by Ray Banks
Not a flicker of a smile at that one. Just a barely suppressed sigh as she says, “We’re not dealing with Mr Plummer at this moment in time, pending a full investigation.”
“Pending a full investigation?” I’m all mock concern. “You’re not going to tell him where to go?”
Her mouth twitches. Could be, the ice is thawing.
“Bet you’re sick of saying that,” I say.
“You have no idea.”
I pull up a chair opposite her and Meg clicks into official mode again. “Are you looking to rent in the area?”
“Nope. I need information about Donald Plummer.”
“I told you, we’re not dealing—”
“I know, pending a full investigation. That’s not a problem. If you’re not dealing with him, you can tell me how many properties he has on your books.”
“I said, at this moment in time,” says Meg. “We may well deal with Mr Plummer again in the future.”
“I don’t think that’s going to happen, do you?”
“Well, until that time, I’m afraid we have to keep Mr Plummer’s details confidential.”
“The Data Protection Act,” I say.
“If you like. Really, I’m sorry, but there’s nothing I can do, Mr—”
“Innes.” I wait for recognition, get a blank look. “But let’s say I’m a prospective tenant, alright? If I came in here wanting to rent, but I didn’t want to find myself in a slum—”
“We don’t let slum properties, Mr Innes.”
“You know what I mean.”
The smile returns, but it’s the same one she gave David. “We would not be in a position to let one of Mr Plummer’s properties at this time.”
“Meg — can I call you Meg?”
“It’s on the badge,” she says. “And I think you already have.”
“So, Meg, do I have to go through every one of your houses and find out which ones you’re not allowed to let? Is that the only way of doing this?”
“No.”
“Then how would I go about getting a list of properties from you?”
“You? You wouldn’t.”
I grin. “You’re enjoying this, aren’t you?”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“Meg, I’m working on behalf of a client.” I pull out an old business card, smooth down the edges and place it on the desk between us. “I’m a private investigator. And, as such, any information you might want to share is entirely confidential.”
Meg doesn’t touch the card. She barely looks at it. Just enough to get my name. “Callum Innes.”
“That’s right.”
“You’re the one who saved the little boy.”
Finally.
“Yeah.”
“I didn’t recognise you.”
“I didn’t think you did.”
She waves a hand at me. “You’re heavier in real life.”
“I take a good photo.” Everyone’s got an opinion about my fucking weight. “Now, I’m not after a list of Plummer’s houses, but I do need to know if you’ve prepared a list like that for anyone recently.”
“We wouldn’t do that. It’d be a breach of the contract with Mr Plummer.”
“Right.” I sit back in the chair, then lean forward to disguise my gut. “Nobody else would’ve done that list?”
“My boss, perhaps. At a push.”
“Is he here?”
“No. And I sincerely doubt he would have done that anyway. It’s—”
“Breach of contract, you already told me.” I get out of the chair. “Look, tell you what, you hang on to that card, okay? Anything turns up, I’d appreciate it if you could let me know. It’s very important.”
“Is this anything to do with the fire?” she says.
“Ah, that’s confidential.” I nod towards the card. “But it’s worth bearing in mind.”
23
“Mr Innes?”
As soon as I’m out of the letting agency, I back up at the sight of an outstretched hand, someone lurching in front of me.
The beardy student, what’s his name, David. Looks like he’s been waiting for me to come out. The rest of the students are milling around, the picket already tired and restless and it’s not even mid-morning. Sun beating down on them, only going to get hotter, I’m not really surprised some of them are wilting. The girl with the ginger dreads is still going, though. Made of sterner stuff, obviously.
“David Nunn,” says the student, his hand still out. “Didn’t get a chance in there.”
I give his hand the same touch-shake that Meg did. “Listen, I’d love to stay and chat, but I’ve got to be somewhere else.”
He grins, showing even teeth. “That’s cool. I understand. You’re a busy man.”
