The Fire Man

by Iain Adams

  ‘They’ve got a couple of hired-in Portakabins set up this morning, round the back. He’s using one of those, I think.’

  ‘Good. Well, once we’ve got the gear on, Kevin knows where to start, and we can get into a proper discussion with gorgeous George, eh?’

  * * *

  There was something about the official envelope that told him everything he needed to know, before he had even opened it. He had been caught; the cameras at the end of the M62 had clocked him. Shit.

  All that time scrupulously watching his speed and keeping his head down. He was amazed that the clapped–out old van could even exceed the limit.

  He fingered his small diamond ear stud as he wondered what to do. If he told the boss, he’d go ape-shit – better to just cough-up the sixty quid, take the points and forget it. Still, it was fucking annoying, particularly when he thought about how many times he had made the trip.

  As he folded the summons back into the envelope, his mood lifted. At least the offence had occurred on home territory; it wasn’t as if it had been near Walsall, which could have been tricky. No, he concluded, nothing to worry about and he would soon be able to afford the fine.

  For a moment or two, he allowed his mind to drift back to the job. Everything had gone as well as he could have hoped; of course, it had been pretty simple – almost too straightforward for an expert like him.

  Maybe the next job, wherever it might be, would call for a touch more “creativity”. He hoped so.

  8

  Walsall, May 2007

  Gallo had established himself in a surprisingly spacious Portakabin building, which was pre-fitted with carpet tiles, desks, chairs and a couple of filing cabinets. It was warm and snug and the Greek already looked very much at home. He was talking on his mobile as McRae and Cairns cautiously opened the door. Seeing them, he covered the mouthpiece as he instructed them to pull up a couple of chairs.

  After a few moments, the call was concluded and Gallo beamed across the desk. ‘Welcome to our new little home,’ he said. ‘Alex is tied up for a while, so he’s asked me to help you as much as I can. If you need information about the stock, though, you really will have to talk to him, but I think I can cover everything else.’

  ‘Okay, but I understand you have appointed Danny Wagner,’ responded McRae. ‘It would be usual for him to be involved in all our discussions from the start. Do you want to leave it until he is available?’

  Gallo appeared un-phased, ‘No, not at all, I am assuming that you only want general information at this stage? If you seriously expect claim details now ….’ His voice tailed off and he shrugged expressively.

  ‘Of course not, right now, all we want is to establish some basics… whether or not you are intending to reinstate the building or move, what steps you have in mind to keep your business going, what’s the impact on your customers etc. In other words, we are looking to start the dialogue.’

  ‘That’s fine,’ replied George. ‘I can certainly help you with all that.’

  * * *

  Just over one hour later, Grim felt they had made some real progress. George had seemed frank and cooperative in his responses and Grim, for his part, hadn’t been conscious of any evasiveness at all. Despite his swarthy, tough-guy appearance, Gallo was clearly highly intelligent and a bit of a smooth operator. He was able to quickly provide what appeared to be accurate information concerning the plant and machinery, and he had an exceptional grasp of the structural repair issues. As a surveyor himself, Cairns was quickly satisfied that the Greek knew his stuff where buildings were concerned. Although the financial viability of reinstating the buildings in their existing form was, at best, debateable, it was pretty clear that once the losses attributable to any prolonged inability to trade were factored into the equation, it would probably be a write-off. The fact that Hellenic owned rather than leased their building, in many ways, would make the final conclusion and negotiations simpler.

  McRae, on the other hand, felt distinctly frustrated. What he needed above all was to get more information about the destroyed garments and he was increasingly impatient to talk to Kanelos. The meeting between Kanelos and his assessor should have started over half an hour ago. Where the hell was he?

  Excusing himself and leaving Grim to continue his chat with Gallo, McRae made his way to the remains of the warehouse to see how Kevin was getting on. Badly, was the simple answer.

  The young adjuster, whose white disposable overall had already taken on a filthy shade of grey, was, literally, up to his neck in what looked like a pile of extremely dirty laundry. He was also, metaphorically, fed up to the back teeth.

