by Liz Evans
‘Hey, no problemo, I’m sure.’ Jason thrust the fringe from his eyes again and gave me a we-can-work-this-out wink. ‘I mean, like, if we’re talking tropical fish or a budgie here?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Cat? Dog?’
‘Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs.’
‘You what?’
‘They were so sweet when I got them. But I must admit they have been putting on weight a bit recently. In fact they’re becoming quite ... porky ... although I wouldn’t say so in front of them. They’re very sensitive, you know.’
‘Is this a wind-up?’
‘Certainly not!’
‘Oh, right ... er ... well ...’
He wasn’t quite sure. I kept a straight face.
‘Well ... maybe you should go for a cottage? We’ve got a couple of ...’
‘Absolutely not. I want a flat. It’s OK. Andy and Fergie are house-trained.’
‘Yes ... er ... look, I don’t think ...’ Jason squared his shoulders. You didn’t get to be the biggest estate agent in the south by falling at the first hurdle. ‘Look, Grace, leave it with me, OK? I’ll get back to you.’
I gave him my widest smile and put an arm round his shoulders. His head came up to my chin. ‘No problemo, Jason. I know we’re going to crack this one together.’
‘Yeah ... sure ... absolutely ...’
He wriggled out from my arm and held the door open for me.
‘See ya then, Jason! I’ll tell Andy and Fergie you’re rooting for them!’
I gave him a matey wink and sauntered out, satisfied that I’d managed to get the keys back in his jacket pocket without him noticing.
(Yes, all right, I know they were in the drawer originally, but would you risk a thousand-pound bet on the exact location of your keys at this moment?)
According to the sign on the door, the estate agency closed at five thirty, but unfortunately the grocery store and the launderette both stayed open until late.
I checked out the back of the shops and found the small yards were only divided by wire-link fencing which gave a clear view all along the parade. As I was hanging around wondering whether I dared risk it, a woman came to the back door of the laundry and lit up a cigarette. Standing on the back step, she blew smoke rings whilst having a shouted conversation with someone in the shop.
The grocer’s door opened and an arm threw out several old cardboard boxes to join the pile already in the yard.
Plainly this was a busy little ol’ yard.
In the end I left it until gone eleven before slipping back. I hadn’t noticed any alarms when I was in the shop, but nonetheless I held my breath as I inserted the door key, twisted and pushed gently.
It was silent enough for the car horns, shouting, and all- pervasive ‘shush’ of the ocean to float over the rooftops from the beach front. I stepped inside, relocking the door behind me and keeping a shaded torch pointed downwards.
This back room was obviously used as a combined rest room, storage area and general office. There was a small sink, and a cupboard with a kettle on top, and mugs, coffee, sugar, biscuits, etc. inside. A few boxes stacked against one wall contained printed sheets of details of properties for sale and rent, and a two-drawer cabinet held office stationery and cartridges for the fax. The rest of the furniture consisted of a couple of ancient plastic chairs and a battered desk which held the combined fax/copy machine. Unlike the front offices, which looked like they’d recently been redecorated and recarpeted, this room was still the tattered and stained pale primrose that had probably been chosen by Jason’s dad.
There was a door in the right-hand wall and I opened it to check it didn’t lead to a top flat. I didn’t want the tenant tripping down while I was in the middle of breaking into Jason’s files.
It was just a tiny loo and washroom with a small extractor fan providing the ventilation.
The only thing worth investigating seemed to be a padlocked cabinet affixed to the back office wall. Locating the correct key from my new collection, I opened it.
Six wooden battens were screwed along the back of the cabinet, with a dozen hooks to each. About half had keys hanging from them. I flicked the labels over and found Beamish Court on the top row. Four keys: two for the front door of the block and two for the flat, at a guess.
I found myself hoping none of Jason’s clients had left anything valuable at home. This place was a burglar’s goldmine.
The front of the shop was trickier to move about in. With no blinds, any torch, even a shaded one, was going to be seen from the pavement. Trying to keep myself between the windows and the light, I investigated the cabinet Jason had used first.
