Chapter 6

“It all seemed to happen so fast. Can you tell me if things are normal, or should I be worried?

She concentrated on getting her car ready and started before answering.

“Normal, but with complications. A bit too much marginal bleeding for my liking. Post-partum bleeding can be dangerous after the baby arrives, but with this patient I think I got the initial bleeding halted temporarily. I told the hospital what I had done and her blood group, as she may need a transfusion if there is a lot of bleeding, but I don’t believe we have a worrying situation in our hands; up to a litre of blood loss is normal and doesn’t need a transfusion.

She has marginal previa, which means that the placenta is attached lower down in the womb than it should be, but not interfering with the cervix. With her being an older mother, the risks of bleeding are higher, but the hospital are prepared for the problem, and will be able to cope.”

Reginald wanted to ask more, but she indicated that her attention had to be on her driving, so he held back. He could ask his questions at the hospital. Mrs Normandale was not driving fast, as she was not the primary caregiver at the hospital end. She would be able to offer personal knowledge of the mother’s medical condition and general background.

She contributed at times as she drove, speaking from memory, “There is not much available literature on Pakistani immigrants giving birth here. What data exists is mainly related to the US, but in general, certain problems are a little more pronounced in Pakistani women, and birth weight of their babies tends to be on the low side, but these mothers experience fractionally less depression afterwards, compared to Europeans. Most of the data I have found relate to Muslim women, but your Jessica is a Christian, isn’t she?”

“She is, but most of her cultural background is just as bad as it can be for Muslim women; worse in some respects, as Christians are a persecuted minority there. She was rescued from an abusive marriage in England some time back, so in some ways she feels giving me a child is a ‘thank-you’; not that we ever sought a thank-you. I think she just wanted another child while she was able to have one.”

“Well, from my sight of her, she has a few years left of fertility if she wants more. Having babies later in life tends to lead to delayed menopause, according to some studies, but others refute this. The only good guide is her mother’s age at menopause. It has a habit of staying similar down the generations.” She stopped talking as she entered the hospital precincts and began looking for any staff parking; parking was always a nuisance unless you had a blue disabled badge, and even then the allocated spaces were often full. At last she got a space and parked the car.

“Here we are. Follow me, Mr Robertson, and we will find out where Jessica is; probably in the birth room.”

She went ahead to confirm Jessica’s location and progress, and came back to tell Reginald, “She is in the birth room, but the doctors are with her and don’t want to be disturbed until they are satisfied with her.

In the meantime, we can get you into a hospital gown, mask and cap before you will be allowed in. Use the hand cleansing gel before you start, and use it again once you have it all on. Our birthing room is a high sterility environment for obvious reasons.”

Eventually Reg was allowed in to support Jessica, after he confirmed to the staff that he was her ‘partner’, and the baby’s father. He said nothing about marriage.

Jessica was delighted to have him there at last.

He murmured to her, “How are you coping, Jessica?”

“The doctors were worried for a while, but they seem relaxed now.”

“I am surprised you were able to concentrate on them at this juncture!”

“I am using the world outside me as a focus of concentration, rather than my internal stresses and pain. It seems to work.”

“Well, feel free to concentrate on me, my lovely Jessica.”

“Flattery, Reg? I am not lovely.”

“To me, you are lovely. To me, Frances is lovely, Freda is lovely, Erika is lovely; so you should understand that you are lovely too.”

“What? At my age?”

“Yes, at your age. Age does not make a woman less attractive. A lovely woman merely mellows with age. You are only in your thirties, my darling lady, so age has truly not had much chance to affect your visage. I still want to kiss you right now.”

He leaned over and tenderly kissed her on the lips. “Concentrate on that, my love.”

He took her hand and held it gently, but as another contraction hit her, she grabbed it tightly. “Ouch! Damn it! - if I may, Reg.”

“Swear all you want, Jessica. In your position, I would be swearing all the time, wanting this to be over – which I do.”

“You are a lovely man, Reg. No wonder your girls love you. Ouch!”

