The Concrete Ceiling

by Peter Rowlands

  Now all eyes were on Nick, and I sensed that the room was holding its breath. However, he merely said, “Nah, of course not. I just think Ronnie needs to be better prepared for contingencies like Josie being off sick. She relies on you too much.”

  I watched carefully to see how Sam would react. She was frowning. “It’s what she’s used to, Nick. I’ve always been there for her. She can’t just change her mindset overnight.”

  “But you weren’t married in the past. Ronnie isn’t taking account of that.”

  Sam bridled. “I’m not married now.”

  He laughed. “Touché.” He glanced around, then gave one of his winning smiles. “Who’s for more wine?”

  * * *

  After the meal Nick offered to show me round the house. It was a large double-fronted thatched cottage in a villagey area on the edge of Banbury. “We’re only renting, of course,” he told me. “This place came up at a silly price, so I snapped it up. Being in the estates business, I get to know about this kind of thing before the rest of the market. It’s one of the perks of the trade.” He glanced around. “We’ll stay here until we find the right place to buy.”

  He showed me the room they’d set aside upstairs for Sam to use for her jewellery design work. It was much more cramped than the large space she’d had at her father’s house. I made some comment to that effect, and Nick said, “She probably won’t need it at all once we start a family.”

  I decided I didn’t want to know about that, and was relieved that Sam wasn’t within earshot. Hearing her life being mapped out for her might not have impressed her any more than it had me.

  Finally we arrived at the subject that had brought me here in the first place – my curiosity about Cavenham Risby, the commercial property agency that represented the disputed warehouse. As Nick ushered me into a small lounge he said, “They’re a long-standing firm founded by Lionel Risby. I used to play squash with his son Daniel.”

  “Ah. I don’t want to start making accusations against people you know well.”

  “Don’t worry – say what’s on your mind. I’m old enough to make my own judgements.”

  “Well, I was going to ask if there was any chance they might play fast and loose with privileged client information.” I paused. “I’m sure you’ll tell me no.”

  “You’re right, I have to say it’s unlikely.” He frowned. “What makes you ask the question?”

  “It’s something that came up through my work. A logistics firm was about to sign a lease on a warehouse in Rugby. They were going to use it for a delivery contract that they thought they’d won. Then out of the blue another firm snatched the contract out from them, and at the same time there was a problem with the lease on the warehouse. It seemed a bit odd.”

  “You’re very well informed.”

  “Not really. I’m just reporting what I’ve been told.”

  “Well I doubt if there was any skulduggery on the property side. That kind of thing very rarely happens. Information about deals like this does sometimes leak out, but it’s in the nature of the business. The property world is a tightly-knit community. People talk. There’s nothing much you can do to stop if, but it very rarely involves any deep-level plot.”

  “I’m sorry if I seem to be impugning your friend.”

  “Dan isn’t a friend any more.” He adopted a confidential tone. “We fell out a few years ago. His company was angling to take us over, but we made it plain that we weren’t having it. We’re civil to each other nowadays, but we never really repaired the bad feeling.”

  “I see.”

  “All the same, I just don’t see him being party to a blatant breach of confidentiality.”

  “OK, I hear what you’re saying.”

  “But I’ll keep my ear to the ground, Mike. If I hear anything on those lines, I’ll get back to you. Can’t say fairer than that.”

  * * *

  It was Des who drove me back to the station at the end of the evening. “I’m staying over with Nick and Sam tonight,” he told me as we pulled away, “so I haven’t been drinking this evening. When I get back to the cottage I can get smashed.”

  I turned to him and chuckled. Getting smashed wasn’t Des’s style.

  He said, “So what do you think of our Nick now that you know him a bit better?”

  I wondered what he was expecting, or what I could safely say. “He seems pleasant enough,” I offered cautiously.

  “But?”

  I glanced at him sharply. Was he implying that he had his own reservations, or simply saying he’d detected mine? I couldn’t decide. After a moment I said, “He’s a bit controlling, it seems to me. He’s bought into Sam’s business, and now he’s marrying her. If she doesn’t watch out, he’ll be trying to run her entire life for her.”

  He was nodding, but he said, “She’s a strong girl. She won’t let him do that.” He didn’t sound altogether convinced.

  “I hope not.”

  We drove on in silence, then he turned to me. “Is there anybody Nick reminds you of? To look at, I mean, and in his general manner?”

  I thought about this for a moment, then shrugged. “Not that I can think of.”

  “No? Take away the beard, and I would have said he reminds me slightly of you.”

  Chapter 11

  BOOKING FORM

  This form is for reserving a placement in our MegaMagic program. Please fill in all fields marked with an asterisk. Thank you for promoting your book with us.

  Author name* Mike Stanhope

  Book title* The Stash

  Publishing code* EP92837X65

  Publishing platform* Endpaper

  Other publishing platforms

  Genre* Mystery/thriller

  Is your book part of a series? No

  Is your book free?* No

  Book price* $1.99

  Book description (max 250 chars)

  Who was that girl he once knew? Why did she vanish without trace? Once he starts digging into the past, he can’t let go. Her misplaced good intentions offer his first real clue, but as he starts to close in, he’s oblivious to the havoc he threatens.

