Loss Adjuster , livre ebook

John Detheridge - John Detheridge

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147 pages

English

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Description

John Taylor is a loss adjuster, returning to his home town after an absence of thirteen years, to investigate a suspicious fire which has destroyed the business belonging to his childhood foe, Hunter Stokes. His return stirs up memories of his own loss - the drowning of his younger brother twenty years earlier in the fast flowing Run, where the harbour water is squeezed out to sea. It is the incident that has defined his life, with many holding him responsible for his brother's death. As the fire investigation unfolds, the adjuster compromises his professional independence - he asks questions at the office of the local newspaper, knowing that Hunter's friend, the editor, will be reporting back to him. He interviews the claimant's mother and ex-wife, to increase the pressure Hunter is under, before the initial fire investigation report has even been produced. The reason becomes clear when he tells Hunter's mother that her son bullied him when they were children. This is personal.Hunter's employees and allies are also dragged into the investigation, as old antagonism is rekindled, and the extent of the violence perpetrated against Taylor is laid bare. As the pressure of the investigation mounts on Hunter, the truth about the cause of the fire is overshadowed by a more shocking revelation.

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Thriller

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Publié par	John Detheridge
Date de parution	07 novembre 2012
Nombre de lectures	1
EAN13	9781909270770
Langue	English

