Conman

by Richard Asplin

  I continued staring at the phone as the cab pulled out into traffic.

  It would be fine. It would all be fine, I chanted over and over, breathing deep, head hanging between my knees as the cab swung west. Maybe … maybe Laura wasn’t actually a Laura. People did that, right? Used their middle name as their first name? You find out years later your friend Bob’s real name is Tarquin or something like that. Maybe Laura, my Laura, was actually a Janet or a Jessica or a Josephine. Something like that.

  Maybe.

  Maybe that’s why they didn’t know her in the café. Yes. Yes, that would explain it.

  I mean I’d seen her working there, when I’d –

  Well, now I come to …

  Perhaps I didn’t see her actually ever …

  My stomach did something wobbly, my knees joining in with back-up on the chorus.

  “Hoy, hoy mate?”

  I looked up. The cabbie was calling over his shoulder through the gap in the divide.

  “I said round here mate is it?”

  I slid forward in the seat, peering out at the tall pink mansion blocks, their ironwork, their concrete steps and intercoms. Their purple doors.

  “Yes. Yes, here here,” I said quickly and the cab rolled to a halt by the kerb. “Wait for me. J-Just wait for me here. Please,” I said and clambered out into the cold. The winding street was quiet. Snaking lines of parked cars – Jaguars, BMWs, MGs, curling out of sight. No green Bedford vans.

  My heart leapt up, catching fat and full in my throat, as the purple door swung open with a bang and a familiar eight-year old in a Fisher-Price My Little Estate Agent costume emerged.

  “Hey. Hey, excuse me,” I called. “Excuse me, sorry …”

  He turned.

  “Hi. I’m … Sorry to … You were sorting out a room for some friends of mine? In Bloomsbury? It fell through? You had a meeting at Brigstock Place?”

  “Brigstock – ? Heroes Incorporated, right right,” he nodded, smiling. “But it wasn’t Bloomsbury. It was here,” and he threw a thumb behind him. “Flat six, first floor. Short lease. Vacated yesterday. Did you want to see it?”

  The world seemed to tip up slightly, woozily, buildings sliding one way, the horizon dipping another. I put my hand out to steady myself, gripping the cold black railing.

  “You don’t … I mean, Bloomsbury?”

  “Don’t have anything in Bloomsbury. Never have. You all right? Did you want to look upstairs? It comes partly furnished. But sparse. A few starter pieces of Conran basics – couch, sideboard, bed, bin, broom …”

  “No way,” Andrew said, tearing open a packet of beef crisps and laying them on the sticky table top. He delved in.

  “He let me in. Showed me around,” I said. “It still smelled of bleach. But in the corners, somewhere, it was Christopher. Pipe smoke. Tweed.”

  “But apart from that?”

  I shook my head. “Empty. No drip. No linen. Nothing.”

  “Bloody hell mate,” Andrew munched, beefy shrapnel flying from his lips. “And the chap? The agent? He couldn’t tell you anything? He didn’t have a contact number? A name?”

  I smiled weakly.

  “He went through his file. Said it had been rented by the owner of one Heroes Incorporated. That’s where he dropped off the keys. A Mr Neil Martin from Putney.”

  I took a very long, very slow walk back to the shop because it wasn’t home.

  I stopped once, just once, to throw up somewhere near Hyde Park and then I was off again.

  I don’t know what I was expecting to find when I got back to the shop. My head wouldn’t focus. Maybe Christopher and Henry and Pete and Julio huddled outside with bags from the off licence. Ready to pop corks and cheer and divide up the money, asking where I’d been.

  Maybe Laura. Wrapped in some vintage velvet coat, shoulders hunched, hood up, with a message. A change of rendezvous. Because I guess even then I was still hoping.

  No, I don’t know what I was expecting.

  But I know what I wasn’t.

  “Hello again,” I said, hauling up the shutters with a clatter, fussing for keys. “Come in, come in. You are here for me, I take it?”

  “If we can step inside sir,” the Scottish Sergeant said and he and his Mancunian colleague clumped in behind me.

