Roskov, Book 22, page 20
‘Can we put that place somewhere else?’
‘Like where?’ I asked.
‘Just off the motorway, close to the dual carriageway, a mile from the new hospital. We could do without the traffic at the new site.’
‘Fine, see if there’s some land. I want a big carpark, a shop, petrol station maybe, and a place to take blood quickly. They drive in, name and address taken, blood taken, off they go – not so much as a cup of tea.’
‘So we’ll need a lab to process the blood, many staff?’ he asked.
‘They have machines for it in the States, we’d buy some, rapid testing. But yes, a big place, custom designed for rapid testing.’
‘It’s part of the same set-up?’
‘Yes, in that they’ll research the blood and spot cancer early. Those early warnings would go to a person’s local GP, which may be close to us around the Midlands, but mostly we’d not see that person till two years down the road, when they fall sick.
‘The purpose is to take the pressure off the NHS and to diagnose people early. And if my cancer centre has the blood of ten thousand people with early cancer … great, we do the research on that blood.
‘When that centre is running I’d create another one down south, one in London, one up north, blood sent back here.’
They made notes.
My architect asked, ‘And the NHS pay for it?’
‘They would, once it’s running - and seen to be running. In the main cancer centre … the Phase Two and Three would operate like a nursing home, the consortium running it. Much of the rest will be charity or NHS, plus private funding – the drug companies.’
‘Would any patients be moved out to our other nursing homes?’ he asked.
‘Possibly, yes, but my understanding is that they all have an IV drip with morphine till it kills them. Not sure if that needs specialist cancer nurses, but it probably does.’
‘Two floors?’
‘Or three, whichever is cheaper to build and quickest, must be fireproof.’
‘Two long buildings, two or three floors each, four rooms wide, two corridors,’ he suggested. ‘Walkways between them.’
‘We need some indoor gardens, ponds with fish, people in wheelchairs pushed there. We need a nice ambience for the Phase Two people. Pet centre maybe.’
He made a note. ‘It will be a big complex, many new jobs – many houses and apartments needed.’
‘We’re working on the houses,’ I assured him.
‘And now a tie up with Barratts Homes…’
‘If we’re going to spend a shit load of money with them … we may as well have shares and some say in what they do.’
‘Yes, of course,’ he agreed.
‘Work with them on a design for a concrete tower for me, shit small apartments and studios, say … ten floors or fifteen, lift, shop on the ground floor and a café maybe. These new buildings will be used over and over around the UK, for local workers, mostly inside the M25.’
‘I’ll work with them on it, and it saves money to have the same basic design each time.’
‘I want basic and cheap, and many of them, prefabricated concrete slabs used. But they need to be safe, and fire proof.’
‘Modern regulations make them safe, no air vents joining floors,’ he told me. He tapped his drawing. ‘The cancer centre will be bigger than I thought.’
‘Use two or three storey buildings where necessary, save some floor space. Up to you. The hotel could be six floors high and narrow.’
‘I’ll bring in a hospital designer, and then discuss what goes where with Doc Lepus and his team.’
‘Is Doc Lepus busy these days?’
‘He has lunch in Rose Fallon twice a week, and twice a week in Ronnie Masters, and he has a good feel for what’s needed – keen to see the dialysis centre open.’
‘Me too, the first of its kind but hopefully not the last.’
Meeting concluded, and I set off for London, the traffic not too bad today, the sun out, so it was a pleasant enough journey – till we hit the London traffic.
At a posh hotel we pulled up, everyone recognising me, and up in a lavish suite I met Lee Tong and his family, a warm welcome for me, Pat and Dingle to sit with cups of tea and wait. A masseuse was available for my bodyguards, but I gave them a firm “no” and a pointed finger.
Sat at a small table, cups of tea made, Lee Tong began, ‘Several banks now wish to be involved, in both nursing homes here and in property.’
‘I have a blank fund set-up ready, so they can use it whenever they’re ready. We invest mostly in small rundown houses, because we can often buy them for fifteen thousand, and after renovation they’re worth thirty thousand. That doesn’t happen with London houses.’
‘A great mark-up,’ he noted.
‘We often rent them out for many years, since we think that house prices here in Britain will rise in the next ten years, especially in London.
‘So we have the rental income as well as the capital gain, and on small houses it’s a great return, on a large London house it’s maybe thirty percent. But in Docklands we expect prices to double or treble, the quality apartments.’
‘I have received the detail of the new projects, shopping malls with apartments above.’
I smiled. ‘I got the idea in Kuala Lumpur.’
‘There it is common, yes. And people here think that there will be much interest in them, not least because you are building them.’
‘The apartments will sell well off-plan, none will be left when the building opens. Oh, the new lake valley in Corsica, you want villas reserved? I can hand you them at six hundred thousand Euro finished, worth twice that on day one.’
‘Six of them please. I already own a villa in Mandoch Valley and several small apartments near your hotel. Those apartments are fully booked to October, and my villa makes good money, also fully booked.’
‘The lake valley may have two hundred villas built, some next to the new golf course.’
