Conman (23 page)

“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 between 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.

“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.

“Right,” I said. I waggled the envelope as casually as its stiff back and my headache would let me. “An arrangement. Talk to Maurice. Sort it out. Come up with some mutually agreeable …”

“An arrangement,” the gentleman said flatly. He added a slow blink. A blink that somehow said that if he had a pound for every doorstep he’d stood on hearing this, he’d be able to buy a lot of whatever dull solicitor-types like him liked to buy. Chunky
briefcases
. Red Bull. Something like that. “Sir, you’ll discover, I regret, that the time for coming to arrangements has passed. That,” and he pointed at the envelope, “is a summons for you to appear at Bow Magistrates Court on Monday the sixteenth of November at three pm. Ten days’ time.”

I shifted, one foot in a red Spider-Man sock, the other bare on the sticky hall tiles. Some leaves gusted up the steps and had a playful lap about my ankles. I swallowed hard, tasting cheap port and crisps, and gripped the envelope in two hands, which somehow only made it feel heavier.

The gentleman bent down, clicked shut his case and moved away down the steps, his eyes prowling over the front of the house. He licked his lips. Possibly to gather up the last remaining droplets
of energy-drink for the exhausting three-feet trek to his car. Possibly because a voice in his head was muttering
ahhh, precious property. T’will be ours soon. Ours. Mmm, heh-heh.

Not sure which.

I slammed the door on him, breathing close and tight, like my ribs had been taken apart and rebuilt using only half the pieces and the assembly instructions for a small toast-rack. I stuffed the envelope down the back of my boxers, the thin elastic holding it cold against the small of my back, ruffed my baggy T-shirt over it and trudged back up the stairs to where I’d left Jane in a foul mood, baby in her arms, staring at a stained
bathroom
lino.

I found her, baby still in her arms, still staring at a stained
bathroom
lino.

Her mood hadn’t changed much either.

“Who was that?” she said.

“Nobody,” I lied.

“I can still smell it,” she said. Not looking at me.

“I know.”

“You’ll have to go over it again.”

“I know.”

“How long have we had this floor?”

“I don’t know.”

“Great. Maybe if you’d just cleaned it properly when you offered the first time?”

“Yes
maybe
,” I said, which I shouldn’t have done, but the whole morning had been a little like this.

Jane looked at me for a long, irritable moment and then pushed past to fuss with the baby harness. I got back down on my hands and knees, which caused my head to swim and throb, lights dancing in my eyes. With fragile, morning-after hands, I lifted the cloth and squeezy cleaner for a scrub, a yawn and a mutter.

Coat on, Jane appeared a moment later in the doorway.

“You not going in today then?”

“Not yet. I apparently have some urgent cleaning to do that can’t
possibly
wait –”

“
Fine
. I’m going to speak to Dad. Shall I tell him you’re still
all right to pick him up from outside Victoria next week? Or shall we just presume you’re going to forget
that
as well?”

“Benno was
just
as much your friend as mine.
Last week
you were claiming
he
was the one who got you and I –”

“Roll in drunk again? Throw up again? Ruin another dinner? Embarrass me some more?”

I concentrated on the perfume stain, giving it another citrus squirt.

Jane left with Lana, loudly, winter coat hissing, winter boots thudding. She slammed the door.

Barefoot and hungover, I continued to scrub.

“
Fine,
” I muttered, as men will. “
Fine. I’ll pick your dad up. Sure. Absolutely. Let me shut the shop for two hours. Mustn’t let the fat bastard spend a penny of his millions on a cab, must we. Oh no. Ohhh no. Not while Neil can pick him up
.”

My head was throbbing. Under my furry tongue I winced at that burning, vomity acid taste. I coughed some brown stuff into the toilet with an antiseptic echo and resumed my angry
scrubbing
mutter.

