The Price Of Darkness by Graham Hurley Page B

businessmen do.’
    ‘A lot of money?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘So what did you do next? More of the same?’
    ‘Of course. Because the situation, deep down, hadn’t really changed. People still needed somewhere to live. Plus we were getting swamped with immigrants, especially round London. They were pouring in. More heads. More roofs. Most politicians live in la-la land. They haven’t a clue what’s going on out there, they’re a complete waste of space. People like us were different. Jonno and I lived and breathed it every day of our working lives. We’d developed a business model you wouldn’t believe. We couldn’t stop making money. Still can’t, actually.’
    Tracy Barber had put her notebook aside for a moment. Faraday gave her a nod.
    ‘I’m not quite clear about this business model of yours,’ she said. ‘What exactly was so special about you two?’
    ‘We travelled light.’
    ‘What does that mean?’
    ‘It means we never got suckered into full-blown development. We didn’t have huge offices. We kept staffing levels incredibly low, just a handful of the kind of people we really needed. Businessmen talk a lot about vertical integration. That means land purchase, outline planning permission, full-spec drawings, sorting out a builder, advertising for punters, the whole kaboodle until the moment Mister and Missus step into their nice new house. There are loads of people in that game, loads of them, and we always thought they were carrying too much fat. The truth is, vertical integration can be a pain in the arse. Every day you’re looking at another hassle - builders, planners, the utilities people, punters, you name it. Jonno and me? We spotted opportunities, assembled land, got outline planning permission, cast a fly or two and then moved on. You know what they started calling us in the business? The Ghost Squad. Brilliant. Jonno loved it.’
    Tracy nodded and reached for her pad. Faraday’s turn.
    ‘And it’s stayed that way? Land assembly? Selling on?’
    ‘Basically, yes. Though naturally we became more ambitious.’
    Three years ago, he said, they’d got wind of a town-centre parcel of land in Farnham in Surrey. Not a huge site but absolutely prime commuting country. Within a month or two some neighbouring land came on to the market. Put the two bits of land together and they were tantalisingly close to a fourteen-townhouse development.
    ‘That’s significant? Fourteen houses?’
    ‘Very. Put up more than fourteen houses and you had to make provision for social housing. Nowadays it’s worse. Nowadays it’s only ten houses. But either way, that means getting the scrotes in, and that means lowering the tone. In a fourteen-unit development in the middle of Farnham we were talking 450K a pop, easy. Ask people to live alongside families on benefit, and you’d be lucky to see 300K. Aggregate the difference and you’re talking over two million quid. We can all do the maths. It’s simple. It’s just a fact of life.’
    ‘So what happened? In Farnham?’
    ‘Jonno went back to take another look. It turned out there was a shop exactly where we needed the land, a hardware store, an old family business. Jonno asked around a bit, like you do, and pretty quickly he discovered that this shop was in the shit. The big out-of-town operations were crucifying them. Why would you buy white gloss at twenty pounds a tin when B&Q are knocking it out at twelve ninety-nine?’
    ‘So what did you do?’
    ‘We bought the place.’
    ‘As a going concern?’
    ‘Yeah. Except it wasn’t.’
    ‘And then?’
    ‘We tacked it on to the other bits of land and got planning permission.’
    ‘For fourteen houses?’
    ‘Of course. Within a week we had two developers and three builders on the phone. It was an auction. You couldn’t go wrong.’
    Faraday nodded. Benskin, Mallinder, he’d concluded, were a pair of commercial magicians, conjuring huge money from little more than a handful of phone calls and a great deal of