Manaria Bank

[Deleted]

After doing his research the past couple of days, Alfred was ready to start his investigation into the bill forgeries at Manaria Bank. It was perhaps an added bonus that Alfred happened to bank at the particular bank now that he was in London, making it easier for him to fit in and look like he was there to take care of his own business just like everyone else.

After filling out a deposit slip and removing fifty dollars from his wallet, Alfred stepped into line. It was time to play the waiting game, and as anyone who knew Alfred realized, Alfred was never the most patient person in the world. Thus, he eventually began tapping his foot and humming rather loudly as he stood in line. It took the person waiting in front of him shooting him a dirty look before he stopped.

What? He needed something to do while he waited! He still continued to hum, though he did so in his head rather than out loud. It did the trick, as he didn't receive any more odd looks.

After a while, he found himself at the front of the line at last. He found himself at a woman's window and handed her the deposit slip and money. He stood back and watched as she did her thing, grabbing a couple of the mints sitting on the counter and tossing them into his mouth. When she was about to hand him his receipt, Alfred reached into his pocket and pulled out his badge, sliding it in front of the woman at the counter so that she could see it before retrieving it and putting it back in his pocket.

"London Police. We were told that you guys have been getting in a lot of forged bills lately and wanted someone to look into it. Do you know anything about that?" He whispered, hoping the lady had at least some idea of what he was talking about - Or could direct him to someone who did.

[Asunara Wisdom]

MOD - ROSALINDE JAKOBS

"Ahhh, you're the man, I see... Well, I suppose you can come into the back room, we really need all the help we can get..." the woman said, motioning to the door marked "AUTHORIZED PERSONAL ONLY".

[Deleted]

As it turned out, the woman in question was indeed the woman that he was looking for. Alfred smiled a little at his luck. At least now he wouldn't have to wait much longer. He never was the most patient in the world, and he'd already waited in a long line to get to the window in the first place. The less waiting he had to do from here on out, the better!

The American arched his brow slightly at the comment the woman made. They needed all the help that they could get? "That bad, huh?" He wondered just how much money they had in suspected forgeries, if they could use all of the help that they could get. Oh well, Alfred was on the scene now, and hopefully he'd be able to crack down on this one and earn some reputation points in the department!

Alfred followed the woman over the door. Noting the sign on it, he realized that he likely could not enter without following her lead first. As such, he stood aside and waited for her to open the door with a small smile. As he waited, though, he decided that he'd start by asking a few questions to get the scope of the problem. The front desk had really given him little information on the matter. "So, how long has this been going on for?"

[Asunara Wisdom]

MOD - ROSALINDE JAKOBS

She had wondered why the bank had requested to have police investigate the forgery rather than have an economic analyst. Of course, what else were they supposed to do? Economic analysts tended to be rather expensive and they were sticklers, stuffy, and didn't tend to have very good intentions anyways. They weren't very agreeable at all and they happened to make demands towards you, the poor teller that has to sit through his boring economic analysis and go anal on all the details. As a bank teller, Rosalinde did happen to find economics an exciting field. But with these economic analysts sucking out the fun out of everything. This guy seemed like the opposite of the person who would suck the fun out of everything, which was a relief.

""That bad, huh?"

"Sorry this won't be very exciting for you, but yes, it's that bad. We're scared that our clean money supply will be contaminated by the forgeries soon enough. Soon we'll have to bring in these drawers, and we won't know if the forgeries are going through or not. And of course, we most certainly don't want forgeries going into the general public. We're just not so sure... how they got through the system. We aren't even sure which ones exactly are the forgeries," she said, starting to open drawers and revealing luxurious British pounds and coins of all values.

"So, how long has this been going on for?"

"According to our sources, the forgeries started appearing a week ago. But we're not sure... the only way we knew something was a forgery was when we waived money to our customers and someone was cautious enough to do the pen test. You happen to know the pen test, right? We of course do not want to be doing that on all our bills, necessarily, but we need to figure out a way to determine where the fake money is coming from... you won't need to be back here to do tests over and over again, but I would like you to try and investigate and figure out who has been putting forged money in the bank. We haven't seemed to have caught any customer do it, but... Do you want to pose as a banker for the day? Or would you want to try doing logistical search and try to talk to people to figure out the source?"

{ Banker or Investigate? }

[Deleted]

The blond was surprised when he received an elaboration on just how bad it was. They were getting so many possible counterfeits that it might contaminate their clean money supply? It was a good thing they had someone on the case then!

He probably wasn't the best in the department to look at forgeries, admittedly. He knew several ways to spot forgeries in American bills through experience back in Philly, but was not as knowledgeable concerning foreign bills. Sure, he'd done some research before coming over here, but just how much good would it do? It wasn't as though he had a reference book with him.

Although he did have his cell phone, so if all else failed, maybe he could google it?

"You didn't catch it till someone did the pen test?" He frowned at once. Who knew how much money they'd slipped past before then. No wonder they were worried! There was a chance that someone caught it right away, but...it seemed doubtful, especially upon hearing that the pen tests were done sparingly. Rosalinda said a week, but who knew how accurate that was. He would definitely be looking into this one, and hopefully something would turn up.

