Tread Softly (28 page)

Silence. Except for the rain. And the measured ticking of the grandfather clock. And little muffled gasps from his pipe.

But all at once he put the pipe down. He even put his glass down. ‘We haven't
got
a house, Lorna.'

‘What?'

‘Well, not for much longer.'

‘What on earth are you talking about?'

He refused to meet her eyes. ‘I'm sorry, I don't know how to tell you.'

Oh my God, she thought, he's selling up, going to live with another woman …

‘I've been trying to spare you, all these weeks.'

‘Spare me?' Just what Agnes had said. The familiar stirrings of panic began to take a grip: a steel cordon clamping her lungs, a piece of granite lodged in her throat.

‘It didn't seem fair to worry you any more, when you had so much to cope with already – the foot and the infections, then the shingles and …'

Ralph was gazing at the ashtray. In her mind she saw lipstick-tipped cigarette-ends nestling amid the ash and broken matches from his pipe. Yet she was no Goody Two-Shoes herself. She had responded with alacrity when Oshoba had invited her to his flat. ‘I'm worried anyway. I … I've suspected for ages something's going on.'

‘So why didn't you say?'

‘I suppose I was scared to hear it confirmed. But now I've got to know. You
have
to tell me, Ralph.'

He picked up his pipe again and sucked on it briefly, seemingly unaware that it had gone out. ‘Remember that Shropshire job, about a year ago – the private tennis-court?'

‘Oh, you mean in Lydbury.' She wondered why he was changing tack. ‘Derek Bowden. Wasn't he a car dealer?'

‘A used-car salesman. Anyway, he's injured himself playing tennis. One of the seams on the Astroturf came undone and he tripped and fell very awkwardly. He fractured his wrist and ankle and twisted his back.'

‘That sounds nasty. Poor man!'

‘Poor
us
. He's threatening to sue.'

‘Sue? Christ, no!'

‘For shoddy workmanship.'

The panic spiralled. She was breathing not air but tar. ‘I don't understand. Len and Matthew are normally so reliable. They've never botched anything before.'

‘That's just it – it wasn't Len and Matthew. Don't you remember when we were snowed under with work last March? We had to get different fitters for that one job. And evidently they used substandard glue. You know how expensive glue is – well, they obviously thought they could get away with using inferior stuff. Not only that – they skimped on the amount, so naturally the seams didn't hold.'

‘Well, why doesn't he sue
them?
‘ Her voice was shrill with fear.

‘They've disappeared. I tried ringing them scores of times, but the number's unobtainable. It struck me as rather odd that they only had a mobile, but I assumed it was because they're on the road so much. In the end I went round in person to the address they gave on their letterhead and found it was just a front. Some poor old duck lives there, who said they'd rented her garage for a while but had cleared off months ago. The bastards have done a bunk.'

Lorna put her hand to her throat and tried to swallow. The fitters had seemed so professional, so eager to please on the phone. How could they have conned her like that? ‘But if it's
their
fault, Bowden can't hold us responsible.'

‘He can, and he does. And legally he's right. We hired them, don't forget.'

‘But you inspected the court. I remember you driving there in that dreadful storm.'

‘Yes, of course I inspected it, but faulty glue wouldn't have shown up at that stage. Anyway, whatever the rights and wrongs of it, Bowden's claiming for a massive loss of earnings as well as the physical injuries. Apparently he was planning a trip to Japan to import a load of cars, and he had to cancel it. And a similar trip to Portugal. He can't fly or drive, you see. In fact he's still on crutches even now.'

‘On crutches, with a broken wrist?'

‘
One
crutch. According to his solicitor, walking's so difficult he often has to rely on a wheelchair. The ankle was a compound fracture and there were a lot of complications, so he says. Three weeks after the accident he developed an infection, and the doctor was worried it might get into the bone.'

Lorna bit her lip. With first-hand experience of infections and complications, she could imagine the difficulty of hobbling around on one crutch. ‘I can't help feeling sorry for him.'

