Chapter Four
The tyre was hissing. Kim Sinker wondered if she had time to fix it.
She was fifteen minutes early; she was always fifteen minutes early.
She had parked, felt the potholes in the road and then heard the grinding sound by the front left wheel.
The sun was bouncing off the red roof, warming and blinding her, and she reached for her sunglasses as she moved towards the boot.
She looked away from the tyre and up at the top floor of the property. From one flat to another. It was the last she would show that week, and was much more than a regular apartment – this was a rare penthouse in Sidmouth.
The lane was one road back from one of the finest seafronts in Devon and the large block of private flats overlooked the cricket green.
Kim had parked diagonally. She would have to find out if the council had an action plan on the potholes; a single one could kill a sale.
She contemplated the flat tyre. She was not going to play the role of damsel-in-distress and call Edward.
He was practical in his own way, but sometimes seemed to get lost inside his own head.
She loved him for his warmth and humour, and the way laughter could roll from him like water from a stream, suggesting an infinite supply.
Moments of sadness were understandable. She loved him for it all.
The picture of Edward in her mind spread warmth across her body.
She had sold him that crazy property above Ladram Bay and the affair had begun then and there – just as crazy.
Her using him rather than the other way around.
Then he had lost his young son and disappeared from her life.
Just before her own divorce, events had brought them back together.
She never expected him to be capable of the love he had shown her.
She only saw the fire of her first marriage as she left it, like a driver watching a motorway pile-up in her rear-view mirror.
Divorce from a violent husband was like a rebirth.
But Edward, this six-foot-something, sideburned, badly dressed man in permanent need of a haircut, who moved at times – in his oversized shoes – as if he felt he had no right to fill a hole in the air: he had been torn, not reborn, by his son’s death.
Somehow he had willed himself to move beyond it. His love for her was a miracle.
Her phone was ringing, and she saw the name on her screen. As if her thoughts had drawn him. When she picked up, she heard a croak.
‘Nightmare.’
‘What? Who is this doing heavy breathing at me?’
‘It’s your boyfriend with no voice. I can’t even do my show tonight,’ rasped Edward at the other end. ‘I think I now have five minutes of voice thanks to a pastille.’
‘You poor thing.’
‘Listen, I was at an event for listeners and your mum was there.’
‘Why was it a nightmare?’
‘She decided to translate for me because of my voice. And I gather she got a few things upside-down.’
‘Like what?’
‘Apparently I promised the radio station would compensate victims of The Case. I’ve just had a call from Aspinall; he was ultra-aggressive, but also laughing at me, which was worse.
He said if I wanted the scam victims compensated, he would divert “your own modest salary, Edward” straight to them, or, better yet, I could find a way to turn my show into a ratings driver.
Which he said was unlikely, as “your bloody show has fewer scoops than theatre interval ice cream”. He was exceptionally rude.’
‘Well, that’s unfair. You’re not there to break stories, you’re there to talk about what’s happening already.’
‘He called me “The Official NFC”.’
‘What does that even mean?’
‘“Next for the chop”. Then he really started raging. He said if my show ever broke a story, it would probably collapse.’
‘Bastard. Workplace bullying.’
‘It all happened at Harpford Hall. I was speaking and I couldn’t make myself heard. Your mum’s translations were a bit wayward, to say the least, and—’
‘Don’t. I can’t bear it.’
‘Now Aspinall’s furious. He says compensating the victims of the scam would be half a million quid. I didn’t even say we would.’ He coughed. ‘Where are you? I wanted to talk to you about something.’
‘What?’
‘Something good, big. I don’t want to get into it on the phone.’
‘That’s lucky because I can barely hear you, sweetie.’ Kim kicked the flat tyre. ‘I’m at Thirdfield Terrace with a puncture. Showing a gorgeous penthouse which I’ve lusted over for years.’
She turned to the cricket field. The green would need careful handling when it came to selling a property. ‘The gentle sound of leather on willow in the summer’ is what you had to say. Not: ‘Long winter nights listening to teenage kids pissed on Strongbow snogging each other’s faces off.’
Still, early May was the perfect moment to show the place. They’d surely been at the lawn with nail clippers, all those old buffers in scuffed flannels. The sun’s rays touched the sea and scattered, lines of white razored in the deep green.
