Cat O'Nine Tales: And Other Stories (5 page)

To start with,
they needed to plan their getaway, even before they set about retrieving any
stolen money. Neither considered what they were about to embark on as theft.

Sue unfolded a
map of Europe and spread it across the post office counter.

They discussed
the different alternatives for several days and finally settled on Portugal,
which they both considered would be ideal for early retirement. On their many
visits to the Algarve they had always returned to
Albufeira
,
the town where they had spent their shortened honeymoon, and revisited on their
tenth, twentieth, and many more wedding anniversaries. They had even promised
themselves that was where they would retire if they won the lottery.

The next day
Sue purchased a tape
of Portuguese for
Beginners
which they played before breakfast every morning, and then spent
an hour in the evening, testing out their new skills. They were pleased to
discover that over the years they had both picked up more of the language than
they realized. Although not fluent, they were certainly not beginners.

The two of them
quickly moved on to the advanced tapes.

“We won’t be
able to use our own passports,” Chris pointed out to his wife while shaving one
morning. “We’ll have to consider a change of
identity,
otherwise the authorities would be on to us in no time.”

“I’ve already
thought about that,” said Sue, “and we should take advantage of working in our
own post office.”

Chris stopped
shaving, and turned to listen to his wife.

“Don’t forget,
we already supply all the necessary forms for customers who want to obtain
passports.”

Chris didn’t
interrupt as Sue went over how she planned to make sure that they could safely
leave the country under assumed names.

Chris chuckled.
“Perhaps I’ll grow a beard,” he said, putting his razor down.

Over the years,
Chris and Sue had made friends with several customers who regularly shopped at
the post office. The two of them wrote down on separate sheets of paper the
names of all their customers who fulfilled the criteria Sue was looking for.
They ended up with a list of two dozen candidates: thirteen women and eleven
men. From that moment on, whenever one of the unsuspecting regulars entered the
shop, Sue or Chris would strike up a conversation that had only one purpose.

“Going away for
Christmas this year, are we, Mrs. Brewer?”

“No, Mrs.
Haskins, my son and his wife will be joining us on Christmas Eve so that we can
get to know our new granddaughter.”

“How nice for
you, Mrs. Brewer,” replied
Sue.
“Chris and I are
thinking of spending
Christinas
in the States.”

“How exciting,”
said Mrs.
Brewer.

“I’ve never
even been abroad,” she admitted, “let alone America.”

Mrs. Brewer had
reached the second round, but would not be questioned again until her next
visit.

By the end of
September, seven other names had joined Mrs. Brewer on the shortlist–four women
and three men, all between the ages of fifty-one and
fiftyseven
,
who had only one thing in common: they had never traveled abroad.

The next
problem the Haskins faced was filling in an application for a birth
certificate. This required far more detailed questioning, and both Sue and
Chris quickly backed off whenever one of the shortlisted candidates showed the
slightest sign of suspicion. By the beginning of October they were down to the
names of four customers who had unwittingly supplied their date of birth, place
of birth, mother’s maiden name and father’s first name.

The Haskins’
next visit was to Boots the chemist in St. Peters Avenue, where they took turns
to sit in a little cubicle and have several strips of photographs taken at
£2.50 a time. Sue then set about completing the necessary application forms for
a passport, on behalf of four of her unsuspecting customers. She filled in all
the relevant details, while enclosing photographs of herself and Chris, along
with a postal order for £42. As the postmaster, Chris was only too happy to pen
his real signature on the bottom of each form Sue filled in.

The four
application forms were posted to the passport office at Petty France in London
on the Monday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday of the last week in October.

On Wednesday,
11 November the first passport arrived back at Victoria Crescent, addressed to
Mr.
Reg
Appleyard
. Two days
later, a second appeared, for Mrs. Audrey

Ramsbottom
.
The
 
following day Mrs.
Betty Brewer’s turned up, and finally, a week later, Mr. Stan
Gerrard’s
.

Sue had already
pointed out to Chris that they would have to leave the country using one set of
passports, which they would then need to discard, before they switched to the
second pair, but not until they had found somewhere to live in
Albufeira
.

Chris and Sue
continued to practice their Portuguese whenever they were alone in the shop,
while informing any regulars that they would be away over the Christmas period
as they were planning a trip to America. The inquisitive were rewarded with
such details as a week in San Francisco, followed by a few days in Seattle.

By the second
week in November, everything was in place to press the button for Operation
Money Back Guaranteed.

At nine o’clock
on Friday morning Sue made her weekly phone call to headquarters. She entered
her personal code before being transferred to forward finance. The only difference
this time was that she could hear her heart beating.

