That Will Do Nicely

by Ian Campbell

  "Let's take a look!"

  Charlie made a U-turn across the traffic coming up the Strand from Trafalgar Square, and then turned into the station forecourt.

  He turned the ignition off, got out and walked over to the last cab on the rank.

  "Hello Bert, 'ow’s your luck?"

  "Not much doing this morning, Charlie. I've being working the circuit, but it's fairly quiet. How about you?"

  "Well I've got a nice one on at the moment." Charlie winked and gestured at his own cab with his thumb. "A run around from the Vic. Couple o' stops an' he wants a nice hotel. Should be a nice tickle.., we're already on double-bubble. Tell the lads for me that I'm not pirating.., just visitin' the 'Left-luggage' if anyone wants to know. Be lucky!"

  Charlie walked back to his own cab where O'Hara was getting impatient.

  "What the hell was that all about?" Demanded O'Hara.

  "All that's about not gettin' lynched when we bleedin’ come out. You see this," he said, pointing to the cabs. "This is what we call a Taxi rank. You might sit on it for an hour before you get a job and if they see me swan straight out of the station wiv' a fare, and wiv'out so much as a 'by-your-leave', my life wouldn't be worth livin'"

  Charlie led O'Hara through one of the station entrances and across to the 'Left-luggage' office by Platform 6. O'Hara had already transferred all his belongings and clean clothing into the new case, leaving the old one with its secret and an assortment of dirty washing, to discourage anyone should they open it. He consigned the old suitcase to the loving care of a West Indian British Railways clerk, who duly handed him his receipt.

  "How does this work?" O'Hara asked.

  "You've paid for a day, man. You come back tomorrow and claim your suitcase and that's it."

  "And if I don't get back tomorrow?" O'Hara knew he needed to leave it for several days at least.

  "Then we charge you for every day you don't come back... until we treat it as lost property."

  "How long's that?"

  "Oh, that's months man, months. Don't you worry, you'll be back!"

  O'Hara left the counter, satisfied his case his case would be reasonably safe for the next few days.

  "Hey man," shouted the clerk, "you forgot the ticket!" O'Hara, embarrassed by his forgetfulness, hurried back to the counter and retrieved his receipt.

  "You've got to be more careful than that, man," said the clerk, shaking his head." Don't you know,' no ticket'.., no case!"

  "Where to now Guv'? " asked Charlie, leaning against his cab. "I know just the place for you.., the Regent's Palace, just off Picaddilly.., won't take a jiff... "

  O'Hara readily accepted the cabby's suggestion and a few minutes later the cab turned off at the bottom of Regent Street and pulled up outside the hotel's main entrance.

  “There you are Guv'.., you'll be comfy here and if you want anything special.., ask for Fancy Fred, he's the senior porter and he'll put you onto it. And should you want me again, Fancy'll know where to find me. All right?"

  "Fine. Now how much do I owe you?"

  Charlie looked wistfully at his meter.

  "I've got £18.20 on the clock, plus waiting, say £25." He avoided the American's gaze as he mentioned the price, looking blasé by the proceedings, knowing it was likely to be his fare of the day, if not the week.

  "There you are then, £25 for the fare and £10 for you."

  "You're a scholar an' a gentleman Sir!" The surprise of his easy reward caused him to almost choke on the words. He drove off. It had been the easiest forty quid of the year. God bless America, he thought, grinning from ear to ear.

  Once settled into his room, O'Hara changed clothes. Before he left for Soho he taped his luggage receipt to the underside of the bottom drawer of the bedside dressing table. Next, in preparation for dumping the O'Hara passport, he carefully wiped each page clean of fingerprints. Satisfied that there was nothing in the passport which could lead the police back to him, he picked it up by the edges and placed it in his jacket pocket.