‘This place,’ she said, ‘honestly. You should see it, Edward. It has everything.’
‘Let me sort out your tyre while you’re showing the flat,’ said Edward. He landed on the same pun. ‘You do their flat, I’ll do yours.’
‘Very good, but—’
‘Really. I’ll come over. It’s something I don’t need a voice for. Hey – do you know a Wendy Wrigley? The Birmingham crossbow—’
The line dropped for a moment, and her attention was taken by a middle-aged man with a stick walking up the terrace towards her. Was this her client? The name had been double-barrelled, so it could well be.
‘Did you say crossbow, Edward? Hello? The line—’
‘Yes. A woman came up to me this afternoon, and—’
Kim yelped as someone behind her tapped her shoulder. She whirled around to face the stranger, a young man in his late twenties, smirking, flat-foreheaded, with shiny blond hair swept backwards and outwards like a mane. ‘Wait, baby, I think my client’s here.’
The stranger repeated her words: ‘Wait baby.’ Then he roared with laughter, as if he had just played the most incredible prank.
He was smartly dressed but oddly proportioned, with extra weight around his waist and nowhere else, making his body oval.
His legs were locked straight, feet planted apart in red brogues as if he was squaring up for a fight he knew he would win.
Kim had the thought that the manly stance was hollow – was he imitating an abusive father or school bully who had done him some long-remembered harm?
The young man laughed again, a single loud yelp this time.
‘I’ll call you back shortly,’ Kim said to Edward, then disconnected the call without waiting for an answer.
She was a little disconcerted. This man must have sidled into position behind her, in his sharp suit and buffed shoes, despite the gravel underfoot and the fact that the only way around to this side of the road would have been via the cricket green.
But rather than shake her hand or say his name, he turned.
‘Ruhi, mate!’ he shouted in a London accent. ‘Over ’ere!’
A woman who might have been a model appeared between a line of five cars parked at the edge of the green.
The contrast between the two could not have been greater.
She was walking – almost floating – in their direction.
She was tall and wore a dress so diaphanous that Kim thought she could see black underwear through it, or maybe no underwear at all.
When Ruhi drew closer to them, somehow navigating the cricket green in heels, Kim was dazzled by her high-cheekboned beauty.
Could she smell expensive perfume, carried on the breeze?
The other woman would tower over them both when she reached them.
The wind caught her dress and lifted it at the hem.
‘You’re cold,’ said Kim, dazed.
‘Goose pimples,’ said the woman, arriving with the grace of a royal.
There was only one imperfection that Kim could see – her long, narrow nose was a little askew.
‘Didn’t expect the seafront to be like this.
’ She sounded disappointed already. ‘I’m Ruhi, this is Tank, and you must be Sinker the estate agent? ’
‘Kim, please.’
‘Sinker!’ exclaimed the man.
The classy-looking middle-aged gent with the walking stick was long gone.
What a shame: these two were her clients instead.
Kim scrolled through her mental Rolodex.
She had never had an initial customer interaction like this before.
It was not very … Devon. If the lady was wearing no underwear, as she suspected, they were in uncharted territory.
The client name in her phone calendar was Thomas Slater-Glynne.
Back in the day, a double-barrelled surname said old money; she could expect a silver fox in tweed with a gentle handshake and proper manners.
But these days, even the chap barking prices on the fruit-and-veg stall in Exmouth had a hyphenated surname, so a Slater-Glynne could be anyone.
Was this fellow called ‘Tank’ the Thomas she was expecting?
Oh. Of course he was. She got the joke – Thomas, Tank. The young man must have seen the penny drop because he shoved his hands deep into his pockets and flapped his elbows like wings. ‘Yep, I’m “Tank” to the lady.’
Ruhi, the six-foot tower of dark beauty, spoke. ‘I watched Thomas the Tank Engine growing up in Kerala. He and I need codenames because we work together and nobody knows.’
‘I call her Fire,’ said Tank. ‘Because, you know. She works for me.’
Fire and Tank. For God’s sake. Kim didn’t ‘know’ and did not want to know. ‘You’ve come down from London?’ she asked.
‘How did you guess? American Bank, all on the QT,’ said Tank. ‘Cash purchase for our shag cabin.’