When Phil Brennan showed his warrant card, the receptionist tried on several expressions before she settled for surprised – yet totally innocent – interest. And in those few seconds he knew exactly what kind of company he was calling on.
City Lets was based in an old office building on the fringes of Chinatown and the ungentrified portion of Digbeth. The area had been officially rebranded as Southside in an attempt to make it hip, urban and edgy. But this part of it had resolutely refused to play along. Part of Birmingham’s once ubiquitous square poured-concrete architectural heritage, it looked like what they had imagined the future to be sixty years ago. Now, squatting in the shadow of the undulating metal curve of the new Selfridges building and the rejuvenated Bullring, the building looked old and crumbling, a monolith to a lost religion.
‘I’d like to see Ron Parsons,’ said Phil, putting his warrant card back in his jacket. The waiting room was old and shabby, dotted with several chairs nearing the end of their lives and two large wilting pot plants at opposite corners. A large man, bearded, wearing a plaid shirt and reading a paper, sat in one of the chairs. He put the paper down as Phil approached, became interested. The receptionist was old, large and tired and looked like she had come with the building.
‘He’s —’
Phil didn’t give her the chance to come up with an excuse. ‘It’s to do with a murder inquiry.’
Her eyes widened. The bearded man picked up his paper again, pretended to look at it.
‘In one of your properties.’
He was ushered straight through.
At first glance Ron Parsons seemed as anachronistic to his trade as the office block was to the rest of Birmingham. An overcoat and trilby hung on an old square wooden coat stand. The desk he sat behind was of a similar vintage; so too were the shelving, box files and filing cabinets. The walls were nicotine yellow, showing either a disregard for the smoking ban of the last decade or a disinclination to give the room a coat of paint. From the smell in the air, Phil knew which one it was.
The only piece of modernity in the room was a sleek, shiny black laptop on the desk. Parsons looked up from it, gestured.
‘Please, take a seat, Detective…?’
‘Detective Inspector Brennan.’ Phil sat. The chair creaked.
Parsons nodded. ‘We had a call from one of your lot yesterday. Woman, I think. Hard to tell these days.’ His voice was working-class West Midlands marinated in years of unfiltered cigarettes and whisky. Quiet but authoritative. A boss’s voice. ‘Said there’d been a murder at one of our properties.’
‘That’s right. Falcon Close, just off the Pershore Road. You probably saw it on the news.’
Parsons’s eyes were flat glass. Opaque, not transparent. ‘I don’t watch much telly. Apart from the football. And the boxing. I’m not a news person. But your young woman said as much. So I expected a call today.’
‘And here I am.’
‘Here you are.’ He slowly closed his laptop screen, gave Phil his full attention. ‘What is it you want to know, Inspector Brennan?’
‘Just a bit of background about your tenant.’
‘What d’you need?’
‘Whatever you’ve got. Where he’s from, what he does for a living, who his referees were, his family, anything at all.’
Parsons raised his eyebrows. ‘Anything to oblige.’ He leaned back in his chair as if making to stand up, then thought better of it. Instead he pressed a button on his desk intercom. ‘Cheryl, can you come in a minute, please, love.’
The heavy, tired receptionist made her way inside. Stood in the middle of the floor, waiting. The look she gave Parsons told him she had been called away from some vital UN business so it had better be important.
‘Can you get everything on the Falcon Close property, please. Last tenant.’ He turned to Phil. ‘You just want the last one? Any more?’
Phil was about to say no, but something stopped him. That wasn’t the question he’d been expecting Parsons to ask him. And because of that, he changed his answer.
‘Just the last six months, please. That ought to do it.’
A look passed between Parsons and Cheryl. It was gone almost as quickly as it appeared, but Phil caught it. Unfortunately he couldn’t read it well enough to know what it meant.
‘Six months?’ said Cheryl.
Phil smiled. ‘Please. Printouts would be good.’
Cheryl went to work. But not before, Phil noticed, Parsons gave her the nod to do so.
‘So,’ said Parsons, once the receptionist had gone, ‘what brings you here, Detective Brennan?’
‘Murder, Mr Parsons.’
Parsons smiled, slowly shook his head. ‘I mean, you’re not from round here. That’s not a Brummie accent I can hear.’ He frowned. ‘What is it, London? Essex?’
‘Colchester,’ said Phil. ‘Just moved here.’
Parsons spread his arms expansively. ‘Welcome to our humble city.’
‘Thank you.’ Phil leaned forward, hoped the chair wouldn’t collapse completely. ‘Did you know Mr McGowan, Mr Parsons? Have you met him?’
‘The dead bloke? No, not at all. I’m not usually in the office, Inspector. I’m only here today because your officer told me I could expect a call. I like to do my bit to help our boys in blue. And girls, I suppose. Wouldn’t want to be sexist.’
‘Would anyone here have met him? Spoken to him?’
‘Might have done, but might not. Most of the business is done on the internet these days. See us on a website, click, done and dusted.’ He gave a near-mournful look at the closed laptop.
‘So you deal with mainly residential properties? Commercial?’
‘Mainly residential. Mostly students around the university, Snaresbrook, Balsall Heath, those sorts of places. And contract workers coming into the city on fixed-term leases. Also short-term lets, DSS, asylum-seekers, that kind of thing. Better than a B and B, eh?’
Phil nodded. Old-school slum landlord type, he thought. Straight from Central Casting.
‘The Falcon Close place used to be let to students. Neighbours didn’t like it. So we aimed it more at professional types. Coming here to work, short-term lets, that kind of thing.’
‘How short-term?’
Parsons blew out his cheeks. ‘Depends. Obviously if workers are on a contract we try to be flexible. Take it on a month-by-month basis.’
‘And how long was Glenn McGowan’s tenancy agreement?’
Parsons shrugged. ‘A month? I don’t know. You’d have to check. Ah. Here we are.’
Cheryl appeared with a file of papers. She handed them over to Phil. Again a look passed between her and her boss; again Phil couldn’t read it.
‘Thank you,’ said Phil, standing up. ‘Well if there’s anything more you can tell me about Mr McGowan…’
‘All in there, I should think,’ said Parsons, ‘But you might want to give his wife a ring.’
Phil frowned. ‘His wife? We haven’t tracked down a wife.’
‘She phoned here earlier. Managed to find our number. Needed him to sign something or other. Wanted to know where he was.’
‘And did you tell her?’
Parsons shrugged. ‘Not my job, mate.’
‘Her phone number’s in with the rest of the stuff,’ said Cheryl. She put her finger on top of the file. Phil noticed how well-manicured her nails were. Blood red. She saw him looking and smiled. There was something hungry in the smile. Suddenly she didn’t look so tired after all.
‘I’ll see myself out,’ said Phil.
The bearded man put down his newspaper and watched him go. Phil’s phone rang as he made his way down the concrete staircase. He answered it, stepped into the street. Hurried away in response to what he heard.
Unaware that Cheryl had joined the bearded man watching him at the window.