Coming a little late to the party? You can catch up from the beginning by clicking here: Chapter One
I found Chris in the kitchen, making tea. He had on a dark blue sweater which, when he turned round, revealed a large picture of Rudolf with a lit-up nose. It flashed at me as we talked.
“You remember we spoke about giving you some training?” I started. “Well, I thought it would make sense for you to talk to Adam, too. Get the whole picture.”
“Oh yes,” he replied. “That would be great. But he always seems so busy.”
“That’s what makes now such a great time. Everyone’s winding down for Christmas.”
He looked unconvinced. “The traders aren’t. Even Dave’s taking lunch at his desk this week.”
That threw me a bit. “How do you know that?” I asked.
“I get sent out to collect it.”
“Oh. Well, don’t worry, I’m sure it will be fine with Adam. Come on.”
He still didn’t look sure, but he let me drag him along to Adam’s cubicle. He was seated at his desk, and I was pleased to see the surface was covered with printouts. The very thing I needed to get a look at.
“Hi Adam,” I started. “You have time to show Chris what you do, don’t you? He’s been through our area and seeing yours would join all the dots for him.”
Adam smiled at us both. “Of course, come on in.” He waved Chris in then looked around as if expecting a chair to pop into existence.
“We can just stand, it’s ok,” I said. Both men turned to look at me in surprise.
“I thought I’d sit in too,” I explained. “It’s always good to get some extra experience when you’re a temp.”
Fortunately, Chris made no objection and Adam shrugged his agreement. We crowded round his desk, and he started explaining what he did.
“So, when a trade is made, admin updates the system which automatically posts an entry in the books. Then, when the money comes into or leaves the relevant bank account, it gets matched to that entry.”
“And that’s what’s listed here?” I asked, peering at the printouts.
“No. Sometimes the cash movement and the bookkeeping entry don’t get matched up. That’s where I come in. These list all the unmatched funds and the unmatched entries.”
“And you match them up,” piped up Chris. “That’s really neat.”
“Well, sometimes it is.” Adam looked more animated than I’d ever seen him. He seemed to really love his job. “But the really fun part is when I get to the ones that don’t have a match. Then I have to turn detective and find out why.”
Now that sounded right up my street. And possibly exactly what I was looking for.
“But why would that happen?” asked Chris.
“And does it happen often?” I asked.
“It happens more than you’d expect,” said Adam. “Usually it’s just a small difference between the entry and the amount that’s moved. That could be a simple move in the exchange rate if it’s a foreign currency trade, or just terrible handwriting. Nick’s the worst for that. Then the trade, and therefore the bookkeeping entry, get posted incorrectly.”
“Do you get any big differences?” I asked, thinking of Cassie’s five thousand pounds.
“Oh yes. I usually start with the amounts over half a million and work my way down.”
“Half a million?” I couldn’t believe I’d heard correctly.
“Oh yes. But that’s nothing. I worked in derivatives before I moved here, and there a million was almost too small to bother investigating.”
He picked up the printouts and shuffled through them.
“See this one here,” he said, pointing at an amount a little over two-hundred-thousand pounds. “That’s a fairly simple one I finalised this morning. Two trades had been input but the payment had been made in one go. Simple, but it took me days to confirm it.”
“How did you do that?” asked Chris.
While Adam went through everything he’d done, I ran my eye over the sheets. There was no amount of five thousand pounds. Either it hadn’t come from one of our department’s bank accounts, Adam had already fixed it somehow, or an entry had been made to match with it so that it never showed up.
I was amazed at some of the larger amounts. Hundreds of thousands of pounds were listed on the printouts.
“It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?” said Adam, seeing where my attention was fixed. “All that money and no-one’s shouting about it. Some of them sit there for days and if I didn’t investigate, they’d probably just sit there forever.”
“Yes,” I agreed. “It really does make you wonder.”
Continue reading by clicking here: Chapter Twenty-One