CHAPTER 14
22. And Daniel wept, and howled with bitterness of heart.
23. Then he returned unto his place.
I READ AND re-read the article with wide, unblinking, disbelieving eyes. It was from The Argus. It was from 14 January 2000. It was real.
And it was incredible.
CON ARTIST SENTENCED FOR TRAIL OF DECEPTION
A con artist who became one of Britain’s most wanted men has been jailed for deception. Raymond Price, 59, specialised in cheating kind-hearted members of the public. He toured the south claiming his car had broken down and he needed cash for his train fare home.
It was about here that I choked and coughed tea through my nose. But there was more . . .
Price promised to send the money back to his victims, taking their names and addresses, but they never heard from him again.
But when he committed offences in Worthing he came under suspicion by murder squad detectives.
His description was circulated nationwide and his picture was issued to the media and was shown on Crimewatch.
Murder! Offences! Victims! And Crimewatch!
Price, of no fixed address, gave himself up to police at Heathrow.
He was quickly ruled out of the murder investigation.
But yesterday Price was jailed for 18 months at Chichester Crown Court after admitting 13 charges of deception and asking for another 162 to be taken into consideration.
Make that 163!
Beverley Cherrill, prosecuting, said Price gave his victims a false name and borrowed sums ranging from £7 to £20 for his bogus train fare.
Ranging from £7 to £20! And yet he’d tried his luck and nabbed £38 from us! He’d seen my happy-faced joinees, taken them for simpletons, and gone for the bloody record!
The court was told Price had previous convictions dating back to the early 1950s.
Warwick Tatford, defending, said that between 1973 and 1986 Price had kept out of trouble because he was a talented painter and ran an art gallery in Rye.
Mr Tatford said Price was painting again in prison and hoped to make a living again from art.
Judge Anthony Thorpe said he hoped that Price would use his artistic abilities to keep out of trouble in the future.
Well, Judge Anthony Thorpe is obviously a bloody optimist then!
Oh my God.
Raymond Price had sucked me into a world of crime. He’d served his eighteen months, walked out of jail, and almost immediately tricked my good-hearted joinees, just as he’d been tricking people since the 50s. The man had made off with our money!
This undermined everything my joinees and I had been working towards. How could we have taken inspiration from helping a criminal? How could I encourage people to go out and make random people happy, when random people would take advantage of their kindness and steal from them? They say a stranger is just a friend you haven’t met yet. Now I was starting to believe that a stranger was just someone who hadn’t ripped you off yet. I had uncovered the one major flaw in my plans – not all people are good people.
I was very, very upset.
* * *
‘So,’ said the taxi driver, as I struggled with my seatbelt. ‘What brings you to Teignmouth?’
Well, wasn’t it obvious? Couldn’t he tell from the look in my eyes? From the short, sharp, angry tugs of my seatbelt? I was in Teignmouth to find a man named Raymond Price and bring him to justice. I was going to track him down and demand my joinees’ £38 back. And then I was going to go home and carefully rethink this whole being-nice-to-strangers thing.
‘Hello?’ said the taxi driver, and I realised that it’s all very well having an internal monologue, but it does tend to leave the other person a bit stranded, conversationally.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘I’m here to see an old friend.’
I hoped I’d said that a bit mysteriously, in a way that I suggested I might very well be a hitman, here on a mafia contract, but I’d actually accidentally said it in a way that suggested I was probably here to see an old friend.
‘And what’s the address?’ he said.
‘Well,’ I sighed. ‘He probably won’t be there, to be honest, so I don’t know what the point in going there is.’
I shrugged, and sat back in my seat.
‘Right,’ said the driver. ‘So . . . what’s the actual address?’
‘Well, I can give you the address if you want. The newspapers couldn’t. They thought he was of “no fixed address”. But I’ve got one. Though I’m warning you, he’s probably long gone, so don’t get your hopes up.’