  McRae’s cheery enquiry of ‘How’s it going, Kev?’ was met with a pregnant silence before the young man replied.

  ‘At this rate, I’ll finish in about three months. It’s bloody ridiculous.’

  ‘Well, what have you checked so far?’

  Kevin gestured towards a molehill-sized pile of what appeared to be blouses, which was segregated from the rest of the stock.

  ‘That’s not too bad,’ lied McRae. ‘You’ll find it easier as you go; you’ll begin to get a better feel for what you’re dealing with.’

  ‘Really?’ came the sarcastic response.

  As he walked away, leaving Kevin to his misery, McRae had reluctantly concluded that the size of the task was, in truth, too great for one man. He decided to draft in some additional support, if he could. He’d check whether Mike, Kevin’s junior colleague, could also be spared from other cases. It would shorten the process considerably and they would at least be company for each other. Spending damp, tiring days on your own in a cold, dark, gutted warehouse wasn’t anyone’s idea of a good time.

  Reaching the office block, McRae could see that a light was shining from the interior of the directors’ office. They must have got some temporary power on. Maybe a generator, he thought. Before tackling the stairs, with the firm intention of interrupting Kanelos’ meeting, McRae called Karen from the empty canteen to ask her to cancel Mike’s appointments for the next few days. He wanted Mike in Walsall tomorrow, at the latest.

  As he was replacing his phone in his jacket pocket, he heard footsteps on the bare wooden stairs. Thank God, sounds like the meeting is over.

  Reaching the hallway leading to the stairs, he was just in time to see the back of the familiar figure of Kanelos stepping out of the main entrance. He hurried to catch up.

  As he approached the entrance, he could see that Kanelos and Wagner were chatting animatedly in the porch, but also that another vaguely familiar figure was climbing into the driver’s seat of a small grey Fiat saloon.

  Wagner was the first to observe McRae’s emergence from the gloom of the passage.

  ‘Drew, nice to see you again,’ he stepped forward, smiling broadly with his hand extended. He looked as immaculate and as wealthy as ever – good suit, Italian loafers and more than a hint of a tan.

  A bearded Mancunian in his late thirties, Daniel Wagner was a partner at Adelstein and Brooks. Like most assessors, Daniel – or Danny as he was usually known – worked a wide geographical area, despite being based in the North West. If the job was big enough and lucrative enough, Danny could, and frequently did, cover anywhere from Newcastle to London.

  McRae had dealt with Wagner many times over the years. Assessors were different in many ways to the loss adjusters who they oppose.

  While most “civilians” commonly refer to absolutely anyone who deals with insurance claims as an “assessor”, in reality the business is neatly divided between loss adjusters, who act almost invariably for the insurers, and assessors, whose client is always the claimant. The division is as acute as the one between prosecuting and defence lawyers, cops and robbers, or cowboys and Indians. Each side understands the other well, but, quite apart from earning a damn sight more money and wearing better suits, assessors tend to enjoy a number of distinct negotiating advantages.

  Firstly, they usually enjoy the full candour of their clients and
consequently tend to know the true value of the loss. Crucially, they usually know exactly what the client will be prepared to accept in settlement. Adjusters, on the other hand, are often perceived as the insurers’ detectives and are therefore frequently “betting blind” when it comes to negotiations.

  Assessors, as a gross generalisation, avoid getting their hands (or, indeed, loafers) dirty, hence Danny’s distinctly natty appearance. In essence, assessors tend to talk money rather than insurance. Adjusters, on the other hand, understand the insurance. They are the masters of wordings, conditions, exclusions and law, but are sometimes nowhere near as cute where the money is concerned.

  In short, adjusters heartily distrust assessors, who in turn despise adjusters. In spite of this, however, McRae and Danny genuinely liked each other.

