Green Light Page 2

  Angela said, “Maggie owned four properties when she set up Green Light, almost twenty years ago now.”

  “Green Light was the letting agency?”

  Angela nodded.

  She leaned over the steering wheel as they neared a busy junction, as if afraid that the car wouldn’t stop. But of course it did.

  “Yes. She was fed up with the letting agents she was using at the time. They were disorganised and expensive. There were additional charges for services Maggie thought should be included in the initial price. She said they gave themselves a license to print money. So she set up her own agency. She manages her own properties as well as properties for eighteen other landlords in the Bristol area. Right now she has three offices and a staff of seventeen people.”

  “She always was a hell of a business woman,” Sutton remarked.

  Angela nodded, as if it was a fact, not an opinion…which Sutton supposed it was.

  She eased through the junction and started up the hill.

  They were now entering that part of Bristol that reflected its success as a city in 18th century, when it had been a major port for the Americas. So the city’s merchants built their mansions on the hill, on what was described as Clistone in the Doomsday Book – literally, the name meaning a ‘hillside settlement’. There was a lot of Georgian architecture about, and even a few pretty austere terraces, to rival Bath’s famous Royal Crescent and Circus; there was the Royal York Crescent, as well as Berkeley Square and Berkeley Crescent. Georgian buildings are tall buildings, sometimes five or six storeys, built from local stone; square, designed with proportional balance in mind (window measurements were derived through an equation to balance the room it adorned); flat, pale, somehow aloof, they provided a pleasant backdrop to their journey, despite the alterations the modern world had imposed on them.

  They were however headed for the top of Whiteladies Road which, although technically still in Clifton, had been more thoroughly brutalised by modernity and, as a consequence, didn’t have that same historic, bygone charm.

  “One of the landlords she worked with was Terry Douglas,” Angela said.

  “The last husband,” Sutton said.

  “The recently deceased husband,” Angela corrected.

  “Really? Jesus. I’m sorry.”

  Angela made a face, as if it didn’t matter.

  “My father died when I was eleven years old,” she said. “Four years and five men later and Maggie finally remarried. I’ve come to the conclusion that my father was a fluke – at least, from all that I’ve heard he must have been – because my mother only seemed to go for one type of man: chauvinistic, jack-the-lad assholes. And my father wasn’t like that at all.”

  “And Terry Douglas was?”

  Angela made no comment.

  “I remember your father,” Sutton said.

  She turned to him in surprise.

  “You do?”

  “Yes. He was a good man. A good listener. And therefore always good company.”

  Angela tried to hide the emotions that bubbled just beneath the surface, and for the most part she succeeded…but Sutton saw a muscle jump in her jaw. As if to bite down on any disturbances.

  “Terry was a very successful landlord, just like Mum,” Angela continued. “He had seven properties, in and around Clifton and Redland. He’d started buying them with his brother when they were younger, living in them at first, while they restored them, before renting them out and buying another. Ten years in, the brother died, and Terry got all of it. When Terry and Maggie got married, I suppose it made sense for Terry to come on board with the letting agency. But now…she must be regretting it. Here we are.”

  Angela turned off the main road on to a small winding side road and negotiated a parking space next to a pleasant green park not much larger than a garden. She killed the engine but didn’t get out.

  “I remember you liked puzzles,” Angela said. “Do you still like them?”

  Sutton did. Puzzles were fun. Puzzles tested you. And on some fundamental level, puzzles were a reflection of every trial in life you might face…or at least a weapon for those same trials. In a world with increasingly complex rules and laws, where people were more disconnected and, as such, more diverse…an aptitude for puzzle solving could only be a handy tool to have. As much as he might fight it, Sutton was bound by these rules, these complications, like anyone else in this society, stitched to one as to the other, hand to mouth. The alternative was living off the grid, and the only way he could do that was in a tent in a field somewhere…and he was too lazy for such high principals. For his sins, he was too much of a snob to do without his comforts: his Art, his paints, his trips to museums, both here and abroad; his home on the water, his heat, his light, his food; his freedom. To get in a car and just go somewhere, anywhere…if in truth it was only a type of freedom, or an illusion of it. After all, where could he run? Where could anyone run? No. Better to be here, to have at least one hand on the wheel. Better to revolt in his own way, by smaller, less obvious rebellions.

  His puzzle solving was directly responsible for his life, for the heat and the light and the food and the (illusory) freedom. But of course it wasn’t just that. There was the Art to consider, a different kind of puzzle, one that made you turn inward. Perhaps an analogy for the predicament of human existence? Something about Art was tied directly to his love of puzzles, and something about both appealed to him, something in both of them called to the better parts of him. Without them, those places within him might rot…and corrupt the rest.

  But now, in later years, come to some kind of faux-maturity, he wondered if it was the puzzle that attracted him – with the inferred answer/conclusion as a win/reward – or whether he was addicted to the puzzle itself, to the conflict. To be always on the outside of something, as he had always been an outsider. Outside of a capitalist regime; outside of a societal model adopted by an unimaginative generation; outside of a family unit. The perpetual outsider, proud of his dislocation, his aloofness worn like a badge of honour, for hard deeds borne in fruitless deserts…if only deserts of his own making. A prophet in exile, returned home but changed. Having seen strange things, and marked because of them.

