"She's not harsh at all, Ems, so don't try to be rough or brassy – she's actually really sweet."
"Awww, sounds like he's fallen for her!" Amused, Ash ruffled Sean's hair as he passed behind where the brother and sister were sitting, and dodged a swat of the hand in return.
"I'm just trying to give her as much detail as possible," explained Sean. "Don't want her to blow it as soon as she opens her mouth."
"No way," retorted Emma. "Right, so she's ready to meet this group of MPs. What does she do?" Narrowing her eyes, she watched and waited while Sean retrieved the memory from his databank of a brain.
He was visualising the scene. "She shakes their hands as they arrive...smiles, welcomes them, makes them feel comfortable. Then she's sympathising with them, like you did already with Whitchurch. After that, professional, not too sycophantic, but just totally walking the line between nice and kiss-ass."
Ash guffawed heartily and Albert merely gave a wry smile and shook his head in amusement.
"That's good, Sean," Mickey encouraged him. "Don't leave anything out; remember to give Emma an idea of some of those mannerisms – her body language, speech inflections, that sort of thing. We want this lot to be convinced they really are talking to Nicole Harris. OK?"
Sean nodded, still concentrating on the replay in his head of their two meetings with the lawyer.
"Of course, all that stuff about her not being able to help you get out of the contracts was a load of old lentils," remarked Ash, folding his arms and sitting back reflectively.
"I know," replied Sean. "It was pretty difficult to focus on everything about her when I knew she was spinning us a story."
"Whilst you yourself were doing nothing of the sort," observed Albert drily, from behind the Daily Telegraph.
"Ho ho, Albert, very witty," shot back Sean. "I'm going to my room to make notes; having a photographic memory's like being a performing seal here."
Sean leaned over Ash's shoulder and watched with growing admiration as the fixer copied and pasted, dragged and dropped, and saved files left, right and centre. Finally he displayed two documents side-by-side on the computer screen.
"Which one d'you think's the original?" he challenged.
"Shouldn't you be asking, 'Spooot the forgery?'" quipped Mickey from across the room.
Ash ignored him. "Well?" he asked Sean.
"Ummmm....that one!" the latter decided, pointing at the right-hand window.
"Nope. Other one," announced Ash, quietly triumphant.
Sean peered more closely at the display. "I can't see any difference between them," he confessed with a shrug.
"Good," was Ash's verdict.
"I mean, the logo, the typeface, the layout – even the watermark. They're all absolutely identical!"
"That's the idea, surely," interjected Mickey.
Ash turned round in his seat. "Don't you have anything else to be getting on with, rather than just sitting there making smart-arse remarks?"
"Oooh, touchy!" observed Emma with a grin.
"Your turn now, Ems," announced Ash. "Give us your laptop."
Emma produced a shiny new top-of-the-range notebook.
"I see you got the flashiest model in the store," said Albert.
"Of course - we do want it to get noticed, don't we?" was her answer.
Ash was meanwhile deftly moving copies of his new files to a memory stick, which he then plugged into Emma's laptop to upload the contents.
"That's you, all set to go. Just have a look round and familiarise yourself with the different templates – and I've set the whole system up with its new owner's name, OK?"
"OK, Ash." Emma settled herself down in front of her new toy and got to work.
Mickey sat beside her at the table. "You need to get as many of them as you can to agree to personal consultations. Take statements from them – you can see from these files how Harris sets them up – and encourage all your 'clients' to share as much personal detail as they like. That shouldn't be a problem for you," he said, archly.
"So, ladies and gentlemen, in conclusion, if you have any questions about your individual circumstances that you would like to discuss, I would be only too happy to meet with you privately. Please have your people call and set up a time for you; the contact details are on my card. I can see you at my office, but you might prefer a more discreet location." Emma flashed an engaging smile at the assembled MPs, and moved forward to shake hands with Barnaby Whitchurch.
A murmur of appreciative comments rippled through the room, and the meeting broke up almost reluctantly.
"It's as if they don't want to go back into the real world, where people despise them; they love the sympathy!" muttered Sean into his sister's ear. She nodded, smiled, and said, "Yes, please make sure everyone has my card, Jethro."
