Page 29 of Christmas at Sturcombe Bay (Sturcombe Bay Romances #3)

November, and summer was fading. A cool sun still shone in the pale-blue sky, but the air was beginning to chill. Alex was strolling on the beach when his phone rang.

The call was from Stretton. He perched himself on a convenient flat rock below the hotel to take it.

“Ah, Mr Crocombe. Good to speak to you again.”

“And you.” Alex smiled to himself. “How’s the weather at your end?”

“I’m afraid we’ve got rain.”

“Too bad. The sun’s shining here. Matter of fact I’m on the beach right now. Anyway, what can I do for you, Mr Stretton?” That was a trick of Frank’s, to put the ball back immediately into his opponent’s court.

“Ah, well now, regarding the bid for the hotel.”

“Yes?”

“I have to tell you that someone else is showing an interest.”

Alex’s jaw clenched. He hadn’t expected that. Maybe he should have. But was it genuine? Would the place really attract that much attention?

“As you came in first, I felt it only right to give you the opportunity to revise your original offer.” Oh, so smooth.

“I see. Well, that’s very considerate of you, Mr Stretton. I’m sure you’ll understand that I can’t respond immediately. I’ll need to consult the figures again.”

“Of course. Perhaps you could get back to me . . . tomorrow?”

“Of course.”

Alex cut the call and swore fluently. Fortunately only a couple of seagulls were around to hear him, and they used far worse language themselves.

For a long moment he gazed out at the distant horizon. It wasn’t the money that was the issue here — well, only partially as he did have deeper reserves to call on. But it stuck in his gullet to play that game, when the future of the hotel was at stake.

Swinging round, he looked up at the building, sitting like a grand old lady in white on the top of the low sandstone cliff. She deserved so much better than to be left derelict, then demolished to make way for a caravan site.

He glanced at his watch. Almost two o’clock. Nine o’clock in Toronto. He tapped on Frank’s number. It was answered promptly.

“Hey there, Flyboy. What’s with you, eh?”

Alex smiled at Frank’s booming jollity, a very effective disguise for one of the shrewdest business brains he’d ever come across. “The game’s in play, but I’m not sure if it’s chess or checkers.”

“Oh? Hit me with it.”

“I agreed a price for the hotel with Stretton. Now he’s come back to me claiming there’s another bidder in the game.”

“Genuine?”

“Possibly not. I’ve no way of knowing.”

“Uh-huh. What you gonna do?”

“I can up my offer, but how many times is he going to walk me round the mulberry bush?”

Frank took a pause. Alex could just see the way his white eyebrows would be moving together as he furrowed his brow. “How much do you want the place?”

Alex sighed. “I want it.”

“You’re being sentimental. Sentiment has no place in business.”

“If it wasn’t for sentiment, I wouldn’t be bidding.”

“Okay.” Frank spared a laugh. He understood — he’d been in the navy, and Alex knew that he made a point of giving jobs on his construction sites to veterans. “Remember the frog?”

“What?”

“You drop a frog in cold water and boil it up slow, frog don’t move. Chuck the critter in a pan of boiling water and it leaps right out.”

“That sounds cruel,” Alex responded with a note of dry humour.

Frank chuckled. “I don’t think it’s real. But it’s the principle. You drop this Stretton guy in the boiling water.”

“I’d like to, but I don’t think it’s legal.”

Another dry chuckle. “Okay, here’s the thing. You let the guy play you off against this other bidder, real or not, and up creeps the price. Or you slap him with your best offer, take it or leave it, but sign the contract now.”

Alex drew a breath in between his teeth. “Bit of a gamble.”

“Sure is. But whoever this other guy is, I’d be willing to bet he ain’t gonna want it like you do.

No sentiment, so he’ll be sensible about it.

Besides, if he’s just wanting it for the site, he’s only going to offer what the land’s worth — probably less the cost of demolition.

So, if you’re offering him better than that, he’s gonna deal. ”

Alex laughed. “Okay, I’ll think about it.”

He ended the call, stuck the phone back in his pocket, and strolled off up the hill to his grandfather’s house.

Frank’s advice was sound. After all, he had made himself one of the most successful real-estate developers in the Toronto Metro area. And had made Alex himself a comfortable eight-figure bank balance in the process.

But as he had said, it was a gamble. He’d take a little while to think about it.

* * *

The lad Alex had hired to tidy up his grandfather’s garden was hard at work digging up weeds from round the rose bushes. He greeted him with a casual salute and let himself into the house.

