Dirty Deeds
by
Jamie Buchanan
Published by Fredbird Publishing
Fredbird Publishing
Suite 34, New House
67-68 Hatton Garden
London
EC1N 8JY
England
www.fredbird-publishing.com
This edition first published by Fredbird Publishing 2015
Copyright © Jamie Buchanan 2015
All rights reserved
Paperback edition: ISBN 978-1-910668-00-9
Kindle edition: ISBN 978-1-910668-01-6
Names, characters, businesses, organisations, places, events, incidents and historic legal practices are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Fredbird Publishing and its registered trademark have no connection with Fredbird, the magnificent mascot of the St. Louis Cardinals Major League Baseball team of St. Louis, Missouri, USA. Any similarity is an unintended coincidence. The address of the St. Louis Cardinals' website is http://stlouis.cardinals.mlb.com.
CHAPTER 1: part i
What value do you place on chance? As far as Martin Minchin, Certified Accountant, was concerned, there was no such thing as chance. Two and two always made four, not three, not five, only four. Chance was for dreamers and lottery losers; professional accountants dealt in tangible amounts, certainties, hard facts, assets. To Martin, chance had no value.
It certainly wasn't chance that had led him up the aisle to his disastrous marriage to Beverley: it was an idiotic combination of misunderstandings. He understood exactly how it had happened and accepted that his own gullibility had contributed to one of the twentieth century's most egregious mismatches. The errors were easily identified and filed neatly in his head, readily accessible in the event of another stumble into dangerous territory.
Yet chance had now wrenched Martin from his auditor's comfort zone and plunged him into an alien world of villainy, adventure and real peril. He had done nothing – consciously at least – to influence these events. So, contrary to the principles he had held throughout his adult life, he couldn't deny that his massively changed circumstances were down to nothing more nor less than pure, outrageous luck.
And that was what convinced him that he had taken a huge leap from accountancy to an altogether higher calling: adventurer, entrepreneur, lover, father? Chancer!
~
Wednesday morning
'Socks, hmm... better get about six pairs. Pants, same.' Martin composed the list mumbling aloud, partly because he thought it might lessen the risk of his omitting something crucial and partly because there was nobody else around to hear. Since being compelled to move out of the marital home, occasions when he talked to himself had increased markedly in their frequency. More disturbingly, he had become a compulsive list maker; not just making proper, useful lists, like this shopping list, but also compiling lists in his head of anything at all, usually focused on a random subject. In alphabetical order.
Alone, Bisected, Cast-off, Divorcé-to-be, Estranged, Forlorn, Gutted... Martin Gordon Minchin, the certified accountant, was thirty-three years old and six feet six inches tall. He had become aware of his excessive height at the age of thirteen when the teasing switched emphasis from his initials ('Oi, MGM! Where's yer lion?') to his stature ('Oi, beanpole wanker! What's the weather like up there?'). To disguise his uncommon loftiness during his teens he had affected a round-shouldered stoop that became his natural stance. As a result his jackets and jumpers tended to ride up his back, exacerbating an ungainly bearing.
This Wednesday morning in May 1995, Martin was trying hard to look forward with enthusiasm, but the lack of clean socks had come as a bit of a blow. He stood, his bare feet striking a discordant note in his neat and tidy office, and gazed through the window at the High Street. Shimbley is a typical small market town in the south of England. In its centre is an imposing church of Norman origin, a timbered, sixteenth century coaching inn, a small river, various shops, a disenfranchised garage, a doctors' surgery, an estate agency, an Italian restaurant, a couple of solicitors' and accountants' practices and a takeaway food outlet named Kebabbaburger. Perhaps with the exception of Kebabbaburger the town is easy on the eye. It's an agreeable place to live and work, for those who enjoy a quiet life. And a quiet life was what Martin, Shimbley's tallest accountancy professional, was enjoying. Or, more accurately, would be, as soon as he moved into the cottage he was buying in a neighbouring village. In the meantime he was sleeping at his office; or rather trying to but, as it occupied two-and-a-bit first floor rooms over Kebabbaburger, it failed to provide any peace at all between the hours of noon and midnight.