  Wagner had found he could cut to the chase with McRae, which was often not the case with other adjusters he knew, whereas McRae knew Wagner well enough, he hoped, to determine when he was being conned. It was not to say that Danny wouldn’t try, and McRae knew for a fact he had been outwitted on several occasions, but, overall, he liked to think he enjoyed the other man’s respect.

  ‘Good to see you too, Danny,’ he said as they shook hands. ‘Someone just leaving?’ He gestured in the direction of the departing Fiat.

  ‘Just one of my colleagues,’ said Kanelos as he too extended his hand. ‘Glad to see you already know Mr Wagner.’

  ‘Yes, we’ve handled quite a few cases between us,’ replied McRae. ‘It always helps.’

  Once the small talk was over, the group moved in the direction of the Portakabin to rejoin Gallo and Grim. Here, they discovered the pair enjoying a rather convivial smoke outside the entrance. Not for the first time, McRae reflected how the shared vice of smoking tended to unite very different people.

  * * *

  Nearly two hours and couple of cigarette breaks later, McRae and Grim believed they had as much information as they needed to be getting on with and the meeting was brought to a close.

  They had obtained information on the company’s formation and background; they had extracted details of all recent staff departures and disgruntled former employees. They had been told anecdotes about other incidents of arson and malicious damage on the Foundry Estate, none of which was in any way remarkable. This was Walsall, after all. What else was there for the local youth to do? They had obtained as much information as they needed about the trading position and had even been able to obtain copies of the most recent management accounts and stock returns.

  Adelstein and Brooks’ were in the process of scoping out a draft buildings repair specification and preparing a detailed schedule of the damaged machinery, which they promised could be available to Fairclough by as early as the following week. All that was necessary now was for the adjusters to complete their background enquiries, and that wasn’t something to discuss with Hellenic or Wagner.

  As they sauntered back to their car, having assured the now terminally depressed Kevin that the cavalry was on its way, McRae mulled over the whole case in his mind. The straightforward nature of the Hellenic directors’ responses to all their questions had been refreshing. At no time had he experienced even the slightest impression of evasiveness. Kanelos had spoken frankly about their rather robust attitude to hiring and firing. The company enjoyed, if that was remotely the right word, a high turnover of staff and a reputation as a difficult place to work. Kanelos had even volunteered the fact that some of the office computers were overdue for replacement – hardly a generous concession, but a little unusual nonetheless. All in all, there was no doubt that the fire was arson, but on paper, there seemed no reason to conclude that it was beneficial to Hellenic. And yet … McRae wanted to know more about Mr Kanelos.

  9

  Birmingham, May 2007

  Ristorante Di Mario was a damn sight too quiet for the owners’ liking.

  Nico Speroni gazed despondently at the virtually empty room. Just two lousy white linen-spread tables occupied in a restaurant with sixty covers! And it was eight o’clock on a Friday night! He was losing a fortune. Still, he mused, at least the tired looking guy with the skinny woman at the window table had opened his account with a good, (expensive anyway), bottle of Barolo; he sincerely hoped that they would get through a few more.

  * * *

  Karen looks pretty good, thought McRae. She’d obviously changed into her little black dress, which was a short, tight-fitting number with a scalloped neckline, in the office. He had been surprised by just how elegant she looked. She always dressed well, though invariably in a smart two-piece fitted suit, but tonight she looked genuinely attractive and her dress emphasised her slim legs and pert figure. The long plain face had been made up with even greater care than usual: the lipstick seemed, to his inexpert eye, a softer shade; her hair, normally a mousy blonde, seemed to have picked up more blonde highlights. Altogether – there was no other word for it – she looked fantastic.

  McRae was wary whenever he was alone with Karen. For some unfathomable reason, she undoubtedly wanted to have more than a professional relationship with him. It was something she was too cool to reveal openly, but which had become more and more apparent over the past few months. The fact that McRae was divorced and had no obvious woman in his life no doubt made it inconceivable to her that he should remain so evasive.

