Chapter 16
Nic drove the long way around the lake to cast an eye on what his rivals were doing.
Caravan sites dominated huge swathes of the landscape – it was obvious the Hetherington family was trying to establish a niche in American-style static caravans.
He wondered if this Cumbrian mafia was having more luck with the planners than he was.
Pulling up to the kerb outside his house, he found Aria occupying the space with a woman he didn’t know.
She was holding a bunch of spindly flowers she’d likely picked from the kerb, with her bags and dog at her feet.
Nic watched her stabbing at the panel next to the new gate, much as she had done with the box on his front door.
Turning his music off, he steeled himself for more hassle from his ungrateful neighbour.
He’d been looking forward to a few moments of peace, lying on his bed before his call with Theo.
Most days, the skylight showed a rolling gallery of cloud, but he’d started to enjoy the way they swirled above him.
It was also nice to see the stars later on, free of haze, before falling asleep listening to owls instead of traffic. Christ, was he going soft?
Before giving Aria the opportunity to dive into a rant, he opened the system app and pressed four numbers into his phone.
When the gate didn’t move, he clicked his tongue.
Shit. They’d assured him the code would work temporarily until he reset it.
Stepping out of the car, he nodded hello to the unknown woman, before sidestepping Aria and banging the numbers into the control panel.
Nothing. He pushed out an irritated breath and tried again.
Still nothing. How embarrassing to have his technology backfire when he’d claimed it was burglar-proof.
‘It’s great to have a super-secure system in place, isn’t it? So secure, even residents can’t get past it!’ Aria’s voice was thick with sarcasm.
‘I’ll get it sorted,’ Nic sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose before repeatedly stabbing in the number.
Aria frowned. ‘When? We’ve been standing here for ten minutes.’
He glared at her, before hitting the box with his palm.
‘Oh, that’ll sort it,’ Aria scoffed.
‘I use the internet to read my horoscope, you know. Not all that technology malarkey is bad!’ the woman accompanying Aria chirruped.
‘Did it predict you’d meet a security-obsessed man who can’t work his own gate?’
Belinda shook her head. ‘Not exactly. It said I’d be influenced by Neptune, receive some life-changing health news and tackle my sock drawer.’ Her expression clouded as she scrutinised his face. ‘Although I’m still waiting to meet a long-
lost relative resembling Chewbacca in a hat from last week’s prediction…’
Giving up on the pad, Nic suggested they climb over the gate if they were in a hurry. ‘The builder seems to share a phone with his son who isn’t the most reliable of—’
‘They’ll be in the pub,’ Aria interrupted. ‘The weekly quiz starts in an hour.’
‘How do you know?’
‘They invited me.’
Nic felt a pang at being excluded from yet another club, but didn’t let his reaction show. Instead, after firing off a text, he grabbed his car keys. ‘I’ll move the car over there and give you guys a leg up.’
‘You can buy me dinner before making me that kind of offer!’ The older woman tinkled a laugh.
When he returned, she took his hand and looked game enough to stand on his shoulders, but he wasn’t insured for that.
Instead, he guided her leg towards a beam of wood halfway up the gate, and then another a bit higher up, before climbing over himself and helping her down the other side.
He asked Aria to pass over Tiger, along with the shopping, which he put on the grass his side.
He sensed her fuse was shortening by the second as she clambered up, threw a thigh over the fence, wobbled at the top and almost crashed down onto him.
He helped her lower herself safely to the ground without a word.
She wasn’t so courteous. ‘While I’m appreciative of the white-knight-on-a-horse treatment, you must realise, if we can scale the gate, then other people can too. Surely that negates the whole point of it.’
He scowled. ‘It’s a deterrent not a fortress.’
‘You’d probably be happier if Spanner delivered on his promise to castrate all intruders,’ she countered.
He’d raised an eyebrow for her to explain, when she picked up the flowers and jabbed him with them, shedding pollen onto his shirt.
