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  Jackie whipped her head around to face Allie, mouth open wide, eyebrows shot up to the top of her head, and her left palm out in an expression of dismayed shock.

  “What?” whispered Allie in confusion.

  Jackie just shook her head in response.

  “I don’t care how much money you’ve got. I’m not selling it to you,” he said with a sneering emphasis on the final word.

  “Why not?” asked the girls in unison—Allie with a tone of curiosity, Jackie with outrage.

  “It’s a commercial property. Commercial. That means business. It’s not for two little girls to mess around with for a hobby because they won the lottery.”

  “We didn’t win the lottery, we won—” Allie’s words were halted by a poke from Jackie. It was a system they had worked out over the years, but Allie didn’t always quite remember what the poke meant. Sometimes she just thought Jackie was trying to get her attention.

  “What she means is that we are businesswomen. We’re not ‘little girls’. Though when you get to your age, perhaps it’s hard to tell the difference.”

  “My age? What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I think she means you’re going senile,” said Allie with a pleasant smile.

  “That is absolutely not what I meant,” Jackie said to Allie firmly and then turned back to Larry. “I meant that you’re a deluded old fool.”

  “Deluded old fool? I should call your mothers.”

  “Mine’s dead,” said Allie helpfully.

  Jackie gave her another poke. “Look, why don’t you let us come in so we can talk?”

  “I’m not going in there,” Allie said quickly.

  Allie had decided that as soon as the man had opened the door. Although she could only see a little way inside, it was clear that the place was filthy. And not just in terms of her own high standards but by those of anybody.

  “Neither of you are coming inside. I’m not selling to you. Go away.”

  “But—”

  Jackie didn’t get to finish what she was saying; she was too busy jumping back with another start as the door slammed with incredible force right in front of her.

  Allie tapped her forefinger against her chin as she replayed the events in her mind. “It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

  “No. I wasn’t expecting him to be such a—”

  “You promised! No London words when we’re in the Cotswolds.”

  “Okay, okay. No London words. But if there was anyone around here that deserved them, it’s him, the curmudgeonly old…”

  “That may be,” said Allie, taking Jackie’s arm in hers and beginning to lead her away. “But do try not to worry. I have a backup plan.”

  Chapter 3

  A few days later, the girls were back in Bree’s café again with Grandma Em. At least, Jackie and Grandma Em were together. Allie was on her own working on something important.

  “Symmetry. Symmetrical. Did you really not learn about it at school?”

  Sally, the new waitress, shook her head meekly.

  “It’s easy. Imagine there’s a line down the middle of the café, and then another line across the café, and when you seat people, you want them to be in opposite positions. So, if you seat someone on the left-hand side, next you must seat someone on the right-hand side, so they’re opposite one another. If you seat someone at the back, then next you must see someone at the front. Do you see?”

  The waitress nodded her head dubiously. “And this is important?”

  “Oh, yes. Yes, very important. You can’t run an asymmetrical café.” Allie shook her head in horror at the thought. “You’d lose all your customers.”

  “Really?”

  “Allie! Come back over here. Leave the poor girl alone,” called Jackie faux-cheerfully.

  “I better get back to my family,” said Allie with a frown. “You understand now though, right?”

  “Yes. Symmetry. I’ll do my best.”

  Allie wasn’t sure whether the waitress’s best would be good enough, but what more could she do? And she would be there to assist if it looked like Sally was about to cause a Titanic-level disaster in the café’s seating arrangements.

  “I told Grandma Em about everything,” said Jackie when Allie finally joined them.

  Initially, they had kept the knowledge of the jackpot winnings to themselves, but now that a few days had passed and there was no sign of it having been declared a mistake, it was time to share the knowledge.

  With Grandma Em anyway. The rest of the world could wait.

  “Did you tell her about the shell corporation?” asked Allie.

  Jackie shook her head. “I didn’t quite get that myself. I don’t see how shells are going to help.”

