Fletcher by David Horscroft

The first pass-over was with the grain, while the second was against it for the best finish. I then took another shower, this one cold, to soothe my skin. Finally—dried, spotless and in fresh clothes—I enjoyed my new smoothness with the tips of my fingers. It was an hour and a half of simple, refreshing self-maintenance (Kaintenance?). It felt well deserved.
    My first call was to NutCase Repairs. I dialled it from Alastor’s phone, and was answered by an angry voice.
    “For the last time, Mr Cartwright, I don’t know who ticked you off but it wasn’t us. Please stop calling, because this is bordering on harassment.”
    And then, after a few seconds of silence from me, he continued. “Mr Cartwright?”
    “Hi,” I started, trying to sound congenial. “Sorry to bother, my grandfather’s just been suffering from some memory loss lately and I was calling all his recent numbers to try see if I could find anything out.”
    The voice at the other end deflated. “Oh my. I didn’t know Alastor had any family. I’m very sorry to hear that. Is he okay?”
    “We’re taking it day by day, but we’re hoping for the best. He has a fiery soul, that man. A real fighter. Would you mind helping out? By the sounds of it, you’ve chatted to my grandfather before, Mr…”
    “Call me Jake, please. We received a bunch of calls from your grandfather a few weeks back, actually. Telling us to show some respect and keep some professionalism or something. He worked at that big glass place—they keep us on retainer for general building maintenance—and apparently some of our men were running some loud repairs or something there. It definitely wasn’t us, so it must have been a private tenant doing some work. He just assumed it was NutCase, I guess, and was too lazy to investigate it further. Accused us of “shirking responsibility”, quote-unquote.”
    I forced a chuckle. “That’s my grandfather all right. Got amazing ears, could hear a moth sneeze in a thunderstorm. Sorry to take up your time, but do you know if he saw or talked to anyone? Any of your men. I mean, the men he thought were your men, of course.”
    “Apparently he saw them coming in and out. There was nothing we could really do other than lodge a note with the body corporate and hope that they’d look into it. Alastor can get pretty riled up, I’ll tell you that. He was talking about lawyers and everything. How is this a legal matter at all?” He suddenly remembered he was talking about my memory-incontinent grandfather. “Um, no disrespect, of course.”
    “No, no, not at all,” I assured. “He could definitely get worked up over small things. Do you know if he talked to any lawyers?”
    “Can’t say I do. It was the last we heard of him, actually, so I’m guessing the body corporate got to the bottom of it.”
    “Looks that way. Look, I know you’re probably not supposed to, but could you maybe, possibly give me a list of the trustees you called?”
    “Emailed, actually. Best to get these things in writing.”
    “Of course. So could you? It’s just been so tough on all of us ever since…” I reached around for a plausible mental condition but pulled a blank and just ended up petering off pitifully. Fortunately, it was exactly the right course of action to take.
    “Sure! Anything to help. Just don’t go misusing them, alrighty?”
    “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
    “Let me just find the email, could you hold a sec?”
    I snatched up a notepad and got ready.
    “You still there?” he asked after half a minute.
    “Yep, fire away.”
    “So I sent this email off on the third of last month. It was sent to Paula Cockburn—she’s the managing agent, see—as well as Sam Stortz and… Oh, don’t worry about the last one.”
    I paused for a second. “Pardon?” I asked in my most innocent tone.
    “Don’t worry about the last one. Was sent to poor Mr Rourke, God rest him. Nasty business all of that. Makes you really think, you know? Like, could