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Extrait

The Loss Adjuster by John Detheridge
© John Detheridge, 2012
www.thelossadjuster.com
Front cover photography by Rob Kendall, www.westcountryphotographic.co.uk
Design by Izzie Mustard
Contents
Chapter 1: Tuesday 8 th January
Chapter 2: Wednesday 9 th January
Chapter 3: Thursday 10 th January
Chapter 4: Friday 11 th January
Chapter 5: Saturday 12 th January
Chapter 6: Sunday 13 th January
Chapter 7: Monday 14 th January
Chapter 8: Tuesday 15 th January
Chapter 9: Wednesday 16 th January
Chapter 10: Thursday 17 th January
Chapter 11: Friday 18 th January
Chapter 12: Saturday 19 th January
Chapter 13: Sunday 20 th January
Chapter 14: Monday 21 st January
Chapter 15: Tuesday 22 nd January
Chapter 16: Wednesday 23 rd January
Chapter 17: Epilogue
Chapter 1
Tuesday 8 th January
"Why do people always say that fire rages?" he asked aloud. "Fires aren’t angry. The people who start them are angry." He had seen the local news report twice today already.
"Fire officers are continuing to sift through the wreckage of the Stokes chandlery in Southchurch, which was destroyed by fire at the weekend. The fire, which is believed to have started late on Saturday night, raged for twelve hours before being brought under control by the forty firefighters who attended the scene. The alarm was raised by partygoers leaving the town’s yacht club, and despite initial reports that someone may have been trapped inside, it was confirmed today that no-one was hurt in the blaze. There has been speculation that a stray firework from a display during the party may have set the building alight. However, a spokesperson for East Sussex Fire and Rescue Service said it was too early to say what caused the fire."
John Taylor turned away as the news gave way to the more seasonal matters of Christmas tree recycling and New Year resolutions. The screen flickered on the edge of his vision in the corner of the hotel room. He returned to the claim report provided to him by the insurance company within two days of the flames dying down. Someone was in a hurry.
The chandlery was owned by Hunter Stokes. It had occupied a warehouse of mixed construction on the harbour road, a site of about half an acre all told. Being partly built of wood, and containing a stock of flammable goods, it was always likely that any fire would be devastating. So it proved. The claim was for nearly a million pounds for replacement of the building, loss of stock, and loss of profits through business interruption. And any claim of that size was going to attract attention, particularly with the experts being reticent as to the cause. Initial word from the police was that Stokes was at home at the time the fire was likely to have started, but anyone with the desire could start a fire big enough to destroy this building.
The insurance company had considered the available loss adjusters to send in. John Taylor seemed the obvious choice. He had grown up in Southchurch. Thirty-three years old, single, and with a reputation for expertise in fire cases, he would also have local knowledge.
Southchurch stood on the edge of a small harbour, once home to fishing boats and to barges transporting produce along the coast, now home to leisure craft, tourist trips, and tourist traps. To the west, the River Blyth flowed into the harbour, creating choppy waters around the town quay. To the east the waters seemed calmer, calm enough for sandbanks to form and reed beds to flourish, but before the river water, now embittered with salt and sand, could find its way to the open sea, it would be squeezed between the coastline on the north side and a long curved finger of rock to the south, spewing out into the bay.
Its population in winter was around fifty thousand, a number that doubled in the summer months when the guest houses were full, the beach huts to the east of the harbour were unbattened, and the High Street crawled. It was no village. Not a small enough place for everyone to know your business. Maybe just small enough to make you think they did. There were pubs and there were shops, and there were schools and there were churches, but most people worked somewhere else, maybe even lived somewhere else. Nothing important happened for years on end, and where nothing important happens, something unimportant will always fill the void. The destruction of the chandlery was the biggest story to hit the town since Taylor had left.
Hunter Stokes was thirty-five years old. Southchurch was his home town, too. He had inherited the chandlery on the death of his father five years earlier. When Taylor left town for university, Hunter had been drifting along in the chandlery business, knowing little but taking all the benefits he could from being the owner’s son. As his father grew older and his health deteriorated, it seemed that the business would not survive. Eventually the son had been forced to take over responsibility and apply himself full time to the task in hand. But rumours of financial difficulty continued for years. Or rather, they were no longer rumours – they lacked the oxygen a rumour needs to grow and spread. It just became an accepted fact that the business made no money and its days were numbered. Still the days came and went, and Hunter was outwardly content. Some staff came and went as is the way with holiday towns. Some staff came and stayed forever, as is also the way. There was no business collapse. But now there was a fire.
The fire burned from Saturday night into Sunday morning. In the afternoon, the insurance company were notified of a potential claim. On Monday morning, a figure was being put on that claim by the owner. Whatever the motivation, it was unlikely to be accurate. Most people do not have a note of the rebuild cost of their business premises sitting neatly on a file somewhere. If they did, it would probably have been in the premises. A good businessman should have a grasp of his stock values, but Taylor was not sure Hunter was going to fall into that category. As for business interruption, it remained to be seen how long business was interrupted for, assuming it were ever to resume. Quantifying the loss of profits would also be an interesting exercise.
It was late on Tuesday morning when he was called in to see the claims director at Fraternal Insurance plc. Like most loss adjusters, Taylor was freelance. He worked for a number of insurance companies and occasionally took on a case on behalf of a policyholder. The role was an independent one, resolving disputed cases, assessing claims, even assisting policyholders with advice on making premises safe from the after-effects of a serious fire, and suggesting ways of preventing recurrence. He had established himself as a reliable and, above all, responsive adjuster. He realised early on that saying yes to requests for immediate help was going to win him many friends. He had been working on a report into a fire at a school when the call came in. Once a job was at the paperwork stage, the pressure tended to ease - he knew he could handle a new investigation. The meeting was at 12.30pm in the Holborn office. By then he knew the name of the claimant, and he knew that he was heading home.
The simple fact that a meeting was felt to be necessary was an indication that the insurers were edgy. Many claims were processed without the need for a loss adjuster. The company’s own claims handlers would deal with the paperwork, checking the validity of the policy and matching the claim against the cover provided. An adjuster would be appointed where there was particular doubt or complexity, but even then many assignments would be allocated by fax, email, phone call or even text message. In some cases documentation would follow, in others the adjuster would access the insurer’s files on-line to obtain whatever was needed. A face to face appointment was not rare, but it was just not always required.
He was greeted in reception by his host and escorted to an office on the fifth floor. Little was said until the two were alone. Iain Crinan was an easy man to get along with. Taylor liked people who were pragmatic. People who could distinguish between the stupid rules that should be broken, and the principles that should not. Crinan allowed his adjusters enough time to do a proper job, he made sure they were paid for it, and he respected their independence. All the more reason why John wanted confirmation of one thing.
"Why me? You know this is my home town. It’s a small town. You know my age and you know Hunter’s age. I’m a little younger, but you must realise there is a possibility we know each other. I’m a Chartered Loss Adjuster. I have to be independent. My Institute says so."
"John, I expect you to be independent. I have no reason to doubt that you will be. But you know the area. You must know people there, too. You’re an expert on fire cases. Something is wrong with this. It doesn’t feel right. The police are non-committal, the damage is too great, and the claim is too fast. Just do your normal reliable work. If we pay out, I want to be able to tell the Board we were right to do so. If we don’t, then I want it to be bullet proof."
"The police are always non-committal in a case like this. They have no way of knowing at this stage how the fire started. There was a fireworks party going on down the road. The building was probably full of flammable stock. It’s bound to be high impact. So you have a fast claim? I would be in a hurry too, if it were my business."
"So much of a hurry that you would put in a figure for business interruption after two days?" Crinan shook his head. "Anyway, we’ve received a tip-off."
Now the face to face meeting made sense. "Why you? Why not the police? Who would even know who his insurer was?"
"Exactly, John. Like I said, something is not right here. I need you to tell me what it is."
The tip-off was typed on white paper and posted from Southchurch, post-marked Monday