Stealth

By Stan Mason

NEIL WAVERLEY returns home one evening from the major bank branch in the centre of London bank where he works, to discover that his wife has left him. She leaves a note to say that she is leaving him after having had an affair with another man for the last six months. He is absolutely devastated and very angry at her deceit and he cannot get over the fact that his life is in ruins. He finds solace in the company of PAULA STRATTON, a woman who has just joined the amateur dramatic society that Waverley has belonged to for some years. When she discovers that he is a senior bank manager, she starts to formulate a foolproof plan by which he can steal the best part of a million pounds in sterling and get away with it. At first, he considers the idea to be crazy but she tells him that she loves him and her main aim is to help him get over the hurdle of grieving for his wife who has gone to live with her lover in New York.

She induces Waverley to go to Spain with her for a week, in separate rooms, to get over his depression and she tries to explain the plan but he is not receptive to the idea. Whilst there, he reads an English newspaper which stresses that his bank is going to make 20,000 staff redundant, so he reflects on Paula’s plan and eventually decided to go through with it.

ERNEST CROZIER, another manager at the bank, searches for any means to bring Waverley down so that he may gain promotion and he uses his subordinate, Abbott, to do the research. Abbott is enthusiastic because it could mean his promotion, so together they keep tracking Waverley’s movements and activities with great suspicion on everything he does. .

FRED WILSON, a itinerant burglar, is the bete-noire of MARLEY, the Chief Inspector of a small police station. Marley has an obsession about the burglar who has upgraded his activities to robbing banks and he has sleepless nights thinking about capturing the criminal , willing to do anything to achieve that aim.

After two failures in robbing banks, Marley eventually catches Wilson with the goods in his possession. However Paula’s plan proves to be perfect. She and Waverley fly to the Argentine to live with a million pounds in sterling while Wilson gets away with blue murder but no money.

An intriguingly clever plot on how a bank manager could get away with a million pounds whereby no one would ever suspect him as being the thief.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AUK Authors
• Release date: Oct 27, 2014
• ISBN: 9781785380228

Book preview

coincidental.

Chapter One

It wasn’t unusual for him to work late at night. In his effort to climb to the next rung of the ladder in the bank, it was necessary for him to do so occasionally. He had recently been promoted and sat behind his desk with a smug expression on his face. It had been a long haul to get to a position as the Assistant Manager of a major branch of the bank but he had done so by sheer hard work and perseverance, completely unlike many of the other members of staff at his last branch. They had focussed their minds and actions on the pleasures of life... drinking, going to clubs at night, flirting with women, uncaring for the exigencies required of them to reach senior positions in the bank. Seemingly they were satisfied with their activities without being seriously concerned about future promotion. Conversely, he had studied hard, sacrificing much of his private life to study for the banking examinations which he managed to pass successfully.

He fiddled with the few items that lay on his desk and turned his nameplate around to stare at it proudly. "Neil Waverley - Assistant Manager.’ He was particularly excited because he was now in a very large bank directly in the centre of the City of London. His future looked extremely bright because, after a few years passed by, it was extremely likely that he would either be promoted to senior manager of the bank or moved to a department at Head Office to control a very important division in retail banking, international development or in derivatives. He had read his horoscope in the newspaper on that very morning whereby the astrologer had predicted that, with the moon in Scorpio, personal money matters would run on an even keel but there would be serious problems with his relationship. Naturally, although it was impulsive reading for him each day, he took it all with a pinch of sale, considering that whatever Fate held in store for him could hardly affect him seriously.

After checking that everything was secure, he moved out of his office, bade farewell to the security officer, and left the bank to go home. His wife, Elizabeth, would be waiting there to greet him warmly and to serve the dinner she had cooked for them both. He considered that they might go out later that evening to the local cinema to watch a film that he particularly wanted to see. He climbed into his car and drove home directly. However as he parked in the driveway, an uneasy feeling ran down his spine. The house was in total darkness... not a single light could be seen shining from the windows of any of the rooms. He presumed there was a possibility that an electrical fault had occurred and that his wife was sitting in the dining room at the back of the house, with a lighted candle on the table, waiting for him to come home to fix a fuse. However as he looked around, he could see that the lights were on in all the neighbour’s houses which caused him an element of alarm. He alighted from the vehicle and moved to the front door. Unlocking it, he entered quickly, his hand moving to the light switch. To his utter surprise, the light came on immediately. He moved to the stairs and called out at the top of his voice.

‘Liz? Is everything all right? Are you there, Liz? What’s happened?’

There was no reply so he entered the lounge turning on the light to find that she wasn’t there either. Intrepidly, he climbed the stairs to the main bedroom and looked inside, wondering if his wife had been taken ill and had gone to bed, but it was empty and the bed was neatly made and undisturbed.