The question exercising Martin right now was whether retrieving a previous day's socks from one of the plastic carriers that now served as his 'smelly bags' would be a bigger social gaffe than going out correctly dressed but sockless. The latter might be interpreted as worse than eccentric by Shimbley's conservative citizens, many of whom were his clients. On the other hand, he did like to maintain certain standards, despite the shortcomings of his temporary accommodation. He was due to see his solicitor and, on the basis that he would have to walk there completely naked in order to compete in the eccentricity stakes with the town's senior lawyer, he decided that sockless but sweet-smelling was the way to go.
Ten minutes later, Martin sat in the ancient and heavily beamed front office of Filkington Parver Thrupp, Solicitors and Commissioners of Oaths, sipping from a cup of tea and making pleasant small talk with the solicitor's faithful assistant, Dora Simkins. Mrs Simkins, a septuagenarian widow, was receptionist, bookkeeper, secretary, tea lady and, since the death of Freddie Filkington some fifteen years ago, sole colleague of Peter Parver-Thrupp. Employed by the practice since the mid-sixties, she had been responsible for its efficient running ever since, a role that was vital in balancing the surviving partner's notorious vagueness.
'I'm so sorry, Mr Minchin. Mr Parver-Thrupp must have been delayed. I did remind him of your appointment so I'm sure he'll be here any minute.' She smiled apologetically at him and gave a slight shrug of her shoulders to suggest that she knew that he knew that Petey P-T, as he was known behind his back, could be absolutely anywhere, following an agenda entirely his own.
'Please don't worry, Mrs Simkins. I've nothing on this morning.' Martin noticed her looking at his feet and toyed with the idea of explaining why nothing covered the bare flesh between his black leather lace-ups and the hems of his trousers. He was about to utter when a twenty year old Mercedes-Benz saloon wheezed its way into the cobbled yard outside, its matted, dusty bodywork bouncing rather too freely on well-worn suspension. Martin watched its arrival through a tiny casement window, which had been forced open, sweeping to one side the ivy that normally obscured the view. The car door's hinges emitted a distressed groan and a hand stubbed out the damp remains of a thin hand-rolled cigarette on the sill. Petey P-T swung a leg out of the car, his lurid yellow and green trainer providing a startling contrast to the rest of his ensemble of rumpled corduroy and tweed.
Petey P-T was sixty-three but looked ten years older. His thick, grey hair had grown beyond his collar, more by accident than design, and was matched by generous eyebrows that sprang out in every direction, as though an explosion had occurred in the middle of each. His face was puffy, florid and inclined to wear an expression of puzzlement. With a deep sigh he swung the door shut and entered the small office that bore his and his late partner's names.
'Morning Dora, anything new? Car problem. Wouldn't start again. What d'you reckon, eh? Damn mice in the loom. Tcha! Going to have to use poison. Too small to shoot. What's the matter?' He followed her gaze across the room to where Martin was now standing, the low ceiling forcing him to adopt an even more pronounced crouch than usual. He frowned, then smiled.
'Martin, dear boy. Young Mr Minchin! What brings you here?'
'We are assisting with Mr Minchin's house purchase,' Dora prompted, rather frostily.
'Ah, yes!' Enlightenment lifted Petey P-T's face into a jovial grin. 'Come, come, come.' He beckoned Martin to follow him through a door bearing the nameplate F.J.J.Filkington. It led into a large, dark, stuffy room in which every surface – tables, chairs, a leather covered chesterfield and most of the floor – was littered with heaps of papers and files, many tied with thin red ribbon. The nicotine yellow plaster between the black beams hadn't been touched by a paint brush for decades. 'Do sit, won't you', he said as he made his way carefully to the other side of a massive oak table that served as his desk. Martin looked around and spotted an insubstantial antique dining chair, which had only one file on it. He picked the file up and lowered himself onto the seat.
'How's your father?' Petey P-T turned to face Martin. 'No! Don't sit on that!'
Martin sprang to his feet, driving the top of his skull hard into an unyielding beam with a loud thud. Crashing back down, he just managed to make eye contact with Petey P-T before the chair collapsed underneath him with a crack like a gunshot.
