French Fried: one man's move to France with too many animals and an identity thief

by Chris Dolley

  Andy said he’d inform the Irish police and they’d check up on Peter Kennedy. And he had other contacts he could use as well.

  Which sounded interesting. Were these underworld informers? Barmen in hotels, who’d only answer questions when presented with a ten dollar bill?

  “Have the gendarmes visited the hotel yet?” he asked.

  Sadly not, I told him. At least as far as I knew. I wasn’t sure if they were going to get back to me or Jean-Pierre. I’d check tomorrow if I hadn’t heard by then. And pray they’d phoned Jean-Pierre in the meantime – I had zero faith in my ability to make myself understood by the gendarmes.

  “Did your estate agent say anything about Peter Kennedy being involved in personal finance?”

  No, other than fraud. Which I suppose could be loosely termed as very personal finance.

  “Do you know any accountants or financial planners locally?” He was off again. Obviously he’d given up on doctors and was now moving through the rest of the professional classes.

  “No,” I replied, waiting for the follow-up on bankers, solicitors and veterinary practitioners.

  I think he must have realised at this point the obtuse nature of his questioning. “You see,” he explained, “I’m sure we’re dealing with someone who knows the Financial Services Act intimately. This man is not an amateur.”

  And it wasn’t easy to set up bank accounts nowadays, he continued. Most countries had anti money-laundering legislation. Spain was certain to be a signatory to all the international conventions.

  Which made me think. How did someone manage to set up a bank account without identification? If governments were so hot against money laundering these days, how did he do it?

  “He’d need a passport or a recognised identity card. Some banks insist on a banker’s reference as well.”

  Which is what I’d thought. Credit Agricole had insisted on both our passports.

  So how was this account in Spain opened?

  oOo

  I went back and had a look at the bank account fax. Reading and re-reading all the details. Chasing down every word and number.

  Which is when I noticed the line of numbers underneath my name on the account. It wasn’t a good copy – probably a fax of a photocopy of a photocopy. But I could make out the letters HIF – or was it MIF – followed by ten digits. And it wasn’t the account number.

  But there was something vaguely familiar about those numbers.

  I’d seen them before ... recently.

  My passport!

  I shot out of the settee and nearly collided with the door in my haste to check. I dug out my passport and threw it open. The last nine digits on the Spanish bank account were my passport number.

  oOo

  I was totally thrown. Up until noticing the passport number, everything could be traced back to Dublin. It was an inside job. They had our bond details, our address, our signatures, the cancellation form. Everything.

  But they’d never had my passport number.

  Crime suddenly stepped a thousand miles closer. My passport had never left the house – except when I had it in my hand.

  Did that mean someone had broken into our house?

  Peter Kennedy?

  It was a very fraught ten minutes that followed as the two of us brain-stormed the ramifications. We’d have to get the locks changed. Dare we leave the house unattended? How had someone broken in with Gypsy in the house? Had they waited until we’d all gone off in the car? Was the house being watched?

  And why had the Spanish bank added a tenth digit to my passport number?

  I looked at it again. It had a leading six. Why?

  Perhaps it wasn’t my passport?

  Clearly nine digits out of ten were too much of a coincidence but was there another explanation? One that didn’t involve anyone breaking into our house?

  More brain-storming.

  What happens when someone loses a passport? Could someone claim they were me and that my passport had been lost or stolen? Would the Passport Office believe them – especially if they had a doctor witness their signature on the claim form?

  And would the re-issued document have the same number as the original – but with an extra digit, a leading six to show it was a re-issue?

  I’d seen enough plausible faxes in the previous hour to know that whoever was impersonating me would be capable of fooling a Passport Office.

  So I rang the Passport Office.

  oOo

  You would think that someone ringing to report a passport fraud would be accorded a modicum of priority.

  I know I did.

  But I couldn’t get through.

  I could not believe it. The Passport Office had automated their switchboard. Some genius had decided to remove all humans from external contact and replace them with a series of messages.

  None of which told you what to do if attempting to report a fraud.

  I pressed ’one.’ I pressed ’two.’ I listened. Nothing. No ’other’ option, no press this number if you want to speak to a human.

  I doubly could not believe it. Who was I supposed to ring? All the telephone numbers suggested on my ’Essential Information for UK Passport Holders’ booklet refused to speak to me – they were all hiding behind a line of robots!

  Incredulity was too mild a word to describe my feelings as I scanned all thirty-two pages of the Passport Agency booklet. Lots of useful information about safety and customs and two pages of useless telephone numbers!

  But there was a section on what to do if you lost your passport abroad.

  The British Consulate!

  They were supposed to be informed in case of loss.

  And they could issue an emergency document to get you home.

  And use to open a bank account in Spain?

  oOo

  I was definitely enjoying myself. This was fun. Detection, problem solving, mystery. What more could a boy detective want?

  I tracked down the number of the British Consulate in the appendices of my Living in France bible, tapped in the numbers and … found it had changed.

  Which is when I remembered that Paris numbers had changed recently to ten digits or was it eleven? I couldn’t remember the exact details but what was a missing couple of digits to a great detective? I’d extemporise. Find a few examples of current Paris numbers and make a guess.