The contractions were speeding up, Reg recognised. “Have your waters burst yet?”

“A little while ago. That would be why you weren’t allowed in earlier. The doctors were glad to have that out of the way. Mrs Normandale?”

“Yes, dear?”

“I think we have action.”

The midwife peered in closely at Jessica’s vagina. “You are right; dilation much increased. Time to get your doctor back.” She pressed the call button by the bed, and in half a minute he was there.

“Ready for me?” he asked.

“See for yourself, doc.”

He took his own look and nodded, “Yes, the head is starting to show. Good. Mr Robertson, please stay out of the way while we work on your lady. Just hold her hand; leave everything else to us.”

Reg moved back, out of the way, retaining his grasp of Jessica’s hand. True to her word, the actual birth speeded up and within a couple of hours, the baby boy had slid out of Jessica and started complaining about the world. Despite the relatively quick birth, she was exhausted by the birth effort and then expelling the afterbirth.

After the formal weighing, the cleaned-up baby was laid on her breast and seemed pleased with himself as he started to suck. Jessica looked up at Reg.

“I am no longer so sure I want more children, Reg. I had forgotten how painful it can be. I will need to think on it for a while.”

“You have done well, Jessica. No need for anything more. You have shown what a great woman you are; no-one could ask for more. What do you want to call him?”

“I think Rex would suit the son of Reginald, for they both mean the same thing: king.” She smiled as she continued, “I looked up the name Reginald and found that.”

Reginald smiled in his pleasure.

“Rex it shall be, Jessica: Rex Robertson on his birth certificate.”

Soon afterwards, the midwife advised him that it would be best if Jessica got a chance of a decent sleep while her satisfied son rested in the crib beside her.

“I will be around for a while, watching her for any adverse reactions such as bleeding, but you can do nothing more for now. You should go back to the hotel and I will phone if you are needed at all. The nurses’ station will inform you about their rules for visitors.”

Jessica heard this, so when Reg tried to apologise for leaving, she told him, “Mrs Normandale is right: I need a good rest, so you go back and tell everyone the happy news about our son. I think, I hope, he has all the right parts in the right places.” She glanced at the midwife, who smiled and nodded, “He is a complete boy, Jessica.”

Reg stood to leave, then remembered he had come with the midwife. “I’ll get a taxi back to the hotel,” he told the lady. “I will brag to the driver, and bore him stiff about my new son.”

His arrival at the hotel was greeted with demands for news.

“We have a little boy, and both mother and baby are well. Jessica tells me he is to be named Rex. That means king, so nothing to do with names for dogs! She told me that Reginald also means king, which surprised me: I have never thought about its origin; it was just the name my parents gave me.”

Erika giggled, “Well, you are king of this family whether you like it or not.”

After Reg dealt with all the extra questions about Jessica and the actual birth, he was ready to relax; but Frances wanted to tell him something.

“Reg, Freda got the hotel manager to phone the manager of the store we want to investigate, to let him know our company was interested in checking his store’s viability. The manager got worried and insisted that head office give approval before he allowed anyone to get sight of his financial data. She got the contact details and emailed their head office in London, stating who we were and our reputation for honest dealing, with a copy of our standard contract; and encouraging them to look us up in the business media.

She got a reply before very long, giving permission to look, but not touch. “That means we can look at the data in-store, but not take printouts or anything that we could perhaps take away. That will be to prevent unknown outsiders getting to the data. We deal with the manager, and he reports back to head office on our findings. We will also make our own report, as you know.”

“So when does she go?” asked Reg.

“She is there now,” Frances told him. “She will be able to talk legal terminology and financial jargon enough to convince him she is not an innocent young lady. He has been told she is Mrs Robertson, an executive of Recovery Enterprise Group.

Freda will have a look at the computer data available to the manager, and draw her own conclusions from what she finds. I know we can rely on Freda to do a good job.”

Reginald was pleased with progress.

