‘It is and they are,’ he nodded. ‘Of course it’s a complicated legal landscape; it’s true that whilst manorial rights can, for example, grant mineral rights, you can’t, of course, build a mine without planning permission, so you won’t have to worry about that happening!’
Bloody great! Harry waited for him to tell her more good news.
‘And in 2005 the law changed so that a person can’t be charged for accessing their property via common land any more, providing, naturally, they could prove they’d been using it for at least twenty years.’
‘Oh, good,’ she said, brightening up and forgetting to keep still.
‘Ah, not so fast,’ he breathed. ‘I’m afraid the problem is, as far as you’re concerned, that we’re not talking about common land. It would appear that Mr Matthew James Corrigan is indeed the rightful owner of two square miles of the foreshore and seabed surrounding what was previously the old clubhouse.’
‘No!’ Harry wailed. ‘There must be something I can do to stop him? Surely he’s just trying it on!’ Only the certain knowledge that Andrew Lawrence would gobble her up and hide what was left of her body in his safe stopped her passing out.
‘I’m afraid that under the law Mr Corrigan is perfectly entitled to protect his land against trespass; in effect, there is no right of way for vessels leaving or entering Watling’s. He has, however, offered a solution to your predicament; in the first instance Mr Corrigan is willing to grant access across his land in return for an annual rent.’
Harry could feel the blood draining from her face as she thought of all the money that had gone on advertising. ‘We’re stretched to the limit as it is.’
Fortunately Andrew Lawrence suddenly seemed to lose interest in her as a tasty snack and focused on his unknown adversary. ‘Naturally,’ he said, crisply, ‘meeting his demand for rent will be our very last course of action.’
‘That should be easy,’ she said, ‘because I haven’t got any money.’
The black eyes snapped up at her. Did his tongue flick out as well? ‘Um, except for what I’ve allowed to settle your account,’ she added hastily and inaccurately.
‘Miss Watling, the point is not whether or not you have the means, but about verifying Mr Corrigan’s claim. If we open negotiations about the sum Mr Corrigan is demanding, he may well come back to us with a new offer; say, to lease the land to you at a peppercorn rent. On the surface this might seem to you to offer a quick and easy way out of this difficult situation, but would mean in effect that you recognise him as your landowner.’
‘But that’s outrageous!’ said Harry. ‘What’s the other solution?’
‘That you sell the land up to the boat yard to him at the market rate and in return you’ll be granted access rights in perpetuity.’
‘Isn’t there anything else I can do?’
‘Well you can wait until such time, under the Land Reform Acts, as these rights lose their overriding status.’
She shook her head. ‘I can’t believe we’re having this conversation. Why hasn’t something been done about this stuff? It’s completely anachronistic. Do I get anything out of it?’
Andrew Lawrence just looked at her.
‘Okay, so Matthew Corrigan can just waltz in and use some ancient rights for his own gain and his own business opportunities. Nothing else involved, is there? Do I have to fight crusades for him or give him my firstborn child?’
Five years. Five years of back-breaking slog and sacrifice, only to have it snatched away. Surely that wasn’t possible? Her body had started to believe it; she could feel her heart pounding and her breathing becoming shorter. Even Andrew Lawrence was looking at her with a trace of compassion.
‘These remnants of feudal law do cause uncertainty, but, unfortunately for you, what Mr Corrigan is attempting to do is entirely legal. We do, however, have a small window of opportunity. It would appear that, as a goodwill gesture, and allowing for the fact you have staff whose needs also have to be considered, Mr Corrigan has given you six weeks’ grace before he takes any action. I need hardly tell you, Miss Watling, that this period could prove to be invaluable to us if we can find evidence to dispute Mr Corrigan’s claim.’
‘Like?’
‘Something to prove that a subsequent lord of the manor, sometime after Percy Campion, gave up his rights over the foreshore.’
Harry felt ill; she was doomed. ‘Where am I supposed to find that?’
‘I will pursue my own inquiries,’ he told her. ‘And in the meantime you might usefully go through every piece of existing paperwork, even to boxes in attics, to see what you can find.’
