GO TO HELL, SAID THE RENT MAN (1)

GO TO HELL, SAID THE RENT MAN

Stephen Davies

It is 1998, and unemployment in the north of England amongst 45-year-old males is at its height. Dave, however is lucky enough to have a job, and an easy one at that. He is working freelance for a small, but influential group of London-based companies which acts as the managing agent for the managing agents of another group of larger London-based companies, with investments across the board in a wealth of properties, most of which are empty. In other words Dave does not actually have to do anything: ultimately Rushkin United Holdings Group plc would much rather put its spare change into one of Dave's accounts than give it to the Taxman. This is apparently because, of the two, Dave is the more likely to return the favour at some point in the future.

Furthermore, the middlemen of Rushkins know they can trust Dave implicitly. This is because when Dave took the job the properties in question were still thriving shopping centres, overbrimming with a myriad selection of ethnic goods, unique gifts and consumer durables from an impressive, eclectic hotchpotch of international sources; passing trade was always on the up due to extensive advertising and everything was so perfect that Rushkins' middlemen were starting to get bored. Sure, Dave was able to collect all the rents on time and all the links in the chain were pleased to receive their 'cut'; but no self-respecting middleman is ever content with just a basic.

Luckily, Dave was able to save the day: by issuing six-year leases to all new tenants with a reciprocal notice period of six months and running down advertising to the point of non-existence at the same time he could put them out of business within five, allowing rent arrears to build up then bringing in bogus bailiffs who were happy to split all proceeds from the looted merchandise with himself and Rushkins' middlemen.

Rushkins were pleased with Dave, and Dave was pleased with himself: there was always some other mug waiting to step in where he had taken the last one out. On those fateful days he would put on his big, mafia-style black leather trenchcoat and storm through the shopping malls like the Devil incarnate, but still smiling thinly and nodding at the poor, terrified shopkeepers, each of whom would probably do anything for him rather than be next.

This line of thought was certainly well worth pursuing where young and pretty females were concerned; Dave was no oil painting at 45 (and, in truth, never had been) and received payments in kind carry far less social stigma than outgoing payments to prostitutes. Not that Dave had any intention of giving up his rent boys, of course...

But it would be unfair to say that Dave's job entailed nothing but a stereotypical male, fascistic power-kick: it also involved more than a modicum of skill, ingenuity and good timing. For example, it had been Dave's idea to block off the fire exits with ruthless disregard for building regs. and sub-let the same as 'phantom' units. He would also shuffle tenants from unit to unit every few weeks so that he could collect the due commission for NTs (new tenants) and make sure that individual stock levels were always sufficient to provide the necessary backhanders at any chosen point.

Ironically, he also had to invest some effort into maintaining morale and dispelling fears of bankruptcy in all of the centres he managed, all of the time. Phrases such as Let's be realistic, You're not being picked on and At the end of the day always seemed to instil an inflated sense of confident optimism in the sad little runts who had been daft enough to sign the new leases in the first place.

Then one day something dreadful and unexpected happened. While the caretaker of one of the shopping centres was driving screws into the doorframe of a relatively insignificant unit prior to the arrival of 'bailiffs', the shop's owner was busy punching through the telephone numbers stored in her mobile. Dave snatched only a couple of words involuntarily as she passed, but these were enough to make him wet himself: she had somehow succeeded in establishing the identity of the real owners of the building.

Not the agents; not even the other managing agents or the 'proprietors' (tenants on a one hundred-year lease) but the real, bona fide owners of all of the centres !

Two weeks later Dave was faced with a court injunction and a host of questions about every one of his little fiddles, juggling-acts and magical tricks, compounded with a lot of exciting and very feasible scams which even he had never thought of.