‘That’s lucky because I can barely hear you, sweetie.’ Kim kicked the flat tyre. ‘I’m at Thirdfield Terrace with a puncture. Showing a gorgeous penthouse which I’ve lusted over for years.’
She turned to the cricket field. The green would need careful handling when it came to selling a property. ‘The gentle sound of leather on willow in the summer’ is what you had to say. Not: ‘Long winter nights listening to teenage kids pissed on Strongbow snogging each other’s faces off.’
Still, early May was the perfect moment to show the place. They’d surely been at the lawn with nail clippers, all those old buffers in scuffed flannels. The sun’s rays touched the sea and scattered, lines of white razored in the deep green.
‘This place,’ she said, ‘honestly. You should see it, Edward. It has everything.’
‘Let me sort out your tyre while you’re showing the flat,’ said Edward. He landed on the same pun. ‘You do their flat, I’ll do yours.’
‘Very good, but—’
‘Really. I’ll come over. It’s something I don’t need a voice for. Hey – do you know a Wendy Wrigley? The Birmingham crossbow—’
The line dropped for a moment, and her attention was taken by a middle-aged man with a stick walking up the terrace towards her. Was this her client? The name had been double-barrelled, so it could well be.
‘Did you say crossbow, Edward? Hello? The line—’
‘Yes. A woman came up to me this afternoon, and—’
Kim yelped as someone behind her tapped her shoulder. She whirled around to face the stranger, a young man in his late twenties, smirking, flat-foreheaded, with shiny blond hair swept backwards and outwards like a mane. ‘Wait, baby, I think my client’s here.’
The stranger repeated her words: ‘Wait baby.’ Then he roared with laughter, as if he had just played the most incredible prank.
He was smartly dressed but oddly proportioned, with extra weight around his waist and nowhere else, making his body oval. His legs were locked straight, feet planted apart in red brogues as if he was squaring up for a fight he knew he would win. Kim had the thought that the manly stance was hollow – was he imitating an abusive father or school bully who had done him some long-remembered harm? The young man laughed again, a single loud yelp this time.
‘I’ll call you back shortly,’ Kim said to Edward, then disconnected the call without waiting for an answer. She was a little disconcerted. This man must have sidled into position behind her, in his sharp suit and buffed shoes, despite the gravel underfoot and the fact that the only way around to this side of the road would have been via the cricket green. But rather than shake her hand or say his name, he turned. ‘Ruhi, mate!’ he shouted in a London accent. ‘Over ’ere!’
A woman who might have been a model appeared between a line of five cars parked at the edge of the green. The contrast between the two could not have been greater. She was walking – almost floating – in their direction. She was tall and wore a dress so diaphanous that Kim thought she could see black underwearthrough it, or maybe no underwear at all. When Ruhi drew closer to them, somehow navigating the cricket green in heels, Kim was dazzled by her high-cheekboned beauty. Could she smell expensive perfume, carried on the breeze? The other woman would tower over them both when she reached them. The wind caught her dress and lifted it at the hem.
‘You’re cold,’ said Kim, dazed.
‘Goose pimples,’ said the woman, arriving with the grace of a royal. There was only one imperfection that Kim could see – her long, narrow nose was a little askew. ‘Didn’t expect the seafront to be like this.’ She sounded disappointed already. ‘I’m Ruhi, this is Tank, and you must be Sinker the estate agent?’
‘Kim, please.’
‘Sinker!’ exclaimed the man.
The classy-looking middle-aged gent with the walking stick was long gone. What a shame: these two were her clients instead. Kim scrolled through her mental Rolodex. She had never had an initial customer interaction like this before. It was not very …Devon.If the lady was wearing no underwear, as she suspected, they were in uncharted territory.
The client name in her phone calendar was Thomas Slater-Glynne. Back in the day, a double-barrelled surname said old money; she could expect a silver fox in tweed with a gentle handshake and proper manners. But these days, even the chap barking prices on the fruit-and-veg stall in Exmouth had a hyphenated surname, so a Slater-Glynne could be anyone. Was this fellow called ‘Tank’ the Thomas she was expecting?
Oh. Of course he was. She got the joke – Thomas, Tank. The young man must have seen the penny drop because he shoved his hands deep into his pockets and flapped his elbows like wings. ‘Yep, I’m “Tank” to the lady.’
Ruhi, the six-foot tower of dark beauty, spoke. ‘I watched Thomas the Tank Engine growing up in Kerala. He and I need codenames because we work together and nobody knows.’
‘I call her Fire,’ said Tank. ‘Because, you know. She works for me.’
Fire and Tank. For God’s sake. Kim didn’t ‘know’ and did not want to know. ‘You’ve come down from London?’ she asked.
‘How did you guess? American Bank, all on the QT,’ said Tank. ‘Cash purchase for our shag cabin.’
Kim felt her shoulders slump.Oh, Jesus Christ, bloody London bankers with the hots, spare me.She had a few days off next week to do some home decorating. She had plans for the kitchen and the lounge and she had a plan for how she would do it that felt … right. So this was her last customer meeting for a while. Did it have to be this pair? Could she not have a Tweed/Silver Fox customer instead? She shot a glance at Ruhi, believing the woman must be more classy than this, seeing her delicate fingers studded with gems, wanting her at least to show exasperation – or maybe an acknowledgement that this grubby man was punching well above his weight – but she was smiling serenely, apparently smitten.
The pair turned their gazes slowly to the sun-drenched frontage of the apartment block withShall we get on with it?expressions. Okay, they were colleagues having a secret affair and could lash out a million on a penthouse flat. Amazing that sheer money could lure such a stunning woman, an elongated Nicole Scherzinger, to a milk-haired Weeble.
Kim told herself not to care. She was in a good mood and this would not ruin it.
She looked at her watch on the way in, tried to think of her footsteps as elapsing seconds that were drawing her closer to the weekend and the week off. Ruhi moved past her – through her, almost – into the hallway. There were letters on the mat. Instinctively Kim dropped to her haunches to move them. Her face was so close to the man’s red shoes she saw her reflection in the toecaps.
