A Summer of Secrets (11 page)

Too shocked to speak, Portia merely nodded.

‘Jed Carr,’ he announced, in a manner that intimated a previous acquaintance.

‘Er, right,’ she muttered, desperately racking her brain for any signs of recognition.

Undeterred by her lack of enthusiasm, the man bounded up the steps, bringing a cloud of cloying aftershave with him.

‘I heard you were in the village,’ he said, extending a hand to her. ‘Apologies for the early hour, but I was driving past and thought I’d swing by on the off-chance.’

Now completely lost, Portia placed her limp hand in his. He affected an effusive shake.

‘So?’ he asked. ‘Any ideas yet?’

Portia furrowed her brow as she tugged her hand from his grip. ‘I’m sorry,’ she retorted, in as icy a tone as she could muster. ‘But do I know you?’

Jed adjusted his sunglasses. ‘Oh, no. We’ve never met. But I’ve had my eye on this place for a while now.’

‘What do you mean “had your eye on this place”?’

Jed snorted with laughter. ‘Oh, God. Sorry. I thought you might’ve heard of me. I’m a property developer. And a bloody good one. This place would make a great apartment block, you know.’

Portia’s jaw dropped.

‘It’s the way forward, sweetheart. Nobody can afford to run these big houses any more. Money pits, they are. Everyone’s selling them off. Taking the money and running.’

Folding her arms defiantly over her chest, Portia shook back her mane of hair. ‘I have no intention of taking the money and running. And I am not your sweet –’

‘Ah, I know your game,’ he said, tapping a finger on the side of his nose. ‘Playing hard to get. Pretending you don’t want to sell, when all the while you’re desperate to be rid of it. Desperate to jump on that plane and buy a little villa in Lanzarote …’

Portia’s eyes grew wide with indignation. ‘I can assure you I have no –’

‘… Well, if that’s the way you want to play it, I’ll go along with you. Won’t be the first time I’ve played this game. You hang out as long as you can so I keep hiking up the price. Well, okay then. I’ll kick things off now. No time like the present, as they say. A million quid. Cash.’

Portia’s knees weakened as a wave of exhaustion crashed over her. Who was this creature? Was this really happening? Or was she in the middle of some kind of surreal dream? She wished he’d go. Disappear in that crass little car, never to be seen again. He’d been there less than five minutes and she felt as though she’d been through a mangle – twice. He had no right to be there. He was trespassing.

‘I’m sorry, Mr Carr,’ she replied, pulling her cardigan tightly around her. ‘But the house is not for sale. And I would appreciate it if you could remove yourself and your vehicle from my property forthwith.’

And with that, she whisked around and flounced down the path back to the cottage.

Back in the safety of the little house, her head reeling, she tugged off her cardigan and shoved it in the washing machine. She felt soiled, dirty. And sick to her core. But she couldn’t decide if it was the stench of pervading damp that had made her so nauseous, or the cloying scent of Jed Carr’s aftershave.

***

Haring down Buttersley’s country lanes, Jed Carr pressed the accelerator of his Porsche a little harder, as Bon Jovi’s ‘Living on a Prayer’ blasted out from the powerful speakers.

Jed loved this song, but not half as much as he loved his car. He’d always wanted a Porsche. Ever since his mum had given him a toy one as a Christmas present when he was twelve years old. She hadn’t had much money. In fact, since his dad had walked out on them three years earlier, seemingly disappearing into the ether, things had been tough financially. But his mother had worked her socks off to ensure her son went without nothing. A situation Jed had appreciated even at that tender age. And so, that fateful Christmas Day, he’d vowed he would work equally as hard; that he would make his mother proud; that one day he would own a Porsche exactly like his new toy, and make enough money to give his mother everything she wanted.

Not being academically inclined, he’d left school as soon as possible, taken an evening job waiting on in a restaurant, and signed up for a plastering course at the local technical college. Once the course finished, he found a job with a local building company that worked on new-build developments. Jed loved it. The camaraderie and banter with the lads, the pleasure of being part of a team, the feeling of belonging somewhere and, most notably, the satisfaction of doing a job well.

Even though he arrived home every evening fit to drop, he continued working at the restaurant. Not only did this constant employment prevent him from going out and spending money, but it also enabled him to save some.

