Page 21 of The Secret House of Honey and Hope

I walk in the direction of the exit. The two men have been glancing towards me on and off, and sure enough before I get halfway to the doors, one of them catches up to me.

I’m very aware of George’s eyes following me. I suspect he’d rather I didn’t sell. But it’s not up to him.

“Mr Hemingway, can I call you Harrison?” The agent smooths the wispy hair over his balding dome then pushes his hand towards me. “My name is Tim Morris. You own,” he consults his tablet, “Low Catch cottage.”

If I were his manager, I would tell him he should never talk this way to a prospective client.

“Leaseholder,” I correct him. “Nobody owns property here because the land belongs to the seigneur.”

“Exactly,” Tim says as if I’m a student and he the teacher. “Let me be honest with you, Harrison,” he says, even though I hadn’t agreed to him using my first name. “These leases haven’t been serviced properly. I mean we’ve been around all the cottages on Catcher Lane, and they are in a terrible sate.”

It’s interesting that he calls the houses cottages, a tactic to make them seem inconsequential and small. I wait and let him do his pitch. The man is a terrible actor. He pretends he’s not sure he wants the house, but the nervous way he blocks my way out makes it clear he is anxious.

“I’ve been thinking of keeping the lower part of the garden and just selling the house,” I say casually.

Immediately his face twists. “Oh no, I don’t think you’d get much for the house. To be honest with you, Harrison, the house isn’t worth much, but with the big garden it might be more attractive.”

Attractive? The lower garden? I have to hide my laugh with a cough. The only attractive thing about the lower garden is a risk of being scratched to death. All four houses stand on the edge of a steep hill completely choked with thorny bushes. But, of course, to a holiday resort, it’s the all-important sea view. No doubt they plan to bulldoze and level the ground and set up Ferris wheels or God only knows what.

I shrug. “Maybe.”

We go through the charade of pretending I’m not desperate to sell and he’s not eager to buy, but I’m better at this. Recalling the angry look in George’s eyes when he looked at them, I say, “To be honest I’m not staying here long so if I don’t get a decent offer, I might put the property in the hands of the seigneur to sell for me.”

Bingo. Tim Morris changes strategy.

“That’s a bad idea, Harrison. He would sit on it for ages. You heard him, he wants people to come back and live here. I used to work for him and have seen him slow things down before. If you’re in a hurry let me make you a nice offer. The cottage won’t sell for much but if it’s a quick sale, we might be able to take the whole thing off your hands for five thousand pounds.”

Five thousand? He's probably willing to pay ten thousand but wants to lower my expectations with his initial offer.

“We can finalise the sale quickly if that’s what you want, Harrison?” He gives me a big false smirk. “And you can thank me later.”

“Mr Morris, can you please stop using my first name?”

Morris opens and shuts his mouth a couple of times. Good. Now he’s on the back foot, I make my move. “Why don’t you ask your colleague over so we can save time?”

His colleague is Alastair Sweeny, he’s the one I overheard in the café estimating the income from one summer’s rents.

“You are hoping to build holiday homes, it’s why you want all four houses and the hill with the sea view.” I speak fast, not giving them time to play games.

“The rule of thumb in any buy-to-let development is you expect to buy the site for the equivalent of one year’s rent. You think you can make thirty-five to forty thousand a year, so I’m going to make you an offer, a good one because I’m in a hurry. I’ll sell for thirty thousand.”

Morris and Sweeny try a pantomime of pretending to find my price laughable.

“Not a penny less,” I say with a straight face. “I’m staying at Les Etoile until tomorrow. Call me if you want to sign the contract before midday tomorrow.” I step forward between them, forcing them to move apart and let me through, and go out into the fresh air.

Chapter Ten

Elodie

So, that was him. The man in the puddle from yesterday. Hal Hemingway, complete with romantic literary name, romantic literary eye-wear, and a hidden sense of humour. When Mrs Xavier who owns the house next to ours kept banging on about Vladimir Putin’s secret army buying up property, Hal camouflaged an inconvenient case of the giggles by taking off his glasses and pretending to breathe on them and wipe them clean.

My eyes kept trying to catch his, but he seems shy. Or awkward. He did that thing shy people do, pretending to look at his phone when we were standing with George Du Montfort. So, he’s my cousin! Three hundred years removed, but still. Who knew we had such good-looking cousins? And they live next door; Low Catch is the last house on Catcher Lane, I can just see it as I walk back home after the meeting. If what George said is true, we are two parts of one house.

Now I know what to look for, it’s clear this used to be a bigger mansion. For one thing, both houses are much taller than normal farmhouses on the island, and they don’t have pitched rooves. The top is flat with an ornamental parapet, like crenelations, all made of the same grey stone as the walls. The design seems uneven too, our windows are a little too close to the edge on the side nearest to Low Catch, as if a giant knife cut a slice from the middle. Low Catch is wider than Labri Catch, so, I’m guessing their house has more rooms. A line of hazelnut trees like a wall grows in the gap between us, so we can’t see into each other’s windows. Not that I would want to spy on Hal Hemingway. Obviously.

I shake my head to get rid of the idea. What’s important is that all four houses on the lane will soon be inhabited. Nutting Farm, across the stream, is also expanding and will start selling fresh farm produce, which is bound to attract customers. Catcher Lane itself is being extended to reach Nutting Field where they hold all the festivals, and beyond that to Nutter Beach. Which means, tourists will walk this way; that’s a lot of footfall up and down past our house.

We’re no longer a neglected neighbourhood. Which means…I can’t help grinning… If Grandad agrees, we can move the honey shop here.

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