Ellie's Return (18 page)

She had been calling and texting Tom who
eventually answered just as Claudia opened the door to her. Tom had said he was
sorry he missed some calls from her, he was on a plane, but he thought
everything should become clear over the next day or so. He had put some of her
things into bin liners in the back of her car. He did not tell her that he had
only put in odd shoes. He told Lola that the car was working fine again now, it
had just needed the battery to be reconnected, and the car key was behind the
front wheel. He may be back or he may not, but she did not need to know either
way.

Lola reminded Tom that she now controlled
Tatton Property, and that even though he had managed to scrape something for
the sale, it would not be long before she took him to court and got that too
for causing the loss of her business. With that in mind, maybe he could be a
bit more accommodating. She told him that she would be interviewing a new
property manager later in the day. She had the files sent over from his office
with the necessary appendices sent over by his, “sorry, my” PA and her
solicitor was finalising their agreement, so she would appreciate him coming
back and clearing all his rubbish out before the end of the day. Tom said he
had written off the business, he was not expecting anything more out of it so
any threats she could make would be empty. Lola realised that Tom had hung up
on her, and she was left shouting down the phone at him, though it was clear to
Claudia he had already gone. Claudia smiled at her and said,

“You’ve never been what I would call a
people person, Lola.” It was the first time she had seen her in nearly three
years and it was the only thing said by either of them to each other. Then
Claudia closed the door on her. She had only just sat down when only moments
later there was a more restrained knock at the door.

Claudia had never been one for visitors
and this was her third one of the day. The first two visitors were a bit
disappointing and she thought she might ignore the door this time, but she
decided that it could not get any worse than having Lola stand there shouting
so as long as it was not her, it could do no harm to see who was there. She was
pleased that she had decided that, because there was a young woman stood there
in a black suit, looking very beautiful and elegant. Charlotte had turned up
with her car keys.

When Charlotte said that it was she who
had called Tom, Claudia asked how she knew him, and Charlotte said that she
worked for Lola until recently. Claudia told her she just missed Lola.
Charlotte said she knew that, she had just seen her running down the road after
a taxi, shouting abuse at the driver. Charlotte held out the car key to
Claudia, and offered her a lift into town to get her car, and told her that at
least now she would not have to break into her car. Claudia thanked her but said
she would have managed, after all she has been told she has magic hands.
Charlotte told she would like to know more about that.

Claudia said she would be happy to share
that knowledge with her, and asked her if she would like to come in for a cup
of tea.

Charlotte had started in, when Claudia
said, “Unless you’re in a hurry to get off?” When Charlotte replied with “Yes,
I’d like that”, Claudia had thought it was too good to be true, but looking at
her she saw that it was not and she said:

“Then we have all the time we need.”

The door was closed, and no more visitors
would be acknowledged that day.
 

Thirty-Two

Lola had now lost access to her home. The
only belongings she could get hold of were in the back of her leased car. She
had no rights over the property she had been living in because it was Tom’s
house, and had recently sold her own flat. She had to close the shops which
meant she needed to cease trading; She would have considered getting the
website amended to enable online shopping but even if she knew how to manage
the website, Charlotte had taken it down and apparently deleted or corrupted
all the files, and Lola did not know how to restore it. The businesses had cost
her tens of thousands that she had invested into the shops, and to restore them
to their original state was going to cost her the same again, which was more
than the ready money available to her. All the money she had, including what
came from the sale of her property, had been invested in new stock, which would
be out-dated by the time she found a new shop, or in the renovations, which
were dead money. Although it seemed likely that she would be able to start
again somewhere she would not find a better place in this town. She would be
moving to a lesser property and it would cost her thousands more to recreate
the same thing. Even with her home and her shops gone, the one thing that would
cement her status in this town was the multi million pound property portfolio
she had just acquired, which she assumed that Tom had given up, and which was
more than worth losing everything else for.

This property company after all, was worth
more than all of her shops. She could develop some of the properties into model
homes branded in her name and with that move, she could leapfrog even where she
would have been if Tom had not crossed her on the shops. Silly man to think he
could beat her with such a cheap trick as not renewing the shop leases, but now
she was on to something much better. If she had not already taken Tom for all
he was worth she would be thinking about revenge on him now but as he was left
with so much less than he should have had, she felt triumphant and knew that
the shops and the loss of her home were only a blip, from which she could come
back stronger and replace everything dozens of times over.

She had spoken to Tom now and told him
that she was going to have him for whatever he was still worth. Tom had made
some bravado comments but she would soon get the better of him. She was already
due to interview Mike Harris, a property manager whom she had been priming for
some time ready for when she ousted Tom. As recently as Friday evening at her
own do she had been telling him how soon she might need him on board, but even
he was surprised when she called him up the night before and asked him to come
to the shop the next evening, and that she would get the files over to him
during the day to bone up on. They met later because the venue had to be
changed to a restaurant but she was excited about the prospects and in the
light of that, the days other disappointments had not hit her so hard. Her
car’s failure that morning had inspired her to finally purchased a new one with
which to celebrate her victory, and she was looking forward to finding out by
what multiple her net worth had potentially increased by.

Mike was confused as to why she had agreed
to take over the ‘lower end’ of the portfolio, and was hoping that Lola would
be able to explain that because perhaps then everything else would fall into
place. This was really the first time that Lola knew that she had taken over
the houses that had been losing value, and the properties that were rented out
and could not be sold or that needed lots of work doing. They were mostly in industrial
or student areas and had already lost much of their value; they were as likely
to keep on losing it, as well as costing her a lot to maintain, since they were
in quite bad disrepair.