  I spoke to a fax machine at the British Embassy.

  Never an engaging conversation. I probably set off three international incidents and cancelled a couple of licenses to kill.

  But I was not beaten. Weren’t there consulates in the regions? I’d look them up in the local directory. Amazingly, I found one. The British Consulate, Toulouse.

  I got through immediately. Obviously robots hadn’t yet reached South-West France.

  “I am destroyed,” said the female voice on the other end of the line.

  Perhaps robots had reached South-West France.

  “Er ... hello?” I ventured.

  “The silly girl. She destroy me. I find nothing today,” she continued, in a distracted and heavily accented English. She sounded Eastern European and what the hell was she talking about?

  “Hello? How I help?” she asked.

  I explained about a passport being used to set up a false bank account in Spain and asked what happened when the Consulate issued an emergency passport.

  She said she didn’t know; there was a Passport Section in Paris that dealt with all that, but it would be a waste of time phoning Paris because no one would answer. Switchboard like that, she said. Many lazy girls. She did have a number for someone in the Passport Section but then some silly girl had come in yesterday and destroyed her filing system. She would find nothing today. Perhaps never. She was destroyed, her files were destroyed, all was destroyed.

  It’s comforting to know that whatever your situation, there is always someone worse off.

  Another call came in and she asked me to hold. I could hear much muttering, shuffling of
paper and half a conversation in French.

  And then ’I have it!’ came screaming down the receiver. “Why she put it there?”

  I couldn’t hazard a guess. Who could tell with silly girls? They come in, destroy you, then disappear.

  But I had a name at the Passport Section – Ian Morris – and a number to reach him on.

  Mincemeat Men

  I think Ian Morris was related to the man in the Carte Grise office. I recognised the same fundamentalist view of the world; the passport system was set up to prevent fraudulent claims, therefore they couldn’t exist. And passport numbers were never re-used or had sixes added to the front.

  I tried to explain to him that we were dealing with someone who could produce Pergoninis to witness all manner of official documents and could he check his records to see if any passport applications had been made in my name in the last year.

  He didn’t sound very interested. I think he would have preferred a robot switchboard to protect him from the public as well. But I wasn’t going to be put off. Could he check the status of my passport with the Passport Agency? Had it been reported missing at any time? Had anyone made any changes to it, tried to add a name, anything?

  He said he would but I wasn’t going to hold my breath.

  oOo

  So, how had my passport number appeared on a Spanish bank account?

  I thought of all the people who had taken photocopies of my passport. The bank, the notaire, the mayor, the Sous-Préfecture, the Préfecture. And the countless staff who, presumably, had access to files at all the above.

  And our estate agent, David Jarvis.

  He’d taken a photocopy of my passport when I’d made the offer on the house.

  And if Peter Kennedy had been an associate and shared the commission on the sale, he’d probably have had access to it as well.

  Did someone take my details to a forger and have a false passport made up?

  oOo

  It was somewhat of an anti-climax to be re-united with our car later that day – what with all the excitement over forged passports and wandering Irish con-men. But so what if we were looked upon with incredulity as the English couple who drove without water in their engine? What was that compared with the knowledge that maybe half of France owned a photocopy of my passport – probably hanging on their wall certified as a genuine Pergonini!

  Thursday morning arrived with a phone call. It was Jean-Pierre. The gendarmes had just phoned. They had a description of our man. Could I come over?

  Try to stop me! I was out the door and revving up the warp engines before the receiver settled in its cradle.

  This was the breakthrough, I could feel it. I’d almost given up on the gendarmes. And on anyone at the Hôtel du Midi actually remembering someone from five months ago.

  I found Jean-Pierre in his office, which was looking even more crammed than it had before. The man was definitely a hoarder. I thought I was bad but here was a master, sitting in an office that had become a sanctuary for every electrical appliance he’d ever owned. There was hardly space for his desk and two chairs; his shiny new computer system stood out like an island of tidiness amidst mountains of chaos and what looked like old toasters. I moved a pile of manuals from a chair by the door and pulled up alongside him.

  He was busy copying out the gendarmes’ report, translating it into English and adding a pleasing array of print fonts.

  I looked over his shoulder. Rapport de la Gendarmerie, it began. Yes, a man had been to the hotel during that period (May-June ‘95). Yes, he received letters there but no faxes. He was of middle height, blond and minced.

  Minced? Was that like a gingerbread man only made of meat? I was being impersonated by a mincemeat man?

  God knows what the passport picture looked like!

  “Is not right – minced?” asked Jean-Pierre, making squashing gestures with his hands.

  I dreaded to think and grabbed for the dictionary. Mince, mince, where was it? Ah, there, mince – thin, slender, slim.

  I think I preferred minced – much easier to spot in a line-up.

  I read the Rapport further. Elegant appearance, well dressed, looked like a commercial traveller. This was a very good description. I was expecting something along the lines of medium build, two legs, hair.