Three years passed in this fashion, until one day, when Jed had been walking home from the building site, a sleek black Jag pulled up beside him. The window rolled down and a freckled face leaned across from the driver’s seat.

‘You Jed Carr?’ the man asked.

Jed nodded. ‘Who wants to know?’

The driver’s mouth stretched into a broad grin. ‘Tony McManus. I’m a property developer and I’m looking to put a team of lads together.’

Jed wrinkled his nose. ‘So why’ve you come to me?’

Tony burst out laughing. ‘Because, from what I hear, you’re the best bloody plasterer around.’

The following day, Jed handed in his notice at the building company and started working for Tony as soon as his notice period ended. Even his boss agreed he would’ve been mad not to. The money Tony offered was almost double his previous salary. Plus, Jed suspected there might be a lot he could learn from Mr McManus. In his late twenties, his new employer wasn’t that much older than him, but already well on the way to his first million.

‘Paying rent is a mug’s game, mate,’ he informed Jed. ‘Get yourself on the property ladder as soon as you can.’

And so Jed had. Using his savings as a deposit, he arranged a mortgage and he and his mum moved into a little terraced house on the outskirts of Harrogate. An old lady had lived in it for what looked like the last two hundred years. Consequently, everything needed updating. Soaking up every tip he could from the lads at work, Jed slowly transformed the house from a 1960s relic to a trendy modern abode any young family would be proud of.

Even Tony had been impressed. ‘You’ve done a bloody good job, but don’t get sentimental. No call for sentimentality in this game. Put it on the market, take the money, and move on.’

As much as it broke his heart to part with his first proper home, Jed followed Tony’s advice and sold it, using the profit to finance his next project – a neglected semi with a garden that resembled an Amazonian rain forest. And so life continued: working for Tony during the day, utilising any free time to progress his own project, and all the while learning the trades from his colleagues and business skills from his boss. His mum, too, proved an asset, harbouring, he discovered, a natural eye for interior design. No longer having to support her son, Jed insisted she cut back on her workload, which she eventually agreed to do.

Then, completely out of the blue, Tony made an announcement: he’d had enough. Was disbanding the company and moving to Florida.

Jed had been gutted, but Tony reassured him: ‘Don’t go working for another greedy sod like me. Concentrate on your own stuff. You’re bloody good at it.’

Those words stoked Jed’s already simmering fire. Again, following the maestro’s advice, he eschewed another day job, buying a second house instead, then a third, then a fourth. Luck rolled with him, the property market being more buoyant than it had been in years. And Jed exploited every day of it, working his bollocks off and banking the cash. But his satisfaction came not only from watching his finances blossom and doing something he loved, but from seeing his mother happy and relaxed.

Now, of course, years later, neither of them was involved at ground level. Having ensured his mother was more than well provided for, Jed didn’t do any of the hard graft. Now he played the consummate businessman. Utilising not only the wads of cash he’d accrued, but also his invaluable experience. Years in the business had taught him a lot about how to handle people, how to play the game. And he’d engaged in enough games to recognise the one Portia Pinkington-Smythe was playing. She seemed like a snotty cow, but Jed had dealt with worse.

Although never, perhaps, one with such a cute little butt.

Chapter Eight

In his rented flat –the diminutive proportions of which would have squeezed snugly into most of the hallways of the Buttersley mansions he frequented – Joe lay in bed, arms behind his head, gazing at the ceiling. He couldn’t face getting up; couldn’t face cowering behind his jolly Jack-the-lad façade. Couldn’t, in fact, face the day. And today being the second anniversary of Gina leaving, the second anniversary of the day his world had shattered into a million irreparable pieces, his stupor required no further explanation. With the date indelibly branded onto his mind, he’d experienced exactly the same sensation the previous year – of a mechanical claw reaching into his chest and ripping out his heart.

‘You’re not still mooning over that Gina one, are you?’ Phil had asked at the pub the other day.

Joe hadn’t replied, opting to shove a couple of tomato-ketchup crisps into his mouth instead.

‘‘Cos if you are, it’s time you got over it, mate. Moved on.’

