Chapter 167: Continued Service I

Danny kept his hands in his coat pockets and read the sheet where it lay.

TRANSFER OF LEASEHOLD. Flat 40, The Sterling Riverwalk. The 3 companies, by number, round in their circle. To DANIEL FLYNN, absolutely, in consideration of the host’s continued service, to revert to the company upon the host ceasing to serve.

Then a gap, and a second paragraph on its own.

The host consents to the keeping of the record, and to the recording of all parties present.

A line for a signature under that, and a line for a witness, both empty.

Continued service. And it goes back to them the day I stop. So I’d be the caretaker with my name on the door.

And the second bit’s Jodie. Keisha and Tobi, the day they walk into my shop. Mum, if she ever stands next to me at a door.

He read it again while the clock on the stairs ticked, and then a third time, slowly, the way his mum read a finance letter, looking for the word that would cost her.

At 10 past 10 a floorboard went somewhere above the clock.

"You have read it 3 times," a woman said. "Most people sign after the first."

She was halfway down the stairs with one hand on the rail. About 50, he thought, and then wasn’t sure. She had dark hair cut straight at the jaw and a red mouth, a grey silk blouse tucked into a narrow black skirt, black stockings and flat shoes that made no sound on the stair carpet.

She came down the last 5 steps watching him the whole way, and the silk moved over her when she moved.

"Mr Flynn. You came."

"The card said to. Who are you?"

"I am the secretary of the company."

"Which one? There’s 3, and they own each other."

"There is 1 company with 3 names." She stopped on the bottom step, a foot above him. "You may call me the secretary."

"Have you got a name of your own?"

"That is not a question I am able to answer."

Danny looked at her for a second.

"You talk like my phone."

"Your phone talks like us." She said it plainly, without a smile. "Will you sign?"

"No."

"Will you tell me why not?"

Pemberton. When you can’t answer, say so. When you can, answer.

"I’ll not sign anything my solicitor hasn’t read. You know who my solicitor is. Your company put her name on itself on the 11th of October and never asked her."

"Yes."

"Why her?"

"Because on the 10th, Mr Pemberton chose her for you." The secretary came down off the step onto the tile. "The occupant of 40 would need his post to go to an honest person. Mr Pemberton had found one. We used her."

"She never said yes to it."

"No. And on Friday she wrote to Companies House to say so. Her name will come off, and the company will have to give another address, in its own hand."

Her eyes went over his suit and his shoes and the card in his top pocket.

"The company does not file in its own hand, Mr Flynn. So it would rather you held the flat in your own name, and its 3 names closed."

"So you give me 40, and nobody goes looking at you."

"Your name goes on the title. The building’s insurer finds that the name on the title is the name on the lobby board."

That’s Pettit’s file. That’s Naomi’s letter.

And the bank?

"And the price is 2 paragraphs," Danny said. "Continued service. And the record."

"Yes."

"In October I came in here and you paid me for walking in."

"That day this house did not want you in it." She folded her hands in front of her. "Today it sent a car for your card. There is no payment for today."

"Continued service for how long?"

"For as long as you are the host."

"And if I stop being the host?"

"Then the flat goes back to the company, as it says." She glanced at the sheet. "You read that line twice."

He felt his jaw go tight.

"Miss Carter’s on your record. Who keeps it? Is it you?"

"The house."

"Then take her name off it."

"Names stay on, Mr Flynn. What the host can do is ask for a record to be closed." She looked at the pen, then back at him. "Once the host has signed, the host may ask for a record to be closed. Not before."

She’s put Jodie on the table next to the pen.

He kept his face still and his hands in his pockets.

"Mr Pemberton’s on it. Isn’t he?"

"Since 1958."

"Has his ever been closed?"

"No. Not once since 1958." She went back to the foot of the stairs and put her hand on the newel post. "You have 28 days. If the sheet is not signed by then, the company disposes of flat 40 and the occupant leaves it. The sheet stays on this table. It does not leave the house."

"Then I’ll copy it."

He took the pad out of his inside pocket and the biro out of the spine, and put the pad on the far end of the table, clear of the sheet.

The secretary watched him.

"Copy what you like," she said. "It is your pad."

He copied every line. It took him 6 minutes, word for word, the numbers of the 3 companies, absolutely, to revert, continued service, all parties present, and the 2 empty lines drawn as 2 empty lines.

The clock ticked through all of it. She stayed by the newel post with her hands folded and her stockinged ankles together, and didn’t take her eyes off his pen.

When he’d finished he read it back against the sheet twice and put the pad away inside his coat.

"28 days from when?"

"4 weeks from this morning. A Monday, at 10."

"Then I’ll be back that Monday, or I’ll be out of the flat."

"You will do 1 of the 2," the secretary said.

He left the pen exactly where it was, with its cap off.