by Nick Moseley
Trev had always found Brackenford's spooky reputation ridiculous, laughing the whole thing off as a bunch of daft rumours and urban legends. The morning's events had shaken that certainty.
Trev arrived at the office and let himself in. Helen Frost, the Sales Manager, was already at her desk. Trev was beginning to suspect that she never went home; nobody had ever got to the office before Helen in the morning, and she was invariably still there after everyone else had left.
‘Morning,’ she said without looking up from her paperwork. Helen was considered by most to be an attractive woman, though she had a rather hard face and seldom smiled. Her age was the subject of some discussion among her staff. If asked, she always replied that she was ‘thirty-two’, though this answer hadn’t changed in the three years Trev had worked at SmoothMove. Helen’s blonde hair was cut in a short and easily-manageable style and her wardrobe seemed to consist of nothing but identical grey trouser-suits.
Trev had sometimes wondered if her underwear was similarly utilitarian. He was aware that he had something of a fascination for Helen. This was despite her making it subtly clear that, although she appreciated his abilities as a negotiator, she rated him somewhere below the common tapeworm in terms of romantic appeal. Trev had always found this puzzling. He didn’t consider himself an ugly bloke by any means. Not classically handsome, no, but he felt his face had character. He was of average height, average weight, and average intelligence. He didn’t excel in any one area, but that just meant he was a good all-rounder, didn’t it? So what was her problem?
Trev had never suspected that Helen’s ‘problem’ with him might be that she considered him an irritating, sarcastic little git, which perhaps told its own story.
‘Morning,’ he replied, ambling to his desk. The office was open-plan, with the particulars of the houses for sale displayed around the walls. The negotiators’ desks were located in an apparently haphazard way near the entrance so that customers could be greeted as they entered. Gavin described the layout as “postmodern”, though Trev suspected that he’d had the whole thing Feng Shui’d by some self-styled local psychic who charged by the half-hour.
He settled himself in his chair and fired up his computer. He was checking his e-mails when Phil Grant entered.
Phil was SmoothMove’s Valuations Manager, and Trev viewed him with a mixture of admiration and envy. He was a tall, handsome black man in his early forties with a shaved head and a fastidiously-trimmed goatee beard. His relaxed and charming manner made him very successful at persuading vendors to market their houses through SmoothMove, as well as a huge hit with the ladies; his wife, Gloria, was an absolute stunner. Trev knew – to his annoyance – that Phil was the single most significant factor in the branch’s success, and his only consolation was that he always beat Phil at golf. Which, as consolations went, was a bit weak.
Trev nodded a greeting, which Phil returned with a polite smile as he headed for his own desk. Entering the office shortly after Phil, and providing a stark contrast to him, was the branch’s other negotiator, Barry Clark. A tubby, balding, pasty-faced man in his mid-fifties, Barry had been at SmoothMove since the company’s founding some twelve years previously. He was old friends with Gavin, which in Trev’s opinion was the only reason Barry was still in a job; Trev consistently outperformed his colleague in every area of the business.
Barry described himself as “old school”, by which he meant “stuck in a rut so deep that only my head is still above ground level, but have given up hope of doing anything about it”. He was something of a technophobe and reserved particular loathing for his office computer, which he believed had ‘taken against him from the start’. In fairness he had some justification for his paranoia, as Trev had been known to amuse himself by uploading a virus or two to Barry's computer when the opportunity presented itself.
Barry’s nickname around the office, and indeed the whole of Brackenford’s property industry, was ‘Jurassic Clark’, which he hated even more than his computer.
He returned Trev’s cheery ‘Hello’ with a grunt before dropping into his chair, which creaked in protest. A minute later the office was treated to a variety of colourful swear-words as Barry’s computer crashed spectacularly on start-up.
‘We’ll have none of that kind of language, thanks Barry,’ said Helen, looking up from her paperwork. ‘Remember there’s a new girl starting with us today, and I don’t want you frightening her off.’
Trev raised an eyebrow. He’d forgotten Helen had taken on a new negotiator. A part of his brain started calculating how much commission he was likely to lose due to the extra competition.
