Chapter Twenty One: Cool Out

Dear Elizabeth,

I have no concerns that this letter won't reach you, the person I entrusted with it doesn't make mistakes. No, the thing that concerns me is that you will rip it up straight away and my words will be lost to the fire or the bin. You would have every right to do so. If that is what you want, then please do it now. Don't waste your time.

If you are still reading, then I thank you for it. Maybe I don't deserve it, but I'll take it. First of all, do not worry, this letter will contain none of the sentiments expressed at Rosings that you found so revolting. I have no wish to retread that ground and would like to move on as soon as possible. That means that I would like to straighten some things out, try to explain myself a bit better than I did at the time. I was emotional and tired, two states that are not conducive to a rational conversation. Also, with the uncertainty that is facing me, I perhaps acted irrationally and without thought, things I rarely do. As far as I can tell, you have leveled two main charges against me, the effects our score has had on you and your sister, and my treatment of George Wickham. I will begin with the more surprising accusation, with the man who is never far from my thoughts. My former best friend George Wickham. I do not know what he has told you about our respective pasts, both apart and together, but I can take an educated guess as it is a story that he has told others. What follows is the true account of our relationship. Of course, after all the lies I have told, you may doubt it, I would understand. But I swear on my sister's life that this is indeed what happened between us.

I will also apologise in advance if this gets overly emotional or even contradictory on occasion. George still stirs up a cocktail of emotions inside of me, and he is perhaps the most important relationship I have ever had in my life. In a way, he has shaped every incarnation of me since the day we met, and I have been many people. Some good, some bad, most somewhere in between. Anyway, I'm blabbering. I will try not to take up more of your time than is necessary, but it is a complicated story, and one that may well take a while.

I'd heard of George Wickham some time before I ever laid eyes on him. Already at the age of 18, he had a reputation in certain circles for being quite the talent. He was one of the best short con players in South London, and was expected to go on to do great things. In my opinion, he is the most naturally gifted grifter I have ever met. He has a way with words, an easy charm, a sharp brain, and remarkable balls. Back then, I was just a naive little rich boy, a description that you may well think still fits. I'd grown up in casinos, both Pemberley and in London, and had always been fascinated by the con. I'd see these old timers around the poker table, spinning their yarns, telling their tall tales. I would sneak into these games when I was younger just to hear the stories. My father would eventually find me and send me back upstairs, but he'd always give me a wink. He understood how fascinating it was to an impressionable boy. I was taught some tricks by the old geezers, the Monte, that kind of thing. But it was never more than a hobby. I went to school, to University, I was going to be a somewhat respectable businessman, take over the family casino when I was ready. That was my future and I was fine with that. You were right, I have been dealt a favourable hand in life, despite what happened next. I shouldn't complain. Anyways, as I was saying, I'd begun to hear about George Wickham. The old timers were beginning to talk about him around the card table, a place I was now allowed to be at the age of twenty. They spoke about him with optimism, but also with caution. They said his talent was not in question, but perhaps his attitude was. He'd already done a few months inside. But a great future was predicted for him. I thought nothing of it, I was focused on University.

Then everything changed.

I was twenty one when my parents died. Car crash. My mother died instantly. My father survived, but he didn't last long without her. He made a partial recovery, was even released from hospital, but two weeks later he had a heart attack. No-one's fault, just one of those things. I've come to terms with it now, but it took a long, long time.

So, there I was. Twenty one years of age, parents gone, a confused, vulnerable and heartbroken ten year old sister to look after. I was to be her guardian now, I was to take over the business. It soon became clear that I wasn't ready. In the initial stages, the first few months, I failed abjectly at my new responsibilities. I was afraid, depressed, prone to shutting myself away for days at a time. I dropped out of University. Weeks passed and I ignored everyone. My sister, the people who worked for my father, well for me now, the few friends I had. My parents' loss hit me hard, I had always been close to them. Without them, I just fell apart. It was pathetic, irresponsible, unforgivable and selfish.

