by Tom Trott
The old man was almost completely absorbed by a large armchair. How he got out of it I had no idea. His goggles were directed at the television, which showed some daytime property show in the wrong aspect ratio. The sound was deafening. The chair’s twin was placed at a right angle to his. I sat down in it. He looked at me on the edge of fury, a man with no time.
‘You again!’ he rasped. ‘Thief.’
I frowned.
‘They stopped making that TV show of yours, didn’t they? I don’t blame them. Doesn’t mean you had to become a common thief. I ain’t got anything worth stealing.’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘What? Stop whispering! All you young people mumble, why can’t you speak properly?’
‘I said,’ enunciating loudly and clearly, ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
He frowned, frustrated. ‘I saw you: casing the joint. Like a common thief. I said I haven’t got anything worth a damn to steal.’
His gaze never left the television. On it a young woman was showing an older couple a bedroom. They nodded and said something about the “aspect”. This was followed by shots of a sandy beach.
‘What are you watching?’ I shouted over the din.
‘Your show’s not on anymore!’ he shouted back.
‘I don’t know this programme,’ I told him.
‘Some rubbish. They help people who want to move abroad. Stupid people with too much money.’
I smiled. I was starting to like him. ‘Do you mind if I ask you a few questions?’
‘I told you I haven’t got anything worth stealing.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘None of your business.’
‘How long have you lived here?’
He frowned at me, annoyed that I was asking, as though he didn’t have the option to just ignore me. ‘Thirty years,’ he croaked.
‘You’re not a farmer then?’
He was insulted. ‘I was very successful.’
‘As what?’
‘I owned two hair salons.’
I laughed in disbelief.
‘What of it!?’ he asked. ‘I didn’t cut the hair, I just owned the places. That’s how I met Barbara.’
‘Barbara is your wife?’
He grunted affirmation. ‘She was beautiful back then. I got her to cut my hair as a way to get closer to her, you know. She was so nervous cutting the boss’s hair that she nicked my ear with the scissors. I told her the only way she could make it up to me was to come dancing. Three months later we were married. That’s how we did it in them days, not like today.’
‘Where’s Barbara now?’ I asked, then wished I hadn’t.
His face screwed up into a scrotum.
‘So why did you move out here?’ I asked.
‘I retired.’
‘You sold the salons to move here?’
‘I gave the salons to my children. We sold our place in town.’ He didn’t elaborate.
‘Quite a change from town out here,’ I prompted him.
‘We wanted peace and quiet. We were sick of the city, it isn’t what it used to be. Brighton used to be beautiful, it was clean, not like today. It’s not what it used to be, everyone’s on drugs, you’ve got weird people, what they’re wearing, and girls didn’t walk around half-naked.’
‘You’ve not got any neighbours round here.’
He nodded.
‘What about the house up the road?’ I asked.
‘Dead.’
‘What happened?’
‘Murder.’
‘Really?’
Again, he just nodded.
‘I heard there were burglaries back then.’
He didn’t respond.
‘Burglaries,’ I repeated.
‘I heard about them,’ was all he murmured.
‘You weren’t burgled?’
He just stared at the television. This was getting nothing out of him. Still, I’d bet my life his house was one of burglaries in the file.
‘No one uses the farm anymore?’ I asked.
He shook his head.
‘No one goes up there anymore?’
He nodded. ‘Exactly, that’s what I told her.’
‘Who?’
‘Barbara!’ he shouted, like it was obvious. ‘She sees things.’
‘What sort of things?’
‘Anything. Everything. She’s gone potty. She thinks I’ve gone potty, she’s gone potty.’
‘What did she see?’
He frowned again, trying to concentrate on the television.
‘Did she see someone?’
He huffed, turning from the glow of the screen to look at me. ‘No, no. That was just lights. And a noise.’
‘What lights? When?’
‘I don’t know.’ He turned back to the television.
‘You didn’t see them?’
‘I wasn’t here.’
‘When was this?’
‘A couple of weeks ago.’
‘What time?’
He tried to turn the television volume even higher but it was at maximum.
‘What time?’ I asked again.
‘In the night.’
‘You weren’t here?’
‘I went on holiday.’
I must have looked surprised.
‘I’m ninety-six, I’m not dead.’
‘But Barbara didn’t go?’
‘She didn’t like it, doesn’t like foreign food. It was to Turkey. We won a competition. She claims she didn’t enter any competition. I didn’t enter it. But she forgets. It was probably on the TV.’
‘So you went on your own?’
He bared his sharp little teeth at me again. ‘She doesn’t need that chair of hers all the time, you know! She can take care of herself.’
‘And she saw lights?’
‘She says.’
‘And a noise?’
‘That’s what I said.’
‘What kind of noise?’
‘I didn’t ask.’
‘Can I ask her?’
‘No.’
‘Where is she?’
‘Hospital.’ His face screwed up again.
‘What happened?’
‘Stroke.’
A look of concern crossed my face but he misread it.
‘I couldn’t have predicted that, could I!?’ he screeched. ‘Our Vicky found her. She told her about the lights.’
