Free No Place in the Sun by John Mulligan Page A

large swimming pool; it looked much better on the model than it did if you looked outside.
    ‘Impressive.’ Tom wondered why only one block was finished. ‘When will it all look like this?’
    ‘Just two years from now, all units will be ready then, but if you get in now you only pay the launch price, it will go up when the whole lot is done.’ Timothy seemed happier now that he was back on a learned-off sales pitch. Tom could read this fellow like a book; not a salesman, he reckoned, just learned how to sell this project and nothing more. I’d lose him in a minute in a yard full of cars, or a shed full of washing machines for that matter.
    ‘So, let’s cut to the chase then.’ Tom was in control of the situation and he knew it. ‘What’s the deal, how much are the apartments? Spill the spiel, Timothy.’
    Timothy stammered and stumbled his way through the sales pitch. ‘It’s, you know, a club, that is you share into the ownership, just use the place when you want and let others pay for the other weeks you don’t need, very good way to own a home in the sun for very little money.’
    ‘So, how much? Give me a figure in euros, bottom line etc.’
    Timothy was still evasive. ‘Depends on how long you think you’d need it for every year, and what time of the year.’
    Tom smiled to himself. Useless salesman if I ever saw one, bottom of the barrel stuff. So it is a timeshare racket, just dressed up as a club, probably to keep it legal. Fucking scam artists.
    ‘Well, Timothy, if you can’t tell me the price, I have to be out of here.’
    ‘It’s not that simple, it depends on various factors.’
    Tom was losing patience with this idiot. ‘A figure, Timothy, how much? Cut the waffle and give me a figure. Ok, let me make it easy, how much would it cost me to have this place for the first week in July every year from now till kingdom come?’
    Timothy brightened and looked at a spreadsheet in his folder. ‘Well, for a north-facing apartment, one bedroom, it would only cost you twelve thousand euros, including furniture and everything, down to the last knife and fork.’
    ‘And how much for the last week in January?’
    Timothy rifled through his folder again. Tom remembered Kevin’s advice on the ‘bible’ back in City Auto, ‘you need to know it by heart where it refers to any car in the yard, no point in looking it up when you’re in the middle of a sale. You need it in your head.’ This guy wasn’t a salesman, he was just a puppet who had learned a few lines off by heart, wouldn’t cut it in the real world.
    ‘That would be six thousand, very little when you think of the price of hotels, you would spend that in a couple of years, this is a great way to invest for the future and save yourself thousands as well. And of course you can always sell your membership at any time.’
    Tom made a few calculations in his head. ‘So, average price is about nine grand a week, more or less?’
    ‘That’s about right, yes.’
    ‘So, nine grand a week, that’s near enough four hundred and seventy grand a year if you took every week?’
    ‘Yes, I guess so.’ Timothy wasn’t clear where this was heading.
    ‘Four hundred and seventy grand for an apartment that’s worth what, seventy or eighty grand on a good day? I’d want to be nuts, wouldn’t I?’
    Timothy seemed to know that he was losing this battle, but he struggled on. ‘Yes, but if you join this club you can swap your week for a week in any of our affiliate resorts anywhere in the world, and you get peace of mind, you know....’ His voice trailed off, he knew he had lost this one somewhere along the way.
    Tom headed out to the lobby, Kathy was dropping off a middle-aged couple at the front door and he waved to her and made a steering wheel motion with his hands. She held up both hands, fingers spread, he would have to wait another ten minutes to get a lift back to the coast.
    Timothy was still vainly trying to get him to listen to some more of