Kick Back (2 page)

“Send him in, Shelley,” I replied abruptly. “Let's hear what the man has to say for himself.”

Shelley stalked over to the door and pulled it open. “Mr. Barlow? Miss Brannigan will see you now.” She simpered. I swear to God, this tough little woman who rules her two teenagers like Attila the Hun
simpered
.

The man who appeared in the doorway made Shelley look as fragile as a Giacometti sculpture. He topped six foot easily, and he looked as if a suit were as foreign to him as a Peruvian nose-flute. Not that he was bulky. His broad shoulders tapered through a deep chest to a narrow waist without a single strain in the seams of his off-the-peg suit. But you could see that he was solid muscle. As if that wasn't enough, his legs were long and slim. It was a body to die for.

Nice legs, shame about the face, though. Ted Barlow was no hunk from the neck up. His nose was too big, his ears stuck out, his eyebrows met in the middle. But his eyes looked kind, with laughter lines radiating out from them. I put him in his mid-thirties, and he didn't seem to have spent too many of those years in an office, if his body language was anything to go by. He stood
awkwardly in the doorway, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, a nervous smile not making it as far as the gentle blue eyes.

“Come in, sit down,” I said, standing up and gesturing towards the two exquisitely comfortable leather and wood chairs I'd bought for the clients in a moment of uncharacteristic kindness. He moved uncertainly into the office and stared at the chairs as if not entirely certain he would fit in to them. “Thank you, Shelley,” I said pointedly as she continued to hang around by the door. She left, reluctantly for once.

Ted lowered himself into the chair and, surprised by the comfort, relaxed slightly. They always work, those chairs. Look like hell, feel like heaven. I pulled a new-client form towards me and said, “I need to take a few details, Mr. Barlow, so we can see if we can give you the help you need.” Shelley might be besotted, but I wasn't giving an inch without good cause. I got the phone numbers and the address—an industrial estate in Stockport—then asked how he'd come to hear of us. I prayed he'd picked us out of
Yellow Pages
so I could dump him without offending anyone except Shelley, but clearly, wiping out Vohaul's hit man was to be my sole success of the day.

“Mark Buckland at SecureSure said you'd sort me out,” he said.

“You know Mark well, do you?” Foolishly, I was still hanging on to hope. Maybe he only knew Mark because SecureSure had fitted his burglar alarm. If so, I could still give him the kiss-off without upsetting the substantial discount that Mark gives us on all the hardware we order from him.

This time, Ted's smile lit up his face, revealing the same brand of boyish charm I get quite enough of at home, thank you. “We've been mates for years. We were at school together. We still play cricket together. Opening batsmen for Stockport Viaduct, would you believe?”

I swallowed the sigh and got down to it. “What exactly is the problem?”

“Well, it's the bank. I got this from them this morning,” he said, tentatively holding out a folded sheet of paper.

I put him out of his misery and took it from him. He looked as if I'd taken the weight of the world off his broad shoulders. I opened
it up and plowed through the mangled verbiage. The bottom line was he had £74,587.34 outstanding on a £100,000 loan and an overdraft of £6,325.67. The Royal Pennine Bank wanted their money back pronto, or they'd seize his home and his business. And their associate finance company would be writing to him separately, basically to tell him his punters wouldn't be stiffing them for any more loans either. And I thought my bank manager wrote stroppy letters. I could see why Ted was looking gutted. “I see,” I said. “And do you have any idea why they wrote this letter?”

He looked confused. “Well, I rang them up as soon as I got it, like you would. And they said they couldn't discuss it on the phone, would I come in to see them. So I said I'd go in this morning. It wasn't my local branch, you see; all the little branches come under the big branch in Stockport now, so I didn't know the bloke who'd signed the letter or anything.” He paused, waiting for something.

I nodded and smiled encouragingly. That seemed to do the trick.