  Grandma Em and Allie shared a glance.

  Jackie was an expert on everything health-related, but outside of her field, she could be a bit of a ditz. She was by no means stupid; she just struggled to take an interest in things that, well, didn’t interest her.

  “A shell corporation means it’s a kind of fake company,” said Allie. “We’re using it as a sort of disguise. It’s technically a real, registered company, but it doesn’t do anything.”

  Grandma Em nodded sagely. “Except buy Larry’s property, right, dear?”

  “That’s right, Grandma.” Allie picked up her mug of tea and took a large sip. “Even if he won’t sell to women, he’ll definitely be impressed by a big corporation.”

  “I wouldn’t be. I’d rather sell to a real person. Someone nice, like us.” Jackie was sitting on the opposite side of the table to Allie and Grandma Em and was using the extra space she had to extend both of her arms out entirely on either side of her while she tilted her neck left and right and left again towards her outstretched arms.

  Grandma Em tut-tutted. “I still can’t believe what he said to you the other day. He must be going senile. He doesn’t sound like the boy I went to school with.”

  With a ting-a-ling, the door to the café swung open, and a man who clearly wasn’t a tourist walked inside.

  He was quite tall, with salt-and-pepper hair, and was dressed in casual but expensive-looking clothing.

  He had the air of a Londoner moved to the countryside about him. There was none of the casual, almost rough edges of a typical country person. He was all fine lines, sharp creases, neatly cut hair, and with the definite whiff of money about him.

  “Here comes trouble,” said Grandma Em quietly.

  “Oh, no.” Allie rushed to her feet and hurried over to the man, who was about to make the mistake of sitting down in almost the worst place possible.

  “Excuse me?” She tapped him on the elbow for attention and turned it into a grasp to stop him sitting. “You don’t want to sit there.”

  He turned to her and then stepped back when he realized quite how close she was to him. “Actually, I don’t want to sit anywhere. I was just looking to get something to take away. Could I get a white coffee, and do you do muffins?”

  “I… The café has muffins. I recommend the blueberry or the chocolate chip. The sticky buns are also great.”

  “Sticky buns, eh? Haven’t had one of those in years. They’re not really in fashion these days, are they?”

  “In fashion?” Allie wasn’t sure how food could ever be in or out of fashion. It didn’t make much sense to her. “I never thought about it. Now, please sit at that table while you wait.”

  Allie pointed at the correct table and then hurried back to her own table and sat down.

  “That was very forward of you,” said Jackie, giving Allie a sly punch on her shoulder from across the table.

  “You didn’t take his order, did you?” asked Grandma Em with a frown.

  “I didn’t mean to,” said Allie.

  Just then, the waitress came out of the back, and before she could go over to the gentleman, Grandma Em called her over and got Allie to explain to her what the man had ordered.

  Grandma Em patted Allie’s hand. “I’d stay a
way from that one, if I were you.”

  “Why?” asked Jackie. “He looks nice. I wouldn’t kick him out of—”

  “He’s too old for us anyway,” said Allie. “He must be twenty years older than us.”

  “Twenty years more experience, right Grandma Em?”

  Grandma Em looked down and gave a small smile. “Perhaps. But I’m telling you, stay away from that one. I can just tell. He has an air about him. Those city slickers move to the country, and then they get bored. Try and make their own excitement. And big city excitement and country-living are not a good match.”

  “He’s leaving now anyway,” said Allie, nodding her head towards the door through which he was now exiting, clutching a paper coffee cup and a small bag. “We’ll probably never see him again.”

  “I wouldn’t be so sure. He just moved to the village.”

  “Is that so?” said the two sisters at the same time, but with very different intonations.

  As he exited, someone else entered. All three of them were still looking towards the door when Larry, the rude owner of the building, entered.

  And he didn’t look happy.

