Chapter 116: Her Number I

Deniz was outside the shop at 8 minutes to 8 with a van and a lad, and he did not want a key under a pot.

"No. Show me." He had his hands in his pockets and would not come in off the pavement. "I’m not starting a ceiling I’ve not stood under."

So Danny let him in and Deniz stood in the middle of the room and looked up at it for a long time.

He was about 50 and built like a door, with a grey moustache and reading glasses pushed up on his head that he never once used, and he said nothing at all for about 90 seconds.

"Who’s told you it’s lath?"

"The sparky."

"He’s right." Deniz walked the length of the crack with his head back. "That’s come off the joist. You see how it runs and then it stops and then it picks up again 2 foot further on? That’s not one crack, that’s 2, and there’s a bit in the middle still holding, and that bit will go in March."

"So what’s the job?"

"The job’s the whole ceiling or the job’s a repair that looks lovely till the first time your extraction runs." He put a hand flat on the wall. "You’ve got a machine coming in here making steam all day. That plaster’s been dry 60 years and you’re about to introduce it to water."

"How much is the whole ceiling?"

"Over the room, boards and a 3 coat skim, 2 of us." He thought about it properly. "Four days. Three thousand two hundred."

"And the repair?"

"Nine hundred, 2 days, and I’d do it, and I’d do it properly, and I’d tell you now it’s 4 or 5 years." He looked at Danny for the first time. "And most people take the 900 and they’re right to, because most people haven’t got 3,200."

Danny stood in his own shop.

And you have.

And Yvonne’s already got 46,850 off you and Keisha’s watched you take the cheap one twice and Sandra’s watched you count every pound since October.

And this bloke’s just told you what happens in March.

"Do the whole ceiling."

Deniz did not react.

"You’ve not asked me when I can start."

"When can you start?"

"Now." He was already going for the door. "We’re stripping today and boarding Wednesday, and if your sparky wants to run anything through it he wants to be here Wednesday morning and not Wednesday afternoon."

"He’s coming Wednesday."

"Then tell him morning." Deniz whistled at the lad in the van. "And get the machine out from under it, because I’m not working over 4 grand of espresso machine with a bolster."

At half 8 they got the La Marzocco off the counter and onto the floor at the back under 2 moving blankets, and it took Danny, Deniz, the lad, and Ray, who came out without being asked because he had seen 4 men looking at something heavy.

"You’re not doing beer," Ray said, at his end of it.

"I’m not doing beer, Ray."

"I’ve not got over it."

Danny left them the key and got on the scooter at 9 minutes to 9, and did not go to the market, and did not go to the builder’s merchant, and went north over the bridge instead.

You’ve not been in that water in 10 days.

And she said Mondays, and she said it in a lobby with her chin up, and she has done every single thing she said she’d do since October.

The third floor at 9 had 2 in it and one of them was Mr Pemberton.

The other one was in the near lane in a green costume doing a length that was more efficient than it looked, and she got to the wall and turned without stopping and did not see him come in.

Danny got in at the shallow end.

She clocked him on her next length, about 3 strokes out, and he saw her see him, and she did not stop and she did not put her feet down. She finished the length, turned, did another one, and came back and stopped at the wall about 4 feet away with her hair flat to her head.

"Well."

"Morning."

"Ten days."

"I know."

"I’m not having a go." Mara got her elbows up onto the tile behind her. "I’m noting it. There’s a difference and I’d like credit for it."

"Noted."

"Don’t say noted." But she was already going. "That’s mine. I’ve said that to you about 4 times."

Mr Pemberton went past in the far lane at his own speed with his cap on, and did not look at either of them, and Danny was fairly sure he had seen everything.

"How’s the shop?"

"There’s a bloke stripping the ceiling off it as we speak."

"Is that good?"

"It’s 3,200 I hadn’t planned on and it means my sparky’s got to come Wednesday morning instead of the afternoon and my machine’s on the floor under a blanket." He had his back against the tile. "So yeah. It’s good."

Mara laughed properly at that, which is a thing she does with her whole face, and she went under to get her hair off it and came back up.

"I’ve had a week," she said.

"Go on."

"I’ve sorted the flat."

Danny turned his head.

"Tom’s flat? The one that’s in the company?"

"That one." She had both elbows up now. "Twelve days I sat on it. Twelve days going round Companies House like an idiot and I could have rung somebody on day one."

"What’s happened?"

"I got a solicitor."

And the pool carried on doing what pools do, which is a filter and a slap of water on tile and somebody’s flip-flops through the glass.

"Right," Danny said.

"And she is brilliant, Danny." Mara was properly going now. "She’s got one room over a dry cleaner’s and a website from about 2014 and she picked the phone up herself on the third ring, and she told me in 11 minutes what a man in Marylebone hasn’t told me in 8 months."

Right.

Don’t move. You’re stood in 4 foot of water with your back on a tile and she can see your entire face.

There are 6,000 solicitors in London.

Over a dry cleaner’s.

"Which one told you what?"

"The tax." She was counting on her fingers under the water. "Moving a flat out of a company into a person is a disposal, so there’s tax in it, and depending on what Tom paid in March it could be a lot. And that’s why nobody’s done it for 8 months, and that’s why Rupert’s not been answering, because Rupert has run it, he’s run it and told Tom the number and Tom’s gone quiet."

"So your brother’s not been ignoring you."

"My brother’s been embarrassed, which is worse and better at the same time." She pushed her hair back. "And she said that as well. She said in my experience they’re never being malicious, they’re embarrassed, and then they leave it, and then it’s 8 months and they’re embarrassed about that."

Priya Anand said that.

That’s her. That’s word for word the sort of thing she’d say, and she said something not 4 miles off it to me sat in that chair in February when I was lying to her about crypto.

"What’s she charging you?"

"Four hundred and fifty fixed, plus VAT." Mara said it like an accusation. "Four hundred and fifty. Rupert charges 600 an hour to not send an email."

Danny put his head back against the tile and let his face do what it wanted for about 2 seconds while she was looking at the water.

One room over a dry cleaner’s.

Come on. Do it properly rather than standing here going cold.

She has had that address in her phone since the second week of October. She told me so herself, in a lobby, in a green coat. She got it off Companies House because it is the correspondence address on the company that owns 40.

So it was never odds. She didn’t find a solicitor. She found the address on my shell company, and then she needed a solicitor, and she used the name she already had written down.

I put that in her phone. Me. In October, by buying a flat.

"What’s she called?" he said, and it came out level, because 11 years of doorsteps is good for something.

"Priya Anand."

"Right." He pushed off the tile and got his elbows up. "And is that it done, then? One go?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, she writes a letter and it’s finished, or you’re in and out of there all year."

Mara made a face at the water.

"In and out, probably. She said she’d write to Marylebone this week and then it depends what he says, and if he says nothing she rings him, and if he says a number then there’s a whole thing about the tax." She shrugged. "She reckons 6 weeks if he behaves. Longer if Tom does his thing."