Surprise, Surprise!

Surprise, Surprise by Neil McCall

Committing fraud is easy; the difficult part is, of course, not getting
caught. Although a mere novice in the dishonesty business, Maureen was
determined not to get caught. So she restricted her communication with
her young friend Shelley to handwritten notes or, when they really
needed to converse face-to-face, an apparently chance meeting in the
local park; Emails and even the telephone were banned, for someone,
somewhere has always taken a recording. To those few who knew them
both, they maintained that their friendship had petered out; after all,
they had only sat together at bingo a few times and the age difference
made their relationship unsustainable. For if the withdrawals from Mrs
Edwards' savings account should ever be questioned there would be
immediate suspicion thrown upon Shelley who, as occasional carer, had
obvious access to the house and its contents. Maureen had therefore
advised her to keep a diary and ensure that the time she spent at the
old lady's house was carefully recorded; if Maureen could effect the
withdrawals at a time when Shelley was regularly at work in the house
the trail would soon go cold and the bank would be held liable.

Now where should she take the money out? The local branch was clearly
out of the question; they may have known Mrs Edwards personally.
Maureen went to the city centre branch to "case the joint", but the
place was bristling with CCTV cameras and a keen young security guard
was standing in the doorway eagerly scanning faces as though he could
determine potential fraudsters from their shifty expressions and
alert
the tellers accordingly.

Maureen found a much better option, a sleepy market town twenty miles
away. She travelled out on the train, wandered into the branch
practicing her confused, doddery persona and enquired as to the
location of the library, but her keen eyes had already spotted the lack
of CCTV cameras; good! She had also spotted the lack of customers, but
she reckoned that if she performed the transaction on a busy market day
there would be far less chance of her being remembered, and also it
would be too far from Mrs Edwards' home to accuse Shelley of "nipping
out" to do the dirty deed.

Come market day Maureen was prepared; with the skilful application of
make-up and some dreadfully dowdy clothes she had found in an Oxfam
shop she had managed to age herself twenty years; she had also acquired
a walking stick and a pronounced hobble. Shelley had stolen not only
the bank passbook but also Mrs Edwards' pension book in case Maureen
was asked to prove her identity; the passbook, with its incriminating
entry, would somehow get "lost" afterwards, but the pension book must
be returned to the house as soon as possible. A passport or a driving
licence would have been better, but Mrs Edwards, like many elderly
people, possessed neither.

On the day chosen for the crime the branch was, as Maureen had
suspected, much busier than before - in fact, there seemed to be a buzz
of excitement around the place. Market's probably the most exciting
thing which ever happens here, she surmised. The queue slowly shuffled
forwards and Maureen had time to study the two cashiers who were
working that day. She didn't at all like the look of the older one, a
lady of around her own age with a probing stare; the second cashier was
a young Asian girl - much better! Maureen had to endeavour to be served
by the Asian and hope that, if the fraud were discovered and it came to
detailed descriptions or even, perish the thought, an identity parade,
she'd not be able to distinguish one elderly white lady from another.
But when she reached the head of the queue the older cashier was the
first one free; time for Plan B! Maureen managed to drop her withdrawal
slip on the floor and, in slowly reaching to pick it up, spilt a few
small coins from her purse. It worked! Although the customer behind her
gallantly collected all the lost coins, Maureen ushered him to the
counter ahead of her whilst pretending to fumblingly replace the coins
one at a time. Maureen became conscious of a sort of hum and giggle
from somewhere she couldn't see as she eventually approached the
counter out of turn. But the young Asian girl accepted the withdrawal
slip for five hundred pounds without a murmur; moreover, she was now
grinning broadly. Shelley, who used to work at the post office, had
warned her not to be greedy and to only request a small fraction of the
available balance as the scam, if successful, could easily be repeated.
So why the hilarity all of a sudden? Stay calm, stay calm, Maureen told
herself as she stuffed the money in her purse and shuffled towards the
exit.

Suddenly a side door burst open; out came the Asian girl, accompanied
by a smart man of around Maureen's age who was obviously the branch
manager and a scruffier man holding a camera and microphone.
"Congratulations!" cooed the Asian girl. "You're our one millionth
customer, Mrs Edwards!"
And the manager brought out an iced cake he had been holding behind his
back and thrust it in her arms, whilst the other man took several rapid
photographs. The second man then thrust his microphone beneath
Maureen's nose.
"Would you like to say a few words for the Cheshire Evening Globe?" he
asked.

Maureen didn't want to say any words whatsoever; with the reactions of
a woman of a mere forty-five, she shoved the cake firmly in the
manager's face, then disabled the newspaperman with a sharp crack of
her walking stick on his knee. She threw the stick at the Asian girl
and hared away before any of the other staff or customers could
react.

Maureen feared that the next time anyone tried to give her a cake it
would have a file hidden inside.