Page 11 of Read Between The Lines

Thank you for raising your concerns about another member of this app. After a thorough investigation, we have concluded that Brian James is a legitimate user. He will however receive a warning notification that his message could have been misinterpreted as a request for money. We take such matters very seriously and are grateful for you drawing it to our attention. As our terms and conditions policy states, we operate a two-strikes-and-out system. Unfortunately, we also have to issue you with a warning for making a complaint against another user which turned out to be unfounded. We hope you enjoy continuing to use SO Ox. Happy dating!

Yours sincerely,

The team at SO Ox

An unfounded complaint? How dare they give me a warning when I was the innocent party in all this? That was a flawed system at work. In fact, it was downright sinister. Who knew what other shady characters could be operating under the protection of the app which seemed to be condoning dodgy behaviour? I was properly livid now. Despite all the information I’d provided them, they still thought that Brian James was a legitimate user. It was unbelievable. The demand for money wasn’t a matter of interpretation; it was clearly there in black and white. And how could I enjoy ‘happy dating’, knowing that the app was potentially a festering hotbed of scammers who continued to get away with it because there was a ‘two-strikes’ policy? I’d never trust anyone from the app again. The response was so inadequate I would have laughed, if I wasn’t so full of rage. And to top it all, they’d claimed to have carried out a ‘thorough investigation’– in less than four of the twenty-four hours they’d promised. They’d essentially given Scammer Brian their blessing to carry on with impunity. Even worse, they’d basically given him guidance on how to be more subtle with his scam, making him all the more dangerous.

I knew I’d been lucky. I’d got wise to the scheme before I’d lost anything more than a little bit of dignity. But others might not be so fortunate. What if it had been a retiree like Doris who’d been targeted? She still berated herself for following legitimate but bad financial advice against her better instincts in the pursuit of love. Falling victim to a scammer like this would kill her. What about the other library users, many of whom also scraped by, working all hours to make ends meet, what if they got tricked out of everything they owned because they committed the sin of wanting a bit of companionship? People like the fake Brian James shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it, taking love and manipulating it in order to steal and destroy. Something had to be done. They needed to be stopped. Maybe the SO Ox app would have to reconsider their position if I reported Scammer Brian to the police?

But that irksome voice of reason soon piped up again. If the people at the app didn’t think there was enough to my complaint to act upon it, the police were hardly going to be any different. They were probably up to their eyes in much more serious incidents. Thankfully, the crime rate in Oxford was significantly lower than the Inspector Morse books made out, but that didn’t mean they’d have the time to give more than a cursory glance at my problem.

I looked down at the copy ofGaudy Nightlying discarded on my lap. The heroine Harriet Vane was a writer who took matters into her own hands to investigate a mystery which was causing pain and suffering to those who were dear to her. Why couldn’t I follow her example and carry out my own investigation? I could track down the fraudster, find more substantial evidence of his wrongdoing, then take a cut and dried case to the police. Somebody needed to stop him. Why couldn’t it be me?

I returned to the reshelving trolley full of resolve and with a spring in my step. As I walked around the library with my squeaky cart of books, I started to put together a plan of action. Maybe I could find Scammer Brian by evaluating his online footprint, establishing his pattern and tracking down the other sordid corners of the internet where he carried out his nefarious business. That was how they went about it in crime novels, anyway, and it seemed to work for them.

My fingers hovered by a volume calledHacking for Dummies. But, judging from the blurb, it seemed to be more geared towards learning how to protect yourself from rogue operatives, rather than helping you work out who was behind it. And if I was being completely honest with myself, did I really have the skillset to suddenly turn computer whizz and decode whatever information might be out there, to discover the real identity of the so-called Brian James? My search abilities were more suited to tracking down rare books and obscure authors. It was all well and good for the amateur detectives of the Golden Age of crime fiction to waltz around getting their man, armed only with logic and a few smart quips, but with the internet, there were so many more places to hide nowadays.

What I really needed was professional help and guidance from somebody who knew what they were doing. Maybe I could hire a private detective who specialised in this area? Weren’t they the modern equivalents of Sherlock Holmes? The crime fiction shelves of the library were full of the adventures of go-getting PIs who never failed to catch their man, even if the police had been floundering for years. I slipped between the stacks in the classics section, and quickly took out my phone to google ‘private investigator Oxford.’