  Allie hadn’t been able to get a good look at him when they had been by his house. He’d only spoken to them through the crack in the door allowed to him by the security chain, and the interior of his house had been very dim.

  But now she could see him properly. He was about the same height as Allie—5’8”—and was dressed in old corduroy trousers and a brown cardigan that looked like he had probably inherited it from some Edwardian ancestor.

  Although he didn’t have a beard, he was unshaved in an unkempt rather than rugged manner, and his gait was almost a slow shuffle, aided by a walking cane.

  “You,” he said, pointing with his arm and finger outstretched at their table. “It was you two girls who were knocking on my door the other day, wasn’t it?”

  “Maybe he’s had a change of heart,” said Allie in a low voice but with a happy smile to Jackie, who kept her mouth grimly straight.

  “Yes, that’s us!” said Allie.

  “Good afternoon, Larry,” said Grandma Em, civilly but without warmth.

  “This is none of your concern, Emily. What do you two think you’re playing at, eh?”

  While Jackie faked an innocent face, Allie didn’t need to.

  “We’re not playing anything. We were just chatting.”

  “Not that. The other rubbish. I had a call from a solicitor representing a corporation. A corporation that has no real business whatsoever.”

  “Oh?” Jackie was still playing innocent, even though it was clear the game was up.

  “I know it was you. I told you I wouldn’t sell this place to you, so now you’re trying to get around me. Right?” He banged the floor with his cane for angry emphasis when he barked his final question.

  “Yes. That was us,” said Allie with a smile. “You said you didn’t want to sell it to two girls. So, I thought you might like to sell it to a corporation instead.”

  “Deceivers! You are both deceivers! Harlots too, I expect.”

  “Larry!” Grandma Em rose to her feet and raised one of her own fingers to point back at him. “You leave my girls alone. You’re a beastly old man. And you must be going senile. What’s this rubbish about not wanting to sell to girls? Are you out of your mind?”

  “I would be out of my mind by selling to these two idiots. Who would sell a building to someone who just knocked on the door? Eh?”

  Jackie rose to her feet as well and raised a finger of her own to begin pointing and waving around. It seemed everyone wanted to point except Allie. “How dare you talk to us like that!”

  “I’ll talk to whoever I want, however I want. This is my eighth decade on the planet, and I’ve earned the right. Now shut your trap, you over-exercised string bean, and sit down while your elders are talking.”

  “Do you think she exercises too much?” asked Allie. “I’ve wondered that myself sometimes…”

  Grandma Em and Jackie both glared at Allie while Larry looked a little taken aback, not having expected support from her corner.

  “I don’t care. I’m not selling to you or your stupid corporation. And if I have any more lip out of either of you, I’ll have you barred from this café and the B&B. Got it?”

  “You wouldn’t!” said Grandma Em.

  “You couldn’t!” said Jackie.

  “Sure I can. I’ll make it a condition of the sale. I’m not going to be beaten by two girly whippersnappers. Good day!”

  Larry spun around and began to shuffle towards the door, banging his cane angrily with every step he took.

  “You’re a mean old man, Larry!” shouted Grandma Em in a shockingly loud voice as he exited the café.

  “He is, isn’t he?”

  “I think we need to come up with another plan,” said Allie, shaking her head to herself.

  Chapter 4

  A week later, the girls were back, and this time for an extended two-week vacation. While Allie had been keen to move on, Jackie had become incensed by how rude Larry had been to them and was determined to win him over. Allie had agreed, with some reluctance, to give it another go.

  “Are you sure we have to do this before we even check in?”

  Allie was still sitting in the passenger seat of her car, one hand on the door, not quite ready to get out. This time, it had been Jackie’s turn to drive Allie’s old but perfectly reliable Toyota all the way from London to the Cotswolds.

  “It’s what we’re here for. Come on, let’s do it. This is our last try. If this doesn’t work, then we’ll give up, okay?” Jackie opened her car door and undid her seatbelt. “If he really doesn’t want to sell it to us after this, you can go find your index fund or whatever it is. At least until we can think of something really worthwhile to do with the money.”