The next stage of my grief, and when this whole journey began, is where George comes in. I had been coaxed out by a friend of my fathers to a casino in London, I forget which one. All night, this guy was lecturing me, telling me that it was time to man up now, that my grace period was over. I nodded along, but escaped as soon as I could, as soon as he was distracted by the pretty Russian girls at the tables. Made my way to the bar and had every intention of getting obliterated on brandy. I ordered my first one and stared into it, not paying any attention to my surroundings. I was eventually brought out of my fog by a presence next to me at the bar. A man was standing next to me, well, I say a man, but he still looked like a boy. George Wickham. George is an incredibly social person, and will start a conversation with anyone if he thinks it'll be worth his time. He has a knack of making you think you're the most important person in the world, that what you're saying is one hundred times more interesting than it actually is. He attempted this with me at the bar, later on he admitted that he saw me as a potential mark and we laughed about it. But in that moment, I was in no mood, and he soon went off. I had a couple more, but the noise around me was getting louder. I looked up to see the same man, two ridiculously beautiful women on either side of him, cheering at one of the blackjack tables, face alive and joyful, everything I wasn't. I watched him for a while, and I soon realised he was running a scam, he was counting cards. It was a trick the old grifters had taught me at the casino, back in those happier days. He was pulling it off with such panache. Such ease and confidence, such arrogance. The barman caught me looking and told me the man's name was George Wickham. So this was the prodigy I'd heard about. On first impressions, he lived up to his billing. I was drawn to him immediately.

It was getting late and I was still at the bar, the casino was emptying around me. George came up again, attempting to charm his way into getting served despite the fact they had called last orders. The barman relented soon enough. It's funny, I remember so many details about that night, but I don't remember who started the conversation. Maybe it was me, I don't know. But suddenly, we were talking, and he was making me laugh, something I hadn't done in months. I remember feeling the disappointment as the two women from before came up to drag him away to do whatever they were going to do with him. But, much to my surprise, he waved them off and we sat at the bar for hours, talking and drinking until the barman finally had to kick us out. But we just went somewhere else, some dingy bar South of the river and talked more until dawn. I told him that I had seen what he was up to at the casino. He was surprised at first, but when I explained my background to him, he smiled widely and congratulated me on my grift sense. I felt pride, I wanted his approval. His story was fascinating to me, and he was generous in his responses. He's a great story teller. We finally staggered out of the bar at dawn, both drunk as anything. We parted ways, he said he'd look me up at the address I'd given him of our house in London. I don't think I expected him to. But he did.

Pretty soon, we were inseparable, like brothers. I'd told him of my fascination at what he did for a living, and he offered to teach me how to grift. I should have said no, I had responsibilities, I had to clean myself up and look after my sister. But I admit that I was infatuated with him. In some ways, it was a bit like a first love I suppose, without the lust element. I realise now that I was looking for an escape, a way to distract myself from my life and my responsibilities. I knew he wasn't a particularly good person from the off, but I pushed any doubts away. It helped that Georgiana loved having him around as well. So, I agreed. He taught me everything he knew, all the short cons, all the scams and scores. We worked the streets together, me revelling in my rich kid rebellion, and George just enjoying life. We would scam our way through the day, then drink all night, chat up women, get in fights, snort whatever the new friends we made, and with George you always make new friends on a night out, offered us. In my rare sober moments, when there was no adrenaline, alcohol, sex or narcotic to distract me, I would begin to slightly question what I was doing, what we were doing. In those days, George lived harder than anyone, he partied harder, he scammed harder, everything was turned up to eleven. That came with consequences, dangerous situations became part of our daily life. He would laugh off any concerns and I would go along with him. It was around this time Catherine took Pemberley from me. She was right to do so, I was in no fit state to run it, and at the time I didn't really care. I was living the dream with my friend, I saw nothing past that.