‘In that case reserve a few more please.’
‘Will you visit Corsica?’
‘A quick visit to see Frances House – which makes a fantastic profit. Everyone in Europe seems to know the name.’
I smiled. ‘A few TV shows were made about it, sick old people having a great life. Here in Britain … it’s not traditional for sick old people to have a great life.’
‘And if my friends in the banks invest money, what is likely to happen in the housing market here?’
‘Nationally we have a shortfall of maybe a hundred thousand houses, so we could build that many and sell them. In London there’s a strong need for more apartments, they sell very quickly, so it will be a long time before the market slows up.
‘The Government will help me to manage price rises … so that we have steady growth, not fast growth followed by a crash, we aim to avoid that crash.’
‘It is suggested here that your leader hangs on your every word…’
I smiled. ‘He listens to my ideas, yes, but we do agree on what needs to be done.’
‘When I tell people that I partner with you and funded Frances House their faces alter, and I am treated like royalty here.’
‘I am modestly famous here, and for good reasons - not bad ones thankfully. Do you want to meet The Queen?’
His eyes widened. ‘You can arrange that?’
‘Day after tomorrow she’ll open a new nursing home, you can attend. And be photographed with Tony Blair.’
‘That would be great.’
‘It’s a two-hour drive north to get there, I’ll send you the details. Just say that you’re my partner and that you funded the nursing home.’
‘I have a car at my disposal.’
‘How long are you here?’
‘Another four days.’
‘Then we’ll organise a meeting soon, here in London, the banks, the government, the investors. A photo opportunity.’
‘I have friends here and business partners, they can attend?’
‘Of course, but the police may check them out first.’
‘That will not be an issue, no gangsters,’ he quipped.
‘Send me a list of names soon.’
He nodded. ‘By next summer, Corsica nursing homes will all be complete?’
‘Those near Frances House and in Scorfo Valley, yes, but we’re also building private nursing homes, for banks, for large corporations in Sweden and France, and we’ll start on more nursing homes when the current ones are complete. What’s the mood of the investors?’
‘They are very happy, and more wish to join with us. Some wish a smaller timescale, a quick profit, but us Asians do not like such people, we like a steady income, many years, good growth not fast growth.
‘In Asia you can sometimes make twenty percent a year on a good project, fifteen percent is acceptable, seven percent is what an ordinary citizen might make in a long term property investment through the bank. With you we can achieve a hundred percent gain, or more, and at low risk.’
‘The nursing homes in Spain and France will make good money as well, and Crete, same as Frances House. And where we build nursing homes we’ll build apartments to sell, a quick profit.
‘In Corsica, above the city, we’ll build and sell apartments that look like Frances House, six month projects. And we should double our money on those.’
‘Corsica has much potential in the decades ahead?’ he asked.
‘Only five percent of the island has roads and people, the rest is just rocks, and there are many nice beaches that have no roads leading to them, so the potential is very good. And I get the land handed to me. I’ll be building there for ten years more.’
He nodded, thinking. ‘And these malls in London?’
‘In Docklands we’ll double our money easily, but then also collect rent for years to come.’
‘I may be interested in such ventures soon. Maybank has funds to commit, many billions of dollars as the Asian market slows. And Indobank is very interested as well, as well as my friends in South Korea – your ability to sell computers has amazed them.’
‘I want to start on mobile phones soon, an import business or partnership, a chain of shops.’
‘I have a friend in Samsung, I will talk with him.’
‘My people are making approaches to Samsung and Nokia, but we can sell both.’
‘Nokia has done well in Europe,’ he noted. ‘But these phones, they change all the time, month by month, always a new model.’
‘As with computers, the raging advances of technology. How’s your family?’
‘They are well, but my daughter has damaged her eye.’
‘She’s here?’
‘Yes, but I did not mention her to ask for your assistance.’
‘You may ask anytime, don’t be shy. Bring her.’
He fetched his daughter, aged around six years old, and when the nanny left I had a look at the eye.
Laz’s voice stated, A simple blood vessel disturbance, but in a place where a doctor may not wish to operate. I have fixed it.
I told Lee Tong, ‘She’ll be fine in the morning.’
‘My God,’ he stated as he studied his shy daughter, and the nanny took the child away. He sat again and faced me. ‘Am I allowed to ask … how you do that?’
Laz, come forwards briefly please.
A flash of light, and Laz appeared dressed in brilliant white, floating, his huge white wings out. He was gone in seconds, Lee traumatised and needing a stiff drink.
I told Lee, ‘I have no powers, I borrow them. And it’s best that you never mention that.’
Lee sipped his drink and nodded, terrified.
Back in the van, and we headed north before the 5pm traffic started. Back in Leicester, and I took a shower, and when I went down to eat Bonza was there.
‘Don’t you have a wife now to feed you?’ I complained.
‘She’s busy, work thing, so I’m here.’
‘I met Lee Tong today, he’s here in London, and he’ll be at the opening of the Nottingham nursing home.’
‘Thomas Sandby House they call it, some famous guy from like two hundred years ago.’