“Well, I went in, like I said, and I saw the chap that signed the letter. And I asked him what it was all about, and he said that if I checked my paperwork, I would see that he wasn't obliged to give me a reason. Right stuffed shirt, he was. Then he said he wasn't at liberty to discuss the bank's confidential reasons for their decision. Well, I wasn't happy with that, no way, because I've not missed a single payment on that loan, not in the four months I've had it, and I've reduced the overdraft by four grand over the last six months. I told him, I said, you're not being fair to me. And he just shrugged and said he was sorry.” Ted's voice rose in outrage. I could see why.

“So what happened then?” I prompted.

“Well, I'm afraid I lost my rag a bit, you know? I told him he wasn't bloody sorry at all, and that I wasn't going to leave matters there. Then I walked out.”

I struggled to keep a straight face. If that was Ted's idea of losing his rag a bit, I could see that someone like Shelley was just what he needed. “You must have some idea of what's behind this, Mr. Barlow,” I prodded.

He looked genuinely baffled as he shook his head. “I haven't a clue. I've always given the bank what they were due when it were
due. This loan, I took it out so I could expand the business. We've just moved into a new industrial unit at Cheadle Heath, but I knew business was going well enough to pay back the loan on time.”

“Are you sure your orders haven't dropped back because of the recession and the bank's not just taking safety precautions?” I hazarded.

He shook his head, his hand nervously heading for his jacket pocket. He stopped, guiltily. “Is it all right if I smoke?” he asked.

“Go right ahead,” I responded. I got up to fetch him an ashtray. “You were saying? About the effects of the recession?”

He dabbed his cigarette nervously at his lips. “Well, to be honest, we've not seen it. I think what's happening is that people who've been trying to sell their houses have kind of given up on the idea and decided to go for some improvements to the places they're in already. You know, loft conversions for extra bedrooms, that kind of thing? Well, a lot of them go for conservatories, to give them an extra reception room, especially if they've got teenage kids. I mean, if a conservatory's double glazed and you stick a radiator in, it's as warm as a room in the house in the winter. Our business is actually up on this time last year.”

I dragged out of him that he specialized in attaching conservatories to newish properties on the kind of estates where double-glazing salesmen used to graze like cattle. That way, he only ever had to produce a handful of designs in a few standard sizes, thus cutting his overheads to a minimum. He also concentrated on a relatively compact area: the south-west side of Manchester and over to Warrington new town, the little boxes capital of the North West. The two salesmen he employed brought in more than enough orders to keep the factory busy, Ted insisted.

“And you're absolutely positive that the bank gave you no idea why they are foreclosing?” I demanded again, reluctant to believe they had been quite so bloody-minded.

He nodded, uncertainly, then said, “Well, he said something I didn't understand.”

“Can you remember exactly what that was?” I asked in the tone of voice one uses with a particularly slow child.

He frowned as he struggled to remember. It was like watching
an elephant crochet. “Well, he did say there was an unusual and unacceptably high default rate on the remortgages, but he wouldn't say any more than that.”

“The remortgages?”

“People who can't sell their houses often remortgage to get their hands on their capital. They use the conservatory as the excuse for the remortgage. But I don't understand what that's got to do with me,” he said plaintively.

I wasn't altogether sure that I did. But I knew a man who would. I wasn't excited by Ted Barlow's story, but I'd wrapped up the pharmaceuticals case in less time than I'd anticipated, so the week was looking slack. I thought it wouldn't kill me to play around with his problem for a day or two. I was about to ask Ted to let Shelley have a list of his clients over the last few months when he finally grabbed my attention.

“Well, I was that angry when I left the bank that I decided to go and see some of the people who had done a remortgage. I went back to the office and picked up the names and addresses and went over to Warrington. I went to four of the houses. Two of them were completely empty. And the other two had complete strangers living in them. But—and this is the really weird bit, Miss Brannigan—there were no conservatories there. They'd vanished. The conservatories had just disappeared.”

I took a deep breath. I have noticed that there are some people in this world who are congenitally incapable of telling a story that runs in a straight line from the beginning through the middle to the end, incorporating all the relevant points. Some of them win the Booker Prize, and that's fine by me. I just wish they didn't end up in my office. “Disappeared?” I finally echoed, when it became clear Ted had shot his bolt.

