'Wait a minute!' I said sharply. 'Where are you going?'
'I'm going to follow him,' Alexis said sharply. 'And then I'm going to front him up.' She shoved the car into gear.
I pulled it out again. 'No you're not,' I told her.
'I bloody am!' Alexis exploded. 'That bastard is walking around with five grand of our money, and I want it back.'
'Look, cool it,' I commanded. Alexis obviously recognized I meant it, for she subsided, showing her feelings by revving the engine at irregular intervals. 'Now you know his name and where he lives, you can lay your hands on him any time you want to. And so can the cops.'
Alexis shook her head. 'No cops. I want our money back, and if the guy's in custody, he's not earning. All I want is to front him up and get our money back.'
'Fronting him up isn't going to get your money back. He'll just laugh at you. And even if you go round with some of your less pleasant associates, I'm not convinced he's the kind of guy who'd be scared into handing the money over.'
'So what do you suggest? I just lie down and die?'
'No. I know it's a bit radical, but why don't you sue him? As long as you don't use Cheetham, that is,' I added, trying to get her to lighten up a bit.
'Because it'll take forever,' Alexis wailed.
'It doesn't have to. You get your solicitor to write a letter demanding payment, and if he doesn't cough up, you get her or him to issue a Statutory Demand, which means Lomax has to pay up within a certain time or you petition for bankruptcy. And since what he's done is illegal, he's not likely to quibble about repaying your money as soon as you start making legal noises,' I explained.
Alexis sighed. 'OK, you win. But on one condition.'
'What's that?'
That you keep tabs on him for a day or two. I want to know his haunts, where he works out of, who he works with, just in case he decides to go to ground. I'll pay you, of course. Put it on an official footing.'
It was my turn to sigh. 'You've picked the worst possible week. I'm up to my eyeballs with vanishing conservatories and hooky drugs.'
'I won't institute proceedings till I know where we can lay hands on him if he's not home,' Alexis said obstinately.
My exertions of the previous day and a half had finally caught up with me. I didn't have the energy left to argue, so I caved in. 'OK. Put the car in gear. I'll get to it as soon as I can.'
13
The Birkenhead Land Registry's address is Old Market House, Hamilton Square. Sounds almost romantic, doesn't it? I pictured a mellow stone building, Georgian, with perhaps a portico. Wood panelling, maybe, with grey stooped figures shuffling past in a Dickensian hush. Fat chance. Negotiating the one-way system brought me to a modern dark red brick building, seven storeys tall with plenty of windows overlooking breathtaking views of the entrance to the Mersey tunnel.
I found a space in the car park for the Fiesta I'd hired to replace my wrecked Nova and tagged on to a group of women heading for the building. They were having the Monday morning chatter to each other about the weekend, obviously familiar with each other's routines. The leading pair stopped at the entrance to the building and keyed a number into a security lock. The women swept on into the building. One of them held the door open for me. That was when I noticed the sign informing me that the public entrance was at the front of the building. One of the great truisms of our business is that the more security a building has, the easier it is to penetrate. I caught the door and stood uncertainly for a moment. It was tempting to waltz in the back door and have a good wander round, just for the hell of it. But prudence won over my sense of adventure and I reluctantly let the door swing closed. I was too busy to spend a day down the police station explaining why I'd hacked into the Land Registry computer network.
I walked round to the front of the building, distinguishable from the back only by the double doors. I entered a cheerless foyer with a security booth and banks of stainless-steel lift doors. The Scouse security officers were as efficient as if they'd been privatized. Name and purpose of visit, who visiting, where car parked, car registration number. Then they note your arrival time and issue a security pass. If I were a dedicated hacker, I could see half a dozen ways to get my hands on one of their terminals.
Again, I restrained my more piratical instincts and went across the hall to Inquiries. It was like a dentist's waiting room, complete with year-old magazines sitting on a low table. The chairs were the cloth-upholstered sort two grades up from those hideous orange plastic ones you get down the Social Security. Everything was a bit scuffed, as if it was last redecorated before Thatcher came to power. I walked over to a high counter in the corner of the room. It was empty except for a cash register and a computer monitor and keyboard. I craned my neck round to read 'Welcome to the Land Registry Computer System' in amber letters on the black screen.
The sign on the desk said, 'Please ring for attention'. They obviously brought the sign with them from the old building, since it's probably the only thing in the whole place made of wood. It's certainly the only thing made of wood with gilt lettering on it. I rang the bell and waited for a desiccated old man in a frock coat to shuffle through the door.
That'll teach me to make my mind up in advance of the facts. It took less than a minute for a young woman to appear who, frankly, wasn't my idea of a civil servant. For a start, she wouldn't have looked out of place at one of Richard's gigs in her fashionably baggy Aran sweater and jeans. For another, she looked like she enjoyed her work. And she didn't behave as if having to deal with members of the public was a major pain for her. All very novel.
'I wonder if you can help me,' I said. 'My name's Brannigan, Kate Brannigan. I rang last week with a list of addresses that I needed copies of the register for.'
The woman smiled. 'That's right. It was me you spoke to. I've got the copies ready, if you don't mind waiting a minute?'
'Fine,' I said. As she disappeared back through the door, I allowed myself a grim smile of satisfaction. No doubt this was where the wait began. I helped myself to one of the elderly magazines and sat down. I was only one paragraph into the fascinating tale of a soap star's brush with death on the motorway when she returned with a thick bundle of documents.
'Here you are,” she announced. 'Seven sets of copies of the register. It's not often we get asked for so many, except by conveyancing experts. And in so many different locations,' she added, obviously fishing.
I dumped the magazine and went back to the counter. 'I suppose it made life a lot more complicated for you when they changed the rules to allow anyone to examine any entry in the register,' I parried.
'I don't know about complicated,' she said. 'But it's made it a lot more interesting. I only ever used to talk to solicitors and their secretaries, and occasionally people who wanted copies of their own entries. Now we get all sorts coming in. Often, they want to check the register on their neighbours' properties because they think they might be in breach of some covenant or other, like no caravans, or no garden bonfires. A right lot of Percy Sugdens, some of them are,' she added with a giggle.
She turned to the cash register. I'd taken the precaution of hitting the hole in the wall with the company cashpoint card, so I wasn't flummoxed by her demand any more than she was by my request for a VAT receipt. I made a mental note to ask Shelley to keep a running total of Ted Barlow's account and to bill him as soon as it went five hundred pounds over the retainer he'd given us. I didn't want us to end up working for nothing if I couldn't clear up the scam fast enough to keep his business afloat.
I picked up my copies of the register entries and squeezed them into the back pocket of my handbag. Then, a thought occurred to me. 'I wonder if you could clear something up for me?' I said.
'If I can, I'd be happy to,' the young woman said, giving me a bright smile that appeared to be completely natural. She obviously wasn't destined to last long in the Civil Service.
'What's the actual process here? And how long does it take between details being sent to you and them being
