FRAUD Read online

  FRAUD

  a novel by

  Peter Davey

  © 2013

  For my wife Lyndy, for her tolerance, support and constructive criticism

  and for Joe and Kit

  ‘O what a tangled web we weave when first we practise to deceive.’

  Sir Walter Scott, Marmion

  ‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.’

  Shakespeare, As You Like It

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  2008

  CHAPTER TWO

  SIX YEARS EARLIER

  CHAPTER THREE

  THAT LITTLE TENT OF BLUE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  THE FAMOUS MR HAVERS

  CHAPTER FIVE

  FORWARD TO 2007

  CHAPTER SIX

  THE MAGIC SHOES

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  2008

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  NINETY MILE BEACH AND BEYOND

  CHAPTER ONE

  2008

  “Nicola, honey, there’s someone to see you.”

  Maisy’s charge was curled up on her bed, hugging a pillow and staring at the wall, which was four inches from the tip of her nose. At first she did not seem to hear what her nurse had said, but then, very slowly, she turned her head and stared up into her moon-like and relentlessly cheerful face. “Is it Michael?”

  “No, honey, I’m afraid it isn’t.”

  She turned sharply back. “I don’t want to see them then.”

  “He seems really nice. And quite cute. He’s from one of your fan clubs.”

  “Really?” she mumbled without interest.

  “Yeah. His name’s Dominic. You agreed to see him, remember?”

  She had no memory of agreeing to see anyone. Nonetheless, after a few moments’ consideration, she heaved a sigh and conceded – if only to shut Maisy up on the subject – to haul herself off her bed and walk with her to the reception area where a very tall young man with a mop of curly hair was standing awkwardly among the armchairs clutching a plastic carrier bag.

  *

  His name was Dominic Sealy and he was terrified. He had never been inside a psychiatric hospital before (or ‘rehabilitation clinic’ as it preferred to call itself) and, though he had had dealings with some famous authors in the course of his work, he had never met a celebrity on anything like the scale of Nicola Carson. Nonetheless, mingled with the terror was a distinct sense of triumph at having pulled off a major coup. It was the culmination of a process which had begun three weeks earlier with a somewhat grovelling letter to the hospital’s director explaining that he represented one of Nicola Carson’s fan clubs and had organised a card and email campaign among their members to assure her they were all thinking of her in this difficult time. Might it be possible, he wondered, to have a brief meeting with her to deliver them in person?

  He hadn’t held out much hope. But a week later he had received a letter from one Dr Lennox, Nicola Carson’s psychiatrist and the hospital’s director, saying that he had mentioned his request to her and she had agreed to see him. Dominic had gazed at the letter for almost a minute, scarcely able to believe its contents. That morning, however, as he’d driven through the main gates with all his cards and messages in a bag on the passenger seat of his ageing Golf Cabriolet, he had suffered a moment of terrible doubt. Did he really imagine that Nicola Carson – Oscar and BAFTA-winning star of All about Me, one-time face of Chanel and darling of Hello magazine – would suddenly, in the course of a brief and no doubt painfully awkward meeting, simply open her heart to him and confess everything? The place, at least, had not seemed too threatening – like a minor stately home from some period drama on television, complete with sweeping drive and spreading cedar trees. The old boy on the gate had waved him through without a murmur as soon as he explained who he was and that he had an appointment.

  He had been asked to sign in and wait in the reception area where he had been greeted by the said Dr Lennox – a stocky, brindled Scot in a white coat and gold-rimmed spectacles. “I had a look at your website,” he’d said, clearly to assure him he was not simply taking him on trust. “Good definition in the photographs and nothing too tacky, I’m thankful to say.” Dominic’s shy, rather gawky demeanour seemed to have worked in his favour on this occasion.

  “I’m agreeing to let you see Nicola because I feel some messages of goodwill from her fans might do her good. Despite her fame, her self-esteem is at rock bottom at the moment. I’ll allow you a few minutes alone with her but I’m counting on you not to mention anything controversial or upsetting – especially all that nonsense about her book.”

