Authors: Katie Fforde
Alice shrugged. ‘He’s taking me to Marrakesh.’ She tried to sound matter-of-fact but couldn’t stop herself grinning with excitement.
‘I know that! And it’s wonderful! But why do you now like Lucy when you really didn’t before?’
Alice sat down and refilled the glasses. ‘She has spirit. And although I absolutely swore her to secrecy – she was not to tell Michael about me helping – she told Phillip, who told Michael.’
‘And you didn’t want Michael to know because you didn’t want him . . .’
Alice sighed deeply. ‘You got it. I didn’t want him to think I was trying to catch him by sucking up to his daughters. I think Lucy worked that out and respected it. But she also felt I deserved the credit for helping her out.’
‘So why did you help her out?’
‘Because that grandmother is from hell. She’s a bully and a snob and you know I can’t stand either of those.’
‘And you and Michael are in love?’
Alice nodded, biting her lip to hold in her joy. ‘I didn’t mean it to happen but really, one doesn’t have as much control over these things as one would like.’
Bella laughed fondly, their roles entirely reversed. Bella was now the elder, happy that her younger friend had found love. ‘That is exactly right.’
WHEN BELLA WAS
getting ready for work the next morning, Alice had anything remotely ‘summery’ in her wardrobe spread out on her bed.
‘If you’ve got your passport and your credit card,’ said Bella, who had brought her up a cup of tea, ‘you don’t need to worry. You can just buy anything you need.’
‘That’s just the kind of thing I say to people,’ said Alice, accepting the mug. ‘Why is it that sort of advice is so hard to take?’
Bella shrugged and then glanced at her watch. ‘I have to go in a minute. You’ll sort it out, and have a lovely, lovely time!’
When they’d finished embracing and saying goodbye Bella felt all over again as if she was the older friend, sending the giddy girl off on an adventure. She only just managed not to say, ‘Do be careful!’
Bella was glad to have Alice’s trip to think about – something positive and happy when her own life seemed such a muddle. Seeing Alice and Michael together, obviously very much in love, had really highlighted what a poor imitation of it was shared by her and Nevil. If they’d had that slightly insane giddiness in the beginning, Bella could hardly remember it. And although she did think Nevil loved her, it was only because she was the type he needed to progress through life. She was capable and could cook. She was well spoken and had good social skills. She would never embarrass him, and Nevil could take her anywhere and be confident she would enhance his image.
But Bella needed more than that. Nevil wanting to marry her because she ticked all the boxes wasn’t enough. She wanted to be loved for other, less specific reasons. Michael loved Alice because she was Alice, not for her cooking or her house or even because she was nice to his daughter. While she couldn’t know for sure, Bella felt their body language told her this. Bella desired that for herself.
If only she could finish with Nevil now and stop pretending! But how could she find out what he was up to if she didn’t have access to the files and records at the agency? The internet was amazing, but although she’d had a look around on her laptop last night, she was no further on with her investigations.
She wished again that she had someone she could consult: Tina, or one of the other agents, perhaps? But if Nevil wasn’t doing anything wrong, it would be wrong of her to involve anyone else who worked for him. He might even be able to sue her for defamation of character or something.
Although Dominic was never far from her mind, it was only when thinking about being sued that it occurred to her he might be able to help.
She ran a quick check to make sure she wasn’t using this as an excuse to get in touch with him, and realised he could be just the person – a solicitor who was experienced in property law – and felt cheered. She’d do a bit more research herself and then ask him. Simply realising she didn’t have to deal with this entirely on her own raised her spirits, and she returned to the job in hand.
It was lovely to focus on what she knew she could do for a little while, and stop trying to be a private detective, and she decided that if she could get the Agnews settled she could leave the agency if she had to; they wouldn’t be cast adrift on the raft of other people’s lack of interest. She had a fairly off-the-wall solution and it involved Jane Langley.
Knowing she was an early riser, Bella rang Jane before she left the house. She needed to speak to her about this personally, and decided to get a meeting in the diary. She could arrange the rest of her work round it.
Jane indicated she’d be delighted to see her and promised there’d be rock cakes. They fixed a time and Bella set off for work.