  Author bio (max 350 words)

  Mike Stanhope was born in southern England, and divides his time between London and Cornwall. He cut his teeth writing about trucks, but says he always preferred the idea of writing about people. The Stash is his first novel.

  Important note

  No representation is made as to the number of sales, downloads or reviews you may expect as a result of participation in our MegaMagic program. You are responsible for ensuring that the book is available at the stated price for the duration of your promotion.

  There it was – my latest bid for fame and fortune. Or to be more exact, it was a bid for book downloads. Fortune was not high in my list of expectations.

  I’d filled in many a submission form since publishing my book. Recently I’d been neglecting the promotional task, but for some weeks now I’d been winding myself up to launch a new campaign, and those negative book reviews had added an extra incentive. I wanted to stimulate good reviews to counteract the bad ones.

  Choosing where to spend my money had been a puzzle. I knew of various book promotion web sites – places where you could buy a slot in an email sent out to keen eBook readers. They all worked to some extent, especially if your book was on free offer. But how was I to know which was the best site for my needs?

  Then an incoming email caught my eye.

  If your book is no good, throw it away!

  But if it IS good, why is no one reading it? Because no one knows about it!

  Put this right overnight. Get reviews. Get sales. Get a buzz going. And all without lifting a finger. We put in the hard hours, you reap the rewards.

  I nearly didn’t read this. It was like many emails I received every day. When I was first trying to build up sales for my book I’d allowed my name to get on to numerous mailing lists, and some of the organisations behind them now emailed me relentlessly.r />
  However, this was the first email I’d received from The Magic Bookseller. Flicking back to the top, I realised it had been forwarded to me by Graham Bulwell, presumably in the belief that he was doing me a favour.

  Against my better judgement I sat reading the entire email as I drank my mid-morning coffee, and before I knew it I was clicking through to the web site behind it. The proposition had a brash confidence that appealed to me – an air of conviction that some of its rivals lacked. The costs looked far higher than anything I’d spent in the past, but the accolades from satisfied authors were impressive.

  To this day I don’t know why, but a feeling of recklessness washed over me. I knew there were many tried and tested paths for promoting self-published books, but they were all painstaking and slow. Free offers, book blogging, social media postings, list building, online review circles – in the early days I’d tried them all, but it had felt like tinkering at the margins. In some ways I was like Graham; I longed for a short-cut. I wondered if The Magic Bookseller could offer one.

  I hesitated. There had to be a catch – but maybe I didn’t want there to be one. Like a lot of authors, I’d spent thirty dollars here and seventy dollars there (it always seemed to be dollars, even for UK authors), yet nothing had really worked. Exposure and recognition remained elusive. I felt as if a tarpaulin of obscurity was pressing down on me, and I was trying to poke through it with a piece of straw. There had to be a better way.

  I’d set aside a chunk of money to spend on some serious book promotion, assuming I ever found a suitable place to spend it. Maybe now was that time. The money would certainly never help me sitting in the bank.

  I needed third-party corroboration of The Magic Bookseller’s effectiveness. I searched a couple of online writers’ forums for references to it, and found a variety of comments. They all said its prices were remarkably high (one called them “stratospheric”), and some said that although it had given them a boost, they hadn’t covered their costs. But others were ecstatic. “A massive lurch into the limelight,” one said. “Worth every penny.”

  I smiled to myself. It might work, it might not, but for once in my life I felt ready to take a gamble.

  Chapter 12

  Things started to unravel sooner than I could possibly have expected. My first inkling that all was not well came ten days later when Sam phoned me.

  “You got home all right the other night?” she asked.

  “The train worked like a charm.”

  “Great.” She hesitated. “I’m calling to beg a favour. It’s about my cousin Graham. You know we were talking about his book? He has a problem.”

  “What kind of problem?”

  “Well, I’ve picked this up secondhand from my dad. The two of them have always been close, and Graham just phoned him. From what I’m hearing, Graham has been ripped off by some company that’s promoting his book for him. My dad didn’t know what to tell him, but you might be able to calm him down a bit.”

  “He’s lucky to have you rooting for him.”

  “We used to get on well when I was small. His family lived out this way back then, in Oxfordshire.” She sighed. “I have to say he seems to have become more and more manic over the years – especially since his wife moved out. He’s almost like a different person these days. Dad says this company has got him really worked up.”

  “What do you reckon I can do?”

  “Whatever you think. Maybe just give him a call and provide a bit of reassurance? Offer him some fellow-feeling from one writer to another, that kind of thing.”

  Uncharitably, I found myself resenting the idea of having my work lumped together with Graham’s. I tried to dismiss the thought. He might be struggling in the publishing stakes, but I hadn’t exactly covered myself with glory.

  I said, “I’ll give it a try.”

  “Thanks, Mike.” She hesitated. “And let me know how it goes.”

  That last remark lingered in my mind as I ended the call. It was a natural throw-away, yet it also sounded like an excuse to stay in touch. Or was I being fanciful?