Fear was making her hysterical. ‘What? Just in case we’ve got any old scrolls of our own kicking around, I suppose.’ Couldn’t he give her something easier to do, like a grail quest?
‘Miss Watling,’ he warned her, ‘I can only hold off the inevitable for so long. Without evidence to the contrary, Mr Matthew James Corrigan is your legal landlord.’
Over my dead body, thought Harry. Or, if I’m very lucky, his.
Chapter Eleven
As the summer evenings drew out Harry liked to work late, making the most of the available light. But when George went to take her a mug of tea, the shed where he expected to find her was unusually quiet. For a moment he pictured her on the beach having fun, like the hard-up students from Great Spitmarsh Further Education College. On days when it wasn’t dull, grey and cold, they found any excuse to head to the coast to play games and light portable barbecues.
Sometimes George tried to imagine Harry at home with a family. After all, his own mother had had a fair brood by her age. But this scenario seemed particularly unlikely. As he climbed the wooden ladder beside the boat she was refitting, he could see why. Harry was determined to leave no room in her life for anything but the business; and she was working herself to the bone to prove it.
The topsides she was working on forgotten, Harry was curled up on one of the narrow cockpit benches, fast asleep. George was inclined to creep back down and leave her to it, but he was shocked at how vulnerable she seemed. She’d always been small, like her mother, but he was dismayed at how thin her face looked. Without the almost permanent scowl she wore these days, she seemed much younger too, as if in sleep she could slough off the worry she carried around with her all day. Maeve was one of those women whose beauty drew lingering glances wherever she went, but catching her daughter off guard like this made him realise that Harry was quite a looker too. What a damn shame it was all wasted.
Heaving himself on deck, George swirled the tea round to disperse the slight skin that had formed and plonked the mug, celebrating the nuptials of Fergie and Andrew, down beside her. ‘’Bout time you got yerself some early nights,’ he muttered.
Harry groaned and rubbed her eyes. ‘I want to get this done before I turn in.’
‘What’s the bleedin’ rush?’ he said. ‘Ain’t nobody gonna die in a ditch about it. There’s no Stelios whassisface waiting for it, just some whingeing skinflint who probably won’t pay up ’til the middle of next year. You’re gonna make yerself ill going on like this.’
Harry put on her stubborn face. ‘There’s no one else to do it.’
‘Same’ll be true when you collapse with exhaustion. Now you don’t need a straw to see the way the wind’s blowin’ here, so you’re gonna have to get some help.’
She was her father’s daughter all right. Worryingly so, sometimes. George made sure he had her full attention. ‘I’m told there’s a bit of a do over at Sam–– the restaurant tonight,’ he said, correcting himself quickly before she realised it was Matthew who had spoken to him.
Harry opened her mouth and he motioned for her to shut it. ‘Just ’old yer ’orses, will you? Pre-publicity, so I’ve ’eard. Now you’ve only got to take a look at what’s going on to see there’s a lot of money involved. If you want some of the cash to find its way over ’ere, you’ve got to make some changes. You should ’ave thought of that before wasting money on
advertising. You don’t want no more riff-raff ’ere, you want quality.
‘Times is changing, Miss Harriet, whether you like it or not, so why not make it easier for yourself? Why don’t you have a word with your mother? She and that new ’usband of hers have made a tidy sum through that business of theirs, and she could afford to put some of it in your direction.’
‘What?’ Harry looked up from her tea. ‘And let her think that, after all those years of turning away, she can simply buy her way back?’
‘Whoa, whoa, whoa! Just a minute, young lady. All right, she don’t win no prizes for being Mother of the Year, but you’d be cutting off yer nose to spite yer face to refuse it. Think of the difference it would make to the cash-flow problems.’
‘Tell you what, George. I will phone Mum, but not to ask about money, she can’t just pay me off to salve her conscience. There’s something much more important I need to find out. Actually, you might be able to help too.’
He tried to tell himself to relax, but his sixth sense was kicking in, ordering him to get away as fast as he could. He backed towards the ladder, but Harry hadn’t finished.
