Chapter 146: Before Anybody Else Does I

"Try it again," Danny said.

The lad tried it again. The reader beeped twice, low.

"Same, mate. Have you got cash?"

Danny went through his pockets. A fiver folded in 4 in the back of his jeans and nothing else. He put the fiver down and got £2.80 back and a tea in a paper cup.

He took it to the window and opened the banking app.

The balance was there, all of it, to the penny. Over the top of it sat a yellow box.

We’ve placed a temporary restriction on your account. You won’t be able to make payments or withdrawals at the moment. We’ll be in touch. Please don’t worry.

It’s all there. You can see every penny of it. How long’s temporary?

It was 10:52. He rang Jodie.

She picked up on the second ring, whispering, with coat hangers clacking along a rail behind her.

"I’m in the stockroom. Marie thinks I’m doing returns. Go on."

"The bank’s stopped my account."

The hangers stopped.

"Stopped how? The card or the account?"

"The account. The app says temporary restriction. I’ve just paid for a tea with a fiver."

"Right." Something creaked as she sat on it.

"When a card’s flagged on our till, the screen doesn’t say declined. It says retain card, do not advise customer. We have to hand it back and smile. A café reader’s too cheap to say any of that, it just says declined. But if the app’s saying restriction, somebody at that bank’s put a stop on you, and nobody downstream’s allowed to tell you why."

"The woman at the bank this morning said she was referring me to her team."

"Then her team’s done it. How much have you got on you?"

"£2.80."

"And who do you owe this week?"

"Deniz, 3,200 on Thursday night. Errol on the 2nd. And Keisha starts on the 17th on the strength of a trust that’s not going to exist."

He could hear the shop music through the stockroom door.

"I’ve got 990 off Northcote," Jodie said. "It’s lining and buttons for 11 and a half dresses, and you’re not having it, and I’m saying it out loud now so neither of us lies awake tonight wondering."

"I wasn’t going to ask."

"I know you weren’t. What are you doing now?"

"Ringing the bank and making them tell me what I can and can’t do. Then Deniz, because he’s halfway up my ceiling. Then Keisha and Tobi, before either of them hears it off anybody else."

"Good." A box got dragged. "Marie’s coming. Ring me tonight."

He rang the number on the back of the app from the café window. 14 minutes of strings, and then a woman in Leeds with a careful voice.

"I can see there’s a restriction on the account, Mr Flynn. I’m not able to discuss the reason for it."

"Is the account closed?"

"No. It’s restricted while a review takes place."

"How long does a review take?"

"I don’t have a timescale, I’m afraid."

"Can I move money out of it? I’ve a plasterer to pay on Thursday."

"Not while the restriction’s in place, no."

"Can I take out enough to live on? Rent. Food."

"You can make a request for essential living expenses. That goes to the review team and they decide."

"What happens to money coming in?"

"Payments in will still be received into the account." Keys tapping. "You’ll get a letter confirming the restriction within 10 working days. Is there anything else?"

"Put on my file that I rang. Today, at 11. That I asked what I could do and didn’t try to move anything."

A short pause.

"I’ve added a note, Mr Flynn."

He rang Priya before he’d put the phone down from Leeds. She picked up herself.

"Mr Flynn."

"They’ve restricted the account."

"I know. I am not able to discuss with you why I know." Paper moved at her end. "I am still your solicitor until I write to you otherwise, so here is what I can say. Do not move anything. Do not open anything new. Do not sign anything for anybody."

"What about borrowing? To get through the week."

"Do not borrow from anybody while that account is under review. Not 50 pounds off a friend. Every penny that comes near you this month may be asked about, and you will want to be able to say there were none." A pause. "Have you asked them for living expenses?"

"I asked how. They said it goes to the review team."

"Then put the request in today, in writing, through the app. Rent and food and nothing else. Friday, Mr Flynn."

He put it in from the café window before he’d finished the tea. Rent. Food. The app said Request received and nothing else.

