FRAUD

by PETER DAVEY

  No! He mustn’t go there! He had to keep calm, to think clearly, logically. He cast his mind back to the manuscript he had read a few days earlier, straining to recall something –anything – about the author and his life. But all he could remember was that he was called Edward Haymer and that he lived... yes, it was coming back to him now... he lived somewhere in Sussex.

  As his computer was loading, he contemplated the copy of Loss he held in his hands. He turned it over and reread the reviewers’ comments on the back:

  ‘This is the voice of the new millennium – fresh, youthful, sexy, terrifying.’ Guardian.

  ‘Carson doesn’t simply use language, she takes a Kalashnikov to it. The effect is horrifying at first, but when the tatters have floated back to earth we are left with something almost unbearably beautiful.’ Independent.

  ‘Read this novel if you dare – but don’t expect your life ever to be the same again!’ Observer.

  He scoured Google yet again. There were pages of references to a Nathaniel Haymer who had lived in the Appalachian Mountains and sired seventeen children but there was no sign of an ‘Edward’ or even an ‘Ed’ or ‘Ted’ Haymer anywhere. The only reference to a Haymer in the UK was to an Anne Haymer who was a partner in a small firm of solicitors in Eastbourne and was involved in the case of a young single mother who was being systematically beaten up by her boyfriend. Eastbourne was at least in Sussex. It was a long shot, but it was worth a try.

  In the morning, after Katie had left for work, he made for the telephone. Bracing himself, he tried to summon up the character traits needed for investigative journalism – pushiness, perseverance, unscrupulousness – traits he knew he conspicuously lacked. He snatched up the receiver.

  Anne Haymer was with a client. Could he call again in half an hour?

  When he finally got to speak to her, he began, hesitantly, “I’m really sorry to bother you, Mrs. Haymer, but I’m trying to track down someone called Edward Haymer. It’s rather an unusual name. I wondered if you might possibly...”

  “Who am I speaking to?” she asked in a clipped and faintly challenging tone.

  Dominic panicked, realising he had rehearsed only questions, not answers. “I’m in publishing and I’ve come across a very important piece of information which I think Mr. Haymer should know. It concerns a novel he once wrote called 'The Tyranny of Love'.”

  The line went silent and Dominic sensed that the novel’s title had struck home. “Well, yes, my husband is the Edward Haymer you're looking for,” she said. “But we're separated.”

  “Oh fantastic! I mean... no, I’m sorry, I didn't mean...”

  “It's all right, I know what you meant. I mention it only because communication between us is sporadic and rather difficult, to put it mildly. I could give you his mobile number, I suppose, but it seems to be permanently on voicemail.”

  “Maybe, if I could have his address? I might go and talk to him in person. I quite fancy a trip out of London.”

  “Well, I wish you luck. Have you got a pen?”

  3

  Despite her concession, Katie had not ceased to voice her opinion, at every available opportunity, that the whole thing was insane. And as the rhythmic swish and thump of the wipers lulled him deeper and deeper into thought, Dominic began to wonder, for the first time, if she was right. But then, Katie only knew half the truth.

  He spotted the sign to Wemborne-on-Sea and his heartbeat quickened as he slid the car into the filter lane and reached for the instructions Anne Haymer had given him. They lead him over miles of rolling farmland under a featureless sky, past camp sites and caravan parks and finally into a windswept wilderness of swamp and shingle, dotted, here and there, by shabby homesteads surrounded by rusty cars and tatty fishing boats and propane cylinders. Vast, angular slabs of concrete lay around apparently at random – some half-submerged in ponds and ditches – and mechanical shovels swung back and forth on the skyline like dinosaurs engaged in some bizarre mating ritual.

