I alter my appearance slightly before hitting the estate agents, combing my hair a different way, pencilling in an array of freckles across the bridge of my nose, purchasing a cheap pair of glasses, along with a second-hand suit which is too short in the legs and sleeves. I print up business cards with Nelke’s name, a fake address and the number of a second cell phone, which I buy, and I’m ready to go. It’s more difficult than I’d anticipated. The agents here don’t seem to be as open to bribes as those in America. Or else they don’t believe my divorce story and think I’m trying to set them up for a sting. But finally I find a dapper little man who bills himself as James Biesty Esq., who sympathizes with my predicament and says he has the perfect place for me, a small house that has been on his books for months with not even a sniff of an offer. The owner lives abroad, has a string of other properties which are making regular returns. He’ll be none the wiser about our ‘little arrangement’.
