Paint. The art of scam. (17 page)

At the station
they were led in through the back and into a casual looking office where they
were left alone for a few moments until a policewoman appeared and led Polly
into another room via a complex network of corridors. Seymour was then joined
by an adolescent looking uniformed constable who sat with him in silence.

The Policewoman
sat Polly down in front of a desk and then sat herself in the corner and
smiled; her eyes fixed on Polly. There were a few uneasy minutes of waiting,
Polly aware of her body language, as if she were being studied in microscopic
detail.

The door suddenly
burst open and Shoal appeared with a note pad and sat down behind the desk. He
put the notepad neatly in front of him, opened it, reached inside his jacket
and after some clumsy fumbling retrieved a cheap biro, tossing it onto the
table next to the pad with a clatter. He sat back, laced the fingers of his two
hands together, placed them on his pot belly and looked at Polly.

‘Right then
Polly, this shouldn't take long. You feeling OK?’ said Shoal as he smiled a
smile that was hard to read, through his goatee beard.

‘Yes, yes I'm
fine.’

‘Good, good. Now,
Polly, let’s start right from the beginning shall we?’

Polly nodded. ‘Yes.
Ok. But I've already told another officer what happened when I was found in the
car in the ditch. And on the way to the hospital.’

Shoal leant
forward. ‘Yes Polly, I know, but now I want
you
to tell
me
.’ There was a hardness to
his tone that made Polly involuntarily shuffle in her seat.

‘Ok. Well, I got
to work this morning as usual and...’

‘As usual Polly?’
interrupted Shoal.

‘Well yes.’

‘It seems you
missed the company bus this morning.’

‘Yes, yes that's
right?’

‘Does this happen
a lot?’

‘Well, yes. Well
not a lot, but sometimes.’

‘So you got to
work on public transport.’

‘Yes.’

‘Which meant you
were late for work.’

‘Yes.’

‘I see. Carry on
Polly.’ said Shoal picking up his pen and, after some scribbling to get it
working, jotted down some badly written words. Polly hoped she wasn't showing
the irritation she felt by Shoal's interruption.

‘And when I got
off the bus, I saw Mr. Arnold. I was really surprised.’

‘Surprised Polly?
Why were you surprised?’

‘Well I've never
known him to be late for work before and he seemed to be staggering, as if he
was about to fall over.’

‘I see.’ Said
Shoal. ‘And did you speak to him?’

‘I said hello to
him and made some joke about him being late for once.’

‘And did he laugh
Polly?’

‘No. He was a bit
angry. He told me he'd been to the doctors.’

Polly, went
through her version of the events of her morning, aided by continual
interventions from Shoal to dissect her every movement into the finest detail.

Seymour,
meanwhile, sat waiting with the young policeman wondering how long Polly would
be. He was hungry. The night before she had promised to do one of her wonderful
curries, the ingredients for which she was to pick up on her way home from
work. That obviously wasn't going to happen now. Still the shop around the
corner stays open late on Fridays. He wondered if she’d got paid? Probably not,
given that the gang had nicked the whole payroll: apparently. Mr. Hussein at
the shop refused to give credit to anyone. Seymour had read somewhere that it
was a Muslim thing. That's why Muslims had a historical dislike for Jews, as
Jews invented credit. Be that as it may, you'd think they'd move forward on
that one for Christ's sake, I mean Mr. Hussein was living in a capitalist
system now, which, by definition, depends on credit for its growth and I bet he
borrowed loads of money to buy that brand spanking new BMW he was always
cleaning. Maybe not though, the bloody prices he charges. If you don't drink,
smoke, do drugs or go out then it's quite reasonable to assume there would a
lot of cash washing around. Still that's the way it is. Suppose he had to get
some pleasure from the endless hours he worked. Fancy depending on a car to
make you feel good about being alive. Anyway, Polly would find a way, she
always did. She could make a three course meal out of a packet of crisps.

'How long will
this take? Any idea?’ Seymour asked the young constable.

The young
constable, busy with a white headed spot on the side of his nose, shrugged his
shoulders and shuffled in his seat. ‘Not sure sir.’

Seymour sighed
and checked his fingernails.

‘Can't stand
places like this can you?’ said Seymour. ‘They always make me feel nervous.
Like I've done something wrong, even if I haven't. I even feel guilty when I go
to the dentist. I suppose it's the....’

Suddenly the door
opened and a sickly looking uniformed policeman appeared.

‘Mr. Capital?’

Seymour stood up.

‘Ah thank God,
can we can go home now? Where's Polly?’

‘Not quite sir,
Mrs. Capital is downstairs with Sergeant Shoal, could you come this way please
sir?’

Seymour, puzzled,
was led through to a small office and sat in front of the small Formica table,
while the officer slumped down opposite him and pulled out a pen.

‘Now sir, just a
few questions.’ said the officer, who seemed to find it difficult to look assertive
but was doing his best. This man was not happy, Seymour concluded, his wife has
probably just left him, or maybe his mother.

‘Your full name
and address sir?’

‘Seymour Capital,
1a Argyle street, Hove.’

‘Occupation.’

Seymour loved
being asked that question. ‘Artist,’ he said in his usual manner, as if it were
obvious.

‘So sir, can you
just tell me what happened this morning?’

‘This morning?’

‘Yes sir, this
morning.’

Seymour thought
for a moment. ‘Well nothing out of the ordinary, I made Polly her breakfast,
she went to work and I...Um...Well cleaned up the flat...a bit...and
um...worked a bit...um.’

The man stared at
the blank notepad in front of him.

‘And how was Mrs.
Capital before she went to work?’

‘Fine. She was a
bit stressed out because she was running late, but apart from that, fine. Why?’