“
In fact, why don’t I just let the solicitors run the shop while I’m out? They’re going to get it anyway, what difference does a few days make? And maybe you can divorce me, if I’m so drunk and embarrassing? Marry Beevers or one of the Boatman brothers? Marry MY friend Benno who you’ve conveniently forgotten you had a crush on for half a term ten years ago. I’m sure they’re all more daddy’s type,
” and on that, I threw the J-cloth with a splat at the tile and tumbled back against the bath, kicking out angrily. Feeling it crumple and pinch behind me, I wrenched out the buckled summons from my pants and balled it up fast in an angry white fist.

Damn it. Damn it all.

The phone began to ring shrilly.

Breathing slow, breathing deep, I hauled myself up by the toilet and dragged my way into the lounge. Streaky watched me, stretched out in his square of winter sunlight on the floor.

It was Andrew. Either on his mobile or having the north circular diverted around his mini-bar.

“
This is your place right? Heroes … I can’t read it, the sun’s in my … Heroes Incorporated? That what the sign says
?”

“What? Where are – ?”

“
You not opening up today then? I’m standing here like a hung-over lemon. Get yourself round. I’ve had an idea. Well, not an idea. But I think an idea about where we could get an idea.
”

“Idea?”

“
About last night. What we discussed
?”

Last night. A memory dragged itself sluggishly behind my eyes. Jack and Catherine. Fireworks. Arguing. I backed up a little further. Andrew. A red notebook. A plan. The memory then promptly dumped out the remains of its nauseating litter-bin onto my tongue. Whisky. Ribena. A kebab.

“
I’ve got a meeting with O’Shea in a few … bloody hell. Taxi? Taxi!
”

“Andrew? What –”

“
I’ll meet you at your shop in ninety minutes. Taxi? Bloody h –
”

The line went dead.

An hour later I was climbing up, out of the underground, a zombie from its crypt. I drifted through Soho floating like litter on the wind, in and out of the gutters and kerbs. The air was cold and misty, my breath fogging, surrounding me like a wraith, adding to the ghostly sense.

Around me, London continued, unaffected by my existence. No one met my eye, no one bumped my shoulder, no car slowed as I crossed. Like a dream where everything is out of reach,
everything
falling, I moved from street to muted street watching the cast take position, exchange their lines and act their scenes. Finally I wandered over frozen cobbles to the deserted quiet of Brigstock Place. I hauled up the shutters with a dumb rattle, toes bitten and cold in my thin black Converses.

I shuffled inside, picking up the post and snapped on the
flickering
lights, ignoring the dust and debris, head thudding. The cold walls hung with damp, clammy and spored, the rot from bowels beneath furring my tongue. Above the office archway, Elvis said it was just after ten a.m. and I had no reason to doubt him. As I moved through to the office and the kitchen, I tried not to look at the large empty square on my counter – a ground zero of fluff and forgotten biros – where my till had once stood.

I sat out the back for a while, in the dark, in the quiet, just thinking. Breathing deep, trying to sit on the panic, keeping it down, keeping it low. People and places shuffled around the perimeter of my mind. Jane, Edward, Earl’s Court, Robert Redford, Superman, Solicitors.

Andrew.

Hauling myself up, I dragged myself to the kitchen and distracted myself with tea, moving to the laptop while the kettle coughed into life. I booted up wearily and dunked a tea-bag while the signal dialled.

My inbox was empty, save yet more spammy drivel. But trying to focus, to keep tears and rage subdued by the motions of normalcy, I sat down, sat up and selected the spammy
friendsreunited
drivel and double clicked my way onto their site. I waded through gurning snapshots and the hundredth permutation of essential eighties hits on CD, until I unearthed my University. My year.

I sipped my tea.

Ahmed, Anderson, Atherton, Barber,
there
.

Andrew Benjamin, like myself, had chosen to avoid the
exclamations
and emoticons of his dorm-mates, plumping instead for a straightforward where-are-they-now.
Small family, New York, real estate, happy memories.
And like myself, his posting too was worded to actively discourage replies or reminiscence. But then hey, that had been our Uni’ years all over.