“Great. I’ll leave it with you ladies. Now, I feel exhausted, just having watched what Jessica was going through. I know it has happened a good few times already, but the tension and worry always drains me. I may not be going through the pain and physical effort, but the mental and emotional stress on the father is extremely tiring, as I have told you before. Any chance I can get a glass of strong drink to help me sleep, Frances? Perhaps a shot of a good malt?”

Frances looked over to Erika and asked, “Can you get that for our husband, Erika dear? Hotel bar choices are often limited, but try Glenfiddich, if they have it, otherwise Glendronach or Glenlivet; failing that, Highland Park. They surely have one of these. They most likely won’t stretch to the new Wolfburn from Thurso in the far north of Scotland, but if they happen to have it, put it on the company slate as a customer relations asset. Reg needs to try some of the best to develop his palate, so he can talk to clients socially with a decent level of knowledge of whisky.”

Reginald sank back into a comfy armchair and closed his eyes, before they opened wide when Frances kissed him with passion.

“What’s that for?” he questioned her.

“Just a reminder that I will be wanting to start work on our second child soon, darling. Jimmy won’t be our only child, my man; will he?”

“You won’t find me refusing, Frances my love.”

“And don’t fall asleep. Your malt whisky should be on its way shortly. What does Jessica’s son look like? Asian or European, or a bit of both? And his colouring; what is it like?”

“Seeing him right after the birth, he looked to me more like a monkey, but then all new-born babies have that look. Give him a couple of days and I can give you a better impression, but knowing you, you’ll be up there at visiting times to see for yourself, even if only to compare him to Jimmy!”

“And why not? They both have the same daddy, so I expect some similarities. Did you notice how much Hermione’s son looks like Jimmy? I think it would be wise to keep such similarities hidden from Mr and Mrs Robson’s gaze.”

“Ah, yes. That would be advisable. We should prepare for that possibility with some story about it indicating that the father must have been of a similar build and look to me; and that such a description fits about half the male population of the country, for I am fairly nondescript.”

“Reg? Compared to me, you are beautiful.”

“Thanks Frances, but you are beautiful to me as well. You are also a wonderful woman, a great wife, and a tremendous mother.”

“As are Freda and Erika, Reg,” she insisted.

“I can’t disagree with you. In fact, as far as I am concerned, all of you girls could not be better women. Life without you would be miserable.”

“Not just with your lovely children?”

“No, most definitely not. The children are a welcome bonus, my darling Frances, but you girls mean the world to me. In fact, you girls ARE my world. Just imagine if I had not met you: I would have been the lone Reg of the university, the forever singular Reg, because I couldn’t cope with meeting people and socialising with them.”

“And just as much, we would have been the three ugly sisters that every man would have steered clear of; never to find a man of vision like you.”

“Life is complicated, Frances, and I am complicated in my own way; I am sure of that. I am delighted that life threw you in my direction to make me what I now am!”

“Allow me to correct you. I, not life, threw myself in your direction!” She smiled and kissed him again.

At the store, Freda had been welcomed by the manager, Frederick Scaife, when she offered her Recovery Enterprise Group calling card.

“Head Office said you would be coming. I wasn’t expecting such a young lady though.”

“I am a happily married woman with a child, I would have you know, sir. Now, please lead me to your admin computer so that I can examine your accounts. I have certain suspicions about their accuracy, for as my mother says, ‘You can do anything with accounts!’ She is a professional accountant, by the way. That is why I do not believe anything of a financial nature until I see it with my own eyes.”

Scaife told her, “Well, you are welcome to look over our accounts, but I assure you they are accurate. We simply have more outgoings than income at this present time.”

He led her to his office, which he shared with his part-time admin manager. He explained that Freda would not be interrupted as his admin woman, Miss Jenkins, was not due in today.

Freda settled down in the comfortable computer chair while he quickly brought up the accounts spreadsheet. She spent the next half-hour reading it, becoming more perplexed as time went on. The figures showed no indication of being tampered with in any way that she could see. The only anomaly appeared to be a higher percentage of costs taken up by staff salaries than what, to her, would be usual, but she didn’t know about store management.