Although she was a little late she was surprised to see Nevil in the main office. He seemed full of surplus energy and excitement, like a collie at an agility class, waiting for the command to leap over or under or through something.
‘Hi, darling,’ he said, obviously forgetting his own rule of not letting the office know Bella was his girlfriend – although of course everyone did.
‘Nevil.’ Bella tried to hide her dismay behind a smile. ‘Can I help you?’ Too late she realised she sounded as if she was talking to a client, not a lover.
‘Oh yes. Can you do a viewing? Now?’
‘Erm – can it wait until I’ve got myself sorted? I have only just got through the door.’
Nevil glanced at his watch, possibly drawing attention to the fact she was late. ‘Not really. They’ve come down from London and have houses to see. We can’t afford to hang around.’
‘Can’t you do it? I mean if it’s urgent,’ she added, remembering he was her boss.
‘Waiting for a phone call,’ he said.
No change there, then, thought Bella, thinking of the phone call that had interrupted them the previous evening, ignoring the fact that she’d been so grateful for it.
‘At your convenience, obviously,’ he went on, ‘but we are here to sell houses.’ His smile was a toxic combination of sarcastic and patronising.
Inside Bella wanted to scream. Last night he’d seemed to want to ingratiate himself with her. This morning he was playing the boss with a vengeance.
Any doubts she’d had about breaking off their relationship vanished. The moment the Agnews and Jane Langley were sorted and she’d got to the bottom of his shenanigans, she’d be out of there before Nevil could even see her leave. ‘Which house?’
‘You know? The one we had all that work done to and is now a little gem? Lots of interest already?’
‘Oh yes, Mrs Macey’s.’ She looked at him, ignoring the ‘we’ that indicated he had something to do with the makeover, and trying to keep her expression bland. ‘It is still for sale, is it?’
He rolled his eyes. ‘Of course it is!’
‘Then I shall get on to it instantly!’ She aimed for a smile. She couldn’t really afford to fall out with him yet, and in her heart of hearts she would have hated him to show anyone round what she considered to be one of ‘her’ houses.
Bella went to fetch the paperwork. Thinking about Mrs Macey’s home, charming but rather tucked into the hillside, made her realise a possible reason for Badger Cottage being snapped up behind everyone’s backs. It was next to a large field and, if the right permissions were granted, could be a site for a valuable little development. Was the developer of Nevil’s dream home – the one worth well over a million, and that he could get for a bargain price – the purchaser? Was this quick sale to help him?
Suddenly it was obvious. Nevil was in cahoots with a property developer, and was planning to get very rich on the proceeds. She felt sick suddenly. It was so shocking. And she’d definitely need help. Dominic was the only solicitor she could confide in. Before she could change her mind she sent him a quick email, with the link to the film of Nevil and someone digging in the dark outside Badger Cottage, and then asking if they could meet, explaining she needed his advice. She could think exactly what to say to him later.
By the time she went back into the main office Nevil had disappeared behind his closed door and her colleagues looked at her sympathetically as she made her way outside.
She loved her job; she loved finding the right houses for the right people: it was like being a matchmaker! Why did Nevil have to be so greedy? Why did he have to mess everything up? Then she felt a pang of guilt. If he did really love her though, she’d have to be a bit tactful when she broke up with him. And then find another estate agent. That was the downer, starting again, again . . .
She set off for Mrs Macey’s, wondering if what Nevil was doing was in fact illegal or merely immoral. She needed Dominic to tell her and hoped he’d get back to her soon. This whole business was really worrying.
Bella loved showing people round Mrs Macey’s cottage. She always arrived early for viewings so she could water the geraniums if necessary, and sometimes pick some flowers from the garden and put an arrangement in the sitting room. She always opened the windows to make sure there was no smell of damp. As she did these things today she wondered if she was also being dishonest. There was no damp-proof course, the cottage did need a lot of work to bring it up to modern standards, so should she just let it look like what it was: old, small and darkish? Was what she did to make it look lovely a bit underhand? She thought about it and then decided no. Her ministrations were only hints about how the cottage could be with a little investment of time and money.