  Their heavy boots and huge frames rustling in their jackets made the place look tiny, just as they had in my sitting room. I pulled out chairs in the back office, snapped on the portable heater and sat down.

  They knew most of it, which surprised me. About Christopher (not his real name), Henry (not his real name), Pete (likewise), Julio (nope) and Laura (real name Margaret, which didn’t go at all).

  Being British coppers, the first thing they wanted was tea. And then my version of events, starting with the car-jacking and Laura/Margaret’s arrival at my door ten days ago. Christ, was that all it had been? So I laid it all out for them in broad strokes, the Sergeant nodding, the Manc writing it all down. The Sergeant then proceeded to slide out a manilla envelope and produce some glossy 10×8 black and white photographs, laying them out one by one on my counter like a storyboard for Sucker – The Movie.

  “Yes,” I said with an uncomfortable cough. “That’s him. Christopher. At Claridge’s.”

  “And that’s you talking to him. Going over your plan?”

  “Hn? Er, yes, yes I suppose so.”

  “You suppose?”

  “I mean our plan sounds, y’know –”

  “And this? Your shop?”

  “Right where you’re sitting.”

  “And you’re letting these men in to … ?”

  “Well, that was on, what, the Saturday? Yes. The thirty-first. That was all part of it. Like I said. Preparing the shop. Props.”

  “Oh, so they did this with your consent? You were aware of it all.”

  “Of course,” I said. “They needed help with the wall hanging,” and I motioned at the blank space where a box once hung. “Using the till and everything.”

  Manc made notes.

  “And this?” Scot said, sliding another across the desk.

  “Shit. When … that was today. Where were you …”

  “Can you just confirm that the gentleman in the cab is you, sir?”

  “Yes,” I said, staring at the frozen kiss, Laura’s hand about my neck. “Uhmm, look, I don’t know if this is possible or anything.” Scot looked at me. “My wife …”

  “Mrs Martin.”

  “Spencer-Martin,” I corrected. “She’s, y’know. Her dad’s …”

  They looked blankly at me.

  “Look, anyway, she doesn’t know.”

  “Know?”

  “About this. About anything. Laura, Grayson, the money, the airport. Any of it. And y’know –”

  “Oh, you’d rather she didn’t find out.”

  I smiled a little.

  “If that’s at all possible.”

  The policemen exchanged looks.

  “Hmn. Mr Martin, I’m not sure you understand the full extent of the last few days’ events,” Scot said. He stood slowly and began to wander about the office, lifting up nick-nacks, peering into envelopes, sniffing at the junk. “You knowingly and deliberately conspired to defraud an American citizen to the tune of half a million pounds.”

  “What?”

  “You say that you were involved in this con game against your will but all our evidence suggests you were not only complicit, but you went out of your way to be as much help –”

  “Wait, no wait,” I said hurriedly. “What are you … I mean, I was the – they were conning me. The fifty thousand.”

  “Fifty – ?” the constable said, flipping back.

  “Of course! That’s what this was all about! Getting me to trust them. They said, all along, Christopher, whatever his name is. He said it was all about trust. Get the mark to trust you.”

  “Mark?”

  “The guy, the target.”

  “You said he was called Grayson.”


  “Yes – no. No me, Grayson wasn’t … there is no Grayson.”

  “Your story is a little twisted here sir,” Scot said, picking up a Betty Boop ashtray with distasteful fingertips. “You identified Grayson – the man you now say doesn’t exist. There, in the photograph. Constable?” and Manc riffled through the snapshots again, sliding Grayson out.

  “I mean,” I said, “he’s one of them.”

  “One of them?” Scot said camply, eyebrows raised. He looked at the ashtray and then at his colleague. “One of them, he says. Hmm. And you’d know … as it were,” and he cleared his throat.

  “For Chrissakes don’t you start.”

  “Sir –”

  “Look,” I said loudly, trying to slow the world down. I took a deep breath. “Grayson, or whoever he really is, this man here,” and I jabbed the picture. “He’s one of their team. A conman. Pretending.”

  “The man who you say arrived at Heathrow airport on … Here, on the first. On Sunday. You’re now saying you were sent to follow one of your own team.”