  It had flashed through Dominic’s mind that this doctor was taking an extraordinary risk, or an extraordinarily brave judgement call. After all, he could be anybody – he could be some nutter who’d pull out a knife and stab her, or pull out a gun and shoot her. He hadn’t been frisked. There must have been something about him that this psychiatrist – an expert, no doubt, in assessing human character – trusted.

  “I promise,” he had said. “And may I say that I thought all that stuff about her novel was nonsense too. Vicious nonsense.”

  “Good. Well, thankfully it all seems to have died down now. If you’d care to wait here, she’ll be along in a moment.”

  He had walked back into his office and Dominic, left alone, had toyed with the idea of making a dash for it. Then he turned from the window at the sound of softly approaching footsteps and there she was standing before him – Nicola Carson, the girl who had dominated his thoughts and his life for what now seemed an age. He stifled a gasp, unable to believe that this pasty, waif-like fragment of humanity in faded jeans and navy top, her black hair cut in a bob to the base of her neck, was the star whose image he had seen a thousand times on screens, in magazines, on hoardings, on the underground, on the sides of buses. Yet, despite her pallor and the shadows hollowing her eyes, he could not help being astonished by her beauty – something he only now truly appreciated, seeing her in the flesh. He extended his hand and momentarily felt a limp, tiny hand within it.

  “Miss Carson, it’s a real pleasure to meet you.”

  “Is it? Who are you, anyway?”

  “My name’s Dominic. Dominic Sealy. I represent one of your unofficial fan clubs. We’re based in... in Stratford, East London, but we have a major web presence throughout the globe. We’re listed on Google on page... well, I’m not exactly sure which page we’re on but we’re near the top. I’ve brought you some goodwill cards and emails – just a fraction of what I’ve received – and I just wondered if you could spare me a few moments of your time to give them to you.”

  She contemplated him vaguely. “Well, my diary’s pretty full right now. I might be able to squeeze you in between rebirthing class and electro-convulsive therapy. You’ll have to ask Maisy here – she’s my PA.”

  Dominic glanced at the smiling, chubby nurse who had positioned herself protectively at her side, then laughed a little too loudly when he realised she was joking.

  “Have you got any fags?”

  “Yes, I have as it happens.”

  “Let’s go in the garden then. I’m gasping for a smoke.”

  “You’ll need your jacket,” said Maisy.

  “No I won’t.”

  Watery sunlight was bestowing a gentle warmth on the wide stone terrace. It was mild for March. They settled on a bench overlooking the extensive gardens where a few patients were wandering dejectedly about, mostly alone, or were sitting hunched on other benches, gazing at the grass. Dominic, his fingers trembling, extracted two cigarettes from his packet of Superkings and gave her one, then attempted to light them – unsuccessfully – with the disposable lighter he’d picked up at his local. ‘God this is so typical,’ he thought, pa
nic-stricken, snapping ineffectually at the flint. ‘The most important meeting of my life and I didn’t have the foresight to bring a lighter that works!’ “I’m really sorry,” he laughed. She smiled indulgently.

  Finally, mercifully, a feeble flame flickered in the nozzle of the lighter and he thrust it at her face before it went out again. It survived just long enough to get his own alight too. Then they sat for a few moments smoking in silence, she clearly rejoicing in the first few drags and seeming scarcely aware of his presence.

  “It’s really good of you to see me,” he ventured. “You must get hundreds of visitors.”

  “No I don’t. Not many.”

  “Really?”

  She lapsed into a long silence, puffing slowly but regularly as though to top up the nicotine content of her bloodstream as quickly as possible. He noticed she wore a Kaballah string bracelet and had what looked like a phone number scrawled on the back of her hand with a ballpoint. He also spotted a bandage protruding from the cuff of her sweatshirt.

  “My agent's been a few times, but that’s just to see when I’ll be ready to go back and earn him more money. I think my mum came once.”

  “I’m amazed.”

  “Yeah, well,” she sighed, flicking some ash onto the flagstones. “You’re no fun any more, are you? When you’re ill.”

