She came to the spot for the pergola and she wrinkled her nose. The pergola needed to be set in and then the climbers added, and it would be complete. Then she could put in the final invoice and say goodbye—relatively unscathed—to Mr Jonas Keane. She took a deep breath and made her way back to the house.
There was an uncomfortable wait of quarter of an hour before Jonas walked through the door. As he opened the door, he checked slightly as he saw Sam. A slow smile spread across his face. Sam stared back.
At the same time, the phone began to ring.
“Excuse me, that’s the office. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Jonas said, a frown between his brows as he looked at Sam. He disappeared into the study.
“Is everything ok?” Magda asked again. “I heard about Jessop’s Field and I’m really sorry—you must be very disappointed.”
Sam closed her eyes briefly.
“Yes, we are. We’re thinking about an appeal to the CEO, in fact I have a letter here.”
Magda looked puzzled. “Are you hoping to get some advice from Dad about it?”
Sam stared. She doesn’t know. He hasn’t told her she thought.
“Yes. Yes, I am.”
Lisbeth was looking at her closely. She made to say something, but Sam shook her head slightly and she kept quiet. At last the girls, looking at her curiously, disappeared upstairs.
Sam could hear Jonas’ voice on the phone, and he sounded sharp and angry. She stared mindlessly into space and it must have been a few minutes before she registered the silence from the study. She stood up just as Jonas came through the door.
“Could I have a word?” she said.
Jonas motioned her into the study and closed the door. The air in the room smelled of him and Sam felt it wrap round her like a scarf. He looked at her, eyebrows raised in question.
“I wondered if I could give you this letter,” Sam said, feeling in her pocket and drawing out the envelope. He looked at his name and title, and his eyes closed briefly.
“Sam, I can explain—”
“Save your breath. Of all the disreputable, sneaky, underhand, shitty stunts to pull. When were you going to tell me? Or were you hoping to have sex with me before you did?”
Jonas stilled as though she'd slapped him. “Listen, it's complicated, but I was going to tell you who I was when I saw you tomorrow.”
“Oh, I bet you were! No wonder you wanted to know all about the campaign! And it was hardly surprising you wouldn’t give us any advice—after all, why would you help us beat you?”
“It wasn’t like that—give me strength...” He grabbed her shoulders and pushed her into a chair. “Now shut up and listen to me. I have five minutes before our press office calls me again to try to repair the damage done by bloody Tyler Fairchild. I'm sorry I wasn't upfront about who I was, and I was going to tell you. My company was a silent partner in this programme and we weren't happy with the development, either its content or its position—we don't work that way, and if you don't believe me, have another look at our website!” he added quickly, as Sam opened her mouth to speak. “I have been ill with a virus and I was ordered to stay off work for six months, so I've not been able to keep an eye on the project as I normally would. I kept my presence here a secret because—as I'm sure you'll see when you watch the financial news tonight—a company without a CEO at the helm is vulnerable to market rumours and takeovers.”
He drew a breath as Sam said nothing. “I realise you're disappointed—”
“Disappointed?” she cried. “Bloody betrayed is a better word! And from the look of Magda when I arrived, you haven’t told her about the development either, did you?” she added shrewdly. She saw the colour stain his cheeks. “So does she think you’re in this house because you wanted to give her more time in the country? Jeez, you’re a real piece of work, aren’t you?”
“Sam--” Jonas grabbed her arm as she turned to go. “Please, I don’t have time for this now, I need to sort the mess with the markets and the press--but surely, you can’t think I wanted a relationship with you because of a bloody planning decision? I can barely keep my hands off you!”
She looked at his green eyes and could feel herself swaying towards him. She stiffened and shook off his hand.
“You’re about to drive bulldozers through my childhood and you bloody lied to me about who you were. You encouraged me to talk and like an idiot, I did. What did you do about that little morsel of information about the bats, I wonder? Or the independent councillor?”
“No-one knew about our conversations!”
“Yeah, I bet. I don’t trust you, whoever I thought you were—you’re not that person. I don’t know you.” Her voice broke.
The phone rang and Jonas started towards her. She backed away to the door and opened it.
“You’d better get that. I’ll see myself out.”
He cursed as the phone continued to ring. He ignored it.
He pinched the bridge of his nose wearily. “Don’t leave like this, Sam. We could be good together, I know it.”
She shook her head and left, in tears.
25
Sam awoke with a start. She glanced at the clock. It was just past two in the morning. Then she heard the tinkle of glass from somewhere downstairs and froze, catching her breath. Her heartbeat speeded up and she threw back the covers and grabbed her robe. Struggling into it, she walked softly over to her bedroom door and listened. Nothing. Outside, a car roared away and she ran to the window in time to see its rear lights around the corner of the lane. She thought it looked like a Volvo, something chunky. It was too dark to see much more.
She went back to the door and discretion getting the better part of valour, she picked up her phone from the chest of drawers and dialled 999.
“Which service do you require?”
“Police, please,” she whispered.
“What? You’ll have to speak up, I can’t hear you,”
Sam went into the ensuite and closed the door.
