lecturer’s name, and I’ll get that put in train.”

“His name is John Proudfoot, according to Ferguson.”

“Right. Oh, Proudfoot? That makes sense. Thanks, Sergeant. I presume you will send someone to arrest him if the handwriting proves a match?”

“With pleasure. We will also be looking to see if some of the criminal gains can be recovered. Reg, I just remembered you were injured. How are your ills progressing?”

“Doing well, sir. I have started doing mornings at the university, and I can manage that, but full days are still too much for me.”

After commiserations from the policeman, they rang off.

A call to the Finance Officer was met with a sigh.

“You again, Mr Robertson?”

“Yes, I am afraid so. Is one of the Chemistry lecturers named John Proudfoot?”

“The surname Proudfoot rings a bell. Hang on while I check the staff database. Yes, here we are: John Proudfoot, Lecturer in Chemistry.”

“The police have him marked as the man who ordered these extra chemical supplies that went missing. I should be prepared for a police investigation shortly. Please make sure he is unaware of police interest.”

“Mr Robertson, may I point out that none of us could do so, were it not for your phone call. Surely that comment was uncalled for?”

“Perhaps so. It was by means of introduction to ask how things were as regards cleaning materials purchased centrally.”

“I might have known that would be the case, from past experience with your company, Mr Robertson. I have several staff going over the cleaning supplies purchase orders for the past five years, and there is a distinct increase in expenditure, year by year, without any commensurate increase in cleaning operations. Additionally, cleaning contracts for exterior bodies has not risen much, so there is a definite question mark there. Before you ask again, I can confirm that the same distribution company’s van delivers the cleaning supplies. As to the driver, we do not record that detail.”

“Is there an inventory of cleaning materials in store at the university?”

“There is, but apart from the central store, each department has a portion of supplies kept in the appropriate cleaners cupboard, thus a full inventory is somewhat awkward to determine.”

Reg added to the Finance Officer’s remarks, “And so a possibility of some being siphoned off exists?”

“It does. There is also the question of the cost of doing such a complete inventory. The totals will never be in an exact relationship with purchases, as these are consumables, sir.”

“I understand. I have been thinking over that problem. Surely the cleaners submit a refill order to the central supply unit on a regular basis – weekly or monthly, for example?”

“I would expect so”, the Finance Officer admitted.

“In that case, such submitted requests, aggregated over a year, would indicate the annual average usage of these materials. That, compared with the amounts purchased, should balance out to some degree, I would expect. If it doesn’t then you start to run out of supplies, or you have an extra supply in your storage warehouse.”

The Finance Officer was thinking rapidly.

“There is a logic to your thinking, sir, that I agree with. I shall speak to whoever deals with inventories, to see if anything shows up.”

Once that call was over, Reg got back to the university accounts, just in case he had missed another scam, but nothing seemed to vary much from what would be expected by the vagaries of each year. He gradually came to the conclusion that what they had discovered was the total to be found in the way of aberrations.

His mind switched to the Robson women, so he phoned Holly to ask her to come see him privately.

When she arrived, he asked her to close the door so they could talk.

“Holly, the Robsons: how do you think they are doing? Have they learned their lesson yet?”

Holly’s eyes widened. “You value my opinion on them?”

“Of course. You and Carol are mature young women, and as such I value your comments. You and Carol have been doing most of the work in training them, so why not?”

“But we have just been passing on what our parents taught us about social involvement.”

“Exactly. I could never have done that, for I didn’t have that sort of experience. My social knowledge is all down to Frances, Erika and Freda; and to a certain extent, Prudence. You have had such knowledge all of your lives so it is inbuilt by now. The Robsons never absorbed what their parents tried to teach them, and I dumped them on you two girls. There is nothing like feeling you know less that a younger girl, to give you an inferiority complex! The have been learning from you and Carol, in self defence. That confrontation with Elizabeth was another example: a sixteen-year-old tearing them off a strip for being self-centred! They took that to heart; I could see that. I deliberately tried not to get involved in their training, as I was not a good mentor for them.

So, what do you think of them, so far?”