I make a move to go. Feel his hand on my arm and turn a bit too quickly for him. He drops his hand.
“You got something you need to say there, David?”
“You didn’t ask how I knew your name,” he says.
“Reckoned you heard us talking in there.”
“No.” He’s still smiling. Nobody can smile this much and mean it. “I read about you in the paper.”
“Ah, right. You want me to sign something for you?”
That confuses him for a second, then he shakes his head and the smile drops from his face. “No, I’m not interested in your autograph.”
“Right. Well …”
“Are you working right now?”
“Yeah. Kind of busy, to be honest, so—”
“I was just thinking … Well, I wanted to introduce myself anyway.” He looks around him, then back at me. “Did someone give you a pamphlet?”
I reach into my pocket, bring out the list of Plummer’s properties along with the yellow paper, hold both up and gesture towards the girl with the ginger dreads. David looks at the pamphlet. His eyes flicker to slits for a split-second, then he’s all smiles again.
“Listen, make sure you read that, yeah?”
“I will.”
Another move to go, but he catches me again. Getting sick of this fucking hand on me, and I’m about to say something when he interrupts.
“You’ve got an office, right?”
“Not at the moment, no.”
“I was going to say, if you could do us a favour, you could take a stack—”
“I don’t think so.”
“Ben, mate, come over here for a second. You could take some leaflets, give them out to your clients, what d’you think?”
He doesn’t wait for an answer, already waving his rugby player mate over.
“I don’t think my clients would be interested.” I smile, but my heart’s not in it. “A right selfish bunch of bastards, most of them.”
“It’s the Lads’ Club, right? The one up in Salford?”
I don’t answer him. Thinking he probably got that from the newspaper, asking me questions so I’ll have to answer. Stalling me so he can push more of these fucking pamphlets on me.
“What about the lads that go there? Some of them must be students.”
“Not really a student kind of place, David. You’ll excuse me.”
The rugby player appears next to him, and David makes another grab for my arm. I slip out from under.
“Ben, could you get some leaflets for Mr Innes? He needs to take some with him.”
“Really, Ben, is it? Ben, there’s no need. You’ll be wasting them.” To David: “You give me those leaflets, they’ll go straight in the fuckin’ bin, I’m telling you.”
“Hey, just spread the word,” says David. “That’s all we need. Seriously, every little helps, y’know? Look, I’m just happy to meet you, Mr Innes. What you did in that house … that was something. Not everyone who can just act like that, totally without thinking.”
“You’d be surprised. I do it a lot.” I’m watching Ben head for a blue VW Beetle, one of those newer curvy monstrosities. He reaches into the back seat, pulls out an armful of pamphlets and brings them over. I hold my hands up. “No. R
eally, I’m not taking them.”
“You’re not?” says Ben. The big guy almost looks hurt. “Okay.”
“I really can’t, Ben. I don’t have my car with me. I’d be carrying them on the bus.”
“Okay,” says David, suddenly cold. “Whatever. Thought you’d appreciate the cause. Doesn’t matter that you don’t. You take care of yourself, okay?”
And he disappears into the picket, slapping people on the shoulder. Every time he touches someone, they seem to get this wee energy boost. They stiffen and straighten up on his approach. Yeah, he’s definitely the leader of this picket, and what’s weird is that people willingly accept that. When he touched me, all I felt was a bit sick.
I look back, and Ben’s still standing there with his arms full of leaflets.
“How’s the boy?” he says.
I squint at him. “What boy?”
“The one in the house. The one you saved. Is he okay?”
“I don’t know. Last I heard he was alright. A bit shaken, you know how it is.”
“And the rest of the family? You reckon they’ll be alright?”
I start to back away from Ben. “I’m sure they’re fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay. Well, you keep up the good work.”
“You too, mate.”
I turn away from the picket, head back up to the bus stop. I stop to light a cigarette, pull the leaflet out of my pocket and I’m about to chuck it into the nearest bin when I change my mind. When I reach the bus stop, I give it a read, see if these guys know anything that I don’t, see what my client’s up against.
