I'd been told at the other houses. None of it really made any sense so far. I know from bitter experience that when my mind is churning and fizzing, there's nothing better than some hard physical exercise. Which for me these days means Thai kick-boxing.
It started off as purely utilitarian. My friend Dennis the burglar pointed out to me that I needed self-defence skills. He wasn't so much thinking about the job I do as the neighbourhood where I live. He persuaded me to come along to the club where his adored teenage daughter is the junior champion. When I saw the outside of the building, a horrible, breeze-block construction like an overgrown Scout hut, I was deeply unimpressed. But inside, it's clean, warm and well-lit. And the women's coach, Karen, is a former world champion who gave up serious competition to have a family. One of the wildest sights in our club is watching her three-year-old toddling round the ring throwing kicks at people twice his size, and causing them a lot of grief.
I was in luck, for Karen was in the tiny cubicle she calls an office, desperate for an excuse to avoid doing the paperwork. She was in luck too, for I was so bagged off at the verbal beating I'd had from Brian Chalmers that I gave her the most challenging work-out I'd ever managed.
Left to their own devices, the tumblers in my brain started to slot into place. By the time we'd finished trading blows, I knew where I had to look next on the trail of the missing conservatories.
7
Since the Land Registry keeps office hours rather than supermarket ones, I couldn't have done anything more that afternoon, even supposing they didn't insist that you make a prior appointment to look at the registers. The real blow was that Ted had inconsiderately sold his conservatories to properties that were covered by two separate offices; the Warrington ones came under Birkenhead, the Stockport ones under Lytham St Anne's, an arrangement about as logical as having London covered by Southampton. Just to confuse things even more, the Lytham registry is in Birkenhead House… Ever get the impression they really don't want you to exercise your rights to examine their dusty tomes? However, I did manage to get an appointment in Birkenhead for the Monday morning. When I read over the list of addresses, the woman I spoke to sounded positively gleeful. It's a joy to deal with people who love their work. After sorting that out, I felt I could pursue Alexis's dodgy builder with a clear conscience.
I went home to change into something a little less threatening than a business suit. While I was there, I tried to ring T.R. Harris's solicitor, Mr. Graves. The number rang out without response. The idleness of some of the legal profession never ceases to amaze me. Twenty past four and everyone had knocked off for the day. Maybe Thursday was early closing day in Ramsbottom. I couldn't find T.R. Harris in the phone book, which was annoying but not too surprising, given the habits of builders.
My hair was still damp from my shower at the gym, so I gave it a quick blast with the hair dryer. I decided a couple of months ago to let it grow. Now it's reached my shoulders, but instead of growing longer, it just seems to get wilder. And I've noticed a couple of grey hairs in among the auburn. Some hair colours go grey gracefully, but auburn ain't one of them. So far, there are few enough to pull out, but I suspect it won't be long before I have to hit the henna, like my mother before me. Muttering under my breath, I chose a pair of russet trousers, a cream polo-neck angora and lambswool jumper and a tweedy jacket. Now the nights were drawing in, it was time for my favourite winter footwear, my dark tan cowboy boots that might have seen better days but fit like a pair of gloves. Just the thing for a trip to the horrid, nasty, windy, wet, dark countryside. If you have to abandon the city, you might at least be dressed for it. Remembering the lack of street lights out there, I slipped a small torch in my bag.
As I drove across town towards the motorway, I decided that I needed to track down the farmer who had sold the land to T.R. Harris in the first place. But on the way, I decided to check out Harris's premises. I wanted to know where I could lay hands on him once I had my ammunition.
134 Bolton High Road wasn't the builder's yard I'd been expecting. It was a corner shop, still open for the sale of bread, chocolate, cigarettes and anything else the forgetful had omitted to lay in for the evening's viewing. An old-fashioned bell on a coiled spring jangled as I opened the door. The teenage lad behind the counter looked up from his motor-bike magazine and gave me the once-over reserved for anyone who hadn't been crossing the threshold on a regular basis for the last fifteen years.
'I'm looking for a builder,' I said.
'Sorry, love, we don't sell them. There's no demand, you see.' He struggled to keep a straight face, but failed.
'I'm demanding,' I said. I waited for him to think of the reply.
He only took a few seconds. T bet you are, love. Can I help?'
'A builder called Harris. T R. Harris. This is the address I've got for him. Do you act as an accommodation address for people?'
He shook his head. 'Me mam won't stand on for it. She says people who won't use their own address must be up to no good. Tom Harris, the guy you're looking for, he rented one of the offices upstairs for a couple of months. Paid cash, an' all.'
'So you don't live over the shop, then?'
'No.' He closed his magazine and leaned back against the cigarette shelves, happy to have a break in routine. 'Me mam told me dad it was dead common, made him buy the house next door. He turned the upstairs here into offices. Brian Burley, the insurance broker, he's got two offices and a share of the bathroom and kitchenette. He's been here five years, ever since me dad did them up. But the other office, that's had loads of people through it. I'm not surprised. You couldn't swing a rat in there, never mind a cat.'
'So, Tom Harris isn't here any longer?' I asked.
'Nah. He was paid up to the end of last week, and we ain't seen him since. He said he just needed an office while he sorted out a couple of deals over here. He said he was from down south, but he didn't sound it. Didn't sound local neither. Anyway, what're you after him for? He stood you up, or something?' He couldn't help himself, and he was cute enough to get away with it. Give him a few years and he'd be lethal. God help the women of Ramsbottom.
'I need to talk to him, that's all. Any chance of a look round upstairs? See if he left anything that might give me an idea where he moved on to?' I gave him my sultriest smile.
'You'll not find so much as a fingerprint up there,' the lad told me, disappointed. 'Me mam bottomed it on Sunday. And when she cleans, she cleans.'
I could imagine. There didn't seem a lot of point in pushing it, and if Harris had paid in cash, there wasn't likely to be any other clue as to his whereabouts. 'Did you know him at all,' I asked.
'I saw him going in and out, but he didn't have no time for the likes of me. Fancied himself, know what I mean? Thought he was hard.'
'What did he look like?' I asked.
'A builder. Nowt special. Brown hair, big muscles, quite tall. He drove a white Transit, it said T.R. Harris Builders' along the side. Here, you're not the cops, are you?' he asked, a sudden note of apprehension mixing with excitement.
I shook my head. 'Just trying to track him down for a friend he promised to do some work for. D'you know if he hung out in any of the local pubs?'
The lad shrugged. 'Dunno. Sorry.' He looked as if he meant it, too. I bought a pound of Cox's Orange Pippins to stave off the hunger pains and hit the road.
Some days things get clearer as time wears on. Other days, it just gets more and more murky. This one looked like a goldfish bowl that hasn't been cleaned since Christmas. The address I'd carefully copied down from Graves' letterhead that Martin Cheetham had showed me wasn't the office of a solicitor. It wasn't any kind of office at all, to be precise. It was the Farmer's Arms. The pub was about quarter of a mile from the nearest house, the last building on a narrow road up to the moors where Alexis and Chris had hoped to build their dream home. In spite of its relative isolation, the pub seemed to be doing good business. The car park was more than half full, and the stonework had been recently cleaned.
Inside, it had been refurbished in the 'country pub' style of the big breweries. Exposed stone and beams,
