The House on Sunset Lake (2 page)

He looked up, his face lit by the light of the screen. Jim had seen that look before: desire.

‘Do the Wyatts still own it?’

‘As far as I know. But it’s been a long while since I was there.’

‘But you know these people, the Wyatts?’

Jim paused, took a breath. ‘I used to,’ he said, stiffening in his seat.

‘Do you think they would sell?’

‘Simon, it’s their family home. You know how sentimental people get about places.’

Simon gave him a level look. ‘And I’ve also seen how quickly sentiment fades away when you open a chequebook.’

‘Yes, but . . .’

‘But what, Jim?’ said Simon. ‘Is there something about this place you’re not telling me?’

You have no idea, Jim thought, getting to his feet.

‘All I’m saying is let’s not jump the gun. Casa D’Or isn’t the only house in the South. Let me put out feelers and see what else there is. Omari properties have to be the absolute best in class.’

‘Precisely,’ said Simon, putting the phone back in his pocket. ‘Best in class, and if Casa D’Or is being mentioned in the same breath as Hearst Castle and the Biltmore, that excites me.’

Jim could feel his control slipping away.

‘Look, the place has history,’ he said cautiously. ‘There was an accident there once. Someone died . . .’

Simon looked at the younger man directly, unbothered by the concerns he had just heard, the look in his eyes indicating he was only concerned with getting his own way.

‘Where do you see your future in this company, James?’ he said evenly. It was a straight question, but one loaded with meaning. Simon was a fair employer, but no billionaire got to the top of that golden pyramid without having a streak of ruthlessness. And while Jim had carved out a personal niche in the Omari property portfolio, the first rule of business was that no one was indispensable.

‘I love working for Omari,’ he said after a moment. ‘It’s my life.’

Simon nodded. ‘You’ve been here from the start, grown the Omari business. And I want to reward you for your vision and your loyalty.’

‘I’m flattered, but—’ began Jim.

‘No buts. I want to open the best hotel in the Deep South and I want that hotel to be Casa D’Or. Make it happen and I will make you CEO of Omari Hotels.’

Jim could feel his eyes opening wide.

‘CEO?’

Simon looked at him, his gaze intense, and for a moment Jim’s own eyes sparkled with desire. Then there was a whoop and a cheer from the terrace and the moment was gone. Simon smiled and raised his glass.

‘Well, I think you’d better go and find the piper, don’t you?’

Chapter Two

He needed new curtains: that was his first thought. Sunlight was leaking in over the top of his Swedish drapes and straight on to his pillow, rousing him much earlier than he had planned. Turn off your phone: that was his second. Jim scrabbled for the mobile buzzing on his bedside table. ‘M’ read the screen. ‘Not now,’ he groaned, clicking it off and shoving it under his pillow. He pulled the duvet over his head, but he knew it was too late: he was awake. So much for his idea of sleeping till noon, reading the paper: finally a couple of hours to relax.

Brrring.

Jim groaned again. The doorbell now.

He rolled out of bed, grabbed his dressing gown and shuffled towards the front door, jabbing a finger against the intercom button when he got there.

‘What?’ he growled, his voice still craggy with sleep.

A voice. Impatient, annoyed.

‘Jim, it’s me. Let me in.’

Shit
. Melissa. He glanced across at the clock above the hob in his open-plan kitchen and rubbed his eyes. Five o’clock? Could it really be that late?

‘Crap,’ he muttered, pressing the door release. Working over New Year was one thing, but still being in bed when your girlfriend came to see you? Jim was no expert at relationships, but even he knew that was considered a big no-no.

Footsteps coming up the stairs. No time to think of excuses.

‘Don’t you ever answer your phone?’ asked Melissa, striding into the flat.

‘I got the late flight from Inverness last night,’ replied Jim, stifling a yawn. ‘Didn’t get home until one, couldn’t sleep.’

‘Really? You could have fooled me.’

‘I’m knackered, Mel. Munroe, the launch . . .’

‘I know it’s tough.’

He didn’t miss the sarcasm.

‘Happy New Year,’ he said, pulling her in and kissing her softly on the lips. There was a moment’s resistance, then he felt her relax.

‘I’ve missed you,’ she said simply as she nuzzled into his neck.

Her hair smelled fresh, clean, delicious. It smelled of anxiety and effort and it made him feel guilty. Maybe he should
have invited her to Munroe. Then again, he had made it clear from the start that his job had to take priority, and besides, he was taking her to his father’s seventieth birthday party that very evening. That meant something, didn’t it?

‘You look great,’ he said, stepping back to look at her. Her pale green dress was fitted and to the knee; her blond hair bounced over her shoulders. It was a look designed to impress his parents, but she still looked incredibly sexy.

‘You think? I didn’t know how formal this party was going to be.’

‘
The Hampstead literati aren’t known for their dress sense,’ he smiled. ‘It’s either bow ties or moth-eaten cardigans mostly.’

