Val McDermid - Crack Down

Sticking with the flow of the crowd, I moved forward, edging out towards the side of the hall. I looked around, searching for Terence. I spotted him after a few moments, one of several men flanking the dais. Their ages varied from late teens to early forties. I wouldn’t have trusted one of them to hold the dog while I went for a pee. I reached the far wall and stopped about ten feet away from the platform. I took a good look round. The punters were eager, many of them patting the pockets that held their money, reassuring themselves it was still there. It wouldn’t be for much longer, I suspected, and not because of pickpockets, either.

Now, most of the men by the platform, including Terence, were fanning out among the crowd, keeping one eye on the auctioneer as he ‘entertained’ the audience with a steady stream of patter consisting of risqué remarks, old jokes and jocular encouragement to the crowd to move forward and prepare to enjoy themselves. I tuned back in. ‘I want you to promise me one thing tonight, ladies and gentlemen. I want you to promise me that you’ll be good to yourselves. You’re going to be offered the bargains of a lifetime here tonight, and I don’t want to see you holding back because you don’t think you deserve them. I am here tonight to treat you, and I want you to promise me you won’t be afraid to treat yourselves. Is that a promise? Will you do that for me?’

‘Yeah,’ they roared back. I couldn’t believe it. The guy looked like they’d minted the word ‘spiv’ just for him, yet the punters lapped it up like free beer.

‘Now, who wants to start the ball rolling with me tonight? Who needs a cigarette lighter?’ A few hands shot in the air. ‘Who could use a pack of five blank cassettes?’ A forest of hands joined them. ‘And is there anyone out there who would like a pack of three brand-new video tapes?’ I was probably the only person in the room not waving wildly. I buried my pride and stuck my hand up. The salesman grinned. ‘Now if it was up to me, I’d be giving these items away, but unfortunately, the law of the land forbids me from exercising my natural generosity. So, you need to give me a token payment for these little tasters of what’s to come.’

He paused for dramatic effect. The crowd hung on his words, rapt as a nineteenth-century congregation in thrall to some lunatic visionary minister. ‘I’m going to be as fair as I can be. My team of lads are keeping a careful eye on you all, to see who qualifies. Now, I’ve got twenty of these disposable lighters here, and the first twenty to stick their hands in the air…’ he paused again, and half a hundred arms flew wildly into the air. ‘The first twenty to stick their hands in the air after I give the word, those lucky people can purchase a lighter for only one penny. Now, I can’t say fairer than that, can I?’

The crowd obviously thought not. The salesman waved a ridiculous gavel in the air. ‘Now, I’m going to bang me little hammer three times, and when I hit the counter the third time, that’s the signal. Then the lucky twenty will be privileged to be allowed to buy a cigarette lighter for only one penny.’ There was a pregnant pause. The hammer descended once, then twice. Half the hands in the room flailed in the air at the moment the hammer should have fallen the third time. Embarrassed, they dropped their hands again. ‘Don’t be greedy now,’ the salesman admonished. ‘I promise you, everybody who wants a bargain here tonight will get one.’ As he ended his sentence, the hammer banged for the third time, and a thicket of hands straggled into the air. The salesman made a pretence of looking around to see who was first, nodding histrionically as he caught the eye of his henchmen scattered round the room. Twenty punters with waving hands were selected for the cigarette-lighter bargain. It looked to me as if they’d been chosen at random. As we progressed through the cassette tapes (fifty pence), the videos (one pound) and non-stick frying pans developed as a by-product of the American space programme (two pounds), the same arbitrary selections were made. The salesman’s assistants only seemed interested in checking out the contents of people’s wallets.

The salesman had them in the palm of his hand now. The initial loss leaders had convinced them that tonight they really were going to get bargains. The salesman tossed back his curls and fastened the top button of his jacket, as if to signal it was time to get down to serious business. ‘Ladies and gentlemen, I’m not going to insult your intelligence here tonight. I bet you all watch That’s Life . You know that there are unscrupulous people out there who want to part you and your money. Now, I’m not like that. So here’s what I’ll do. If you put your trust in me now, I will see to it that your trust does not go unrewarded. Ladies, this is something that will change your lives. Gentlemen, this is something that will change your luck. Every now and again, in the perfume laboratories of Paris, men in white coats come up with something that transforms the woman who wears it from the everyday to the absolutely sensational. With the right perfume, any housewife can make the man in her life feel like she’s Liz Taylor, Joan Collins and Michelle Pfeiffer rolled into one. It’s a scientific fact. They did it with Chanel No. 5. They did it with Giorgio. Now, they’ve done it with this!’

He brandished a box in the air. Candyfloss pink and silver stripes. It looked unlike anything I’d ever seen before. ‘Here it is, ladies and gentlemen. My brother is in the import/export business, and he has secured a case of this unique Parisian perfume for my customers before it goes on general sale. This exclusive perfume, Eau d’Ego, will be the subject of a major advertising campaign right through the summer, ladies and gentlemen. It’s going to be the hottest seller this Christmas, I promise you that. And tonight, you can be the very first people in Britain to own a bottle of Eau d’Ego.’

I struggled to keep a straight face. My French might not be up to much, but when Richard and I had spent a romantic weekend in Paris, we’d done a tour of the city sewers. I don’t think you’d find many chic Parisians wearing a perfume whose name sounds suspiciously like eau d’égout — sewage.

The salesman was still in full flow, however. ‘Now, we have a massive selection of bargains here tonight. But inevitably, we don’t have enough of our most popular items to go around. My boss puts limits on me. I mean, how many of you would like to buy a camcorder for under a hundred pounds?’

Nearly half the punters waved frantically at him. He gave a satisfied smirk. ‘Exactly. Now, my boss would sack me if I was to sell more than three of our bargain camcorders in one evening. So I have to ration you. Now, I have fifty bottles of Eau d’Ego here on this platform tonight. If you trust me enough to buy a bottle of this exclusive Parisian fragrance, I will give you first refusal on the lots I’m selling here tonight. I’m not saying you can’t buy a camcorder if you don’t buy the perfume, because that would be illegal, ladies and gentlemen. What I am saying is that the people who trust me enough to become my customers now will be given priority when it comes to buying the lots where we have restricted numbers. Now, I think you’ll agree, I can’t say fairer than that.’ His tone left no space for argument. It wasn’t a particularly clever pitch, and he wasn’t the world’s greatest spieler, but they loved it.

‘I warn you, ladies, if you get a taste for Eau d’Ego, you are never going to be called a cheap date again. When this marvellous perfume goes on sale in the shops, it will have a recommended retail price of forty-nine pounds ninety-five. Now, I’m not expecting you to pay forty-nine pounds ninety-five tonight. After all, you’ve not seen the advertising campaign, you’ve not read all the magazines raving about it, you’ve not seen the effect it has on me. All you’ve got is my word. And if I tell you that the wife helped herself to a bottle and I’ve gone home every night since, that should tell you something!’ He winked. I winced.