  He stepped out of the hotel into the bustle of London's West End, bought a copy of the London Evening Standard at the new-stand by Piccadilly Underground station, taking it from the vendor between the knuckles of his right hand. Tucking the paper underneath his left arm, he gingerly retrieved the passport from his jacket pocket and slipped it between the folds of the newspaper. This done, he walked through Soho's narrow streets for ten minutes before discarding both newspaper and passport into a convenient litter bin. Certain that he had remained unobserved, he wandered about for a further half-hour, before reporting the loss of his travelers’ cheques and passport to the youngest policeman he could find.

  "Hey, excuse me constable." O'Hara addressed the policeman, "I think I've been robbed... " said O'Hara.

  "I see Sir. Where and when would this have been?"

  "I'm not sure.., I had everything when I left the hotel," continued O'Hara innocently.

  "Which hotel, Sir?" asked the copper, extracting his note book from his breast pocket.

  "The Regent's Palace Hotel.., it's not far from here, I think."

  "Yes, Sir. I know the hotel. What exactly have you lost?"

  "My travelers’ cheques and my passport."

  "And what would the value of the cheques have been?"

  "I'm not certain, but in the region of $12,000... about £10,000 ... "O'Hara watched the sum register on the policeman's face.

  "I think you'd better come along to the station with me, Sir and we'll make out a report." He spoke the words not as a request but an order and turned O'Hara firmly by the elbow, walking him in the direction of Marlborough Street Police Station.

  O'Hara's concern was that the original loss of the passport which he had stolen at Heathrow airport, had been notified to all police stations and he was counting on the authorities having better things to do than tidy up the inevitable flotsam of the tourist season. It was a calculated risk, but one he felt justified in taking in order to maximise his profit from the travelers’ cheques.

  It was while he had been working the airport that he had read the advertisement for the Guyton Conference in the London edition of US Today. The conference had seemed tailor-made for him as he was an opportunist both by choice and by nature. He had travelled the world living off his wits.

  His third victim of the day had been O'Hara, a man who basically resembled himself in age, build and coloring. He had deliberately bumped him near one of the escalators, upsetting a polystyrene cup of airport coffee down the mark's suit. The rest had been easy. While mopping up the darkening stain with his handkerchief, he had removed both passport and wallet from his victim’s pockets before excusing himself seconds later, saying he had a flight to catch. He had escaped up the elevator onto the next floor and had sought refuge in a nearby toilet, but there had been no hue and cry. There he had stripped the man's wallet, keeping only its money, credit cards and passport. It was something he had done many times before. Now, in the confines of Marlborough Street Police station, he hoped to God that the police had better things to do than play Happy Families with passports lost and found.

  In the event, O'Hara was questioned fairly thoroughly by two police officers as to the where, when and how he had lost the cheques and passport, but the officers were also the first to admit to the problem of pick-pockets in central London. The older of the two officers said that it was open season for pick-pockets and compared the advent of the tourist season with the glorious twelfth. After noting the details of the cheques, they let him go and advised him to report the losses to the American Embassy and the London Office of Dallasbank. O'Hara assured them he would do so and left.

  He arrived at the Change Alley Office at 5.30 and was pleased to find somebody still there. He rang the bell and went through the familiar routine of announcing himself.

  "Good afternoon Mr. O'Hara, I imagine you have brought us some money," said Pascoe, opening the door.

  “Not exactly. You see I have had most of the damn cheques stolen
this afternoon, in Soho. We think it must have been pick-pockets."

  "We?" asked Pascoe.

  "The police. It was what your instructions advised us to do if we lost them."

  "Quite so, Mr. O'Hara. How many had you already cashed before you lost them?"

  "About $ 3,000, I think. I kept a record. Here it is. "O'Hara passed his copy of the purchaser's agreement over to Pascoe, indicating the cheques' numbers marked on the back.

  "All right Mr. O'Hara, Miss Fairbrother will work out the commission on the ones you changed and then we'll replace the balance... if you still want to go through with it, that is."

  "Certainly, Pleased to help."

