Flashpoint Read Free Page B

been allowed to vote.”
    “I’m gratified that you grant me that much.”
    “But have you considered this point? The total number of apprentice members at that date was under fifty.”
    “Forty-seven to be precise.”
    “Right. So even if every one of them had voted against amalgamation, it would not have negatived the resolution.”
    “And you think that is the view the Court would take?”
    There was something here that I didn’t understand. Jonas was not only playing his cards close to his chest, he was playing them as though he had a couple of aces up his sleeve. I said, in a tone that I made intentionally provocative, “I think you’ll find that I’m right about that.”
    “Then of course, that settles it,” said Jonas. “When an official, occupying an important position in the Law Society, comes to a considered conclusion, there is no more to be said about the matter. Except, of course,” he added, “that it is absolutely immaterial. I am no longer concerned with what took place at that particular meeting. I am interested in certain events which took place – or possibly I should say, which did not take place – before it and after it. If you would care to cast an eye over these few papers–” He walked across to the safe, and extracted a folder. I was relieved to see that it was a slim one. “You will then be able to give me your considered opinion on a much more important topic. Should Mr William Dylan still be at liberty, or should he be serving a short, but salutary term of imprisonment?”
     
    The train back to Waterloo, moving against the commuter tide, was slow and almost empty. I was glad of the chance of undisturbed thought. I was trying to make some sense out of what Jonas had told me.
    When I got back to the Society Laurence Fairbrass had gone home. He always slipped away quickly when a Test Match was being played. He liked to see as much as he could of the last hour’s play on television. As soon as stumps had been drawn I rang him up. He was in a good mood. The England bowlers had been tying up the opposition’s tail.
    He said, “It sounds to me like just another silly-Killey. It’s impossible to tell without seeing the figures.”
    “He gave me copies of the accounts.”
    “I’ll look at them in the morning – I shouldn’t lose any sleep over it, if I were you.”
    “Actually, I don’t see why we should worry about it at all,” I said. “It’s nothing to do with us.”
    I said the same thing the next morning, while Laurence examined the photostats I had brought back with me.
    “What are this lot?”
    “They’re the accounts of ACAT for the six years before the amalgamation.”
    “ACAT was Dylan’s Union, wasn’t it?”
    “Dylan’s Union is a good description of it. It was a tiny affair. Never more than six hundred members. He was Secretary, Treasurer and Convenor of the shop stewards.”
    “I can’t read the signature on the certificate.”
    “Jonas says it was an old boy called Mason. He had been a Union member before he retired.”
    “A qualified accountant?”
    “Good heavens no. Nothing like that.”
    Laurence said, “Hmph,” and started to read. He spent half his working life studying accounts and could read a balance sheet as easily as you or I can read any ordinary fairy story.
    He said, “These seem perfectly straightforward. Member’s subscription three pound ten per annum. It doesn’t seem a lot.”
    “Actually it was slightly above the national average at the time.”
    Laurence looked at me over his glasses and said, “And how would you know that?”
    “I looked it up.”
    “I thought you said this was nothing to do with us.”
    I hadn’t any real answer to that. Laurence was doing sums with a pencil on his blotter. He said, “Income from subscriptions, say £2,150. Rents from property £950. What would those be?”
    “Some old buffer died and left them a block of shops and offices. The Union used one of the offices as its headquarters.