Which would have been precisely Joe’s advice had the shoe been on the other foot. But the shoe wasn’t on the other foot. It remained very tightly laced around Joe’s size nine. So tightly, the throbbing pain rarely ceased. Rather than admit this to his friend, though, he again said nothing, washing down his crisps with a swig of lager.

‘Come on, Joe. You’re twenty-four,’ Phil continued. ‘You need to lighten up a bit. Enjoy yourself. Tenerife will be just what you need.’

Joe wasn’t so sure. And he certainly didn’t want to think about Tenerife today. He wanted to wallow in his mire of self-pity; to mentally pulverise himself for allowing his perfect little family to leave. With hindsight, he should’ve done more to keep them, more than just begging and pleading; something constructive to prove just how much they meant to him.

But he hadn’t.

He’d merely stood at the window and watched that rich tosser load them into his enormous Land Rover before driving them out of his life.

Of course he could also have made an effort to find them afterwards; wheedled their whereabouts out of Karen, Gina’s mother, who’d always had a soft spot for him. Or he could have jogged down the legal route. Hired a solicitor. Forced Gina to allow him access to his son.

But he hadn’t.

He hadn’t done anything.

Because Gina – the axis around which his entire world had revolved – hadn’t wanted him to.

‘Please don’t come after us, Joe,’ she’d pleaded. ‘It’ll only make things complicated and upset Charlie.’

And the last thing Joe had wanted was to upset his son. Despite the fact that “upset” went nowhere near describing his own feelings.

He wondered what they were doing now. Charlie would be three and most likely attending nursery. One of those posh, fee-paying ones, no doubt, where the kids learn Urdu, eat carrot sticks and do two hours of yoga a day. Would his son be any happier there, Joe wondered, than at the local nursery with an apple, a climbing frame and a story? He had no idea. But what he did know was that, regardless of how much money this bloke of Gina’s threw at her and Charlie, no matter how many exotic holidays he whisked them off on, or how many expensive gifts he showered on them, he couldn’t love them half as much as Joe did.

To tip a ton of salt into his ever-festering wound, Joe reached over to the bedside table and picked up the wooden frame there. It housed the last photograph ever taken of his little family, during Charlie’s first visit to the zoo. The image captured the little boy giggling at the monkeys, his broad smile revealing two wobbly teeth. Gina knelt at the side of the pushchair. She’d caught the sun, her cheeks pink and smattered with freckles. She looked adorable. And happy. But of course she couldn’t have been. All the time she’d been with Joe, she’d obviously been on the lookout for something better. For somebody who hadn’t snatched away her dreams and made her settle for a life she obviously didn’t want.

Joe set the photo face down on the duvet just as his phone beeped. A text from Felicity.

Empty house if you’re at a loose one x

He flicked off the phone and tossed it on the bed, before rushing to the bathroom and throwing up.

An hour later, showered and dressed, Joe drove his battered old van into Harrogate. His need to escape the flat had been all-consuming, the sensation of the walls closing in on him bringing about a major panic attack. He couldn’t have gone to work, though. He wasn’t capable of any social interaction today, yet alone facing the barrage of questions his miserable demeanour would inevitably have stirred: was he okay?; had anything happened?; was he ill? Which was why he’d decided to go into Harrogate instead. A change of scene, somewhere he could be completely anonymous.

Joe had always liked Harrogate – the Georgian architecture, the manicured gardens, the lovely parks and spectacular properties. Today, though, he noticed none of that. He did, in fact, notice very little. Only when he’d ploughed into the path of a motobility scooter and received advice from the irate driver that he should perhaps look where he was going – although not in those precise words – had he got a grip. He needed something to focus on. Jeans. That was it. He needed a new pair of jeans. So, rather than wandering around aimlessly, he would go shopping.

‘Any idea what style you’d like?’ the young assistant asked him.

Joe scratched his head. He didn’t have a clue. ‘What, er –?’

‘Straight, slim, tapered or loose?’

‘Um, slim, please.’

‘Zip fly or button fly?’

Oh God. He really couldn’t be bothered to think about it. ‘Er, zip, please.’

‘Stonewashed, sun-bleached or sandblasted?’

Joe stared at her blankly. Since when had buying jeans become more complicated than brain surgery?