‘Yes, but we’ve just run out of money. We put the builder on a penalty clause to move things along faster, but we can’t afford to pay him and so everything’s come to a grinding halt. I’ve bought us a little time, managed to stop him walking out, but only because we owe them so much they won’t walk until they get their money.’
‘How much are we talking about?’ Nick asked.
‘I’m not sure—thousands. Hundreds of thousands, probably.’
Nick nodded, wondering how he could have got into so much debt and not know the figure. Presumably that was how. ‘And the other debts, on your business?’
He shrugged again. ‘The same—more, perhaps. The business is in real trouble, but if you knew what you were doing you might get something out of it, and if you could sell the shops they might almost clear the mortgage debt, but it would take time and that’s one thing we haven’t got. It’s only really the site that’s of significant value, and that’s only potential. Frankly at the moment it’s worth less than it was when we started.’
Nick’s entrepreneurial antennae twitched. Potential was one of his favourite words, and another one was honesty. Nobody could accuse Broomfield of trying to cover anything up. He was being distressingly honest at his own expense, but for Nick, at least, it worked. To a point.
‘OK. I’ll try and find time to go and see the site when I get back from New York in a few days—and in the meantime I want exact figures on the business, the mortgages and the property portfolio. If they stack up, we’ll talk again.’
‘If I could just keep my house—’
‘I’m not making any promises. I’m not in this for charity, Mr Broomfield—but I’ll do what I can.’
‘Do you know what you’re buying?’
Nick shrugged off his jacket, dropped into the big leather chair behind his desk and studied the incredulous face of his PA for a moment before he sat back, twiddling his pen.
‘Want to give me a clue what you’re talking about?’
Tory sighed and plonked herself down in the chair opposite, rolling her eyes. ‘The Broomfield deal—the building site?’
He scrunched his brows together, racking his brains and trying to dredge up something—anything!—that would have put that look on Tory’s face. ‘What about it?’ he said. ‘Some scruffy old school buildings, he said. Nothing great. Potential, I think was the word—’
‘Nothing great?’ Tory snorted and waggled a fat manila folder at him. ‘I take it you haven’t looked at the plans I carefully faxed you?’
Nick grinned. ‘Guilty as charged,’ he confessed.
‘I thought so. The scruffy old school buildings are a rather fine Victorian house in the style of an Italianate villa, with a coach house, chapel, stable block et cetera, et cetera, blah, blah, blah. With a couple of acres of playing fields. OK, there are some tatty old temporary classrooms and some other bits from the days when it was a school that need demolishing, but that’s all and they may already have gone. The rest is a gem. For goodness’ sake, it’s prime real estate, on a seafront site in a prime residential area of Yoxburgh, in Suffolk. You might at least look a bit interested.’
He sat up straighter. He knew Yoxburgh—he’d spent days there as a child, playing on the beach, and his mother lived only twenty or so miles from it now. ‘You said plans,’ he reminded Tory, eyeing the folder thoughtfully.
‘Oh, yes. Detailed planning permission for conversion to apartments and town houses, and the erection of several more dwellings on the site. Nothing very inspired for the most part, but it’s a gold mine, for all that, and it’s about to be yours, if you’ve got any sense.’
A little flicker of something that might have been excitement stirred his senses. ‘Do we know anything about the builder?’
‘Yup—local contractor by the name of George Cauldwell. He’s got an excellent reputation, apparently. I checked him out. Been in the business for years and I couldn’t find a whiff of an unsatisfied customer. It should be an interesting little development if it’s as successful as his others—and it could be worth a tidy fortune. Someone’s been very, very sloppy—or they have no idea what they’re sitting on.’
‘Desperate, I think is the word.’ He thought of Andrew Broomfield, living with his pregnant wife in a little house on the brink of repossession and with a medical crisis looming for the baby, and felt a sense of relief that maybe, just maybe, they’d come out of this smelling of roses. Sort of. Certainly from what he’d seen of the figures the business itself wouldn’t be worth anything like what it would cost to clear the debts, so the building site had to be pretty fantastic to justify his altruistic gesture.
And if the look on Tory’s face was anything to go by…
He gestured to the bulging folder. ‘Are those the plans, by any chance?’
The folder arrived on his desk, skidding towards him and coming to a halt under his outstretched hand. He flicked through it, unfolding the plans and flattening them out on the desk, the significance of the deal finally sinking in as he scanned the drawings.
He ran his mind over the things he had to do today, the things he could delegate or leave until tomorrow, and refolded the plans, shuffling them back into the folder and getting to his feet. ‘I’m going to have a look—see if I can get a feel for it.’
‘Fine. I’ll schedule a meeting—’
‘No. I’m going now.’
‘But you’ve got lunch booked with Simon Darcy—’
‘You can handle it. Simon adores you—just don’t let him talk you into going to work for him, that’s all I ask. You don’t need me there. I could do with some sea air. I’ll be back later.’
‘I’ll phone them—tell the contractor that you’re coming. They’ve been hounding Andrew Broomfield for money the whole time you were in New York and he’s getting frantic for your answer. He’s running out of lies to tell them, I think, and they’re only a small firm. They’ll be pleased to see you.’
‘No. Don’t warn them. I want to see how this George Cauldwell runs the site before I commit myself. I’d hate you to spoil my surprise.’
Tory opened her mouth, thought better of arguing and shut it again. ‘Fine. Just leave your phone on.’
Not a chance. He’d suddenly realised how bored he was, how dull and repetitive and endless his working life had become. He’d been in New York closing another deal, and he’d had six hours’ sleep in three days. He was tired, he was stifled, and he needed some down time.
And so now, today, just for a while, Nick Barron was slipping the leash.
CHAPTER ONE
IT WAS deathly quiet on the site.
Well, it would be, Georgie thought philosophically. She’d sent all the workmen home days ago, and if it wasn’t for the fact that she couldn’t sleep at night for worry, she wouldn’t have been here either, but she had nothing else to do and she’d cleaned the house to within an inch of its life since her father had gone into hospital, so she’d come down to go over the figures—again!—to see if there was a magic trick or two she’d missed.
There wasn’t.
She propped her head on her hands and sighed, staring out over the deserted site to the sea. No magic tricks, no way out, just the bank about to foreclose and her father’s health in ruins.
Not to mention her dreams.
She stood up and pulled on her coat. Sitting here was achieving nothing. She might as well check the buildings, make sure there hadn’t been any vandalism. She reached for the obligatory