Chapter 12

I was back in the office the next day. I hadn't given too much creed to Tina's dissertation, yet overnight my mind must have decided to pick the pieces out and put them together again. My sleep was more than a little disrupted. Was Annabel setting her sights on me? Tina was a good judge of character. She didn't come to conclusions as a man would; thinking clearly and balancing pros and cons. Tina worked on intuition and feelings. I was ashamed to say that she got it right more often than I did. On balance therefore I should believe Tina, although my sometimes diffident nature asked, 'why'?

This mental perambulation stopped when Tina came into my office. "Mr. Anders is on the phone wanting to talk."

"Did he say what about?"

"Not exactly, but I think it is about your threat to re-negotiate the deal."

"Put him through." Tina did that and came back to sit down and listen. She wore a smile of expectation.

"Mr. Anders. What can I do for you?"

"I'm not happy, Mr. Chandler. We had a deal and shook hands on it. Now you are threatening to re-negotiate. That's not ethical business practice. I would have thought better of you."

"Mr. Anders. I negotiated with you in good faith. Unfortunately you neglected to tell me that you wouldn't complete for at least six months. If there is any unethical business practice it is your not mentioning your time frame. If you had mentioned that we may have been able to come to terms, but those terms would be different. As it is despite your lack of clarity, I have agreed to allow you that six months, but not a day longer. If you do not complete at that time, the deal is off. Then if you still want the properties we negotiate as if this agreement had never happened."

"We have had some problems over the land. I hope they will be resolved before six months has passed. Could we not persuade you to give us a little time."

"I suppose I could do something. If you would complete now you would of course, receive the rents, which amounts to just over seven thousand pounds per month. Alternatively you could pay a deposit of say twenty percent now, which would fix the asking price for twelve months. Shall I leave that with you?"

"You are very difficult man to deal with, Mr. Chandler."

"Not really, Mr. Anders. I deal with all my cards on the table."

"I'll get back to you."

Tina was incandescent with me. "You should have screwed him, Daniel. You let him get away with it."

"Not really, Tracey. I suddenly remembered something. The Council will give him planning consent, but always in such consent they include the responsibility for re-homing tenants whose homes are demolished. If he buys the property now, he has to do that and I have capital to buy more houses. However that purchase would probably be in north Essex or south Suffolk. Whenever he completes he still has sitting tenants to re-home and he will then be looking for property, which I have and would be willing to sell at the right price."

Tina thought about this and her angry face morphed into a happy one. Then she laughed. "You devious bugger! If I wasn't promised to Aleksy, I would give you a big kiss right now. I'll forgo that and tell Annabel to give you a big kiss when next you see her."

Two days later when I was trying to understand a tenancy dispute, Tina came into my office. "Annabel is on the line for you. I have put her through to your phone."

I picked up the receiver. "Good morning, Bella. It's rather nice to hear from you."

"I am pleased you are in your office, Tina says you are relaxing with your feet up on the desk."

"I should be so lucky. How can I help you?"

"Well it's more me helping you actually."

"Oh?"

"Yes. You have written to your tenant farmers asking for confirmation of their rented land. Farmers in general are not good at paperwork. You will get the confirmation you ask for but it is likely to be grubby scraps of paper which could be difficult to understand. Would you accept a letter from me with the information you need?"

"I would think that is quite acceptable, as long as you are not put out having to do it."

"Not at all, Daniel. I handle most of my father's dealings with his tenants, who in the main are the same as yours. That's why they spoke to me by the way, I am not prying into your business. I can get that off to you today, even faster if I can email it to you."

"By all means do so. Have you got my email address?"

"Yes. Tina gave me one of your cards."

"I am in your debt, Bella."

"Never tell a woman you are in debt to them. You may find paying the debt quite challenging."

"I was thinking of asking you out to dinner one evening when I am next at Chetford."

"That would be very nice, Daniel, I accept. But it will only be part payment."

"What else is there?"

"Oh I have to think about that, but I am sure that whatever it is, we will both enjoy it. See you soon, perhaps?"

"Yes. Bye, Bella."

I put down the phone to see Tina's smug smile. She could have heard only my side of the conversation yet that was enough for her to get into superior mode. "Out for dinner? Hmm. At a nice hotel, perhaps? With a room booked just in case, perhaps? Oh Mr. Chandler, your seductive plan has lots of flaws, but it will probably work. Especially as Annabel wants to get into bed with you."

"Miss Barker. You are reading far too much into this."

"Possibly. You are terrible at understanding women. I suspect that Annabel recognizes that and will help you along."

"As I said. You are reading too much into this. Now get back to work!"

Half an hour later Tina came in with a printout of the farmers names and the land they rented. "She's very efficient. Perhaps you should give her a job."

"Perhaps I should, then I could sack you."

"Do that and I will make Aleksy build in to your house some nasty surprises." She grinned at me. "This is very interesting."

"Oh?" Tina laid a copy of the email in front of me. Then for comparison she gave me a copy of the letter from Huddingtons.

"Look at Mr. Somers. According to Huddingtons, he rents forty acres. By his own admission he rents forty five acres from you. Now look at Mr. Gilmore. Again according to Huddingtons he rents thirty acres. Mr. Gilmore says that he rents forty. They have been skimming for years."

Tina was right. Huddingtons had been skimming for years. I was supposed to be letting one hundred and twenty acres. The truth was that I was letting one hundred and fifty acres. How long this had been going on I couldn't know, but they had skimmed a lot of money over the years. Not from me though. It was Brian Morestead and that old lady, Mrs. Tiverton who had suffered. I couldn't care less about Brian. If he was so casual that he didn't look into it then it was his loss. Neither could I do anything about Mrs. Tiverton; she was dead. However I could do something about Huddingtons. I think a visit to them is needed. That visit came closer the next day when Aleksy phoned Tina. Someone from the council had called to the site and ordered all work to stop. He would return tomorrow at ten o' clock when he expected whoever had authorised this work to be there. Tina told Aleksy we would be there at ten a.m ... I had a conversation with the planning officer when we were in Braintree. He had indicated that restoring the house would be permissible as long as no changes were made to the exterior. Subsequently we had an exchange of correspondence agreeing the details. Tina had all of this in a folder, together with photographs taken around nineteen oh eight. I could see Tina mentally strapping on her armour and sharpening her sword. She would enjoy this. "Tina, we are not going into battle. This is probably some jobsworth who hasn't read the file nor has he taken advice from the planning officer. It will be settled amicably." She bristled, settling amicably was not to her liking. I threw her a bone. "Take the correspondence regarding the rented land. We will visit Huddingtons while we are in the area."