  Since Anne Haymer was a solicitor based in Eastbourne, Dominic had been surprised to learn that her husband lived in a caravan. He had assumed it would at least be quite a smart caravan, maybe with a name and some window boxes – possibly even a quaint little garden enclosed by a quaint little fence. But as he advanced along the track over Whitesands Marsh – as this wilderness was called – weaving around the worst of the puddles and potholes, he could see no sign of anything remotely quaint anywhere. “I believe he’s somewhere near the pumping station,” she had said. Well, there was the pumping station but as far as he could tell that was all there was – apart from one very depressed-looking sheep. He pulled the car into a bay by a gateway, clambered out and gazed around. At least it had stopped raining, for the moment.

  He cast his eyes back and forth over the landscape like a radar scanner, finally spotting a shabby protuberance which could have been the corner of a caravan poking out from behind a clump of bushes. Then he glanced down at the tan leather Clarks he had selected for the occasion – his smartest and most comfortable pair of shoes – and there flashed through his mind some advice his father had once given him: ‘Never go into the countryside without taking wellies, my son. Even in summer. You never know.’ He wished now that he had heeded his Dad’s advice but then he reminded himself of the importance of this mission, of how – if all went well – it would divest him of the burden he had carried all these years and open up new horizons both to him and to Edward Haymer. If he pulled this off he could have as many pairs of shoes as Imelda Marcos and he knew that to be deterred by a bit of mud was absurd. So he dragged open the collapsing iron gate and picked his way as best he could through the mire.

  The caravan, when he finally reached it, was even worse than he had feared. No window-boxes, no picket fence, and it certainly didn’t warrant a name – not one that was printable, anyway. It was basically just a large pea-green box with one wide window at the front and two smaller ones at the side, its paint was peeling and gleaming lichen lined the window-seals. He could barely imagine a tramp living in such a place, let alone a writer.

  He braced himself and knocked. No reply. He knocked again, a little more assertively. Still no reply.

  He turned and surveyed the desolation all around him, its sombre horizons broken only, far in the distance, by a line of pylons. There was no sign of life anywhere – just a low, grey farmhouse standing among some trees about half a mile away – and the only sounds were the hiss of wind in the reeds and the intermittent cry of gulls.

  He walked around to the front and peered through the window, using his hands as blinkers. His first impression was that the place was full of books – mostly old hardbacks which had long since lost their dust-jackets – the sort of books his Grandma owned by the truckload, which smell of mould and whose authors no one has ever heard of. They were crammed into shelves, piled on the sideboard, on the seats, even on the floor. A flimsy integral table between two bench seats seemed to serve as a desk, with an old portable typewriter marooned in a sea of paper and notebooks, along with a mug and an empty wineglass. Deeper in the gloom, he could just make out some sheet music spread on a music stand, but no discernible instrument to play it with.

  Confident now that no one was home, he ventured around the back where the caravan had extended itself into a kind of encampment. A crude brick barbecue stood before a picnic table and a tatty canvas chair. A red gas cylinder, plumbed into the caravan’s innards, clearly provided the only power. A little tool shed, its door padlocked, overlooked a vegetable patch. He noticed the rotting relics of summer vegetables among the weeds, but one small patch in the farthest corner looked clean and freshly dug, as though it were being prepared for sowing – or as though something had been buried there.

  “You looking for Ted?”

  Dominic nearly jumped out of his skin. Where the man had appeared from he had no idea, but he was suddenly just standing there, about thirty yards away on the far side of a ditch, watching him – a squat figure cl
ad from head to toe in waterproofing, a shotgun under his arm and a spaniel poised at his heel.

  “Yes, yes I am!” Dominic called out, with some difficulty, since, being a town-dweller, he was not very good at projecting his voice. “Do you happen to know where I might find him?”

  “He’ll be at the Queen’s!” the man called back with absolute certainty, “The Queen’s Head at Wemborne!” He then gave him directions – thus proving he was not too hostile after all, despite the twin barrels dangling from his arm. Dominic thanked him and squelched back to the car, grateful to be heading somewhere warm and dry, with alcohol.