‘I might have let you help me out twice today, but don’t go assuming I’m some kind of damsel-in-distress,’ she spat out.
‘If they’d set the code up properly, we wouldn’t be climbing over the gate, Rapunzel,’ he answered, teeth gritted.
‘I thought those flowers might be for me as a thank-you for my sterling efforts in helping you out earlier. But I suspect they were picked from my verge, which is technically theft.’ He rubbed at the yellow flower stain as he started walking down the new tarmac road to his house, quickening his pace when he felt raindrops on his head and shoulders.
The women followed a pace or two behind, and he heard Aria pointing out his house and her cabin, before beginning a character assassination she presumably thought he couldn’t hear.
It started with his monopoly of the lake, moved to his behaviour in the shop and ended with their encounter at the gate.
‘Why would I give him flowers? Honestly Belinda, he’s done nothing but embarrass me all day, and then he put us in a prison! He may as well have…’
Well, that took the biscuit. ‘Embarrass you?’ he retorted, spinning around. ‘I think you’ll find—’
‘Do you always talk over women?’ Aria proceeded to talk over him.
‘When I am trying to help them, perhaps.’ He upped his pace as he’d had enough of this nonsense. When his path diverted from theirs, he nodded a terse goodbye.
The woman he didn’t know held her hand out.
‘I’m Belinda. Nice to meet you and thank you for helping me piggyback over the gate.
’ She turned to Aria, holding out a hand to assess the weather.
‘The rain is getting worse. Perhaps I should shelter until it goes off? It’ll be miserable to walk.
’ He groaned inside. The Wilson girl only had a rickety shack and the woman with her looked like she’d blow away in the wind.
They might be a pain, but he was on a new mission to make friends with the locals and it wouldn’t be very chivalrous to walk away when he had access to a big-ass house only metres from where they were standing.
Belinda seemed to be thinking along the same lines. ‘I could really do with a cup of tea, if anyone is offering?’
‘Why don’t you both come in until the rain stops?’ he reluctantly suggested.
Aria Wilson looked horrified as it started to pelt onto their heads and shoulders, but Belinda jumped at his offer. ‘Ooh, I’d love to see your house. It’s been quite the talk of the town…’
‘Just quickly, then,’ said Aria, with a face on her as she fiddled with Tiger’s lead.
He smiled at the small victory. ‘Tea?’ he offered, as they entered the show home, rain now bouncing on the path outside.
‘Do you have green tea?’ Belinda asked, placing her sticks carefully next to his coat rack.
‘I think I have some in my treasure chest. Come in.’ As Nic led them into the lounge, he waited for a reaction.
It was a pretty spectacular building and, if Belinda wasn’t wowed, then buyers used to luxury sure as hell wouldn’t be.
Thankfully she gave him an appropriately enthusiastic response.
But as he glanced around, he noticed once again how unloved the house looked, with strange things on the shelves simulating what target buyers might want.
Despite the light coming in from the windows, the kitchen was a dark green, and the only other colour came from a feature wall of vines the designer had been keen on.
The rest of the building was a smorgasbord of greys, which on reflection he found a little depressing.
Back in London, his flat was entirely white with his framed covers from manga comics drawing the eye to the walls.
His trips to Japan with his mother over the years had inspired him to value clutter-free spaces, but there was a difference between uncluttered and bland.
He hadn’t thought of bringing anything that would put his stamp on this house, as he didn’t intend to stay – so no wonder Aria had assumed no one was living here when she showed it.
He rifled in a cupboard for the English tea hamper delivered to every new homeowner on moving-in day along with champagne in a branded bucket.
He passed the box to Belinda who pounced on it.
‘Beware of the exotic flavours like rosehip, liquorice and hogwart,’ he said.
‘Isn’t Hogwart a fictional school?’ Belinda chipped in, a giggle on her lips.
‘I knock back a triple espresso three times a day, so everything else tastes like toilet water to me.’ He grinned, realising he sounded like a total knob.
