Dead Money (4 page)

Simon looked at Jan.

I grinned. "Both of them?"

Simon nodded.

"It's an old line, that one. Back when UPVC was the wave of the future, that might've been true, but now the windows and everything only add to the value if the potential buyers think it's aesthetically pleasing. I'm guessing anyone buying this place will be similar to yourselves, so they won't be staying very long either, so all they're after are low-maintenance windows that'll save them on their bills. Not to mention do their bit to lower their carbon footprint."

Jan looked serious. "It's a concern."

"Of course it is." My mobile bleated
The Muppet Show
theme tune. I turned it off. "Sorry about that. It's just the office. Where were we?"

"Carbon footprint."

"Yes, well, you can take the bottom-end windows and you're still doing your bit for the planet and yourselves." I took out one of the more detailed window brochures and handed it to Simon. "Those are the basics. We're just talking a bog-standard white UPVC one-lock. Lowest of the low, but that'll do you. Everything else just builds on that, if you like. You're not going to see any significant difference in terms of bills, but you will see a difference in terms of security." I scratched the back of my neck. "I don't really know the area, so I don't know how important security is to you—"

"
Very
."

"Jan ..."

"Well, it is."

I tried not to smile and gestured for Simon to turn the page. "Okay, well, just take a look at your next step up. Basic with security features. Three inches thick and double rebated with a multi-point locking system. Layman's, it's tough as nails and practically burglar-proof."

Jan's turn to nod this time. I watched Simon's face for approval. Not quite there yet, but it wasn't my fault. Jan had touched a nerve with the whole security thing. Guessed this place was his idea and she had to put up with it. Which meant it was a solid bet she was the one making the decisions on how the house would end up both inside and out. But there was disagreement brewing at the moment, and that had a way of snowballing into a blow out. Best to switch focus.

"You said it wasn't just the windows. Were you thinking about the doors as well?"

"Hardwood."

"Good idea. Take it you've had quotes?"

"Yes." And his face said that they were equally expensive.

"You get what you pay for there, I'm afraid. You want a big, thick hardwood door, you're going to have to shell out. I mean, I reckon it's money well spent – I've got a hardwood door myself – but there's others say a hallway needs a bit of light."

Jan looked at the door to the hall. "It is dark out there."

"I didn't notice it, myself, but if you want to have a look at the doors, I've got something here that should be of interest." I pulled out a booklet on the security doors with glass-panel inserts, made sure to open it at a page with a stencilled panel that looked like one of the plants Jan had been scrawling across the wall. Her eyes lit up and Simon swallowed.

From there on in, whatever Simon said was ignored. I'd already given the reins to Jan, and she rode roughshod over whatever objections her husband might have had. Two teas later, we were onto the payment plans for a full house of windows and a front door. I stretched them onto the long-term, which bumped the monthlies down to manageable and made them think they were getting a bargain. It also set up a potential conservatory score further on down the line, but I wasn't going to hold my breath. In the meantime, I got Simon's signature on the dotted, and that was that.

"We'll be in touch," I said, and left one of them happy and the other one broke. I checked my mobile on the way back to the car. Message from Beale – he wanted another night on the piss. I called him back. His mobile was switched off, so I left a message. "Cath's got me under house arrest tonight, so you'll have to get hammered on your lonesome. See you later."

Clicked off, sat in the car staring at the road. Had to be back home tonight, but with a solid sale under my belt, I could afford to postpone the other two sits. Which meant I had a bit of time on my hands.

I scrolled through my contacts until I found Lucy's name, and she picked up on the fourth ring.

4

Beale had no idea how much he spent on nights out until it got to the end of the month. Then and only then, he had a tendency to get frugal. And it was on one of those nights that I first met Lucy.

It shouldn't have happened. Manchester was one of those cities that didn't seem to have a defining demographic. It was a scally town, a new-money town, a football town, a pink town. It was made up of a hotchpotch of creeds and criminals, most of whom kept themselves to themselves and were proud to be Manc. Those were the ones that Beale had no trouble with. As long as you were from the city, you tended to get a bit of leeway. That courtesy wasn't extended to students. Because as much as Beale hated the Asians or the Chinese or the blagging little bastards on the doors, students deserved something special. Until I met Lucy, I was the same. The only time Beale and I ever saw them, they were off their faces and acting the arse in town, or else they were leads blagged by some part-timer who didn't know a student rental when he saw one. Either way, it was easy to hate them. Sometimes they actively encouraged that hatred.

Which was why, when he suggested a pound-a-pint place, I had to ask if he was sure. Pound-a-pint stank of student, and a pissed-up Beale surrounded by pissed-up students wasn't a situation I wanted to be a part of.

"Fuck it. It'll be dark. I won't have to see them."

"What if you do?"

"I won't, right? I'll be in a good mood, I promise. It's fuckin' cheap enough."

"Alright, fine. But I'm warning you, you kick off and you're on your own."

He shrugged it off, we both swallowed our pride and a couple of months back found ourselves at the Dawgz Nadz.