  The mundane explanation was that Drew McRae was both shrewd and ambitious, and even an idiot knew that fooling around with his secretary was not a clever move – not a clever move at all. Apart from that, while he enjoyed her company, she intrigued him and at times like this found her positively alluring, McRae knew in his bones that a relationship with Karen would be disastrous. The woman was too lonely, too damn needy and far too complicated. Truth was, she would be a nightmare. He didn’t really know who he was searching for, but he was pretty sure it wasn’t Karen. Nevertheless, she certainly looked very enticing tonight.

  Better hadn’t get pissed or it could get tricky, he thought, already feeling the effects of the Barolo, which was blending with the burgundy he had previously enjoyed in the wine bar.

  * * *

  After leaving the office, they had dived into the local All Bar One for a pre-dinner drink, canapés (well, crisps actually) and to have a quick business chat while the night was young.

  Karen had done a typically thorough job of researching the garments as he’d requested. Employing the site photographs, her personal back-copies of Vogue and Elle and God-only-knew-how-many websites, she had reached some initial conclusions – intriguing and potentially worrying conclusions, which suggested that Hellenic’s brands might not be quite as exclusive as Kanelos had implied.

  ‘Definitely much nearer to Next and Topshop than Bond Street,’ was how she had described the Dido range of youthful little tops and skirts. ‘Trendy, but not particularly well-made, and the fabrics aren’t great – too much synthetics.’ The Anastasia-labelled garments, mainly dresses and skirts, were dismissed as “a bit mumsie” and the jury was still out on the Xenia range.

  In summary, Karen was inclined to the view that it was all distinctly average stuff. More concerning was the fact that none of the brands appeared to be well-known, and Karen’s internet searches hadn’t produced a single press reference to either the Dido or Xenia labels and only two comments on the Anastasia brand. More than a little surprising, they had concluded.

  Deciding that he didn’t wish to spoil her evening, McRae had elected not to pursue the debate any further, intrigued though he was. Surprisingly, however, Karen hadn’t let the matter drop.

  ‘Why don’t you get a few samples for me and I can look at them with some people I know?’ she had asked.

  ’Like who?’ he had responded, rather rudely.

  ‘Well, I did run a boutique, you know,’ she had replied tartly.

  ‘Of course you did... I’d forgotten that,’ he replied, while realising that it was complete news to him. It turned out that the man she always described either as her
“ex” or “that bastard” had owned a small dress shop in Harborne ten years previously. Karen, it transpired, had ended up running it for over a year before the guy had done a runner – from both the shop and her.

  ‘I’ll get hold of a few sample pieces next week and let’s see what you can find out,’ he eventually conceded.

  * * *

  The meal was satisfactory rather than spectacular – a touch heavy on the oregano, he thought – but somehow, by rationing himself carefully, McRae had managed, to Nico’s unvarnished disappointment, to avoid ordering a second bottle of wine, although they had concluded the meal with a brandy and a Sambuca. It was almost ten o’clock as they walked through the quiet backstreets on their way to New Street station, where McRae intended to see Karen gallantly onto her train.

  The usual drunks, deadbeats and alarmingly under-clad and overweight girls became increasingly evident as they neared the station. As one legless youth in a torn tee-shirt and baggy jeans lurched unsteadily in their direction, Karen took the opportunity to seize McRae’s arm. Once the drunk had passed, her arm remained where it had rested.

  At the barrier, they paused to check the departure board. Thank God there was a train in less than six minutes, he thought.

  She turned to face him and McRae could see there was no choice other than to kiss her farewell. She lifted her face towards his and he moved to give her a chaste peck on the cheek, but it was not to be. Her mouth found his and her arms enfolded him.

  Within seconds, her tongue was in his mouth and he could feel her breasts and pelvis pressing into him through the thin material of her clothes. Despite himself, McRae could feel his arousal, as he used his strength to subtly hold her at a respectable distance. Eventually he broke away, smiling as he did so, hoping to allay any disappointment she felt at his lack of response. To his surprise, she too was smiling and her eyes contained, he detected, a tiny glimpse of triumph.