‘I won’t,’ he said. ‘But what’s the address? I need that to get there.’
‘Oh, mate, believe me, that’s what I would have thought, too, but that’s because we’re too trusting.’
‘Well, why do you want to go there?’
‘Ha! You tell me!’ I said, with a casual shrug of the shoulders. ‘It’s a false address. Or the address is real, but he isn’t. Or he’s real, but he doesn’t live there.’
I smiled at the driver and threw my hands up in the air, as if he knew exactly what I was on about and could relate to the situation entirely.
‘Okay,’ said the driver, switching the ignition off, and turning to me, semi-menacingly. ‘Do you want to just sit here and talk about some possibly fictional man who may or may not live in a place that may or may not exist, or do you actually want to go somewhere?’
I thought about it.
‘I’d like to go somewhere, please,’ I said, timidly, and showed him the piece of paper on which I’d written Raymond’s address.
I had spent the journey from London to Teignmouth going over what had happened again and again in my head.
Already somewhat disillusioned with Join Me from my meeting with Joinee Benjamin and troubles with Hanne, I’d nevertheless pressed on, checked my emails, and then found one from a man named Mr Jackson.
Mr Jackson had discovered the Join Me website while searching for the name Raymond Price, and recognised a photo on the news page as a man he had met only the previous week . . .
Hi
I was interested to read about your joinees in London who met Raymond Price from Teignmouth in Devon. Apparently his car had broken down and he needed £38 to get a train ticket home.
I gave him £30 on Thursday last. He promised to return it to me by mail by the Saturday, but to no avail. There is no sign of the money and no sign of Raymond Price. I suspect this is a scam and we have all been ripped off.
It is a shame since it will just make me think twice before helping out like this again. I was actually scammed like this some 12 years ago. You would think I would learn.
All the best
I. Jackson
I had emailed Mr Jackson back, saying that there was no way this could be a scam, and he must have the wrong end of the stick, and was he sure it was the same bloke, because to be caught in that situation twice only to be rescued by complete strangers was . . . well . . . a bit of a coincidence.
And it was a bit of a coincidence.
Maybe too much of a coincidence.
And that’s when Mr Jackson had sent me the article.
So here I was in Teignmouth, in Devon, on the trail of Raymond Price. But did he even really live in Teignmouth? The article mentioned Rye, and Worthing, and both Mr Jackson and my group of joinees had met him in London . . . who knew where he was nowadays? The only thing I could do was turn up at the address I’d been given and see if I could find him.
But what were the chances of all this happening? Raymond Price must have thought Christmas had come early that day, sitting in that pub. He’d probably just got out of jail that morning and could well have been sitting there wondering who he was going to scam and what he was going to tell them, when bingo! Five people present themselves out of the blue to him and ask him whether there’s anything at all that he needs. ‘Anything we can do to make you happy?’ they say, and he smiles. And he tells them he needs some money, just a
s he’d told hundreds of people since the 50s. And they’re only too happy to oblige.
And it was my fault.
I’d attributed the birth of the Karma Army to that one moment of chance. It was the inspiration I’d needed to make others go out and do good. But now it had a far more cynical edge. The Karma Army was tainted. It had been borne out of something far less pure-hearted. It had been borne out of a lie.
I should have known the moment my letter to the address I was now standing outside had been returned. I should have known, and thought, and stopped what I was doing. But I didn’t. I got carried away. And now, like Mr Jackson, I’d learnt my lesson.
So what did I do? Did I take the chance that Raymond still lived there, and had opened the letter, read it, resealed it and sent it back to me? Or did I walk away? Did I get angry? Or did I get even?
I’d come all this way and all I now had to do was knock on his door, but I didn’t know what I’d say when or if it opened . . .
I’d soon find out.
I rang the doorbell.
No answer.
I rang it again.
Still nothing.