  But this was excellent. And there was more. Youngish man, thirty to forty, very good French but slight accent – English. He said he had family in the area.

  English!

  But would a Frenchman know the difference between an English and an Irish accent?

  Jean-Pierre didn’t think so. It would be like me trying to distinguish between a Belgian and a Frenchman. Unless one was Hercule Poirot, I wouldn’t have an earthly.

  I showed Jean-Pierre the bundle of faxes I’d received and asked him about Pergonini. Had he ever heard of a doctor of that name? Did the stamp look as wrong to him as it did to me?

  He shook his head. “No, no, no. There is no Pergonini. It is not name.”

  This was a very positive assertion. I was amazed. How did he know?

  “It is not name,” he repeated. “Look I show.”

  He turned to his Minitel screen and started typing in Pergonini and Aurignac. The system came back with no matches. I was impressed. This was better than the gendarmes. I wondered if it did fax numbers as well?

  He extended the search to the département and then to all of France. No Pergoninis. Even if our Pergonini was ex-directory, it was hardly likely that every Pergonini in the entire country was as well.

  “It is not name,” Jean-Pierre reiterated. “Not Italian. Englishman, he may think it Italian but it is not. Pergoni, yes. Pernini, perhaps. Pergonini, no.”

  I was even more impressed. An impromptu lesson in Italian genealogy as well. I don’t think I’d have been as confident about an English surname.

  And I was impressed with the Minitel system. If it could search for Pergoninis, it could search for Kennedys too.

  We tried the Gers first. No Peter Kennedy. Or any other Kennedy. We tried the Haute Garonne, then the Tarn. Still no luck. Did he even exist?

  Or was he ex-directory and in hiding?

  We called up the Hôtel du Midi and checked their telephone number against its supposed fax number. It wasn’t a conclusive test by any means – line numbers can be carried from département to département – but generally the first four digits of a French telephone number form an area code. The Hotel’s was 61 85, the fax was 72 34. Not even close. Very unlikely the fax belonged to the hotel.

  Which fitted in with what the gendarmes had found. Letters had been received at the hotel but no faxes.

  I took another look at the Rapport de la Gendarmerie. Medium height, blond, slim, well dressed, fluent French with slight English accent.

  And thought.

  My God!

  David Jarvis to a tee!

  And what idiot had sent him all those faxes!

  I could not believe it. And I was someone who’d spent most of the last seven days not believing anything. But this! Of all the people in the world to choose, I had to have the faxes sent to the man who’d sent them all in the first place!

  What must he have thought?

  Months of careful planning and suddenly he walks into his office and finds his floor covered in evidence. Perhaps he thought his fax machine had developed a conscience and had entered spontaneous confession mode?

  If it was him.

  What did Peter Kennedy look like? Had I leapt to a conclusion without proof? And was David’s hair blond? I’d have described it as more a mousy brown.

  I checked the dictionary again. Blond could also mean fair. Presumably a light mousy brown could fall into that category. I tried to summon up his face. The description gave the suspect as thirty to forty. I’d have put David Jarvis more in the thirty-five to forty-five bracket but he had the kind of face difficult to attach an age too. It’d always struck me as one belonging to a dissolute public schoolboy. A schoolboy who’d spent the la
st ten years at an all-night party.

  Jean-Pierre printed off a couple of copies of the Rapport de la Gendarmerie and I left to tell Shelagh.

  And Andy and Simon and everyone else on my list.

  I was bursting with news. And bursting to tell people. By the time I pulled up outside our house I was like an incurable gossip after ten years solitary confinement.

  But Shelagh met me on the doorstep. The post had arrived. And with it another envelope of faxes from David Jarvis. And a handwritten note, I’m not sure you got all the pages last time - David.

  I checked the bundle of faxes; the Pergonini letter, the Spanish bank details, Ralph’s Dear Big Nose. They were all there. And so was another page. A copy of a fax header, stamped La Poste, Castlenau.

  Castlenau! The town where David Jarvis had his office.

  Headers and Handwriting

  That must have been the reason he’d delayed so long in sending the faxes. He’d been sifting through the bundle and suddenly saw the word CASTLENAU flashing neon-lit back at him – probably alternating with the words ’guilty bastard.’

  And it must have been one hell of a shock. It was a header page, not part of the actual fax itself, but a page of A4 with all the details concerning the sender, the destination, everything. I doubt he even knew it had been sent as part of the fax.

  He’d have taken one look at it, panicked and spent the next day wondering what to do. He’d have to send something as he knew I was waiting. So he removes the incriminating page and posts the rest.

  Then another thought hits him. He’d only bought himself a few days. Someone was bound to notice the Castlenau post office stamp eventually. So he invents Peter Kennedy; gives him a job in Castlenau – handy for the post office – and keys to our house. Then he sends the missing page.

  It fitted.

  Case solved – send for the black cap.

  Then I looked closer at the page of fax details.

  La Poste at Castlenau was not the only stamp. There was another one for Villeurbanne, wherever that was. Both stamps contained a date and time. Both were dated 16th May. But the Castlenau stamp said 17h. Villeurbanne said 14h15.