‘She didn't seem
nervous at all?’

‘No. Well she
wasn't particularly happy about going to work but then who would? She hates the
place.’

‘She doesn't like
her job sir?’

‘You kidding? She
despises it! Don't blame her either, have you seen that factory? God!. Sooner
she gets out of that place the better. She's going to start acting as my agent
you see. You know selling my work. She's only working there whilst I build up
my stock a bit. As soon as she gets the time to promote my work, she'll be able
to quit the place. Yeh sooner the better if you ask me.’

‘Mmmm. I see. And
when was she planning on starting on this promoting of your work?’

‘Soon. Well she's
already getting a few contacts together, been quite busy, you know going to
galleries and stuff. She'll pull it off somehow. She's an amazing woman, a real
operator.’

‘Operator sir?’

‘Yeh she's just
one of those people who, when she puts her mind to something, nothing will stop
her.’

‘I see.’

The officer
fiddled with his pen. The pad was still blank and he seemed to be struggling to
find questions to ask Seymour. Seymour continued to be generous with useless
information on the subject of his work and Polly's undying enthusiasm for it.

Downstairs Shoal
was pushing Polly hard, continually zooming in on details of the days events,
asking repeated questions in different ways.

‘Where did they
let you go?’

‘I told you. They
didn't. I escaped.’

‘How did you get
out of the barn?’

‘I, I can't
remember, it all happened so fast. There was a fight.’

‘A fight?’

‘Yes, they
started to argue in the van about me and Mr. Arnold. Is he OK?’

‘He's a pretty
sick man I'm afraid, but he's alive.’

‘Thank God. They
thought they'd killed him. So did I.’ said Polly, her head dropping to escape
momentarily from both Shoal and the policewoman's piercing stares.

‘So. They started
to argue?’

‘Yes and then
they started hitting each other, it was horrible, one of them hit another one
in the face. Oh God there was blood everywhere. One of them had a gun, he was
pointing it at everyone.’

‘What sort of gun
was it Polly?’

‘I don't know, I
don't know anything about guns.’

‘Can you try and
describe it to me then.’

‘Well it was
short and stubby, with two big barrels.’

‘Like a shotgun
but shorter?’

‘Yes.’

‘Right. So how
many men were there Polly?’

‘Three or four I
think. I'm not sure. It was all so fast. Maybe four. Oh I don't know. God!’

Out of nowhere
Polly suddenly broke down, her whole body began heaving uncontrollably,
fighting to breath. She dropped her head again, tears welled up into her eyes,
her mouth quivered.

Shoal sat back
for a few moments; waiting for Polly to settle.

‘Look Polly, I
know this is difficult for you, but you're all we've got at the moment. So
please try to remember. Did you get a good look at them? Was there anybody in
the van from the factory?’

‘I don't know.
They all had stockings over their heads. It was horrible.’

‘The driver? He
couldn't have had stockings.’

‘I didn't see the
driver. There were boxes piled up. I couldn't see anything in front.’

‘Oh. I see.’

Polly started to
sob again. The time had come for the lies to start. She wasn't thinking
straight and wondered if she had been all day.

‘Any names
mentioned at all? Foreign accents, speech impediments, anything?’

‘No, no, no. I
don't know, I can't remember!’ mumbled Polly as she again fell apart and began
sobbing uncontrollably.

Shoal leant
forward and glanced over at the policewoman in the corner.

‘Polly. I'm sorry
to be so hard. You must be exhausted. But I must get as much information as possible,
time is running out. OK?’

Polly nodded and
drew a deep breath to compose herself.

‘So. Lets go back
to when the van stopped.’

‘The van stopped
at a farm and someone opened a barn door and it drove inside. Then everybody
got out.’

‘And you?’

‘Yes, they made
me get out. Then the one with the gun pointed it at me. He told the one who
took me hostage to take the gun from him and shoot me. But he wouldn't, so he
aimed it at me and pulled the trigger. But nothing happened. Then he checked
the barrel and it wasn't loaded. Then one of the other men said he'd unloaded
it because they'd agreed not to use guns or something and then, God, all hell
broke loose.’

‘You mean that's
when they started fighting again.’

‘Yes and started
beating the hell out of each other, it was dark I couldn't see anything. All I
could hear was yelling and screaming and thumping. I was so frightened. I hid
somewhere in the corner of the barn. Then I heard a car pull up and two more
men came in. They left the door open. Then they started to try to break up the
fight. That's when I got out. I saw the car outside. The keys were in it. I
just panicked. I got in and drove like hell.’

‘Did they see you
escape?’

‘They must have
done, I saw one of them in the rear view mirror chasing me down the lane but I
was well ahead by then. I just drove and drove.’

‘Right. Then
another car hit you?’

‘Yes, yes, I
don't remember how it happened, I just remembered ending up in the ditch, I
wasn't hurt, just a bit shocked. I managed to get out. Then the police car came
along. That's all I know. Oh God please, please that's enough!’ cried Polly,
cupping her face with her hands.

Shoal sat back
again in his chair and sighed loudly.

‘And you didn’t
see a Range Rover arrive, before you escaped?’

‘A Range Rover?
No, I’ve already told you, nobody else was there.’

‘OK Polly,
that'll do for now, you can go home now, but look, we will have to talk to you
again soon, you understand that don't you.’

Polly nodded,
rubbing her eyes.

‘That's good. Ok
Hilary,’ said Shoal gesturing to the Policewoman. ‘Arrange to get Mr. and Mrs.
Capital home will you? Look, we're going to have to put an officer outside your
home for a few days Polly. For your safety you understand and I'll arrange for
you to be brought down to the station tomorrow, say tennish? I'm sorry Polly.
But you do understand don't you?’