’Where are you, darling?’ he shouted loudly. ’Is this some sort of game you’re playing?’

There was no reply so he came down the stairs to investigate further, going into the dining room, but she was nowhere to be found. He continued into the kitchen to check without success before returning to the hall. Resting by the side of the hat-rack stood a single suitcase. He went over and lifted it to find that it was full and he put it down heavily with a surprised expression on his face. It was only then that he noticed an envelope resting on the telephone table with his name on the front. He opened it to read the following:

Neil,

We were very young when we married and I don’t regret a moment of it but over the past six months my feelings towards you have changed. I have now met someone else with whom I intend to live with so I suppose I’m telling you that our life together is over. I don’t love you any more. I’m sorry if this upsets you but it’s been on the cards for a while. I hope you have a good life.

Liz

He stared at the letter in disbelief before reading through it a second time more carefully. It then dawned on him that his wife must have been having an affair with another man. Without doubt, his attention had been on banking matters over the past year in order to succeed in the banking examinations so that he could secure a higher position, but clearly he had failed to realise that he had been neglecting her. Nonetheless, for her to participate in an austere measure, such as infidelity, was beyond the pale... especially as she had never spoken to him about her dissatisfaction about their relationship. And now she had taken the final heartbreaking step to leave him without any warning. He hadn’t realised that relationships could be so delicate. Life was terribly unfair! He was just about ready to enjoy a wonderful future with her but he realised that it was never going to happen now that she had gone.

Disconsolately he entered the lounge and poured himself a glass of neat vodka from the cocktail cabinet. He swallowed it in one gulp and poured himself another before settling himself on the settee to reflect the situation. At first, he had been stunned by the fact that his wife was not at home. Then came the first wave of shock which struck him like a devastating earthquake as he realised that she had left him for good and was never going to come back. At that moment, all his senses froze and the blood drained from his brain as he assessed his plight, recalling the most sensuous and exciting moments they had spent together during their marriage... the nights when they went to bed early to make love to each other, caressing their bodies erotically to reach the ultimate desired effect. Those times were so wonderful in every way especially on Sundays when they could stay in bed together all day, kissing each other and making full-blown passionate love which they had both enjoyed beyond reason. Those were the times that brought back nostalgia! However, over the past six months he had to admit that most of the loving had seemingly gone astray. Subsequently, they kissed rarely, hardly ever caressed each other, and made love even less times than ever before... hardly at all over during that period of time. Faced with the present situation, he blamed himself for allowing their sexual activities to fade so quickly into obscurity. He had presumed that it was simply a matter of the marriage settling down to a less exciting relationship which was commonplace with most couples through familiarity. It was a well-known fact that the passion between a married couple generally began to fade further as time went on. Before he had wed Elizabeth, a friend asked him how he would react after the honeymoon was over as most people who were deeply in love often failed to look very far into the future. Waverley had thought about the question but he didn’t really understand it because he was in love with Elizabeth and nothing else seemed to matter... certainly not the future... so he let the question slide. Who knew what was going to happen six months, a year, or even a while longer, after the honeymoon was over? He didn’t have a crystal ball! Presumably life would carry on as normal. What more did any couple in love desire? Well the honeymoon was well and truly over and after six years of marriage he considered that sexual activities by their past regularity were bound to became humdrum and old-hat, eventually fading away in desire to a substantial degree. However a new handsome lover, with charm, style adeptness and ability would no doubt rekindle the passion in a woman. Clearly, his wife had found new sexual excitement in the arms of another man and had allowed herself to change her life according to her whim. To someone who had fallen out of love with her husband, it was not difficult to find love and passion with another man. He recalled the party at which they had both gone to just under a year ago. It was a Christmas party at the legal firm for which Elizabeth worked as a secretary. She had spent a great deal of time talking to one of the young lawyers and had even danced with him to the music which played in the background. Waverley had looked on jealously of her attention to her dancing companion and he noticed the strange look in her eyes as she stared at the man which caused him an element of concern. He learned later on that the person with whom she was flirting was a new employee named Cole who came from the United States. He put her flirtatious attitude down to the fact that she was clearly attracted to the man and that her judgement was being affected by the amount of alcohol she had consumed. Now that he had time to think it through, he knew in his heart that the employee was the man with whom she had gone to live. The whole idea was ridiculous really because he learned that Cole was married with two young children. It was a case of a married man having an illicit affair with a woman with whom he worked, in the firm, probably promising her that he would leave his wife and family to marry her, even though he was lying through his teeth. Elizabeth was such a romantic when it came to men that it was highly likely she would believe him. In fact now that she had burned her boats in the letter she had left for him, she certainly believed him. Life was always rosy for her when she was in male company but the banker accepted that flirtation was a large part of her character. He knew that from the moment they had first met but he liked her very much, and he fell in love with her. In any case, one needed to accept that no human-being was perfect! The truth was that one single comment in her letter really struck a nerve. It was that she had remarked that she didn’t love him any more. That sentence hurt him most deeply... reaching right down into his soul. He adored the woman, would do anything for her, even lay down his life for her. Yet despite that, she had stated that she didn’t love him. How cruel was that comment! How very cruel! It rubbed salt into the wound for she had already betrayed him by having a clandestine affair with another man. Now she had the audacity to tell him the naked truth even though she didn’t need to write down her true feelings. Betrayal of trust was enough in itself. Hr didn’t need to know anything more.