Lola was fuming, trying to take in that
she had been duped into taking all the low end stock while pretending that she
had taken on a fantastic property portfolio that she been boasting to this man
about for months. As much as she tried to pretend that this was what she
wanted, she needed to know what in his professional opinion was the best way to
deal with this portfolio and how to make the best of it. Mike was sorry to have
to tell her this, but unless there was some reason for buying at this end of
the market, he could not see what her game plan was.

Lola had tried to bluff, tried to say that
maybe she would take the properties in a new direction, rebuild some of them,
renovate them, or sell to housing associations. She had bought low to get the long-term
benefit when the market picked up. Mike looked quite surprised at that and
seemed to realise that he had not been quite blunt enough with her, but that
really there was not much she could do with what she had got. She had paid far
too much for what she had, and was unlikely ever to redeem the value she paid
for it. Lola had even recently acquired some properties that were the very worst
in the portfolio. They were just really bad buys and they brought down the collective
value enormously. He could not recommend anything. If she had paid less for the
whole lot then she could afford to do the works that were needed and she might
break even but these properties on their own were a drain, and they would keep
going down in value and always be more of a pull on her resources. She could
not be worse off. Also, she had inherited some land as part of the mix. That
would normally be useful but she would not be able to get planning permission;
there was a factory there previously, and the land was contaminated. She was
stuck with it now. It was the worst deal he had ever seen.

Lola finally knew she had been had. She
had signed away her rights to all the best properties and Tom’s father had
purchased them through his company for a fraction of their value. Everything
Lola had acquired was worth less than she had paid, and now she was responsible
for maintaining properties that were too much of a drain even to sell at a
loss. She had signed her agreement to every move, and Tom’s stock had actually
increased by losing all the dead weight that she now owned. Not only was her
stock worth much less than she paid for it, but the tenants rights were
protected, so they were safe at her expense and the company she was now
controlling was carrying lots of debt that she had not expected. It was unlikely
that whatever she had invested in her own business would be enough to cover
what she owed in this business; and already she could see that she might have
to lose it all just to be able to start again. The worst thing was that Tom had
learnt from the way that she treated him, and now there was no way that she
could prove what had happened and take legal steps to remedy the matter, so for
now at least, she was finished. Mike Harris had told her that did not want the
job because the houses would not generate enough to cover their costs, or even
his salary; if had the chance he would much rather work for the other company
with the good portfolio and the chap who knew what he was doing. She was
humiliated.

Lola had been intending to toast the
success of her new portfolio with Mike, and then she was intending to take him
home to seduce him, so that she could always have influence over him by
threatening to tell his wife. She knew he was happily married so that would
have been a challenge but she was more than equal to it, and she loved the
moment when a man who had been trying to tell himself he needed to do the right
thing finally gave up and did exactly what he had wanted to do all along. There
would be no toasting now, and no seduction. Lola had considered taking him home
anyway just to get him on side so that he did not tell anyone about how foolish
she was to think she had made a great deal over the property. At least he did
not know she had been fooled. She let the last moments of sensing her own idiocy
wash over her and then rejected them from visiting her again.

She had learned something today. In fact
she had learned two things. The first was never to sign anything without
reading it, but the second thing was that this was a sign, surely, that she
needed to move on, think bigger, and start again. This town was too small,
these people were too small, they just wanted their little corner of the world
to set up in and hope that nobody came along to threaten it; she had heard that
from somebody once, she could not remember who. She was better than them, more
able in every way. Anybody else would think they were finished after this but
not Lola. She would do to somebody else what had been done to her; she was the
victim here after all.
 
She would
come back stronger than ever, and Tom, Ellie, that sarcastic bitch Claudia and
even that useless Charlotte, were just little flies who would one day fulfil
her prediction of bragging that they knew her without saying how she had
triumphed over the tininess of their existence. Lola was starting again, but
she was going to scale things up. First she needed to offload this pile of
bricks that Tom had fobbed off onto her, and then she would build on all she
had learnt and then some.

So she would have to leave Little Crompton
after all, because it was not large enough for her. She thought of all the
silly ladies spending the money of the rich husbands she had seduced to get
their favours, to get things her way. She knew strong women, the kind who
juggled a business with a home life and four kids and several hobbies and jam
making and twenty kinds of nonsense that these tedious middle class types bang
on about all their lives. They were not strong to Lola; they didn’t do what
really needed to be done, they were just her stepping stones towards a brighter
future that she had only just started to realise could be hers.

 
She needed somewhere to spend the night,
but nobody was answering her calls. Nobody had called to ask why the shops were
closed, or whether she might have any problems or need any help, so none of
these people would be in her future. She got into the car she had bought today
to celebrate her victory. It had turned out to be a victory of sorts after all.
It was a beautiful car; she knew nothing about cars but she knew a Maserati
turned heads, and that was how she rolled. She would find a hotel, a top class
hotel with a top class clientele and turn some heads there tonight. Tomorrow
she would shop to dress for the position she wanted, and for some that would
get her there, and then she would begin her steep ascent towards super wealth
and power. She allowed herself one more moment of weakness and a tear came to
her eye. It was not a tear for a past in which she had done anything wrong
except to think too small. She was sorry for the time wasted on the little
people and the too-small dreams, and as she started up the motor and heard the
soft and gentle hum she swore never to waste another moment. The sun was
setting behind her as she headed towards London. She did not know yet exactly
where she was going, but it didn’t matter where she started, it was all about
where she was ending up.