Conman (22 page)

“But it’s all still going ahead right? We’re still on?”

She nodded, blinking tearily.

“Then you’d better go,” I said. “It’s nearly eleven.”

“When will I see you? Do you want to wait for me here? I’ll be down in a second.”

“No,” I said. “No, I’d better get out of the way. Come back when you get the chance.”

Then, after a hesitant beat, shifting on the pavement, she leant forward to kiss me, hand snaking up about my neck, pulling me towards her. Flushing, I twisted awkwardly. We bumped temples and I negotiated a dry peck on her cheek, pulling away early.

“Move,” I said. “Go on.”

She half smiled, blinking and wiping an eye, before turning and jogging back across the cold street. The doorman heaved open the door and she disappeared inside.

I breathed out slowly and climbed back into the cab.

“Yes mate?”

“Brigstock Place,” I said, collapsing against the seat. “Thank you.”

“So when did you realise?” Andrew asked, stuffing his red book away and gulping his scotch back with a cough.

“Not for a while,” I sighed, chewing my cheek. The pub was filling up around us with the chattering Barbours and slingbacks of Theatreland. “Hope, I suppose. I got back to the shop just after eleven. Had a coffee with a guy called Schwartz. He runs a
bookshop
next door to my place. Reminded him to clear the rubbish from round the back which he’d forgotten to do
again
. I tidied up. Tried to keep my eyes off the clock. Christopher phoned twice, telling me everything was set, everybody was ready. Not to panic.
Nearly there dear boy, nearly there.
I pulled on my wellies and cleaned up my basement for a while. I had a flood. While ago now. That’s how all this … Anyway, just for something to do, y’know? Poked away at the drain, gunk up to my elbow. But all the time this … this gnawing worry in my insides.”

“And you didn’t even … I mean not for a second?”

I looked at Andrew and down at my drink, moving the coins on the table into a smiley face shape.

“Couple of customers came by. Must have been around half past twelve. Sniffed through my posters, did my crossword. We had a couple of rounds of
Connect Four
, or tried to. They both managed to whip me in about three moves. Which … now I think about it, means there’s a good chance they were cheating.”

“You didn’t notice?”

“I couldn’t concentrate. I kept staring at my Elvis clock. Looking at the phone. Jane called. Reminding me to pick up some dessert for – shit,” and I checked my chunky watch with a woozy blink. Ten to three in Bangkok and ten to five in Rio de Janeiro. Which meant it was ten to where-the-hell-have-you-been in Putney.

“Somewhere you have to be, old man?”

I thought about Catherine and Jack. Of dinner drying out on a low heat. Jane at the window. Jane phoning the shop. Jane thinking I was going to miss the fireworks.

Yeah
right
.

“Neil? Are you all – ?”

“Eventually I couldn’t stand it any longer. I shut the shop – four o’clock it must have been – and jogged over to the café to see if Laura was back. If she’d heard anything.”

I slid two pennies an inch towards me across the table, turning the copper smile into a frown.

It was busy and loud, the hiss of steam, the clatter of thick china, yelling, laughing. Most of the tables were taken, most of the booths likewise.

“Yes my friend?” a handsome Italian called out, wiping his hands on a tea towel. “What I get for you?”

“Is Laura here? Is she back yet?”

“
Laura!
” he called. “Hey,
Laura!
You boyfriend here!”

“No, I’m – it’s nothing like –”

The Italian gave me a wink as Laura pushed through the plastic ribbons between the café and the back area and looked about the shop, finally fixing me with a lost, questioning look.

“Hello?” she said.

“Uhm, no. No sorry, I wanted the other one? The other Laura? Taller, dark hair?”

“I only Laura here,” the girl smiled.

I don’t know how long we stood looking at each other awkwardly. Probably just a second or two.

All I know is that a hell of a lot went through my head as I stared at this stranger.

None of it good.

None of it good at all.

Fifteen panicky minutes later, my mobile began to buzz, but I barely heard it over the thumping of my sweat glands and slam of my heart. Running, hand waving out desperately for a cab, I fumbled inside my jacket and checked the display bouncing in front of me.

Shit.

“H-Hello?”

