was a brief pause, then a very subdued Chris came on the line. Her voice sounded like she’d been crying. ‘Kate? Oh God, I can’t believe this is happening to us. I just don’t understand it, any of it.’ Then she proceeded to repeat everything Alexis had already told me.
I listened patiently, then said, ‘What was the name of the solicitor’s you went to see in Ramsbottom?’
‘Chapman and Gardner. I spoke to the conveyancing partner, Tim Pascoe. I asked him the name of the person who had sold the land, but he wouldn’t tell me. So I said, was it T. R. Harris, and he gave me one of those lawyer’s looks and said he couldn’t comment, only he said it in that kind of way that means yes, you’re right.’
I looked at the names I’d scribbled on my pad. ‘So who exactly is T. R. Harris?’
‘T. R. Harris is the builder who was supposedly selling the land to us.’ There was a note of exasperation in her voice, which I couldn’t help feeling was a bit unfair. After all, I’m not a fully paid up member of the Psychic Society.
‘And your solicitor is?’
‘Martin Cheetham.’ She rattled off the address and phone number.
‘He your usual solicitor?’ I asked.
‘No. He specializes in conveyancing. One of the hacks on the Chronicle was interviewing him about how the new conveyancing protocol is working out, and they got talking, and they got on to the topic of builders catching a cold because they’d bought land speculatively and the bottom had fallen out of the market, and this hack said how one of his colleagues, i.e. Alexis, was looking for a chunk big enough for ten people to do a self-build scheme, and Cheetham said he knew of a colleague who had a client who was a builder who had just the thing, so we went to see Cheetham, and he said this T. R. Harris had bought this land and couldn’t afford to develop it himself so he was selling it off.’ Chris talks in sentences longer than the law lords.
‘And did you ever meet this builder?’
‘Of course. T. R. Harris, call me Tom, Mr Nice Guy. He met us all out there, walked the land out with us, divided it up into plots and gave us this sob story about how desperate he was to keep his business afloat, how he had half a dozen sites where the workers were depending on him to pay their wages, so could we please see our way to coughing up five thousand apiece as a deposit to secure the land, otherwise he was going to have to keep on trying to find other buyers, which would be a real pity since it obviously suited our needs so well and he liked the idea of the land being used for a self-build if only because he wouldn’t have the heartache of watching some other builder make a nice little earner out of such a prime site that he’d been really sick to have to let go. He was so convincing, Kate, it never crossed our minds that he was lying, and he obviously fooled Cheetham as well. Can you do something?’ I couldn’t ignore the pleading note in her voice, even supposing I’d wanted to.
‘I don’t really understand what’s happened, but of course I’ll do what I can to help. At the very least, we should be able to get your money back, though I think you’ll have to kiss goodbye to that particular piece of land.’
Chris groaned. ‘Don’t, Kate. I know you’re right, but I really don’t want to think about it, we’d set our hearts on that site, it was just perfect, and I’d already got this really clear picture in my mind’s eye of what the houses were going to look like.’ I could imagine. Eat your heart out, Portmeirion.
‘I’ll take a look at it tomorrow, promise. But I need something from you. You’ll have to give me a couple of letters of authority so that your solicitor and anybody else official will talk to me. Could Alexis drop them off on her way to work tomorrow morning?’
We sorted out the details of what the letters should say, and I only had to listen to the tale once more before I managed to get off the phone. Then, of course, I had to go through it all for Richard.
‘Somebody’s been bang out of order here,’ he said, outraged. He summed up my feelings exactly. It was the next bit I wasn’t so happy about. ‘You’re going to have to get this one sorted out double urgent, aren’t you?’
Sometimes, it’s hard to escape the feeling that the whole world’s ganging up on you.
I gave Alexis her second shock of the week next morning when she dropped off the letters of authority. It was just before seven when I heard her key in my front door. Her feet literally left the floor when she walked through the kitchen doorway and saw me sitting on a high stool with a glass of orange juice.
‘Shit!’ she yelled. I thought her black hair was standing on end with fright till I realized I was just unfamiliar with how untamed it looks first thing. She runs a hand through it approximately twice a minute. By late afternoon, it usually manages to look less like it’s been dragged through a hedge backwards then sideways.
‘Ssh,’ I admonished her. ‘You’ll wake Sleeping Beauty.’
‘You’re up!’ she exclaimed. ‘Not only are you up, your mouth’s moving. Hold the front page!’
‘Very funny. I can do mornings when I have to,’ I said defensively. ‘I happen to have a breakfast meeting.’
‘Excuse me while I vomit,’ Alexis muttered. ‘I can’t take yuppies without a caffeine inoculation. And I see that being conscious hasn’t stretched to making a pot of coffee.’
‘I’m saving myself for the Portland,’ I said. ‘Help yourself to an instant. It’s still better than that muck they serve in your canteen.’ I plucked the letters from her hand, tucked them in my bag and left her deliberating between the Blend 37 and the Alta Rica.
Josh was already deep in the Financial Times when I got to the Portland, even though I was four minutes early. Eyeing him up across the restaurant in his immaculate dark blue suit, gleaming white shirt and strident silk tie, I was glad I’d taken the trouble to get suited up myself in my Marks & Spencer olive green with a cream high-necked blouse. Very businesslike. He was too engrossed to notice till I was standing between the light and his paper.
He tore himself away from the mating habits of multinational companies and gave me the hundred-watt smile, all twinkles, dimples and sincerity. It makes Robert Redford, whom he resembles slightly, look like an amateur. I’m convinced Josh developed it in front of the mirror for susceptible female clients, and now it’s become a habit whenever a woman comes within three feet of him. The charm comes without patronage, however. He’s one of those men who doesn’t have a problem with the notion that women are equals. Except the ones he has relationships with. Them he treats like brainless bimbos. This makes for a quick turnover, since the ones who have a brain can’t take it for more than a couple of months, and the ones who haven’t bore him rigid after six weeks.
In spite of keeping his emotions in his underpants, when it comes to business he’s one of the best financial consultants in Manchester. He’s a walking database on anything relating to insurance, investments, trust funds, tax shelters and the Financial Services Act. Anything he doesn’t know, he knows where to find out. We met when I was still a law student, eking out my grant by doing odd jobs for Bill. My first ever undercover was in Josh’s office, posing as a temp to track down the person who was using the computer to divert one pound out of each client account into his own unit trust account. Because our relationship started on a professional footing, Josh never
