The Driftwood Girls by Mark Douglas-Home

Author:Mark Douglas-Home
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781405923620
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2020-01-08T16:00:00+00:00

23

In a café on Southwold Pier, Cal ordered a large Americano, a panini filled with Cheddar, and googled ‘property Southwold’. Scrolling through the first ten pages of search results, he found the names of four estate agents operating in the seaside town. Cal eliminated two because, according to their websites, they’d been in business less than a decade. The other two, both long established, traded as Donald & Fairbrother and Harwood Gee Property. Cal rang the first and asked ‘an odd question’: whether anyone had worked there for twenty-three years and, ‘if so, could I speak to him or her?’

The female answering his call giggled. ‘Sorry, sorry, it’s just that we’ve had someone in who’s been complaining about his property not selling for six months …’ She broke off, snorted. ‘Your property hasn’t been with us for twenty-three years, has it?’

‘No, no,’ Cal answered. ‘I’m trying to find out about someone who might have worked for your company back then, a Mr Stephen Hawes. I know he was an estate agent in Southwold.’

‘Wait a sec, would you?’ Cal heard another short giggle followed by a shout directed at the others in her office. ‘How long has Martin worked here?’ The answer was indistinct. She returned to Cal: ‘Sorry, fourteen years. That’s as far as any of us go back.’

‘Do you know Harwood Gee Property?’

‘I know …’ She sounded uncertain about carrying on. She giggled once again. ‘I know Harwood lost a leg in a war, Iraq or Ireland, can’t remember which, and Gee lost an arm in a boating accident. They claim to be “The estate agent which makes you profit from property” but everyone here refers to them as “The estate agent which loses you an arm and a leg”. Sorry, haven’t been much help, have I?’

‘Not really,’ Cal said, ‘but thanks.’

Harwood Gee’s address was close to the lighthouse, south of the pier. Rather than walk along North Parade and past Sandcastle Guest House, Cal kept to the beach. When the lighthouse towered at his right, he climbed steps to street level. After one wrong turn he found Harwood Gee, which occupied a two-storey building. Property for sale was displayed in one of its two front windows; for rent in the other. Cal noticed the company’s marketing slogan – ‘The estate agent which makes you profit from property’ – and smiled.

The office was bright, white walls, blue carpet, with a pale-wood reception desk at which sat a young man in a white shirt and butterfly-patterned tie, with slicked-back black hair and a scowl which became pronounced as Cal approached.

‘Can I be of assistance?’ he inquired in a doubtful manner, as though it was apparent, from Cal’s dress or general demeanour, that he was unlikely to be in possession of a property to sell or a deposit to put towards a purchase or a rental lease.

‘Probably not,’ Cal replied. ‘But I think he might.’ Cal nodded towards the right-hand of two glass-fronted offices behind the reception desk. It was occupied by a man in his fifties or sixties.

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