“
Hi, it’s me. Where are you? Are you on your way home? What’s that noise?
”

The noise was Oxford Street. The lower end, near Selfridges. Buses, tourists, shoppers. They filled the street, chatting, dawdling, yelling once in a while as the sweaty lunatic pushed past them in a terrified jog.

“Yes … yes, just near the station,” I panted as calmly as I could.
Cabs
? Where were all the
cabs
?

“
You sound funny. Are you all right?
”

“Fine, f-fine,” I squeaked. “How … how are you? Everything okay?”

A bike slammed its horn as I dodged, tripping over a side street.

“
Good. Lana’s had her nap. I’ve tidied around for Jack and Catherine. Did you get dessert?
”

Shit shit shit.

“Yes, yes no problem,” I said, trying to steady my breathing. I spotted a cab turning out of Portman Street, roof light on. I began to flap frantically. “See you soon.”

“
Love you.
”

I waved my arms, pounding across the busy street, slamming against the taxi.

“Awroit pal? Easy there.”

“Kensington,” I panted, hanging breathlessly on the window. “You know behind the Albert Hall? Something Mansions or other …”

My phone was crackling again. A voice.

“H-Hello?”

“
Jack. Hi, it’s Jane. Just a quickie. I’ve spoken to Neil and he’s –
”

“Jane?” I said, clambering into the cab. “It’s still me. Sorry, I can’t have hung up properly.”

I thumbed the line closed. I sat and stared at the phone’s display.

I didn’t hang up properly.

An itchy thought trundled through my head, browsed a moment for somewhere to sit down and then trundled off again.

I continued staring at the phone as the cab pulled out into traffic.

It would be fine. It would all be fine, I chanted over and over,
breathing deep, head hanging between my knees as the cab swung west. Maybe … maybe Laura wasn’t actually a
Laura
. People did that, right? Used their middle name as their first name? You find out years later your friend Bob’s real name is Tarquin or
something
like that. Maybe Laura,
my
Laura, was actually a Janet or a Jessica or a Josephine. Something like that.

Maybe.

Maybe that’s why they didn’t know her in the café. Yes. Yes, that would explain it.

I mean I’d seen her working there, when I’d –

Well, now I come to …

Perhaps I didn’t see her
actually
ever …

My stomach did something wobbly, my knees joining in with back-up on the chorus.

“Hoy, hoy mate?”

I looked up. The cabbie was calling over his shoulder through the gap in the divide.

“I said round here mate is it?”

I slid forward in the seat, peering out at the tall pink mansion blocks, their ironwork, their concrete steps and intercoms. Their purple doors.

“Yes. Yes, here here,” I said quickly and the cab rolled to a halt by the kerb. “Wait for me. J-Just wait for me here. Please,” I said and clambered out into the cold. The winding street was quiet. Snaking lines of parked cars – Jaguars, BMWs, MGs, curling out of sight. No green Bedford vans.

My heart leapt up, catching fat and full in my throat, as the purple door swung open with a bang and a familiar eight-year old in a Fisher-Price My Little Estate Agent costume emerged.

“Hey. Hey, excuse me,” I called. “Excuse me, sorry …”

He turned.

“Hi. I’m … Sorry to … You were sorting out a room for some friends of mine? In Bloomsbury? It fell through? You had a meeting at Brigstock Place?”

“Brigstock – ?
Heroes Incorporated
, right right,” he nodded, smiling. “But it wasn’t Bloomsbury. It was here,” and he threw a thumb behind him. “Flat six, first floor. Short lease. Vacated yesterday. Did you want to see it?”

The world seemed to tip up slightly, woozily, buildings sliding one way, the horizon dipping another. I put my hand out to steady myself, gripping the cold black railing.

“You don’t … I mean, Bloomsbury?”

“Don’t have anything in Bloomsbury. Never have. You all right? Did you want to look upstairs? It comes partly furnished. But sparse. A few starter pieces of Conran basics – couch, sideboard, bed, bin, broom …”

“No
way
,” Andrew said, tearing open a packet of beef crisps and laying them on the sticky table top. He delved in.

“He let me in. Showed me around,” I said. “It still smelled of bleach. But in the corners, somewhere, it was Christopher. Pipe smoke. Tweed.”

“But apart from that?”

I shook my head. “Empty. No drip. No linen. Nothing.”