“I want the police. I think someone’s broken into my house and they’re downstairs,” she said, as loudly as she dared.
“Where are you now?”
“In the ensuite upstairs.”
“Please hold the line.”
Sam heard the connection go through with half an ear as she strained to catch any noise from downstairs. It was completely quiet, and all she could hear was the blood pounding in her ears.
A policewoman, calm and steady, came on the line and asked for details. Sam gave her name and address in a shaky whisper.
“You’re in the ensuite, yes? Stay there and lock the door. Put your phone onto vibrate, not an audible ring. We’ll be with you as soon as we can.”
Sam shut off the call and shivered in her dressing gown, despite the warmth of the night. She locked the door, put the seat down on the loo and sat down in the darkness, hoping that whoever was downstairs would stay there. Her mind raced, thinking of how strong the old cottage doors were, whether the lock on the bathroom door would hold if anyone pushed at it. The minutes ticked past.
Her phone vibrated and she answered, her hands shaking.
“Is this Sam Winterson? This is Inspector Williams, we’re just drawing up outside now. Stay where you are, and I’ll come upstairs. When I do, you ask my name before you open the door, ok?”
Sam nodded, realised he couldn’t see that and said “OK”.
A few minutes later, there was a knock at the door.
“Who is it?” she said, her voice croaky.
“This is Inspector Williams,” a firm voice said. She opened the door and burst into tears at the sight of the young, uniformed man waiting outside. A female police officer came forward and took her arm.
“Now then, it’s all right,” the woman said soothingly. “You haven’t been broken into, someone’s chucked a brick through your window. Have you got shoes or slippers? Put something on your feet so they don’t get cut, there’s glass all over the floor.”
Insp
ector Williams led the way downstairs. Sam blinked at the lights, but also at the mess on her rug.
Broken glass, and a large house brick with something wrapped around it. The brick had also caught a photograph and a vase of roses, so the rug was strewn with rose stems and ruined petals and was soaking. Sam exclaimed and rushed to get a dustpan and brush.
“Hang on, we’ll need to get forensics on this,” Inspector Williams said, reaching out a hand to stop her.
“On a brick?” Sam asked. The policewoman nodded.
“You’d be surprised what information we can get off the weirdest stuff. You just sit down while we wait for the forensics team to arrive. I’ll make you some tea, you look like you need it. Kettle over here?” Sam nodded and she sat on a chair, staring at the brick, the glass, greenery and broken crockery.
The inspector spoke into his radio, saying something Sam didn’t catch. A thought struck her.
“How did you get in?”
The policeman grimaced.
“Your lock isn’t very secure. I got in with my credit card.”
“What?”
He sighed.
“Let me show you.” He demonstrated how easy it was to flick the lock while Sam gaped in horror.
“These old-fashioned locks don’t really cut it any more with modern burglars. In some ways, it’s a miracle that you haven’t been broken into before now!”
Now THAT’S comforting for a single woman at three in the morning, thought Sam.
“I’ll send you a leaflet on making your home more secure before we leave, but now I need to ask you some questions.” The policewoman thrust a mug of tea into Sam’s hand and shakily, she took a sip. It was strong, the usual remedy for shock, and too sweet even for Sam’s taste. Sam forced herself to take another drink before putting it down.
Inspector Williams’ questions were short and simple. When had she first been woken up? What had she heard? What had she seen? Did she see a number plate on the car? He sighed when Sam couldn’t recall much about the car and commented that there wasn’t much CCTV to check against on her road. The forensics officer arrived and opening a briefcase, began to dust white powder over the brick and the string. He took photographs of the brick in its position and the smashed window. Then he undid the string around the paper and pulled it open. In large childish handwriting were the words:
BITCH. YOU HAVE ENEMYS IN THIS VILLAGE.
Sam stared at the black, spidery words and tried for lightness.
“I may have enemies, but they can’t spell.”
“Any reason why you might have enemies in the village?” asked the policewoman.
Sam shook her head and then thought about the planning application.
“I objected to the development on Jessop’s Field, and my name is on all the posters. It would be easy to find out where I lived, I’ve been in the village a long time.”
“You run your dad’s business, don’t you?” asked Inspector Williams. Sam nodded.
“I’ve read about the development in the paper,” commented the policewoman, scribbling notes. “There was a lot of bad feeling against the protests, people need the homes.”
“There was also a lot of bad feeling against the development running over Green Belt land,” snapped Sam. “But surely because I disagree with the decision isn’t a good enough reason to lob a brick through my window!”
“No, of course not, we’re not saying it is,” said Inspector Williams, throwing a glance at his colleague. “And we’ve had a number of calls about similar incidents over the past couple of evenings.”
“You have?”
“Yes, other members of the…action group…seem to have been targeted,” said Inspector Williams, looking through his notebook. “Desmond Black, a Miss Susan Miles and a Mrs Dorothy Pratchett. Either unpleasant things through their letterboxes or damage to vehicles.”
“Good God! They’ve done this to Miss Miles? And Mrs Pratchett? That’s dreadful! They’re elderly women! They must have been terrified!”
