“Probably.” He was silent for a moment.
“High-pitched crackling. Are you sure that’s all you heard?”
TWELVE
Peterson’s Estate Agency in Dawlington High Street maintained a brave front, with glossy photographs turning enticingly in the window and bright lights inviting the punters in. But, like the estate agents in Southampton centre, the recession had taken its toll here, too, and one neat young man presided over four desks in the despondent knowledge that another day would pass without a single house sale. He jerked to his feet with robotic cheerfulness as the door opened, his teeth glittering in a salesman’s smile.
Roz shook her head to avoid raising false hopes.
“I’m sorry,” she said apologetically.
“I haven’t come to buy anything.”
He gave an easy laugh.
“Ah. well. Selling perhaps?”
“Not that either.”
“Very wise.” He pulled out a chair for her.
“It’s still a buyer’s market. You only sell at the moment if you’re desperate to move.” He resumed his chair on the other side of the desk.
“How can I help?”
Roz gave him a card.
“I’m trying to trace some people called Clarke who sold their house through this agency three or four years ago and moved out of the area.
None of their neighbours knows where they went. I was hoping you might be able to tell me.”
He pulled a face.
“Before my time, I’m afraid. What was the address of the house?”
“Number twenty, Leven Road.”
“I could look it up, I suppose. The file will be out the back if it hasn’t been binned.” He looked at the empty desks.
“Unfortunately there’s no one to cover for me at the moment so I won’t be able to do it until this evening. Unless-‘ He glanced at Roz’s card again.
“I see you live in London. Have you ever thought about buying a second property on the south coast, Mrs. Leigh? We have a lot of authors down here. They like to escape to the peace and quiet of the country.”
Her mouth twitched.
“Miss Leigh. And I don’t even own a first property. I live in rented accommodation.”
He spun his chair and pulled out a drawer in the filing cabinet behind him.
“Then let me suggest a mutually beneficial arrangement.” His fingers ran nimbly through the files, selecting a succession of printed pages.
“You read these while I search out that information for you. If a customer comes into the shop, offer them a seat and call for me. Ditto, if the phone rings.” He nodded to a back door.
“I’ll leave that open. Just call “Matt” and I’ll hear you. Fair?”
“I’m happy if you are,” she said, ‘but I’m not planning on buying anything.”
“That’s fine.” He walked across to the door.
“Mind you, there’s one property there that would fit you like a glove.
It’s called Bayview, but don’t be put off by the name. I shan’t be long.”
Roz fingered through the pages reluctantly as if just touching them might induce her to part with her money. He had the soft insidiousness of an insurance salesman. Anyway, she told herself with some amusement, she couldn’t possibly live in a house called Bayview. It conjured up too many images of net curtained guest-houses with beak-nosed landladies in nylon overalls and lacklustre signs saying VACANCIES propped against the downstairs windows.
She came to it finally at the bottom of the pile and the reality, of course, was very different. A small whitewashed coast guard cottage, the last of a group of four, perched on a diff near Swanage on the Isle of Purbeck. Two up, two down.
Unpretentious. Charming. Beside the sea. She looked at the price.
“Well?” asked Matt, returning a few minutes later with a folder under one arm.
“What do you think?”
“Assuming I could afford it, which I can’t, I think I’d freeze to death in the winter from winds lashing in off the sea and be driven mad in the summer by streams of tourists wandering along the coastal path.
According to your blurb it passes only a matter of yards from the fence. And that’s ignoring the fact that I’d be rubbing shoulders with the inhabitants of the other three cottages, day in, day out, plus the frightening prospect of
