Our House(29)

‘You know, the lady at number sixty-five? Teaches piano? She was ordering a new bank card and her call to the bank was intercepted by scammers. They phoned her back and got her to divulge her pin and then they sent a courier to her house to pick up her old card. By the time she realized, they’d almost emptied her account. Thousands, apparently.’

There was a delay before he spoke. ‘Banks never send couriers to pick up old cards.’

‘We know that, yes. It just shows how convincing they must have been. Alison says even the couriers don’t know they’re in on a scam – they’ve just been booked for a regular job. Poor Carys was distraught. I’ve already phoned Mum and Dad about it and you should tell your mum as well.’

Another pause, then, ‘Why?’

He was beginning to frustrate me. ‘Because these fraudsters obviously prey on older people! You know, they’re more trusting than we are, not so confident to challenge a change in procedure.’

‘Right.’

I frowned to myself. ‘You don’t seem very interested in this, Bram. I think we all need to be really vigilant if criminals are operating in Alder Rise.’

He gave a weary sigh. ‘Come on, Fi, Carys was just a bit gullible. Everyone knows you never give pin numbers or passwords over the phone. Let’s not get carried away.’

I felt a surge of indignation. Though he’d never been community-spirited (except in the alcoholic sense), I’d always felt certain of his respect for my efforts, but the way he was dismissing poor Carys’s ordeal was flippant, almost arrogant. ‘This kind of crime is on the rise, apparently. We got a booklet from the police.’

‘The police have been round?’ He sounded startled.

‘No, it came through the door. It tells you about all the current scams, how they work, how you can protect yourself.’

‘Sounds more like a catalogue to me. If we didn’t know how to rip off our neighbours before, we will now.’

‘Bram!’ It was a while since he’d been obstructive like this. Since our new arrangements had begun, he’d been, as I’d told Polly, meekly obliging. ‘How can you make a joke of this? The victims are our neighbours, ordinary hard-working people like us.’

‘Sorry, I’m a bit distracted, just waiting to go into a meeting with Neil. Of course we must all be vigilant. We could be in the grip of some Ukrainian crime ring. Or Nigerian. I don’t know who our underworld enemies are these days.’

I’d had enough of this. I had work to do myself. ‘Anyway, the reason I’m calling is there’s a meeting with a community officer tomorrow evening at eight so I wondered if you could stay a bit late with the boys while I go along?’

‘Sure.’

I ended the call. He was preoccupied, that was obvious, and I presumed there was something going on in his private life. Maybe I thought I’d even have a casual look around the flat on Friday evening for signs of female habitation. I certainly wasn’t going to ask him outright because that way lay the fraught waters of emotional complication, maybe even the temptation to swim back downstream.

Yes, of course I wish I’d asked. I wish I’d demanded to know.

#VictimFi

@val_shilling Aargh, I’m not going to get anything done today, am I?





Bram, Word document

‘Jesus Christ, Bram,’ Neil barked, ‘how the fuck did that happen?’

I readjusted, pulled the hangdog face he was expecting, not the haunted contortion I’d seen reflected in the glass wall of his office moments earlier.

‘Was it in one of those new twenty-mile-an-hour zones? I thought they weren’t enforceable yet?’

‘No, it was out of town, mostly.’

‘?“Mostly”? There speaks a serial offender.’

His response bordered on admiration, which reminded me of something the instructor had said on my speed awareness course: ‘Would you be so quick to tell your mates if you’d been caught drunk-driving instead of speeding? No? And yet they’re equally life threatening.’ And she’d caught my eye, mine especially.

‘So what’s it been like, not driving?’ he said.

‘You get used to it – it’s already been a while. I’m really sorry for not saying anything sooner, mate. What I need to know is, is it going to be a problem? Work-wise?’

‘Technically, yes, a big problem. But since it’s you . . .’ As improperly as Saskia had been proper, Neil now laughed. ‘You muppet. We’ll just get one of the interns to drive you around. Till when?’

‘The middle of February. That would be great, Neil, thank you. Just on the days when the routes between calls are a bit awkward. I’m happy getting the train to and from home.’

‘Happy? You’re kidding, right? I wouldn’t get on one of those commuter trains if you paid me. I’d rather rollerskate in.’

‘They’re a nightmare,’ I agreed. ‘Constantly delayed. I was almost late for the conference last week.’

Another seed scattered, but I needn’t have bothered because he was too busy singing the lyrics to ‘Breaking the Law’ to notice. I had never been more grateful to have such a clown as my direct superior. There weren’t enough David Brents left in the working world.

‘Five points if you can name the band,’ he challenged me.