  Having repaired the worst of the damage to his shoes with a rag he kept for the windscreen, he set off again and, ten minutes later, found The Queen’s Head.

  It had started to rain again and he sat in the car for a while, listening to the drone of the wind and watching the raindrops quivering on the windscreen. What would he be like, he wondered, the man who lived in that caravan? For his brief visit to the place had affected him deeply – it had spoken so clearly of what could happen to an artist when deprived of success, of recognition, of hope. What had once been passion had hardened into obsession and finally despair, so that he barely noticed the world around him and the squalor into which his life had descended. And yet he was a writer, just as Dominic was – or wanted to be. Edward Haymer, once upon a time, must have been like he was now – a young man on the brink of his career. How many years of disappointment and rejection had led up to the day he had sent those sample chapters of his novel to The Dragon’s Head, the one brave little independent publisher that might have been his salvation? The chapters which had landed on his desk?

  Katie was right. He ought to start the car and head straight back to London this very minute, forget about Edward Haymer and concentrate on their future in the States. But he couldn’t. After all these years he had to confront this man. He had to get this over with.

  He left the car and hurried through the rain to the entrance, bowing his head under the lintel. Suddenly he was surrounded by warmth, chatter and the smell of beer and cooking. The barman greeted him cheerily and he decided to forgo his usual pint of Fosters and order a brandy instead. He couldn’t afford it, but he needed something to warm him up, and to give him courage.

  Installed in a corner from which he could survey most of the public and saloon bars, it occurred to him that, in other circumstances, this would be rather a pleasant place to spend time. It was simple, old-fashioned, unpretentious. There was no piped music, no Sky Sports on television, no bleeping gaming machines, not even so much as a snooker table. Beyond a wide arch a bunch of locals – all men – were clustered around the public bar – looking like locals clustered round bars throughout the world – but none of them somehow conformed to his idea of Edward Haymer. Here, beneath the beamy ceiling of the saloon – from which hung a colourful assortment of hops and floats and fishing nets – a scattering of middle-aged couples were tucking contentedly into lemon sole or rhubarb crumble or were deep in discussion about the menu, warmed by a pile of glowing logs in the inglenook.

  The inglenook formed a barrier between the bars, and it was in an alcove beside it that a man sat alone with his pint, some papers spread before him on the little table. He seemed oblivious to the noise and bustle around him and had the calm, proprietorial air of a regular installed in his favourite seat. Though scruffy, bearded and weather-beaten, with rather wavy, unkempt silvery hair, it was not his outward appearance which suggested to Dominic that this man was Edward Haymer. It was a more intangible quality, an aura which seemed to say firmly to the world around him, “Piss off! I’m a writer. And I want to be left in peace.”

  Dominic observed him for a while, growing ever more certain. Then he drained his brandy, stood up and crossed the room. Pausing a moment, he looked down at the object of his journey from London.

  “Mr. Haymer?”

  The man raised his eyes slowly from his papers, frowning as though it were an effort to focus on the newcomer. “Yes.”

  “Hi. My name’s Dominic. Dominic Sealy. I work in publishing and I’ve come down from London to give you a piece of information which you may or may not already know.”

  His announcement was greeted with a blank stare.

  “I’m sorry, do you mind if I sit down?”

  The almost imperceptible shrug seemed neither to grant nor withhold permission. Nonetheless it was enough to embolden Dominic to lower his lengthy frame into the seat nearest the fire, its proximity to the table forcing him to sit sideways with his knees pressed together. He immediately felt too hot in his leather jacket but refrained from removing it, sensing this man might resent him getting too comfortable.

  “So what’s this information which I may or may not already know?”

  “First of all, may I ask if you’ve ever heard of an actress and writer named Nicola Carson?”

  The eyes narrowed and the forehead gathered into furrows but he said nothing.

