The Fraud

 

The stylish fountain pen held by the accountant stopped on the line item that gave the comparison in between budgeted and actual expenditure with respect to employee conveyance reimbursements. The variance was substantial and the accountant didn’t miss it. Almost a variance of more than 55 %. That was material and needed some explanation to be provided to the financial committee of the Company. It was not every day that significant variances were observed in employee conveyance reimbursements.

The Accountant, Mr Patel, looked at the detailed sheet that was attached for the monthly employee conveyance reimbursements. He observed that the first three months were in with the monthly budgets. The significant variance started from the fourth month and as the months passed the gap increased. Mr Patel couldn’t understand the reason for the same.

Every year, the budgeting team made annual and monthly budgets based upon business expectation and related cost. Employee related costs were budgeted based on head counts but the expense head of employee conveyance reimbursements generally never showed any significant gap in comparison to the budgets.

Mr Patel asked for the detailed employee wise monthly report for conveyance reimbursements. Over the next two days, he went through the report in detail. He observed that three employee who were at the post of managers in various departments contributed to the significant varinaces. He highlighted the three names.

His next stop was the supporting bills which were provided by those three employees whom he had marked out. Over the next week, he received the files in relation to the supporting back up document for the reimbursement claims. After in depth review of the supporting nothing seemed out of order to him. All the supporting were properly marked and signed by the concerned employees. Proper authorization was also present on all of them.

Concluding that perhaps, he was overthinking, he closed down the files. He looked at the variance sheet once again. Almost everything seemed fine except the employee conveyance reimbursements. Mr Patel decided that before he would give the final go head for the variance to be included in the finance committee meeting, he would do a on field walkthrough.  

He noted that majority of employee claimed reimbursements for either cab rides or routine bus and rickshaw rides. The next section of employees claimed reimbursements for their car fuel. For these fuel reimbursements, the bill from the fuel station was submitted. Mr Patel had checked all the fuel bills for the employees where in varinaces were observed and found nothing exceptional.

Over the next three days, he made a on field walkthrough on the process of authorization and checking the conveyance reimbursements which didn’t reveal any malpractice. Finally unable to get any lead, he finalized that it was time that the variance report be approved and included in the docket of the finance committee meeting.

That morning when he arrived at office to give a final approval, he got down from his car and met Mr. Sharma at the car park.  They both wishes each other and walked together from the parking lot to the lift. As Mr Patel arrived at his workstation, he sensed something. He recalled to see something which was important but couldn’t link it.

He walked to the floor cafeteria to get a quick coffee. As he sipped his coffee, he sprang up from his chair. He hurriedly walked to the files which contained the supporting bills of the reimbursement. He turned them abruptly until he arrived at the employee which he seeking to. He looked at the bill and then recalled what he had seen in the morning. A smile appeared on his face.

He quickly ran through the bills of the other two employee who had shown significant variance in reimbursement. He took a copy of the bill on his mobile and quickly walked out of his office to the parking lot. After searching for some fifteen minutes, he found what he was looking for.

That evening, Mr Patel sat at his workstation with all the bills of the three employees. He called them to a nearby conference room.

The three employees, one of which included Mr Sharma included, arrived at the conference room and saw Mr Patel and the company’s internal auditor sitting.

Mr Patel kept the bills in front of them to which all three agreed that it was submitted by them.

“But what’s the problem? These are original bills.”

Mr Patel showed the fuel bills to the internal auditor. It was original ones. Each of the bill had the car number and fuel type and amount handwritten by the fuel station person who had fueled up the car.

Mr Patel looked at the bills and looked up at Mr sharma.

“Mr Sharma. You have been submitted a bill of Petrol reimbursement for the last nine months.”

“Yes,” Mr Sharma replied confidently.

“But the car number that is mentioned here. I checked it in the parking lot. It’s not a petrol car. It’s a diesel car.”

Mr Sharma went silent.

“The same is for the other two of you.

“You three have been submitting petrol bills for the last nine months when actually all three of you have vehicles that run on diesel. You three surely have taken advantage of the rising petrol prices to your advantage it seems.”   

 

Flat No 309

 

Rains lashed the city. It had been raining heavily for the last two days and it was no different that evening. The city of Bangalore had almost come to a halt due to continuous rains. Majority of office goers had preferred work from home amid the heavy rains.  Amid this non -stop pouring, the third-floor lift of Lopez tower opened and a crisply dressed young man walked out. He looked around to find the chronology of the apartment numbers. After getting an idea of the sequencing, he walked to his right and continued walking towards the apartment he wanted to visit. a second later he was standing in front of the door of Apartment No 309. He looked around and then pressed the door bell and took a deep breath. After waiting for some time and not finding any reply, he pressed the door- bell again. There was no reply.

