by Val McDermid
Like a lot of new office complexes in Manchester, Fortissimus had smacked a brand new modern building behind a grandiose Victorian façade. In their case, they’d acquired the front of what had been a rather grand hotel, its marble and granite buffed to a shine more sparkling than its native century had ever seen. The entrance hall retained some of the original character, but the glassed-in atrium beyond the security desk was one hundred percent fin de quite another siècle. The pair of receptionists had clearly absorbed their customer care course. Their grooming was immaculate, their smiles would have made a crocodile proud, and the mid-Atlantic twang in their “Good morning, how may I help you?” stopped short of making my ears bleed. Needless to say, they were as misleading as the building’s façade. After I’d given them my card, asked for Michael Haroun and told them his department, I still had to kick my heels for ten minutes while they ran their debriefing on the weekend’s romantic encounters, rang Mr. Haroun, filled out a visitor’s pass and told me Mr. Haroun would be waiting for me at the lift.
I emerged on the fifth floor to find they’d been economical with the truth. There was no Mr. Haroun, and no one behind the desk marked “Claims Inquiries” either. Before I could decide which direction to head in, a door down the hallway opened and someone backed out, saying, “And I want to compare those other cases. Karen, dig out the files, there’s a love.”
He swivelled round on the balls of his feet and déjà vu swept over me. Confused, I just stood and stared as he walked towards me. When he got closer, he held out his hand and said, “Ms. Brannigan? Michael Haroun.”
For a moment, I was speechless and paralyzed. I must have been gawping like a starving goldfish, for he frowned and said, “You are Ms. Brannigan?” Then, suspicion appeared in his liquid sloe eyes. “What’s the matter? Am I not what you expected? I can assure you, I am head of the claims division.”
Power returned to my muscles and I hurriedly reached out and shook his hand. “Sorry,” I stammered. “Yes, I … Sorry, you’re the spitting image of … somebody,” I stumbled on. “I was just taken aback, that’s all.”
He gave me a look that told me he’d already decided I was either a racist pig or I didn’t have all my chairs at home. His smile was strained as he said, “I didn’t realize I had a doppelgänger. Shall we go through to my office and talk?”
Wordlessly, I nodded and followed his broad shoulders back down the hall. He moved like a man who played a lot of sport. It wasn’t hard to imagine him in the same role as I’d first seen his likeness.
When I was about fourteen, we’d gone on a school trip to the British Museum. I’d been so engrossed in the Rosetta Stone, I’d got separated from the rest of the group and wandered round for ages looking for them. That’s how I stumbled on the Assyrian bas-reliefs. As soon as I saw them, I understood for the first time in my life that it wasn’t entirely bullshit when critics said that great art speaks directly to us. These enormous carvings of the lion hunt didn’t so much speak as resonate inside my chest like the bass note of an organ. I fell in love with the archers and the charioteers, their shoulder-length hair curled as tight as poodle fur, their profiles
I followed Haroun meekly into his office. The opulence of the atrium hadn’t quite made it this high. The furniture was functional rather than designed to impress. At least he overlooked the recently renovated Rochdale Canal (European funding), though the view of the Canal Café must have been a depressing reminder of the rest of the world enjoying itself while he was working. We settled down on the L-shaped sofa at right angles to each other, my adolescent urge to jump on him held in check by the low coffee table between us. Haroun dumped the file he’d been carrying on the table. “I hear good things about your agency, Ms. Brannigan,” he said. From his tone, I gathered he couldn’t quite square what he’d heard with my moonstruck gaze.
I forced myself to get a grip and remember I was twice the age of that romantic teenager. “You’ve obviously been talking to the clients who haven’t been burgled,” I said in something approaching my normal voice.
“No security system is burglar-proof,” he said gloomily.
“But some are better than others. And ours are better than most.”
“That’s certainly how it looked when we first agreed the premium. It’s one of the factors we consider when we set the rate. That and how high-risk the area is.”
