Star Struck Read Online Free PDF Page A

fine.”
    Dennis gave me a quick sideways look and reached for his cigarettes. “You never finished your law degree, did you?”
    I shook my head. It was a sore point with my mum and dad, who fancied being the parents of the first graduate in the family, but all it brought me was relief that business could never be so bad that I’d be tempted to set up shop as a lawyer. Two years of study had been enough to demonstrate there wasn’t a single area of legal practice that wouldn’t drive me barking within six months.
    “So you couldn’t charge me for legal advice,” Dennis concluded triumphantly.
    I raised my eyes to the heavens, where a few determined stars penetrated the sodium glow of the city sky. “No, Dennis, I couldn’t.” Then I gave him the hard stare. “But why would I want to? We’ve never sent each other bills before, have we? What exactly are you up to?”
    “You know I’d never ask you to help me out with anything criminal, don’t you?”
    “’Course you wouldn’t. You’re far too tight to waste your breath,” I said. Richard giggled again. I revised my estimate. Sixth bottle, fifth joint.
    Dennis leaned across to pick up his jacket from the nearby chair, revealing splendid muscles in his forearm and a Ralph Lauren label. It didn’t quite go with the jogging pants and the Manchester United away shirt. He pulled some papers out of the inside pocket then gave me a slightly apprehensive glance. Then he shrugged and said, “It’s not illegal. Not as such.”
    “Not even a little bit?” I asked. I didn’t bother trying to hide my incredulity. Dennis only takes offense when it’s intended.
    “This bit isn’t illegal,” he said firmly. “It’s a lease.”
    “A lease?”
    “For a shop.”
    “You’re taking out a lease on a shop? ” It was a bit like hearing Dracula had gone veggie.
    He had the grace to look embarrassed. “Only technically.”
    I knew better than to ask more. Sometimes ignorance is not only bliss but also healthy. “And you want me to cast an eye over it to see that you’re not being ripped off,” I said, holding a hand out for the papers.
    Curiously reluctant now, Dennis clutched the papers to his chest. “You do know about leases? I mean, it’s not one of the bits you missed out, is it?”
    It was, as it happened, but I wasn’t about to tell him that. Besides, since I’d quit law school, I’d learned much more practical stuff about contracts and leases than I could ever have done if I’d stuck it out. “Gimme,” I said.
    “You don’t want to argue with that tone of voice,” Richard chipped in like the Dormouse at the Mad Hatter’s tea party. Dennis screwed his face up like a man eating a piccalilli sandwich, but he handed over the papers.
    It looked like a bog standard lease to me. It was for a shop in the Arndale Center, the soulless shopping mall in the city center that the IRA tried to remove from the map back in ’96. As usual, they got it wrong. The Arndale, probably the ugliest building in central Manchester, remained more or less intact. Unfortunately, almost every other building within a quarter-mile radius took a hell of a hammering, especially the ones that were actually worth looking at. As a result, the whole city center ended up spending a couple of years looking like it had been wrapped by Christo in some bizarre pre-millennium celebration. Now it looked as if part of the mall that had been closed for structural repairs and renovation was opening up again and Dennis had got himself a piece of the action.
    There was nothing controversial in the document, as far as I could see. If anything, it was skewed in favor of the lessee, one John Thompson, since it gave him the first three months at half rent as a supposed inducement. I wasn’t surprised that it wasn’t Dennis’s name on the lease. He’s a man who can barely bring
    What I couldn’t understand was what he was up to. Somehow, I couldn’t get my head round the idea of Dennis as the