He sipped his drink before reflecting more deeply on the situation. There were two options available to him. The first one was to let sleeping dogs lie. In that sense, he would do nothing, allowing her to go off with her lover to live with him for eternity whatever the outcome. In that way, he would give her the freedom she clearly wanted recognising that in time that honeymoon with her new lover would be over, especially as he had emotion baggage with a wife and children in tow. They would act continually as anchor on his finances and some of his time and attention for many years to come. Nonetheless, whatever the outcome of his wife’s future, or that of her lover, it left him with absolutely nothing. He still loved the woman and true love meant that he should cut the emotional strings and let her go on freely to fulfil her happiness.

The second option was much more direct in action. He could go to her place of work to face her, imploring her to return to him. He would promise her the moon and the stars but, in reality, he realised that his pleadings would not succeed. It was quite evident that she had made up her mind to leave him therefore such a ploy would definitely fail to work. It couldn’t have been an easy decision for her to leave him for, in truth, they had everything they wanted in life. A house with a very low mortgage... all the modern appliances, holidays abroad, and they had each other... everything! Yet she was willing to sacrifice everything they had saved for, and all the comforts of home, to live in some seedy apartment in a down-town area, paid for by a man she thought loved her, who had his own home, a loving wife and a family. It was purely an impulse of sexual desire on her part and she was willing to give up everything for it, There was little doubt that she not in her right mind to take the remote chance that he would leave his wife and family to live with her. If that was the case, she was on a hiding to nothing. However some people did absolutely foolish things when they fell head over heels in love and after tossing and turning both options in his mind, he decided not to pursue the second one as it would be a pointless exercise. He would let her have her freedom allowing her to divorce him if she wanted to. As she had written in her letter to him: ‘their life together was over’.

As a result of reality, he realised that his future seemed to be remote and bleak. All he had to hold himself together was his employment at the bank but he wasn’t certain it would be enough. His life had been shattered by the news of her desertion while the after-shocks of her departure kept coming at him in waves, shaking his confidence to its very foundations.

He had met Elizabeth at a party and soon learned that she loved the limelight, flirting with practically all the men in the room. He accepted the fact that she was an extrovert and that sex played a great part in her life. In fact, for reasons which he could never fathom, she threw herself at him and during the next few months they became very close. Her attitude was extremely sensuous whereby she poured out her love for him thereafter and they became very sexually involved. At first he wasn’t too sure that she was the right woman for him because of his rigid attitude as an introvert and as a result of the attention she paid to other men flirting with them so outrageously. However he recognised that opposites often make good partners and it wasn’t long before he fell deeply in love with her. After a number of nights of fantastic sexuality in the apartment that he owned, they decided that their discovered that their chemistry matched perfectly. Ultimately, shortly afterwards, they decided to tie the knot and get married. At that time he was simply a bank clerk serving the public from behind a counter in a small branch, living in a small apartment, but his ambitions rose as time went on and he had passed his banking examinations to become promoted to a much higher and respected rank. Now, at the age of twenty-seven, he was the Assistant Manager of a very large branch of the bank in the prestigious City of London with high hopes of succeeding further in due course, he had bought a fairly large house and looked forward to a happy and exciting future. However, as Robbie Burns put it so neatly: the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley. In an instant Fate had turned his life completely upside down. He suddenly found himself alone and bereft of his wife who had left him to live with another man. How sad was that! In his mind it was truly incredible! There was no way that anyone was able to reconcile what went on in the minds of other people who always sought to find greener grass elsewhere? He believed earnestly that a commitment, especially in marriage, was something one held on to for life and that the vows which people took when they got married were not to be passed over or ignored. They were sacrosanct. The problem with love and romance, and sexual activity, was that some human-beings sought them beyond all shadow of reason and logic. It was inherent in their nature, almost like a virus, whereby many people became disillusioned with their partners in time and left them without even trying to discuss the problems that existed between them, or even made any attempt to reconcile or overcome them. Such was the way of mankind as people refused to continue with, what they considered to be, a dull uneventful existence with the man or woman with whom they lived.

