He looked down at the packed congregation and waited until everyone was settled. Some, who hadn’t been able to find a seat, were standing in the aisles, while others, who’d arrived late, were crammed together at the back of the church. It was a mark of the man.

“Funerals are, naturally, sad events,” began the bishop. “Even more so when the departed has achieved little more than leading a blameless life, which can make delivering their eulogy a difficult task. That was not my problem when I prepared my address on the life, the exemplary life, of Cedric Arthur Hardcastle.

“If you were to liken Cedric’s life to a bank statement, he left this world with every account in credit. Where do I begin, to tell you the unlikely tale of this remarkable Yorkshireman?

“Cedric left school at the age of fifteen and joined his father at Farthings Bank. He always called his father ‘sir,’ both at work and at home. In fact, his father retired just in time not to have to call his son ‘sir.’”

A little laughter broke out among the congregation.

“Cedric began his working life as a junior trainee. Two years later he became a teller, even before he was old enough to open a bank account. From there he progressed to undermanager, branch manager, and later, area controller, before becoming the youngest director in the bank’s history. And frankly no one was surprised when he became chairman of the bank at the age of forty-two, a position he held for the past twenty-three years, during which time he took Farthings from being a local bank in a small town in Yorkshire to one of the most respected financial institutions in the City of London.

“But something that would not have changed, even if Cedric had become chairman of the Bank of England, was his constant refrain that if you take care of the pennies, the pounds will take care of themselves.”

*   *   *

“Do you think we’ve got away with it?” asked Sloane nervously.

“If, by that, you’re asking if everything you’ve done in the past four days is legal and above board, the answer is yes.”

“Do we have a quorum?”

“We do,” said Malcolm Atkins, the bank’s chief legal advisor. “The managing director, the company secretary, and six nonexecutive directors are waiting for you in the boardroom. Mind you,” he added, “I’d be fascinated to know what you said to them when they suggested that perhaps they ought to be attending a funeral in Huddersfield today rather than a board meeting in London.”

“I told them quite simply that the choice was theirs. They could vote for a place in this world or the next.”

Atkins smiled and checked his watch. “We should join them. It’s almost ten.”