The Perfect Match (17 page)

‘Bella!’ Mr Agnew sounded delighted. ‘I was just about to call you. We want to look at Badger Cottage again!’

‘Oh, hooray!’ said Bella. ‘I am so pleased. And let’s hope this time you realise how absolutely perfect it is for you.’

‘Well, we think it is. Of course it’s taken a lot of thought, but then I made a model of how the upstairs could be and my wife’s been won over. And we’ve done a few other checks.’

What the hell these might be, Bella couldn’t imagine. Surely they hadn’t tried to do their own searches? ‘That’s brilliant news,’ she said, still enthusiastic. ‘When would you like to have another viewing?’

‘Well, we’d really like to see it as soon as possible. I don’t suppose this afternoon . . .?’

‘Perfect!’ said Bella. ‘No time like the present. When can you be there by?’

Bella had to work very hard in the next two hours to give herself time to show them the house, but she felt so excited at the prospect of making a sale that she didn’t mind. She thought about telling Nevil she was showing Badger Cottage to the Agnews again, but decided against it. His negative comments about them being time-wasters and totally incapable of making up their minds would rankle. And if they turned it down yet again (which was perfectly likely) he would gloat. On this thought, she became determined to get them to commit this time. There was no reason why it wasn’t the perfect house for them.

Badger Cottage was doing its absolute best to get sold, Bella decided. For some reason to do with wind direction, the motorway was silent. The sun shone; the resident wren sang long and loud. A row of peonies had appeared in the border in front of the house and roses bloomed everywhere.

She unlocked the door. No previously undiscovered patch of damp had appeared, and no sinister smells made her estate agent’s nostrils twitch. The house was ‘move-in’ fresh. Bella felt that if they turned it down this time she might really have to consider giving up on them.

As she stepped out of the front door she saw the Agnews’ car arrive. She felt a glimmer of satisfaction at having arrived before them for once.

‘You don’t need me to show it to you,’ she said, stepping back from the front door so they could enter. ‘You know it as well as I do now, probably better.’

They laughed and Bella was further encouraged. They wouldn’t be so cheery if they were just going to shake their heads and say the garden really was too small, or the light came through the front windows at the wrong angle. On this summer afternoon it was a perfect spot.

Bella went and sat on the grass under a tree on the verge. After a quick check of her emails, she thought about Nevil. Why was he convinced he could get that massively expensive house at a price they could afford? Was it anything to do with the fact he’d become so secretive recently? He never used to shut his door, liking to hear what was going on in the main office. Now he seemed to close it whenever his phone rang. He was always shooting out to go to unspecified meetings that weren’t written in the diary, and when he came back, he’d never say where he’d been. Bella had been vaguely aware of all this without taking much notice. However, since the visit to that house she’d realised he’d been behaving quite oddly.

She chided herself for being unusually dense and admitted it was because she’d been distracted by thoughts of Dominic. I must stop it, she told herself sharply. I must pay attention to what’s going on with Nevil. But then she realised just telling yourself that you mustn’t think about someone meant you were thinking about them. In the end she played
Angry Birds
as a distraction.

‘Well?’ She tried not to sound too eager as the Agnews emerged from the house a little while later. They were holding hands.

‘We think we’d like to put in an offer.’

‘Ah!’ Bella felt quite tearful all of a sudden. ‘That’s wonderful! What made you finally decide?’

Mrs Agnew was rueful. ‘Well, I was aware that I couldn’t get what I really wanted on our budget and that I did have to compromise.’

‘Besides,’ went on Mr Agnew, ‘we’d be just as fussy renters as buyers, and we realised that while this isn’t our dream home—’

‘No one lives in their dream home. Everyone has to compromise.’ Bella was smiling but she did sound quite firm.

‘Exactly,’ said Mr Agnew. ‘But it’s still a charming little house that we could easily sell if our dream home came up—’

‘At a price you could afford,’ prompted Bella.

‘That’s it,’ Mr Agnew agreed.

‘And this is one of the prettiest houses on our books.’

‘Very sweet,’ agreed Mrs Agnew.

‘Well, I couldn’t be more delighted,’ said Bella. ‘Sadly I don’t have the vendor’s details on my phone’ – she’d felt putting them in would jinx the whole thing – ‘but I’ll go back now and get in touch.’ She paused. ‘So how much do you want to offer?’

