Chapter 4
CHAPTER 4
S pencer pulled the BMW off the Charnley road into a mud-rutted layby, switched off the engine and leaned back in his seat. Through the glass, the winter sun was warm on his face. For two pins, he could drop off to sleep, right now; it was only 2pm. It had been a stressful week in which nothing had gone right. Well, nothing had gone his way, which amounted to the same thing.
He’d just come from the Uckfield site where he’d discovered a problem, or rather, the builders working on it had. A row of three tiny terraced cottages, uninhabited, had been demolished, which had drawn minimal opposition from the locals since they were riddled with damp, woodworm and goodness knows what else. If he hadn’t demolished them, they’d have fallen down of their own accord. He planned to put up two decent-sized houses in their place, lovely modern interiors but the exteriors done in what was called sympathetic style, to fit with the surrounding Victorian buildings. That wasn’t the problem. No, the problem was that dreadful stuff called Japanese knotweed.
The construction manager, a doom merchant if ever there was one, had presented him with the evidence of the pernicious weed with something amounting to glee. He’d waved the fragments of its roots in front of Spencer for his inspection as soon as he’d arrived on site. The bloke was some kind of expert on the subject, or so he made out, and Spencer had no reason to dispute it. Japanese knotweed, he’d blithely informed Spencer, as if he didn’t already have a rough idea how insidious the stuff was, could grow up to ten centimetres a day and its stems could reach up to four metres in height. It had been cut back and possibly treated with chemicals in the past, but that hadn’t done the job properly. The stuff still lurked beneath the back gardens of the old cottages, creeping none too shyly into what remained of the walls and foundations.
Okay, the problem wasn’t insurmountable – was anything, when push came to shove? Although it wasn’t illegal to have Japanese knotweed on your property, it was against the law to allow it to spread elsewhere. In other words, Spencer being the current owner of the site, it was solely his responsibility to get rid of it before the surveyors got word of it, which no doubt they would. That kind of secret never stayed secret, and Spencer was damned if he was going to end up being prosecuted over a plant.
There were experts in the field, experts that would have to be called in, firstly to clear the site of knotweed, and secondly, most importantly, to advise properly on the legal obligations – Spencer’s obligations – and to act on his behalf if necessary. All that would cost time and money, a lot of money, and cause the job to overrun. He couldn’t afford for that to happen. But what choice did he have? He’d left the site with a firm instruction to the builders to get on with the job and leave him to deal with the rest. God knew when he’d have time to do that, but he’d have to make time, that was clear. For once, this wasn’t an issue that could be solved with a return favour or a backhander.
Spencer’s other problem, or possibly problems plural – he wasn’t sure yet – were two-fold. His professional and personal reputation were suddenly, alarmingly, at stake, in ways he’d never envisaged, as well as his relationship with Laura Engleby. True, it had been a risk returning to Charnley Acre after he’d gone home to Gloucestershire to escape any fallout from that dreadful business. But that was five years ago. He should be free to live where it suited him and, for now, Charnley Acre suited him very well. He’d always liked the area. He had connections in this part of Sussex, and there were opportunities to grow his business. Gloucestershire had been the centre of his world for the first twenty years of his life, apart from one or two sojourns elsewhere, and he’d had enough of it. Visiting his family was all well and good; he just didn’t need to base himself within spitting distance.
Bedsides, it wasn’t as if he was guilty of anything, as the court had ruled, but everyone knew that mud, if thrown accurately, tended to stick. With this in mind, and his business reputation to protect, he’d taken certain precautions, which should have been enough.
Until he’d run right into Clayton Masters, at Laura’s house, of all places.
Stupidly, he’d never thought to look up the man and see if he was still in the area. In his mind, Clayton was a feature of the past, a very unpleasant feature. Considering what had happened to him, he would surely have moved on somewhere else. Having ruled this as a high probability early on, Spencer had given the man no further thought.
The shock at the chance meeting had affected them both, that had been apparent at the time. But Spencer had rapidly regrouped, made it perfectly plain by his body language that he and Laura were together, and brazened it out. It wasn’t as if Masters was Laura’s guest, nor even her friend, although they had seemed at ease with each other. He was just the gardener, the hired help. He was nobody.
And then the whole thing had become a hundred times worse when Spencer discovered that he and Clayton were inextricably linked by his proposed new housing development. Spencer couldn’t believe it when he’d heard about the Christmas tree sales being part of the village’s Christmas market. He’d had the pleasure of finding that out at the first open meeting where, along with a couple of colleagues, he’d been prepared to field any awkward questions and reassure the locals that his company’s development was in the public interest. But so, apparently, was the market, and the damn Christmas tree enterprise. Clayton had wasted no time in making that point, staunchly backed by a number of other attendees who’d joined in quite volubly.