Waverley took another sip of his vodka before going into the kitchen to cook dinner for himself but his appetite had vanished and he merely threw the pans back into the cupboard and returned to the lounge. It was patently obvious that nothing was ever going to be the same again. The routine of his life and love was broken beyond repair and he was forced to live with the remnants that remained. Elizabeth was never coming back and that was the fact which tortured his mind. He was totally alone. Only now he realised that on the two nights of the week when he went to play cards with his friends, his wife had slipped out of their house to spend the evening with her lover. It was the only time available for her to be with someone else. She was very careful, always returning before eleven-thirty which was the time he usually arrived home. Well nothing was clandestine any more. She could live with her lover, if ever he left his wife and family, for the rest of her life. He shook his head sadly as he thought of her future. If she thought that he lover would discard them to live with her, she was an utter fool and she would pay heavily for her folly. However he recognised that whatever happened to her in the future was no longer his concern.

As the evening passed on, he found that love began swiftly to turn to hate and blame. He began to despise her for what she had done to him. Treachery and betrayal passed savagely through his mind. Selfishness and nymphomania also loomed largely in his head. What she had done was an assault on his personality and he began to resent it strongly. She was a selfish witch... a woman who cared little for anyone else but herself. If she was in love with another man, then she was doomed, and serve her right. Even if she changed her mind and came crawling back to him he would reject her. He didn’t want her any more. She had made her bed... now she could lie in it! His change in attitude towards her made him feel much better. It was a grudge that he could angle himself against... something which served to soften the blow a little. What right did she have to say that she didn’t love him any more! It was an insult too far! Although it would be very difficult, he had to try to put the woman out of his mind as quickly as possible so that he could move on with his life. People grieved for the loss of a dead relative. Well, as far as he was concerned, she was dead and his grieving had just started. How long it would take for him to get her out of his mind and return to a normal state was very much in question. The jury was still out on that one!

Suddenly he heard a noise in the hallway and he went out to investigate. To his utter astonishment, Elizabeth had entered the house and she was leaning down to take hold of her suitcase.

‘I’m glad you’re here,’ she told him without remorse as he stood watching her from the entrance to the lounge. She glanced momentarily at the telephone table. ‘I see you got my note.’

‘I presume the man you’re going off with is the person named Cole,‘ he advanced, without any emotion in his voice whatsoever.

‘You were so wrapped up in your work you didn’t even notice I was having an affair,’ she admitted freely. ‘Cole shows me tenderness and he gives me all his attention. People can’t help falling in love, you know.‘

’They’re not suppose to do that with other people when they’re married,’ he snapped, ‘Why didn’t you say something? We might have been able to work something out.’

‘I’m sorry. I must go,’ she said urgently, lifting her suitcase and moving towards the door. ‘We’re catching a plane from Heathrow to fly to New York tonight.’

Her husband looked at her with surprise. ‘New York!’ he managed to say.

‘My taxi’s waiting,’ she said finally. ‘My lawyer will be in touch with regard to a divorce. Goodbye, Neil. I wish you well.’ Without another word, she turned holding her suitcase and closed the front door behind her.

Waverley shook his head in disbelief. ‘Why didn’t I see this coming,’ he told himself as blame began to overcome him. If only he had paid her more attention... if only he hadn’t spent so much time studying for his banking examination... if only... ! His mind tailed off into infinity as he punished himself for her indiscretion.

He sat on the first step of the stairs holding his head in his hands as the noise of the taxi could be heard being driven away. A few moments later, the front door was pushed open and Jay Walters walked in.

‘Hi, Neil!’ he greeted cheerily. ‘The door was open.’ He paused to look at his friend. ‘Are you okay? You know you look like you’ve lost a fiver and found ten pence.’ He waited for a a response but there was no reply. ‘Are you okay for poker tonight?’

‘I don‘t think so,’ bleated his friend weakly.

‘Hey... snap out of it, man! What’s got into you?’

‘Liz left me.‘ he explained tersely. ‘She’s been having an affair with another man. They’re flying off to the States together tonight.’

There was a long pause as Jay allowed the news to become absorbed by his brain. ‘You’re kidding!’ he said shortly. ‘How can that be? You’ve got the best marriage of anyone I know.’

‘Not any more I haven‘t!’ The words sounded exceedingly pitiful.

‘But you two were the life and soul of every party. Liz... well she was Liz.’ He paused and silence prevailed for a short time’ I really don’t know what to say,’ said Walters. ‘Look I can’t leave you here like this on your