GOT PLUMMER PROBLEMS?
You’re fucking right I do. There’s a picture of him on the inside, too. Underneath that, a list of accusations:
DONALD PLUMMER does NOT maintain his properties.
DONALD PLUMMER SUB-LETS his properties.
DONALD PLUMMER THREATENS students with BOGUS LEGAL ACTION if they complain.
DONALD PLUMMER has ILLEGALLY EVICTED tenants.
What Plummer calls his “accelerated procedure’ is broken down, chewed up and spat out.
The eviction process is something that should be handled in the first instance by a COURT OF LAW. Should any tenant be in the unenviable position of unwittingly renting a Plummer property, they should IGNORE all attempts at eviction and report such instances to either the student representative or David Nunn.
KNOW YOUR RIGHTS!
I crumple the leaflet into a ball, and force it into an overflowing bin by the bus stop. Take a drag on my Embassy, let the smoke drift out through my nostrils. I can feel the nicotine kick in now, reckon I should’ve chased it with some codeine because I can feel that wee stab of guilt in my gut.
Like I should’ve known better. Should’ve had an ounce of sense, used my brain a little bit, but I needed the work too much to admit what I was doing.
Course, it explains why Plummer hired blokes like me and Daft Frank. Reckoned we were ex-cons, so we must’ve been short on morality. A bloke doesn’t go to jail if he isn’t corrupted in some way, and if we’ve been corrupted once, stands to reason we’re open to it again, if the price is right. And the price is always right for someone who’s desperate for cash. There was us, thinking we were working legit, that here was an employer, yeah, he might’ve been a bit dodgy at times, but he believed in our rehabilitation. And if that reasoning stuttered, there was always the fact that he paid us more than Starbucks or McDonald’s, plus we didn’t have to wear a uniform. Those places, they’d depress anyone. Grown men like kids playing dress up, paper hats and gold stars on their pinnies.
All Plummer wanted was a cheap workforce. Stupid bastards who wouldn’t ask too many questions when things got hairy. Which they did. All the fucking time. And when we did start asking questions — like why the fuck were we getting hurt so much? — he got arsey, told us there were plenty of people willing to do the job we didn’t want to do.
I didn’t deserve that. And the more I think about the way he treated Daft Frank, the more I think the big guy deserved it even less than me.
He always takes things more personally than anyone else. He’s fucking sensitive.
And, now I remember, he’s late calling me.
I pull out my mobile, check for messages.
Nothing.
I call his mobile, it skips to voice mail.
Try his home number, it rings out.
Maybe he’s called the other number. As the bus rounds the end of the street, I dump my cigarette, get the correct change out. Looks like I’ll have to wait until I get home to see what the big man says.
24
What the big man says is sweet fuck all.
Nothing on the home answer machine, still nothing on my mobile voice mail, and the same deal as before when I try to call him. That doesn’t look good at all. Makes me think he’s fucked up and now he’s trying to avoid me. So I call Plummer at the office, see if he’s come in for work.
“Hang on a second, alright? This might be important … Hello?”
“Don?”
“Can’t talk right now, Callum. Busy.”
“Did Frank come—”
He hangs up on me. I stand there open-mouthed for a moment before I put the receiver back. He’s busy. Which means the only way I’m going to get to talk to him is in person. Sometimes you have to be standing right in front of the man to get his full attention. So I call a cab, head into the city centre.
The taxi drops me off on Princess Street. Office space is pricey round here, but I suppose Plummer thinks it’s worth it. The same reason he’s got a Merc — a show of success supposedly breeds it.
I buzz up and the door clicks open without the usual interrogation.
Plummer Properties is on the third floor, but I can already hear him shouting about something. Sound carries and echoes in the stairwells of these older buildings, but shouted speech booms into noise. It’s only when I hit the second-floor landing that I’m close enough to the source to make out what he’s saying.