  They both exited the vehicle and again paused by the gate to Larry’s rundown old house.

  “You sure you don’t want to put a cardigan on top?” Allie said, glancing at Jackie. “You might scare him. Or give him a heart attack.”

  Jackie made a point of running her eyes down over her body, an impish smile on her face. She was wearing skimpy running shorts and a skimpier sports bra top. She had decided that if Larry wouldn’t sell to them purely for monetary reasons, maybe they could charm him.

  “No way. We’ve got to be irresistible. When I offer him personal training to help with his arthritis or whatever he’s got, he won’t be able to say no to me.”

  “Really? He doesn’t exactly seem like the athletic type. No, if anything’s going to interest him, it’s me.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Unlike Jackie, Allie was not trying to use her feminine wiles to charm the old man. She had something else in mind, something much more appealing. At least, she thought so.

  “Of course! Who could resist? A full clean and de-clutter? It’s better than winning the lottery!”

  Allie pulled out the pair of pink rubber gloves that had been hanging out of the back pocket of her jeans and waved them in front of Jackie.

  Jackie answered with a snort. “Yeah, right.”

  “I know what I’d rather have anyway.”

  “Hold on.” Jackie reached into the car and grabbed something out of the door pocket. When she stood up straight again, she slipped a headband over her forehead and sweatbands onto her wrists. “There. Now I look like a fitness trainer from his generation.” With the headband and sweatbands, and her hair in a classic ponytail, she could have been auditioning to be one of Mr Motivator’s backup fitness models.

  Allie shook her head dubiously. “I think his prime was before the 1980s, Jackie.”

  Jackie shrugged her shoulders. “I’m not a historian. Let’s go.”

  The plan was to flatter and charm Larry until he couldn’t resist them. Then, get him to sign a contract to sell the building to them. Surely, he would be persuaded by either some one-on-one training sessions with Jackie or an ultra-clean fr
om Allie. One or the other would do the trick, Allie was certain.

  They swung open the creaky gate and, quicker than last time, wound their way up the path, dodging the brambles and other encroaching overgrowth with skill gained from prior experience.

  “Look,” said Jackie indicating the door. “It’s open.”

  The door was indeed open a few inches. Allie reached out a pink rubber-gloved hand to give the door a gentle push. It swung all the way open, and they were immediately hit by a musty, slightly sour smell coming from within.

  “I—don’t know if I’ll be able to clean this place,” said Allie nervously.

  “He’ll probably go for the personal training anyway, no offence.”

  “I don’t see why he would,” said Allie, speaking so quietly it was almost to herself.

  “Hello?” Jackie called inside.

  There was no answer.

  “Knock on the door,” said Allie.

  Jackie did as she was told. She knew there was no way Allie was going to put her hands on anything in this property if she could help it. In or outside.

  There was no answer.

  “Hello? Anyone in there? Larry?”

  “He’s not here,” said Allie impatiently. “We should go. We can come back later after we put our stuff in the B&B.”

  “Something isn’t right. Why is the door open if he isn’t here?”

  “Maybe he really is going senile and left the door open.”

  Jackie already had one foot inside and now stepped in fully, shaking her head in disagreement. “I’ll pop in for a quick peek.”

  Allie’s adoptive sister stepped inside and began tentatively to make her way down the hallway. Allie raised her right leg but couldn’t quite manage to force herself to step inside.

  The place looked like a full-on germ factory. Ideally, you would want a proper hazmat suit going in there, she thought. No, she’d wait by the door for Jackie and or Larry to return. She wasn’t going to voluntarily enter unless there was a firm commitment on Larry’s part to sell them his building.

  “Hello? Hello?”

  Jackie’s voice fell quieter and quieter as she went deeper into the house. Then, she stopped calling out.