  Sam duly paid him a balance of some £250 and another $12,000 in travelers’ cheques. O'Hara thanked them both profusely before leaving the office. His step was considerably lighter than when he had entered the building. The next day he would discard the O'Hara persona, pick up the suitcase from Charing Cross and laugh all the way to the bank. He had decided not to risk cashing any more of the original cheques himself, as he knew people in the city that he could sell them to for 15% of their face value. He thought his life should always be that easy!

  The rest of the holiday followed a similar pattern to the previous couple of days. Pascoe's 100-odd delegates mingled with the rest of the tourists in the city and busied themselves cashing in the travelers’ cheques. For the moment, everything was going according to Pascoe’s plan.

  In Paris, 180 miles south of Calais, T.T. Ford also had no problems changing cheques at the "Charles de Gaulle" airport or the "Gare du Nord" railway station. In all, it was an uneventful weekend for the French contingent.

  Later in the weekend, the pace hotted up considerably at the Change Alley office. The number of visitors had increased steadily from the Saturday afternoon onwards, with more than 20 people stopping by to deposit their cash. Only two of their callers had exchanged all their cheques - the rest divesting themselves of cash they didn't want to carry around.

  During the intervals between visitors, Pascoe and Sam discussed O'Hara. Pascoe hadn't believed the man's story for a moment and was convinced O'Hara had invented it to obtain more cheques and keep a larger slice of the money. What neither of them suspected though, was that O'Hara was not his real name and that he had been using a stolen passport.

  By close of business on the Sunday evening, they had amassed more than £250,000. Knowing that they were running short of time for more Americans to pick up their first issue of cheques, Pascoe started issuing the remaining cheques to people on a first come - first served basis.

  The problem facing them was that of 'a bird in the hand being worth two in the bush'.., they had already netted a quarter of a million pounds in cash and they could be home, safe and sound and comfortably rich if they were to quit then. They discussed leaving ahead of schedule, but in the end, they decided to wait until the coming Tuesday lunchtime.

  Easter Monday morning brought a visit from the Dodges who each handed over nearly £12,000, having exchanged all their cheques and it was as they recounted their adventures with the Thomas Cook office at the Dover Hover port, that Pascoe first started to worry. Sam, although disturbed by the news, managed to conceal her anxiety until the couple had left the office.

  "Christ, that was close!" she erupted, the moment they were alone.

  "Close?" he replied, playing the innocent.

  "You heard what he said happened at the Hover port. Don't you think we should be worried?"

  "Dodge only said that the cashier had checked his reference book before changing the cheques, that's all. Relax. We've got all the time in the world." He calmed her down as best he could, but couldn't blame her for worrying.

  "What if they've raised the alarm?" Sam continued.

  "If they'd raised it on Saturday afternoon, we'd be in jail by now. For Christ's sake, stop worrying, they've got nothing but the slightest of suspicions. The cashier was just doing his job. I would have done the same.” Sam’s nerves were beginning to show.

  "How can you be so sure?"

  "Because Sam, I know the system. Look, the counter clerk didn't recognize the cheques so what does he do... he refers to his bible - that's a book full of the circulars containing examples of all the cheques that have been issued."

  "But he wouldn't have found ours there, would he?"

  "Of course not. It’s not in the ‘bible’ but we did notify his head office."

  "So... "

  "So he can't check anything any further until Tuesday, when his head office staff start work again and when he cheques with them, someone will pull our circular out of the file and tell him that everything is all right."

  "So there's nothing to worry about?"

  "Right. Nothing can happen until Tuesday at the earliest and we shall be out of here by mid-day, Tuesday at the latest."

  "And if someone goes to the police before then?"

  "Don't start that again, darling. Why the hell should they?"

  "But what if they did? Humor me?"

  "Well within an hour or two of a complaint, Scotland Yard's finest would interview the plaintiff and take a statement. That would be reviewed by senior officers back at the station, who would start making their enquiries. They'd contact the clearing banks at the earliest opportunity, which won’t be until tomorrow morning at 9.30 and the clearing banks would confirm that the cheques were alright and everything would return to normal, with a report being filed. So stop worrying!"

  "That's what I wanted to hear." Sam moved close to him, wrapping her arms around him.