Mr Agnew suggested a figure that wasn’t insulting, but was less than the full asking price. ‘Do you think that’s about right?’ he said afterwards.

‘I think that’s perfect,’ said Bella. ‘Room for manoeuvre, but not rude. Will you move a bit on that if you have to?’

‘Yes we will, but obviously we do want to do work on it and don’t have a massive budget.’

Bella knew exactly how massive their budget was and it wasn’t, really. ‘Fine. So, will you wait here? Or go into town and get a cuppa?’

‘Definitely. A cup of tea to celebrate finding our home at last.’ said Mrs Agnew. ‘Could we meet you at that little café on the corner? You know – on the junction between the High Street and Queen Street?’ She laughed. ‘We’ve been house-hunting so long we know all the best places to get tea and cake.’

‘Of course,’ said Bella. ‘I’ll go back now and get in touch with the vendor when I’ve got the paperwork in front of me.’

She swept into the office on a tide of euphoria. ‘Yes!’ she said, punching the air. ‘I have sold a house to officially the fussiest couple in the history of house-selling!’

There was a lot of exclaiming: ‘Yeah!’ and ‘Well done’ and ‘Good for you, Bells’, and the noise drew Nevil out of his office.

‘What’s all the fuss?’ he asked. ‘It had better be good. I was having an important phone call.’

Her euphoria faded. ‘Badger Cottage! The Agnews are finally putting in an offer, after seeing it goodness knows how many times.’ Nevil’s expression froze. ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’ Bella prompted him, wanting him to acknowledge her achievement.

‘I’m sorry, Bells. Can you come in here a moment?’

Bella went through to his office, annoyed he couldn’t just be pleased that the Agnews were finally suited.

‘I’m afraid it’s not for sale. It’s off the market.’

‘What is?’ Bella was confused. ‘What property are you talking about?’

‘Badger Cottage.’

Bella shook her head. ‘I think you’re getting muddled. I rang the vendors to make sure I could show it to the Agnews – this morning. It was on the market then. In fact, they were pleased to think they might be finally selling.’

‘And they have sold, but not to the Agnews.’

Bella realised her mouth had fallen open in disbelief and closed it. ‘Are you saying that I have to go back to the Agnews, who’ve been looking for so long, and tell them that the house they have finally – finally! – decided to buy is not available?’

‘’Fraid so.’

He did seem embarrassed, but Bella was in no mood to sympathise. She swept out of his door and into the main office. She picked up her bag and her keys from her desk and marched to the door. Then she stopped, turned round and stepped back in. ‘Sorry, guys, the celebration has been cancelled.’

Her gloom gathering, she got in her car and set off, wondering what on earth she could say to the Agnews to lessen their inevitable disappointment. It was so awful! Just as they’d finally made up their minds.

The Agnews were sitting at the table with a laptop open in front of them.

‘Hi,’ she said.

They looked up and seemed strangely embarrassed.

‘Shall I order some tea?’ Bella asked, although the table was strewn with evidence that they’d had tea. ‘I want some even if you don’t.’

Mrs Agnew smiled weakly, looking ashen. ‘Tea would be good. I’m afraid we’ve got some bad news for you.’

Bella bit her lip. ‘Ah. I’ll have cake too then.’ She realised they were going to pull out. What excuse could they possibly give this time? It was just as well, as they couldn’t buy Badger Cottage even if they wanted to. When at last her tea was in front of her, Bella took a sip. ‘OK, so what’s your bad news? Can I guess?’

‘You probably can. I’m afraid we can’t buy Badger Cottage. We don’t want to make an offer.’ Mr Agnew looked mortified.

If it hadn’t been for Nevil’s revelation about the house no longer being on the market, Bella would have been extremely irritated. As it was, she was relieved. How much worse would it have been for her to have to tell them that the house had been taken off the market in the couple of hours since they’d last seen it?

‘Can I ask why?’ she asked. ‘You seemed so certain this time.’

‘I know,’ said Mrs Agnew, ‘and we’re terribly sorry . . .’

‘Yes?’ Bella prompted.

Mrs Agnew looked at her husband for support.

He took over the explanations. ‘You remember I said we were doing more checks?’

Bella nodded.

‘Well, we did and’ – he turned the laptop towards her – ‘this is the result.’ He moved the cursor about the screen and then said, ‘Watch this.’

It was quite hard to see, but it seemed to be a film of the outside of Badger Cottage.