  A robin landed a few feet away and eyed them expectantly, its head cocked to one side. She watched it for a while. “Those little bastards come right up to you in this place. They’re really tame.”

  “That’s so sweet, isn’t it?”

  “No, it’s not sweet. It’s because they think we’ve got some food. I was sitting here having a sandwich the other day and this blackbird came up on the bench and tried to nick it off my plate.”

  “That’s amazing!”

  “No it’s not. It’s survival. It’s probably got young somewhere. Everything that lives wants to survive. And they’ll do anything. Birds. People. They’re all the fucking same.”

  They fell silent again then she suddenly said, “Bollocks.”

  Dominic was not quite sure how to respond.

  “Sorry. I quite often say bollocks à propos of nothing in particular. Just life. Is she still there?”

  “Who?”

  “My shadow. My conjoined twin.”

  Dominic glanced furtively over his shoulder to see Nicola’s nurse installed on another bench about twenty yards away and a little behind them, ostensibly reading a paperback.

  “Yes. She’s still there.”

  She turned and caught her eye then smiled and waved. Maisy waved back.

  “They have to watch me practically 24/7 because I harm myself. Also they don’t really know who you are so they’re checking you don’t start harassing me. Who are you, by the way?”

  “Well, as I said, I’m…”

  “Yeah yeah, I know, you’re from the Surbiton branch of my fan club. Who are you really?”

  Dominic felt the sweat spring from the pores in his armpits. “I’m sorry?”

  “Come on, I’ve met the sort of people who run fansites. You’re not one of them.”

  His heart was racing. He felt simultaneously hot and cold. “Well, we’re...we’re trying to cultivate a more serious appreciation of your work,” he said hastily, then realised that sounded extremely patronising.

  “So it’s not just soft porn, then? Like most of the crap on the internet?”

  “No! God no!”

  She took a deep drag on her cigarette and exhaled slowly. “So what do you do when you’re not running my fansite?”

  “I’m a writer.”

  “A writer? You mean a journalist?”

  “No, I’m a real writer. At least, trying to be.”

  “A real writer,” she repeated slowly, clearly amused by the phrase. “So have you published anything?”

  “No. No, I haven’t. Not yet.”

  She responded with silence. Dominic, heart still pounding, knew that this one opportunity he had gone to so much trouble to engineer was going to evaporate away if he didn’t somehow push things forward. “I’m a great admirer of your writing, though,” he said. “I really enjoyed ‘Loss’.”

  “Of course, you could be verbally harassing me and she wouldn’t know, would she? I guess that’s a chance she’s just got to take.”

  The robin flew away. At that moment, Nicola’s nurse approached to remind her it was time for her counselling session with Maggie Burns.

  “Can’t Maggie Burns wait a minute?” she frowned. “I’m having a conversation here!”

  “You know she can’t. She’s got other patients besides you.”

  “Well she shouldn’t have other patients besides me! Christ, the amount of preferential treatment I get, I might as well be in the Priory! I am a star, Maisy, in case I forgot to mention it.”

  “No, Nicola,” Maisy replied rather wearily, “you didn’t forget to mention it.”

  “Okay, okay” she sighed, rousing herself from the bench. “Maggie Burns hath spoken and all the world must obey.”

  As she was leaving, she turned back. “Thanks for coming, by the way. What was your name again?”

  “Dominic.”

  “Right. Dominic. Well you can come again, Dominic, if you want.”

  “Really?” he grinned, aware that he sounded like a child who had just been told it was going to Disneyland.

  “Yeah, why not? It passes the time. Coherent conversation’s rather at a premium in this place.”

  “So when shall I come?” he asked, flattered that she thought his conversation coherent.

  She shrugged and Maisy intervened. “You’ll have to phone beforehand to check that Nicola’s free.”

  “Yeah, I might be doing my salsa class or having a lobotomy. And don’t forget to bring your fags. And a lighter that works.” She then smiled, that world-famous smile that caused her lips to tighten and pucker slightly – a quirk which added to her beauty its multi-million dollar dimension of pure sexiness.