  “Why is a raven like a writing desk?” He asked, with amusement.

  Angela considered the problem.

  “I don’t know. Why is a raven like a writing desk?”

  Sutton shook his head: it didn’t matter.

  Angela looked annoyed then.

  “If you like puzzles,” she said, “then maybe you can figure this one out.”

  “What?”

  Angela reached out to pull the door handle.

  “She can tell you,” she said, nodding at the buildings behind him.

  Sutton stopped her before she was able to leave the car.

  She looked down at his hand on her arm as if he was undressing her.

  He released her but said, “I like a puzzle, but I don’t like going into one completely blind. So before I see her, why don’t you tell me what it is you want me to do. Or what you think it is I can do.”

  Angela paused, debating, and then settled back in her seat.

  She said, “before Terry died, they were getting divorced.”

  “Ah.”

  “Yes. Ah.”

  “Let me guess: Terry went for her side of the business?”

  “No.” Angela blinked, in a very earnest way…as if seeing it from his side suddenly; a leap of empathy. “By that time, it was Daniel, his son by his first wife, who was trying to get hold of Mum’s side of the business. Is still trying to get hold of it. That’s what’s happening. That’s why I came to you for help.”

  Suddenly, all the energy seemed to leave Angela, so that she slumped in the car seat. Defeated, for the moment at least. A task too difficult to accomplish, an endeavour too awesome to contemplate.

  “Alright,” Sutton said softly, calmly. “Alright. Let’s go in and see her,
and see what I can do to help. If I can do anything to help,” he added, and Angela nodded, still looking spent. The glimmer of hope flashed in her eyes again, before subsiding.

  They got out of the car together.

  *

  Sutton liked to think he helped people.

  Although ‘help’ was a euphemism for something far more grim than the word itself implied.

  With any crime not captured on CCTV – and an indelible record not produced – then there was always going to be some level of ambiguity. In an age of science, it seemed that every day a new device was able to examine the microscopic world and illuminate any and all nefarious acts that might be pervaded upon an innocent public…and every day they continued to happen. If the police were unable to settle a case one way or another, then a person might come to him for ‘help’. It was a very exclusive club, and his exploits only ever travelled by word of mouth, and then only to a few, very select ears; such exploits usually involved a secret of such a sensitive nature that they were rarely passed as morsels in gossip, they weighed too much. Instead, they were death bed confessions…or pillow talk.

  So if he was mentioned in confidence, then it was only to someone that could be trusted…and if he was called upon, then it was only usually by someone who had a recommendation from someone he could trust.

  If the police were bound by rules and law and expense – as any venture in this new and exciting world seemed to be – then Sutton was not. He might listen to the problem when all others had turned away, and he might decide – irrespective of anyone else’s opinion – to turn over a rock or two and see what he could find. He might hear someone’s desperate plea for assistance, and where others had heard insurmountable obstacles, he might instead be tantalised by the puzzle, and so proceed with his ‘rooting around’. He wasn’t the smartest man in the world, but he was diligent. He was also prepared to go beyond a line…beyond any line, in fact: of rules and law and expense. All it required was effort, and he was prepared to give one hundred percent of everything, in everything he did. He gave one hundred percent in all his endeavours, not just the ones in which he helped other people. It was how he was built; he did not know how to be anything else.

  The offices of Green Light were in the front of a converted Georgian house that was perched precariously on the steep grade at the top of the hill. The original windows had been ripped out, the holes expanded, and then replaced with ten foot tall panes of glass, but in essence not much had changed: it was a large front room, the shape of the blocked up fireplace and mantelpiece still clearly visible against the back wall. Split level flooring had been added, and a cosier more intimate desk space installed at the back. Grey carpets, white walls, black desks, modern office furniture, all spaciously laid out to allow room to wander through the stands of listings. There were six people at work in the Whiteladies branch, four women and two men. The women were attractive, and the men presentable. An electronic bong sounded as Angela opened the door. Sutton turned from the listings in the front windows and followed behind.

  He shut the door behind him; the sound of traffic was cut off immediately.

  “Lydia, is Mum around?” He heard Angela ask one of the staff.

  Lydia couldn’t have been more than twenty one years old. Her hair was dark, almost black, and hung like a curtain down her back. She wore a white blouse, a black pencil skirt, and too much make-up. Thick framed glasses rested on a tiny suggestion of a nose.

  “I think she’s in the back office,” Lydia said, glancing surreptitiously at Sutton.

  “Is she alright?” Angela asked, dropping her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

  “She wasn’t earlier this morning,” Lydia said. “She wouldn’t take any calls. But she’s better now, I think.”

  Lydia looked at Sutton again, almost rudely curious; Angela followed her gaze. He smiled politely in return. But she didn’t bother to introduce him, or offer any explanation for his presence.