She looked anxious. ‘So you think I’m overdressed?’

‘I think you look perfect,’ said Jim, pulling her closer and whispering, ‘Although I can’t wait to see you looking underdressed later.’

She untied his dressing gown and pressed against his bare chest, grinning.

‘Why does it have to be later?’

It was almost 7.30 by the time the taxi pulled up outside Jim’s parents’ house in Hampstead, and already the party looked as though it was in full swing. Every light in the property seemed to be switched on, and they could see the outline of guests at each golden window. A particularly decorous holly wreath was hanging on the polished black front door; with the street’s faux gaslight reflecting off the frosty pavement, it looked like the front of one of the Christmas cards still standing on Jim’s mantelpiece.

‘Just grab this a minute, will you?’

Jim handed Melissa the bottle of Scotch, his father’s birthday present, as he leaned forward to pay the driver. When he looked back at her, she was already on the street, gazing up at the house.

‘Nice place. When did they buy this?’ she said as Jim slammed the taxi door shut.

‘In the days when you didn’t have to work two hundred and fifty years just to afford the deposit. Apologies beforehand if my father tries to snog you, by the way.’

‘I’ve met him before.’

‘Yes, but you’ve never experienced the true horror of what he’s like when he’s had a drink and he’s showing off on home turf,’ smiled Jim as he banged the big brass door knocker.

‘Darling! So glad you could make it.’ Jim’s mother stepped forward and air-kissed him, wafting them both with Chanel. Elizabeth Johnson was thinner than the last time he had seen her, possibly a little more drawn, but she was hiding it well in a beaded cocktail dress and the clanging bangles that always sheathed her wrists. ‘And Melissa, so lovely to see you again.

‘Come through,’ she trilled over her shoulder, as if she were guiding them into a strange new building rather than the house where Jim had grown up. ‘You know Tony and Claire, of course, and the Gillans are here.’

Jim had no idea who she was talking about, but it was something he was used to. The endlessly shifting literary and arty circles Elizabeth and Bryn Johnson moved in meant that the faces were constantly changing, one leading light or hot name being replaced by another. Only his father remained a fixed point around which everything else revolved.

And there he was, just where Jim had known he would be, one elbow leaning on the marble fireplace, his free hand gesturing with a half-full glass, an admiring group surrounding him.

‘Jimmy!’ he bellowed, breaking off mid-anecdote. ‘Come on over, my boy, let the dog see the rabbit.’

He seized Jim in a bear hug, slapping him on the back.

‘Drink?’

‘What are we celebrating?’ asked Jim, smiling.

Bryn Johnson looked at him for a second, then burst out into laughter.

‘
Trust a Johnson to cut straight to the chase. Everyone else has been tiptoeing around the elephant in the room, giving me guff about entering a golden age, telling me how well I look.’

‘You do look well.’

‘Considering I’ve just been butchered. Pretty good for a walking corpse, yes.’

He was being provocative; his default setting. In actual fact he did look well, despite his heart attack only four months previously. When Jim remembered his father in that hospital bed, his skin grey, tubes curling out of his nose and chest, he barely looked the same man. He’d always been strong, like a bull in both body and attitude towards life, and it had upset Jim more than he liked to admit to see him lying there weak and vulnerable.

‘Dad, you remember Melissa.’

‘Of course. We all went to lunch. The duck was very good, if I remember rightly.’

As he stepped forward to kiss her, Melissa blushed. Over the years, Bryn Johnson’s extraordinary good looks had been much remarked upon: the striking blue eyes, the jet-black hair. Even at seventy, he could still have an effect on women.

‘For you,’ said Melissa, handing over the bottle of Scotch, which Bryn examined with careful eyes.

‘
Twenty-Five Year Old Talisker single malt. Very nice. It must be my birthday.’ He looked at Jim. ‘Nothing from you?’

‘It’s from both of us,’ said Jim, shifting uncomfortably.
‘
The sommelier at Munroe got hold of it for me. It’s excellent. A vintage year. Only a few thousand bottles were ever laid down,’ said Jim, but his father had already put it on the mantelpiece.

‘Francis, Edward, Peter. Come here. I don’t think you’ve met James Johnson. The very fruit of my loins. Isn’t he handsome?’

Hasty introductions were made to three men: a publisher, a sculptor and a playwright.

‘Are you a writer too?’ asked Edward, the wiry white-haired sculptor.

Jim shook his head. ‘I work for a property company.’

‘Property? I thought it was poetry.’

‘He showed tremendous literary potential at university,’ said Bryn, interjecting. ‘Saul – that’s my American agent – wanted to sign him, but Jimmy wouldn’t hear of it.’

‘
That was a long time ago, Dad.’

‘Instead he became a wage slave. Scandalous, isn’t it?’ he said. His laugh was loud and raucous.