He removed his cell phone from his pocket and checked the address. He standing in front of correct apartment. He again pressed the door- bell. Finally, there was a sound from the other side. He could hear the sound of the latch opening up. The door opened up slowly and a head peeked out from behind it. It was a middle -aged gentleman.

“Yes?” the occupant of the apartment asked.

“Good evening, sir. I am here to check the Refrigerator as part of the annual maintenance check.”

The middle- aged gentleman seemed confused looking at the young man.

“But I wasn’t informed by the company about this visit.”

The young man seemed perplexed.

“Sir, the information was sent on to your wife’s registered number with the company. Request you to check with her.”   

“She didn’t tell me anything?” the middle- aged man replied back.

“Sir, it will not take much time. I will just check few parameters and then tick mark all the questions in our checklist form, Take your signature and leave.”

“Give me minute,” the middle- aged man replied and abruptly closed the door.

The young man found the apartment owner’s behavior extremely rude but he kept his calm.

The sound of the lift door opening was heard by the young man. An old lady walked out and looked at the young man. She stared at him for a second and then walked left towards her apartment. The young man waited for the apartment door to open up.

Suddenly the door opened up and middle- aged man told him to come in.

A second later, when the young man was inside, he looked around in search for the way to the kitchen.

“May I?” he asked the middle -aged man.

“Sure.”

The young man walked towards the kitchen as the apartment occupant walked behind him.

 They reached the beautifully designed and sleek kitchen. The big refrigerator stood its ground near to the entrance of the kitchen.   

The young man kept down his bag and open the fridge door and surprisingly found the fridge not cool.

“There’s hardly any cooling. It seems as if the fridge was put on just sometime back.” The young man commented.

The middle- aged man stood there confused

The young man observed that there was hardly any food item inside the fridge.

“How often do you defrost it?” the young man asked as he continued to inspect the chiller.

“Ah, sometime two weeks.”  The middle- aged man answered confusingly.

“Two weeks?” the young man looked surprised.

“Sir, you need to defrost every three days.”

“Actually, I don’t know much about the kitchen. It’s my wife who handles everything. She’s gone to her aunt’s house.”

“Can you get me a towel,” the young man asked him.

“Sure, just a second,”

The middle- aged man walked towards the bedroom and after two minutes when he was back with a towel, the young man stood there in the kitchen with a gun in his hand.

“Hands up dude.”

The middle- aged man was almost in shock and was about to fall down in despair.

“Don’t do anything stupid?”

“No. No. I am not doing anything.”

The middle- aged man threw the towel on the ground and put his hands up.

“Okay. Man. Now take me to the cupboard where you keep all the valuables.”

“Turnaround and walk to the cupboard.” The young man shouted.

“Don’t do anything. I am taking you to the cupboard.”

The middle-aged man turnaround with his hands up and walked slowly towards the bedroom. The young intruder slowly walked behind him keeping a sizable distance.

Two minutes later both of them were standing in front of a transparent cupboard. The young man pushed the middle-aged man to the side and opened the door and started to throw the clothes out and then opened up the drawer.

Out of nowhere, a small gun was placed on head.

“Hands up young man. Dare you move.”

“Caught red handed.” Said the middle- aged man.

The young man was shocked to no belief.

He put his hands up. “What do you mean caught red handed?”

“Yeah. Yeah, there were lot of complaints about you in and around this locality. Finally got hold of you.”

“Who are you?” asked the young man.

“Inspector Rakesh Sharma.”

“So, you are not the actual occupant of this house?” the young intruder asked.

“The actual occupants are now at the flat in which that old lady entered into some time ago.”

“So, this was a set up?”

“Very much young man.”

“How did you do it?”

“Simple. We got hold of the AMC head of the company who would give up the addresses of the apartments where in the AMC servicing was scheduled.”

“For the last three months, we had received complaints that a young man disguised as AMC service person of a particular brand would enter houses and rob them off their valuables.”

“And, how did you know which house was on my target this time?” the young intruder asked.

“It was very simple.” Said the policeman and continued, “This was the only address left for AMC service for this year. You have covered all the balance houses.”

“We were waiting for you to come here for the last four days and you did arrive today on the fifth day.”

“Very neat work, Inspector.” Said the young man.

“Thanks to your overconfidence.”

 

The Author

 

The world for the last three years was completely dark for the fifty-five-year-old Haruto Saito. It had been some three years ago when he had met with an almost fatal accident. Though his life had been saved by the doctors, but his eyes had got permanently damaged, ultimately leading him to become blind. Devastation had engulfed him. He wasn’t concerned about the worldly enjoyments that he would miss, he only disappointment was the fact the he wouldn’t be able to write anymore. For him it was equivalent to not writing was equivalent to not living.

