“No, I think the only way to put this together is to hear everyone out,” Bryant contradicted. “They’re not in the mood to provide alibis for each other anymore.” He turned to the students. “So, let’s imagine we’re playing a game. I’ll be the Bank. Although strictly speaking, Mr Nicolau, you should be the Bank, shouldn’t you?”
Nikos stared awkwardly at the others, wondering how much he should say.
“Come, come, Mr Nicolau, this is no time to be shy. I imagine you were very excited when you came up with the idea for the game, weren’t you? All those nights spent online could finally be put to some use.”
Nikos cleared his throat and edged forward in his seat, conscious of the police cameras recording him. “Yeah, it was me who came up with it, but it was never meant to end up like this. I don’t know what Theo’s been up to because I had no part – ”
“Let’s just stick to the facts for now. We’ll have plenty of time later to ascertain everyone’s levels of involvement. Why did you come up with the game? When did you first think of it?”
“It began in the Karma Bar,” he mumbled. “A bunch of us were sitting around, and we were all complaining that we were broke.”
“We were talking about our student loans, and the rent and all the bills,” said Ruby. “I was always having to lend the others – ”
“Please, let’s stick to the point,” warned Bryant. “We’ll get to you in due course, Miss Cates. Go on, Mr Nicolau.”
“I said I thought we should try to make some money with online gambling. I knew a lot about statistics and had a few ideas for beating the odds. What I didn’t know was that he – ” here Nikos pointed angrily at Theo “ – had been gambling online for quite a long time. I explained to the others that the main problem was the number of players. You’re more likely to die in a plane crash than win most lotteries, because there are too many punters participating. I said if we could just keep the number of players limited, we stood a chance of making some real money. So we tried out the game for a few weeks, just accumulating small sums. Matt – Matthew Hillingdon – was the overall winner. But we realised that in order to make any decent amount of cash, everyone would have to put a lot more in the pot.”
“Who came in on the game?” asked May.
“There were seven of us at first. But Cassie dropped out because she didn’t want anything more to do with Theo. He had started sleeping with Ruby.”
“That’s not why she dropped out,” said Theo quietly. “She couldn’t raise her share of the stake.”
“So there were six players,” Bryant prompted.
“Yeah. We each put five grand in, but it still didn’t seem like enough if we were going for one winner.”
“You were all broke, yet you managed to raise five thousand apiece,” said May. “Obviously the definition of ‘broke’ has changed a little since my day.”
“My dad’s brother owns a chain of Greek restaurants,” Nikos said. “He’s a complete idiot. On the same day of every month he takes a suitcase containing around sixty thousand pounds to his bank in Paris, all cash. He goes on the Eurostar. So on Monday morning I set up a flash mob in St Pancras station to create a diversion, and while that was happening Theo robbed him.”
“It was like taking sweets from a very stupid child,” said Theo. “He kept the bag attached to his wrist with plastic binders.” He held up his own tethered wrist: “I just cut them with kitchen scissors while he was standing there watching everyone dance.” He sniggered, looking to the others for approval.
“So then we had a decent stake to work with,” Nicolau continued. “Ninety grand in all. I wanted to find two more players to make it an even hundred thousand, but Theo wouldn’t let me. He really wanted to keep his odds of winning high.”
“Yes, this image you perpetuate of the bored rich kid isn’t quite accurate, is it?” said Bryant. “You’d run up some serious gambling debts, your last business venture – property, wasn’t it? – had failed spectacularly, your car was repossessed – not stolen – and your family had cut you off without a penny.”
“You have no idea,” said Theo. “I’d surrendered my savings, I sold my watch, my pen, everything I owned, and replaced them with fakes. You have to keep up appearances. Some thugs in Shoreditch were going to come round and break my arms if I didn’t pay them by the end of the week.”
“Tell us what happened next.”
“Well, now that we’d raised a decent stake, we started playing in earnest,” said Nicolau. “Toby had been the previous week’s winner – six players, six days of the week – we drew straws to see who would get which day.”
“And it was my turn to play again on Monday,” said Theo.
“How long had you been playing?”
“This was week three. It’s an elimination game. We decided that each player should have three lives. If you were knocked out three times, you’d lose your stake and be out of the game. And I had two strikes against me. The winner of each week got what we called living expenses, until the final overall winner was decided.”
“Of course, Toby had to flash his cash about,” Sangeeta complained.
“I think at this point you should tell us what the game involved.” Bryant was striding about with his thumbs in his waistcoat like an old-time prosecutor. The image would have been more appealing if the waistcoat had not been held together with safety pins.
“We wanted to come up with something that wasn’t just based on luck,” said Nicolau. “We thought it should require some skill, bravado even. I was talking to a guy who worked for London Underground, and he told me about a game he’d heard of, a gambling dare you could play on the tube. You pick a stranger, text the amount of your placed bet, then follow the stranger on their journey, and whatever they do scores you points.” Nicolau was warming to his subject, forgetful of the fact that the game had ended in a series of brutal murders.
“I laid down the ground rules. First, you send a photograph of the line you’re going to play on – we’d taken shots of the seat livery in all the different carriages – then you photograph your mark – the person you’ve picked to bet on. To make sure there’s no switching, you also put a sticker on their back to tag them in your pictures. Then you film the different things they do, like reading a book or listening to an iPod – all of the activities score points – and you send the results to the next player’s mobile to verify it. Then you score more points for how many stops they travel, and if they get off at the station you’ve pre-designated, you win that day’s pot.”
“We weren’t allowed to talk to outsiders about the game,” said Toby, his head in his hands. “I had to borrow the stake money from my uncle. I don’t know why I got involved.”
“And with the aid of the robbery, you were able to up the ante,” said Bryant.
“It wasn’t a robbery.” Theo was utterly dismissive of the idea. “It was taking money away from a total creep who would have only spent the profits from his shitty little restaurants on gold bath taps and plasma screens for his stupid villa in Cyprus. And it was my turn to play. I went to Bond Street tube and saw this woman in a bright red polka dot dress, and knew at once that I’d be able to track her through the system without losing her, because she looked so different from everyone else. Man, it was a total winning streak – everything I suggested she would do, she did. I sent the photos and texts to Matt’s phone – he was going to be the next player – and told him that I staked her destination as King’s Cross. I’m good at reading people. I was sure she would get off there, and she did. I followed her up the escalator to the ticket barrier, and just as she got to it, the bitch turned around and went back down.