It was one of those fun pubs that were about as much fun as deep vein thrombosis, and I knew the minute we stepped over the threshold that, cheap booze or no cheap booze, it was going to be a shitty night. We walked into what looked like a basement pumped full of dry ice and handed a fiver each to a hipster in a cage. Took one slow look around and felt every second of those thirty-seven years. Right then I knew exactly how my dad felt when he saw me with jacket sleeves rolled to the elbow, mostly because I saw the exact same thing in front of me, and they looked like colossal twats. Meanwhile, the beat in the room had my feet moving, and not in a good way – there was a bassline thrum that ran up my shins and straight to my gut, which made me nauseous.

I tugged at my tie and rolled it up, shoved it into my jacket pocket as sweat began to itch my hairline. Beale barged past me towards the bar. That would be his spot for the night until some poor girl accidentally made eye contact and had him attempting a half-arsed seduction.

He turned and shouted at me once he had the barman's attention. "What d'you want? I'm buying."

Ever the generous soul when a round cost less than a fiver.

"Whatever you're having."

Over the back bar mirror hung painted movie stills framed in barbed wire – a beardy Al Pacino in
Serpico
, a pimped-out Harvey Keitel in
Taxi Driver
, a ‘tacheless Burt Reynolds in
Deliverance
. I didn't know what it was supposed to mean other than a kind of toothless hip, which was probably all it was supposed to mean. Beale turned round and handed me a treble and a bottle of Grolsch. I went straight for the shots, struggling a bit after the double went down, but managed the third with a follow-up drink.

"Three for the price of two, but it's not pound-a-pint, it's pound-a-bottle." He held up his Groslch. "This or Carling, and that's fuckin' piss."

I didn't answer him, just pushed forward and ordered the same again. My heart felt shaky. I needed something to calm down, and alcohol was the most convenient depressant to hand. A few more, and the night started to blur. Beale shouted his end of the conversation at me for a while, tried to have a proper bitch about work, but after an hour or so, he disappeared off somewhere while I leaned against the wall and wished I was home. Later on, I caught a glimpse of him pinning some poor little crater-faced blonde. When the strobes kicked in, he looked like a Yeti caught on Super 8 as he leaned in to slobber something romantic into her ear.

This wasn't working out. Time to call it a night.

I turned away, collided with someone. Liquid splattered my shoes and I backed up a step, hoping it wasn't my drink I'd spilled. When I looked up, there she was. Behind her was a still from
Faster Pussycat, Kill, Kill
and that coupled with the lighting made her look black and white. Gloss-black hair, large black eyes and pouting lips, she looked for all the world like she belonged in an old French film where the women languished on unmade beds, smoked Gitanes and talked about philosophy with their reflections in scratched mirrors. She was younger than me, and old enough to know it. She was also way out of my league. Normally I would've left her alone. Not because I was married, but because I wasn't in the habit of acting like a dick to get my tops in. But right then, with enough booze in my system, I reckoned it was a poor man who didn't live his life, even if I did hear Beale's voice somewhere in the back of my head warning me off.

Not on any moral grounds, you understand, but because her surname was Ghosh. And Beale didn't think the white man and the Asian lady should get together. Lucky for me, Lucy thought different.

The gory details aren't important. Suffice to say, my pitch could be adapted to most situations, including one where the end result was a sweaty brief encounter up against a Citro
ë
n Saxo in an NCP. I didn't think it would last beyond a couple of quick fumbles, neither of us did. But then, maybe that was the reason it had. No long-term commitment meant no short-term complacency.

I swung by an off-licence on the way to Hulme to pick up a bottle of Jim Beam. Not my drink, normally, but Lucy liked it. When I got there, she took the bottle and ushered me upstairs away from her housemates, who were arseholes to a man: Josh played rugby and had the ruddy face of the rich; Daz, slightly less rich, but still moneyed enough to study Drama; and then there was tubby little bull-dyke, Emma. Not a lot in common other than they all lived in the same house and they all hated me. That was fine, I hated them too.

Lucy's room looked like a papal funeral. There were candles everywhere, even a couple of oil burners. She broke the seal on the Beam, and brought out a couple of small glasses she kept in her desk drawer. I took off my jacket and tie. She poured the drinks. We drank them. She poured some more, but they remained on the bedside table, forgotten until afterwards.

Later, stretched out on the bed, the sweat turned to grime, I stared at the flickering shadows on the ceiling. Laura Marling played. I couldn't believe the shit I had to listen to sometimes.

"It's not healthy, you know." She wore an oversized shirt that rode up around her hips and nothing else. She was sipping bourbon and staring off into the middle distance.

"What isn't?"

"Your behaviour."

"What's the matter with it?"

"You're wound up. Stressed."

"I try not to be."

"Is it the job?"

"No."

She smiled. "Is it your wife?"

I smiled back. If I didn't know better, I would've sworn that there was a part of Lucy that got off on being the other woman. "No, she's none the wiser. Sorry."

"So what's the problem?"