No Place in the Sun (16 page)

The team retired to the bar at nine o’clock and Harry ordered the drinks. Miguel was on his way to the airport with a bulging briefcase; he would be very busy for the next few days. The stands were taken down and packed away, and all the material was stored in one of the hotel’s store rooms for use at the next show. It had been a gruelling weekend, but the results had been spectacular.

‘Seventy four I make it, give or take; an amazing run of sales for one weekend.’ Harry raised his pint in a toast. ‘Here’s to the best sales team ever assembled; I never in my wildest dreams thought we could do that level of business, I would have been happy with thirty, ten a day.’

Tom was very content with what he had achieved over the weekend. He had sold more than thirty five himself, and he was being paid for every one sold by Walter as well. He had agreed to give Walter five hundred for every sale, so between his take from these and his own sales he had earned nearly fifty thousand for the weekend, not a bad haul by any means.

‘Of course not all of them will stick; we may have some dropouts when they go home and realise what they have done, but I don’t think we’ll lose many.’ Harry was cautious as usual.

‘Don’t forget that we have a lot of enquiries as well, ones that didn’t buy today. If I’m worth my salt I should be able to squeeze a good few sales from that list over the next few days.’ Tom knew that he could push a lot of these less decisive buyers over the line in the course of a half hour phone call. ‘As well as that, most of the ones we sold here have already signed contracts with Miguel, so I don’t think we’ll see too much slippage.’

Walter was tired; he was slumped back in his seat. ‘I never saw such a feeding frenzy, never saw so much money cross the table. This caper is a salesman’s dream.’

‘I could sleep right here.’ Tom was putting into words how the others felt; the excitement that had kept them going at full tilt all weekend had drained away and left them all exhausted.

‘So, do you guys want to go and eat something, or take a rain check on it?’ Harry looked shattered too; the few days had worn him out.

‘I think we should call it a day, all I want to do is go to bed, and I’m only the boy around here. I can only imagine how you old guys must be feeling.’ Tom was past being interested in food, and he knew that if he had another drink he would stay at the bar for too long and wouldn’t be able to move in the morning. ‘I’m heading home anyway.’

Harry finished his drink and pushed the glass across the bar. ‘I think we should all get out of here, maybe meet up tomorrow evening for a bit of grub, talk over the few days and see how we can do things better for the next show.’

Walter stood up and drank the dregs of his pint. ‘See you tomorrow so, and thanks guys. I haven’t enjoyed myself so much since I worked in Milton’s. Great to have the old double act back together.’

‘It works well.’ Harry liked Walter and he had observed how the two salesmen could manage to close a reluctant sale with ease. ‘The whole is greater than the sum of the parts and all that.’

Tom pulled on his coat. ‘Ok, amigos, until tomorrow, hasta manana.’

Harry stopped at Tom’s desk, he was carrying two coffees. ‘Have you got ten minutes, in the boardroom?’

The smell of fresh coffee was enticing; the deli hadn’t been open earlier when Tom was coming in to work, and he missed his caffeine fix. He followed Harry into the big meeting room.

‘How are we doing, Tom, are we all set for Friday?’

‘We’re not, but we will be; it’s still only Wednesday. Have I ever let you down?’

Harry smiled. ‘No, but there’s always a first time.’

‘Not when it’s my money too, I want this thing to keep working for us the way it has been. Seems to be rolling along well, how are we doing overall?’

Harry turned on the laptop and peeled the lid from his coffee as he waited for the machine to start. ‘I’ll give you the exact numbers in a second, I was working on them last night, but it’s about five hundred and thirty units so far, still well ahead of target.’

Tom tore off the ends of two sugar packets and sprinkled them into his coffee. ‘That’s about where I figured we were at, not bad for less than six months work.’ He was very satisfied with his move back from Spain, nearly half a million in the bank so far and no sign of a slowdown.

Harry scrolled through a spreadsheet. ‘It’s actually five hundred and thirty three confirmed sales, and another fifteen that still have to have contracts signed, so best case scenario is five forty eight assuming we don’t lose a few.’

He opened the morning paper. ‘Have you seen this?’ He pointed to a colour advertisement that covered half a page.

‘Tom looked at the paper in amazement. ‘Who the hell are Sunny Climes? Never heard of them. Cheap stuff too, but its all up in Alicante, scrag end of the market.’

‘It’s a new player, just started up. The guy that’s running it is Sean Simpson, he owns a couple of bicycle shops, Simpson’s Cycles. You know their advertising jingle from the radio, ‘Simpsons, Simpsons, Simpsons, big wheels in bicycle sales’. Annoying bloody tune.’

Tom had heard it a few times. ‘Hang on; let me check my folder for a minute.’

He returned to the room with his file of contact sheets from the shows. ‘There it is, he was at one of our shows just six weeks ago, I have his details here. I never copped him as being in the business.’

‘That’s the problem; he wasn’t in the business up to now. We don’t have any way of defending ourselves against that kind of competition. We spotted the two others easily enough, but God knows how many spies we have had, pretending to be customers.’

Tom was annoyed. ‘I remember the bastard, wasted half an hour of my time and then bought nothing. Just picking up sales technique for this stuff. Bastard!’