'Ooh! Ow! Oh, good grief, sorry about your chair.' Martin scrambled upright again, rubbing the buttock which had taken the brunt of his fall and casting a wary eye at the ceiling. 'Father's fine. Well, he's in hospital actually, in Norwich. Waterworks. How are you? Wow. Took a bit of a biff there. I really am sorry about the chair; I'm afraid it looks like a write-off.'
He gently shook his head from side to side, winced, then fingered the top of it where a swelling lump was already making itself felt, cartoon-like, under his fine, sandy hair.
'Oh dear. What a shambles.'
'Don't worry about it, you poor chap. Tried to warn you – it was a bit dicky. Plenty more chairs. Hope you're not concussed; it was a mighty blow, that. Needed some kindling anyway.'
'Well you'll certainly be able to light a few fires with that,' said Martin, nodding towards the pile of broken wood. 'I think I'll live.' He looked for an alternative perch; Petey P-T pointed at a stronger looking carver.
'Tip all that stuff on the floor. That's the way. Surprised you don't wear a helmet; head needs all the protection it can get at that altitude. Hope you weren't waiting too long. Mrs Simkins fusses so. Makes bloody awful tea. Bags. Never get the proper taste. Cigarette? Damn newsagent's been taken over by some life-sucking conglomerate. Used to sell what you wanted. Now lucky to find papers anywhere. It's not what I call progress.'
Martin squinted through a dirt encrusted window at a pigeon sitting on a fence and tried to ignore the throbbing pain in his head. He had embarked on another mental list, starting once more at A. Advocate, Beam, Crushed skull, Daily Telegraph. Papers? He recalled buying The Times without difficulty less than three hours earlier.
'I thought Top News was something of an improvement; they seem to have most titles...'
'I mean cigarette papers. Ask for them now and they think you're a bloody hippy.' Petey P-T leaned back in his chair and concentrated on constructing a miserly smoke. 'Tried cannabis once. Niece grew some. Had a session with her university chums. Didn't do a thing for me but it got the others giggling. I'll stick to claret. Know where you are with claret. Until half way through the second bottle. Your parents alright then? Except your father? Remind me where they're living now.'
'Malding Castle; it's a little village on the Norfolk Broads. They've got a bungalow with estuary views.'
'Sounds delightful. And how is the divine Mrs Minchin?'
Martin sat up and stared at Petey P-T. Divine?
'Er, mum's fine.'
'No, I mean good! Yes, splendid. I mean young Mrs Minchin, your lovely wi... your ex, er, Beverley.'
Beverley! For Martin, the very name had an awful, lurking menace, which made his spirits nosedive. The merest thought of her was guaranteed to plunge him into a deep gloom, no matter how good his prevailing mood. It stirred up in him the same sort of unease that an impoverished pensioner might feel at the sight of an electricity bill dropping onto the doormat.
Beverley was the overindulged only child of Frank Waverley, a surprisingly wealthy councillor from Yorkshire who had taken sudden and early retirement and moved south to Shimbley, following the collapse of a police investigation into town hall corruption. His personal mantra was If You Want It Badly Enough Beat All The Other Buggers To It, and he rarely missed an opportunity to boast of its efficacy. His daughter had been an early convert to this philosophy and had spent most of her life beating all the other buggers to a succession of expensive toys of which she quickly tired: dolls' house, Wendy house, kitten, puppy, pony, pretty cars and a time-share in the Caribbean. Tall, with a thick mane of fiery red hair, Beverley was a striking young woman with undeniable sex appeal. She carried herself with an aristocratic authority and was used to commanding the complete attention of anyone within shouting distance. When she arrived at the mistaken understanding that Martin was heir to a vast Scottish estate, she dispensed with her then current boyfriend with an award-worthy display of anguish and set about her acquisition of Martin with the subtlety of a heat-seeking missile.