The files seemed to run alphabetically by the property address. By rights Beamish Court should have been between Appletree Yard and Bream’s Road. It wasn’t.
I flicked further back, hoping it had been misfiled. It hadn’t.
Frustrated, I slammed the drawer back none too gently. And for the first time noticed the neat lettering under the ‘A-F’ marker. It said ‘Active’.
Either these were athletically motivated files or this was Jason’s shorthand for ‘Unsold and Unlet’. I flashed the torch over the next cabinet and found this lot were ‘Sorted’.
Relocking the first cabinet, I explored this one and found the file for Beamish Court in the top drawer. I carried it into the back room where I could use the torch more freely, settled myself at the desk, opened the cardboard cover and worked backwards through the filed documents.
The first sheet was a brief formal letter from Jason dated four days ago:
Mr. D. Green,
9 Buckingham Road
Dover
Kent
Dear Mr. Green,
RE: 4 BEAMISH COURT
Whilst I am very sorry to hear of your marital difficulties I must remind you of the terms of our above agreement and point out that if we do not receive a full month’s rent by the end of May then we must consider your rental of this property at an end and make the necessary arrangements to return your deposit and re-let to another tenant.
Yours sincerely,
Jason Weekes Managing Director
I turned to the sheet underneath and found a closely written three-page letter from Mr. Green. ‘Marital difficulties’ seemed an understatement in the circumstances; as far as I could judge, Mr Green was in a state of full-blown warfare with the soon-to-be-ex Mrs Green (a.k.a. the money-grabbing, duplicitous, unnatural slag). At present Mr. Green seemed to be in the family home fighting a rearguard action to prevent Mrs. Green stripping up the garden lawn, pond, ornamental birdbath and entire contents of the garden shed/ workroom.
It was gripping stuff; I bet their neighbours never needed to watch EastEnders.
Reluctantly I turned over again and found two references, one from Barclays Bank and the other from a car dealership, both vouching for D. Green’s suitability as a tenant. Under that was the rental agreement he’d signed, which showed that he should have taken up the tenancy on the first of May.
I turned that and found a photocopy of a handwritten note from Jason addressed to K. Keats.
20th April
Dear Kristen,
Re our telecon - sorry, I’ve checked and my colleague has already signed up next tenant from 1 May onwards, so ’fraid can’t let you hang on until Friday. Must ask you to vacate on Thursday 30th as arranged; please drop keys off at office by close of business Thurs. and I’ll have your deposit refund ready (cash as agreed).
(However, I have a spare bed if that would help you out - perhaps we could discuss over a drink? I’ll ring you later.)
Jason
Had she given him a ring, perhaps? I made a mental note to check whether Jason drove a four-doored, dark-coloured car and read on.
The next letter was a brief formal notice from Kristen dated 29 March giving a month’s notice on her tenancy.
It was beginning to look more and more like I was wasting Henry’s money. She’d plainly known for weeks
that she intended to leave. Perhaps he’d built up their relationship to be far more than it really was. No doubt she’d get around to posting his audio tapes back to him one day.
I ploughed on. Receipts showed Kristen had paid her rent on the first of each month by cash. There were two references. One was from a letting agency in Leicester and confirmed that Miss Kristen Keats had proved a satisfactory tenant on two occasions; on the first she’d been a joint tenant of a house in Earl Shilton approximately five years ago; on the second she’d rented a one-bedroomed flat in Leicester for six months some two years ago.
The other reference was from a local company. It was dated the end of the previous September, signed by S. Ayres, and informed Mr Weekes that Miss Kristen Keats was employed by them as a test engineer.
I’d been reading backwards, letting my eyes slide up from the bottom and coming to the heading on the notepaper last. The company logo was something of a surprise. I’d half expected some one-man-and-his-dog outfit, turning out lumps of metal in a grotty prefab-type industrial shed. But Wexton Engineering was a decent middle-sized business, occupying a fair-sized factory on the outskirts of the town.