Sue repeated
her code before informing the credit officer how much cash she would require
for the following week–an amount large enough to allow her to cover withdrawals
for any post office savings accounts, pensions and cashed postal orders.
Although an accountant from headquarters always checked the books at the end of
every month, considerable leeway was allowed in the run-up to Christmas. A
demanding audit was then carried out in January to make sure the books
balanced, but neither Chris nor Sue had any intention of being around in
January. For the past six years Sue’s books had always balanced, and she was
considered by headquarters to be a model manager.

Sue had to
check the records to remind
herself
of the amount she
had requested in the same week of the previous year–£40,000, which had turned
out to be £800 more than she needed. This year she asked for £60,000, and
waited for some comment from the credit officer, but the voice from headquarters
sounded neither surprised nor concerned. The full amount was delivered by a
security van the following Monday.

During the week
Chris and Sue fulfilled all their customers’ obligations; after all, it had
never been their intention to shortchange any of their regulars, but they still
found themselves with a surplus of £21,000 at the end of week one. They left
the cash–used notes only–locked up in the safe, just in case some fastidious
official from headquarters decided to carry out
a spot-check
.

Once Sue had
closed the front door at six o’clock and pulled down the blinds, the two of
them would only converse in Portuguese, while they spent the rest of the
evening filling in postal orders, rubbing out scratch cards and entering
lottery numbers, often falling asleep as they worked.

Every morning
Chris would rise early and climb into his aging Rover, with Stamps as his only
companion. He traveled north, east, south and west–Monday Lincoln, Tuesday
Louth
, Wednesday
Skegness
,
Thursday Hull and Friday
Immingham
, where he would
cash several postal orders, and also collect his winnings on the scratch cards
and lottery tickets, enabling him to supplement their newly acquired savings
with an extra few hundred pounds each day.

On the last
Friday in November, week two, Sue applied for £70,000 from head office, so that
by the following Saturday, they were able to add a further £32,000 to their
invisible earnings.

On the first
Friday in December, Sue raised the stakes to £80,000, and was surprised to
discover that there were still no questions back at headquarters: after all,
hadn’t Sue Haskins been manager of the year, with a special commendation from
the board? A security van dutifully delivered the full amount in cash early on
the Monday morning.

Another week of
increased profits allowed Sue Haskins to add a further £39,000 to the pot
without any of the other players round the table demanding to see her hand.
They were now showing a surplus of well over £100,000, which was stacked up in
neat little piles of used notes, resting on top of the four passports buried at
the bottom of the safe.

Chris hardly
slept at night as he continued to sign countless postal orders, rub out piles
of scratch cards and, before going to bed,
fill
in
numerous lottery tickets with endless combinations. By day he visited every
post office within a fifty-mile radius, gathering his spoils, but, despite his
dedication, by the second week in December Mr. and Mrs. Haskins had only
collected just over half the amount required to retrieve the £250,000 they had
originally invested.

Sue warned
Chris that they would have to take an even bigger risk if they still hoped to
acquire the full amount by Christmas Eve.

On the second
Friday in December, week four, Sue called the issuing manager at headquarters,
and made a request for £115,000.

“You’re having
a busy Christmas,” suggested a voice on the other end of the line. First sign
of any suspicion, thought Sue, but she had her script well prepared.

“Run off my
feet,” Sue told him, “but don’t forget
,
more people retire
to
Cleethorpes
than any other seaside town in
Britain.”

“You learn
something new every day,” came back the voice on the other end of the line,
before adding, “Don’t worry, the cash will be with you on Monday. Keep up the
good work.”

“I will,”
promised Sue, and, emboldened by the exchange, requested £140,000 for the final
week before Christmas, aware that any sum above £150,000 was always referred
back to head office in London.

When Sue pulled
down the blinds at six o’clock on Christmas Eve, both of them were exhausted.

Sue was the
first to recover. “We haven’t a moment to waste,” she reminded her husband as
she walked across to the bulging safe.

She entered the
code, pulled open the door and withdrew everything from their current account.
She then placed the money on the counter in neat bundles–fifties, twenties,
tens and fives–before they set about counting their spoils.

Chris checked
the final figure and confirmed that they were £267,300 in credit. They put
£17,300 back in the safe, and locked the door. After all, they had never
intended to make a profit–that would be stealing. Sue began to put elastic
bands around each thousand, while Chris transferred the two hundred and fifty
bundles carefully into an old RAF duffel bag. By eight o’clock they were ready
to leave. Chris set the alarm, slipped quietly out of the back door and placed
the duffel bag in the boot of their Rover, on top of four other cases his wife
had packed earlier that morning. Sue joined him in the front of the car, as
Chris turned on the ignition.

“We’ve
forgotten something,” said Sue as she pulled the door closed.

“Stamps,” they
said in unison. Chris turned off the ignition, got out of the car and returned
to the post office. He reentered the code, switched off the alarm and opened
the back door in search of Stamps. He found him fast asleep in the kitchen,
reluctant to be enticed out of his warm basket and into the back seat of the
car. Didn’t they realize it was Christmas Eve?