‘Can I speak to your daughter?’
‘She’s married.’
‘I’d like to speak to her.’
He looked at me with a new level of scrutiny, then a new dawn broke across his face. ‘You’re not from the TV!’
‘I didn’t say I was.’
‘Why would you want to trick an old man like that!? I’m ninety-six, you know, I’ve already got fourteen grandchildren waiting for me to die. Five great-grandchildren. Not that I’ve got anything to give them, this house ain’t worth nothing. A man tried to buy it off me once for a million quid.’
I raised my eyebrows. ‘When was that?’
‘I don’t know. Last year maybe. Maybe longer. Our Vicky dealt with it.’
‘She turned him down?’
‘It would’ve fallen through once he got the survey. This place is falling apart. I’m too old to fix anything, and Barbara doesn’t trust tradesmen.’
I changed the subject. ‘How did you find out about the holiday?’
‘We got a letter, didn’t we!? And the man came round.’
‘What man?’
‘The man from the TV. He came to congratulate us for winning.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘Coloured fella.’
‘Anything more distinguishing than that?’
‘I don’t know, I can’t tell the difference between them.’
I sighed. Suddenly I heard crunching on the gravel outside.
‘That’ll be our Vicky,’ he said. Clearly the gravel was the only thing he coul
d hear well.
I stood up. Before I could do more, the door was open and a woman called, ‘Hello!?’
She appeared in the living room doorway. She had a mass of curly red hair that spilled out in all directions, and wore a purple one of those fashionable but comfy Scandinavian jumpers under a blue Anorak. In the middle of it all sat the sort of face that instantly inspires friendly feelings. They should make her as a cuddly doll for children who can’t sleep.
‘Oh, hello,’ she lisped.
‘Hello.’ I smiled. ‘I just came to ask your father some questions,’ I explained.
‘Ok...’ She sounded understandably suspicious. ‘Grandfather, actually.’
‘Of course.’ I should have done the maths, she looked younger than me. I smiled again, it felt a little forced.
‘I’ll do your tea, grandad,’ she announced with a practiced audibility as she disappeared toward the kitchen.
He grunted acknowledgement.
I followed her down the hallway into the kitchen, where she emptied and refilled the kettle, set it boiling, pricked a ready meal packet and loaded it in the microwave, then pulled on some rubber gloves to get going on the dishes. I leant in the doorway.
‘What are you selling?’ she asked bluntly. ‘He hasn’t got any money, not anymore.’ She filled the washing bowl with warm water and a drop of Fairy liquid.
‘I’m not selling anything,’ I said, and showed her my business card.
She grumbled, not unlike her grandfather. ‘And what do you want with him?’
‘It’s about the lights your grandmother saw—’
‘She’s not my grandmother.’
I frowned. ‘I’m sorry, I thought you said—’
‘I’m the mistress’s daughter.’ She spoke bluntly again; it sounded odd with a lisp. She grabbed a sponge and scrubbed the glasses and plates so hard they squeaked.
The house had grown darker since she arrived, and now the patter of rain arrived on the edge of perception.
‘Well,’ I explained, ‘it’s about the lights Barbara saw, and the noise she heard. I understand she spoke to you about them.’
‘That’s right.’ She went on scrubbing and scouring.
‘What did she say?’
‘She said she saw lights. And heard a noise.’
‘Anything more than that?’
‘What’s it worth to you?’
I made a distasteful face. It didn’t faze her.
‘Come on...’ She made eye contact now. ‘I know how you work: you charge it back to the client, it doesn’t cost you a thing.’
I shrugged. ‘Twenty quid.’
She raised her eyebrows in disappointment.
‘Fifty quid.’
‘Put it on the side.’
I took a fifty pound note out of my wallet and put it on the windowsill behind the sink.
‘Haven’t you got anything smaller?’
I didn’t answer.
She went back to washing up. ‘It was a car, or something, she said, went up the road, in the middle of the night. She couldn’t sleep, hadn’t slept a single night alone in this house since they moved here. Sometime afterwards she could hear a low rumbling, she could feel it in her bed like when a bus drives past and it rattles the windows, you know. Lasted quite a while, she said, couldn’t say how long.’
I sighed. ‘That’s all?’
‘That’s all.’ She started loading the draining board.
‘Your grandad says someone tried to buy the house for a million pounds.’
She just laughed.
‘Not true?’
‘Someone came round, tried to con him. People do with old people, especially if they haven’t got their wits about them anymore. I thought that’s what you were here for.’
I smiled at her genuinely this time. I was starting to like her too. ‘When was this?’
‘Must be a couple of years ago now.’
‘What did he look like?’
‘I don’t know, I didn’t see him. Black, I think. Well... “coloured” is the term grandad used, so take that as you will.’ She gave me a sideways look. ‘What’s this all about? Insurance company send you, did they?’
‘No, it’s nothing to do with you lot, don’t worry.’ I turned to leave. ‘I hope your not-grandmother gets better soon.’
