I FELL IN LOVE WITH A CON MAN

Carolyn Woods, 64, was duped out of her life savings by a man leading a secret life

- STEPH CLARKSON

It was almost closing time when a striking man, dark-haired and impeccably dressed, walked into the clothes boutique where I worked. I helped him try on a jacket, and he told me his name was Mark and that he was a Swiss banker. He’d flown in from Geneva and was planning to buy Cotswold Airport. Before he left, he asked for my number and minutes later my phone pinged. ‘Did I turn your head?’ he asked. ‘A few degrees perhaps,’ I replied. I wasn’t looking for love. Divorced for 10 years, I was enjoying my independence, having moved to an idyllic country cottage in Tetbury, but no one had ever come on to me so strongly.

I agreed to a date. Mark Conway was great company. He came from a wealthy family, he said, but had made his own fortune. He could fly planes, spoke seven languages and had a photographic memory. He said he couldn’t stop thinking about me. And so began a whirlwind relationship, in which things moved so quickly, I could barely draw breath. Now I know this to be the classic behaviour of a psychopath.