‘Don't waste your sympathy. We've no proof it's as bad as he's making out. Clearly it's in his interest to inflate it for all it's worth. He's already claiming medical expenses and chauffeuring costs and for the disruption to his social life and God knows what else besides. Plus he insists on having the tennis-court resurfaced, but he won't let our men touch it. He says he'll get it done elsewhere –
another
fifteen grand. I bet you anything you like he gets it patched up on the cheap and pockets the difference. I wouldn't trust him further than I could throw him, and his solicitor sounds a nasty piece of work. At the start of all this he said Bowden was after a hundred thousand in damages.'

‘A hundred
thousand
?' The figure was like a physical blow: a fist smashing into her face.

‘Yes, I was appalled too. I went straight to Philip and told him the whole story. I said I intended to fight Bowden every inch of the way. But Philip didn't think I had much of a case. Rogue fitters or no, at the end of the day I'm the one responsible. To put it bluntly, he said I'm likely to be flayed alive in court.'

‘Flayed alive?' She could only repeat Ralph's phrases – each more alarming than the last.

‘I suppose it was decent of him to warn me. Most solicitors would be rubbing their hands in glee at the prospect of a fat fee. But that's the trouble. He said the fees could amount to thirty grand by the time both sides have brought in medical experts. Orthopaedic specialists don't come cheap.'

Her heart was beating so wildly she clasped her hands across her chest in an attempt to slow it down. ‘Ralph, I … I can't believe this is happening.'

‘I know – I've hardly slept for weeks. I did everything I could to keep it from you. I made sure the correspondence went through Philip and told him only to call me on the mobile.'

Would it have been worse to have known earlier? She couldn't judge; couldn't think coherently at all. ‘What can we
do
?'

‘Well, just this week Philip phoned to say he had good news. Hardly good – it's all relative, of course – but Bowden's willing to settle for forty grand, so long as it's paid by the end of May. And that includes the cost of resurfacing the court.'

‘Forty grand? But we'll still never be able to pay!' She rose shakily to her feet, clutching the back of the sofa to steady herself. If only she could escape – not just the appalling facts but the turmoil in her body. She felt sick, feverish, frighteningly unreal. She tried to control the shaking – she was no help to Ralph in this state. ‘Why would he cut his damages so drastically? Isn't that rather suspicious? What d'you think's going on?'

‘God knows. But Philip had a phone-call from Bowden's solicitor, off the record or whatever they call it. It seems Bowden's not keen on going to court. You know what used-car salesmen get up to – clapped-out old bangers with a miraculously low mileage on the clock, stolen cars with switched number-plates … He's bound to have something to hide. And he's desperate for the cash by May. Again I don't know why. But reading between the lines I'd say the VAT man or the Inland Revenue are breathing down his neck. Or he may have less kosher creditors – the criminal fraternity demanding money with menaces: pay up or the showroom gets torched.'

She couldn't take it in. This was the stuff of nightmare: criminals, blackmail, arson. ‘But if he's such a crook, or involved with crooks, why don't we call his bluff?'

‘We haven't any proof, Lorna. And he's the injured party – literally. He'll milk the situation for all it's worth, hobbling into court on crutches and claiming to be half-paralysed. He says he's in constant pain from his back and that the bones in his ankle haven't knitted properly and he may still not be able to drive for a whole year.'

‘But that
is
awful, Ralph. Not driving for only three months has been incredibly hard for me.'

‘Stop being so gullible! The man's an out-and-out liar. Philip thinks so too, although he's sure Bowden will produce a tame doctor or three to swear he's falling apart.'

She glanced at the wedding-photo on the sideboard. She and Ralph were smiling, raising champagne glasses in a toast. Another era, another life entirely. ‘So why should we let him get away with it, if you say he's such a liar?'

‘Because we haven't any choice. If we fight him it could drag on for a couple of years at least, and the legal fees would be astronomical. And think of the adverse publicity. He's already made veiled threats about exposing the hazards of Astroturf if we don't agree to settle by May. Apparently he knows this bloke on the
Daily Mail
, and you can just imagine the line they'd take: a death-trap for children, a danger to life and limb – all that sort of emotive stuff. He's got us by the short and curlies, Lorna.'