It began to change soon enough, however. Once the novelty had worn off, I began realising just how many risks we were taking. George didn't care who he ripped off, and he seemed to purposefully target the most dangerous people in the city, all for the thrill of it. It's the thing about people like him, it's like a drug addict. They start off small, a spliff every now again. Then when that's not enough, they start with the pills and the powders on a Saturday night. Soon it becomes more regular and regular, but the high is never quite as good as it was that first time, so they chase for something else, something harder, something altogether more satisfying and dangerous. Before they know it, they're the thing they swore they'd never be, a crack or smack head. They're powerless to stop it. That's what George was like with grifting. He was addicted to the rush and so sure that his outrageous talent was enough. But once you start to play with the bigger boys, that alone just can't be enough any more. You need planning, resources, a team as good as you. But George didn't have the patience for that. He'd just charge in headfirst, no thought for the consequences. I don't think he believed he'd ever lose.

One day, about a year and a half after I first met him, I woke up with an awful hangover, an extremely angry voicemail from my cousin, Richard, demanding I stop being such a cunt, his words not mine, and a sudden sense of clarity. I couldn't do it anymore. I'd alienated my sister, I was risking my life, my future. I had to sort myself out. Living that fast, that hard, it's just not sustainable. You get tired of it. I told George my decision that very same day, told him that I was going to get out, take over the family business, that I was putting the con behind me. He was angry at first, but eventually wished me well. In typical George style, he walked out of my house with five hundred quid in his pocket, willingly given by myself. I told him that I'd keep in touch, that he should come and see Georgie whenever he wanted. That was my big mistake.

Now, before we go on and his character is well and truly revealed, I will say that I do not think he started with bad intentions. Sure, I was an opportunity for him, I had money and a few connections, but I like to believe our friendship at that time was very much real. It certainly was for me. I connected with him like no other, he made me feel so alive at a time when I really needed it. Whatever has happened since then, it would be no exaggeration to say he saved my life at that point. For that I will always be very grateful, that is the reason I can never quite bring myself to hate him as thoroughly as he deserves.

Anyway, once the decision was made, it happened quickly. As you know, I went to Catherine and told her I was ready to take it back, that I was sorry for my actions and that I was going to make it right. It wasn't the fact that she told me no that got to me, no, it was the way in which she said it. Condescending, superior, doubtful, dismissive. But, hey, I probably deserved it. She told me to prove myself, told me to go back to Pemberley and run it how I saw fit, but still remain under her. I agreed reluctantly. She did the right thing, I understand that now, but at the time I was angry. But I got on with it.

Something was missing, I realised that soon enough. I was content enough, even flourishing in a business sense. After just one year I was turning over more income than Pemberley had ever seen. I won't bore you with the details of how I achieved this, but I will tell you that it isn't exactly rocket science. People want to do things that are bad for them, they want to gamble, so making a casino a success isn't all that difficult. I was bored. The casino could run without me, I didn't need to be there day to day. I began to worry for myself, because I know where boredom leads, particularly for me. Alcohol and drugs and danger. I couldn't go down that road again. I needed something to excite me, fill the gap, stop me from being so numbly normal. I realised that the thing that made me feel most alive was the con, the adrenaline you get from it, the satisfaction, the entire game. A way of living that is totally your own. And I was good at it, I knew that much. George had always been better, but there was no shame in that. When he was 19, he was better than everyone. At the short con that is. But what of the long con? We'd talked about it sometimes, but George had never had the patience or foresight to take it seriously. There was always a quick score to be done, always an itch to be scratched and a short term fix. He wasn't really built for it. But me, I had the suspicion that what made me worse than George at the short con would actually make me better than him at the long con. I'd learnt patience, I had an analytical brain, I could see beyond the present and look to the future. Looking three steps ahead, I could do that, predict what people were going to do next before they even knew it themselves. Also, although I would be remarkably unperceptive to not agree to a certain extent with what you said about it all being some rich boy rebellion, I was motivated as well by what I saw around me. The world was going to shit, the poorer were getting poorer, the richer were getting richer, our country was being run by Etonians who were so out of touch with the ordinary people. Run by a media who were solely motivated by profits. Maybe by scamming and scheming people like that, I could actually make a difference, teach them a lesson. Could I actually do this?

