The Quarterly Review at Finch & Morrow
The smell of the thirty-second floor was always the same: recycled air, warm toner, and the faint ghost of someone’s reheated soup drifting from the small kitchen at the end of the corridor. Priya Chandran had worked at Finch & Morrow for two years and had stopped noticing it until today, when everything else felt heightened and sharp.
She pressed her fingertip against the paper. The invoice was unremarkable. Pale blue header, standard font, the words “Verity Consulting Ltd” printed in a modest sans-serif above a Chancery Lane address. Eleven invoices across fourteen months. Each one for £47,200. Each one approved by the same partner: Gerald Morrow.
Priya opened a new tab and typed the company number into the registrar’s search. The registered address was a mail forwarding service. The sole director was listed as a G. A. Morrow.
She sat very still for a moment. Outside the glass partition, the open-plan office hummed with keyboards and low telephone voices. Someone laughed near the water cooler.
She printed the search result, folded it once, and tucked it into her cardigan pocket.
—
The partners’ suite smelt of leather and fresh coffee. Gerald Morrow was already pouring when Priya knocked on the open door. He was sixty, silver-haired, with the particular ease of a man who had never once eaten lunch at his desk.
“Priya. Come in, come in. Coffee?”
“No, thank you.” She sat across from him without being invited. “I’ve been working through the Halcyon Group sub-account reconciliation. I found a recurring vendor I can’t locate in our approved supplier register.”
“Easily explained.” He set down the pot. “Verity Consulting. They handle specialist communications work. Very niche.”
“Can you point me to the engagement letter?”
A pause. He opened a drawer. Closed it. “Filing will have it.”
“I’ve checked central filing.” She put the folded Companies House printout on the desk between them, smoothed flat. “The sole director of Verity Consulting is registered as G. A. Morrow.”
He looked at the paper for a long moment. Outside the window, a pigeon landed on the parapet and walked in a small, purposeful circle.
“My brother,” Gerald said. “Gerard Adrian Morrow. He is the director.”
“Is he.” Priya took out her notepad. The pen clicked once. “And is there an engagement letter? A scope of work? Any deliverable on file?”
The leather chair creaked as he leant back. He was still smiling, but the smile had gone tight around the edges, the way a photograph goes when you grip it too hard.
“I don’t think you quite understand how senior-level consulting arrangements work.”
“I audited three FTSE-listed companies before I came here,” Priya said. “I understand engagement structures very well.” She kept her voice level, her hands loose in her lap. “Eleven payments. Five hundred and nineteen thousand, two hundred pounds in total. Charged to a client account. With no supporting documentation on file and no counterparty at arms’ length from the approving partner.”
He looked at her steadily. “You’re a junior associate.”
“I am. And the board meeting for Halcyon Group is in forty minutes.” She placed a second sheet on the desk: a summary she had typed that morning, footnoted and tidy. “I’ve prepared a disclosure note. I thought you should see it before it goes to the audit committee. As a courtesy.”
The silence in the room was thick. The coffee machine in the corner produced a long, tired hiss.
Gerald Morrow picked up the summary. He read it slowly. He set it down. He pressed one thumb against the edge of his gold cufflink and turned it, once, twice.
“What is it you want?” he said at last.
“Nothing from you.” She stood up, gathered both sheets. “I’d like the engagement letter on my desk within the hour, if it exists. If it doesn’t, I’ll note the absence and proceed accordingly.” She paused at the door. “The disclosure note goes to the committee either way. I’ve already copied the compliance director.”
She left the door open behind her.
—
By three o’clock, the compliance director had frozen the Verity Consulting vendor code. By four, an external firm had been appointed to conduct an independent review. Gerald Morrow was asked, with great courtesy, to take leave pending the outcome.
Priya was still at her desk at half past six when her colleague Dev appeared with a mug of tea he set down without comment. It was strong and slightly too sweet, exactly how she’d never told him she liked it but apparently he’d noticed anyway.
“Word travels fast up here,” he said, sitting on the edge of the adjacent chair.
“It always does.”
“You all right?”
She looked at the screen. The Halcyon Group sub-account was clean now, or at least quarantined, the irregular entries flagged in red, waiting for the review team. She thought of the recycled air and the smell of toner and the unremarkable blue header on eleven identical invoices.
“I will be,” she said. “It was just arithmetic.”
Dev nodded, as though that made complete sense. He was still there when she finished the tea.
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links. If you click a link and make a purchase, Cozy Nook Tales may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you. This helps support the site and allows us to continue publishing free stories every day.
Enjoyed this story? See our top 10 Financial Crime picks.
