nice, very polite, very credible. Comes cold calling, lovely chat, cup of tea. Then the homeowner signs up on the spot and forks out money. Cash.’
‘How much cash?’ asked James.
‘As much as he can get. Sometimes he drives the homeowner to a nearby bank or cashpoint to get his payout. No cheques. He’s making a killing.’
Jack shook his head. ‘Look, I know everyone is anxious to find something to do, anything to get them out of here on a sunny day, but that’s just fraud. A consumer protection issue. Goes on all the time.’
‘Except,’ said Toshiko.
‘Except?’
‘The police are unwilling to take action because they can’t even get a partial description of the man. He spends hours at a time in the company of his victims, and afterwards they’re at a loss to say what his hair colour is. Total blank. And he’s not just praying on vulnerable people, pensioners or whatever, but affluent homes, people who should know better than fork over cash without a cooling-off period. People who already
‘Really?’ said Jack.
‘Really. This guy’s getting money out of people who don’t even want what he’s selling. People who tell the police afterwards they have no idea why they did what they did. No idea at all.’
‘Maybe that is a live one,’ said Jack admitted. ‘Print me out what you’ve got.’
‘I’ll go have a nose around,’ offered Gwen. ‘I’ve only got paperwork.’
‘No, thanks,’ said Jack.
‘Why?’
‘Because you’ve got paperwork. I’ll go check it.’
‘Why?’ asked Gwen.
‘Because I haven’t got paperwork.’
The SUV whispered up Cathedral Road into Pontcanna. The day was crisp and autumnal. Street cleaners were scooping up the carpet of fallen leaves into barrows. They drove past an ice-cream van tinkling along.
‘So, what do you think? Hypnotic suggestion?’ asked James.
‘Got to be something of that order,’ said Jack, at the wheel. ‘A suggestion or perception technique. Maybe a piece of found tech.’
‘Someone using something they shouldn’t, you mean?’ asked James.
‘Usually the way in this town,’ said Jack.
James peered out at the residential streets flickering by. ‘Any suggestions how we look for a man without a description to go on?’
‘Well,’ Jack replied, ‘I’m thinking he’s going to look like exactly what he pretends to be. A salesman. Smart, suit, well-groomed, going door-to-door.’
‘Because?’
‘Because he’s got to look the part to get inside in the first place, to walk down the street even. Whatever he pulls, he pulls it once he’s in. Like close magic. If what he’s using had a more powerful scope or range, there’s a good chance we’d have picked it up already. No, I’m betting he looks exactly like a salesman.’
James nodded. ‘And if anyone, like the police, did stop him in the street, he’d pull his trick on them too, and walk away?’
‘Right. You’ll notice from Tosh’s printout that he’s confident. He’s not afraid of hitting the same street several times, on the same day if he feels like it. He’s not afraid of being approached.’
‘What’s going to prevent him doing that to us?’ asked James.
‘We’re Torchwood,’ said Jack.
‘Right.’
They drove on.
‘Any particular reason you asked me to ride along with you?’ asked James. ‘Gwen was busting for an excuse to get outside.’
‘No reason,’ said Jack. ‘Except… there was something I wanted to ask you.’
‘What?’
‘Everyone seems full of beans today. After yesterday, I was worried, but everyone has bounced back. Except you.’
‘Me?’ James asked. ‘I’m fine.’
‘You don’t seem as fine as everybody else. Any headache? After-effects?’
‘God, no,’ said James. ‘I’m bright as a button. Like Tosh and Owen both said, once the Amok stopped playing with us, everything felt so much better. We hadn’t realised how it had been crippling us. You too, right?’
‘Sure.’
‘My ribs ache a little,’ said James. ‘And I had some weird old dreams last night. But that’s all it is, I think.’
‘Weird dreams? What about?’
‘No idea. Can’t bring them back to mind. But they were just weird dreams, that’s all. Not alien mind-twisting crap.’
‘All right, if that’s all it is.’
‘Yeah. I was telling Gwen about it when we-’
James paused.
‘What?’
‘I was telling Gwen about it, earlier.’
Jack smiled. He pulled the SUV over to the kerbside. ‘You know I know, right?’
‘Oh. Right.’
‘It’s cool,’ said Jack.
‘Why have we stopped?’ asked James. ‘We’re not going to have some kind of formal talk are we?’
‘Get over yourself,’ said Jack. He pointed down the street. ‘Look what I see.’
SEVENTEEN
Dean Simms was nineteen years old, but reckoned he passed for early twenties in his Top Man suit. He was always particular about his presentation: mouthwash, a haircut once a week, always cleanly shaven, and a nice splash of smelly, though nothing too strong.
His old man had once told him that the real secret to selling was clean fingernails. ‘They always look at your hands, son,’ he’d said, ‘always at the hands. What you’re pointing to, your gestures. And nothing kills a deal quicker than closing with grubby hands. If you get the papers out to run through them, and you’ve got dirt under your nails, forget it. Client’s looking right at your hands at that stage, looking at the dotted line you’re pointing to. Oh, yeah, and have a nice pen. Not a biro.’
Dean’s old man had spent twenty-three years on the road in Monmouthshire and Herefordshire, flogging steam-cleaning systems door-to-door, so he knew the up and down of selling. Or ‘non-desk-based retail’ as he had preferred to call it. Dean had grown up paying close attention to his dad’s pearls of wisdom. His old man had always brought in decent money.
When Dean left school, his old man had tried to get him a job with the steam-cleaner company, but the Internet had been murdering face-sales by then, and there had been no openings, not even for ‘a lad with good selling potential’. A year later, his old man had been given his cards. That had killed him. Without a job at fifty- eight, he’d just withered away and died.
Determined to prove something, Dean had got himself a commission-only job with LuxGlaze Windows, but it had been a slog, and the product hadn’t been all that, and LuxGlaze always sent him to areas where the homeowners had been pre-pissed off by LuxGlaze’s carpet-bomb approach to telephone pitching. Twice, Dean had been chased off a plot by dogs, once by a man with a rake.
He’d switched to VariBlinds, then to Welshview EcoGlass, then back to LuxGlaze again for one awful,
