Episode one of our new crime thriller serial, set in the world of property

Will Rohm was hoping his drive north would be fast and uneventful and that this case would be trouble-free too. It was a big-money life insurance claim but if he could navigate the minefield of company protocols, he could sign it off in a couple of days and be back in the Holborn office by Wednesday. It was a busy time. It was always a busy time. 

The roads were running well on that grey Monday morning in April and his home in the Chilterns was quickly left behind. He crossed the flat Home Counties countryside, skirted the frayed edges of post-war London overspill and New Towns, then took the toll road around the Midlands conurbation and drove hard without a break to the seaport city of Liverpool. He parked up in front of the hotel just before two o’clock. His meeting was at three. 

The company had booked him into one of those places carefully branded to appeal to the business traveller. It would be comfortable, well organised and unfussy, with a few stylish touches – just like the people it was there to serve. They were the nation’s middle managers. They drove reasonably priced cars and lived steady and for the most part contented lives. Will Rohm was one of them.

He checked in, unpacked and splashed on some aftershave, then walked across town to the central business district. The HQ of the Seafarer Group was in a 1920s American Beaux Arts, Portland stone-clad office building. Neoclassical arched entrances were flanked by huge bronze lampposts and it had its own internal shopping arcade. The building made quite an impression. It was meant to. Its architect had been successful, going on to design a concert hall and other grand civic projects. But Rohm also knew that twenty years ago its owners had used it as collateral in one of biggest property fraud cases in UK corporate history. Loans were obtained based on excessive valuations of company-owned buildings and the money reinvested in such business essentials as helicopters, planes and Ferraris for the directors. The architects behind that deal had got seven years each.

Rohm walked up to the ground-floor reception desk and told them who he was and why he was there. Security was tight. A personal data check, the password his company had provided and photo ID. It all seemed OTT. Finally, he was allowed to take the one lift dedicated to taking company executives and important visitors up to the eighth floor. He stepped out of the elevator as if emerging from a well-appointed air lock and into a hushed business suite planted thick with large sofas and plush chairs. The carpet was a vivid French blue, the walls were timber-panelled and at the far end of the room, a mahogany desk was manned by a thirty-something woman and a broad-beamed man in a sharp suit who looked like he could handle himself. Over a fake fireplace a large oil portrait of a hard-faced, watchful man in his fifties with steel-blue eyes and a shock of red hair stared down at them. The brass nameplate beneath read ‘Charles Rudd, Founder and Chairman’.

The big man watched Rohm impassively as he approached but the woman didn’t look up until he was almost on top of her. She too was tight-suited and wore a tight smile to match. 

She was attractive but had the face of someone who had found most things in life either unimpressive or downright disappointing. 

“William Rohm from Leighton’s Assurance… to see Guy Danvers.”

“Please take a seat,” she said in a flat tone. Rohm remained standing.

“If you follow me, I’ll take you through,” she said. Her fixed smile remained perfectly in place as Rohm was shown into what he took to be the company boardroom. He was offered coffee, which he politely refused, and was left alone.

The décor and furniture looked expensive but it was not the work of someone from the ‘Less is More’ school of interior design. It resembled a 1980s film set. The wool-effect beige wallpaper seemed to have fine gold strands woven in, the light fittings were made from thick, hand-blown crystal glass and the chairs, drinks cabinets and boardroom table were of rich, heavy-grained rosewood. The table wasn’t much wider than an Eights rowing boat and was about twenty feet long. At its head, an ornate chair was the only one with arms. 

Framed photographs were everywhere, showing business people and dignitaries going through the customary routine of smiling, shaking hands and unveiling plaques as they opened new offices, spa hotels and marinas. All the photographs had Charles Rudd at their centre. Rohm had already scanned a dozen of them when he stopped in front of a shot of Rudd with another man. They’d obviously spent the day sailing or golfing and were both dressed in polo shirts. Their arms were around each other’s shoulders and they were laughing. Rohm studied the photograph. The trappings of success – the jewellery, golf-course tans and peroxide-white perfect teeth – were displayed with pride and self-satisfaction. Their affection for each other looked real enough though, and their joy was genuine: they’d been having fun.

“They were like brothers.”

Rohm turned to see that a tall man in a pale-grey lounge suit had come silently into the room. His features were a little too heavy for his face, but he was handsome and wore his hair long and swept back. He looked more like an actor than a businessman. He was smiling warmly at Will as he shook him by the hand.

“They started the company together, worked together for thirty years and then died together. I’m Guy Danvers. Good journey?” 

END OF EPISODE 1

A re-edited and revised omnibus edition of Liverpool Bay is now available. The complete short story can be accessed as an eBook via Amazon-Kindle.

Photo by Hannah Gerrish

Acknowledgements: Raymond Chandler, Robert Macfarlane

Thanks to: Ed Gaynor, Hannah Gerrish, Stephen Lee, Jeremy Price, Phillip Rees-Roberts and Nick French.

© Tom Marriott, October 2019

This story and its characters are fictitious. Some real places, institutions, agencies and public offices are mentioned but the people and organisations involved are wholly imaginary.