“You don’t have to tell me. My postcode is M13,” I complained.
He pulled a face and sucked his breath in sharply, the way plumbers are trained to do when they look at your central heating
“It’s not all a hellhole,” I said sharply.
He held his hands up and grinned. I felt the years slide away again and struggled to stay in the present. “Henry Naismith called to say you’d be coming in. He faxed me a preliminary claim,” he said.
“I’m investigating the theft on Henry’s behalf, and he thought it might be helpful if we had a chat,” I said briskly.
“My pleasure,” he said. “Of course, one of our staff investigators will also be looking into it, but I see no reason why we can’t talk to you as well. Can you run it past me?”
I went through everything I’d learned from Henry and Inspector Mellor. Haroun took notes. “Just as a matter of interest,” I finished up, “Inspector Mellor mentioned they’d had other burglaries with a similar style. Were any of them insured with you?”
Haroun nodded. “Yes, unfortunately. Off the top of my head, I’d say three others in the last nine months. And that’s where we have a problem.”
“We as in you and me, or we as in Fortissimus?”
“We as in Mr. Naismith and Fortissimus.”
“Does that mean you’re not going to tell me about it?”
Haroun stared down at the file. “Client confidentiality. You should understand that.”
“I wouldn’t be here if Henry didn’t trust me. Why don’t you give him a call and confirm that you can tell me anything you would tell him? That way, I get it from the horse’s mouth rather than via Chinese whispers.”
His straight brows twitched. “Even if he agreed, it wouldn’t be fair of me to have the conversation with you before I have it with him.”
“So get Henry over. I don’t mind waiting.” As long as I can keep looking at you, I added mentally.
Haroun inclined his head, conceding. “I’ll call him,” he said.
He was gone for the best part of ten minutes. Instead of fishing a computer magazine out of my shoulder bag, or dictating a report into my micro-cassette recorder, I daydreamed. What about is nobody’s business but mine.
When Haroun came back, he looked serious. “I’ve explained the situation to Mr. Naismith, and he was quite insistent that I should discuss the ramifications with you.”
I was too well brought up to say, “I told you so,” but according to Richard I’ve cornered the market in smug smiles. I hoped I wasn’t displaying one of them right then. “So, tell me about it,” I said, locking eyes.
Haroun held my gaze for a long few seconds before turning back to his file. “As I said, we’ve had other incidents very similar to this. These thefts have all been from similar properties—medium-sized period properties that are open to the public. In each case, the thieves have broken in as near to the target as they could get. In a couple of cases, they’ve smashed through a window, but in a property like Birchfield Place, that obviously wasn’t appropriate. They ignore the alarms, go straight to the object they’re after, whip it off the wall or out of its case and get out. We estimate the longest they’ve been inside a property is five minutes. In most cases, that’s barely enough time to alert the police or the security guards, never mind get anyone to the site.”
“Very professional,” I commented. “And?”
“We’re very unhappy about it. It’s costing us a lot of money. Normally, we’d simply have to bite the bullet and increase premiums accordingly.”
“I hear the sound of a ‘but’ straining at the leash,” I sai
d.
“You have very acute hearing, Ms. Brannigan.”
“Kate,” I smiled.
“Well, Kate,” he said, echoing the smile, “here comes the ‘but.’ The first of our clients to be robbed in this way was targeted again three months later. Following that, my bosses took a policy decision that in future, after stately homes had been robbed once, we would refuse to reinsure unless and until their security was increased to an acceptable level.”
He might have looked like an ancient Assyrian, but Michael Haroun sounded exactly like a twentieth-century insurance man. We won’t make a drama out of a crisis; we’ll make a full-scale tragic grand opera. Pay your spiralling premiums for ten years good as gold, and then when you really need us, we’ll be gone like thieves
“Obviously, it varies from case to case.”
“In Henry’s case then?”
Haroun shrugged. “I’d have to get one of our assessors out there to make an accurate judgement.”