Andrew and I were on the same corridor and met about a
fortnight
into the first term, bonding immediately over that which we had in common. Namely pitiful A-level results, wayward fathers, virginity intacto and – most importantly – a mutual desire to rid ourselves of all the weirdos we’d mistakenly befriended in Freshers’ Week. This we managed to do more or less successfully with chess, which we played daily on the steps outside his room. Andrew, an intense young bearded lefty with a collection of chunky-knits and whale posters, had made it clear almost
immediately
he had no interest in the college cliques and the college cliques made it even clearer they had no interest in me so we naturally gravitated together, orbiting uneventfully about each other for a year.

That was until the emotional upheaval and the eventful arrival on the corridor of –

“Yes yes, tip-top. Never better. You?”

I looked up at the sound of the door’s jingle, Andrew’s voice wafting in on the chilly breeze.

“Will do. Nice to see you old man,” he said with a wave and bustled in. “Morning morning. Blimey, stick a tea on old stick. Christ, what’s that
smell
?”

“Don’t ask,” I sighed, hauling myself out into the light. “Who were you … ?”

“Chap next door. Lord, he’s got a memory on him, hasn’t he? Blimey.” Andrew dumped his case on the counter among the biros and rolled his shoulders, peering about the walls while he fished out his mobile phone from his usual pocket junk and popped his hands-free into his ear. “Great shop by the way,” he nodded. “Looks like your room at Uni? All the …” and he motioned at the kitschy crap on the wall.

“Next door? You
know
him?”

“Hm? Yes.” He dialled out quickly. “Keatings … You remember O’Shea last night? Said he’d had his eye on a development round here a few years – hello? Mr O’Shea please.”

I left him to his call and threw a bag into a mug, returning a moment later with his tea. He was pacing, chatting into his
hands-free
like a schizophrenic, red notebook flapping.

“… New York is scheduled to complete on Tuesday. There’s no … Well the Holborn people are looking at the thirteenth, which leaves us plenty of time in case of … Friday, that’s right …
Uh-huh
? The site visit? Yes yes …” Andrew caught my eye and rolled his, giving a mock yawn. “Well I’ll see what I can do. Speak to you later sir. Cheerio,” and he hung up.

“Big business?”

“
Don’t
,” he sighed, popping the earpiece out and taking his tea with ouchy-fingers. “We’re selling O’Shea’s New York place next week to some fund-managers looking for a temporary Manhattan address. One floor, no bathrooms. Five million pounds. Which’ll leave O’Shea with six figures to plough into an off-plan artist’s impression over here.”

“And this is what you do now? No saving the whales?”

“I’m just a simple estate agent. I’ll sell you that, buy you this and take a percent for the trouble. Easiest job in the world.”

“And a nice tie to go with it.”

“Huh? Yes, bugger off,” Andrew said, flapping a poorly judged purple paisley number. “Hotel dry-cleaners again. Total waste of space. Anyway, look at you. Look at this,” and he gazed over the walls again. “Where’s your Robert Redford? Shouldn’t that have pride of place somewhere?”

“Sold it,” I sighed. “Needs must.”

“And after all the trouble we had getting it on your wall.”

“Someone else’s problem now.”

“Well,” Andrew shrugged, trying to gee me up a little. He took a tour of the six dusty square feet. “Cracking location anyway. What are you paying, if you don’t mind me asking? You want me to talk to some people?” He flapped his red book and clicked open a biro. “Might be able to get you a better deal?”

“I think my problems extend a little further than saving a tenner a month on rent,” I said, and I handed him the morning’s crumpled, yet legally binding, summons.

Andrew sipped his tea and gave the document his attention.

I watched as he furrowed, taking it in studiously. As a man would. With a man’s sombre intelligence and focus. I then began to torture myself, picking at my mood like a fresh scab, and pictured Andrew in my shoes. Finding a burst pipe one morning. I pictured him calmly moving boxes with spade-sized hands, broad shoulders and a gritty determination. Barking at plumbers, haggling with landlords. Getting it sorted. Getting it done. Jane at his side, her slender frame wrapped by Andrew’s tree-trunk arm.

Christ, what was I
doing
?

“Bloody hell old man,” Andrew said, handing back the
paperwork
. “I’d better ask around rent-wise pretty sharpish. How did you get on last night by the way? Get home all right?”