Chapter 11
John McBride was in his apartment, in the living room with Dusty Miller. He heard the door bell, and then the door opening, and the king coming into the room. Beaming at them both.
“The bait has been taken. I have given Markham the account number. He says the money will be there in three days. I can’t believe the guy could be so stupid. The chance of a passport was what clinched it.”
Dusty smiled. “We’ve got work to do. When does the coup take place. Or not take place?”
“We’ll need a week to get things ready, I would think,” said McBride.
“The king sat down on the sofa. “I’ve got a house, near the border. I used to live in it before I acceded the throne. There’s a caretaker living there. We could make out it was my brother’s house. Invite Markham there for a meal when the coup takes place, to celebrate afterwards. My brother’s wife could be played by my secretary, she’s into amateur dramatics. We could use my chauffeur to get you all there, then he could act as waiter. We could take the palace chef to prepare the meal. John here, works the sound effects, and then nips out of the back door, dirties himself up, tears his shirt, and stumbles in through the front door.”
Dusty look puzzled. “What for? I’ve lost the plot.”
McBride said: “To announce the death of the prince in the battle. To comfort his wife. And to tell Markham he’s lost his cash.”
“I’m pleased I don’t have to tell him,” said Dusty. “But will I be there?”
“Better not,” said the king, “You’re supposed to be on our side. Markham would expect you to be away fighting.”
“The next thing is for someone to go into Jo’burg. There’s professional sound effects companies that work for the film industry. We will need to hire a tape that includes planes flying overhead, distant gun fire and so on, probably lasting about three hours, and a deck to playback with plenty of hi-fi speakers.
Can I leave that to you, Dusty?”
McBride looked on, marvelling that he was in on a conference with a country’s king, discussing his own make-belief coup.
Dusty Miller spoke on the phone with a sound effects company, outlining what they needed. The company’s sales manager reckoned they could splice up a performance to suit, using stock material. He would need the rest of the day to prepare a compilation. Could Dusty visit first thing tomorrow? He certainly could.
Late the following afternoon, Dusty’s army truck turned into the palace gates. McBride came out of his apartment to see what he had brought back.
Dusty was enthusiastic. “This gear is fantastic, and the tape is absolutely spot on. It would fool me, and I’ve been in a lot of real situations, lots more than you have, John.”
“Only because you’ve been in the military a lot longer. Is there any chance of trying it out here?”
“I could get some squaddies to lug the gear up to your apartment. You’re right we ought to try it out. We’ll set it up in your bedroom, and sit in the living room, listening. Give me an hour.”
“I’ll let your guys in, then.”
The bedroom looked a bit of a mess an hour or so later, wires draped from the play deck, which itself was on top of the dressing table, to several speaker units placed as Dusty had been advised by the sound men. McBride went to sit in the living room, not being interested in the technicalities.
He was suddenly transported to a war zone. First the jet fighters, and bombers. Then gunfire in the distance. Rifle fire nearer at hand. The crump of exploding bombs in the distance. Dusty came through the door grinning.
“Realistic, eh?”
“I think it will impress Markham. I hope you aren’t going to run the whole tape this afternoon.”
“No, but I need to teach you to work the rig, so you’d better come and learn. If it breaks down, we’ve wasted the whole scam.”
The payment cleared into the Bahamas account within three days, as promised. The king spoke to Markham, and told him the coup would be in ten days’ time. He needed time to get the planes and the ground forces.
McBride used the time to do more painting. He wasn’t used to idling his time away. Besides, Dusty Miller had a job to do, supervising the troops, who not only did ceremonial duties in the capital, but served at the customs points at all road crossings on the border. The total force was two hundred soldiers.
McBride went once more for three days on safari, and was building up a nice collection of African paintings. The evenings in the capital were sometimes spent with Dusty dining out in town. On occasions they dined with the king in his residence.
The day of the scam came, and in the morning the actors gathered in the palace forecourt near the Range Rover. McBride was there, of course. The girl who was to play the prince’s wife, was introduced as Sophie. She was, McBride estimated, in her mid-thirties, pretty and slim. Mapoza was there to drive them, and finally a young Englishman, Paul, who was the king’s chef, excited to be let out of the kitchen and going on an adventure.
McBride elected to sit in the back of the car with Sophie next to him, and Paul next to the driver. Not because he was attracted to Sophie, although he was, but because he needed to coach her on what to say to Markham. More importantly how she should react to his questions. The whole evening was make or break depending on how she played it.
“You’ve played a lot of parts in a drama group?”
She smiled. “Five years I’ve belonged to the group. We put on two productions every year in the professional theatre here in Mawabane. We play seven nights each time. Of course I don’t play the big parts all the time, but yes, I am considered good.”
Her English was excellent and she spoke confidently. McBride said, “You are playing the wife, effectively of the king, who himself was playing the part of his fictitious brother. You should feel loyal to this brother, and worried that he is carrying out a coup tonight, in case he is killed, or badly injured. Even more worried that he won’t win. But of course, you are shielding this last thought from Markham.”
“Markham is a big bully. He is a lout. But you must be polite to him, because your husband wants you to be. You know that Mapoza is acting as the waiter during the meal. If there is any trouble with Markham, ask Mapoza to stand inside the dining room. You won’t see me until I burst in the door, and tell you that your husband has been killed. Think how you will play the reaction to that news. Will you faint? Or just go pale, and say something like ‘Oh no!’ and start weeping?”
Sophie was really engaged with the emotions she was going to use, and what subjects she wanted to discuss during dinner. She was soon deeply involved in conversation with McBride.
