you can ask your bank to send it special presentation, where they will get confirmation from teh issuing bank that the cheque is ok to pay away.
As said above the normal APACS clearing system is very funny. you will be able to see the cheque in your account is as little as 2 business day (not including the day the cheque was paid in) days and be able to lift the funds however cheque can still bounce for 6 business days after it has entered the clearing system.
Used to be the case that it could take weeks but the new 2-4-6 process that APACS introduced in Novemenr 2007 (I think this is when it was??) changed all this.
I would wait till then before you sent out the item. After 6 days it is the banks problem and they will need to raise fraud proceedings. At that point the cash is yours and as far as I know it can't be taken back Look at the APACS clearing website if you need confirmation of this.