  Angela simply said, “this way,” to Sutton, and then led him down a narrow hall with parquet flooring, and up some steps to a door in the back.

  The door was marked PRIVATE; Angela pushed on through, holding the door open for him, and then closing it behind him after he’d entered.

  Another office, but this one was warmer, more personable. Two desks, one on each side of the room and pushed into the corners: one in front of a tall narrow window, the other beside a large potted fern. Both were busy with books and binders. Computer monitors on each glowed with power. The phone began ringing on the desk nearest the window. There was a doorway at the back of the room that led to a small kitchen. Heels clicking on linoleum announced the entrance of Margaret Douglas, even before Sutton saw her, hurrying to obey the summons of whoever might be calling.

  She went for the phone but then stopped when she saw Angela. She smiled…and then she saw Sutton. Her mouth hung open for a moment. It was almost comical.

  The phone rang off.

  “Sutton?” She breathed.

  He smiled.

  “Maggie. How-“

  She ran toward him, almost colliding with him in a bid to embrace him. He stumbled back. He felt her small arms around him. She barely reached his chin. He hugged her in return. Over the top of her head, he met Angela’s eyes. Her expression was one of vindication. Sutton had to concede that Angela had been right after all.

  Because right at that moment Maggie Douglas was crying.

  And for as long as Sutton had known her, Maggie had never cried.

  Not once.

  *

  CHAPTER 5

  Maggie was a dynamic woman…perhaps even before that phrase was properly coined.

  She had been in her mid-thirties when Sutton had first known her, so now she must be in her early fifties. If she was only five feet four inches tall, then the towering force of her personality made up for her lack of height: she brooked no nonsense, was not afraid to speak her mind, worked hard, fought hard, and was honest to a fault. If honesty was a fault, then it was not her only one: she had a weakness for cruel men. In this, Angela had not been wrong. The more testosterone the better, and as an overabundance of testosterone inevitably led to a violent aspect, so the men she liked were usually predisposed toward rude – and sometimes violent – behaviour. There had been men before Angela’s father, and even if Sutton didn’t think there had been any physical abuse, there are other ways to hurt women. But the sad part was that some part of Maggie liked to be cowed by a man. It was an attitude that could not be explained. Perhaps it was the result of her being so controlling in all other aspects of her life; when in private, the last thing she wanted to do was control anything. Instead, she wanted to be controlled. The ultimate surrender; the equation balanced.

  She had been slim once; now she was not so slim. She had dark curly hair cut to her jawline that had always seemed to levitate from the sides of her head, as if by static rather than chemicals. The hair was the same, except that it had grown brittle and dry with age, and the colour obviously came out of a bottle. She had big blue eyes that tilted down at the corners, which gave her something of a puppy dog look. If they had once been fierce, then now they were watery. There were big bags under them, and there were lines around her mouth that he had not seen before.

  “Oh, look at me,” she said miserably, dabbing at the corners of her eyes with a handkerchief. “I just cry at the drop of a hat these days.”

  He smiled.

  “It’s good to see you too, Maggie,” he said.

  “I was just making tea,” she said. “Do you want one?”

  “I’ll do it,” Angela said, retreating to the kitchen. “You two talk.”

  “Milk, no sugar,” Sutton advised.

  They both watched her walk into the other room. She turned a corner, but Sutton saw one leg stretch backward as she reached up high: part of the kitchen was obscured by the wall. Cupboard doors opened, and the low gentle hum of a boiling kettle slowly drifted to
his ears.

  Maggie turned to him.

  “How have you been? What have you been doing? It’s been so long.”

  “Well-“

  “And look at your arms.” She took a step back to better take him in. “They’re huge.”

  “Well-“

  “And your hair. When did you start wearing it long like that? It’s nice. It suits you.”

  He smiled. It wasn’t really very long; it barely covered the back of his neck.

  “I want to talk about you,” Sutton said. “How have you been?”

  Maggie’s expression was suddenly guarded.

  “I’m fine. Why? What have you heard?”

  “You can’t stop crying,” he pointed out. “That hardly seems like the Maggie I remember.”

  “Well,” she said. “Terry died a month ago. Did Angela tell you?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I miss him terribly. It was so sudden…it’s literally taken my breath away. Some days I can hardly breathe. It feels like my chest is being crushed.”

  Panic attacks, Sutton thought, but didn’t say anything.

  “Have you been to see a doctor?”

  Maggie waved a dismissive hand at him. There were an inordinately large number of rings on her fingers and bracelets on her wrists. Her arms rattled when she moved them.

  “All they want to do is put me on anti-depressants. I don’t want that.”

  “You’re not depressed?”

  “I’m depressed,” Maggie admitted. “But my husband just died. So to me that seems normal. I don’t want to suppress those feelings. It doesn’t seem right to Terry.”

  “Do you put a plaster over a cut?”

  Her eyes narrowed suspiciously at Sutton.

  “You always were a clever sod,” she said, but she sounded more impressed than insulted.