‘George? You’ve got some of Dad’s stuff, haven’t you?’
Willing himself to act normally, he set one trembling foot on the ladder. ‘One or two bits, Miss Harriet.’
‘Well, that might be a start. You wouldn’t mind digging it out for me, would you, George?’
Both feet on without a hitch. ‘Don’t know as I’ve got anything of value, Miss Harriet, it’s just sentimental stuff.’
Harry laughed. ‘Relax! I wasn’t thinking of putting it on eBay. I’m just interested in something that might have happened in the past.’
He clung to the bottom of the ladder, glad she couldn’t see his face. That was exactly what he was afraid of.
Singing along with the Scissor Sisters, Frankie eyed himself appreciatively in the mirror as he worked styling wax into his hair.
‘Gorgeous!’ agreed Trevor, tucking his black tee shirt into distressed jeans. ‘Those orchids are going to open at exactly the right time, aren’t they? I think we should be really proud; our designs are going to look fabulous. Everything’s arrived on time and we don’t have any last-minute panics to worry about either.’
‘Your designs, Trev, you’re the one with the all the creative flair. I’m just going to make sure that your work is noticed – when this article gets published I want you to get the recognition you deserve.’
‘Maybe,’ said Trevor, spritzing himself with aftershave, ‘but I don’t think anyone’s going to be looking at a few flowers once all the models turn up. Illicit weekends, indeed. Talking of which, that Gina looks a handful, doesn’t she? No wonder Matthew’s been looking a bit stressed.’
‘Not half as stressed as Harry will look when she sees the competition.’ Frankie tore his gaze away from himself for a moment. ‘Poor girl doesn’t stand a chance against that! Here, Trevor, I don’t think we should tell Harry what we’re doing tonight, do you?’
Trevor shuddered. ‘You can, if you like, but I’m not brave enough.’
Sulking behind the linen curtain, Kirstie did a puddle on the floor and looked at the pair of them reproachfully. No one was taking the slightest interest in her. It was really too bad.
Against his better judgement, Matthew had persuaded himself that Lola could be an asset to his service staff. It wasn’t much, but with looks like that who knew what opportunities might open up for her. She wasn’t the sort to offer a smile to the customers, but who cared? Having watched her working the bar at the Spitmarsh Yacht Club regatta, he knew how electrifying she was in action. At the very least she’d got some training; heck, he’d even gone as far as taking her there because of the transport difficulties. And when Gina had floated this preposterous idea for her bloody magazine, one of his first thoughts was how great it would be for Lola to be involved. There wasn’t a lot in the way of glamour and excitement for a nineteen-year-old in Little Spitmarsh. So when he’d looked round the room earlier and realised she hadn’t turned up, he had been bitterly disappointed. The one thing he hoped would have been drummed into her was that she was expected to arrive on time; but it looked as if he’d been mistaken.
Having first checked to make certain she was really missing and not lurking in the Ladies with stage fright, Matthew hissed through his teeth and dragged out his car keys. Slamming the door, he started the engine and screeched away, sending pebbles flying. What really stuck in his throat was that Lola had the audacity to let him down. Lola Moult could take the piss out of everyone else but she wasn’t going to do it to him.
Striding up Bella Vista’s gangplank with enough force to cause the deck to shake, Matthew thought grimly that it wouldn’t exactly come as a shock for Lola to find him at the door. It was no surprise, therefore, that she had sent her father to receive him instead. Interesting that the houseboat was built from a decommissioned torpedo boat, because Matthew sensed a battle ahead.
‘She ain’t coming, mate,’ Roy sneered.
For a second, Matthew admired the Brylcreemed quiff shining fixed and proud on Roy’s skull; but then his anger got the better of him. ‘Let her come and tell me herself, then.’
‘Hey! Are you deaf? She’s not coming, right?’ Roy said, jabbing his finger at Matthew. ‘And you’ve got a bloody cheek turning up here. After what you’ve been doing with our girl behind our backs, you’re lucky not to get a right hook, mate.’
‘And I thought you were a decent boy!’ accused Carmen, squeezing through.