‘That's blackmail.'

‘Maybe. Unfortunately he's the one calling the shots, so we're in no position to argue. I mean, if we lose – which Philip says is likely – we'll be liable for Bowden's costs as well. And the strain of a court case would probably kill us both. Remember poor old Michael Moore – he ended up with a heart attack and costs of two hundred grand.'

Lorna dug her nails into her palm. The figures kept rising and rising.

‘Philip said it might not even
get
to court for a year or more, what with all the legal rigmarole that has to be gone through first. And with every month that passes you can bet your bottom dollar Bowden will suffer more convenient complications and lose thousands of pounds' more business until he's dunning us for Christ knows how much.'

She sank down on the sofa again. How could one weekend produce so many shocks? She was still struggling to come to terms with the violence of her parents' death and her father being the cause of it, and now this new revelation.

‘We have to face the facts, Lorna. If we don't pay Bowden by May we're finished.'

‘We're finished anyway. How on earth can we find forty grand? We just haven't got that sort of money.'

‘We'll have to sell the house.'

Suddenly it seemed unutterably precious – the house she had always thought of as isolated, gloomy and too big. Nevertheless it was home: the place where she felt safest, the place where she belonged. ‘We can't do that in two months.'

‘I'll ask the bank for a bridging loan.'

‘They won't agree, with the enormous mortgage we've got.'

They will if Philip undertakes with them to repay the loan from the proceeds of the sale. The trouble is, without a house I don't see how we can run the business.'

No house. No business. She closed her eyes, saw a snail without its shell, a tent collapsing in a hurricane. Was it any wonder that Ralph hadn't been able to sleep? He had had to bear this on his own. And, far from giving him support, she had let herself believe that he was involved in an affair. Desperately she cast around for a solution. ‘What about Agnes's cottage?'

‘What about it?'

‘It's ours – or soon will be. I know it isn't worth a lot, but Agnes says we'll get the value of the land.'

‘That won't be much where
she
lives. She moved to Lincolnshire precisely because property was cheap.'

More guilt. Unwittingly
she
had been the cause of Agnes's financial difficulties and hence her move to a benighted village.

‘Besides, we can hardly turf her out of her own home.'

‘Maybe
we
could live with
her
, instead of the other way round.' She was clutching at straws.

‘Oh sure! With the cottage crumbling around us. And what would we live on?'

‘We still have clients – a few. And there's that golf-club job in Dorset. They're debating about whether to go ahead. The estimate's only just over their budget, so if we could trim it slightly I'm pretty sure we'd get the contract.'

Ralph shook his head wearily. ‘It'll be months before they make up their minds. You know what these committees are like, squabbling over their own petty interests. And the other clients are as bad – ditherers or penny-pinchers, or both. We work ourselves to death and there's sod-all to show at the end of it. It's hard enough when things are going well, but with that little shit holding us at knifepoint the situation's hopeless.'

‘No, it's
not
!' she said, astounding herself. Never before, in the grip of panic, had she managed to fight back. It was Agnes who had inspired her. If a woman of seventy-nine could show such courage in face of a terminal illness then she too must take a stand. ‘We've got to be positive, Ralph. I know you're feeling down at the moment, but once the house is sold we'll have
some
money. Then we can rent a place and keep the business ticking over. We don't need a vast amount of storage space. The material's usually delivered direct to the site, and we can keep the tools in the van and …'

‘The van's not big enough.'

‘We'll
make
it big enough.'

‘What's the point? It's clapped out anyway.'

‘Ralph, for pity's sake! Are you determined to wallow in gloom?'

‘I've told you, I've had it up to here with bloody Astro-Sport. I'm sick to death of having to be polite to clients who shilly-shally about and then won't pay on time. And arguing the toss with tinpot little surveyors who think they're God and –'