  * * *

  Graham Bulwell was not a happy man; that quickly became clear. As soon as he recognised my voice on the phone he let rip.

  “I’ve been swindled, and I don’t like it.” He sounded almost apoplectic. “These people are bastards. Charlatans. Daylight fucking robbers.”

  I had to listen to a lot more in this vein, but eventually he calmed down to the extent of explaining his problem. “I paid out nearly six hundred pounds to promote my book, yet the effect has been literally zero. Not one new sale. These people have taken my money and done nothing. I call that plain and simple fraud.”

  “You paid who exactly?”

  “The Magic Bookseller – those people we were talking about when you came down to Clapham.”

  I felt a massive lurch in my gut. Graham was telling me he’d been defrauded by the very company I’d paid more than eight hundred pounds to. I couldn’t believe it. As my mind raced, I repeated mechanically, “You paid six hundred pounds to just one company?” I could hear the hypocrisy in my question, yet it was my instinctive response.

  He was immediately indignant. “They did a decent job for me before, and they came highly recommended. In fact you recommended them.”

  “No I didn’t! All I said was that I’d heard of them.”

  “Well, that’s as maybe. Somebody recommended them. Anyway, they were running a really good offer. For just under six hundred pounds, I would get a guaranteed ten reviews, a prominent position in a mailing, six months on their home page …”

  I tuned out as I listened to Graham’s litany of unfulfilled promises. The details almost exactly mirrored mine, leaving me with a dread that my outcome would be the same as his. Finally, in an effort to calm him down, I said, “How do you know you’ve been cheated? When was this campaign supposed to run?”

  “Ten days ago. I paid up front.” He made a tetching sound. “I had to jump through hoops before they would accept the book in the first place. Pretty ironical, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, they told me we were good to go, yet my book isn’t on the Magic Bookseller home page, and I haven’t seen it mentioned in any emails or tweets. And I haven’t had a single new book sale. Not one.”

  I was thinking fast. Graham’s six hundred was a lot of money if you didn’t have much to spare, but it didn’t add up to a fortune in the scheme of things. Would the operators of this web site intentionally steal it, and potentially damage their reputation as a result? It seemed unlikely.

  I said, “I wonder if there’s been some kind of glitch? Maybe your booking never went through?”

  “They’ve taken my money, so it must have.”

  “Oh. So what have they told you about it?”

  “Nothing! All they have to do is say sorry, we’ll run your campaign next week, but they won’t tell me anything. I must have sent them at least a dozen messages, and they haven’t answered a single one.”

  Should I tell Graham I’d bought a promotion with the same company? I hated to own up to it, but felt I had to. He would probably find out in the end, and would wonder why I hadn’t mentioned it. I said, “You won’t believe this, but I’ve paid these people a load of money to promote my own book. Just the other day.”

  “Huh! In that case I don’t know why you’re criticising me for using them.”

  I said nothing for a moment, then, “Nor do I.”

  For a while neither of us spoke, then he said, “You’re a journalist, aren’t you, Mike? Is there any chance you could chase this up somehow, and find out what’s going on?”

  I said, “I don’t know. It’s not exactly my area of expertise. I suppose I could give it a try.”

  “I hope you do.” He ended the call before I could add any more.

  Immediately I logged on to The Magic Bookseller’s web site, searching for some way to cancel my booking and get my money back. I wasn’t entirely convinced by Graham’s near-hysterical concerns, but he migh
t be on to something, and I was in no mind to risk my own money finding out if he was right.

  I was out of luck. The web site seemed to offer no obvious route for cancelling orders. The subject wasn’t mentioned anywhere. I also now noticed that there was no telephone number or street address on the site, and only a submission form for uploading messages, not an email address. In my haste to make something happen I’d failed to take account of these things. If I’d lost my money, I could only put it down to my own negligence.

  I submitted a hasty message to the site saying I wanted to cancel. Then an idea occurred to me, and I phoned Sam again. I said, “I want to get in touch with Noel Valence. Could you could give me his number?”

  Chapter 13

  Noel had a slight east London accent and a quick-fire style of delivery. He talked to me about IP addresses and relays and proxy servers, and soon lost me. I said, “All I need to know really is who these book promotion people are and where they are.”

  “No problem, mate. I should be able to get back to you some time today.”

  Sam and Noel had both studied computer science at university, and Noel had gone on to become an expert in his field. I’d never met him, but through Sam he’d helped me the previous year to track down various people I’d found impossible to find any other way. The legality of his methods was something I’d never been inclined to question.

  He was as good as his word. He emailed me with the details that afternoon. “Magic Bookseller is based in Santa Monica, California, and is run by a man called Rob Openshaw. The registered name of the company is Torsional Strength, Inc.” He also provided an email address.

  I opened the company’s web site again, and was surprised to find Graham’s book in the second of the four Book of the Day slots. But still no sign of mine. Had Graham’s more vehement grumbling messages finally spurred them into action, or had they been planning to delay his promotion all along? I picked up my phone and called him.