He smiled, wondering if she had any inkling of that catchphrase of the former comics Morecambe and Wise. At least she didn’t respond: ‘Rubbish!’ Holly replied, They are doing well, now. I thought they were well on their way, then Hermione decided she knew best, and it led to Elizabeth’s outburst. That put paid to such a plan, and Hermione has said nothing of that nature again. You may have noticed how well they did, assisting us when the Pringle twins visited. The Robsons were shattered that the boys were more interested in us than them. It showed them that being older is not necessarily better.

Overall, I would say they are about ready to go home, due to them losing their self-centred idea that everything would come to them without them making an effort. Being here, away from home, has meant they did not have to hide their failings from their parents, thus they could learn faster.”

Reg enquired, “Do you think that if they would go home now, they would think to apologise to their parents for their previous bad behaviour?”

Holly screwed up her mouth, as she tangled with this question.

“Perhaps, if they were reminded beforehand. I couldn’t guarantee that they would think of it off their own bat.”

Reg slowly nodded, and suggested, “Perhaps if you got them to understand that apologising for past behaviour is the best way to start off a new, better, relationship?”

“We could do that.” She paused, then asked, “About the Pringle twins, how do you view them, yourself? Purely out of casual interest, of course.” Reg smiled at this request.

“The Pringle twins came over as a couple of nice boys, even if they are slightly older than me. Only you and Carol will be able to assess them in more depth. That first date will count for a lot. Go with your unconscious and automatic reactions; don’t think about it too much, or you will tie yourself in knots. I was pretty innocent when I met Frances, so I failed to hide my reactions. She and the other two girls soon had the measure of me. I don’t think the Pringles have had much luck with girls so far, for whatever reason.”

Holly ventured, “I think I know what it is. We were much the same. Boys did not know how to deal with us as twins: we were an unknown quantity, and therefore girls to be careful with. I think we were almost viewed with suspicion. Would one of us tell the other about what happened with a boy we went out with? The answer is yes, we would, and of course that put a damper on most boys we encountered. We never really went out on dates as boys would be afraid they had to date both of us, and that scared them off. I expect the Pringle lads faced the same with girls, so meeting us put them more at ease. I think they will be fine on a date, but as it is a first date, we will be cautious about what we will allow to happen.”

“Very wise of you. Take it slowly, for if the lads want more, that have to prove themselves worthy of that. You girls are, to my mind, top prizes in life, and if these lads want to win you, they have to put a lot of effort into the relationship.”

She stared at Reg, and eventually said, “Reg, you sound like my father!”

Reg reviewed what he had been saying to her and came to the same conclusion.

“Holly, in this household I am effectively ‘in loco parentis’ - acting in place of your parents. That is the way it should be, and so I am giving you advice that your parents normally would provide. You can of course phone them if you want, but at my age I believe I am more in tune with your feelings than they are likely to be. Feel free to come and ask me, or your cousin Frances, or any other of my wives, when you have questions you need answers to. We will not judge you, merely offer advice. You make up your own mind whether to follow that advice, but if you do not, you must accept responsibility for what you decide.”

“Yes, Reg. I know what you are saying. You won’t tell our parents about anything we ask?”

“That is understood, Holly. Advisers don’t blab; it is bad form to do so.”

“Okay. I’ll speak with Carol about these matters. We may be back later.”

She was off like a shot, back to Carol in the kitchen.

Reg chuckled to himself. The Wise Old Man giving sage advice, when he was only a couple of years older than the twins! He told himself that what he was saying to them was valid, no matter what age he happened to be.

Thinking about advice, he recalled that he had done nothing about driving lessons since before he went to Scarborough. Did someone cancel his weekly lessons, or postpone them, or what? He must ask Frances what the situation was now. Now that he was Managing Director of a company, he either had to pass a test and do his own driving, or need a chauffeur-driven car when on business. On reflection, he ought to continue with his lessons; he could not be always expecting his wives to drive him to where he needed to be, and it seemed to him wasteful to employ a chauffeur to drive him.

He lay back in his comfy chair to read for a while, and dozed off without noticing that his wound had stopped hurting entirely.

He was woken by the noise of the joggers arriving back from their run. His mind told him that Elizabeth and the Robsons were chatting quite happily together, so he went back to sleep at that point.

