Behind Dead Eyes (DC Ian Bradshaw #2) - Howard Linskey Page 0,37

fair play to him I suppose.’ And he looked at his reporter. ‘He’s not the first to make a few quid on a property in Newcastle. Some of the outlying areas have really come on. I know he’s meant to be a socialist, Helen, but I doubt we could run a story criticising him for cashing in on a mini north-east housing boom.’

‘No,’ she said, ‘we couldn’t – but I did some digging. Three other similar-sized houses sold in his street at around the same time. They both went for less; a lot less.’ She could tell her editor was interested now.

‘So the councillor knows how to drive a hard bargain?’ he offered.

‘He must do,’ she said, ‘because he managed to get thirty grand more than the market rate for his house when he sold it.’

‘Thirty grand?’ said her editor in disbelief. ‘Are you sure?’

‘I’m certain,’ she said ‘and I have all of the land registry documents to prove it.’

‘So what do we know about the man doing the over-paying?’

‘Mr Cooper? Very little and, strangely enough, there was no estate agent involved in the purchase. It was an entirely private transaction.’

‘Well I never,’ he said dryly.

‘But Mr Cooper had a change of heart, because he never moved into the place. The property has been standing empty since the day Joe Lynch moved out. I checked with the neighbours. They haven’t seen a soul at that house in more than a year. I looked through the windows and there’s nothing there. It’s a shell.’

‘And what does Mr Cooper hope to get for it this time, I wonder.’

‘That’s the really interesting bit. This time there is an estate agent involved so I went down there posing as a potential buyer. I asked about the price and they confirmed it is on the market at the going rate, meaning our man will lose just under thirty grand in a year, if he holds out for his full asking price.’

‘That’s quite a hit he took,’ and her editor smiled, ‘considering he never lived in it or rented it out to anybody in the intervening period. Any luck in tracking down Mr Cooper for a comment?’ She shook her head. ‘Thought not.’

‘He’s abroad apparently, according to the estate agent. Mr Cooper is a very private businessman and they only deal with him over the phone or by fax machine but of course everything is all above board.’

‘Of course.’

And she laughed. ‘The estate agent actually said to me, “Don’t worry, love, it’s all cushty.” ’

And the editor’s smile grew broader. ‘So what’s your conclusion, as if I didn’t know already?’

‘Someone paid Lynch off,’ she said, ‘and whatever he did for them, it was worth thirty grand but Joe Lynch didn’t want anything as grubby or incriminating as cash in a brown envelope. So instead they bought his house at a vastly inflated rate and he pocketed the difference. Whoever the buyer really was, they waited a year to avoid suspicion and now they are quietly disposing of their asset.’

‘But what did the buyer of Joe Lynch’s house get in exchange for his generosity, I wonder?’

‘Whatever it was, they got lucky with Lynch because he’s leader of the council now and head of the planning committee, so he has a big say in the Riverside development.’

‘In that case his price will have gone up considerably.’ And he regarded the documents as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was holding. ‘And this buyer, Mr Cooper?’

‘He’s probably just a set of papers or a front for someone like Camfield or McCree,’ Helen said. ‘Who else can afford to blow thirty grand to buy a councillor? Even if we could track an actual person down, it won’t get us very far because he’ll never talk.’

‘So how can we run this story?’ Graham seemed to be addressing the question to her while simultaneously mulling it over in his own head.

‘Put down the bare facts. The leader of the council has made a very tidy sum out of property while others in the same area had to settle for much less.’

‘There’s just enough in there for people to draw their own conclusions,’ said Graham. ‘His own party will want to burn him at the stake when they read this.’

‘Lynch Mob?’ she offered as a joke headline.

‘I like that,’ he chuckled.

‘We should ask Councillor Lynch to tell us all about Mr Cooper,’ she went on. ‘If he gives us some proper information, we can use it to track the man down. If