“Yes, we’re giving the ladies additional protection—we’ve increased patrols in the area.”
“What’s happened to Desmond?”
“Someone keyed his car.”
Sam put her head in her hands and groaned. Desmond’s car was a vintage Jag, his absolute pride and joy.
“Oh my God. Desmond will practically be in mourning,” she said. She looked up. “Do you have any idea who this might be? Because I can make some suggestions, if not! There was a lot of threatening behaviour at the planning meeting, and although I don’t know the names, I can certainly find out!”
Inspector Williams held up his hand.
“Yes, we have a number of names and we are following several lines of enquiry.”
The forensics officer asked if he could take the brick and paper away, and Inspector Williams nodded. He turned to Sam, snapping shut his black notebook.
“Now, Ms Winterson, I suggest you call an emergency glazier to come and sort out your window. We’ll be in touch if there are further developments.”
“But you don’t think you’ll be able to find the bastards that did this, do you?” Sam said, all the fight suddenly going out of her.
“We’ll be doing our best, but resources are stretched in the county,” said the policewoman. The inspector nodded and gave Sam a sympathetic smile.
When they left, it felt suddenly very quiet. She changed into sweats and a tee-shirt, flicked through some names on the internet for emergency glaziers and called one. Gingerly she picked up the roses and cleared up the broken crockery and the largest of the glass shards.
It was nearing dawn two hours later when she finally crawled back into her cold bed, wrung out and sick at heart.
Sam slumped on her sofa. She’d had too much wine, but she didn’t care. After the day she’d had…She’d been aghast at the cost of having new locks fitted, the glazier who’d come to repair the window had cost her a small fortune.
And as if the newspapers hadn’t covered the planning decision enough, now she was faced with Jonas on the TV. Startled, Sam gazed at the television and watched Jonas’s grave face in conversation with an acerbic brunette interviewer. The interviewer was giving him a rough ride, Sam reflected, pummelling him with questions about how a sustainable company with Halcyon’s reputation could build on Green Belt land, how they could go into business with a company that had such a poor sustainability record. He was well-drilled, she thought cynically. He looked also tired.
“We’re looking at the site again and giving full consideration to the comments of the local people,” he said in his deep voice. “Halcyon builds homes that are good for the local community—and this doesn’t mean just those who buy our houses. If there is a problem with the site from the perspective of other residents, we’ll do our best to address those—”
“So does this mean you’ll move the development?” interrupted the interviewer.
“Possibly. We need to talk to the local authority first.”
“Won’t this have an impact on the price? Surely the residents want houses that are affordable? Your company tends to build houses which are—by UK standards at least—quite expensive.”
“We’ll need to look at the plans,” Jonas repeated.
“And does this U-turn have anything to do with the fact that you live in the area and don’t want to spoil your own view?”
Jonas’ face was like stone.
“If you have a look at other developments we’ve done, you’ll see this is standard practice for my company,” he said.
And finally, why had he misled the markets by not informing them of his illness and absence?
“Did we mislead them?” he said, smiling at the interviewer for the first time, who seemed to soften. “No, I took some time away while my extremely efficient staff managed without me for a while. I was in constant contact with my deputy and if you’ve been watching Halcyon for the last three months, you’ll see we’ve closed a number of property deals and w
e’re on track with the strategy I announced last year.”
“But the project with Anglo Homes seems to have gone badly wrong, without your involvement, don’t you agree? Was it just luck that nothing else went wrong?”
“The relationship between Anglo Homes and Halcyon was very new—there were bound to be a few hiccups—”
“You call a ten percent drop in your share price a hiccup, Mr Keane?”
“Actually, the fall in the share price was more to do with the media view that I was at death’s door, rather than the development,” he responded. He spread his hands and smiled again. “Reports of my demise have been greatly exaggerated.”
The interviewer smirked at him.
“So I see. That’s all we have time for, thank you Jonas Keane.”
Sam switched off the TV and reached for the wine bottle and tipped the dregs into her glass. Her eyes caught the glitter of a shard of glass on her wooden floor and her feet sought her slippers.
The phone rang and she spent a minute locating it in the cushions of the sofa. Amanda burbled at her.
“Sam? How are you? Have you got the window fixed? And have you been watching the telly?”
“I’m fine, yes, the window is fixed and yes, I was just watching the interview.”
“How are you feeling?”
“About the window? Mad as hellfire.”
Sam took the phone into the kitchen to search out another bottle of wine.
“And what about the interview? Did you hear him say he was going to change the plans?”
Sam focused.
“No, I heard him say he would think about posh-possibly addressing some of our concerns.”
“I think that sounds hopeful! Perhaps he responded to the letter?”
“Maybe. Presumably he’ll invite Desmond to any dis-discussions when he gets around to it.”
Amanda was silent for a beat.
“Are you a teeny bit pissed, Sam?”
“A teeny tiny bit.”
Amanda sighed.
“You could be wrong about him, you know. Not all businessmen are bastards. I’ve been looking at old press coverage—I think he’s one of the good guys, he’s been involved in all kinds of environmental initiatives, the company is putting loads of money into new engineering processes for sustainable housing—”
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