Before she started asking questions, she switched on her smart phone to record everything said, as a precaution in case the manager was in on the scam.

She asked about staff costs, and the manager said that he interviewed and appointed all staff, so that he knew the data was genuine. He just passed it to the admin woman to input, then he checked that it was accurate, especially with numerals like N.I. number and bank account for payment.

“We have standard pay scales for full time, part-time, and relief workers, so they are all paid according to these scales. I know that they are all on the correct scales for their posts.”

Freda went back to the accounts, and looked in more detail about staff payments. Finally she had a question, to clear her mind.

“How often do you employ relief staff, Mr Scaife?”

“Somewhat irregularly; mostly to cover when a member of staff goes off sick or has a bereavement or other family problem and can’t come to work. We call in our relief staff at that point. They are on standby for such duty; not quite the ‘zero hours’ ploy, for they are on standard rates. They can refuse work without any comeback, and we call in the next on the list. Everyone seems happy with the arrangement.”

“So a relief person would be called in fairly infrequently?”

“Of course. That is why relief workers are the best solution for us. Otherwise, we would be asking part-timers to do extra hours, and often the hours would clash with their normal work pattern. We work with the simplest solution, and relief staff are cheaper overall as well, as they have minimal job rights compared to the permanent staff. Head Office leaves the local manager to juggle staff engagement to suit the local store’s needs.”

“I see. That makes sense, except that Jane Edwards seems to be working an awful lot for a relief worker.”

“Who?”

“Jane Edwards.”

“That name doesn’t ring a bell, sorry. Must have slipped my mind. I’ll check her out later.”

Freda said nothing, but continued her trawl through the records of relief staff until she said, “Georgina Smith.”

“Georgina Smith? What about her?”

“How often do you call her in?”

“I don’t do the calling in. I tell the admin woman of the need, and she phones up the relief staff until she finds one available for the hours.”

“She seems to be called in a great deal. Can you explain why? I would have thought someone who is working here a lot would be known to you.”

“Georgina Smith? No, I don’t recall her; I can’t know all our relief staff that well.”

“Do you have a permanent member of staff who would know the reliefs?

“Naturally. Mrs Broadbent is familiar with all our staff.”

“In that case, do you mind calling her in here to answer a couple of simple questions?”

Scaife shrugged his shoulders and used the store announcement system to call, “Would Mrs Broadbent come to the manager’s office please?”

It took several minutes before a buxom middle-aged lady appeared, breathless.

“Sorry, Mr Scaife. I was sorting out a problem at one of the tills. What can I do for you?”

“Please answer a couple of staff questions for this young lady.”

Mrs Broadbent glanced at Freda, then frowned. “You seem rather young, my dear, to be involved in the business. What do you want to know?”

“Simply information on a couple or relief staff.”

“Oh, that is easy. Who?”

“Jane Edwards.”

“Jane Edwards? Jane Edwards? Sorry, you have lost me. The only Edwards we have is a Charles Edwards. Who is Jane Edwards?”

“One of your relief staff fairly regularly employed here.”

“No way! I have never heard of her. You must have that wrong.”

“How about Georgina Smith?”

“The name means nothing to me. She has never worked for us, I can tell you. I would have recognised a name like Georgina.”

Freda smiled sweetly and told her, “Thank you, Mrs Broadbent. You have been most helpful.”

The woman looked questioningly at Scaife for advice, but he said nothing, so she left to get back to her supervisory duties. Freda gazed at Scaife accusingly.

“Who inputs staff data, Mr Scaife?”

“Miss Jenkins has that responsibility. She adds and removes staff information as directed.”

“Well, she seems to have added imaginary staff to our records, and so ensures that they get paid. Let’s see what bank accounts their salaries are paid into.”

She manipulated the computer to show data pages for each member of staff. Surprise, surprise! Both these imagined staff had the same bank account in the same bank.