Sean simpered and grumbled under his breath, "Who in the world picked that name, anyway?" before circulating amongst the MPs, who were by turn arrogant and desperate.
On returning to the "office", they discovered that over twenty members had already called to request appointments. Mickey as PA had organised these carefully so that no two meetings occurred consecutively in the same place. He didn't want to run the risk of any of the marks conferring. This resulted in Emma and Sean catching taxi after taxi, running from one hotel to another, and signing into MPs' private clubs, until after two unrelenting days of this they collapsed, exhausted, onto the sofas in their hotel suite.
"I need a holiday!" gasped Sean, gratefully accepting a tall cold drink from Ash.
"So we can safely say that the MPs are on board with the 'rescue package'?" enquired Albert of Emma.
"Oh yes." She sat up, pulled a folder from her briefcase, and handed it to Mickey, then sank back into the cushions. "They couldn't get their chequebooks out fast enough."
Scanning the document, Mickey smiled and said, "Excellent. And you've got electronic copies of all this?"
"Of course," Emma replied with a touch of indignation. "It wouldn't be much use if we didn't, would it?"
"Now, this has the potential to go quite badly wrong," said Mickey as he addressed the crew. "For a start, you may come across a rare honest individual who wants to return your lost property to you."
"In which case," added Albert, "just smile and thank them profusely. Then change trains – lines, if possible – to avoid them seeing you 'lose' the item again."
"Mightn't it be a better idea to leave it in a bar or restaurant, rather than trawling the underground looking for a mark?" asked Emma.
Mickey considered this, then nodded slowly. "Yes. Pick a bar – Ash will help you on that – where you know there will be plenty of easy targets."
At this point, Albert tossed his copy of the Telegraph over to Ash. "Front page and the following six," he said laconically. "Prime rib."
"Ideal," was the amused reply. Ash did a quick Google search while Mickey continued with the briefing.
"There's also the remote possibility that whoever picks it up may not run with it," continued Mickey. They won't necessarily turn it over to the police, but they might just decide to sit on it for the moment, or try and find out if it's genuine."
"Oh, come on!" argued Sean. "Why on earth would anyone think it's wasn't the real thing? I mean, government laptops get left on trains practically every week."
"It's what these people do, they check everything to make sure they're not going to be sued to within an inch of their lives."
"From what I've seen, quite a lot of them do exactly the opposite – what about Private Eye?" Sean replied.
"That doesn't count," said Mickey firmly, to several laughs. "Any more questions?" He looked around the room. No-one spoke. "In that case, let's get going."
Emma, Sean and Albert started getting ready to leave. Ash handed them each a note of some names and addresses.
"We'll do them in order," instructed Albert. "I'll go ahead to the first one and get settled in; give me about fifteen minutes or so, then follow me. It'll give me a chance to observe and pick out a potential mark, all right?"
"Right, Albert," agreed Emma. "We'll just flag a cab in the street."
"Good, that way the concierge won't get suspicious of us going to the same address," he replied.
"No point in going mob-handed, Ash; we'll just stay here and wait for news," announced Mickey as he settled down on the sofa. "Game of chess?" he suggested.
Emma and Sean entered the second pub of the day, but they had been standing at the bar for a few minutes before they spotted Albert, tucked away in a corner with his double malt and The Times. Having bought their drinks and Sean's smokey bacon crisps, they positioned themselves at a table where they could unobtrusively make eye contact with the roper at work.
Suddenly Sean's phone beeped as he received a text message. Raising an eyebrow in surprise, he showed it to Emma. "Mark 1 o'clock, blue tie, been here less than 10 mins."
"How did he do that?" she hissed. "I didn't even see him move a finger!"
"Ancient Jedi skills," shot back her brother. He cast a casual glance towards the bar, as if taking in the surroundings of the traditional English pub. Turning back to Emma, he murmured, "Black suit, red shirt, dirty fair hair."
"Check," she replied. The pair sat and chatted for about ten minutes, then finished up their drinks and left, leaving Emma's laptop under the watchful eye of Albert, who stayed put. Outside, Sean hailed a taxi to take them back to their hotel. They were almost there when another text from Albert arrived. It simply said, "Bait taken."