A host of options popped up promising complete discretion for private surveillance, corporate work, and the somewhat sinister-sounding ‘spouse investigations’. I was astonished by the amount of choice out there, and the range of services they offered. It was pretty concerning to realise there was enough dodgy behaviour going on to warrant such a thriving industry, judging by the slick graphics of their high-end websites. But as I scrolled through the options, none of them mentioned anything about being specialists in sniffing out romance fraudsters. And on closer inspection, they all seemed to be based in London rather than my home city, not to mention the fact that without exception they charged a small fortune.

Okay, so the private detective option was a no-go. I was back to square one, relying on my own ingenuity. But even Harriet Vane had been able to consult gentleman sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey as her investigation had grown more complex. As I put my phone away with a sigh, my gaze fell on Leo Taylor beavering away at whatever it was he was working on in the business section. Despite his promise, his feet had crept back up on the seat opposite. He obviously felt my stare because he looked up and guiltily lowered his trainers to the ground, smiling apologetically at me. I frowned back, an idea starting to form. I dismissed it immediately; I wasn’t that desperate. But then I started thinking about that horrible feeling of humiliation, that desperate embarrassment I’d had in the pit of my stomach since realising the truth about my ‘relationship’ with the man pretending to be Brian James. Nothing could ever be as bad as that. And if swallowing my pride meant I’d save even one other person from going through what I had, then it would be a worthy price to pay. After all, as I regularly told my library users, there was no shame in asking for help.

Leo stood up as I slowly approached him, still debating with myself whether this was the right course of action.

‘Look, I’m really sorry,’ he said quickly. ‘I know I shouldn’t have done it. I get so deep in thought that I’m not even aware I’m putting my feet on the chair, that’s the honest truth. I can’t guarantee I won’t do it again, but I promise I’m really, really trying.’

‘You certainly are,’ I said.

He smiled in acknowledgement of the insult. ‘Please don’t throw me out again,’ he said. ‘I’ve got nowhere else to go really.’ I thought I saw a frown briefly cross his face before his features returned to his usual infuriating grin.

‘You’re skating on thin ice,’ I said, mirroring his teasing tone. If my plan was going to work, I needed to get him on side. ‘But as you seem to have made yourself so comfortable in here, it would be cruel of me to turf you out now. How about we start again?’

I held my hand out.

He looked surprised, but didn’t hesitate to take it. I’d assumed he’d be the type to have a crushing grip, needing to assert his dominance even in something as simple as a handshake, but I was wrong. His grip was firm but in a reassuring way, his palm pleasantly warm against my perpetually cold fingers.

‘I’m guessing that peace is declared,’ he said.

‘Perhaps. Look, can I buy you a coffee after the library closes?’ I asked. ‘I need to talk to you about something.’

He raised an eyebrow in surprise at my question and looked silently at me for longer than felt comfortable.

‘How about G&D’s on Little Clarendon Street?’ I said. ‘My treat. I might even stretch to an ice cream, if you ask nicely. I’d like to pick your brain.’

He put his head on one side, as if trying to work something out.

‘How intriguing. Well, as there’s ice cream involved,’ he said eventually. ‘That sounds like an offer I can’t refuse.’

I tried to pretend that I wasn’t watching Leo for the rest of the afternoon, as my plan percolated at the back of my mind. But I couldn’t help wondering how he would take my proposal. The worst thing he could do would be to laugh it off and refuse, but, I told myself, I was now a dab hand at coping with humiliation. It was clear Leo already had a pretty low opinion of me, so I couldn’t make things worse.

‘How are you doing, pet? And have you got the next one in this series?’ Doris’s queries drew my attention back to the work I should have been concentrating on.

‘I’m down, but not out. I’m still feeling pretty stupid about the whole thing, but I’ll get over it.’ I forced a relaxed smile. ‘And yes, the new one arrived this morning, as it happens. If you give me a few minutes to put the protective cover on and make sure it’s properly registered in the system, it’ll be all yours.’

‘Marvellous. I know I need to pace myself because I’m going to run out of her books soon. It’s a real shame that her writing pace can’t keep up with my reading one.’

‘You do average a book a day, Doris. It would be an awful lot to ask of an author to keep up with that. But maybe we should lock her in a comfy basement with only a computer in front of her, then she’ll have no excuse not to provide you with reading material?’ I suggested with a grin.

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