Arthur was watching a quiz programme on the television, but he looked up with a toothless grin when Alex walked in. “Ah, there you are. I was hoping you’d come. My new scooter’s come, and it should be all charged up by now. I’m going to take it out for a ride.”

Alex rolled his eyes. He hadn’t been sure that the mobility scooter was a good idea, but Arthur had found an advertisement for them in the local paper, and insisted Alex take him along to the shop to try one out. Well, that was it — he was going to have one.

“Okay, Grandpa. Where are we going?”

“All round the town. You’ll have to walk fast to keep up with me.”

“You’re only allowed to do four miles an hour on the pavement,” Alex reminded him.

“Pah! Come on. Just give me a minute to put my teeth in.” He accepted a hand to get out of his chair, and let Alex help him on with his coat.

Marcus was in the kitchen. “You drive safely now,” he warned. “It’s not a Ferrari, you know.”

The old man chuckled. “I’m getting one of those next week.”

Alex shared an amused glance with the carer, and gave Arthur his arm out of the back door and down the garden to the shed. Inside stood a gleaming brand-new bright-red mobility scooter.

“There she is. Ain’t she a beauty?” he declared proudly. “Come on then, my luvver, let’s show you off to the town.”

Alex unplugged the charger, and Arthur settled himself on the seat and started her up. “Brrm brrm! Off we go!”

Alex hurried to open the gate, watching with some anxiety as his grandfather steered the scooter out onto the back lane. By the time he had shut the shed and the gate he had to hurry to catch up with him as he turned down Church Road, heading for the Esplanade.

“Grandpa, slow down!” he pleaded. “You’ll get arrested.”

“Whoo hoo! I’m enjoying this. What are they going to do? Throw me in jail? I’m ninety-four, you know.”

“I know that. But if the police catch you speeding they might stop you riding it.”

“Pah!” But the warning was enough to persuade him to slow to a walking pace.

Fortunately, the pavement wasn’t as crowded as it would have been in the high season, and nobody seemed to mind stepping aside for the grinning old man waving and whooping as he bowled along.

At the far end of the Esplanade he crossed the road and turned back along the pavement beside the sea wall, then into the Memorial Gardens with its neatly trimmed lawn and well-tended flowerbeds, all weeded and mulched down for the winter.

In the middle of the gardens the old clock tower stood like a sentinel in the cool November sunshine.

To Alex’s surprise, Arthur drew the mobility scooter to an abrupt halt beside it.

He levered himself to his feet and stepped carefully up to it, peering closely to study the names of the fallen etched onto the weathered brass plaques.

“Mogford, Ernest: Corporal — Freddie’s dad,” he murmured. “Pym, Albert: Sargeant. Waycott, Dennis: Private.”

“You knew them?”

“Oh, ah.” He nodded. “Dennis Waycott were apprentice to old George Stanbury as had the garage over on Haytor Avenue. That’s gone now. And Albert, he were the postman’s son.”

He drew himself up proudly erect and lifted his hand in a smart parade-ground salute. He stood like that for a long moment, his eyes gazing back into some long-ago time, a single tear tracking down his cheek.

Alex watched him in silence. His grandfather was prone to these sudden mood swings, from happy and rumbunctious to sentimental and full of memories.

It really wasn’t a surprise that the Memorial should have triggered him, carrying the weight of the years and all the sacrifices that had been made. All those men who hadn’t come home, and those who had, but with changes that would last their lifetimes.

He glanced across at the rambling white facade of the Carleton. Eighty-something years ago other airmen would have stood here, looking up at that building.

Of course, the white walls would have been streaked with smoky-grey camouflage paint then, and the gardens would have been given over to growing vegetables: ‘Dig For Britain’.

The Carleton had done her bit.

Arthur stepped back and grinned, rubbing his hands together. “Right. Let’s be getting up to the hotel. I could do with a nice cup of tea.” Back on his scooter, he swooped out of the gardens and round to the hotel car park, jerking to a halt again beside the front entrance.

Alex offered his arm to walk him up the steps. Jess was on duty in reception and she greeted them with a warm smile. “Hi there, Arthur. Have you come down for afternoon tea?”

“Of course, my luvver. Out on the terrace, if you please.”

She glanced at Alex and he guessed she was thinking the same thing that he was. “Don’t you think it might be a bit chilly out there?”

“Pah! I’ve got my coat on. I’ll be warm as a bug in a rug.”

Alex smiled wryly, and helped him out to the terrace, settling him comfortably at one of the tables.

“I’ve got a blanket if he’d like it over his knees,” Jess murmured to Alex.

“Wait till he’s distracted by the scones, then bring it over.”

She laughed quietly and went off to get their scones.