Page 15 of Read Between The Lines

‘Doris, as well as being very well read, and an extremely popular bookstagrammer, is also the retired CEO of a Fortune 500 company, who in the latter years of her career, dedicated herself to using her knowledge to support start-ups and provide mentoring to would-be business owners. She mostly devotes her time to her literary pursuits nowadays, but I know for a fact that she’d be happy to give you the benefit of her wealth of knowledge, should her favourite librarian ask. She still has a lot of connections in useful places, you know.’

I omitted to mention that the reason Doris concentrated on her bookstagram nowadays was because the pension debacle had ruined her confidence. It would be a wonderful bonus if being asked to assist Leo with his business plan helped her regain some of it.

I took a triumphant sip of the hot chocolate. It was lukewarm now, but it still tasted delicious. I knew I’d made a powerful argument. Surely Leo would have to agree to my proposal?

There was a long pause while Leo pretended to wrestle with his decision. But I was quietly confident that I had him on my hook.

‘Okay, that does sound like an interesting offer,’ he said eventually, before checking his watch again. ‘But I wasn’t lying when I said I have somewhere else I need to be soon. So, you’ve got precisely one minute to convince me that you have a better plan to track down your fraudster than simply trying to hack into the SO Ox website and find his IP address. In case you weren’t aware, that’s an utterly futile course of action, and you can have that advice for free.’ I must’ve looked startled, because he grinned. ‘You’re not the only one who can observe what’s going on in the library. And no, I haven’t agreed to help you yet.’

But he still hadn’t left. That had to be a good sign.

‘Okay, so this is how the app works.’ I explained the vetting process and the geographical restrictions on becoming a member. ‘So, although Scammer Brian clearly isn’t a soldier who’s been off on deployment, whoever he really is must be an actual person who’s able to show genuine proof of being from this area. Which means, it’s possible for us to find him and confront him about what he’s been up to.’

‘There are many, many ways around those kind of superficial security measures, but let’s assume that what you say is true. Even if our perpetrator does have some genuine connection to Oxford, that still doesn’t get us any closer to discovering his true identity.’

‘It’s also a boutique app with a limited membership, which narrows the pool of suspects. I might not know what he actually looks like, but I know what he sounds like, thanks to the voice notes he sent me. I have a few ideas for our initial strategy, but I was hoping you could help me work out the finer details,’ I admitted.

‘And if I still say no?’ He tried one final time.

‘Oh, I’m not giving up. I may be many things, but I’m certainly not a quitter. I have to do this. It’s the right thing to do. I thought you would be the type to understand the importance of the moral obligation. But maybe I was wrong.’ I let the silence hang for a minute, before continuing, ‘I’ll go wading in, and no doubt get myself into all kinds of trouble while you enjoy watching from the safety of the business section, as you continue to battle with your thwarted ambitions.’

Had I laid it on too thick? But he was the first to blink. Success.

Leo sighed. ‘Fine. You’ve got me. Well played. Game, set and match. I concede defeat. I will help you on the terms that you’ve already specified.’

‘That’s brilliant, thank you, I really appreciate it,’ I said, reaching out to grab his hand in delight before thinking better of it. I tried to cover the move by picking up my hot chocolate mug for another slurp before realising it was already empty.

‘Not so fast. Before you get too carried away, I have some terms and conditions of my own.’

I should have known it wouldn’t be that easy.

‘I’m listening.’

‘One, if you want to work with me, you must listen to my advice,’ he said.

I nodded, pedantically noting that he’d failed to specify that I had to follow his advice. A rooky error.

‘Two, if I say stop, we stop. While you have a touching tendency to believe the best of people, you must admit that it’s part of the reason you’re in this situation in the first place. I refuse to let you blunder into a whole heap of trouble.’

I pulled a face. Let him play the overprotective alpha male if it made him happy. I’d soon prove to him I wasn’t the naïve fool he believed me to be.

‘And three.’ He paused. ‘Actually, I don’t think there is a third. The second guideline should cover all eventualities. Do I have your agreement?’

‘Yes.’ I gave him my sweetest smile.

‘Why does that lack of hesitation make me even more certain that I’m an idiot to be agreeing to this?’ he said wearily.

‘Let’s get to work,’ I said, holding my hand out once more to shake his.

‘What am I letting myself into?’ he said. ‘Right, I guess we’d better swap numbers, and I’ll be in touch at some point so we can come up with a plan.’

ChapterSix

Of course, I had no intention of waiting around for Leo to deign to call me, especially as I wasn’t completely convinced that he was actually going to, given the note of reluctance in his voice when we parted. There was no time to waste. Every hour we dallied, could be another hour the bogus Brian James caused further heartbreak and duped someone out of their life savings. I would never forgive myself if another person suffered because I’d failed to get a move on.

Being a librarian, I decided more research was in order. Knowledge is power, after all. I spent the rest of my weekend wading through local newspaper archives to see if I could detect whether there was a growing trend of scammers targeting people in Oxford. I also listened to as many true crime podcasts as I could find on the subject of romance fraudsters, educating myself about their techniques and learning the methods that law enforcement used to bring them down. It was a demoralising experience, and frightening to see in black and white how the odds were so stacked in the favour of the wrongdoer, but I refused to let myself get downcast about it. I was taking positive action and that was what was important.

Then I turned my attention to teaching myself some of the practical skills I was going to need for our investigation. One of the first things I learnt was how to do a reverse image search of the photos Scammer Brian had sent me, kicking myself for not having protected myself with this basic bit of research before. It took a little bit of digging, but I managed eventually to track down the originals. They belonged to a genuine British army officer who’d received a medal for his brave action in saving a family after an earthquake in the Middle East. Not only had the fake Brian stolen the images, he’d also pinched part of the man’s circumstances to form his back story. He must have been rubbing his hands together with glee to come across a scenario so perfect that it looked like it’d been intentionally designed to reel in gullible targets like me.

---