‘You’d use that kind of language too, if you had to put up with this bloody thing,’ retorted Barry, stabbing the computer’s ‘off’ button with venom. ‘Now I’ve got to waste half my day on the phone to I.T.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘I hate those patronising bastards. “Have you turned the computer on, Mr. Clark? Are you sure the monitor’s plugged in, Mr. Clark?” Why can’t they just get this piece of crap working?’
‘Without your computer problems, half Brackenford’s I.T. technicians would be out of a job,’ said Trev, smirking. ‘I reckon the local computer geeks see you as some kind of minor deity. “All hail Barry. Barry provides.”’
‘Piss off,’ snapped Barry.
‘Barry, I told you about your language,’ said Helen, with the weary air of a schoolteacher addressing a pair of squabbling pupils. ‘Trev, stop winding him up, for God’s sake.’
‘You can use my computer if you need to,’ said Phil, attempting to defuse the argument. ‘I’ll be out on valuations all day, pretty much.’
‘Thanks,’ said Barry, but he was still scowling at Trev, who was pretending not to notice.
‘Ah,’ said Helen, looking out of the window. ‘Here she is.’
The door opened and in stepped a slim, dark-haired girl who looked to be in her early twenties. She was dressed in a matching navy blue jacket and skirt and was clutching a notebook. Trev noticed Barry and Phil giving her the once-over, and shrugged inwardly; she was pretty enough, but not stunning.
Trev had always believed he had high standards when it came to women, though this was disputed by any number of witnesses who'd seen him on the pull in Brackenford's nightclubs at two in the morning.
‘Hi,’ she said, blushing.
‘Hello, Sarah,’ said Helen, slipping out from behind her desk to greet the new arrival. ‘Everyone, this is Sarah Teale. Sarah, this is Barry, Trev and Phil.’
‘Hi,’ said Sarah again, with a little wave.
‘Hello there,’ said Barry, in what he probably thought was a smooth voice. He was divorced; his wife had left him two years previously for a private detective Barry himself had hired to check if she was having an affair. His attempts to find a new partner were becoming ever more desperate, and he spent every spare moment browsing internet dating websites on his computer or scanning through the personals column of the local paper.
‘Morning,’ said Trev, looking askance at the leering Barry.
‘Hello, Sarah,’ said Phil with a warm smile.
‘Good,’ said Helen. ‘Now we’re all introduced, let’s get on with the morning meeting. Trev, it’s your turn to make the drinks.’
Trev gave an eye-rolling, theatrical sigh which brought a giggle from Sarah. ‘What would you like?’ he asked her. ‘We’ve got tea, coffee, milk, water or Barry’s drool.’
‘Trev,’ said Helen warningly, as Barry’s face went from zero to purple in one point two seconds flat.
‘Coffee, please, milk and two,’ replied Sarah, fighting a smile.
‘Right y’are,’ said Trev. ‘The usual for the rest of you?’ There was a general muttering of assent, plus a strangled sound from Barry that sounded very much like ‘wanker’.
Ignoring him, Trev pushed through a door at the back of the office which led onto a narrow corridor. The corridor in turn led to the staff-room and toilets.
Humming to himself, Trev stro
lled into the staff-room, switched on the kettle and began sorting out the drinks. The strange events at the Hot Cuisine Cafe were already beginning to slip to the back of his mind as he mapped out his day. There was that viewing at ten, that was promising; plus three different buyers who’d shown an interest in the flat on Whitgar Road; and a middle-aged couple who were going to view that swanky four-bed down on the riverside. He was confident that at least one of those opportunities would turn into a sale, and with a bit of luck he might sell all three properties. If that happened, he could pretty much cruise through the rest of the week, with any other sales a nice bonus.
Leaving the kettle to finish boiling, he left the staffroom and walked to the far end of the corridor. There was a full-length mirror on the end wall, sited there so that the staff could check their appearance before they went out to face the public. Emblazoned across the top of the mirror were the words “WOULD YOU GIVE THIS PERSON YOUR HOUSE TO SELL?”
