I will leave the diary there for now. There is a big meeting in the village tomorrow. I help to put the chairs out for these sorts of things. I volunteer, because (a) it makes me look helpful and (b) it gives me first dibs at the refreshments.
The meeting is a consultation about a new development at Coopers Chase. Ian Ventham, the big boss, is coming to talk to us about it. I try to be honest where I can, so I hope you don’t mind me saying I don’t like him. He’s all the things that can go wrong with a man if you leave him to his own devices.
There has been a fearsome hoo-ha about the new development, because they’re chopping down trees and uprooting a graveyard, and there’s a rumour of wind turbines. Ron is looking forward to causing a bit of trouble, and I am looking forward to watching him do that.
From now on I promise to try to write something every day. I will keep my fingers crossed that something happens.
5
The Waitrose in Tunbridge Wells has a café. Ian Ventham parks his Range Rover in the last empty disabled bay outside, not because he’s disabled but because it’s nearest to the door.
Walking in, he spots Bogdan by the window. Ian owes Bogdan £4,000. He has been stalling for a while, in the hope that Bogdan is thrown out of the country, but thus far, no luck. Anyway, he now has a real job for him, so it’s all worked out OK. He gives the Pole a wave and approaches the counter. He scans the chalkboard, looking for a coffee.
‘Is all your coffee fair trade?’
‘Yes, all fair trade,’ smiles the young woman serving.
‘Shame,’ says Ian. He doesn’t want to pay an extra fifteen pence to help someone he’ll never meet in a country he’ll never go to. ‘Cup of tea please. Almond milk.’
Bogdan isn’t Ian’s biggest worry that day. If he ends up having to pay him, then so be it. Ian’s biggest worry is being killed by Tony Curran.
Ian takes his tea over to the table, spotting anyone over sixty as he goes. Over sixty, and with Waitrose money? Give them ten years, he thinks. He wishes he’d brought some brochures.
Ian will deal with Tony Curran as and when, but right now he has to deal with Bogdan. The good news is that Bogdan doesn’t want to kill him. Ian sits down.
‘What’s all this about two grand, Bogdan?’ Ian asks.
Bogdan is drinking from a two-litre bottle of Lilt he has smuggled in. ‘Four thousand. Is pretty cheap to retile a swimming pool. I don’t know if you know that?’
‘Only cheap if you do a good job, Bogdan,’ says Ian. ‘The grouting’s discoloured. Look. I asked for coral white.’
Ian takes out his phone, scrolls through to a photo of his new pool and shows it to Bogdan.
‘No, that is filter, let’s take off filter.’ Bogdan presses a button and the image immediately brightens. ‘Coral white. You know it.’
Ian nods. Worth a try though. Sometimes you have to know when to pay up.
Ian takes an envelope out of his pocket. ‘All right, Bogdan, fair’s fair. Here’s three grand. That do you?’
Bogdan looks weary. ‘Three grand, sure.’
Ian hands it over ‘It’s actually two thousand eight hundred, but that’s near enough between friends. Now, I wanted to ask you about something.’
‘Sure,’ says Bogdan, pocketing the money.
‘You seem a bright lad, Bogdan?’
Bogdan shrugs. ‘Well, I speak fluent Polish.’
‘Whenever I ask you to do something, it gets done, and it gets done pretty well, and pretty cheap,’ says Ian.
‘Thank you,’ says Bogdan.
‘So I’m just wondering. You ready for something bigger, you think?’
‘Sure,’ says Bogdan.
‘A lot bigger, though?’ says Ian.
‘Sure,’ says Bogdan. ‘Big is the same as small. There’s just more of it.’
‘Good lad,’ says Ian, and drains the last of his tea. ‘I’m on my way to fire Tony Curran. And I need someone to step up and take his place. You fancy that?’
Bogdan gives a low whistle.
‘Too much for you?’ asks Ian.
Bogdan shakes his head. ‘No, not too much for me, I can do the job. I just think that if you fire Tony, maybe he kills you.’
Ian nods. ‘I know. But you let me worry about that. And tomorrow the job’s all yours.’
‘If you’re alive, sure,’ says Bogdan.
Time to go. Ian shakes Bogdan’s hand and turns his mind to telling Tony Curran the bad news.
There’s a consultation meeting down at Coopers Chase, and he has to listen to what all the old people have to say. Nod politely, wear a tie, call them by their first names. People lap that sort of thing up. He’s invited Tony along, so he can fire him straight afterwards. Out in the open air, with witnesses nearby.
There is a ten per cent chance that Tony will kill him on the spot. But that means there is a ninety per cent chance that he won’t, and, given how much money it will make Ian, he is comfortable with those odds. Risk and reward.
As Ian gets outside, he hears beeping and sees a woman on a mobility scooter furiously pointing at his Range Rover with a cane.
I was there first, love, thinks Ian, as he steps into the car. What is wrong with some people?
As he drives, Ian listens to a motivational audiobook called Kill or Be Killed – Using the Lessons of the Battlefield in the Boardroom. Apparently it was written by someone in the Israeli Special Forces, and it had been recommended to him by one of the personal trainers at the Virgin Active in Tunbridge Wells. Ian isn’t certain if the personal trainer himself is Israeli, but he looks like he’s from there or thereabouts.
As the midday sun fails to force its way through the illegally tinted windows of the Range Rover, Ian starts to think about Tony Curran again. They’ve been very good for each other over the years, Ian and Tony. Ian would buy up tattered and tired old houses, big ones. Tony would gut them, divide them up, put in the ramps and the handrails, and on they’d go to the next one. The care-home business boomed, and Ian built his fortune. He kept a few, he sold a few, he bought a few more.
Ian takes a smoothie from the Range Rover’s ice box. The ice box had not come as standard. A mechanic in Faversham had fitted it for him, while he was gold-plating the glove box. It is Ian’s regular smoothie. A punnet of raspberries, a fistful of spinach, Icelandic yoghurt (Finnish, if they are out of Icelandic), spirulina, wheatgrass, acerola cherry powder, chlorella, kelp, acai extract, cocoa nibs, zinc, beetroot essence, chia seeds, mango zest and ginger. It is his own invention, and he calls it Keep It Simple.
He checks his watch. About ten minutes until he gets to Coopers Chase. Get the meeting done, then break the news to Tony. This morning he had googled ‘stab-proof vests’, but the same-day delivery option had been unavailable. Amazon Prime? They must think he’s a mug.
He’s sure it will be fine, though. And great news that Bogdan’s on board to take over. A seamless transition. And cheaper, of course, which is the whole point.
Ian had worked out very early on that he needed to take his business upmarket if he wanted to make real money. The worst thing was when clients died. There was admin, rooms left earning nothing as new clients were found and, worst of all, you’d have to deal with the families. Now, the richer a client was, by and large the longer they would live. Also, the richer they were, the less often their family would visit, as they tended to live in London, or New York, or Santiago. So Ian moved upmarket, transforming his company, Autumn Sunset Care Homes, into Home from Home Independent Living, concentrating on fewer, bigger, properties. Tony Curran hadn’t blinked an eye. What Tony didn’t know he would quickly learn, and no wet room, electronic key card or communal barbecue pit could faze him. It seemed a shame to let him go really, but there it was.