Matthew wouldn’t have thought there was room for Carmen and her twins in the doorway as well as Roy. As it was, he thought, eyeing Carmen’s heaving sequinned cleavage warily, the twins seemed to be making a bid for escape.
‘Mr Corrigan! I’m here. They won’t let me go!’ said a voice at the back.
Great, he was supposed to be taking the lead at his restaurant – not playing a bit part in an episode of The Sopranos. ‘Right’, he said, taking the plunge into a mountain of Moult flesh. ‘Will someone tell me what’s going on?’
Harry had been unable to resist George’s invitation to take a look at what was happening over at the restaurant, now proudly displaying its name on a fashionably understated sign. She adjusted the outboard engine and followed the meandering current along Campion’s Creek. In any other circumstances it would have been a beautiful evening. Thin white clouds like ostrich feathers fanned the duck-egg sky and the warm air rang with the piping calls of wading birds, but she was too conscious of Matthew’s restaurant rising above the water before her to enjoy it. How long would it be before these unspoilt and simple pleasures were eclipsed by the tinny ringing of mobile phones and the hooting of Up-From-Londoners?
What a pity George had gone to ground, or else she could have told him exactly where his advice had got her. Harry had phoned her mother, not for financial assistance, but to see if she could shed any light on the likely whereabouts of any old paperwork.
‘Harry,’ Maeve sighed, shutting down as she always did when Harry tried to talk about her father. ‘I didn’t need any physical mementos of the past. My memories of the good times are what’s important to me.’
No one could accuse Maeve of being sentimental. She’d redistributed her husband’s belongings shortly after his death. His clothes went to charity shops, his weightier books to the local library and George inherited the lighter reads and travel yarns. As for his daughter and his business, Maeve had abandoned those as soon as possible. Little wonder she didn’t hang on to paperwork. Oh, Maeve had been good at decluttering all right.
‘Why the sudden interest anyway, Harry? Just what are you hoping to find?’
Harry thought fast. It didn’t help that she was afraid to be too explicit about the legal stranglehold Matthew could have over her. There was too much of a risk of it getting back to George and the less George knew of what was at stake the better. Silly old sod that he was at times, he’d been looking very fragile lately. Harry d
idn’t need him troubled by something that, with a bit of diligence and a lot of luck, he would never need to know about.
For some reason Jimi Tan sprang to mind. ‘No reason, really. Just that a guy turned up at the boat yard recently who thought Dad still owned the place. It reminded me that it was about time I did something about putting all the paperwork in one place.’
It sounded a bit flimsy. Maeve apparently thought so too.
‘Your dad? What did he want to know about him? Everyone in Little Spitmarsh knows the history of the business.’
‘Oh, he wasn’t local. He was a young guy, a couple of years older than me. Something to do with the restaurant. Quite nice-looking actually, a really stunning combination of Asian and European features. Hey? Maybe he’s got designs on my assets?’
Maeve didn’t seem to think it likely from her silence. For a moment Harry thought she’d lost the connection and, when Maeve spoke again, there was an urgency in her voice that suggested she had something more important to do.
‘Harry, have you thought any more about selling some land to that property developer?’
Ah, same old Maeve, get rid of the problem.
‘Perhaps redevelopment is the answer if you’re determined to keep the yard. You could clear the debts and have the satisfaction of owning the place outright. If you’re struggling with legal fees, Don and I can probably help you out. Why don’t you approach the developer and see if you can come to an arrangement that will suit both of you?’
No point in telling her mother that it was far too late for that. Harry was feeling too disappointed to prolong the conversation, but at least one possible source of evidence had been eliminated; Maeve certainly wasn’t sitting on any documents from the past. Maeve’s offhand dismissal of her previous life could be really painful, Harry thought, before reminding herself that she was trying to take her mind off her problems, not add to them.
Having illegally crossed Matthew’s land to check the moorings, she went to secure one of the lines. A bruised fingertip later, and sprayed with slime in the process of stripping mucilaginous threads of seaweed, she found it easy to pretend that the changes on her doorstep weren’t really happening.
Turning the Tide Page 10