“I had a catalog for walk-in baths,” says Ron. “You want to tell me why you’re asking?”
“You know me, Dad; they’re always after something.”
“How exciting,” says Joyce.
“See you both,” says Jason, leaving. “Don’t get drunk and smash the place up.”
Joyce turns her face up to the sun and closes her eyes. “Well, isn’t this lovely, Ron? I never knew I liked beer. Imagine if I’d died at seventy. I never would have known.”
“Cheers to that, Joyce,” says Ron, and polishes off his drink. “What do you reckon’s up with Jason?”
“Probably a woman,” says Joyce. “You know what we’re like.”
Ron nods. “Probably, yeah.” He watches his son depart into the distance. He’s worried. But then there’s never been a day with Jason, whether in the ring or out, when Ron hasn’t worried.
9.
The consultation went well. Ian Ventham is no longer worried about the Woodlands; it’s a done deal. The loud guy from the meeting? He’d met his type before. Let him blow himself out. He had also seen a priest at the back of the room. What was that? The cemetery, he guessed, but it was all above board, he had all the permits. Let them try to stop him.
And sacking Tony Curran? Well, he hadn’t taken it well, but he hadn’t killed him, either. Advantage, Ian.
So Ian Ventham is already thinking ahead. After the Woodlands is up and running, there will be another, final phase of the development, Hillcrest. He has driven the five minutes up a rough track from Coopers Chase, and is now sitting in the country kitchen of Karen Playfair. Her father, Gordon, owns the farmland at the top of the hill, adjoining Coopers Chase, and he seems in no mood to sell. No matter, Ian has his ways.
“I’m afraid nothing has changed, Ian,” says Karen Playfair. “My dad won’t sell, and I can’t make him.”
“I hear you,” says Ian. “He wants more money.”
“No,” says Karen, “I think he just doesn’t like you.”
Gordon Playfair had taken one look at Ian Ventham and disappeared upstairs. Ian could hear him stomping about, proving whatever point he was proving. Who cared? Sometimes people didn’t like Ian. He has never quite worked out why, but over the years has learned to live with it. Certainly it was their problem. Gordon Playfair was just another in a long line of people who didn’t get him.
“But listen, leave it with me,” says Karen. “I’ll find a way through. It’ll work for everyone.”
Karen Playfair gets him. He has been talking her through the sort of money she could expect if she persuades her dad to sell up. Her sister and brother-in-law have their own business, organic raisins in Brighton, and Ian has already tried this line on them and failed. Karen Playfair is a much better bet. She lives alone in a cottage on the land, and she works in IT, which you can tell just by looking at her. She is wearing makeup, but in a subtle, understated way that Ian honestly can’t see the point of.
He wonders exactly when Karen had given up on life and started wearing long, baggy sweaters and trainers. And you’d think, given that she works in IT, she could have googled “Botox.” She must be fifty, Ian thinks, same age as him. Different for women, though.
Ian is on a lot of dating apps, and sets a strict upper age limit of twenty-five. He finds the dating apps useful, because it can be hard to meet exactly the right kind of women these days. They need to understand that his time is limited, his work is demanding, and commitment is hard for him. Women over twenty-five don’t seem to get that, in his experience. What happens to them, he wonders. He tries to imagine why someone would choose to date Karen Playfair, but draws a blank. Conversation? That runs out soon enough, doesn’t it? She’ll be rich soon, of course, when Ian buys the land. That will help her.
Hillcrest will be a real life changer for Ian too. It will eventually double the size of Coopers Chase, and double his profits. Profits he no longer has to share with Tony Curran. If that meant having to flirt with a fifty-year-old for a couple of weeks, then so be it.
On dates, Ian has his tried-and-tested material. He’ll impress young women with pictures of his pool, and the time he was interviewed onKent Tonight. He had already shown Karen a picture of his pool, because you never knew, but she simply smiled politely and nodded. No wonder she was single.
He could do business with her, though. She knew the upsides here, and she knew the obstacles, and they end their conversation with a handshakeand a plan of action. As he shakes Karen’s hand, Ian thinks that using a bit of hand cream every now and again wouldn’t kill her. Fifty! He wouldn’t wish it on anyone.
The thought briefly occurs to Ian that the only woman over twenty-five he spends any time with at all is his wife.
Oh well, time to go. Things to do.
10.
Tony Curran has made up his mind. He brings his BMW X7 to a halt on his heated driveway. There is a gun buried under the sycamore in the back garden. Or is it under the beech? It’s one or the other, but that’s something he can think about with a nice cup of tea. And he can try to remember where his spade is, while he’s at it.
Tony Curran is going to kill Ian Ventham; that’s a given now. Surely Ian knows it too? You can only take so many liberties before even the most calm and rational man snaps.
Tony whistles a tune from an advert and heads indoors.
He moved in about eighteen months ago, on the first real profits from Coopers Chase. It was the type of house he had always dreamed of. A house built on hard work, on making the right choices, cutting the right corners, and backing his own talent. A monument to what he had achieved, in brick, glass, and tempered walnut.