“I don’t know what you expect from me. You want more money, is that it?”
I push on up the stairs. Plummer’s out on his landing, and it sounds like he’s talking to the guy who sent him that list. Except now he’s asking for money? In front of Plummer, his back to me, is a thin guy in a good suit.
“Ah, Christ, this is all I need,” says Plummer when he sees me. “Didn’t I tell you I was busy?”
The thin bloke turns. He’s clean-shaven, young. Has the oily skin of a former acne case, and the demeanour of one of those high-powered briefs. He gives me a cursory glance, obviously doesn’t reckon me a threat, then turns back to Plummer.
This guy isn’t the arsonist.
“We expect you to be reasonable, Mr Plummer,” he says.
“I am reasonable, pal,” says Plummer, pointing at the lawyer. “You ask anyone you want, they’ll tell you I’m reasonable. I’m a good businessman, and I don’t deserve to be treated like this.”
“I appreciate that—”
“You appreciate fuck all, Mr Faulkner.”
“There’s no need for language like that—”
“You have to get an official notice. You get one of those, we’ll have something to talk about.”
“That can be arranged.”
“I’m sure it can. Until then, I know my rights.”
Faulkner smiles at that. “Your rights—”
“You know what your problem is?” Plummer advances on the lawyer; Faulkner doesn’t move, doesn’t back down in the slightest. “You read too much into a local rag. There’s nothing on me. Nothing official, anyway. And nothing counts in our business unless it’s official. Look at the words they’re using, think about how they’re telling you the news. It’s all fucking hearsay dressed up as fact. I’m the victim of a smear campaign conducted to sell a few more papers.”
“There’s the University of Manchester student representative, Mr Plummer. They have some claims which—”
“I can’t be held responsible for a bunch of uppity fucking students,” says Plummer. “Give it a week, they’ll be boycotting Nestlé again. “Oh, I can’t eat a Kit-Kat, it’s made by the baby-killers …” Honest to God, they’re as bad as the rest of you. See one documentary about a supermarket accidentally dumping fertiliser into a river six thousand miles away and it’s fucking boycott time.”
I clear my throat. Both men look my way. “Am I interrupting something?”
“No,” says Plummer. “Mr Faulkner here was just leaving, weren’t you, Mr Faulkner?”
The lawyer looks across at me, seems to know who I am — there’s that wee spark of recognition — then he nods at Plummer. “We’ll be in touch, Mr Plummer.”
“Yeah, I’m sure you will.”
Faulkner moves past me. I give him a sarcastic smile that isn’t returned. Plummer doesn’t wait for me to approach. Instead, he turns back towards the office, shoves the door open so hard it slams off the inside wall.
“You having a nice morning, Don?”
“Fucking leeches.”
I stop in the doorway to the office. It looks like a hurricane has swept through Plummer Properties. Papers all over the place, chairs upturned, filing cabinet and desk drawers hanging out. Either someone’s done a number on the place, or Plummer’s had a fucking full-on hissy fit in here.
“What happened?”
Plummer twists in the middle of the office, glares at me. The colour’s still high at his collar. “The fuck do you care?”
“Alright, I can see you’re in a filthy mood. You’ve made your point.”
“You come round for any particular reason, Callum, or was it just to piss me off in the comfort of my own office?”
“Looks like that’s already happened,” I say. “And no, I came round to see if you’d heard from Frank—”
“Frank? Frank’s a useless piece of shit and I’ll be having words with him. Supposed to pick me up this morning, he’s nowhere to be found and I couldn’t get the lazy bastard on the phone. I had to get a taxi in to work, Cal. You have any idea how demeaning it is when you get recognised by a cab driver? These people don’t read, they don’t watch the news, they don’t even think, half of them. But they don’t need to, because I’m the most hated man in Manchester right now. I’m part of the local popular culture.”
