Page 192 of The Pearl Sister
‘I understand. It’ll probably cheer her up a bit. Bye now.’
‘Bye.’
I did a little wiggle of triumph around my vast sitting room before I collected myself and dialled Linda’s number. My heart was pounding as the line rang, then finally clicked onto an answering machine and I hung up. Then I called Star, as I had no idea what my next step should be.
‘Okay,’ she said. ‘You need her address. Hold on a minute.’
I could hear her chatting in the background with a deep, velvety male voice.
‘Cee, I’m going to pass you over to Orlando, Mouse’s brother. He’s fantastic at playing detective.’
‘Miss Celaeno?’
‘Yes, but call me CeCe.’
‘Goodness, I do wish those blessed with unusual Christian names would actually use them. If anyone but my nephew would even dare call me “Lando”, I should go into a funk for the rest of the year. Now then, Miss Star tells me you need the address of a person.’
‘I do, yes,’ I replied, trying to stifle a giggle at the old-fashioned way he spoke.
‘Well now, I’ve just checked on the computer and the 01233 dialling code tells me your mystery woman hails from Kent. In fact’ – there was a pause as I heard him tap the keys – ‘to be precise, Ashford. A quality little town, which is coincidentally very near to here. So, now I am searching the online electoral register in that area for a Linda Potter. Bear with me, please, while I scroll . . . ah, yes! Here she is. The Cottage, Chart Road, Ashford, Kent.’
‘I’ll text it to you, Cee,’ said Star as she came straight back on the line. ‘Are you going to see her? It’s only an hour’s train ride from Charing Cross station.’
‘She might be away.’
‘Or lying low. Hold on . . .’
I waited as a discussion ensued between Orlando and Star.
Star came back on the line. ‘It’s only a short drive to Ashford from High Weald. What about if we go and stake the house out for you?’
‘You really don’t have to, Sia, it’s not like it’s life or death or anything.’
‘It might be to Ace, Cee. We could check if there’s any sign of an occupant before you traipse down here.’
‘Okay,’ I agreed, wondering whether Star’s life was simply so dull that she had to fill it with weird missions to see a woman neither of us had ever met, on the off chance she could help a man who was in jail for fraud, who never wanted me to darken his doorstep again.
‘We’ll go during our lunch hour,’ said Star. ‘Orlando can be my lookout.’ The two of them giggled like kids on Halloween, so I said my thank yous and left them to it.
Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang. It was the estate agent I’d contacted about selling the apartment.
We shook hands and he wandered around nodding and grunting. Eventually, he came to me and gave a dramatic sigh.
‘What’s the matter?’
‘Well, you must know the state of the property market in London at the moment?’
‘No, I haven’t got a clue.’
‘To put it bluntly, it’s dire.’
And then, the same man who had sold me the apartment in the first place by extolling its virtues proceeded to explain to me why no one else wouldeverbuy it, certainly not at the price I’d bought it for anyway.
‘The market’s flooded with new-build waterside apartments, a third of which are currently standing empty. It’s the subprime market in America that’s doing it, of course, but everything has a knock-on effect.’
Christ!
‘Could you just tell me in plain English what you think I should put the apartment on the market for?’