  “Yes. To make me think, y’know … And it’s not my team, they aren’t my team –”

  “But you do admit to being part of a scheme to defraud this Mr Grayson.”

  “Yes but –”

  “Do you have a lawyer Mr Martin?”

  “What are you saying? Wait.”

  “I’m not arresting you at this time, Mr Martin. However, I will ask you not to –”

  “Arresting?!Wait, no wait. You … you do have my money, right?” I said shakily, a feeling of desperate hope fluttering in my chest. “Tell me that at least. You did catch them? Christopher, Laura, the others?”

  “We do not have anyone in custody at this time sir, no. However –”

  “Oh God.”

  Realisation. Fear. Hopelessness. All oozed into my gut like wet concrete. Cold, thick and slow.

  Around me, notebooks were being flapped shut, pencils tucked away and empty mugs handed back. Manc was standing with a stretch and a rustle.

  “Wait. Wait, you had her!” I barked. “In my flat. Sitting there, drinking my tea. You fucking had her!”

  “All right sir, let’s just calm –”

  “You had her!”

  “There wasn’t sufficient evidence,” Scot said. “Anything we could have picked her up on –”

  “So you let her go.”

  “C’mon mate, you can explain it all down –”

  “Constable, wait,” Scot said. “Wait. Leave him … just wait outside for a minute.”

  “Sir –”

  “Outside.”

  The constable backed out noisily.

  The Scot was looking at me, head tilted slightly to one side.

  “You’re pissed off,” he said perceptively.

  “You think?”

  “It’s what happens. Look Mr, Martin, truth? Off the record? I don’t think you had anything to do with this scam. I think you’re the victim. I think you’ve been taken advantage of by a very pretty face and some very clever men.”

  I looked at him. His face had softened, just a little, smudgier around the edges. He offered me a cigarette. I declined.

  “I’m going to have trouble convincing my superiors of course, because at the moment everything points to you being one of the team. Unless …”

  “Unless?”

  “Wait. Wait, you …” and he picked up the ashtray again. He looked at me, eyes flashing. “You said they left no prints? Wore gloves the whole time they were here?”

  “The whole damn time,” I sighed. “I watched them put them on at the door.” Did he need to rub it in? Jesus.

  “But you say one of them posed as you? As the owner, I mean? And you said … he needed help using your till?”

  “My – shit. Shit, yes. Yes he did!”

  “Constable!” Scot called.

  Dizzily, I found a bin bag big enough to cover the till, helped them unplug it and watched as they heaved it carefully off the desk out into the street.

  “Said they’d send a receipt over to me,” I sighed. “That with any luck there’s a couple of decent prints on it.”

  “Well that’s a good sign? Right?” Andrew said over the rim of his glass. He had moved us onto port, or at least what the small pub considered port. It was more like Ribena but we swirled anyway. “Right? Or … what? What’s – ? Why are you smiling?”

  “Give me your mobile number,” I said.

  “My … ?”

  “Your number.”

  With a little shrug, he did so. I took my phone, skipped past my nine unread messages from Jane and entered his eleven digits.

  “What’s all this – ?” he began, when his phone suddenly gave a diddly-deet. I swirled my ten-year-old, cask-aged Ribena a little and nodded that he should answer it. He looked at me carefully and did so.

  “Uhm, hullo?”

  “Heyyy,” I said in a posh voice. “Heyyy is Franny there? Francesca? Mike? That you Mike?”

  “Er, no,” Andrew said, eyes fixed on mine. “No, I think you have the wrong number dear chap.”

  I returned my phone to the table. Andrew hung up. We sat in silence for a moment.

  “Now call the police,” I said.

  “The – ?”

  “The police. Call the police. Three nines. Imagine … oh I don’t know, imagine a woman in a cocktail dress has just been car-jacked outside your house. Or is saying she has, anyway. Come on!” I urged, grabbing his phone and thrusting it at him. “She’s screaming. Waking the street up.”

  After a beat, Andrew, weighing up how well he knew me, recalling three distant years of companionship, finally licked his lips and dialled the three nines, placing the phone to his ear.

  “Hullo?” he said.