‘She won’t,’ she said, speaking as bluntly as ever. ‘She died two days ago.’
‘I’m sorry,’ was all I could manage.
15
...And the Darkness Comprehended It Not
In the short walk from the cottage to my car the rain moved from spitting, to drizzle, to a deluge, and by the time I shut the door I was drenched.
Thunder crackled and rain pounded on the roof, running down the windscreen. I turned the key in the ignition. The rented Kia didn’t have heated seats, but what it had was enough. This is one clear advantage cars have over motorbikes. I used to be soaked and frozen and unable to relax, but now I could sit in the warm, staring through the streaming windows as curtains of rain lashed the car, blowing down the road toward me. I cranked the heater up to maximum, but the air coming through the vents was cool for now whilst the engine warmed up.
I thought about the man I had just met, about the lights his wife had seen, about the sound, the muddy patch in the field, the information I pried from Ben McCready; and slowly but surely an image formed in my mind.
I put my hands over the vents, the air coming through was warm now and I shivered in that way you do when you feel heat and realise just how cold you are. That feeling when you step into a warm house.
The bottom of my trousers were soaked, my hair sodden. The office was only over the hill. I turned on the headlamps, performed a three-point turn and trundled back toward the bypass.
✽✽✽
When I made it into the building and up the stairs into the reception, I could hear voices. The door was open, and inside my office were Thalia and Stephanie (the associate I didn’t fire). They were crouched on the floor, where they had spread out a road map of the city.
‘I thought you had your own office?’ I said to Stephanie out of some natural urge to be irritable.
‘Yours is bigger,’ Thalia answered for her.
Next to the roadmap was her laptop, and on the screen was another map. Certain buildings were marked by orange outlines, and there was a purple dot every few roads.
‘What are you doing?’ I asked.
‘Stephanie found a map online of British property owned by companies registered in tax havens, we thought we’d check if Praesidio Sheltered Holdings own any other property as well as the farm.’
‘And do they?’
‘No,’ she replied indifferently.
Oh well, I thought, it was a nice idea.
I wandered over to the cupboard where I kept a change of clothes and took out a pair of jeans. Rain lashed the windows, it was practically dark now, and only four o’clock in the afternoon. Traffic was queuing off the bypass, the rain muffling the sound of honking horns.
‘You’ll have to go into the other office whilst I change,’ I told them.
‘We won’t look,’ Thalia replied without glancing up, ‘besides, I’ve seen it all before.’
Deciding that any response would further damage my dignity I kicked off my shoes, undid my belt, slid off my suit trousers, and pulled on the jeans. Although she didn’t look up, I saw Stephanie blush.
Stephanie had been an interesting find. When we started the agency Thalia had posted job adverts for the position of “Investigations Associate”; regular tasks would include research and surveillance. I had expected to get applications from retired policemen, fired policemen, security guards, and the like; but I hadn’t expected interested amateurs. Before any interviews we arranged a task: over the course of one week Thalia would arrange for all the applicants to follow me for two hours and turn in a report. I wasn’t to know who or when. At the end of each day I would meet Thalia, and if I could describe accurately any of t
he people who had followed me that day they were struck off the list. Stephanie was the only one I never spotted. I had spotted Charlie, but his report was thorough, and he was young and keen, and his father was a significant policeman, so I took him on as a form of insurance. I should have guessed that the laws of irony would make him a liability instead. But Stephanie was something else. She came for her follow up interview looking like exactly what she was: a middle-aged, middle class mother. She was barely over five foot, had curly silver hair, and wore an arrangement of tasteful tops and smart trousers, sometimes a summer dress. She said she was bored, hadn’t had a job since having children, but now they were at university and she wanted something to fill her days, plus her husband wanted to take early retirement and the money would help paste over the cracks their holiday budget. I liked her relaxed honesty. I liked the fact that no one would give her a second thought.
‘If you didn’t find any other properties, what are you doing now?’ I asked them.
‘We thought we’d check that other company,’ Thalia replied, ‘Secure Investments, the one that owns Mr X’s house and car, see if they owned anything else in the city.’
‘And do they?’
‘No.’
I sighed, wandering over to where they were crouched by the spread-out map. ‘So I ask again, what are you doing now?’
‘Well, you said that Mr X is the key to this case, and assuming the different companies are just shells used to disguise ownership, then any property owned by an overseas company could be connected to the case. So, I thought, let’s see what else in the city is owned by overseas companies. The answer turns out to be loads.’
She zoomed out on the online map, which showed Brighton & Hove to be awash with orange and pink.
‘So, we’ve been going through them, seeing if there’s anything that catches our eye. There’s the stuff you would (depressingly) expect to be owned by tax dodgers: Churchill Square, Amex House, loads more commercial properties, including this one, some big flat buildings, some other random residential properties in the posher areas. Stephanie found the strangest one.’
‘What’s that?’
Stephanie placed a finger on the road map, on the corner where Albion Hill meets Phoenix Rise. ‘Right here,’ she said, ‘Thornsdale. It’s a tower block, ex-council housing.’