“Mr Scaife, if you go through all your records and pick out all those that have this particular bank account against their names, I suggest that all the names will be for non-existent staff. We don’t know yet how many imaginary staff are on your books. Totalling up all the salary payments to that account will identify how much you are losing to fraudulent accounting by Miss Jenkins and how many false staff records are involved.

I suspect the losses will be in the tens of thousands of pounds per year. How long has she been doing this job, sir?”

“Oh, let me see ... about five years, at a rough guess.”

“With some simple forensic accounting, we should be able to identify your total losses to her benefit over the years. Perhaps a call to the local police headquarters might be in order, Mr Scaife? If you are on good terms with the manager of the bank she uses for that account, you might be able to get the account frozen before she can empty it – which she will do the minute she realises we are on to her.”

“Let me check that account ... ah yes; a local branch. I know the manager through our Scarborough Business Association. I will ring him now, to put him in the picture.”

He did so, and was told in response by the shocked banker that ‘for technical reasons’ the account would immediately become unusable for an indeterminate period; that period being clarified by the progress of the police investigation.

“Right. That is sorted, Mrs Robertson. That was quick work on your part. Are you always so efficient with your investigations?”

“Not at all. Sometimes we have to explore various departments of a company or organisation to establish where the losses are occurring. A clever fraudster tries to cover his tracks; sometimes by making the payments apparently come from another member of staff, rather than him; sometimes by using a bank account with an identity of almost exactly the same name as the company that apparently is being paid. Most accounting investigators might miss at first glance a slight change of name, by assuming it to be merely a typing slip: such things happen with appalling regularity.

Ask your friend what name the suspect account has attached to it. Is it one of the imaginary staff, Miss Jenkins herself, or some new name?”

Intrigued at this thought, Scaife phoned his friend again and asked that question. He was told ‘Miss Geraldine Jenkins”, and he thanked his friend before bursting out laughing as soon as he put the phone down.

“She used an account in her own name, the stupid bitch!” he gloated.

Freda remarked sweetly, “But she was clever enough to defraud you for some years, Mr Scaife, so she is not stupid, merely careless, to assume no-one would find out. Up until now, no-one has.”

He sobered up. “That is true. The auditors didn’t spot the fraud either. That was not clever of them, was it?”

“Perhaps not, but you are possibly misunderstanding the job of an auditor. An auditor’s task is to check that a company is operating according to standard and current accounting law and practice. Your accounts are most definitely up to scratch in that respect. The additional staff listed would not be recognised by an auditor as a fraud. The details were all logged correctly for each individual, so that they had a presence as would be expected; it is just that the individual does not exist, which the auditor would not be in a position to know.

It is only people such as Recovery Enterprise Group that have the suspicious minds to ask the right questions. Talking of our company, might it be appropriate for you to report back to your Head Office on my initial findings?”

“I will, as soon as I can work out an approximation of the annual losses through fraud that has now been stopped, so that they can see that this store should still be a viable operation.”

“As soon as you have done that, Mr Scaife, would you copy that information over to me at the email addy on the card? I am available for any other aspects of this fraud where you think I might help. Our fees are based on savings achieved, not the amount of time we spend on the task, so if you need more assistance, please ask.”

“I have taken note of that offer, Mrs Robertson. I have never had occasion to deal with a company that was so willing to give extra help at no charge. Thank you.”

Freda declared, “I think I can leave you to deal with your Miss Jenkins and the police, sir, so I shall go back to my hotel and make out my report on our dealings for sending to your Head Office. Don’t forget I need the data on salaries and wages that you have been defrauded of, so that I can include that in my report.”

As she walked back to the hotel, she pondered her discoveries, and began considering the second store, one in a different chain. Could it be suffering a similar scam, she wondered. Then she had an unexpected brainwave. Miss Jenkins was working part-time: what if the same Miss Jenkins was working part-time in the other store too? That must be checked out.