I decided there was no harm in trying.

The first thing I did was get in contact with my cousin, Richard. Before all this, we weren't exactly close, he'd never approved of my friendship with George, and I thought that considering the casualness with which he abused drugs and alcohol himself, he was a bit of a hypocrite. But there was no denying he was good. A genius when it came to computers, alarms, anything electrical, he was already playing the game, doing some freelance work with mid level crews, making decent money too. I invited him to Pemberley, and I think we were both surprised by how well we managed to get on. It pleased me no end because I was lonely. It helped that Richard is a bit like George in certain ways, he is sociable, funny, outgoing, but he has a steadiness to him that George doesn't. I've always known that I can 100% rely on Richard, rely on the fact that he knows when to draw the line. After a few days of laughing and talking, I told him what I was considering, that I wanted to play the long con. He laughed at me at first. But I brought him round, he saw how passionate I was about it, saw that I had really thought it through. We went all in together.

Soon, we had the skeleton of a crew in place. Richard had discovered the Bouzids whilst tying up some loose ends in Manchester, and they fit in perfectly. Charlie was born to be a roper, Caro was remarkably good with numbers and her all round skills are second to none. Whilst Charlie has remained consistently the same in our acquaintance, Caro has changed. Nowadays, I find her hard work, but back when I first met her, she was a different woman, untouched by money and success, determined to succeed against the odds. So, we had our crew. However, I felt we needed one more. I could play the inside man and be the overall leader, but I was worried about overstretching myself. That's when I thought of George. It seemed like the perfect solution. I knew the potential he had, knew that he could become nigh on the perfect grifter. With the right direction and the right people around him, he could rise to the very top, give our crew the X factor if you will. And I could pay him back for all he had done for me, after all, I was in this position solely because of him. Richard cautioned against it when I mooted the idea, he said he didn't trust him. Said he had the potential to be a loose cannon, said that he wasn't built to be a team player.

I ignored him. George came on board.

I should have listened.

We worked a few trial runs, and mostly everything was good. We all felt that this was the start of something special. However, from the off, there were problems. It became clear that George didn't like the fact that I was the leader, that he thought it should be a more democratic process. Unfortunately, in a long con crew, it can't really work like that. A leader is an absolute necessity, someone to tie it together and make sure everyone knows their jobs inside out. The more surprising concern was George's actual work. He was still better than almost everyone, but it seemed to me like he wasn't quite as good as he thought he was, that he was slipping a little, that he wasn't giving the required focus. I consoled myself with the fact that we were all still learning, that we would all get better, that we couldn't be expected to be perfect from the off.

The first score we played, the first long con, targeted an art dealer in Paris, a woman who had made a fortune by selling fake art to down on their luck galleries, posing as some kind of passionate charity worker who would offer priceless pieces at knockdown prices. Galleries that were struggling would scrape together the money and buy them in the hope that it would attract visitors and solve their financial problems. Of course, the paintings would be exposed as fake sooner or later, and the galleries and people who worked there, people who had poured their life and soul into them, would go bankrupt and close forever, lose livelihoods. I won't go into the mechanics of the score, but suffice to say, we took her. A quarter of a million. This was a vindication of what I was trying to do, this proved that we could do this. We were thrilled, delighted, excited about the potential we were unlocking in ourselves and each other. We drank and danced in Paris in celebration, certain that things were only going to get better from here, certain that we were going to make history.

When we woke up the next morning, George was gone. So was the money.

