Gallery Whispers

59

'I'm sorry I had to insist on your coming to see me. Superintendent,' said the Assistant General Manager. Clan Pringle heard the words but picked up no hint of apology in his voice. 'I'm afraid it's our policy never to discuss the business of bank personnel over the telephone.'

'Even when they're dead?' The detective's thick moustache twitched slightly in a faint attempt at a smile.

'Even then, I'm afraid. Now, which employee do you wish to discuss? My secretary should really have asked you when you made the appointment.' Pringle looked at the neat, dark-suited, humourless little man and tried to imagine asking him for an overdraft. He shuddered at the thought, and resisted the temptation to tell Mr William Drysdale, in his own special way, that detective superintendents did not necessarily need appointments.

'A man named Murray: Anthony Murray.'

'Ah yes. Mr Murray; Tony. Yes, I remember him. He was a manager in our Queen Street branch, until he ran out of steam around the middle of last year. It happens more and more these days, as banks transform themselves into properly run businesses instead of gentlemen's clubs.'

Drysdale leaned back in his chair and puffed out his chest.

'There was a time, not so long ago either, when a chap would join a bank straight from school in the confident expectation that he had a job for life, with status in the community and a comfortable pension at the end of it. Not any more; in the current banking environment, if you don't perform consistently well and hit your targets, you're out.

People pay the ultimate price these days for poor lending decisions.'

'What?' muttered Pringle, not quite under his breath. 'You mean you shoot them?'

'Pardon?'

'Nothing, sir, nothing; just thinking aloud. And Mr Murray, what about him? Was he drummed out of the Cubs?'

'What? Ah yes, I see, Hah, very funny, yes. I wouldn't say that exactly. Tony had thirty-eight years' service, so when he asked to retire early, the area general manager was pleased to accommodate him.'

'And if he hadn't asked?'

'Then yes, he probably would have been told to go.'

'Why was that?'

Drysdale shrugged. 'He just wasn't cutting the mustard any more; he knew it, too. The Chief Executive had asked a couple of questions about his performance review.'

'And that's all it takes to end a career these days, is it?'

Pringle's voice was loaded with irony, but the banker gave no sign of noticing. Instead he hooked his thumb into his waistcoat pocket and looked blandly across the desk. 'There is a time,' he pronounced, 'in every man's life, when he should just go and play golf.'

'So Mr Murray was a golfer, was he?'

Drysdale blinked and looked bemused. 'I've no idea. I was speaking figuratively.'

'Ahh. I'm sorry. Thick of me.' The superintendent glanced out of the window of the opulent office. On the skyline, he could see the top of the Scott Monument, surrounded by scaffolding as usual.

'When Mr Murray left,' he asked, 'did he strike you as being in a good state of mind? Did he seem depressed to have outlived his usefulness to you?'

'He was never a very cheerful sort, to be truthful. Morose, sometimes; when he spoke to me, at least.' I'm not bloody surprised, thought Pringle.

'Did he seem worse after his wife died?'

'Did she? I didn't know that. It's my policy, you see, not to become involved in the family situation. I mean if I did that all the time, I'd be a damned counsellor, rather than a businessman.'

'But isn't a happy employee an efficient employee?'

Drysdale frowned at this radical thinking. 'My job is to make the shareholders happy, Mr Pringle. I'm afraid in this day and age you can spend very little time treating the wounded, before — to borrow your word — you have to shoot them.'

'Oh aye,' said the detective, heavily. 'The ultimate price, eh.'

'That's right,' said Drysdale, rising to his feet to signal the end of the interview. 'Tell me, superintendent,' he asked, as he walked his visitor to the door. 'Do you bank with us?'