He nodded. “That's right. They're just not there any more. And the people that are living in two of the houses swear blind there's never been a conservatory there, not since they moved in a few months ago. The whole thing's a complete mystery to me. That's why I thought you might be able to help.” If Shelley had been in the room, she'd have rolled over on her back at the look of trusting supplication on Ted Barlow's face.

As it was, I was hooked. It's not often I get a client with a genuine mystery to solve. And this gave me the added bonus of getting my own back on Ms. Supercool. Watching Shelley jumping through hoops for Ted Barlow was going to be the best cabaret in town.

I leaned back in my chair. “OK, Ted. We'll take a look at it. On one condition. I'm afraid that, since the bank's stopped your line of credit, I'm going to have to ask you for a cash retainer.”

He'd been one step ahead of me. “Will a grand do?” he asked, pulling a thick envelope from his inside pocket.

It was my turn to nod helplessly. “I thought you'd want cash,” he went on. “Us builders can always lay hands on a few bob in readies when we have to. Rainy day money. That way, you always make sure the important people get paid.” He handed the envelope over. “Go ahead, count it, I won't be offended,” he added.

I did as he said. It was all there, in used twenties. I pressed the intercom. “Shelley? Can you give Mr. Barlow a receipt for one thousand pounds' cash on his way out? Thanks.” I got to my feet. “I've got one or two things to sort out here, Ted, but I'd like to meet you later this afternoon at your office. Four o'clock OK?”

“That's great. Shall I leave the directions with your secretary?” He sounded almost eager. This could get to be a lot of fun, I thought to myself as I showed Ted out. He headed for Shelley's desk like a homing pigeon.

Much as I'd taken to Ted, I learned very early on in this game that liking someone is no guarantee of their honesty. So I picked up the phone and rang Mark Buckland at SecureSure. His secretary didn't mess me about with tales of fictitious meetings since Mark's always pleased to hear from Mortensen and Brannigan. It usually means a nice little earner for him. SecureSure supply a lot of the hardware we recommend in our role as security consultants, and even with the substantial discount he offers us, Mark still makes a tidy profit.

“Hi, Kate!” he greeted me, his voice charged with its normal overdose of enthusiasm. “Now, don't tell me, let me guess. Ted Barlow, am I right?”

“You're right.”

“I'm glad he took my advice, Kate. The guy is in deep shit, and he doesn't deserve it.” Mark sounded sincere. But then, he always does. That's the main reason he can afford to drive around in seventy grand's worth of Mercedes coupé.

“That's what I was ringing you about. No disrespect, but I need to check out that the guy's kosher. I don't want to find myself three days down the road with this and some bank clerk giving me the hard word because our Mr. Barlow's got a track record with more twists and turns than a sheep track,” I said.

“He's kosher all right, Kate. The guy is completely straight. He's the kind that gets into trouble because he's too honest, if you know what I mean.”

“Oh, come on, Mark. It's me you're talking to. The guy's a builder, for Christ's sake. He can lay his hands on a grand in cash,
just like that. That's not straight, not in the normal definition of the word,” I protested.

“OK, so maybe the taxman doesn't know about every shilling he makes. But that doesn't make you a bad person, now does it, Kate?”

“So give me the truth, not the advertising copy.”

Mark sighed. “You're a hard woman, Brannigan.” Tell me about it, I thought cynically. “Right. Ted Barlow is probably my oldest friend. He was my best man, first time round. I was an usher at his wedding. Unfortunately, he married a prize bitch. Fiona Barlow was a slut and the last guy to find out was Ted. He divorced her five years ago and since then he's become a workaholic. He started off as a one-man-band, doing a bit of replacement windows stuff. Then a couple of friends asked him if he could do them a conservatory. They lived in real punter property, you know, Wimpey, Barratt, something like that. They got Ted to create this Victorian-style conservatory, all stained glass and UPVC. Of course, monkey see, monkey want. Half the estate wanted one, and Ted was launched in the conservatory business. Now, he's got a really solid little firm, a substantial turnover, and he's done it the straight way. Which, as you know, is pretty bloody unusual in the home improvement game.”