The Borough Page 4

CHAPTER FOUR

  By mid morning on Thursday, Winner had decided to leave considering the money until the weekend. He was too busy trying to persuade other members of his staff to take over some of the most urgent of Stewart's work. The shocked silence of yesterday had receded somewhat in the general office, eclipsed by the whir of activity as all three laser printers were in use churning out the first draft of the budget book. It looked as though Jack Evans might be able to get an overall total sometime in the afternoon, which Winner could look at when he got back from Recreation Committee. It was sure to be well above the government limits

  Despite his resolve to put the subject out of his mind, Winner found his thoughts drifting round to the cash from time to time. There was no doubt he would have to hand it in, though perhaps not until Monday, when the Treasurer would be back. Of course, the money might not belong to the Council, but could be the result of other activities. It just seemed hard to imagine Nigel Stewart as a drug dealer or burglar. Perhaps some amateur sleuthing with the diary and diskette might reveal something. Then he could decide what to do. What if the ten thousand was just the tip of the iceberg? Maybe there was more money floating about somewhere.

  "Are you in there?"

  Winner looked up. It was Peter Vaughan.

  "I'm sorry Peter. I was far away. Thinking about poor Nigel." Which was near enough the truth, thought Winner.

  "It's still hard to believe," said Vaughan. "Mind you, I can't say I'm terribly surprised. He drove us to a meeting a few weeks ago and his driving frightened me."

  "What can I do for you, Peter?"

  "This afternoon's meeting of the Recreation committee. There's an item on there about the proposed theatre complex. I didn't know until this morning that there might be a question raised about the finance. The trouble is that Westerman was dealing with that personally. The only other people who knew anything about it were Nigel and Linda Price, but she called in sick this morning."

  "Ah yes, the special project team," Winner said, swivelling to face the window, as if for inspiration. "I'm not at all clear how we're going to find fourteen million pounds to build a theatre when we can't even afford a decent mayoral limo that doesn't break down half the time."

  "It's crazy, isn't it," Vaughan commented. "I suppose it's because these Liberal Democrats are in with such a small margin. It may be their only chance to make a real impact."

  "Yes, and leave the next bunch to carry the consequences for the next thirty years. There isn't a theatre in the country that doesn't need heavy revenue subsidies to keep it afloat."

  "There's supposed to be some suggestion of a deal with the developers who want to open a superstore."

  "Yes, I'd heard that, but I can't see how we'd get round the capital controls. Don't worry, Peter. If the subject comes up this afternoon I'll just have to stall them and speak to Westerman on Monday. I can't give them answers I don't have. Anyway, thanks for the warning."

  Winner stayed looking out of the window as Vaughan left the office. Two delivery vans were edging past each other in the narrow service road behind the shops. The work seemed so important while you were doing it, but you only had to glance out of the window for a moment to put it in perspective. Just tiny cogs in a bureaucratic machine. There was a whole world out there.

  The Recreation Committee that afternoon went pretty much as Vaughan had anticipated. Winner had fielded a respectable set of answers to all the questions that were raised by councillors concerning the first few items on the agenda, so it wasn't too embarrassing when he had to admit to a lack of knowledge about the theatre financing. The meeting was over by six, but before Winner had gathered together all his papers, Councillor Dennis Avery, the chairman of Resources and Finance Committee, strolled over and bent down to talk to him.

  "I'd like a word with you, young man."

  Winner stood up, somewhat amused by the form of address, which was rather at odds with his greying, receding hair and the first lines of age that were marking his face. Avery might have been about fifteen years older than Winner, but the years had treated him much more severely. A northerner whose accent had not been blunted much by ten years on the south coast, his waistline and complexion had suffered somewhat from his career as a fish and chip shop proprietor. Winner knew that others among the staff laughed at him for comparing his small business experience to the more complex affairs of the Council, but he suspected that Avery was rather more shrewd than was apparent.

  "What can I do for you, Councillor?"

  "Come over here." Avery led the way to a side table, where he smoothed out a crumpled sheet of print-out. "I was going to show this to the Treasurer, but you might as well look at it."

  "The capital expenditure summary," said Winner, recognising the familiar layout.

  "That's what it's supposed to be," said Avery, "but it doesn't add up."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Exactly what I say. The individual schemes don't add up to the totals column."

  Winner cast an experienced eye across the columns. "I can't deny what you say, Councillor. It's not a document that I prepared personally, you understand. It looks as though a column might have been left out. We're still getting to grips with these computers, you know. Can you leave it with me and I'll get a corrected version to you early next week."

  "Oh, it's no big deal. My own cash register produces funny totals some days. There's no rush."

  Avery spotted someone else he wanted to talk to and went to intercept her at the door. Winner gathered up his papers and headed back to his office, relieved to find on the way that the coffee machine was still working. A light had been left on in his office, in anticipation of his return from the Committee, but beyond the glazed door the general office was in darkness. Prominent in the centre of his desk was a lever arch file containing a complete print-out of the first draft budget. The others must have gone home in relief at having finished. Winner dropped the Recreation Committee papers on a side chair and sat down. Best to be sitting down to learn the awful truth. He took a sip of coffee and opened the file at the summary page. As he feared, the net total of ｣10.3m was over a million higher than the government limit, and this was supposed to be a 'bare bones' budget. Assuming there were no mistakes, there would have to be a round of cutbacks and pruning to squeeze the budget down. Flicking through the two hundred sheets that made up the book, he checked that the Committee totals were properly transferred to the summary. There didn't seem to be any major increases in costs that stood out. Just the usual rising tide of pressure to spend. It was getting harder every year to keep the costs in line. Each year the budgets for property maintenance were cut back. Some schemes had been put off so often that the buildings were almost falling down. Now they wanted a new theatre complex.

  Winner shut the file. He would get his staff working on suggestions for cutbacks, but it was up to Westerman to say what action he wanted to take when he came back on Monday. He took another sip of coffee. What was that print-out Avery had been going on about? Despite his confident remarks to Avery, Winner was more than a little puzzled. He leaned over and pulled it out from between the Committee papers. It was on green lined paper, which generally meant it would have been printed on the central computer printer, rather than from somebody's personal computer spreadsheet. Down in the bottom right corner were Nigel Stewart's initials. That figured. Nigel was the only one in the office who was really confident at using the query software to extract reports from the central database. Usually the totals on a report were calculated by the reporting software adding up the selected columns. If the report didn't add up, it meant that the data columns and the total columns had been drawn from different sources. If the different sources didn't match, it meant that one of the files must have been corrupted, either accidentally or on purpose. Another mystery for investigation, and suspiciously close to the unknown quantity that was Nigel Stewart.

  Winner slipped the print-out into his top drawer. Not too late for a
good hot portion of steak and kidney pie and a couple of pints at the Dog and Duck.