He said, “I don’t think we will have any problems that you won’t be able to cope with. Well done. Just remember the background you have lived for five years at the house. Your husband expected to be crowned king when your father-in-law died. Your husband is actually half-brother to the king. Different mothers you see.”
They were still bringing up points when the Range Rover pulled up at the back of the house. Paul needed to unload some kitchen equipment, and also the food he was to cook. The caretaker, an old man in his seventies came out to welcome them. He was going out this evening with some of his cronies.
By six o’clock that evening, all was ready. The table was set. Crystal glasses sparkled in the electric light. Outside it was already dark. Sophie had changed into an evening gown, pearl necklace round her throat. Mapoza, now the waiter, was dressed in black trousers and white shirt, black tie. Paul was in the kitchen doing the king’s favourite dish, roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. After all, Markham was English, what was there not to like?
Markham had been invited for seven o’clock, and arrived at ten past. McBride had already disappeared into a rear room, where the sound equipment was ready. Mapoza answered the door, performed the introduction to the princess, played by Sophie. Markham behaved in his usual bumptious manner, but to Mapoza, he appeared nervous. And he had reason to be. Ten million po
unds at stake.
Markham lifted Sophie’s hand and kissed it. Sophie looked at his bald patch as he stooped, and Mapoza saw her suppress a giggle.
“Has your husband gone off to war yet?”
“Of course, to get there just after dark. The planes are coming soon, to bomb the barracks.”
“Shall we hear anything from here?” said Markham.
“We are only twenty miles from Mawabane, so yes. And the planes are taking off from Jo’burg, so they will pass over.”
Almost as if in reply there came the faint noise of jets, growing ever louder, and going overhead, so that the crystal on the table jangled. Mapoza edged out of the room, and told McBride that the sound was turned up a little too high. McBride fiddled with the play deck. Mapoza bobbed his head back through the dining room door. The sound was more realistic.
Markham hadn’t apparently noticed anything amiss, and was excitedly talking to Sophie as they both sat in armchairs sipping aperitifs. Or in Markham’s case slurping.
Markham said: “I was in the army, you know,” although he wasn’t. Lying was something he didn’t realize he was doing. “Oh, yes, in the Middle East, Iraq you know.”
Sophie had a wicked glint in her eye. “Oh, in Iraq? My husband was attached to the British Army, and served there too. I bet you must have met him.”
Markham started back-pedalling. “The army was strung out from north to south, you know. I did meet your husband at the embassy in Jo’burg. Thought he looked familiar. Must have seen him in the Mess, maybe.”
“Odd he didn’t recognize you, in that case.”
“Well, it was along time ago, what, over twelve years now.”
McBride’s sound system had arrived at the bomb dropping stage, and there were distant explosions, and some artillery fire.
“The attack seems to have started, quite a show, I bet.” Now Markham sounded like a Colonel Blimp.
“Yes,” said Sophie. “Would you like to sit at the table, now?”
Mapoza had brought a tureen through, which he placed on the table, and ladled soup into two bowls. Sophie went to the table first, and then turned to show Markham where she wanted him to sit.
He said,“Perhaps we should go outside, and see some of the action. Planes in the sky, explosions on the horizon.”
Sophie controlled her panic. “That wouldn’t be a good idea,” she said.
Markham looked at her. “Why wouldn’t it?”
She pulled herself together. “You wouldn’t see anything, there’s a ridge of hills in the way. Come on, the soup will get cold.”
Glutton that he was, Markham was easily diverted by his appetite. He quickly bent over his bowl and began to slop down the contents. Sophie crossed her fingers under the table.
Mapoza, who had heard Markham’s remark about going outside, quickly took away the soup bowls the moment Markham had finished, and returned quickly with two plates of roast beef and Yorkshire pudding. He returned a moment later with the vegetables, and performed silver service. He then poured red wine into their glasses, and stood close so that he could replenish Markham’s glass as soon as he took a drink. The result was that Markham became amorous with the effects of the alcohol.
“Does the prince leave you alone a lot of the time?” Markham asked. He smirked.
“No, of course not. No more than any husband leaves his wife. Husbands have jobs to do, to earn money.” Sophie decided to play the oldfashioned type of wife. “It is the woman’s place to look after the family’s welfare.”
Markham leered. “And a man’s sexual appetite as well.”
Mapoza heard the smack as Sophie lashed out, striking Markham across the face. He had gone too far, and retreated.
“I apologise Madam, that was uncalled for.” He emptied his wine glass in one swig, looked to see where Mapoza was.
Mapoza was reporting to McBride.
“It might be time to wind down the fighting, and prepare for your entrance, Mr McBride. Markham is at the stage where he might be about to attempt rape.”
“Okay, I’ll gently lower the noise levels, then nip round to the front door. Stay with Sophie in case you have to sort him out.”
McBride ran out of the back door, knelt briefly in a flowerbed, and daubed his face and shirt with soil, ruffled his hair, paused momentarily at the front door to start heavy breathing, then knocked only once, and then burst through the door. As he entered the dining room, Markham was standing near the table, napkin in one hand, frozen with his mouth open looking in McBride’s direction.
“The prince has been killed in the fighting.” He went over to Sophie and put an arm round her shoulder.
She started to cry. McBride glanced at Markham, and saw his face darken in anger.
Markham said, “That has just cost me ten million pounds. I am leaving.”
He turned and walked quickly to the door, and McBride heard the door slam behind him.
The Ponzi Men Page 11