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Nicholas Ingram, now there’s a name I haven’t heard in a while,’ he said, after I had made my first prompting. ‘A nasty piece of work. I had some trade with the Earl of Leicester’s estate a couple of years ago. Ingram was in his service then. He was a fixer for Leicester – knows his way in and out of the law – but I also heard that he had a reputation for being a loan shark. The type who lends money with nasty sub-clauses. When the unsuspecting dupe comes to pay the money back, Ingram is nowhere to be found so the poor buggers end up forfeiting the deal and having to pay back three times as much. That’s one way these people operate anyway – there are lots of other scams on the go. Never borrow money if you can help it, Lovat my lad, it’ll come back to haunt you.’ Bennett was barely a month older than me, but he always managed to make me feel like his baby brother.
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