At the start, we'd agreed that in the scores we played, we'd always split the money 15% each, with the remaining 25% going in the pot for future work. We'd all have access to the account, a show of faith in each other and a back up plan if any of us were ever in trouble and needed quick cash. However, the evening after our first score, me and Richard discussed it and agreed that we should use the money from this first score to set ourselves up as a crew, get ourselves a permanent base away from prying eyes, buy all the tech we needed outright etc etc. We put this to the others. Charlie agreed, Caro was a bit annoyed but she saw the logic, George, well, he wasn't at all happy. He shouted for a while, saying he was in this to get paid, that I was attempting to cheat him out of what was his. I was shocked by the way he turned on me so quickly, but I was not entirely surprised. Back then, I foolishly believed that our history together gave me a certain sway with him, that he felt a loyalty that went beyond money. So when I appeared to have calmed him and talked him round, I thought that was the end of it.

Of course, he emptied the bank account that evening and disappeared. I was furious, betrayed, upset, but most of all, I felt enormous guilt. I had been the one who had brought him in, despite others misgivings, I had given my friends the assurances, and I hadn't delivered. They were out of pocket, had wasted months of their lives, all for no reward. George had almost destroyed this crew before it even started. Indeed, I expected the Bouzids to walk away, it was what I would have done in their position. I was supposed to be the leader and I had failed them. I am forever grateful that they chose to forgive, that they saw beyond it and stayed with me. The only positive to come out of it was that. I now had friends who I could rely on, who were loyal, who believed in what we were doing and believed in me enough to be able to look past this mistake. I realised that this was real friendship.

The next few years passed in a blur. We were kings of the world, becoming true greats. It may sound arrogant to you, but as I have said before, when pride is earned, it is not necessarily a flaw. And we earned it. We scammed newspaper owners, TV producers, Arabian princes, Russian oil barons, drug smugglers, arms dealers, diamond cutters, British aristocrats, everyone who we thought deserved it. We were becoming notorious, whispered about in the grifting circles as the one of the greatest crews that had ever existed. We were, there can be no doubt. No-one in the game today can boast our track record, no-one at all. Except maybe one, the woman who delivered this letter to you incidentally. But it came at a cost to me. You see, the con is an easy thing to lose yourself in, immerse yourself completely, and it is very difficult to come out of the other side. After George's betrayal and our subsequent success, I became more and more pragmatic, cold, unfeeling, certainly a worse human being. I never allowed myself to lose my morals, that was one thing I managed to keep in check, but in terms of who I was outside of work, I definitely lost something in it all. It has become nigh on impossible for me to just be me nowadays. I don't know how to act outside a score, I don't know how to relate, I don't know how to empathise, I don't know how to just be normal. To this day, I cannot put my finger on why this is. Maybe with the years of reflection that loom ahead, it will come to me and I will be able to give a satisfactory answer to why I am who I am now. Who am I? The question that plagues me, because the truth is, I don't know. The long con took that away from me. It's a poor excuse for how I am, but it's the only one I've got.

I apologise, I have been digressing and doing exactly what I said I wouldn't do. I'm taking up more of your time than I deserve. But it feels good to write this all down, cathartic to an extent. I'm sorry you're the one who has to bear the brunt of my ramblings. Ok, so, the other thing the con was costing me was the relationship with my sister, Georgiana. I have never been the guardian she needed, I have never stepped up to the plate and delivered. The way I handled the whole thing causes me endless shame. Altogether, there is no forgiving what I have done to her, how selfish I have been, how cowardly. She looks so much like my mother. It's awful to say, but sometimes, I can hardly bear to look at her. She is a constant reminder of what I have lost, the love that has been absent from my life for years now. And whenever I think this, all it does is cause me even more pain and self hate, because she is entirely blameless. I was a man when I lost our parents, she was a little girl, a ten year old girl. What does it say about me that I couldn't find a way of compartmentalising it all and just be there for her? Take her to school, help her with her homework, blow the candles out on the birthday cake, comfort her when it all got too much. I didn't do any of that. What I did was run away, constantly on the move, constantly setting up new scores so I didn't have to face my mistakes. For those few years, I barely saw her. I missed her grow up. And I missed her spiral out of control, I left her alone in the world. That is and always will be on me. Will always be the heaviest weight on my soul, if I still have one.

