Trickery Read online

  ‘It must be an interesting job.’

  ‘It’s a marvellous job,’ he answered. ‘It’s lovely.’

  ‘And that’s why you go to the races?’

  ‘Race meetings is easy meat,’ he said. ‘You just stand around after the race, watchin’ for the lucky ones to queue up and draw their money. And when you see someone collectin’ a big bundle of notes, you simply follows after ’im and ’elps yourself. But don’t get me wrong, guv’nor. I never takes nothin’ from a loser. Nor from poor people neither. I only go after them as can afford it, the winners and the rich.’

  ‘That’s very thoughtful of you,’ I said. ‘How often do you get caught?’

  ‘Caught?’ he cried, disgusted. ‘Me get caught! It’s only pickpockets get caught. Fingersmiths never. Listen, I could take the false teeth out of your mouth if I wanted to and you wouldn’t even catch me!’

  ‘I don’t have false teeth,’ I said.

  ‘I know you don’t,’ he answered. ‘Otherwise I’d ’ave ’ad ’em out long ago!’

  I believed him. Those long slim fingers of his seemed able to do anything.

  We drove on for a while without talking.

  ‘That policeman’s going to check up on you pretty thoroughly,’ I said. ‘Doesn’t that worry you a bit?’

  ‘Nobody’s checkin’ up on me,’ he said.

  ‘Of course they are. He’s got your name and address written down most carefully in his black book.’

  The man gave me another of his sly, ratty little smiles. ‘Ah,’ he said. ‘So ’ee ’as. But I’ll bet ’ee ain’t got it all written down in ’is memory as well. I’ve never known a copper yet with a decent memory. Some of ’em can’t even remember their own names.’

  ‘What’s memory got to do with it?’ I asked. ‘It’s written down in his book, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, guv’nor, it is. But the trouble is, ’ee’s lost the book. ’Ee’s lost both books, the one with my name in it and the one with yours.’

  In the long delicate fingers of his right hand, the man was holding up in triumph the two books he had taken from the policeman’s pockets. ‘Easiest job I ever done,’ he announced proudly.

  I nearly swerved the car into a milk-truck, I was so excited.

  ‘That copper’s got nothin’ on either of us now,’ he said.

  ‘You’re a genius!’ I cried.

  ‘’Ee’s got no names, no addresses, no car number, no nothin’,’ he said.

  ‘You’re brilliant!’

  ‘I think you’d better pull in off this main road as soon as possible,’ he said. ‘Then we’d better build a little bonfire and burn these books.’

  ‘You’re a fantastic fellow,’ I exclaimed.

  ‘Thank you, guv’nor,’ he said. ‘It’s always nice to be appreciated.’

  The Surgeon

  First published in Playboy, January 1988

  ‘You have done extraordinarily well,’ Robert Sandy said, seating himself behind the desk. ‘It’s altogether a splendid recovery. I don’t think there’s any need for you to come and see me any more.’

  The patient finished putting on his clothes and said to the surgeon, ‘May I speak to you, please, for another moment?’

  ‘Of course you may,’ Robert Sandy said. ‘Take a seat.’

  The man sat down opposite the surgeon and leaned forward, placing his hands, palms downward, on the top of the desk. ‘I suppose you still refuse to take a fee?’ he said.

  ‘I’ve never taken one yet and I don’t propose to change my ways at this time of life,’ Robert Sandy told him pleasantly. ‘I work entirely for the National Health Service and they pay me a very fair salary.’

  Robert Sandy MA, M.CHIR, FRCS, had been at The Radcliffe Infirmary in Oxford for eighteen years and he was now fifty-two years old, with a wife and three grownup children. Unlike many of his colleagues, he did not hanker after fame and riches. He was basically a simple man utterly devoted to his profession.

  It was now seven weeks since his patient, a university undergraduate, had been rushed into Casualty by ambulance after a nasty car accident in the Banbury Road not far from the hospital. He was suffering from massive abdominal injuries and he had lost consciousness. When the call came through from Casualty for an emergency surgeon, Robert Sandy was up in his office having a cup of tea after a fairly arduous morning’s work which had included a gall-bladder, a prostate and a total colostomy, but for some reason he happened to be the only general surgeon available at that moment. He took one more sip of his tea, then walked straight back into the operating theatre and started scrubbing up all over again.

  After three and a half hours on the operating table, the patient was still alive and Robert Sandy had done everything he could to save his life. The next day, to the surgeon’s considerable surprise, the man was showing signs that he was going to survive. In addition, his mind was lucid and he was speaking coherently. It was only then, on the morning after the operation, that Robert Sandy began to realize that he had an important person on his hands. Three dignified gentlemen from the Saudi Arabian Embassy, including the Ambassador himself, came into the hospital and the first thing they wanted was to call in all manner of celebrated surgeons from Harley Street to advise on the case. The patient, with bottles suspended all round his bed and tubes running into many parts of his body, shook his head and murmured something in Arabic to the Ambassador.

  ‘He says he wants only you to look after him,’ the Ambassador said to Robert Sandy.

  ‘You are very welcome to call in anyone else you choose for consultation,’ Robert Sandy said.

  ‘Not if he doesn’t want us to,’ the Ambassador said. ‘He says you have saved his life and he has absolute faith in you. We must respect his wishes.’

  The Ambassador then told Robert Sandy that his patient was none other than a prince of royal blood. In other words, he was one of the many sons of the present King of Saudi Arabia.

  A few days later, when the Prince was off the danger list, the Embassy tried once again to persuade him to make a change. They wanted him to be moved to a far more luxurious hospital that catered only for private patients, but the Prince would have none of it. ‘I stay here,’ he said, ‘with the surgeon who saved my life.’

  Robert Sandy was touched by the confidence his patient was putting in him, and throughout the long weeks of recovery, he did his best to ensure that this confidence was not misplaced.

  And now, in the consulting-room, the Prince was saying, ‘I do wish you would allow me to pay you for all you have done, Mr Sandy.’ The young man had spent three years at Oxford and he knew very well that in England a surgeon was always addressed as ‘Mister’ and not ‘Doctor’. ‘Please let me pay you, Mr Sandy,’ he said.

  Robert Sandy shook his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he answered, ‘but I still have to say no. It’s just a personal rule of mine and I won’t break it.’

  ‘But dash it all, you saved my life,’ the Prince said, tapping the palms of his hands on the desk.

  ‘I did no more than any other competent surgeon would have done,’ Robert Sandy said.

  The Prince took his hands off the desk and clasped them on his lap. ‘All right, Mr Sandy, even though you refuse a fee, there is surely no reason why my father should not give you a small present to show his gratitude.’

  Robert Sandy shrugged his shoulders. Grateful patients quite often gave him a case of whisky or a dozen bottles of wine and he accepted these things gracefully. He never expected them, but he was awfully pleased when they arrived. It was a nice way of saying thank you.

  The Prince took from his jacket pocket a small pouch made of black velvet and he pushed it across the desk. ‘My father,’ he said, ‘has asked me to tell you how enormously indebted he is to you for what you have done. He told me that whether you took a fee or not, I was to make sure you accepted this little gift.’

  Robert Sandy looked suspiciously at the black pouch, but he made no move to take it.

  ‘My father