‘It’s our security camera,’ explained Mrs Agnew. ‘We record the creatures that come to the garden at night. We had to check there was wildlife at Badger Cottage.’

‘It’s right in the country, there’s bound to be wildlife,’ said Bella.

‘That’s what we thought,’ went on Mrs Agnew. ‘But we didn’t quite expect this.’

‘And don’t worry, we put the camera on the verge, not on the property,’ said Mr Agnew.

Bella wasn’t bothered by possible illegalities. She peered at the screen. She could see two men who seemed to be digging in a ditch just outside the garden.

‘Here,’ said Mrs Agnew. ‘You can zoom in if you like.’

The picture was even more grainy, but Bella now recognised one of the men. It was Nevil. Her heart seemed to stop beating for a moment. What on earth was going on?

‘I’m afraid we can’t buy the cottage now. Not if this sort of thing is likely to happen right outside,’ explained Mrs Agnew apologetically. ‘We were expecting wildlife, not people. I’d never be able to sleep a wink there now.’

‘I quite understand,’ said Bella, who no longer cared if they bought the cottage or not. She was frantically trying to work out what the hell Nevil was up to and why.

‘Do you know when you took this bit of film?’ she asked, deliberately keeping as calm as she could, although her brain was racing.

‘The date is on there,’ said Mr Agnew.

‘Oh yes. Sorry, I didn’t notice,’ said Bella. ‘Have you uploaded this recording somewhere? Is it possible for you to send it to me? A link?’

‘Certainly,’ said Mr Agnew. ‘I’ve got your email address.’

‘Actually,’ said Bella quickly. ‘Can I give you my private address?’

‘You don’t want anyone from the office to see it?’ asked Mrs Agnew.

‘I’m not sure. Maybe not,’ said Bella, desperately trying to work out what she’d seen in the video. There might well be a perfectly innocent explanation as to why Nevil and someone else should be digging in a ditch at the dead of night, but Bella couldn’t immediately imagine what it might be. ‘I’ll have to try and work it out.’

‘What do you think is going on?’ asked Mrs Agnew, having kindly refilled Bella’s cup.

Bella shook her head. ‘I have no idea,’ she said, although privately she was fairly sure it was something to do with the other buyers.

‘It is very odd,’ said Mrs Agnew. ‘We’ve been filming wildlife for years like this and we’ve never come across a person before.’

‘I’m sure,’ agreed Bella, wondering how soon she could leave to try and sort out this mess.

‘We are a bit fed up,’ said Mr Agnew. ‘We thought we’d really found our home.’

Bella turned her mind to her clients with an effort. ‘I promise you, I will find you a home. And soon.’ Really, she could kill Nevil for putting her in this position. Not only did he sell the house under her nose, in a manner of speaking, he also took a starring role in a very bizarre piece of film. It was a mystery and not one she was enjoying.

Suddenly she realised that the Agnews didn’t know it was Nevil in the picture and that it was his fault they couldn’t buy Badger Cottage even if they could get over the men-in-the-ditch thing, which obviously they couldn’t. She didn’t blame them. It was one thing to see Mr Brock the Badger fossicking about in the undergrowth, but his human counterpart was quite different.

‘You’ve already worked so hard for us,’ said Mrs Agnew.

‘And I will succeed.’

Even as she left them to their tea and their laptop, her idea that the Agnews and Jane Langley could join forces returned. Jane was finding her house and garden too much for her but didn’t want to move. The Agnews wanted to live in a small stately home but didn’t have anything like the budget. Could she convince them both that living together might be the answer?

Bella found the link to the video while she was still in her car. She replayed it over and over but still couldn’t work out what the men were doing. Was it something harmless? If so, what? And what if it wasn’t harmless? She still couldn’t work out what they were up to. She headed off back to the office, determined to get some answers out of Nevil, if only to who had bought Badger Cottage.

She walked into his office without knocking. ‘So? What happened?’

He looked up from some papers, which he turned over quickly before he answered. She couldn’t decide if he looked apologetic or defiant. She hardened her gaze.

‘I am so sorry, sweets,’ he said.

‘Not as sorry as I was. Imagine having to tell people who’ve been house-hunting forever, who have finally found something they like, that it’s no longer on the market?’ He didn’t need to know she hadn’t had to do this, that they’d pulled out for different reasons. After all, the reason was his fault too.