A True Crime Story

In 1990 Mark Brown …………(go) on holiday to America for two months where he ……….. (spend) over £1,200 more than he ……………. (plan). His mother …………..(send) him money from England by mail to cover his expenses. He ………….. (insure) himself before going to America and so he ……………(decide) on the last day to go to the police and say he ………………(be) robbed, and with the report from the police he could claim the money back from the insurance company.

He ………….(be) so afraid about just happily walking into the police station that he ……………(decide) that the most convincing way …………….(be) to fake the robbery in the street. He ………………….(leave) all his bags in the hotel and ………………(go) to a rather dangerous part of New York. After walking up and down the street for half an hour deciding what to do, he ……………. (stand) in front of a cigarette machine and …………….(buy) a pack of cigarettes. Suddenly he …………….(scream), ‘Help, someone, my bag has been stolen’. To his surprise several people …………(stop) and one man …………….(tell) him to cross the street to where a policeman was standing.

All the people …………..(follow) him across the road and he …………….(be) now very nervous but he ………..(know) he had to continue with his story. He …….(tell) the policeman that he ……………(leave) his bag on the floor while buying a pack of cigarettes and that when he …………….(look) down it ……………….(disappear). He then ……………. (begin) to describe all the things that …………….(be) in the bag. He ……………..(practice) this in the afternoon. He …………(tell) the police he ……………….(lose) a video camera, jewellery, money and clothes. He wasn’t nervous at all. He …………………(always like) acting and totally ……………………(convince) the police. He …………..(give) a description of a man he ……………(see) following him and ………….(be) told to go to the police station later that day to collect a report for his insurance company.

When he ……………..(get) back to England he ……………….(send) the police report to the insurance company who ……………..(tell) him that every item over £100 ……………(require) a receipt. He busily …………….(spend) the next weeks collecting receipts from all the people he……………..(know). He then ……………….(send) the receipts off to the company and ……………………(wait). After about five weeks he was sent another letter from the insurance company telling him that he ………………….(not take) enough care of his bag and that they would not pay any money.

Mark couldn’t really complain, after all the story was all a fabrication. However, two days later he ……………(receive) a telegram from the police in New York telling him that a bag that ………….(fit) his description ………………..(be found) in the house of a recently convicted criminal and that some of the contents ………………..(also be found). Two weeks later he………………(receive) a video camera, clothes and jewellery from the police in New York. None of it was, of course, his.