44 Scotland Street - Alexander McCall Smith [12]
Closing the trapdoor, Bruce climbed down the ladder. He would have a look from outside, he decided. He had a pair of binoculars in the car and he could use those. He would be able to see if there was anything that needed to be done, which he was sure that there wasn’t.
He replaced the ladder, locked the flat, and then made his way downstairs. On the other side of the street there was a set of gardens which sloped steeply down the hill to the Water of Leith below. Bruce crossed over and stood on the pavement, his binoculars trained on the roof of the building. It was by no means ideal, he thought; the angle from which he had to observe the roof made it impossible for him to see more than the first third of it, but that seemed perfectly all right. He ran the binoculars over the stonework along the front of the roof. That seemed fine as well. Roof inspected and found to be in good condition, he dictated 22
A Full Survey
to himself. He looked at his watch. He had ten minutes to get back to the office, twenty minutes to dictate the report, and that would mean that the client would get it just in time. There was the valuation to think about, of course, but that was not going to be a particular problem. The location was good: the flat was a ten-minute walk from Charlotte Square; the street was quiet, and there was nothing to suggest that the neighbours were difficult. A flat three doors down had gone recently for three hundred and eighty thousand pounds (Todd had told him about that transaction) but that was on the first floor, which added to the price, and so: Three hundred and twenty thousand pounds, thought Bruce, and then, feeling benevolent to the purchasers and their mortgage needs, he added a further eight thousand pounds for good measure. A fine, late-Georgian flat with many original features. Superb cornice in the south-facing drawing room; wainscoting in all public rooms; a fine bath which a purchaser might wish to preserve, and a decorated fireplace in the rear bedroom depicting the Ettrick Shepherd, Walter Scott and Robert Burns in conversation with one another in a country inn. These reports wrote themselves, thought Bruce, if one was prepared to loosen up one’s prose a bit. He drove back to Queen Street, parked the car in the mews garage (for which the firm had paid the equivalent price of a small flat in Dundee) and made his way into the office. There the report was dictated, presented to the secretary, and delivered to Todd in a crisp blue folder. Todd gestured for Bruce to sit down while he read the survey. Then, looking up at his employee, he asked him quietly: “You inspected the roof, did you?”
“Yes,” said Bruce. “Nothing wrong there.”
“Are you sure?” asked Todd, fingering the edge of the folder.
“Did you get up into the roof space?”
Bruce hesitated, but only for a moment. There was nothing wrong with that roof and it would have made no difference had he been able to squeeze through the partly-blocked trapdoor. “I went up,” he said. “Everything was fine.”
Todd raised an eyebrow. “Well,” he said. “It wasn’t when I went up last week. I looked at it for another client, you see. He Hypocrisy, Lies, Golf Clubs
23
lost interest in offering before I wrote a report, and so I thought a fresh survey appropriate. Had you really gone up, you might have seen the fulminating rot and also noticed the very dicey state of one of the chimney stacks. But . . .”
Bruce said nothing. He was looking at his shoes. 8. Hypocrisy, Lies, Golf Clubs
The silence lasted for several minutes. Todd stared at Bruce across his desk. I trained this young man,