Manipulation
I felt the coolness of the shadow slowly move over me. I opened my eyes and looked up to the the steward standing in my sun, holding a tray that contained two drinks; a vodka martini for Helen and a tom collins for me. I tipped him generously and sat up to enjoy my ice-cold drink. We clinked glasses to celebrate to first drink of the day. We were lazing in deck chairs on the Manipuowac, the flagship cruise liner of the Polish Blue Star fleet. She was cruising slowly across a warm, calm cerulean, Adriatic Sea, nothing to see but the sea and the sun slowly dipping to the horizon. I exulted in our laziness and thought back to my working life as a welder in a fabrication shop in the metal bashing district’ of Birmingham
I had worked for the medium sized company for over twenty years. I started the lottery syndicate about fifteen years ago after one of my work mates won £100 one day. I thought,’ this must be worth a go,’ and it sort of went on from there. We got to about hundred people eventually so we had a weekly individual sub of £3. We won quite a bit in dribs and drabs so I suggested that we invest the winnings rather than just pay out a few pound here and there. Everyone agreed as they had this fantasy of the money piling up.
I suggested opening a bank account and said it should be in someone else’s name to make sure ‘I wouldn’t run off with it.’ As usual everyone was too lazy to take on the work so I was ‘persuaded’ to run it. This I did - under my own name of course. I then suggested that we opened a stocks and shares ISA with a share supermarket such as Hargrates Linksdown. Again, they all insisted, in spite of my insincere protestations, that I did it in my name. I said we would have a great prizegiving day twenty years after we started, ‘After all,’ I said,’ investing is for the long term.’ - they all agreed with £ signs in their eyes.
I went for a multi manager fund and invested a monthly sum of £1,000. This meant that the ISA limit of £15,000 was not exceeded so I didn’t have to deal with HMRC. At the end of the first year, the fund had risen by 16% so there was £12,960. The next year was even better with 20% growth. To cut a long story short at the end of ten years there was £275,000 in the fund consisting of the subs, fund growth and dividends. There was also £36,000 in the bank. Both were under my name. I had told the other punters in the group that the investment ‘had not done too bad but don’t get your heart set on a Rolls just yet.’ I think this is called ‘managing expectations’ in management-speak.
The tenth anniversary was getting closer so I spent the final six months making the arrangements for Mr ( name to be agreed ) and Mrs (ditto ) to disappear complete with over £300,000. It took some persuading to get the ISAs and Bank account to pay out in cash but I managed it, with my air of injured innocence, ‘Don’t you trust me?’ I left £1,200 in the bank account to reduce suspicions.
It was all going well and we were having a great time until, one day, we were recognised by one of my mates from the fabrication shop who happened to be on the same cruise but under a cheaper fare. He asked why we were travelling under assumed names. He phoned another of our mates with the news and before could get off the ship, the whole lot came tumbling down around our ears.
My colleagues from the fabrication shop were not best pleased with us but I thought it was going a bit far to involve the police. After all, I had only done what the stockbrokers and bankers had been doing for years to ‘hard working families.’
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