I rapped on the door. By which I mean I knocked on it, not that I did a little MC-ing. But if I had’ve done a little MC-ing, it would’ve been quite angry stuff, like NWA when they’re on about the Rodney King incident. Only I’d have made it less about police brutality and more about old Devon men ripping young folk off with their made-up stories of broken down cars. And there I think you’ll find the main difference between British and American crime.
There was still no answer. So I tried the neighbours.
‘Nope, don’t know him,’ said a lady in a blue dress. ‘There was a chap who lived there several years ago.’
‘When was that?’
‘That would have been several years ago now.’
‘Right. So he doesn’t live there any more?’
‘Nope. He moved. Several years ago.’
Leave me alone. I never claimed to be Columbo.
So I walked back into town and found a pub called the King William IV I ordered a lager and sat by the window. So this was Teignmouth. This was where people like Raymond Price were from. I drank my pint and scowled at my fellow drinkers.
Oh, they looked nice enough, with their casual shirts and kind faces. But underneath it all, were they not all just the same as Raymond bloody Price? This lager cost me £2.20. How much of that was going in the landlord’s pocket? Oh, I expect he wanted me to buy some crisps, as well. Well, no way, pal. You’re not getting my 40p. Wait for some other London chump to walk in.
I watched as a lady with a charity collection tin wandered from table to table, asking for money. Where would this moneygrabbing tyranny end? Yeah, yeah . . . she was polite to people. On the outside. She was probably swearing and calling them wankers on the inside.
‘Collecting for disabled children,’ she said, when she reached me.
‘A likely story,’ I said, eyebrows raised. ‘I suppose you want £38, do you?’
She looked slightly startled, and I got all embarrassed, and reached into my pocket and gave her a quid despite myself. Christ, these people were good.
So, yet another pound down, I left that pub in that town of sin. Teignmouth. Sinmouth. Put it in the binmouth. And I walked away.
I had come to Teignmouth on instinct. But really . . . what would giving Raymond Price a ticking off have achieved? What did any of this mean any more? I was confused, and sad, and just knew I didn’t want to be a part of it. The battle between good and evil had been fought. And evil had won.
I got a bus back to the station and made a decision on the way.
I was giving up on Join Me. I was giving up on the Karma Army.
It was time to stop.
CHPATER 15
1. After these things Daniel sojourned heretofore in Greece, and came upon seven princes from the north.
2. And these seven princes were minded to know seven comely daughters of Barnsley, who also were gathered there.
3. But the princes were abashed.
FOR TWO DAYS I sank into a kind of mild depression. Raymond Price had destroyed me. Beaten me. Made me see the pointlessness of it all. I tried not to think about Join Me, or my joinees. Pushed it all out of my mind. Regained control of my life. I was still coming to terms with how I could have been responsible for actively assisting the criminal underclass.
Hanne had been concerned by my mood – she was concerned with me generally nowadays – and suggested I clear my head. I’d been working too hard, she said. I should get away for a few days. And at two o’clock precisely I decided she was right.
‘Hanne, I think I do need to get away,’ I said, out-of-the-blue and rather too loudly.
‘Sssh!’ she said, finger-to-lips.
‘But I need a holiday. You’re right. I’ve been . . . you know . . . working too hard.’
‘Sssssh!’ said Hanne again, eyes wider.
‘I need a break. Maybe we can go to Venice at last. Or somewhere else a bit like it. It might be cheaper to go to one of its twin towns, maybe.’
‘Sssh! Will you shush!’ she said, far more firmly this time, putting my hand in a fearsome grip that caused me to yelp slightly.
You’re not really supposed to talk loudly about going on holiday during the wedding march. You’re supposed to pile all your concentration on the bride walking down the aisle. Another reason I think we can safely say the Church is outdated. Respect really is the death of good conversation.
We were at Jon’s wedding, of course, in a tiny village in Kent, and an hour later, as the two-man band played its cover version of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’, I told Hanne more about my idea.
‘It’ll be brilliant. Come on, let’s go away. A proper holiday. A chance to forget about things.’
