Roz giggled.
“Don’t tell me. The owners are so desperate to get rid of it they’re prepared to give it away.”
“As a matter of fact, yes. Liquidity problems with their business and this is only a weekend retreat. They’ll take a twenty-thousand reduction if someone can come up with cash.
Can you?”
Roz closed her eyes and thought of her fifty per cent share of the proceeds of divorce, sitting on deposit. Yes, she thought, I can.
“This is absurd,” she said impatiently.
“I didn’t come in to buy anything. I’ll hate it. It’ll be far too small. And why on earth have you got it on your books? It’s miles away.”
“We have a reciprocal arrangement with our other branches.”
He had hooked his fish. Now he let her swim a little.
“Let’s see what this file can tell us.” He drew it forward and opened it.
“Twenty, Leven Road. Owners: Mr. and Mrs. Clarke. Instructions: quick sale wanted; carpets and curtains included in asking price.
Bought by Mr. and Mrs. Blair.
Completion date: twenty-fifth Feb.” eighty-nine.” He looked surprised “They didn’t pay very much for it.”
“It was vacant for a year,” said Roz, ‘which would probably explain the low price. Does it give a forwarding address for the Clarkes?”
He read on: “It says here: “Vendors have asked Peterson’s not to divulge any information about their new whereabouts.” I wonder why.”
“They fell out with their neighbours,” said Roz, economical as ever with the truth.
“But they must have given a forwarding address,” she remarked reasonably, ‘or they wouldn’t have asked for it to be withheld.”
He turned over several pages then carefully closed the file, leaving his finger to mark a place.
“We’re talking professional ethics here, Miss Leigh. I am employed by Peterson’s, and Peterson’s were asked to respect the Clarkes’ confidence. It would be very wrong to abuse a client’s trust.”
Roz thought for a moment.
“Is there anything from Peterson’s in writing saying they agreed to honour the Clarkes’ request?”
“No.”
“Then I don’t see that you’re bound by anything. Confidences cannot be inherited. If they could, they would no longer be confidences.”
He smiled.
“That’s a very fine distinction.”
“Yes.” She picked up the details of Bayview.
“Supposing I said I wanted to view this cottage at three o’clock this afternoon? Could you arrange it for me, using that telephone over there’ she nodded to the furthest desk ‘while I stay here looking through these other house details?”
“I could, but I’d take it very badly if you failed to keep the appointment.”
“My word’s my bond,” she assured him.
“If I say I’m going to do something I always do it.”
He stood up, letting the file fall open on the desk.
“Then I’ll phone our Swanage branch,” he told her.
“You will have to collect the key from them.”
“Thank you.” She waited until his back was turned, then swung the file round and jotted down the Clarkes’ address on her pad. Salisbury, she noted.
A few minutes later Matt resumed his seat and gave her a map of Swanage with Peterson’s estate agency marked with a cross.
“Mr. Richards is expecting you at three o’clock.” With a lazy flick of his hand he closed the Clarkes’ file.
“I trust you will find your dealings with him as mutually satisfactory as you have found your dealings with me.”
Roz laughed.
“And I hope I don’t, or I shall be considerably poorer by this evening.”
Roz approached the Poacher by the alleyway at the back and knocked on the kitchen door.
“You’re early,” said Hal, opening it.
“I know, but I have to be in Swanage by three and if I don’t leave fairly soon I won’t make it. Have you any customers?”
He gave her a withering smile.
“I haven’t even bothered to open up.”
She chose to ignore the sarcasm.
“Then come with me,” she said.
“Forget this place for a few hours.”
He didn’t exactly jump at the invitation.
“What’s in Swanage?”
She handed him the details of Bayview.
“A “des. res.” overlooking the sea. I’ve committed myself to looking at it and I could do with some moral support or I might end up buying the wretched thing.”
“Then don’t go.”
“I have to. It’s by way of a quid pro quo,” she said obliquely.
“Come with me,” she urged, ‘and say no whenever I look like saying yes.
I’m a sucker for a soft sell and I’ve always wanted to live on a cliff by the sea and own a dog and go beach combing He looked at the price.
“Can you afford it?” he asked curiously.
“Just about.”
“Rich lady,” he said.
“Writing is obviously very profitable.”
“Hardly. That was by way of a pay-off.”
“Pay-off for what?” he asked, his eyes veiled.
“It’s not important.”
“Nothing ever is in your life.”
She shrugged.
“So you don’t want to come? Ah, well, it was only a thought. I’ll go on my own.” She looked lonely suddenly.
He glanced behind him towards the restaurant, then abruptly reached his jacket off the back of the door.
“I’il come,” he told her, ‘but I’m damned if I’ll say no. It sounds like paradise, and the second best piece of advice my mother ever gave me was never get between a woman and what she wants.” He pulled the door to and locked it.
“And what was the best piece of advice?”
He dropped a casual arm across her shoulders could she really be as lonely as she looked? The thought saddened him and walked her up the alleyway.
“That happiness is no laughing matter.”
She gave a throaty chucide.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means, woman, that the pursuit of happiness deserves weighty consideration. It’s the be-all and end-all of existence.
Where is the sense in living if you’re not enjoying it?”
“Earning Brownie points for the great hereafter, suffering being good for the soul and all that.”
“If you say so,” he said cheerfully.
“Shall we go in my car?
It’ll give you a chance to test out your theory.” He led her to an ancient Ford Cortina estate and unlocked the passenger door, pulling it half-open on screaming hinges.
“What theory?” she asked, squeezing inelegantly through the gap.
He shut the door.
“You’il soon find out,” he murmured.
They arrived with half an hour to spare. Hal drew into a parking space on the sea front and rubbed his hands.
“Let’s have some fish and chips. We passed a kiosk about a hundred yards back and I’m ravenous. It’s the fresh air that does it.”
Roz’s head, tortoise-like, emerged from the collar of her jacket, slowly easing its frozen jaw and skewering him with gimlet eyes.
“Has this heap of junk got an MOT?” she grated.
“Of course it’s got an MOT.” He slapped the steering-wheel.
“She’s sound as a bell, just lacks a window or two. You get used to it after a while.”
“A window or two!” she spluttered.
“As far as I can see it hasn’t got any windows at all except for the front one. I think I’ve caught pneumonia.”
“There’s no pleasing some women. You wouldn’t be whingeing like this if I’d whisked you down to the seaside on a beautiful sunny day in an open-topped cabriolet. You’re being snotty-nosed just because it’s a Cortina.” He gave an evil chuckle.
“And what about suffering being good for the soul? It’s done bugger all for yours, my girl.”
She thrust the screeching door open as far as it would go and crawled out.
“For your information, Hawksley, it is not a beautiful sunny day’ she giggled ‘in fact it will probably turn out to be the coldest May day this century. And had this been a convertible, we could have stopped to put the top up. In any case, why aren’t there any windows?”