‘Would I, bollocks,’ said Trev, smoothing down the lapels of his suit and regarding his reflection.
Having reached thirty, Trev felt he’d aged rather well. His spiky light brown hair had yet to start thinning, and his round face was free of lines. He’d always disliked his nose, which he thought was just a little too large, but had learned to live with it. His eyes were a deep green, sharp and well-shaped. Trev considered them his best feature. In contrast, the slight paunch that had sneakily developed was something of a worry. Trev experimented with holding his stomach in, striking a couple of body-builder poses before letting it all hang out again. Suppressing a thin smile, he glanced down at his shoes to make sure they hadn’t lost their shine, then looked back into the mirror to straighten his tie.
There was a strange woman standing behind him.
He whirled around so fast that he fell backwards into the mirror and jarred his elbow. There was nobody there. Trev’s heart suddenly felt like it was pumping icy water around his body rather than blood. There was no doubt about it, he had seen a tall, raven-haired woman in a severe black dress standing behind him, looking at him with an expression of distaste. But who was she? Where the bloody hell had she gone? And more to the point, had she seen him doing the body-builder thing?
Trev’s brain scrambled for an explanation. Must’ve been an early customer, he reasoned. They let her in to use the loo. The only downside to this theory was that the door to the toilets was right next to the mirror, and nobody had gone through it.
Trembling, he walked back down the corridor to the staff-room, which was the only other place the woman could possibly be. There was no way she could have run the length of the corridor and back out into the office in the time it had taken Trev to turn round, though in truth it was impossible for her to have made it even as far as the staff-room.
Trev’s fears were confirmed as he peered around the doorframe. The room was empty. He checked behind the door, beneath the table and even opened the cupboard under the sink, just in case the woman was a contortionist sprinter with a penchant for practical jokes and a taste for drain-cleaner. Nothing. He was quickly left with a single worrying conclusion.
He had just seen his second ghost of the day.
Three
It was a rather pale and subdued Trev that returned to the office. Tightly grasping the drinks tray so that his colleagues wouldn’t see his hands shaking, he shuffled over to Helen’s desk before setting it on top of her paperwork. Quickly retrieving his own cup of tea, he went to his chair and sat down.
‘I’ll hand them out then, shall I?’ asked a bemused Helen, glancing pointedly from Trev to the tray and back again. It was the custom for the person who made the drinks to distribute them, but Trev didn’t dare do so for fear of spilling a mugful of hot beverage into someone’s lap.
‘Thanks,’ he said quietly.
‘You all right, Trev?’ asked Phil, reaching out for his cup of coffee.
‘Fine,’ said Trev.
‘Right,’ said Phil, sounding unconvinced.
Barry took a swig of his tea and grimaced. ‘He may be “fine”, but his tea bloody isn’t,’ he said, taking advantage of Trev’s sudden quietness to get in a cheap shot. ‘It’s minging.’ He grinned hopefully at Sarah, but she didn’t laugh.
‘That’ll do,’ said Helen, though Trev noticed she’d taken only one sip of her own tea before putting it aside.
Everyone’s a critic, he thought morosely. I’d like to see one of you lot make a decent cuppa after seeing two ghosts in the space of an hour.
‘Well it is,’ persisted Barry, but everyone ignored him.
‘For Sarah’s benefit,’ said Helen, shooting Barry a warning look, ‘the morning meeting is a review of the week’s business so far. How many sales we’ve got, who’s got promising viewings, how Phil’s doing with his valuations and so on.’ She shuffled her paperwork. ‘We usually start with Phil. What did you get up to yesterday?’
Phil had a laptop open on his desk which he spun around to show the others a digital photograph of a dingy-looking terraced house on the screen.
‘I did two valuations yesterday,’ he said. ‘This was the first, 63 Fallow Lane. Two-bed terrace, lounge, separate dining room, downstairs bathroom, small rear garden.’ He pursed his lips and clicked the laptop’s mouse. The screen scrolled through a few photos of the house’s interior, revealing some of the foulest decor Trev had ever seen. It looked like someone had dosed Pablo Picasso with LSD and let him loose with a wallpaper catalogue and a paint roller. ‘As you can see, the house is in need of, ah, updating.’