“Go on, stick your neck out. I know that comes as easy to an insurance man as it does to an ostrich, but give it a go.” I kept my voice light with an effort. This was my security system he was damning.
He scowled, obviously needled. “Based on past experience, I would suggest a security guard on a 24-hour basis in the rooms where the most valuable items are sited.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “You really believe in getting shut of clients who have the temerity to get robbed, don’t you?”
“On the contrary. We want to ensure that neither we nor our clients are exposed to unacceptable losses,” he said defensively.
“The cost of that kind of security could make the difference between profit and loss to an operation the size of Henry’s. You must know that.”
Haroun spread his hands out and shrugged. “He can always put up the admission charges if it’s that crucial to the economics of running the place.”
“So you’re saying that as of now Birchfield Place is uninsured?”
“No, no, you misunderstand me. But we will retain a portion of the payout on the stolen property until the security levels are rendered acceptable. Kate, we do care about our clients, but we have a business to run too, you must see that.” His eyes pleaded, and my fury melted. This was bad for my business, so I forced myself to my feet.
“We’ll keep in touch,” I said.
“I’d like that,” he said, getting to his feet and nailing me with the sincerity in his voice.
As we walked back to the lift, my brain checked in again. “One more thing,” I said. “How come I haven’t been reading about these raids in the papers?”
Haroun smiled the thin smile of a lizard. “We like to keep things like this as low profile as possible,” he said. “It does our clients’ business no good at all if the public gain the impression that the choicest exhibits in their collections are no longer there. The thefts have been quite widely scattered, and the policy has been only to release the information to local press, and even then to keep it very low key. You know the sort of thing: ‘Thieves broke in to Bloggs Manor last night, but were disturbed before they could remove the Manor’s priceless collection of bottle tops.’ ”
“You just omit to mention that they had it away on their toes with the Constable,” I said cynically.
“Something like that,” he agreed. The lift pinged and I stepped inside as the doors opened. “Nice talking to you, Kate.”
“We must do it again some time,” I said before the doors cut him off from me. The day was looking up. Not only had I met Michael Haroun, but I knew where to go next.
I’m convinced that the security staff at the Manchester Evening Chronicle think I work there. Maybe it’s because I know the door combination. Or maybe it’s because I’m in and out of the building with a confident wave several times a week. Either way, it’s handy to be able to stroll in and out at will. Their canteen is cheap and cheerful, a convenient place to refuel when I’m at the opposite end of town from the office. That day, though, I wasn’t after a bacon butty and a mug of tea. My target was Alexis Lee, the Chronicle’s crime correspondent and my best buddy.
I walked briskly down the newsroom, no one paying any attention. I could probably walk off with the entire computer network before anyone would notice or try to stop me. Mind you, if I’d laid a finger on the newsdesk TV, I’d have been lynched before I’d got five yards.
I knew Alexis was at her desk. I couldn’t actually see her through the wall of luxuriant foliage that surrounds her corner of the office. But the spiral of smoke climbing towards the air-conditioning vent was a clear indicator that she was there. When they installed the computer terminals at the Chronicle, the management tried to make the newsroom a no-smoking zone. The policy lasted about
I stuck my head round the screen of variegated green stuff. Alexis was leaning back in her seat, feet propped up on the rim of her wastepaper bin, dabbing her cigarette vaguely at her mouth as she frowned at her terminal. I checked out her anarchic black hair. Its degree of chaos is a fairly accurate barometer of her stress levels. The more uptight she gets, the more she runs her hands through it. Today, it looked like I could risk interrupting her without getting a rich gobful of Scouse abuse.
“I thought they paid you to work,” I said, moving through the gap in the leaves into her jungle cubbyhole.
She swung round and grinned. “All right, KB?” she rasped in her whisky-and-cigarettes voice.
“I think I’m in love, but apart from that, I’m fine.” I pulled up the other chair.