We were in Rio when I got the call. The city had been awarded the Olympics for 2016 a few years previously, and the place was still awash with corrupt marks ready to be taken. It was a grifters sweet shop, we were drowning in potential scores. I hadn't seen Georgiana in around four months, a long absence even by my standards. The last time I had seen her, I had detected a slight change. She was moodier, reluctant to spend time with me, understandable of course. She was sixteen now, a teenager. But the problem was that because I had spent the last years avoiding her and my responsibilities, in my mind, she was still ten years old, still the sweet and innocent sister I once knew. Because of my cowardice, I didn't realise how much she'd grown. Then the call came, the worst moment of my life, worse than my parents death. Georgiana was in prison for armed robbery. She had gone into a fucking corner shop and pointed a gun at an innocent man. I didn't believe it at first. She was still ten years old, wasn't she?

I flew home immediately, and when I got back to Pemberley, the whole awful tale began to emerge. She hadn't been in Scotland for months, she had disappeared down to London. So that's where I went. I saw her very briefly, saw my sister behind the glass, caged in like an animal, handcuffed to a chair. She didn't say a word to me. I spoke to all my contacts, all her friends, anyone I could. And one name kept cropping up. George Wickham.

I still to this day do not know the full story. But what I do know, and what is indisputable, is that George had been the one to physically put my sister in this position. They'd always got on well, she'd always liked him, and she reached out to him when she ran away to London. He had gambled away all the money he had taken from us in the preceding couple of years and had found himself in more and more trouble. He had debts piling up, had made enemies where he shouldn't have, he'd wasted all the potential he ever had. Now, he was nothing more than a common criminal. But he will always have his charm, and he set out to charm my sister. He took her under his wing, and they began to run the streets together, much like we had done back in the day. But whereas then I had been twenty one and he had been nineteen, this time, he was twenty five and she was sixteen. Sixteen. Sixteen and all that comes with it. He began sleeping with her, and made her fall in love with him. She was sixteen. I suspect that it was a ploy to eventually try to scam me out of my by then considerable fortune. But George has never been a patient man, and he was in big trouble with a card shark in the East End. He needed to pay up and fast. In his desperation, he began a spate of armed robberies, leaving behind the con and truly embracing the criminal element of himself. And one night, he took Georgiana with him. They walked into the shop, pointed the gun and then the alarms went off. Georgie froze, I've seen the CCTV. She couldn't move. Just stood there, the gun limply by her side, George attempting to push her out the door before giving up and abandoning her. There's a moment in the footage that tears my heart into pieces. She stands still for a good two minutes, just her alone in this shop. Then she takes her mask off, stares at the gun in her hand. She places it on the counter and then she sits down. She sits down and waits for the police. No tears, she just waits.

She got three years in a young offender institute.

The sentence was harsh, harsher than it should have been. She didn't cooperate, she wouldn't give George up. But even so, the gun wasn't even real as it turned out. She should have got a year, maybe two max. Again, the blame lies with me. I was becoming famous amongst law enforcement, it was becoming the ambition of every fraud investigator in the country, even the world, to be the one to catch me. I got too big, too noisy. And I was always three steps ahead of them, they could never get close, could never make anything stick. I embarrassed them time and time again. So they found another way to hurt me, through my sister. There was none of the usual bargaining, none of the usual leniency for first time minor offenders. No, they gave her everything they could get away with giving her. Even the best lawyers in the country didn't stand a chance. My sister got three years in prison because of George Wickham.

But if I'm honest with myself, she got three years in prison because of me.

So that's all of it. All of my dealings with George. I promise you it is the truth. You are one of the very few people to now know the true story, indeed only myself, Richard and George know the whole thing. I have never spread George's involvement in my sister's arrest around, even Charlie and Caro don't know, and I tell them everything. Maybe I should have, it pains me to see him walking round a free man with a smile on his face, but to expose him would be to expose my sister even more than she already has been. I can't risk that. I ask you to not repeat this to anyone and to burn this letter as soon as you are done with it. I trust you to do so.

