Lavender Lane (Larch Tree Lane #4)

Chapter Three

It was days before Sean Reynolds contacted Nina and by then she was feeling distinctly miffed about the delay. Why was it taking so long? She was sick of hanging around in the elegant sterility of her son’s flat.

She went online as she waited to hear from him and spent quite a lot of time researching how to set about doing renovations to historic properties, a topic she found fascinating.

When she wanted to rest her eyes from using the screen, she started going through the papers Laura had given her. These too she found interesting. They were early documents concerning ownership of a house, a place not big enough to be considered a manor house but still bigger than most people’s dwellings, and some attached former servants’ accommodation.

Was this what she’d inherited? How exciting if it was. Some of the documents went back a couple of hundred years, and a few of them showed floor plans of the house with the number of rooms increasing over the years.

She also skimmed through long lists of the latest rules and regulations from various official organisations, which were not nearly as interesting but would still have to be understood if they were to get anything done to bring the properties up to scratch.

Apparently certain groups within the various organisations had to approve what was projected for heritage properties that were ‘listed’, then make sure that what had actually been done was correct, even down to using the correct mortar between bricks, and applying it in the correct style.

That must be why the Australian lawyer had said it was good that Laura’s properties were not heritage listed. She’d never deliberately damage valuable artefacts, but she would want to proceed at more than a snail’s pace if something needed doing and not have to wait around for approvals.

One thing annoyed her particularly: why hadn’t anyone told her the exact address and location of her inheritance? As the days passed, she was impatient to have more information.

If she’d known the address, she could have gone to see the properties the documents referred to, would have loved to do that and could perfectly well have driven there on her own in her hired car.

The only other thing she could think of to do online over the weekend that might be helpful was study images of Wiltshire. It was certainly a beautiful county, mainly rural and, as her friend’s grandfather apparently used to say when he was taken out for drives in the countryside, it had ‘a lot of land not built on yet’.

That saying had become a joke among her friends when she was young and they would chorus it fondly at appropriate moments when driving round the West Australian countryside. In contrast to England, only a tiny percentage of land in the outback was actually built on, due to the desert-like nature of many of the vast inland expanses.

When she received a phone call on the Monday morning from the legal firm of Pinworthy, Atherton and Fosterby, she thought, At last! and hoped she hadn’t said it aloud.

The secretary there put a man called Sean Reynolds on the line and she was immediately struck by his lovely deep voice. She’d always been a sucker for voices like that. If she had to spend time with him, it’d be good to have a pleasant voice to listen to.

‘Nina! Glad to meet you. What an interesting inheritance you have.’

‘Yes. I didn’t expect Laura to leave me anything, let alone to be so generous, but I shall be happy to do as she wished and renovate any cottage that needs it.’

‘Or whatever they turn out to be,’ he corrected gently. ‘We can’t tell exactly what sort of buildings the bequest consists of yet.’

‘I suppose not. But I’m hoping we’ll soon find out. I’m really looking forward to seeing Lavender Lane. Don’t the English lawyers know anything about it at all?’

‘No, but that’s not surprising, since they’ve only recently been handed the commission to deal with it by their Australian colleagues – who are equally ignorant about the details of most places in the UK.’

‘So you’re not a lawyer then?’

‘Well, I qualified as a lawyer originally but I’ve moved in other directions so I haven’t been practising law for a good while. I’m not employed by Pinworthy et al but by the government.’

‘Oh. I see.’

‘I’ve actually been out of the country working on a project in a remote location, so have only just got back. I’m sorry to keep you waiting to go and see your inheritance but I had a few details to tie up before I could start to help you. At least, I hope I’m going to help you. I’ll certainly do my best.’

He sounded to be hesitating then said, ‘I’m still researching the background to your inheritance and will be able to tell you more once I’m sure of the facts. What I am sure of is that it’d be better not to talk about the details on the phone. You never know who could be listening in on a public phone connection like this one.’

‘You surprise me. Why should that matter?’

‘Well, lawyers’ phones can perhaps be targeted more often than others so let’s contact one another online instead. I know a very secure site from which we can link up with one another safely. I’ll send you a link to click on, then we’ll continue our discussion of our plans there, if you don’t mind.’