I was aware of a few preconceptions diving face-first into the dust. Somehow, what with Figgy’s description of ‘a babe’ and Rachel’s assertion that Kristen had been reluctant to discuss her job, I’d been unconsciously building up a picture of something a bit more salacious, such as an exotic dancer, and - OK let’s admit it - someone not too bright, even if she was into Charles Dickens in a big way.
Now it looked like Kristen was the sort of girl you hated in school - beauty and brains combined.
I flipped back in the file and confirmed that - apart from her tenancy agreement - there was nothing else relating to Kristen. All the other papers were connected to earlier tenancies, plus the odd bit of correspondence from the flat- owner complaining about delays in forwarding the rent.
Shutting the file, I stood up ready to take it back to the front of the shop - and nearly dropped the lot from shock.
The combination of moonlight and torch-beam outside was just enough to let me make out the outline of the PC’s helmet moving quietly down the yard towards the back door.
I’d underestimated Jason. The sneaky little devil must have a silent alarm installed in here somewhere.
CHAPTER 8
I got my own torch off and dropped to the floor without any conscious effort on my part.
The first thing I knew about it I was sitting crushed into the corner with my legs drawn up into my chest, whilst the white beam of light stabbed downwards through the back window, sending thick ink-black reflections of the security bars across the scuffed floor.
The light moved back to the door. The handle rattled and shook, then the circle of illumination disappeared abruptly as the torch was turned off. Perhaps it was just a random check by the beat officer rather than a response to an alarm call.
Nothing much seemed to be happening, except my heart was getting an aerobic work-out here. I strained to hear footsteps moving back to the gate and was frustrated by the roar of a late-night express train suddenly howling past on the tracks that ran behind the shops.
Keeping myself pressed against the wall, I stood cautiously, and shuffled sideways until I could glance through the toughened glass panel in the top section of the door.
The PC’s hat was no more than six inches from my nose. Thankfully she was turned away, her shoulders hunched in a manner that suggested she was talking into the radio fixed to her top pocket.
Dropping to a crouch, I crossed the floor while she still had her back to me and got to the entrance to the shop. The street lighting and picture windows in the front would have given me a nice clear view of the police car parked outside, even if it hadn’t been attracting attention by sending blue beams scything across the carpet in regular sweeps.
Another car was pulling up behind it. At least that answered one question. Jason drove a (very old) Porsche; which probably eliminated him as the caller Rachel had seen driving away from Kristen’s flat.
From my half-huddled position on the floor by the open door, I watched Jason having an argument with the officer. I couldn’t make out the words, but the waving hands and tossed fringe were pretty graphic. I almost expected him to stamp his foot.
Instead he suddenly produced a bunch of keys, thrust one into the door and pushed, letting in a breeze that made loose sheets of paper rear up in the filing trays.
His voice filled the silence, making me realise that the front windows of the shop must be double-, if not triple-glazed, to cut out the sound. Which was probably why I hadn’t heard the police car approaching.
‘... you can see for yourself the place is locked up. I don’t see why you have to drag me away from a party to do your job ...’
‘You’re the key-holder. You’re on the list. Sir.’
I’d have known the voice, even if the square-shouldered, square-headed outline hadn’t been familiar. Not only Jason, but my favourite copper as well: Terry Rosco - chauvinist porcine extraordinaire.
‘Didn’t it strike you as the teeniest bit unlikely that a bloody burglar would lock up after himself? Look, see for yourself ... computers intact ...’
There was a loud slap as Jason’s palm came into contact with the VDU.
‘Cabinets secure ...’
I could hear him dragging at the drawers I’d recently relocked. Crouched against the wall, I was keeping one eye on the back and praying the PC would move round to the unlocked front door and join Terry. But the girl had obviously remembered her training. She was sticking to that back entrance in case the intruders were flushed out. Damn her.
‘Petty cash intact ...’