Now, onto the other charge, that of my crew's score and its effect on your family, in particular your sister. On this subject, I have little more to say than what I did the other night. I do not believe that if you are an active grifter who plays the con, you have any right to feel aggrieved when it turns on you. Yes, we targeted you, both of you in fact. And yes, Charlie's job was to make your sister like him. We didn't know you when we planned it, just how you don't know the marks you're conning when you're on the street. People like us exist in those dark and grey areas, where right and wrong are blurred to the point that they overlap more than people would think they do. We were doing our jobs, nothing more. And in terms of me separating them, I fully admit it and I would do it again. Charlie was putting not just me, but Richard and Caroline at risk, he was being remarkably selfish in his actions. He has previous form for this also, he is generous with his affections. I did what I thought was right in service of myself and my friends. I truly am sorry for the hurt it may have caused, but I refuse to feel guilty. I'm sure you see it differently, but I have nothing more to add. I know that will displease you.

I also know that I promised at the start of this letter not to renew the sentiments I expressed last time we spoke. Well, I am going to break that promise, albeit briefly I'm afraid. Know that what I said was true, I do feel something strong for you, something that I can only assume is some form of love. I have realised that I didn't exactly express it in the right way. I was confused and vulnerable at the time and wholly misjudged it all. For that, I am sorry. I shouldn't have insulted you and your family, I shouldn't have lost my temper and acted with spite when I was rejected. My behaviour was poor to say the least. I hope I can now move on, and again I apologise for getting it all so wrong.

I sincerely hope that you choose to continue in your pursuit of the long con. The game needs talent, it needs people like you, but more importantly, the world does. The long con is ….. well, to me it has been everything. The thing that saved my life and then took it, gave me a sense of purpose, gave me friends, gave me a chance to do something if not exactly good, then at least worthwhile….. no, that's not the right word. Fuck, I don't know. See, people like Catherine, they say we're scum, say we're nothing better than common criminals. Too lazy to make something of ourselves, too ignorant to make it honest. Perhaps there is a shade of truth in that. But I can't see it that way. Catherine and her generation, my parents, your parents, they were given everything. Opportunity, social mobility, a medical and technological golden age to toy with. And what did they do with it? What will be their legacy? They'll leave behind a world of increasing poverty, of crippling debt, of war, of environmental catastrophe, of increased xenophobia and religious hate. All while that 1% gets richer and richer, destroying the lives of ordinary people as they manipulate and control them through their twitter feeds, their newspapers and television programmes, all their shiny distractions. Their misdirections. They're laughing at everybody else, knowing they are untouchable, knowing they can do what they will with the world and die like some kind of fucking pharaoh, leaving a mess behind that is impossible to clean up. They think they can't be touched.

But they can.

We did it, me and my friends. In our own small, selfish, criminal way, we went after those people and we made them stop and think for just a second. We took their money, we refused to let ourselves be controlled by them. We did something about it. By no means am I suggesting we are saints, all of us are guilty of too many sins to name, but I am still proud of what we did.

The long con made me cold, unfeeling, a shell of what a human being should be. It has robbed me of my life, my family, almost everything. But, every night when the lights go out, I remind myself that I took a stand, however small and self serving, against a world that has spat at our generations feet and given us a broom to clean it up. I did that and it has destroyed me.

I wish you luck with your future endeavours. You are a truly remarkable woman and I am glad to have known you, whatever you may think of me. If you choose to continue in this game, then I have no doubt you will find the success you're looking for. It takes time and patience, but I know you'll get there. Just do me a favour, don't become like me, don't lose sight of who you are. If you can do that, then maybe you can achieve the seemingly impossible. You can play this game and be happy at the same time.

Good luck.

William Darcy.