Being on the receiving end of more-than-friendly overtures had been quite a novelty for Martin, particularly when the pursuer was a handsome and well-to-do woman whose usual partners were dashing young men who made the Friday evening trip from London to Shimbley in Porsches. It wasn't that Martin was unattractive; on the contrary, he was bright, personable, had a lively sense of humour and a gift for listening. His height had done him few favours when it came to romance, and he had tended to date similarly lanky girls. Since immoderate length was the only thing he had in common with most of them, the relationships had been short-lived. There had been one exception, a girlfriend with whom he had drifted in and out of love for eight years from his late teens. There had been a special bond between them that allowed their close friendship to endure, even during periods when they were seeing others. She finally found a soul mate, a poet from Amsterdam, and Martin had attended their joyous and predictably unconventional wedding. The newlyweds left to try their luck in Australia where they hitched a ride with a psychopath who murdered them. It was a shocking way for such gentle lives to end and Martin still missed her. His grief, however, had been offset by the attention he began to receive from Beverley. When he accepted her proposal of marriage, he was flattered, proud and ecstatically happy. He had even been amused that she styled herself Beverley Minchin-Waverley so that she could brandish one of her favourite initialisms. 'You'll never get a better ride my love,' she had promised.
After barely two years of wedded togetherness, with her Scottish home just a castle in the air and wearied by girlfriends teasing her about her sky-scraping accountant, disillusioned Beverley met a married property developer with a convertible Mercedes and an unsatisfied libido. From that moment her adoring husband was superfluous and under her feet. Beverley and her new beau needed privacy for their trysts, so she made the unilateral decision that Martin should quit the marital home with all possible speed. 'Time waits for no man,' she said to him, 'and nor will I, so I'd much appreciate it if you pissed off sooner rather than later, alright?'
It was entirely pointless to argue with Beverley. She would keep their house on Shimbley's outskirts and its principal contents, in return for which Martin would receive just sufficient cash for a deposit on a modest home and have the burden of alimony waived. After briefly flirting with and rejecting the idea of fighting her over the house, he caved in to her wishes.
'You really are pathetic, Martin,' Beverley pointed out after he had put his signature to the Deed of Separation. 'You'll never beat the other buggers to anything.'
~
'Please ignore me.' Martin's solicitor was embarrassed to have so carelessly raised a subject that clearly still pained his client. 'I'm becoming ever more stupid. Now then, about this house of yours. I've got the file here somewhere.'
Petey P-T was pushing various folders around his table as if shuffling dominos. Ash fell from the home-made cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth and scattered in all directions. Martin leaned back, away from the table. He had never smoked and was always haunted by the lingering smell for hours after being in contact with tobacco and its by-products. A speck launched itself and Martin's eyes followed its teasing flight path this way and that until it crash-landed in his crotch. He weighed up the pros and cons of brushing it off. He didn't want Petey P-T to notice, in case it made him feel awkward for contaminating him. Petey P-T, however, now had his head under the table as he went through piles of paper on the floor. Martin swiped at the ash, smearing it into a grey splodge by his fly, and he set about rubbing it away.
'You'll be looking for this, Mr P.' Dora Simkins had materialised in the room and was holding out a folder. Her gaze, from under a slightly raised eyebrow, travelled from Martin's trouser cleaning efforts to his eyes and thence to the pile of broken wood on the floor. Martin felt himself blushing, prompting a continuation of the list in his head: Embarrassment, Fag ash, Gutted again.
'Thank you Dora. Thought you must have it. Know where everything belongs y'know. That's what matters.'
'Yes, Mr P.' Dora left the room as softly as she had entered.
'Right, let's see now, young man, here we are. Lockkeeper's Cottage, Shimbley Lane, West Vereham, Shimbley. No problems there – unless the Shimbley bypass goes through the kitchen of course. Wouldn't be surprised. Planners are idiots. All of them. Well, all seems to be in order.'
'I take it the bypass was a joke?'
'Bound to be. Aren't they all? Designed to free up traffic; just increase it, apparently. Oh, I see! Yes, take no notice. Talk first, think later – if I think at all! Mrs Simkins will tell you. No, you've nothing to fear – unless the ceilings are as low as this one! So, you're moving in on Friday.'
'Yes, at last. I've managed to organise a week off, so that should give me time to sort everything, get furniture and so forth.'
'Good! Well, I wish you well. I expect you could do with things going your way, eh?'