‘If you think such precautions are necessary.’ She didn’t, but then what did she know about this sort of thing? She’d never worked for a government department, let alone one in the UK.

When they were connected again, he smiled at her and said quietly, ‘Humour me on security precautions from now on, please. It’s quite simple: the more money and property you possess, the more likely you are to be targeted by criminals.’

She stared at him in shock. ‘I never even considered that side of things.’

‘I’m paid to think of them.’

‘All right. Point taken. Now, do you know anything at all about Lavender Lane? The lawyers haven’t even given me its address.’

‘I don’t think the address would have meant much to you anyway. It’s on the outskirts of Essington St Mary, which is a small town in an isolated valley in Wiltshire. The Lavender Lane property is outside the main town so is even more isolated.’

‘Oh.’ She’d rather be living closer to amenities and other people but you couldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth, could you?

She was having trouble holding back her impatience with all this cautiousness. Up to now, this inheritance seemed to have provided her with nothing but a whole series of problems as well as potential benefits, and she had a feeling more were going to pop up. Nothing about it seemed at all straightforward. What was she going to find there?

She studied Sean’s face as they chatted. He looked to be about her age and was rather good looking, not overwhelmingly but in a nice way, with brown hair just turning grey at the temples but mostly still of a lovely chestnut colour. You could tell a lot about people from their smiles and his was warm and looked to be genuine.

‘Let’s get our personal situations absolutely clear, shall we, Nina?’

He waited, a questioning look on his face now.

‘Yes, let’s.’

The smile returned. ‘I’m not working on any other projects at the moment so I shall be giving my full attention to helping you sort out your inheritance. I’m afraid it sounds to be quite complicated in its ramifications because of the government connection. Will my services be all right with you or have you taken a dislike to me on sight? It has been known.’

He grinned as he said that, clearly not expecting a negative answer from her, and not getting one. Heavens, he was actually a very attractive man, so she’d better watch out!

‘Of course I haven’t taken a dislike to you!’ she said crisply. ‘If you’re able to devote yourself to this project, does that mean that you’re not married?’

‘Definitely not. I’ve had a busy working life, moving here and there in the world and have somehow never found anyone I wanted to settle down with.’

‘So no children?’

‘Not that I know of. What about you? No man hanging around?’

‘I was very happily married but my husband died a few years ago. I met another guy after a while but he turned out to be a louse, so I didn’t stay with him long. I have two grown-up sons.’

‘Good to know. Anything else you want to ask me about?’

‘Not at the moment. The lawyers seem to think some sort of help is necessary and there’s money been set aside already to pay you, so I’m happy to go along with it for the time being. And I don’t mind you having a sense of humour in case you think I haven’t noticed the humour sliding into your comments at times. In fact, I prefer it. I have been known to see the ridiculous side of life myself every now and then.’

He gave her a slight bow. ‘Good. To get back to our business situation, I must confess that I’m doing this for the interest as much as anything. I was due to take some leave and was wondering about taking early retirement, but I really enjoy new experiences and I prefer worthwhile jobs, so I was tempted into joining you at Lavender Lane.’

‘I was happy at the thought of doing something worthwhile.’

‘So there we are, both happy about the situation.’

‘How do we start, then?’

‘We start in Wiltshire, of course. Are you free to travel there tomorrow to look at this property?’

‘Not just free but eager. In fact, I’m absolutely dying to see it.’

He chuckled gently. ‘Good. So am I. If you can catch a train out of London to Swindon tomorrow morning, you can meet me at the station and we’ll drive you on from there.’

‘Might it not be easier for me to drive to Wiltshire and meet you at Lavender Lane? I’ve already got a hire car.’ Which was sitting in the car park under the flats for much of the time doing very little because she mostly used public transport in London. And she hadn’t been going out on her own at night, not even to the theatre. She’d attended one or two matinées instead, felt safer then as she was going to be on her own during such outings.

‘You’ll see more if you allow me to drive you. You’ll surely want to look at the nearby countryside as well as the inheritance? I’ve been to Wiltshire before.’

‘Mmm.’ But she didn’t like the thought of being in his power for travelling around.

‘And on our way back I reckon we may need to chat about what we find there and what needs to be done next. After all, I’ve been hired partly to help you deal with what we find.’

‘Oh. I see. And yes, of course we’ll need to discuss what we find.’