‘What things?’
‘Just things.’
‘Like bollards?’
‘No, not actual things. But yes, if you like. Look, you said it yourself, I’ve been so busy lately. I need a break.’
‘But I don’t. And I’ve got so much on at the moment. Can’t we wait for a while? Venice sounds good. We could go for a weekend, in a couple of months’ time, or something.’
‘Oh. Okay. Never mind.’
‘Look. Why don’t you go away with one of the lads? Or one of your “new friends” you’re always on about? Get refreshed. You’ll come back a new man. Have a few beers, sit in the sun, that sort of thing. I think you’re right. I think it’ll do you good.’
I thought about it. She was right. We were both right. I’d go on holiday. That’d make things better. Hanne turned away to talk to the man next to her, and I stood up to refill my plate from the buffet. Next to me, digging into the sweetcom, was a young man with messy hair. I recognised him from the band that’d just been playing.
‘You couldn’t pass me that butter over, could you?’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I said, passing the butter over, thus proving that I could. ‘You were in the band up there, weren’t you?’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘For my sins.’
‘I thought you were very good.’ I said.
‘Cheers. I’m Wayne. This is Christopher. Together, we’re Vis à Vis.’
Christopher raised his right hand, then clicked his fingers and pointed one of them at me.
‘Nice name,’ I said.
‘Wayne, or Christopher?’ said Wayne.
‘Er . . . Vis à Vis.’
‘Cheers,’ he said. ‘We’ve only just decided on it. We used to be Tête a Tête, but that was a bit too French, so we changed it.’
‘We don’t really do much French stuff,’ said Christopher, over his shoulder.
‘No. Not much French stuff at all,’ agreed Wayne.
‘Do you know the bride and groom?’ I asked.
‘The pub?’ said Christopher.
‘Er . . . no . . . I mean the actual bride and groom. The ones at this wedding.’
‘Oh. Nope. They booked
us at the last minute,’ he said. ‘And we only did it because we had a bit of spare time. We don’t do that many weddings any more. I hate doing covers. Especially Bohemian bloody Rhapsody, when there’s only two of you. Do you know how difficult that is, with all the voices, and movement? It’s a bloody nightmare.’
‘Still, it sounded good,’ I said, despite the fact that their version of the ‘Figaro’ section had caused pretty much everyone on the dance floor to stop dancing and stare, open-mouthed, at the stage.
‘Your glass is nearly empty,’ said Wayne. ‘Do you want a top-up?’
And that’s how I spent the rest of the wedding talking to two musicians in the corner of the room. And it was good to talk to them; they were thoroughly nice men. Wayne (guitar) and Christopher (keyboards) don’t just perform at weddings, either – it turned out that they were rather accomplished writers, making music for a variety of adverts right across Europe. The day before, they’d completed a toothpaste advert for Germany. They were just about to start work on an advert for Spanish detergent. They were having trouble with an advert for Polish butter.
‘We haven’t quite captured that Polish butter sound,’ said Christopher, very seriously. ‘But we’re getting e there
‘The trick with all these things is to just make them catchy,’ said Wayne. ‘That way they cross all boundaries. A man humming is a man humming, whatever the language.’
Christopher did a little hum.
‘You see?’ he said. ‘What nationality would you say I am?’
‘English?’ I said.
‘Well, yes, but you didn’t get that from the hum, did you?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘I got it from your voice and accent and language.’
‘Well that proves our point, then,’ said Wayne, and I nodded my head in agreement. ‘You can’t place a hum.’
‘So what do you do?’ asked Christopher.
‘Nothing much,’ I said. A few days earlier my answer would have been very different. But I didn’t want to talk about Join Me, or random acts of kindness anymore. Those days were behind me. Raymond bleedin’ Price had seen to that.
Suddenly I heard Hanne call my name. She smiled as I looked over and beckoned me towards her. There was someone she wanted me to meet.
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