‘What do you mean by “updating”?’ asked Sarah. Barry snorted, earning another glacial stare from Helen.
Dear God, you aren’t going to last five minutes in this business, thought Trev.
Phil favoured Sarah with an indulgent smile. ‘It’s an estate agents’ euphemism,’ he said. ‘When we say “needs updating” or “needs improvement”, what we actually mean is that the property in question is a rat-infested shit-hole.’
‘Oh,’ said Sarah.
‘Unfortunately, even with the talented Mr. Irwin,’ Trev spread his hands in an “aw shucks” gesture; Barry glowered at him, ‘on our staff, we wouldn’t sell many houses if we described them like that,’ Phil continued.
‘So we, er, tell a few fibs?’ ventured Sarah.
‘Oh no, we never lie,’ said Phil, putting on a mock-horrified expression. ‘It’s just that there are different ways of telling the truth.’
‘I see,’ said Sarah, who clearly didn’t.
‘For example, we wouldn’t say a property is “on a busy main road”,’ explained Phil. ‘We’d say it was “within easy reach of the transportation network”.’
‘A property in a high-crime area might have “the benefits of a local Neighbourhood Watch scheme”,’ suggested Barry.
‘And we wouldn’t say that a house is “next door to a crack den”,’ Trev chipped in. ‘We’d say it was “near to a popular social club”.’ This provoked some laughter, and Trev found he was feeling a bit better.
‘Turn negatives into positives,’ said Sarah, smiling. ‘I think I get it.’
‘Good, we’ll make an estate agent of you yet,’ said Phil. ‘So, to continue: the property is in need of updating. As you can see it’s pretty horrific inside, but I reckon you could sort it out reasonably quickly if you put in some decent carpets and painted the whole thing magnolia.’
‘What do they want for it?’ asked Barry.
‘The usual for the street,’ said Phil. ‘The vendor had seen the price on the house we sold a few doors down, so she was realistic about the value.’
‘Think they’ll come on the market with us?’ said Helen.
‘Probably,’ said Phil. ‘The only other valuer that’s been in is Pinky.’
Wayne “Pinky” Pinkton was the valuations manager for Stepperton Properties, one of SmoothMove’s local rivals. He was considered by most to be pretty hopeless but his girlfriend was Stepperton’s sales manager, so he wasn’t exa
ctly living in fear for his job. Trev had been to the same secondary school as Pinky, who still held a grudge against him for engineering an embarrassing incident during Year Nine which had involved Pinky, a number of Ping-Pong balls, two bungee cords and the school’s pet goat, Bessie.
‘What’s the vendor like?’ asked Barry.
‘My favourite kind, a white-haired old dear,’ replied Phil. ‘They’re always so polite to me.’ He grinned.
‘Start lining up some buyers to go and view it,’ said Helen to Trev and Barry. ‘What was the other one you looked at yesterday?’
Phil showed them some photos of 13 Haverley Road, which was an unremarkable semi-detached on the outskirts of town, then went through the four properties he was going out to value that day. Sarah took careful notes. Trev did his best to pay attention, but try as he might his mind kept wandering.
‘All right, we’ve got no sales so far this week but then it is only Tuesday,’ said Helen after Phil had finished. ‘Barry, anything in the pipeline?’
‘Not much,’ said Barry, shifting uncomfortably in his chair. ‘I’ll get on the phone to some buyers and try and rustle up a few viewings.’
‘Well I hope you “rustle up” a few more than you did last week,’ said Helen. Barry winced. ‘Trev, how about you?’
‘I’m taking some first-timers round Fancourt Street at ten,’ said Trev. ‘Plus Mr. and Mrs. Prendergast are looking at Riverside View this evening. Should be right up their street. I reckon I’ll have at least two viewings on Whitgar Road by tomorrow night, as well.’
‘Excellent,’ said Helen. ‘When you go to Fancourt Street I want you to take Sarah with you. It’ll be good for her to see how to do an accompanied viewing.’