  "Satisfied?" he asked.

  "Just hold me, Tom…" Pascoe kissed her gently, his anger subsiding. He hoped he had calmed her down, but could still feel her quivering. She seemed genuinely afraid.

  By lunch-time, another 18 clients had visited the office and the count stood at a total of £439,000. By afternoon that figure had doubled. Temptation grew by the hour, to cut and run.

  The rush of people that afternoon had stopped them wondering about the Dodges encounter with Thomas Cook. Their problems were becoming of a more practical nature. With nearly £1,000,000 taken so far in bank-notes, they were fast running out of space in the safe.

  "I think we'd better take some of this money with us tonight," said Pascoe. "We're just about out of space in the safe and we'll have the 'temps' in tomorrow."

  "How shall we do it?" Sam inquired.

  "We'll pack as much as we can into the briefcases and leave the balance in the safe." Pascoe emptied the contents of one briefcase onto the desk as he spoke.

  They took the money from the safe and crammed it into the empty case. Although, there were notes of different denominations and size, they fitted about £125,000 in each case, which still left more than half the money in the safe.

  "We'll take this tonight, darling and the rest in the morning."

  Sam closed her two cases and set them down on the floor, surprised at the weight of the money. She wouldn't walk very far carrying that sort of weight!

  "Fit and ready?" asked Sam.

  "No, I think we'd better get prepared for tomorrow."

  "What's to prepare?"

  "How many people have sold all their cheques?" Pascoe asked her.

  "I don't know."

  "Well try looking at the file..,"he snapped.

  "We'd better take the file cards of everyone who has cashed all their cheques and not taken the extra ones... and make out fresh cards for the people who are selling the extra cheques." He instructed her. "That will cut the size of the file down considerably."

  "Why bother? "

  "It will help conceal the size of the operation from prying eyes."

  "Like who?"

  "Like the temps tomorrow and the police later on; the less information we leave around for them, the better."

  Chapter 12

  Time to leave

  By nine o'clock the number of who were still due to check-in had been reduced from one hundred and thirty seven to thirty-
four, twelve of whom had never visited the office. If each of the remaining clients turned up and paid their money over, it would bring them another £250,000.., the icing on the cake, but only time would tell. Pascoe felt sure that the Tuesday morning would see them past the £1,000,000 mark and that was the figure he had counted on. From then on it would just depend on how fast the rest of the money came in and on how fast the authorities moved.

  "We'd better not risk public transport tonight, with all this money." Pascoe remarked. "I'll go and find us a cab." He found one without too much trouble.

  "Where to guv?" asked the cabbie.

  "I need to go to King's Cross Station in about ten minutes time. Can you pick me up on the corner of Bishopsgate and Leadenhall Street. There'll be two of us with some luggage." Pascoe showed the driver a £5 note as he made his request. "Take five now and there'll be another five in it for you at King's Cross."

  "Anything you say guv." The thought of a 'tenner' for a half-hour's work brought a smile to the cabby's face. It had been a slow shift.

  Sam was waiting outside the office with the cases when Pascoe got back. Together, they found the taxi waiting for them on the corner as arranged.

  “Are we still going to King's Cross, guv?" the cabby asked.

  "But I thought..," said Sam, wondering why they should go to the wrong station.

  "Change of plans darling, thought it would be a surprise."

  "But?"

  To stop her giving away too much, he smothered her mouth with a kiss. At first, taken by surprise, she resisted, but the longer the embrace continued, the more she enjoyed the experience. The cab turned into Pentonville Road and Pascoe pulled himself and Sam into an upright, more respectable position. He hoped that the cab driver would remember them for their back-seat romance rather than the brief-cases they carried. He paid the driver off and ushered Sam onto the station concourse.

  "Let's find another cab."

  "But we've only just arrived..," Sam commented, a little confused.

  "I didn't want to leave any leads from the office or to the hotel. In the end, the police will question the taxi drivers and a fare from the Change Alley office with details of where they dropped us off, will help them no end. It's better this way."