He was on the scooter outside with the tea between his knees when the phone lit gold.

[ A shift is available, host. ] [ Wednesday. 14:00 to 17:00. ] [ Grade 3. ]

He looked at it with the engine off.

A 2 was 140 grand. A 4 was 900. A 3, on a Wednesday afternoon.

Paid into what? Payments in will still be received. Into an account stopped this morning because the history in it doesn’t add up, while somebody in compliance is reading every line.

He typed with his thumb.

no

9 seconds.

[ Noted. ]

Then he thought about Priya’s October file, and Ashwell Court turning up on Naomi’s check by 9 in the morning, and an HSBC account that had grown a past in a single afternoon in October.

dont file anything else about me. not at the bank. not anywhere.

14 seconds.

[ Noted. ]

did you stop my account

[ That is not a question the Concierge is able to answer. ]

He read it twice.

The night of the Travelodge, when Jodie went on the record, it said straight out that it hadn’t done it. Nobody even asked it.

So why not now? Because it did? Or because Lorraine did, and it doesn’t talk about what other people do?

Which?

He put the phone in his inside pocket and started the engine.

Verney Road smelled of wet plaster from 20 yards off. The shop door was propped with a bucket. The lad was at the back mixing with a paddle on a drill, brrrrrrr, and Deniz was up on the trestles laying the first coat across the boards in long flat sweeps.

"Deniz. 2 minutes."

Deniz finished the sweep. He scraped the trowel clean on the edge of the hawk, came down the steps, and pulled his glasses down onto his nose for the first time Danny had ever seen him use them.

"Go on."

"My bank’s stopped my account this morning. They’re checking me and they won’t say why or for how long. I can’t promise you Thursday night."

The drill stopped.

"Stopped, or empty?"

"The money’s in it. I can’t get at it."

"How much is in it?"

"Enough. I’m not saying more than that to anybody this week."

Deniz took that in without his face moving.

"And you’ve come here first."

"You’re the one up a trestle with my ceiling. I’d rather you heard it off me today than off your phone on Thursday night."

Deniz turned and looked up at the wet grey third of the room.

"That’s on now. If I stop, it goes off with one coat on it and you’ve a ceiling worse than the boards, and I’ve lost a Monday."

He tapped the buttoned pocket on his overalls where the shop key was. "So I finish. And this stays in here till I’ve got 3,200 in my hand. You want in your own shop, you ring me and I come and open it."

"Are you back tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow, Wednesday, Thursday. Same as I said. I’ve never left a ceiling half done in 30 years and I’m not starting on yours." He was already back on the first step. "Who else are you telling?"

"Errol, now. Then my bar staff."

"Errol did my brother’s flat. Ring him before he’s bought your fittings." Deniz picked up the hawk. "Mix."

Brrrrrrr.

Danny rang Errol from the pavement outside Southwark Tyres. Voicemail. He said all of it into the phone, the account, this morning, no idea how long, and that Errol should not come on the 2nd unless Danny had rung him first with the money in his hand.

When he hung up Ray was stood in the bay door in his fleece with a mug, watching him.

"You’ve got a face like a knocked-back card," Ray said.

"How do you know what that looks like?"

"I’ve had 3 in here this year. Blokes stood at my counter going through their pockets." He drank. "Is it the bank?"

"They’ve stopped me. They’re checking something."

Ray drank, and looked back into the bay at a Transit up on the ramp.

"I can sub you a hundred till Friday."

"I can’t take it. I rang my solicitor an hour ago. She said don’t borrow off anybody while it’s stopped, not 50 quid off a friend, because they’ll ask where every penny came from."

"Your solicitor’s not stood out here hungry." Ray went back in and came out again with a foil parcel off the top of the compressor, still warm. "Bacon roll. Nobody’s asking you where a bacon roll came from. Are we still on for Thursday? You owe me what that form was."

"Thursday. Pat first, then you."

"Good." Ray went back to his Transit. "Or she’ll have both our heads."