‘Oh my goodness, look at that view!’ exclaimed the woman who had just got out of her car. ‘It’s amazing!’
Bella smiled. If people fell in love with the view she was halfway there.
The woman was joined by her husband. They were a couple in late middle age who, judging by their car and their clothes, were affluent and had taste. Bella just hoped they weren’t looking for a second home.
‘Hello!’ Bella said, holding out her hand. ‘You must be Mr and Mrs Truelove? I’m Bella Castle. Now come on in . . .’
When Bella finally drove away, having told the Trueloves that they must get a full structural survey and everything else negative she could think of, she knew they were determined to buy it. She felt pleased for the grumpy Mrs Macey. She was going to be thrilled – and if ‘thrilled’ wasn’t in her vocabulary of emotions, she would have to admit that the small amount of money she’d spent on dolling it up had been worthwhile. Bella glanced at her watch. She had time to get through most of her ‘to do list’ before going to see Jane Langley. She just hoped Jane would be open to the idea – however unconventional it seemed. And to her relief, Nevil was nowhere to be seen when she got back to the office. She couldn’t face him at the moment. She was so horrified about what she suspected he was up to.
Jane and Bella were sitting in their favourite spot in the garden, with a tray of tea on the rickety table, when Jane said, ‘Well, dear, lovely as it is to see you, I sense you have a purpose beyond rock cakes.’
Bella nodded. ‘Yes I have. And I’ll come straight out with it. You know you’ve been worrying about the work that needs doing on the house, where you’ll find the money, will you have to move, everything like that?’
Jane did seem a bit taken aback by this list of concerns but she nodded. ‘Ye-es.’
‘Well, I might have found the solution.’ Although Bella had intended to just say it without preamble, she found she’d stalled.
‘Which is? Apart from buying lottery tickets?’
‘That you sell part of your house. I mean divide it properly, possibly into a sort of maisonette flat, so you have most of the downstairs but the others – and I’m coming to them, I promise! – the others have a good ground-floor reception room and share the garden too.’
Jane didn’t reply, but hadn’t fainted with horror either, so Bella went boldly on. ‘Of course it would have to be with the right people, but I think I might know them.’
There was a long and agonising silence. At last Jane Langley sighed and then spoke. ‘Oh. Well, of course I had thought about this as an option, but I could never work out how it could be arranged. But your idea of a maisonette, so whoever I shared with had a decent sitting room and bedrooms, sounds encouraging. And then there’s the garden! I wouldn’t have to have a fence. I’d be happy to share it with the right people, but I’d want to be able to see it.’
Bella allowed herself to breathe. ‘You don’t need to worry about the technical stuff – I know someone who could sort all that out for you – and Dominic could do the legal part. What you need to find out is, could you bear to share your house and live with this couple? Although you would be self-contained.’
Jane nodded. ‘I think I could, although it would be vital to find the right people, especially with regard to the garden.’
‘Absolutely.’ Bella waited. Something she’d learnt as an estate agent was when to speak and when to stay silent. So many of them – Nevil for one – never grasped this.
‘Tell me a little bit about them.’
Bella resisted the temptation to say, ‘Oh, you’ll love them,’ although she was fairly sure Jane would. She knew how annoying it could be when people made this assumption. ‘Well, they’re late middle-aged but young at heart. They absolutely love the countryside, and the woman is a very keen gardener.’
Jane looked wary. ‘What sort of gardener?’
‘It is quite hard for me to say,’ said Bella honestly, ‘not actually having seen hers, but going on the gardens I’ve shown them – and there have been a few – I think their tastes are more to Alice’s and your sort of garden: lush and a bit wild, not ordered rows of bedding plants.’
‘Well, I’d have to check, of course, but I couldn’t share my garden with someone who was devoted to massed ranks of scarlet geraniums interspersed with dark blue lobelia.’
‘Actually, I’m rather fond of scarlet geraniums,’ said Bella, thinking of Mrs Macey’s pots. ‘Or should that be pelargoniums?’ Something Alice had once told her flitted into her head.
‘Technically, yes, and so am I fond of them – in their place. Lobelia too – you can get it in such a wonderfully intense blue – but not in rows.’