  “Her novel ‘Loss’ won the Connaught Prize in 2003,” Dominic persevered. “There was quite a controversy over it. It was also short-listed for the Booker. But then she amazed everyone by never writing another word. Instead she capitalised on her fame and became a film star.”

  The man gazed at him for so long that Dominic wondered if he had somehow failed to understand him. Then he said, “I may be a bit of a hermit, young man, but I don’t live on Mars. Of course I’ve heard of Nicola Carson. But I know nothing about her.”

  “Well, I have reason to believe – and you may think I’m completely insane here – but I have reason to believe… that she’s a fraud.”

  The steely blue eyes seemed to belie the air of vague indifference the man was assuming. “What do you mean, a fraud?”

  “That novel of hers – the one which launched her career and won the Connaught. She didn’t write it. It was written by someone else.”

  “Really? Well, that’s a fascinating theory. But why are you telling me all this?”

  “Because that someone else was you.”

  Life continued in the bar – chatter, laughter, the clink of knives and forks and glasses – but to Dominic it was as though the place had gone silent, as though it were being displayed on a screen from which the sound had been cut.

  “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “It was your novel, Mr. Haymer – the one you sent some sample chapters of to The Dragon’s Head more than five years ago under the title ‘The Tyranny of Love’. She must have somehow got hold of the manuscript and published it under her own name. She changed the title, of course, but that’s all she changed. But if you haven’t seen it – which you obviously haven’t – you wouldn’t know that.”

  He stared at Dominic for what must have been a full five seconds, eyes almost closed, the furrows in his forehead deepening. He looked as though he was trying to perform some complex piece of mental arithmetic.

  “Let me get this straight. You’re telling me that some famous film star stole my manuscript and published it under her own name? And it became a bestseller?”

  “Well, she wouldn’t have been famous then. It was your novel that made her famous – or, at least, kick-started the process.”

  The man was shaking his head, frowning. “Are you sure?”

  “Well, I’m almost one hundred per cent sure that the first three chapters of her novel are identical to the three chapters you sent us. So I’m assuming the rest is identical too. But that’s something you could easily verify.”

  “And how do you know all this?”

  “I was an editorial assistant at the time. Your manuscript passed through my hands.”

  “You can remember a manuscript that passed through your hands five years ago?”

  “Well, I have to be honest, there was a bit of a cock-up in the office and your manuscript was never returned to you.”

  “I know. I remember.”

  “I was having a clear-out the other day because I was leaving
the job and I… came across it.”

  “And it won a prize?”

  “The Connaught.”

  “I've never heard of it.”

  “It's awarded only to début authors. It's nowhere near as big as the James Tait Black or the Booker, obviously, but it's still a major achievement. The prize money’s ten grand. But for the past eight years it just happens to have gone entirely to women, which has attracted accusations of bias towards women's writing.”

  “Well it's all double Dutch to me. As I said, I live like a hermit and I take no interest in other writers’ work, especially when half of them seem to be barely out of nappies. And I despise literary prizes in any shape or form.”

  “A lot of authors feel that way at first. But when you’re struggling to build a career, the money and the exposure are hard to ignore.”

  “Well, one of the few advantages of being a total failure is that you get to keep your principles.”

  “Anyone who wrote a book like ‘The Tyranny of Love’ isn’t a failure, Mr. Haymer.”

  The man snorted with amusement as he transferred his gaze from Dominic to his beer. “I never even liked that book. It was my first novel and I was convinced it was a masterpiece. But as time went by I became more and more doubtful about it. It just didn’t work for some reason but I could never quite put my finger on why. It was jangly somehow and the style was too self-conscious. And it had structural flaws. In the end I gave up submitting it.”

  “Well, the reading public clearly didn’t agree with you. It made her a fortune.”

  “Yes, but don’t kid yourself that having a beautiful young authoress with a figure like a model wouldn’t have had a lot to do with it. If I’d published it under my name with my ugly mug on the back it would’ve been a very different story.”