  I lifted my phone to my ear.

  “Police emergency,” I said. “Can I help you? Car-jacking you say? Why, let me send some absolutely genuine officers over. Your address please sir?”

  Andrew stopped, looked at his phone, looked over at mine, back at his, mental gears grinding through the drink and cigar smoke.

  “You didn’t hang …”

  I looked at him.

  “Bloody hell,” he said eventually.

  “Quite,” I shrugged, thumbing my phone off and returning it to the table.

  “That’s how … Bloody hell, so they weren’t – ?”

  “Christopher had to return for his fingerprints somehow. Who better than two trustworthy boys in blue I already knew?”

  “Bloody hell,” Andrew said again, falling back into his seat with a shake of his head. “So what … I mean, what happens now?”

  “Now?” I said. I stared into the remains of my drink, swirling it about the glass. My head hurt. Hurt from the drink, from everything.

  “Neil?”

  “I go to the real police with what happened. No evidence, mind you. No motive, no evidence and no proof. Meanwhile tomorrow morning, Boatman, Beevers and Boatman start legal proceedings. Maurice will end up getting the shop I expect. And that’ll be that.”

  “Blimey,” Andrew said. “But Jane? She’ll … I mean, she’ll understand? Help you through it? If she’s still as sweet as when I knew her, which I’m sure she must be. God, I haven’t seen her in years …” and Andrew got a far-away look in his eye.

  I drained my drink and placed the empty glass in front of me. There was another missed message on my phone.

  “No. That’ll be it for us,” I said flatly. “I’ve been lying for … This’ll be it. She’ll wait until her dad’s home from Brighton next Tuesday before telling him what I’ve done. He’ll get their family lawyer warming up on the touchline for a divorce. So that’s my wife and family and the house gone too.”

  “She wouldn’t?”

  “Don’t think badly of her. She’s as sweet as you remember. It’s just what I deserve.”

  “Blimey, mate,” Andrew said with a sigh, lolling back in his seat with his drink.

  We sat quietly for a moment, a decade betwe
en us – Andrew in his success, me in my despair. The impromptu reunion hadn’t quite gone the way I might have hoped.

  “Nothing changes, eh?” Andrew said. I looked up. He had a faint nostalgic smile on his lips.

  “What?”

  “You and Jane. Always complicated. Us three. You with no damned confidence.”

  “Not my strong suit, no,” I said. “Never was. Dad –” and the words caught in my throat. I swallowed hard, jaw grinding a little. “Well, you remember him. Wasn’t a household full of encouragement. Picking on me, knocking me down, telling me I was wastin’ me time.”

  “Until he needed a few quid, if I recall?”

  “You got it. God, you remember all that?”

  “Not likely to forget am I?”

  “Long time ago.”

  Andrew nodded with another half smile.

  “Pouring out your heart to me over the chess board. All that bad wine. Failed mocks …”

  “In hindsight, perhaps you weren’t the best person to –”

  “Who else were you going to tell? It’s what friends are for.”

  I shrugged.

  “And that got fixed. Look at the three of us now. All grown up. Things get sorted out.”

  “It’s not quite the same thing.”

  “So you say.”

  “This isn’t something we’re all going to laugh about one day. This isn’t a problem you’re going to be able to solve for me with a speech drafted ten times in your little red book. This is it.”

  “True,” Andrew said. “Unless … ?”

  I looked at him. He reached into his khakis. He pulled out his little red book.

  He laid it in front of me, along with a pen.

  And a small smile.

  “Unless … ?” I said.

  fifteen

  “Unless … well, y’know? Unless I speak to him presumably? Come to some kind of arrangement?”

  I turned the envelope in my hand. It felt heavy. Ominously heavy.

  “Arrangement?” the gentleman said, sucking the dregs from his can of Red Bull and buckling it feebly. It was the next morning. Friday. Almost nine o’clock. The gentleman on my front step stood, sleepy eyed, the winter wind flirting with his hair a little. He was in a dark suit, a fat, functional briefcase at his feet, from wherein he had produced the envelope. He hadn’t actually said “tah-dah” but I could tell he’d thought it.