Metal jingled against tin in the front office.
‘Now if you could use a bit of intelligence in future and stop calling me out every time a train goes over the damn points and sets the effing alarm off ...’
‘I’d do something about that if I were you, sir ...’
‘Really? And what do you suggest? Ask Railtrack to reroute the south-coast lines?’
‘Get another alarm. Before we start charging you for wasting our time, mate.’
‘You can’t do that ...’
I pay my taxes ... I finished silently for him.
‘I pay my taxes ...’ Jason snapped.
‘So do all the poor sods we can’t get to because we have to keep coming round here every time the eleven twenty puts his foot down.’
I was almost prepared to put my prejudices on hold and like Terry for a good three seconds there, until he added: ‘What about the back?’
‘What about it?’
‘Best have a look now we’re here.’
Oh, thanks a bunch, Terry!
There was nowhere to hide. Even the central section of the old desk was a straight-through design, rather than closed off at the front by a nice old-fashioned modesty board.
There was nothing for it but to bluff it out. I straightened up and was conscious of the file crackling against my stomach. I must have stuffed it down the front of my jogging pants when I dived for the corner.
Taking it out, I slipped it into the nearest open box of property details. The keys went into another box.
Jason had actually set one foot in the back room when Terry’s radio crackled into life.
‘Hang on ...’
Terry retreated towards the front door, muttering into his transmitter as he went. Jason took a few steps back as well.
In the darkness they hadn’t spotted me standing silently against one wall behind the door. On a sudden impulse, I darted into the tiny washroom as Terry called back down the shop.
‘We’ve got another shout. Bunch of toe rags causing bother up the arcade, so if you’re sure everything’s OK back here ... Sir?’
‘Isn’t that what I’ve been telling you for the past ten minutes? Do you want me to count the effing digestive biscuits as well, or can I get back to my party now?’
&n
bsp; ‘Soon as you like, mate.’
I let out my breath in a sigh of thankfulness and promised to give generously to the poor in future.
‘Mind if I take a slash before we go?’
The door was thrust open, trapping me behind it. Terry didn’t bother to put the light on. Holding my breath, I listened to the zipper parting company and Terry tinkling against the porcelain.
The temptation to scream ‘Boo!’ at the top of my lungs was almost irresistible. But I resisted - just.
Thankfully Terry was a natural slob. Readjusting his trousers with a satisfied grunt, he crashed down the flush and left without using the washbasin behind him.
Putting the seat down, I sank on to it, letting my tensed muscles relax, and stayed there for twenty minutes before retrieving the keys, replacing the file and slipping out the way I’d come.
I went straight home and celebrated Saturday night with a bag of chips in bed. Frankly, it was all the excitement I could take.
Sunday’s weather looked to be even better than Saturday’s. Judging by the small section of sky visible from my front basement window, there wasn’t a cloud in the eggshell-blue dome that was arcing over the ex-boarding houses opposite.
This front section of the flat was one huge room which served as a living/sleeping/eating area. Originally it was the kitchens of the boarding house, but someone had started to convert the building at some time in the past, so that the internal staircase to the ground floor was now blocked off and a separate gas and electricity meter had been installed for each floor. As well as this room, I had two smaller ones at the back of the house. One was the bathroom and the other was a narrow, windowless area which I’d designated ‘the guest bedroom’ since I kept a spare fold-up bed in there.
I hadn’t bothered to set the alarm clock, since there was very little I could do on either of the cases today - apart from contacting Henry and telling him I thought his particular problem was a non-starter.
After a fairly leisurely breakfast (cornflakes and Ribena, I’d forgotten the milk again), I pulled on a T-shirt and sarong skirt prior to hitting the town.
Just before I left, I checked the telephone directory, made a note of the number for Wexton Engineering and found that there was no builder listed under the name of ‘Laurence Payne’ (or any other ‘Payne’ if it came to that), nor did Tom Skerries - Bone’s missing boyfriend - seem to be on the telephone at home.