‘Oh, and the taps are all-singing and all-dancing, and can deliver hot water on demand, although I still end up boiling the kettle out of habit.’
‘Can they tap dance though?’ Aria asked.
‘Huh?’
‘Or do they prefer the ballet?’
It took a moment, but he went with it, pleased her combative mood had lightened. ‘They love musicals. Fiddler on the Roof is a favourite.’
‘You wouldn’t believe how many people ask if I can sing because my name is Aria. I’m so bad at it I sound like a frog chorus,’ she grumbled.
‘I’d join your choir. I have all the tenor of a toad.
’ They smiled at each other in a momentary truce, and he was struck by the simple beauty of her face.
Hardly any women he knew left the house without make-up, and many had regular botox appointments.
As Aria joined her friend in exploring the tea chest, he couldn’t help but let his gaze wander to the chest he’d traced.
What would it feel like to actually have her skin on his?
No. Tearing his eyes away, he wiped his hands on his jeans.
‘I need to dry off, but I can make your tea first.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Aria offered. ‘But not if you want coffee. Wouldn’t do to throw another triple shot down your front.’ They swapped a knowing smile and as he left, he overheard Belinda whispering.
‘Where does he go for all this? Sri Lanka and Brazil?’
‘Fortum and Mason, according to the packets,’ Aria drily replied.
In the bedroom Nic changed into a dry shirt and checked his appearance in the mirror. By the time he re-entered the room, they were sipping from mugs and discussing walking routes, with Aria pointing out parts of the lake people could no longer access.
Belinda squealed in disapproval. ‘I know, right! I give out maps, but I always have to scrawl over the paths that can’t be used. This lake used to be a walker’s paradise.’
‘Swimmers, too!’ Aria interjected.
He tuned out of the complaints and picked up a message from the builder apologising for the glitch with the gate.
As he followed instructions to reset the code digitally, he wondered why Aria had brought the town’s chief tourism officer here.
Were they planning to influence the planning committee against him?
Belinda would have clout in this town, and Aria clearly wasn’t afraid to speak out.
Fucking hell, how many obstacles would be in his way before he could put up a few houses on land he either owned or wanted to pay top dollar for?
Irritated, he announced Aria would need to contact him for a new code now and again.
‘I’ve been told to change it regularly,’ he said, enjoying the mischief.
‘But if you’re only coming to do some angling it shouldn’t affect you that much. ’
Annoyance washed across her face. ‘What’s the current code?’
‘I haven’t decided yet. Just ping me when you need to get in or out.’
‘We’re leaving now,’ she said, pouring her tea into the sink and gesturing for Belinda to drink up. ‘Is that enough notice for you? Come on, Belinda, I will show you the path around the lake. You can go quite a way from here, unless Mr Castle has put in any more gates.’
Nic acknowledged Belinda’s gushing thanks for the cup of tea she didn’t get a chance to drink as he showed them both out, Tiger following in their wake.
And then he glanced around the downstairs area, wondering how he would occupy himself for the rest of the long evening ahead.
As he contemplated a steak for one, Theo rang to ask what the weird phone call had been about.
Nic shrugged it off, asking after his health.
‘Oh, I’m just grand,’ his brother replied. ‘In fact, I’ve invited an ex over and I’m cooking up some organic salmon, so I won’t be free for our Zoom meeting, after all.’
Nic’s heart sank, and then he reminded himself that his brother should be allowed to have some fun after all the months of hell.
He rang off, resigned to spending the evening watching TV on his own.
Even the stars above his bed wouldn’t give him adequate company tonight.
Noticing the rain had stopped, he stepped out onto his balcony and saw Aria setting out a bottle of wine and two glasses on her wooden veranda.
She didn’t look like someone who was preparing to go for the last bus, he thought.
And anyway, she didn’t have the code to get out.
Washing up the mugs, he decided to head into town, himself. He’d take a walk and go for a pint.