Haruto Saito was a decent selling author for the last five years. He had always wanted to be an author but all his life due to family commitments and professional life, he hardly found anytime to write, and even if found time, he could hardly complete anything that he had started. Finally, taking a break from family life and professional work, Haruto had confined himself in an unknown location far away from the city of Tokyo where he resided with his family. It was just the beginning of nineties. Though computers were on their way to replace typewriters for majority of authors all around the world, but for Haruto, his typewriter was his sole friend in the confined apartment.

Inside the secluded apartment, the only sound which his own ears could hear was the that his typing. I between his would eat and sleep and then go for silent work in a disguised makeover. He didn’t want anyone to recognize him and thereby disturb his writing life. Finally at the age of fifty after completing his first novel he had submitted to a publisher at Tokyo. The publisher had rejected his first work without providing any inputs. Subsequently, he had submitted to all the publishers in Tokyo. After a wait of six months, he had received a call from a decent publishing house. They liked what he had written. The money offered was decent and thus his first book was published. The book performed average based upon sales. Haruto was a happy man. He had continued the same process for his next five books that was published over the next five years. All the books had performed average but the publisher had told him to keep going until he had abruptly met with an accident one night while returning home.

Seated at that same secluded apartment, alone with his type writer, he revisited his days of writing in his memory. It had been some one week ago, when Haruto had given an advertisement in the local newspaper for a secretary. Two weeks later, a twenty-five-year-old girl named Sakura had arrived at his writing apartment without any idea of what the job profile was.

“I will dictate and you will type. That’s it. Nothing else.” Haruto had said.

Haruto was a person who wouldn’t give up easily on his only passion that he had developed his entire life. He had planned to give his balance life to writing and literature and that would be the way, only the method would be different. He had already spoken to his publisher and his publisher was ready to take the chance.

The writing process was simple. Every day, form morning 9 to evening 5.30, Haruto would dictate and his secretary, Sakura would type. She was slow but followed his speed effectively. In between they would have lunch and tea that would be served a caretaker of the apartment who was hired by Haruto after he had become blind.

Sakura would often think deeply about the what Haruto would dictate and type without any word. In between to break the silence, Haruto would ask her about her life and family. Apart from these conversations, the only sound that could hear in the apartment was that of the typing on the typewriter.

Six months later, Haruto was ready with his final manuscript of his new novel. He submitted the same to the publishing house. The book was published two months later. In the meantime, Sakura had moved on with her life and lost touch with Haruto.

It was the month of January 1995, when the book was published. It was instant bestseller. The publishing house had been surprised with the sales figure the book was bringing in. Over the next six months, the books sold like hot cakes bringing name and fame along with great royalty payments for Haruto. A Blind Haruto was ecstatic. His family had been proud of him. The publishing house signed a five-book contract with him with an advance payment that would take care of his family for a good amount of time.

Before he would start work on his next book, the biggest newspaper of Tokyo, The Tokyo Journal had organized a book reading event of Haruto’s book where he was invited as a chief guest. Seated a crisply ironed grey shirt and black trouser with black glares over his eyes, Haruto sat awaiting the reader to start reading his book.

As the reader started with the book, and Haruto listened carefully each and every world that came out, his heartbeat fastened, he got excited and his thoughts ran all over. Though the events in the story was as dictated by him, but the language and literary style was not his and not the one that he had dictated. Over the next three hours and the book was read by different readers part by part, Haruto sat there analyzing the event that would have taken place.

It was Sakura, he thought. Though he had dictated everything but Sakura only picked up the events of the story and molded the writing style and language according to her. She had written the word and he had dictated the story. He couldn’t understand what to do. Fidgeting in his chair with his stick in his hand, he realized that Sakura was the actual author of the book. He had only narrated it but Sakura had changed the prose and language and kept intact the story. And now, he was enjoying all the success and money and not Sakura. He wanted to search for her and wanted to meet her and thank her but she wasn’t there with him and he didn’t know where to find her. He didn’t even know her address.

Little did he have any idea, there was a twenty-five-year-old girl seated among the crowd of the listeners and looking at him and smiling. Sakura couldn’t have missed it.

As the book reading session got over, and as the crowd started to disperse, Haruto remained seated his chair. Suddenly he could sense someone seated on a chair next to his. The perfume. He recalled the fragrance of the perfume.

“Sakura?” he said.

There was no reply.

“Sakura? Is it you?” he said again this time in a raised tone.

“Yes, sir.”

He felt relieved. Finally, he could thank her, he thought.

“Thank you, dear,

“Where were you, dear?” He asked.

“Getting ready, sir” she replied as she looked around.

“Getting ready for what?” he asked curiously.

“To type the next book, sir,”

A faint smile appeared on Haruto’s face.

“But there’s a condition this time, child,” he said.

“What condition?”

“Sakura Morito would be the co-author.”