The Chain

The Chain
K.L.Miles

There was nothing remarkable about the plain, brown, A5 envelope
bearing a second class stamp and smudged postmark. There was no reason
to think the contents suspicious, apart from the fact that it was only
two weeks since I had left my job. The letter consisted of four type
written pages, the last of which included a list of six names and
addresses. I read the first page,

"In 1997 I lost my job, I was living beyond my means and in
debt........my house and car were repossessed ......my future looked
bleak. In 1998 I received this letter telling me how I could make
?40,000 at a time by following a few simple instructions. To date I
have made ?582,710. My accountant has drawn up a cash-flow forecast
which predicts I will become a millionaire within the next six
months......I am currently building my dream home....I don't owe a
single penny to anyone". Of course the business plan worked perfectly
every single time. All I had to do was follow six simple steps, the
first of which was to send a ?10 (cash no cheques) to the person
featured at position one on the attached list.

In addition to this, for the benefit of those not already convinced, a
number of glowing testimonies from participants in the scheme were
included. They painted a glorious future. They had, of course, always
worked hard and had never replied to anything like this before but
since receiving the letter their lives had been transformed.

Normally I would have simply thrown the letter away but by this point
my curiosity had got the better of me and I couldn't accept that it was
an amazing coincidence . I inspected the envelope more carefully in an
attempt to decipher the post mark, getting nowhere with that line of
investigation I went back to the letter. I studied the instructions
hoping to find some indication of how my name had been found and
included on the mailing list.

"when you have sent ?10 to the individual at position 1, remove their
name. Add your own details to the bottom of the list and photocopy the
letter a minimum of two hundred times. Fold each one in half and seal
them in plain, brown A5 envelopes". If you wanted to receive more money
all you had to do was increase the number of copies of the letter. The
estimated return was based upon a response rate of 2\%.

The instructions were very precise and went on, "To ensure a good
response to this mailing you will need to construct a good list. Use
phone books in your local library, if you have access to the internet
try looking at www.192.com. When you have generated your list of 200
random names carefully copy the details onto the envelopes, affix a
second class stamp to each one and mail them. It really is as easy as
that, you are guaranteed a response within six weeks. ?40,000 for four
hours work, can you really afford to ignore this opportunity?"

Does anyone fall for this and reply? Some must do, after all if they
didn't what would there be to gain from sending such letters. Being out
of work leaves a person plenty of time to think which is one of the
reasons I kept going back to the letter, it may also account for people
who would normally think better of it, being caught up in the scam. I
couldn't work out how it was done, the mailing list I had seemed fairly
random. There were a couple of addresses in my local area, a couple in
the west country with the remaining two found further North. I wondered
what the common link between these places was. I searched my telephone
directory and directory enquiries, I even looked up locations on maps,
I became obsessed. I was unable to trace three people on the list but
surely if they weren't on any directory they wouldn't have been found
and included in the chain to begin with.! I searched for those people
giving their endorsement to the scheme, I had no luck finding any of
them at the given locations. The address at the top of my mailing list
just happened to be in the nearby village but when I had searched for
Mr. Barnard at that location I found no matches. This sort of
discrepancy might be due to someone moving house however I had not
noticed any 'for sale' notice and I walk past that particular house
most days.

The next day I was walking with Nicki through the village to collect
the papers, paying particular attention to this house. The postman was
calling and I watched absentmindedly as Nicki rummaged about in the
pile of fallen autumn leaves under the tree by the church. Whilst I
watched I saw something quite strange the postman sorted through the
mail for the house, he picked out a couple of letters, opened them and
put the contents into his pocket before delivering the rest to the
house. I was sure this was definitely not the usual behaviour adopted
when delivering mail.

A couple of days later I was passing the house again, this time I
watched more closely as the postman carried out the same check this
time retrieving only one letter from the bundle. He removed what
appeared to be a small roll of paper from the envelope. Nicki's walks
began to take us a little further afield, to the other local address
found on my list. We passed by a number of times but always arrived
after the post had been delivered. Then, just as we were walking past
on the fifth day, I spotted a movement from the corner of my eye. At
the other end of the street preparing to leave the area on his rusty
old red post office issue bicycle was the same man I had seen whilst
waiting outside the church.