‘He … was a member of the Royal Academy I think, some builder or architect.’
‘That was his son,’ Bonza corrected me.
I adopted a shocked look. ‘Have you been reading a book?’ I teased.
‘I do these days, lot to catch up on.’
The TV news caught my attention, more trouble in Rome, but it was a good kind of trouble – kind of, many arrests made after a Mafia hit on their rivals went wrong, a loud shoot-out in the streets witnessed.
And then they switched to the item that interested me more, tainted drugs being sold on the streets of Italy, many people sick in hospital, a few dead.
I told Bonza, ‘Tainted drugs in Italy, making people sick.’
He glanced at the screen. ‘Did you … do something?’
‘I may have expressed a desire to … damage the Mafia’s revenue stream.’
‘They lost a lot of men lately, and each was shot like thirty times!’
‘Good enough for them.’
‘Will house prices here double?’ he asked as he ate.
‘If we do nothing, and if we fuck it up … yes. But we’ll build a shit load of new houses, like thirty thousand of them, and that will keep prices level for a while.
‘Thing is, a few years down the road the savings from the nursing homes will appear in a ledger and Gordon Brown will want to spend. That improves the economy, sure, but it also pushes up house prices – and causes inflation.
‘If everything I’m planning works well then he’ll have a massive amount of spare cash, a real temptation to use it. If he does that four years from now that’s OK, I’ll have built enough houses and apartments by then to ease house price rises.’
‘We won’t have many nursing homes till … four years from now,’ Bonza noted.
‘Which is OK, that slow and measured progression, but Blair wants them built quickly.’
‘Can’t build a huge building quickly,’ Bonza scoffed.
‘No, but we can build thousands of houses and apartments by next year, and they’ll have an effect. I’m reasonably sure that we’ll have the extra houses before they have the extra cash in the Bank of England to play with.’
‘The new property company is buying up thousands a month…’
I told him, ‘Spread around the UK, a modest effect felt till the numbers increase. When it comes to house prices … a house around the corner is not seen, but a house in your street up for sale is seen, and if it sells for forty grand - and you think your house is worth thirty - you get excited.’
He nodded. ‘Copycats. People want to sell when they see the prices going up in their neighbours’ houses.’
‘Crowd mentality, and it could force up prices quickly, so we need to be ready. At the moment we’re buying up the shit houses but not selling them, so the neighbours are not paying attention to them.
‘And when we complete a warm house mortgage fix there’s no sign up in the garden, “House for Sale”.’
‘I was thinking, about your old house, it’s sat empty…’
‘Yes, you can live there, but you may get shot at.’
‘They know you don’t live there now,’ he challenged. ‘The world’s assassins.’
‘Up to you, but pay a small rent or the taxman will come after you.’
‘So … three hundred a month?’
‘Fucking cheapskate.’
He laughed. ‘How’s Julie?’
I sighed out. ‘I … was hoping to teach her things, and to make her happy, but she’s all loved-up with her new man already, and he has a daughter – wife died, and … it was meant to be. Just that I feel … left out.’
‘It was meant to be, and she’s happy, so you should be happy.’
‘Well, yeah, but I feel like I should be doing more to help.’
‘This guy was checked out?’
‘Yes, rich and nice and … he’ll be good for her.’
‘So stop worrying, you have enough to do as it is. Try and get Gordon Brown to smile.’
I laughed. ‘Do people think that I took the piss out of him?’
‘You did take the piss,’ Bonza insisted.
Keys of my old house handed to Bonza, and I called the local police. ‘This is Roskov, and my brain-dead buddy, Bonza, will now live in my old house with his girlfriend, I won’t be staying there, so update your records.
‘If there’s an incident at the house it’s not about me, but could be someone thinking that I still live there, and Bonza is big and ugly and doesn’t need protection.’
The lady laughed. ‘I’ll update the records and alert everyone.’
‘Thanks.’
About to go to bed, and a shiver went through me; I felt as if Julie was in danger. ‘Laz, you there?’
He appeared two seconds later.
‘Check on Julie! Quickly.’
He closed his eyes and tipped his head back. Opening his eyes, he told me, ‘She is safely asleep, but there is a forest fire nearby, moving towards them.’
‘Wake her! And dampen the fire a little, slow it!’
He vanished.
I called Ross Daniels.
‘Ricky?’
‘I got a call, forest fires down there?’
‘There was a small one, put out.’
‘Not put out, so start shouting, get planes up, alert the hotels and my nursing homes to be ready!’
‘On it now!’ came from a worried man.
I called the Prefect, waking him. ‘There are more forest fires spreading, my fucking hotels could be damaged, and the nursing homes!’
‘My god. I check now.’
I paced up and down, made a cup of tea, the British news not showing anything.
Laz finally appeared. ‘I have dampened the fire near Julie, she is awake and has evacuated where they were. And such fires are common in August on the island.’
‘Are there any fires near my hotels or nursing homes?’
‘No, the fires are further north and west, some in the northeast, the forested areas.’
My phone trilled, the Prefect. ‘Some idiot kids light camp fires and start again the fires we put out.’
