"We were surprised when they invited us to stay over. James always said he found entertaining tiresome. The police argue that it was a successful ruse to lull the investigators into believing he had no idea the fraud had been discovered and would still be available for questioning through to July. But it is equally logical to argue that, because he was as worried by the rumours as everyone else at Lowenstein's he acted out of character in trying to prove his commitment and dedication. Certainly, he wasn't the only employee to up his work schedule during that period and most of those diary dates refer to business meetings."
His family go on to quote Streeter's computer illiteracy as further evidence of his innocence in this unsolved mystery. "James simply didn't have the skill to work that fraud," says John. "His complete aversion to modern technology became something of a joke over the years. He could use a calculator and a fax machine but the idea of him being able to reprogram the bank's computer is laughable. When and where did he learn how to do it? He had no computer at home, and no one has ever come forward claiming to have taught him."
But others have raised doubts about Streeter's alleged ignorance. There is evidence that he had an affair with a woman called Marianne Filbert, who was employed as a computer programmer by Softworks Limited. Softworks was invited to produce a report on Lowenstein's computer security in 1986, but they failed to complete the task and the report was never presented. James Streeter's detractors point to Marianne Filbert's access to that half completed report as the key to the fraud, while his supporters dispute that he even knew Filbert. Alleged or otherwise, the affair was certainly over before the fraud was discovered because Filbert moved to America in August 1989. However, James Streeter's secretary has stated that on several occasions she found him using her word processor for personal correspondence, and colleagues testify easy understanding of the computer spread function. "It took him no time at all to find an entry I'd made," claimed one member of his department. "He said any fool could work the system if you told him which buttons to press."
Nevertheless, there remain several unanswered questions about James Streeter's disappearance that, in the opinion of this author, have never been adequately addressed. If we assume he was guilty of embezzling 10 million pounds from Lowenstein's Merchant Bank, how did he know that the decision to involve the police was taken by the board on 27th April? The police allege that he had always planned to abscond if his fraud came to light and it was mere coincidence that his escape was scheduled for the day of the decisive board meeting. But, if that was true, why did he wait out the six weeks of the "in-house" investigation? Unless he had access to documents, which the police admit is unlikely, then he could not have known the investigation was failing. And isn't it pushing the bounds of coincidence a little far that the last weekend in April, as recorded in James's office diary, was also the only weekend in April when his wife would be away, fulfilling a long-standing engagement with her mother, thus giving James-or someone else-two whole days to 'make good' his disappearance before his absence was reported?
The police argue that he chose that weekend to run because his movements could not be monitored, and that he would have gone whatever decision the board had reached, but this is to ignore the relationship that existed between James and his wife. According to Kenneth, one of the reasons the marriage was stormy was because the two people involved had more commitment to their careers than they had to each other. "If James had said he had to fly to the Far East on Friday for a business meeting the following Monday, his wife wouldn't have turned a hair. That was what their lives were like. He didn't need to choose the one weekend she was away. Her absence only becomes important if someone else chose it."
The police argument also ignores the fax James sent to his brother: "I shall be home all weekend, so give me a bell when you can. I've told Dad I'll call back Sunday lunchtime." The fact that John did telephone, but wasn't worried when there was no answer, may, as the police claim, have been entirely predictable, but it was a strange gamble for a guilty man to take. If we put that beside Kenneth Streeter's claim, tested and verified by a lie detector, that James promised to phone him on the Sunday with John's contribution to the Ruby Wedding debate, then the gamble becomes entirely unnecessary. Had John and Kenneth followed up the promised phone calls, then James's absence might have been discovered earlier.
The Streeters' defence of their son relies heavily on a conspiracy theory-someone more highly placed than James and with access to privileged information manipulated decisions and events to exposure-but without evidence to prove their case, their campaign to clear their son's name was a hopeless one. Sadly, conspiracy theories work better in fiction than they do in real life, and on any objective reading of the evidence the conclusion must be that James Streeter did steal ten million pounds before running away and leaving his family to reap the bitter harvest of his betrayal.
Despite the Streeters' claims to the contrary, both James Streeter and Peter Fenton would appear to be genuine abscondees. They were mature men with settled backgrounds whose disappearances were bound to cause a stir within their communities and so provoke exhaustive investigations. However this is not true of the next two 'missing persons': Tracy Jevons, a troubled fifteen-year-old with a known history of prostitution; and Stephen Harding, a backward seventeen-year-old with a string of convictions for car theft...
*2*
Six months later in the middle of a cold, wet December, when flaming June and its sweltering heat were a distant memory, Mrs. Powell was telephoned by a journalist from The Street, a self-styled politically left-of-center magazine, who was compiling a feature on poverty and the homeless and wondered if she would agree to do an interview about Billy Blake. He gave his name as Michael Deacon.
"How did you get this number?" she asked suspiciously.
"It wasn't difficult. Your name and address were all over the newspapers six months ago, and you're in the telephone book."
"There's nothing I can tell you," she said. "The police knew more about him than I ever did."
He was persistent. "I won't take up much of your time, Mrs. Powell. How about if I came round tomorrow evening? Say eight o'clock."
"What do you want to know about him?"
"Whatever you can tell me. I found his story very moving. No one seemed to be interested in him except you. The police told me you paid his funeral expenses. I wondered why."
"I felt I owed him something." There was a short silence. "Are you the Michael Deacon who used to be with The Independent?"
"Yes."
"I was sorry when you left. I like the way you write."
"Thank you." He sounded surprised, as if compliments were a rarity. "In that case, surely I can persuade you to talk to me? You say you felt you owed Billy something."
"Except I don't have the same liking for The Street, Mr. Deacon. The only reason someone from that magazine would want to interview me about Billy would be to score cheap political points off the government, and I refuse to be exploited in that way."
This time the silence was at Deacon's end while he reassessed his strategy. It would be helpful, he thought, if he could put an age and a face to the quiet, rather controlled voice of the woman he was talking to, even more helpful if he genuinely believed this interview would produce anything of value. In his view the whole exercise was likely to be a waste of time and he was even less motivated than she was to go through with it. However...