Feeling even more curious than before I searched through the addresses
and locations for a second time, they must have something in common.
After a few hours I stumbled across something a little unusual. One of
the testimonies was given by a Mrs. Claygate, I had been unable to find
anyone of this name in directory enquiries but I did discover that Mr.
and Mrs. Claymore lived at the address I had been given. Actually it
was not far from the village, a twenty minute drive along country lanes
maybe one day I would do a little detour, just to check. A few days
went by, I was busy with job applications and interviews, the letter
slipped my mind. Then, one day as I was returning from the nearby town
I found myself at the entrance to Rivers Edge Lane. I pulled into the
lay-by opposite Riverside View. It was a pretty little cottage, set
back from the road and the large well tended garden was awash with
vibrant colours. There was a woman in the garden, she was small, about
55 with her greying hair bound in a tight knot and glasses on a chain
round her neck, she looked oddly familiar although I couldn't place her
immediately. Someone called from the house and she went inside closing
the door to the garden behind her. I turned round and drove away, where
had I seen her before?

That night I phoned Mags, at first she thought I was mad but after a
while she stifled her giggles and stopped teasing:
"You're really serious aren't you?!"
"Yes, I don't know what but something is definitely odd, I remembered
where I saw that woman. Her name is Patricia, she works at the job
centre in town".
"You'd think she would have more sense than to get involved in that
type of scheme!" "Yes, that's what I thought. Then again you are
probably right she's just as daft as everyone else! It did seem odd
though". We chatted for a long time then just as I was about to hang up
for about the third time Mags asked me round to dinner. She was having
a party to introduce her new neighbour to the area.

Pete was a private investigator although he didn't exactly fit the
image created on the big screen. He was tall with dark hair and brown
eyes he was quite scruffy and looked tired, to be honest it looked as
though he had spent quite a lot of time sleeping in his car. I was
introduced, we talked about his business he had lost quite a few
clients since moving but he was slowly building up the number of cases
on his books. I told him I was looking for a job and that it was harder
than I had expected it to be, looking back it would have made better
sense to hand in my notice once I had somewhere else to go. This
naturally led me to the letter, which interested Pete. We arranged a
meeting for the following morning in the coffee shop next to the
park.

We had breakfast sitting in the window recess so Pete could keep an eye
on the activity across the street. We discussed the letter, I had a
copy of all the searches I had carried out, he didn't seem to think I
was mad, at least if he did he kept it to himself! Suddenly he leapt up
from his chair, hurriedly threw some cash on the table and left. There
has been movement outside number twenty. I finished my coffee surprised
that people needed private investigators in a small village where
nothing stayed secret for long.

About a fortnight later I was settling down to read the Saturday papers
the headlines read "chain letter scam uncovered" I was flicking through
to find the article when there was a knock on the door, I opened it and
Pete was standing outside. I invited him in and poured another cup of
tea from the pot.
"Sorry for running out on you like that, I was watching someone and I
had to follow them"
"Did you catch them at it?"
"No I lost them, that's why I'm here really". He broke off distracted
by the pile of papers that were spread out on the breakfast table.
"you've seen the papers then?"
"No. Well only the headlines so far. I was attracted by the
headline."
"I had hoped I would speak to you before you now but I haven't been
able to contact you. Remember the woman you saw?"
"Patricia Claymore?"
"Yes. Well I watched her for a couple of days. It seems she was sending
letters to everyone who came through the doors of the job centre. All
the letters had the same list of people on them and each address had a
little mistake incorporated in them. You know simple things like the
wrong initial in the name or the wrong title, sometimes the name was
right but the number of the house didn't match it. Quite clever really
they could have passed quite easily for typing errors."
"I'm not sure I understand, why go to so much trouble?"
"Ah, well that is the clever bit, if you knew what you were looking for
the mistakes would signal those envelopes containing cash, making it
easy for her husband, the local postman, to filter them into his
pocket!" I was quite stunned, although I had hoped there was something
suspicious behind the letter I hadn't really believed that there would
be! We sat in silence as I went over all the details in my mind.
"OK I can see how that might be the case for a couple of addresses but
it doesn't account for those addresses further North, or to the West .
How is our local postman supposed to pop to the other addresses every
morning to collect?"
"They were not acting alone. Mrs. Claymore's cousin lives in the
village in the West. She runs the local post office counter. If the
chain carried on past the first round she was able to remove the
replies from circulation. In the North one of Mr. Claymore's friends
he's also a postman, they had always been in on the scheme together.
When he moved house they simply changed the addresses on the list to
incorporate his new round. In fact that was a very useful move it made
the origin of the letter harder to trace as the addresses were more
spread out over the country."

Pete grabbed his coat and stood up to leave. He walked across the
kitchen towards the back door then suddenly turned to face me.
"You know if you're still looking for that job I could really use a
hand". He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a piece of paper
which he left on the windowsill.
"Just think about it".