Harry was none too happy either. ‘You remember we thought that we were six months ahead of any competition? Well this guy didn’t exist in this business six weeks ago. They’re snapping at our heels, Tom.’

Tom was concerned as well, but less worried. ‘Look, we are leading the market, let’s stay there. It would be native to expect that we would have it to ourselves without competition, but I’m not worried about Simpson or anyone else. As long as we have good product and it’s well priced, we can stay ahead.’

‘We can do without this kind of thing all the same.’ Harry was a worrier, never stopped thinking the worst.

‘Tom, have you a minute?’ Harry was dealing with a well-dressed blonde woman at his desk.

‘Just a second, this couple are about to buy the best apartment in the project and I want to be there to share the moment.’

His customers smiled and relaxed a bit. They had been dithering around for ten minutes, but Tom hadn’t pushed them; it was Sunday lunchtime and the big rush was still to come. The man was on board but the woman seemed less convinced. ‘Do you really think that this is the best one?’

‘Absolutely. Always buy a west-facing apartment, you get the evening sun, and that’s the time you need your terrace to be in the sun. It’s too hot to be out there at midday, but the evenings are when we do most of our outdoor living.’

The man pulled the cheque book from his pocket. ‘This is exciting; who do we make it out to?’

‘Playa Verde Developments, thanks. Yes, I love uniting nice people with good properties; I still find it very satisfying every time. I know you will get great pleasure out of this property. Now can I introduce you to Miguel?’

Tom left the couple with the lawyer and walked over to Harry and the blonde woman. She had appeared younger from across the room, now he could see that she was older, maybe in her late forties. She was dressed in a smart business suit, and was heavily made up. Harry appeared to be nervous around the woman; he was standing up awkwardly with his hands on the back of his chair, and he seemed ill at ease in her company.

‘This is my colleague Tom Murphy, he knows this project very well and he has lived in that area for the last year and a half. Between us we can answer any questions you might have. Tom, this is Tania Sherry, she is interested in making a large investment in this project.’

The woman stood up and shook hands with Tom; she exuded confidence and appeared to be used to being in charge of any situation. ‘Hello, nice to meet you. Yes, I am interested in the possibility of making a major investment in Playa Verde.’

‘Well, you’ve come to the right place.’ Tom immediately regretted his attempt at levity; the woman wasn’t smiling. He recovered ground as quickly as he could. ‘What scale of investment had you in mind, Ms. Sherry?’

‘I would like to look at the possibility of buying an entire block and then engaging your firm to sell it on for me in about a year’s time. I believe that the Spanish market is showing signs of a re-awakening and that there may be profits to be taken.’

Harry had used Tom’s arrival to give himself a chance to gather his thoughts. ‘We would of course be interested in such a deal, but the only complete block left is block five, and that hasn’t been released yet, so we don’t have prices on it. I am assuming that that phase will command a higher price than the previous phases.’

The woman turned to Harry and responded sharply. ‘No question of higher prices if I buy an entire block; in fact I expect a discount on the total if I buy such volume. I also want to look at the project and I expect you to take me there and show it to me, at your expense.’

Tom moved to reassure the client. ‘We would certainly look at escorting you to Spain to view the project. We don’t of course go down the route of paying for inspection visits, that is a ploy used by less reputable companies to sell poor quality investments, but one of us would be pleased to escort you there of course.’

Tania Sherry gave Tom a withering look. ‘We will go on Wednesday, back Thursday, buy the bloody tickets and arrange accommodation and stop pontificating about what lesser firms do. If you want my business, I will see you at the airport on Wednesday morning.’

Harry looked at Tom. ‘Arrange for two tickets, Tom, yourself and Ms Sherry. We can make an exception in this case I think.’

‘Thank you.’ The woman turned quickly and left the room, her heels beating out a rapid staccato as she crossed the hard floor and headed down the corridor to the outside.

Harry ventured a slight smile. ‘Jesus, that one knows what she wants; I wouldn’t like to be married to her. Still, it would pay us well to give her a small discount and to get shut of a big chunk of the project in one swoop with no advertising or exhibition costs. And the beauty of it all would be that we would get a commission again for the sale of the block in a year’s time.’

‘That’s if she’s on the level and not a dreamer.’ Tom was being cautious.

‘There’s always that, but it’s worth a chance. At the worst it will only cost us the flights, and you have to go over anyway. Maybe you could put her up in your place, keep her away from the sales offices around the port and keep an eye on her twenty four seven so she doesn’t get in with any other agencies out there.’

‘Ok, I can do that, good idea.’

‘And keep your hands off her; she’s a fine looking woman.’

‘Don’t worry; she’s old enough to be my mother. As for fine looking, I reckon they’re not real.’

Harry laughed. ‘She looked a bit top-heavy surely, but maybe she’s just well made. I don’t want you finding out anyway, just get the sale and get her back here in one piece.’

‘Believe me; I have no interest in older women.’

Harry poked him in the ribs. ‘Of course, if you think it might make the difference…’

‘Tom.’

‘Yes Walter.’

‘Don’t fall off, we’re not insured for that kind of thing.’