  “Don’t you want to take all these messages I’ve brought you?” Dominic asked.

  “Oh yeah. Right. Thanks,” she said, taking the bag with an almost conspiratorial twinkle. And there was that smile again.

  *

  Dominic was twenty-eight – almost exactly the same age, as it happened, as Nicola Carson. Unlike her, however, his life up until then had been unremarkable. Born and raised in Norwich, he had obtained a degree in media and creative writing at the University of East Anglia then worked for six years for a small but reputable publishing house called The Dragon’s Head, first as an editorial assistant and then as a fully-fledged editor. That job had ended four months earlier and he was now unemployed – or, at least, he was employed in studying Nicola Carson.

  Lying awake in his little bedroom on the second floor of a block of flats in Stratford, listening to a drunken rendition of ‘They all support the Arsenal’ from the street below, he found himself reliving every moment of his meeting with her that afternoon. For years she had been a concept, a fantasy which had been at once beautiful and elusive but now, all of a sudden, she was a real person who smiled and joked and smoked and had a phone number scrawled on the back of her hand. ‘She’s nothing like Tom Newcomb said,’ he thought to himself. ‘She’s just like anyone else. Only more interesting.’

  He cast his mind back over the exhaustive research he had done on her over the previous months. Though she had always wanted to be an actress and had given some memorable performances at university, she had not – like most of her colleagues – found fame through film, the stage or television but through writing. When little more than a student she had published a vast and stunning novel entitled Loss – a teenage girl’s odyssey in search of her birth mother – which had somehow tapped into all the frustrations and insecurities of youth, becoming an instant bestseller and making her the youngest ever winner of the Connaught Prize.

  He remembered clearly when Loss had burst on the scene. Close-ups of Nicola Carson�
�s exquisite face had been spread all over the Sunday supplements and Friday arts reviews; interviews by crusty old critics had coyly described how her raven hair tossed freely about her shoulders, her sudden, disarming peals of girlish laughter, her trick of thoughtfully stroking the sofa arm with the tip of her middle finger whenever she was discussing her private life. “If I have to look at that bimbo’s face one more time I’m going to throw up!” Sonia – one of the secretaries at the office – had exploded at the sight of Nicola on the cover of Elle.

  “She is a bloody good writer, though,” Greg, their resident geek, had retaliated.

  “Yeah, well you would say that – you’re a bloke. You keep your brains in your balls.”

  Trawling through the internet, Dominic had familiarised himself with every detail of her subsequent flight through the firmament. While the world was waiting with baited breath for her next masterpiece, she had met – on a book-signing tour in the States – an obese arthouse director named Hal Birling who had a reputation for unconventional casting. Once, in film school, he had attempted to cast Ronald Reagan as himself in a political satire entitled Old President goes Nutzoid which he had been concocting for his graduation assignment. Reagan’s aides, not surprisingly, declined the offer on the ageing ex-president’s behalf. When Hal met Nicola he had been working on a feature called All about Me but had yet to cast the lead. Nicola, already a fan, had seemed the answer to his prayers but his backers had been apprehensive about how a twenty-three-year-old English novelist was going to pull off playing a drug-addicted seventeen-year-old American drop-out. They need not have worried. She made them a fortune, was awarded an Oscar and a BAFTA and moved Hal Birling firmly from arthouse into mainstream.

  Thereafter she had worked with an energy which astonished and exhausted everyone around her, jetting from location to location (once she was juggling three projects simultaneously) as well as interviews, fashion shoots, product endorsements and even a bit of high profile charity work – her agent cutting merciless deals with producers and her life choreographed by her scarily efficient PA, Alison Dwyer. Chain-smoking, sleeping in snatches and seldom seeming to eat, the only concern of her coterie was how long any human constitution could tolerate such a regime. Dominic, however, lying in bed and staring at a wedge of streetlight bisecting his grubby ceiling, was only too aware that he was one of a handful of people on the planet who knew that Nicola’s Carson’s condition was not simply a case of celebrity burn-out – it was far, far more than that.