“Bloody hell mate,” Andrew munched, beefy shrapnel flying from his lips. “And the chap? The agent? He couldn’t tell you anything? He didn’t have a contact number? A name?”

I smiled weakly.

“He went through his file. Said it had been rented by the owner of one
Heroes Incorporated.
That’s where he dropped off the keys. A Mr Neil Martin from Putney.”

I took a very long, very slow walk back to the shop because it wasn’t home.

I stopped once, just once, to throw up somewhere near Hyde Park and then I was off again.

I don’t know what I was expecting to find when I got back to the shop. My head wouldn’t focus. Maybe Christopher and Henry and Pete and Julio huddled outside with bags from the off licence. Ready to pop corks and cheer and divide up the money, asking where I’d been.

Maybe Laura. Wrapped in some vintage velvet coat, shoulders hunched, hood up, with a message. A change of rendezvous. Because I guess even then I was still hoping.

No, I don’t know what I was expecting.

But I know what I
wasn’t.

“Hello again,” I said, hauling up the shutters with a clatter, fussing for keys. “Come in, come in. You are here for me, I take it?”

“If we can step inside sir,” the Scottish Sergeant said and he and his Mancunian colleague clumped in behind me.

Their heavy boots and huge frames rustling in their jackets made the place look tiny, just as they had in my sitting room. I pulled out chairs in the back office, snapped on the portable heater and sat down.

They knew most of it, which surprised me. About Christopher (not his real name), Henry (not his real name), Pete (likewise), Julio (nope) and Laura (real name Margaret, which didn’t go at all).

Being British coppers, the first thing they wanted was tea. And then my version of events, starting with the car-jacking and Laura/Margaret’s arrival at my door ten days ago. Christ, was that all it had been? So I laid it all out for them in broad strokes, the Sergeant nodding, the Manc writing it all down. The Sergeant then proceeded to slide out a manilla envelope and produce some glossy 10×8 black and white photographs, laying them out one by one on my counter like a storyboard for
Sucker – The Movie.

“Yes,” I said with an uncomfortable cough. “That’s him. Christopher. At Claridge’s.”

“And that’s you talking to him. Going over your plan?”

“Hn? Er, yes, yes I suppose so.”

“You
suppose
?”

“I mean
our
plan sounds, y’know –”

“And this? Your shop?”

“Right where you’re sitting.”

“And you’re letting these men in to … ?”

“Well, that was on, what, the Saturday? Yes. The thirty-first. That was all part of it. Like I said. Preparing the shop. Props.”

“Oh, so they did this with your consent? You were aware of it
all
.”

“Of course,” I said. “They needed help with the wall hanging,” and I motioned at the blank space where a box once hung. “Using the till and everything.”

Manc made notes.

“And this?” Scot said, sliding another across the desk.

“Shit. When … that was
today
. Where were you …”

“Can you just confirm that the gentleman in the cab is you, sir?”

“Yes,” I said, staring at the frozen kiss, Laura’s hand about my neck. “Uhmm, look, I don’t know if this is possible or anything.” Scot looked at me. “My wife …”

“Mrs Martin.”

“Spencer-Martin,” I corrected. “She’s, y’know. Her dad’s …”

They looked blankly at me.

“Look, anyway, she doesn’t know.”

“Know?”

“About this. About anything. Laura, Grayson, the money, the airport. Any of it. And y’know –”

“Oh, you’d rather she didn’t find out.”

I smiled a little.

“If that’s at all possible.”

The policemen exchanged looks.

“Hmn. Mr Martin, I’m not sure you understand the full extent of the last few days’ events,” Scot said. He stood slowly and began to wander about the office, lifting up nick-nacks, peering into envelopes, sniffing at the junk. “You knowingly and deliberately conspired to defraud an American citizen to the tune of half a million pounds.”

“What?”

“You
say
that you were involved in this
con game
against your will but all our evidence suggests you were not only complicit, but you went out of your way to be as much help –”

“Wait, no
wait
,” I said hurriedly. “What are you … I mean,
I
was the – they were conning
me
. The
fifty thousand.
”

“Fifty – ?” the constable said, flipping back.

“Of course! That’s what this was all about! Getting me to trust them. They said, all along, Christopher, whatever his name is. He said it was all about
trust
. Get the mark to trust you.”