When he woke again, his wives were home. His book was sitting in front of him with a bookmark at the page where he fell asleep; someone had been in and done that for him without disturbing his snooze.

Frances was quick to tell him about doings at the university.

“Reg, police were called to the university and arrested a man in the Administration department. The word is that he was caught embezzling; something to do with cleaning materials.”

“Ah, so I was right! Was it the boss there, or one of his staff?”

“You don’t seem surprised, darling. Why?”

“I suggested to the Finance Officer that there was a scam with cleaning materials similar to the one with the chemicals at the Chemistry department.”

“YOU suggested? Did the annual accounts tell you that? Amazing!”

“Not quite, my love. There were signs that the expenditure was going up faster than I would have expected, but there may have been a genuine cause for that – a new external cleaning contract, for example. The Finance Officer told me that was nothing new, so I suggested that embezzlement was happening and was worth investigation. He must have solved the problem and had the culprit arrested: one up for our company!”

“Wonderful! This will do wonders for our company’s reputation as we start looking for business.”

“I hope so. The first step is publicising the company’s existence; that will not be easy, among thousands of other companies.”

“No need to be so downbeat, Reg. Daddy’s company will spread the word for us.”

“I hope so, but we need more than that. We need some means of publicising us that makes us headline news, even for one single day.”

“Something like, ‘University student exposes criminals on campus.’?”

“Like that, but it has to feature the company. The company, Frances; that is our focus.”

“Tricky, then. We should kick it around the family, and see what we can come up with. Someone should have a bright idea; perhaps a leaflet we send to all the big firms.”

“That wouldn’t work, Frances. Leaflets don’t get to the decision makers in the company. We need something that grabs the attention of the members of the Board.”

Fiona came over to engage in the discussion.

“I may not be at my best at the moment, but it strikes me that the company was involved in discovering criminality, and as a result the company, or a representative thereof, would be required to be part of any court case arising from the crimes. Court cases often grab headlines. A good lawyer should be able to highlight the part played by the company’s investigations.”

Freda was listening, and commented, “Is that another hint that my Dad should act for us again? We seem to be using him a lot, so shouldn’t he be the company lawyer?”

“I don’t see why not, but that is a Board decision, not mine. We should do this right.”

“Agreed. I’ll raise it with the Board shortly.”

Reg was reminded of another matter. “Talking about raising a matter, can I ask what is the situation regarding a midwife? We could all benefit from some accurate advice from her – or him.”

“Hmm ... yes. Males can be midwives as well as women, can’t they?”

“Doesn’t bother me, as long as it doesn’t bother you girls,” remarked Reg.

She responded, “It is no different from male doctors doing obstetrics, darling. It was always stupid to regard all medical work to require male expertise, even when it involved women, so all-women midwives was the same in reverse. Thank God we have advanced further towards equality.”

“Anyway, this avoids the question – what is the latest about a midwife for us?”

“The NHS is still a ‘perhaps’. No-one will commit to a definite answer, so we have spoken with two private organisations that supply midwives. We have their official prices, but we have told them there six expectant mothers at this address, and we want a special deal where one midwife deals with the lot of us. The possible midwife is coming to visit and meet us.”

“Why the visit?” Reg wanted to know.

“Basically, to see how much work we would be. If we are accommodating, and helpful, it will be simpler and more efficient, so the organisation can afford to be generous with their charges. At the same time, we can inform them that we are also considering another group’s services, which will put a bit more pressure on them both to come up with a price that makes everyone happy.”

“You are treating it almost like a business deal, Frances!”

“Well, it IS a business deal. We are hiring an expert and we want the best, for the best price! We negotiate the deal, with conditions. One condition we want is to have the same midwife all the time. When a midwife – or doctor or other specialist – gets to know you and your condition, you get more exact treatment; and you also know that if anything goes awry, who is responsible. The midwife knows she is responsible and will do her damnedest to do well for you.”

“That sounds eminently sensible, Frances. I think I can just stay out of this entirely, and leave it to you girls to settle on what you want.”

“You don’t get away entirely, Reg. You will have to go with us if we attend pre-natal classes at the university. You have to learn all the exercises so that you can make sure we are doing them regularly, and not slacking because we don’t feel like doing them.”