Slider felt breathless. ‘You seem to know a lot about it,’ he managed to say.
‘I told you, I’m not so green as you think. Once they approached me and made an offer, I said I’d think about it, and I went and did a bit of homework. Talked to the planning officer at the council, had a look at some other plans, spoke to a solicitor. The developers offered me two hundred and fifty thousand for the cottage.’
‘Two hundred and fifty?’ Slider was pleasantly surprised. It was a lot for that little place, and it was all clear profit – no mortgage to pay off. Despite himself, his brain went instantly into calculation mode. A quarter of a million was far too little for anywhere round here, of course, but it was a handsome deposit in anyone’s language, and say he and Jo could get a hefty mortgage, and they looked further out – a lot further out . . .
Mr Slider said, chuckling again, ‘Ah, but that’s just for the cottage. Near on four acres I got there. They could put sixteen executive homes on that, or twenty-four luxury dwellings. I took advice and asked ’em for one and a quarter million, and we settled in the end on one-point-oh-five. What that oh-five was about, don’t ask me! But it makes one-point-three altogether. That’ll be enough to get somewhere with a little annexe for me, won’t it? If you want me, that is.’
Slider found his voice at last. ‘For the chance of a live-in babysitter? Are you kidding?’
‘And don’t forget house-sitting,’ Mr Slider said calmly. ‘I read an article about it in the paper. If you have someone living in your house when you go on holiday, you can get a reduction on your insurance. Now that’s most important, son.’
Helplessly, and perhaps even with a touch of hysteria, Slider began to laugh.