When she walked in, every other member of her party wanted to tell her about Jessica’s baby, and she got involved in that saga, so it was an hour later before she got back to asking questions. First she told Frances what she had found, then asked, “Frances, do you happen to know if any of our group knows who the finance staff are at the second store?”

“I don’t think so, Freda. Does it matter? It is a different chain.”

“It does if the store’s staff includes a Miss Jenkins.”

Frances stared at her for a moment till the penny dropped, then she yelled, “Prudence! I need you.”

Wherever she had been, Prudence made an appearance beside Frances pretty quickly.

“Yes? What’s the rush, Frances?”

“You did the most work on the second store before we will finally speak to them. Did you get any staff names in their office?”

“No. I didn’t think it was needed.”

“It is now. Phone them and ask the names of the manager and his office team: make it sound like standard operating procedure before a visit by us.”

“Right. Will do.”

She vanished as quickly as she appeared. In less than five minutes she was back, and reeled off the names of the office staff to Frances on the assumption that Frances was the instigator.

Freda stopped her in mid-flow.

“Stop. Repeat that last one.”

“Geraldine Jenkins.”

Freda exclaimed, “Ah. My guess was right.”

“What?” Prudence was confused, and looked between France and Freda. Freda gave her the answer.

“Miss Geraldine Jenkins. Let me guess: a part-time admin worker; she inputs to the computer all the staff details after appointment.”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“She has a similar post in the other store, and was robbing them blind with fake staff, whose pay went straight to her own bank account.”

“Wow! You means she is probably doing the same for the other store?”

“I am almost certain. She knew she was on to a good thing. She has been defrauding the other store for years. How long has she been with your store?”

“I didn’t ask, sorry.”

Freda said to Frances, “You should get on to their head office and offer our standard contract, paid only if we can save them a packet. After we get that fixed up, you go there and check their computer records when Miss Jenkins is NOT on duty. You should find a number of part-time or relief staff that don’t actually exist but are being paid to their bank account – which is actually Miss Jenkins’ account.

Next, when it comes to visiting the store, tell the manager you want to examine the computer with him present, and no-one else. That should mean she is out of the way when you find the fraud. Don’t rush straight to it; first check all the standard records for the store’s business dealings. They are probably correct, but you don’t want to be seen going directly towards fake staff; that would be too telling, in case the manager is in on the scam. The other one wasn’t, but this one might be. Watch out for signs of that when you ask to see staff records. Tell him the level of staff costs is on the high side of expectations, so you have to see if he is overpaying them or possibly employing too many staff or some other possibility that you can’t know in advance. Keep the staff search general until you see a person getting too many hours paid, in relation to her responsibility, and probably called in too many times.”

Prudence was offended.

“But if we already know all this, shouldn’t we just tell them?”

“Prudence this is business; and anyway we don’t KNOW any of this. It is just supposition based on a store in another chain. We have to prove that our supposition is accurate, and we must go about it in a professional way. Right, Freda?”

“Right, Frances. It is not our fault that they allowed themselves to be defrauded. It is our business to bring such frauds to light, and profit from our expertise. We had to do the research at the beginning, which made us suspect a problem at these two stores.”

“I suppose so,” Prudence grudgingly accepted.

Frances insisted, “It all came about through our excellent staff training exercise, Prudence. You have to see that. It takes a fair amount of staff time and effort to unearth these scams. We deserve recompense for all our efforts. That is the basis of our whole company’s existence!”

Prudence finally saw what Frances was getting at, and accepted this rationale.

“Right. I am with you now. Will you contact their head office and clear the decks for me, so that I am expected when I turn up at the door?”

“Yes, I’ll do that, and send them a copy of our contract for them to peruse before giving us the go-ahead. They have nothing to lose, for it is a ‘no win, no fee’ contract.”

Prudence checked her watch.

“Time is short for today, but you can do the emailing, and ket them reply in the morning, Frances.”

“You want me to get work done, when I could be at the hospital to see Jessica? You are a hard taskmaster, Prudence, but for you, I’ll do it. Reg, when are the visiting times? Tell the others while I get this job attended to.”