Alexis snorted and went into Marlene Dietrich growl. “Falling in love again, never wanted to,” she groaned. “Though I’m ninetytwo, I can’t help it. I’ve told you before, it’s about time you got shut of the wimp.” She and Richard maintain this pretense of hostility. He’s always giving her a bad time for being a siren chaser, and she pretends to despise him for devoting his life to the trivia of rock journalism. But underneath, I know there’s a lot of affection and respect.
“Who said anything about Richard?” I asked innocently.
“And there’s me thinking you two were getting things sorted out between you,” she sighed. “So who’s the lucky man? I mean, I’m assuming that you haven’t seen the light, and it is a fella.”
“His name’s Michael Haroun. But don’t worry, it’s only lust. It’ll pass as soon as I have a cold shower.”
“So what does he do, this sex object?”
I pulled a face. “You’re going to laugh,” I said.
“Probably,” Alexis agreed. “So you might as well get it over with.”
“He’s in insurance.”
I’d been right. She did laugh, a deep, throaty guffaw that shook the leaves. I half expected an Amazonian parrot to fly out from
“You don’t pick sex objects, they just happen,” I said frostily. “Anyway, nothing’s going to happen, so it’s all academic anyway. Things between me and Richard might have seen better days, but it’s nothing we can’t fix.”
“So you don’t want me to call Chris and get her to build a brick wall across the conservatory?”
Alexis’s girlfriend Chris is the architect who designed the conservatory that runs along the back of the two houses Richard and I live in, linking them yet allowing us our own space. It had been the perfect solution for two people who want to be together but whose lifestyles are about as compatible as Burton and Taylor. “Restrain yourself, Alexis. I’m not about to let my hormones club my brain into submission.”
“Is that it, then? You come in here, interrupting the creative process, just to tell me nothing’s happening?”
“No, I only gave you the gossip so you wouldn’t complain that I was only here to exploit you,” I said.
Alexis blew out a cloud of smoke and a sigh. “All right, what do you want to know?”
“Is that any way to speak to a valued contact who’s brought you a story?” I asked innocently.
Alexis tipped forward in her seat and crushed out her cigarette in a
n already brimming ashtray. “Why do I have the feeling that this is the kind of gift that takes more assembling than an Airfix kit?”
Chapter 3
I left Alexis to hassle the police of six counties in search of the story we both knew was lurking somewhere and headed back to Mortensen and Brannigan. Shelley was busy on the phone, so I went straight through to my office. I stopped in my tracks on the threshold. I heard Shelley finish her call and swung round to glare at her. “What exactly is that?” I demanded.
She didn’t look up from the note she was writing. “What does it look like? It’s a weeping fig.”
“It’s fake,” I said through gritted teeth.
“Silk,” she corrected me absently.
“And that makes it OK?”
Shelley finally looked up. “Every six weeks you buy a healthy, thriving, living plant. Five weeks later, it looks like locust heaven. The weeping fig will have paid for itself within six months, and even you can’t kill a silk plant,” she said in matter-of-fact tones that made my fingers itch to get round her throat.
“If I wanted a schneid plant, I’d have bought one,” I said.
“You sound …”
“‘Like one of my kids,’” I finished, mimicking her calm voice. “You don’t understand, do you? It’s the challenge. One day, I’m going to find a plant that runs riot for me.”
“By which time the planet will be a desert,” Shelley said, tossing her head so that the beads she had plaited into her hair jangled like a bag of marbles.
I didn’t dignify that with a reply. I simply marched into my office, picked up the weeping fig and dropped it next to her desk. “You like it so much, you live with it,” I said, stomping back to my office. If she was going to treat me like one of her teenage kids, I might as well
Before I could do anything more, my phone rang. “What now?” I barked at Shelley.
“Call for you. A gentleman who refuses to give his name.”
“Did you tell him we don’t do matrimonials?”
“Of course I did. I’m not the one who’s premenstrual.”