It wasn't hard for Alfred to make a decision on which road he wanted to take in his investigation. He wouldn't mind doing both, but figured he'd have a better chance of catching the perpetrator (or perpetrators) if he had a chance to interact with them. "I'll pose as a banker. Might give me a better idea of who to look for." Besides, bankers didn't always have customers. Perhaps he could do more investigating on the side while in between customers, provided that it did not get too busy.

[Asunara Wisdom]

MOD - ROSALINDE JAKOBS

"I'll pose as a banker. Might give me a better idea of who to look for."

"Thank you so much for taking up this case, we really appreciate it. Just follow me..." she said, leading him into the cloak and wardrobe room, a room in the bank obviously inaccessible to the usual denizen.

"Go ahead, take your pick on a suit. And if you don't mind, I need to take a headshot of you for your business card. We have one consultation window open, and you'll have to investigate under the name Branden Hambledon. Branden's on vacation at the moment, so that shouldn't be a problem."

[Deleted]

Alfred followed Rosalinde into the wardrobe room, mildly surprised that they had a few suits waiting for him to choose from. "Wow, you guys really prepared for me, didn't you?" Either that or they just had a few suits lying around - Maybe it was a required uniform for employees at this bank. Alfred wasn't really in often enough to tell, usually just going through the teller line to get quick transactions done. He picked up a suit that looked like it would do the trick and held it up to himself to make sure that it wasn't too long or too short at a cursory glance. He wouldn't be able to tell how it fit until he tried it on, but he could at least get a good idea before he tried to change into something that was way too large or way too small.

He stepped aside to change from his street clothes into the suit provided for him. He removed his keys and his wallet from the pockets of his jacket before placing them into the pocket of his suit so that he had them on him. He then walked back to Rosalinde, holding his street clothes in his hands. "Should I put these in the wardrobe until I'm ready to change back into them?" He questioned, not wanting to leave them laying around just anywhere.

The blond nodded when Rosalinde indicated that she wanted to take a headshot of him. They were certainly pulling their weight where this was concerned. It was up to Alfred to make sure he looked like a convincing banker. He could handle it. He'd acted in a school play in high school, and it couldn't be much harder than that, could it? Could it?

"Branden Hambledon. Got it. Branden, Branden, Branden." He repeated the name over and over again so that he would get used to hearing the name as he waited for Rosalinde to get set-up to take his picture for the business card. "Anything else I should know?" He asked while waiting.

[Deleted]

MOD - ROSALINDE JAKOBS

"Hmm? Sure, that's fine." Rosalinde responded absentmindedly as she set up the camera. The damn thing was nearly as old as her, since her manager was too stingy to buy a new camera. Which to her made little sense; they were a bank, they could afford a new camera. With a bit of elbow grease she finally got the tripod to unfold. Now to place the camera on top and connect it to the computer... success!

She sat down at the computer to get the program ready for the badge. "Oh I know, if we get held up there's a button under the counter to summon the poli- wait, you are the police. Oh but you're undercover. You press the button and give them the money in the drawer that's wrapped up. It has the paint thing so we catch them." What else could she tell him? "Umm, don't test the money in front of our customers, obviously. We don't want them to know anything is wrong. This fortunately hasn't gotten out to the major press yet."

With the program running, Rosalinde went back to the camera. "Now smile! You need to look as welcoming and friendly as possible. Our customers wanted to be greeted by someone that is happy to be here."

OOC: Sorry for the delay. Asu is a bit busy right now so I'll be taking over from here!

[Deleted]

Alfred set his street clothes into the wardrobe as instructed, and watched as Rosalinde worked on setting up the camera. She seemed to be struggling with it (with no small wonder, as the camera looked positively ancient as far as cameras were concerned). "The 1960s called - They want that camera back." Alfred remarked conversationally, a small smile on his face. The last thing that he wanted was an awkward silence - and besides, if he was going to be working beside the folks at the bank undercover, he wanted to have a good rapport with them!

Alfred chuckled when Rosalinde explained that there was a button underneath the desk to call for the police - before remembering that Alfred was a cop. "Press that button if I need backup. Got it," Alfred stated with a grin. If something big did end up happening he definitely would have to call for backup, and it was good information to have nevertheless because of this. Alfred nodded when Rosalinde provided him with further instruction. "So just take the money regardless of whether I think it's fake or not, and we'll test it afterward. We can always pull the cameras later to check out who brought the money in and go from there." They had plenty of tools at their disposal for this task.

He watched as Rosalinde continued to set up to take his picture. He wasn't going to get into 'picture pose' until he knew that Rosalinde was about ready to take his picture. Finally, Rosalinde walked from the desk to the camera, signalling to Alfred that he was about to have his picture taken. Alfred was already smiling a full-toothed smile by the time Rosalinde got around the camera and told him to do so. He kept his eyes open as well, not wanting to be caught in the picture in mid-blink, as was so common in such photos.