Only Spencer and Masters himself had known the fight was personal, as well as about business and the village community. Intensely personal.
So, his big concern now was whether Clayton had told Laura about their miserable shared history. If he had, Laura hadn’t mentioned it. Which meant either that the gardener hadn’t spilled his guts to his employer, or he had, and Laura had decided to keep quiet about it. For now.
Honestly, if there were two people who should be kept apart from one another, it was Laura Engleby and Clayton Masters. Spencer sighed as he considered, for the millionth time, the effect on him if Laura got to hear Clayton’s take on the story. It would be a pack of lies, but who was to say she wouldn’t believe him? And if she did, how bloody awful it would be, as well as inconvenient, if Spencer then had to go to the trouble of defending himself and talking Laura round? Just when he was getting somewhere with her, too.
She couldn’t find out, that was the bottom line. She just couldn’t. But quite how Spencer was going to prevent it from happening he had no idea.
The sun streaming through the window had suddenly got unbearably hot. He opened the door and stepped out. He felt claustrophobic and slightly nauseous. Treading either side of the muddy ruts in his polished shoes, he went and stood at the gate that opened onto a ploughed field. The shock of the cold compared with the inside of the car made him hike in his breath sharply but he felt better for it. Turning up the collar of his coat, he leaned on the top bar of the gate.
Laura was an amazing woman, one of the best, if not the best, he’d ever been out with. She was definitely the first he’d thought he could handle a permanent relationship with, and that was saying something. He’d been instantly drawn to her, realised she was someone special. And then, he’d seen Spindlewood, and the cogs in his brain had sped up, making the prospect of being with Laura even more bright and shiny.
He shouldn’t have caused that scene in the Ashley Arms the other night. Spencer didn’t regret much in his life but he definitely regretted that. It had been a shock, and a pretty nasty one at that, finding out that Clayton Masters would be setting up shop in Laura’s garden in order to flog his no doubt overpriced Christmas trees to an unsuspecting public. Why was she doing it? It made no sense whatsoever. Okay, so Spencer’s little plan of robbing Clayton of a tidy sum had failed. A word in the right ear and he’d succeeded in blocking the council’s permission for the tree site to move alongside the other displaced Christmas market stalls – an expensive but necessary action. But it was more than that. The little arrangement between Laura and her gardener indicated a certain closeness, a kind of friendship, which could only deepen, the more time the pair of them spent together. And friends shared secrets, didn’t they? Confided in one another. It would only take a few of the right words in the wrong direction and Spencer’s cover would be blown sky high.
All this had run swiftly through his mind as Laura had made her announcement. And then, stupidly, he’d gone right ahead and challenged her so strongly she must have wondered what he’d got against the tree idea, and, even more, what he’d got against the seller of the trees.
He’d been surprised at first when he realised she knew all about the altercation in the Goose, but he shouldn’t have been. In a village like Charnley Acre, word of that kind of thing soon got about. That was something else he regretted, goading Clayton in public. He’d only gone in for a quiet pint, but the barman knew who he was, and naturally they’d chatted about the housing development. It had been innocuous chat, the barman being more interested in the style of houses he’d be putting up and whether they’d really be within the means of young families on lowish incomes. That was the plan, Spencer had assured him, hopefully boosting up his altruistic credentials.
Then, Spencer had spotted Clayton, and the man had clearly had an ear to his private conversation with the barman.
It had all kicked off from there. Spencer wasn’t entirely blameless, he’d be the first to admit it. Six of one, half a dozen of the other. But it had escalated, as these things did, and now Laura seemed to be blaming him. In fact, she’d nailed her colours to the mast, coming right out and defending Clayton as she had. No wonder he’d seen red. Spencer wasn’t an unreasonable man, not at all. He just wanted to make the best of an unfortunate situation. But Laura couldn’t seem to grasp that. She’d rushed out of the Ashley in a strop, leaving Spencer sitting alone at the table looking like a total loser.
They’d made it up, of course. But the whole episode had left Spencer with a sour taste in his mouth as his worries increased, and he’d not even had the consolation of going to bed with her at the end of the night.
Spencer peeled himself away from the gate and got back in the car. He couldn’t leave things as they were. It was too chancy. He had feelings for Laura, feelings he expressed often in the accepted manner. She was gorgeous, sexy and he enjoyed her company. She was also the owner of a big old house that was ripe for development. Nothing could be allowed to get in the way of either cause.
He would have to tell her straight. Well, straight ish . Appeal to her better judgement and her sense of loyalty to him; play on her emotions. He was her partner, after all, and she should put him first. All he had to do was find the right words, a skill that seemed to have deserted him recently. He would be fair but firm when he told Laura she was to have nothing more to do with Clayton Masters.
That decided, Spencer started the car and pulled out onto the road. He had intended to drive straight home but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to make a little detour to Spindlewood and check how the land lay, as it were.