Dirty Deeds

Dirty Deeds Part 2

CHAPTER 1: part ii

With his head and bottom both still feeling sore, Martin strolled back up the High Street towards its younger end where Minchin Associates resided. He had chosen a plural trading style to give the impression that his was a larger accountancy firm than the average one-man-band, but the fact that it was always he who answered the telephone rather gave the game away, not that it seemed to matter. His clients were mostly self-employed people and proprietors of small businesses and, while they were unlikely to make him his fortune, they enabled him to pay his bills on time and stay in the black, about which he was fastidious. His shoes feeling strange around his bare feet, he acknowledged to himself that Friday's move into Lockkeeper's Cottage couldn't come too soon. In the meantime, it was after midday and he needed something to eat. A doner kebab was too often the convenient thing to choose and he pushed open the door into the little shop beneath his office.

'Eh, Martin, 'ow you doin' up there?' Mehmet was Kebabbaburger's Turkish owner and chef. He had a wiry build, mischievous eyes and a highly belligerent attitude towards anything resembling authority, despite which, or maybe because of which, he made a very good living.

'Hello Mehmet.'

'You wanna doner?'

'Yes, I wanna doner. Plus ça change.'

'Eh?'

'How are you doing, Mehmet? Pretty well I think.'

'No way, Martin. I got trouble. Not your size trouble, ha ha, sleepin' 'ere. No, your majesty custom, 'e say I don't get back no V-A-bloody-T on petrol, on air fare, on the bloody shoppin' up Tesco. I tell 'im to go look up 'is books but 'e slap on the final demand an' say about penalty fines. I say I pay my national an' my bloody Tory tax on airports an' all but 'e not listen. 'Ow much you put 'im in 'is place? You wanna hot sauce?'

'I'm sorry, I can't. And no, mild, please. You've got to pay taxes like everyone else. What does your accountant say?'

''e say the same but I gonna fire 'im.'

'Don't shoot the messenger, Mehmet.'

'No, I only gonna fire 'im.'

'You know you can't beat the system. Death and taxes and all that.'

'Yeah, death to taxes an' the bloody system, that's what I say! You got no ambition!'

'You're sounding like my wife.'

'Oh no, not The Bimmer, dammit! I shut up now. That's two sixty-five. For you, two sixty.'

'You're all heart, Mehmet. It was two fifty-five yesterday.'

'You never 'ear of inflation, Martin? And you doin' bloody accounts an' all. Ha! Anyway, The Bimmer, she was lookin' for you earlier. You not bin upsettin' the ol' missis again?'

'Oh, probably; it's easily done. See you.' Martin trudged up the stairs with the ominous Beverley cloud once more hovering over his head. For someone who wanted him out of her life she had a funny way of leaving him alone. He unlocked the door and entered his office. There was a main room with three other doors leading off, one into a smaller room that he used for storage and sleeping, one into a tiny kitchen area and one into an even tinier lavatory. Martin's desk was arranged so that he sat with his back to the large window that overlooked the High Street, even though the resultant reflections made it difficult to read his PC's screen much of the time. He pulled a discarded newspaper out of the waste bin, put it on his desk as a mat and placed the paper bag containing his lunch on it. While he had been out, the fax machine in the corner had spewed a message onto the floor. He picked it up; it read: 'URGENT! To: Mr. M. G. Minchin. From: Mr. S. Essex. Re: Business Opportunity. I am travelling to Shimbley on Thursday morning and will call at your office to discuss a business opportunity. Please ensure that you are available.' Martin sniffed, scratched the back of his neck, frowned and read it again, stroking the lump on the top of his head. A little mysterious, he thought, pressing the messages button on the answering machine: