Page 63 of Mann Hunt
“The car looks great. He must have paid someone to clean it up.”
“Too bad, ‘cause I have absolutely no use for a car like this.”
“What?” Charlie cried out. “But it’s…perfect. It’s so…red. And shiny.”
“Exactly. It’s too noticeable for me to drive.”
Charlie turned to Declan, disappointed that he didn’t want the car. Declan held the keys out to him. “But it might be good to have a second car for you to use. Just in case Francine isn’t up to the job.”
Charlie couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Come on upstairs. I’ll get the paperwork started on the insurance,” Declan said.
Charlie had a company car! How amazing was that? And not only a company car, but a companymusclecar. Soon Declan was on the phone arranging for the vehicle to be covered by the company insurance.
Declan poked his head out of the office. “The car is good to go by tomorrow. Why don’t you drive Francine home tonight and Uber in tomorrow. For now, I’ll let you pull the new one around back and we’ll leave it there for the night.”
“Sure thing. Will do. Now, there’s something I discovered while you were out. I was so excited aboutthe car I almost forgot to mention it. When Mr Attwal was here, he joked that he was in the market for some more clients. He specifically mentioned losing the Monarch account, then he said that one of his other clients was”—he paused for effect—“found in a river.”
“What?”
Charlie added, “So, I went to the files that we removed from Mr Attwal’s laptop, and sure enough, there was a folder named Mann.”
“You are a genius! Wait—I thought we sent those files to Mr Attwal?”
“Those were copies. I still had the files on the cloud server, which, I guess I was supposed to have deleted…” Charlie nervously admitted.
“Again—genius!”
“I was able to pull up all of his financials. I also found a list of properties once owned by Ian Mann. Most were smaller buildings which he sold off long ago. But there is one building—the Consolidated Canada Fertiliser Building. Whatever it is now, it’s costing him a bundle in taxes and other fees.”
“What else do you know about the building?”
“I looked it up online,” Charlie said. “It’s four storeys and a quarter of a million square feet. It takes up almost an entire city block.”
“I wonder who owns the remainder of the block?” Declan stared out the window for a moment. “How much do you really know about accounting?”
“Nothing,” Charlie replied.
“Well then, I think it’s time to hire a new accountant. Do you happen to know any that are looking for clients?”
“Yeah. I have one in mind.”
Declan grinned. “I’m going to visit Mr Attwal. In the meantime, call up Sheldon Prescott. See how the CCTVfootage is coming and, while you have him on the phone, ask him if Ian ever mentioned the Consolidated Canada Fertiliser Building. And see if you can get a number for Robert Williams. He said he was Ian’s best friend. Ask him if Ian ever said anything to him specifically about that building.”
Charlie wrote it all down, then scanned through the contact list on his phone as Declan waved goodbye, and left the office.
Charlie dialled the number. Someone picked up the phone on the other end.
“Hello? Sheldon Prescott speaking.”
“Mr Prescott,” Charlie said in his cheeriest voice. “Charlie Watts here, from Declan Hunt Investigations. I hope I’m not interrupting anything?”
“No. Not at all.”
“I’m calling about the security footage. It would be great to have a look at it as soon as possible.”
“No problem, my boy. I just had an email from the security company. They were about to erase the files, but I caught them in time. They said they can do a digital file transfer directly to you, but the fellow I talked to needs clearance, and his boss is away until Monday.”
