Peter James - The House on Cold Hill

He hauled himself to his feet, walked further up the hill and then tried to run, but only managed a few steps before he had to walk again, panting hard up the final steep hundred yards to the summit. The soft contours of the South Downs stretched out for miles on either side of him, to Winchester, eighty miles away to the west, and to Eastbourne, twenty miles to the east. He and Caro had been planning to hike the South Downs Way for years, a week-long trek, and now it was literally on their back doorstep, they had no excuse.

Still breathing hard, his heart racing, he turned and looked back down at the house, directly below him, and at Cold Hill village over to the left. He stared across the rooftops, the gardens, the church spire, the black ribbon of road. The cricket pitch. He saw a large Victorian-looking house, with a swimming pool and tennis court, some distance back from the village, with a long driveway. That must be the Old Rectory that Annie Porter had mentioned, where there were children around Jade’s age.

It was so beautiful. So peaceful. It could be paradise here.

If...

The morning was very quiet. He heard another bleat, the caw of a crow, the faint, distant drone of a microlight, as he gazed down at the lake, at the green rectangle of the empty swimming pool, the outbuildings, the red-brick walls of their house, the round tower.

Were Caro and Jade still asleep in there?

What the hell else was in there, too?

Thirty minutes later, standing in the shower, half-listening to his favourite radio show of the week, Saturday Live , he was feeling a lot better and much more positive. Bruce Kaplan was a smart guy. Energy . There was just a load of weird energy in this house, that’s all it was. All of it. Energy had to be harnessed, and Bob Manthorpe, on Thursday, had told him something. He hadn’t used the word energy , but that, Ollie was certain, was what he had meant. He was going to take the old man’s advice.

As he walked back out of the bathroom, with a towel round his waist, he saw Caro was awake, lying in bed, checking her messages on her phone.

‘Hi, darling,’ he said.

‘Did you get some sleep?’

‘A little, finally.’

‘I think we ate too late, I had indigestion,’ she said.

‘Me too,’ he lied, thinking it was better she put their lack of sleep down to something tangible, rather than anything else. He heard a rasping sound.

‘I think that’s your phone,’ she said. ‘It vibrated earlier while you were out and woke me.’

‘I’m sorry.’ He went over to his bedside table and picked the phone up. He always left it on silent at night. Glancing at the display, he could see it was Cholmondley.

He frowned. This was early for his client to be calling — and at the weekend.

He answered, breezily. ‘Charles, good morning!’

There was a brief silence from the other end, followed, rapidly, by an explosion of anger.

‘Just what the hell do you think you are playing at, Mr Harcourt?’

‘I’m sorry?’ Ollie replied. ‘Playing at?’

‘You’ll be hearing from my lawyers first thing on Monday, if not sooner. How bloody dare you?’

His heart sinking, and completely confused, Ollie said, ‘I’m sorry, Charles — has something happened? I don’t understand?’

‘You don’t understand? Just what the hell do you mean by this — this — outrage? These slurs? Have you taken leave of your senses? What’s your game? What’s your bloody game?’

Ollie stood, stunned. The towel loosened and began to slip away, but he barely noticed. ‘I’m sorry, Charles, please — can you explain?’

He turned away from Caro’s curious gaze, and stepped out of the room, the towel falling away completely as he did so, closing the door behind him. ‘Explain?’ Cholmondley said. ‘I think you’re the one who’d better explain.’

‘I honestly don’t know what you’re talking about.’

‘No? Is this your way of having a laugh? When you get drunk perhaps and start insulting your clients?’

‘I can assure you I’ve done nothing of the sort. Please tell me what you mean?’

‘And telling the whole world at the same time? Our arrangement is terminated. You’ll be hearing from my lawyers on Monday.’

‘Charles, please,’ Ollie said, desperately. ‘I’m really sorry — what’s happened? Please tell me, I’m totally in the dark.’

‘In which case you must be suffering short-term memory loss.’

‘Memory loss?’

‘You’re either mental or you have a very strange sense of humour, Mr Harcourt.’

Ollie heard the beeping of an incoming call. He ignored it. ‘Look, I’m sorry, I really don’t know what you are talking about, or why you are upset.’

‘No? Well try imagining how you might feel if I’d sent you an email like that — and copied it to all your rival companies. Eh?’

The phone went dead. As Ollie pressed the button to finish the call his end, utterly baffled and reeling, he heard another voice on the line that he recognized. The cultured Indian accent of Anup Bhattacharya.

‘Mr Harcourt?’

‘Anup, good morning!’ Ollie said, uneasily.

‘Just what exactly is the meaning of this?’

If Cholmondley had sounded incandescent, Bhattacharya’s tone, although reserved, contained even deeper anger.

‘I’m sorry — the meaning of what?’

‘I’m just calling to let you know that our business relationship is over, Mr Harcourt. Goodbye.’

The line went dead.

His head spinning, and now even more bewildered, Ollie knelt down, pulled the towel back round his midriff, then hurried along the corridor and up the stairs to his office. If I’d sent you an email like that...

What the hell was Cholmondley talking about? From time to time his mate Rob Kempson would send him crude or risqué emails containing sexual and sometimes politically incorrect jokes. Occasionally he would forward them on to other friends. Had he forwarded one to Cholmondley and Bhattacharya, by mistake, that had offended them?

He was certain he hadn’t. He’d not heard from Rob in over a week or so.

Had he been hacked?

He sat down in front of his computer and logged on. He went straight to his mail box, and then to Sent Mail.

And could not believe his eyes.

There was an email from him, dated today , timed at 3.50 a.m., to Cholmondley. It was also openly copied to each of the other classic car dealers whom he had met at the Goodwood Revival last Sunday, whose business cards he had brought back and entered into the computer.

Dear Charles,

Forgive the directness of this email, but I’m a man who has always maintained strict moral principles in all of my business dealings. When you commissioned me to create a new website for your business, I knew you were a bit of a wanker, but not a fraudster as well.

I’ve now learned that most of the cars that you are advertising on this site do not have the provenance you are claiming. You specialize in cloning exotic cars, providing them with a fraudulent history, and trying to get away with it through your veneer of respectability. What has prompted this email is that you have now asked me to put up an advertisement for the sister car of a 1965 Ferrari GTO that was sold in the USA recently for $35m. You told me this ‘sister’ car has impeccable provenance. If ‘provenance’ comes from cannibalizing a couple of written-off Ferraris and manufacturing new ‘old’ parts in a workshop in Coventry, faking a newspaper article on how this vehicle had been found in a barn, where it had been under a dust sheet for 35 years, and faking its serial numbers and logbook, then fine, this car does indeed have ‘provenance’. The provenance of a master shyster who should long ago have been drummed out of the motor trade and put behind bars.