Jim wasn’t sure if his comment had been designed to wound. In his black moods, Bryn Johnson could be brutal, merciless, picking at any aspect of your personality until you felt worthless. On the other hand, just a few generous words from him and he pumped you up until you felt full of air. Jim had spent his entire childhood swinging between the two extremes, although these days he found the most hurtful treatment from his father was his ambivalence to the career he had worked so hard for.

‘Good turnout,’ he said.

‘It is my seventieth.’

‘Is Ian coming?’

Ian McConnelly was Jim’s godfather. A friend of Bryn’s from their Cambridge days, he had gone on to have a hugely successful career writing a series of quirky comic novels that were considered the literary successor to P. G. Wodehouse’s Jeeves stories, but which Bryn privately dismissed as ‘populist crap’.

‘I’ve got to congratulate him on the knighthood. It’s amazing,’ said Jim, who had been texted the news by his godfather and had been delighted for him.

‘Someone at the Palace probably felt sorry for him,’ said Bryn with an ill-disguised huff.

‘Really?’

‘
The Alzheimer’s.’

‘Ian has Alzheimer’s?’ said Edward, turning round to rejoin the conversation.

‘He’d better not have forgotten about the party tonight,’ frowned Bryn.

‘Dad . . .’

‘So who do you think is going to win the Nobel this year?’ he continued, turning his attention back to his cronies.

Jim shook his head and tugged Melissa’s sleeve.

‘Come on, let’s get a drink,’ he said.

‘How about a guided tour of the house?’ she replied, slipping her arm through his. ‘I want to see your childhood bedroom.’

Jim hadn’t been to his parents’ house for a few months, but it looked exactly the same as it always did. A whiff of cigar smoke clung to his father’s study; the slightly musty smell of old books pervaded the hallways. His old room was also untouched. Piles of vinyl, all in mint condition, he noted, were stacked up under the window. The blue walls were still festooned with posters – the moody black and white graphics of a Joy Division cover, a psychedelic portrait of Hendrix – plus a pinboard full of tickets from the Mud Club, the Camden Palace and Wembley. He tried to remember when he had last been to a gig or a live venue. He’d taken some clients for dinner at Ronnie Scott’s a few months earlier, but he wasn’t sure if that counted.

Melissa excused herself to the bathroom and Jim went to refill their glasses in the kitchen. His mother was standing at the island filling a glass bowl with cashew nuts. Surprisingly, they were alone.

‘Having a good time?’ she said without looking up at him.

She never hired outside caterers, said it was a waste of money. As the daughter of an army officer, she had always had a practical, can-do side, even though her husband demanded that they put on a show.

‘Dad seems to be enjoying himself.’

‘Never happier than when he’s surrounded by people he hardly ever sees.’

Jim fished around the fridge looking for a cold beer.

‘Sad news about Ian.’

‘I know. He’s thrilled with his knighthood, though. Although don’t bring that up with your father.’

‘I did. He seemed touchy.’

‘
Touchy? He’s been like a bear with a sore head ever since it was announced.’

‘But Ian’s his friend. He should be pleased for him.’

‘In theory,’ said his mother softly.

‘Don’t worry, Melissa will massage his ego.’ He opened his can with a hiss and took a long, satisfying sip.

‘Pretty little thing.’

Jim looked up and observed the sardonic look on his mother’s face.

‘Any plans for making an honest woman of this one? Or is this just another of your conquests?’

‘Mum,’ he said.

‘I don’t see why I can’t ask. You’re forty this year and you’re still no closer to settling down.’

‘It’s not a race.’

‘Just as well.’

He thought about his brush with Celine Wood at the Munroe party. What would he have done if she had slipped him her number? He had never been unfaithful to any of his girlfriends, but even now he was having thoughts.

Elizabeth reached for a bottle of wine and poured herself a glass.

‘What is she, Jim? Thirty-four, thirty-five?’

‘We’ve only been dating a year, Mum. Neither marriage nor babies have been mentioned.’

His mother laughed. ‘That doesn’t mean they’re not on her mind.’

The thought of it made his heart sink. It wasn’t that he was against a wife and family per se. Until recently he’d felt sorry for his friends who had disappeared into family life; the boys he’d drunk with, played football, skied and white-water-rafted with, but who now he only saw occasionally: the odd brunch in pubs with playgrounds or crèches, where he was lucky to get ten minutes of undisrupted conversation with his mates, thanks to their children acting up. But lately he had been worried about ending up alone. Work filled his life, but not entirely, and apart from Melissa, there seemed to be fewer and fewer people to spend his free time with. But did he want to settle down with her? He wasn’t sure.

‘Honestly, she seems very nice,’ continued his mother. ‘She’s a solicitor, too. Why are you hanging around?’

‘Perhaps because “very nice” isn’t what I’m looking for in a woman.’

Elizabeth sipped her wine and looked at him disapprovingly over the rim of her glass.

‘What?’ asked Jim, feeling uncomfortable under her scrutiny.

‘You’re not still clinging to that girl, are you?’

‘What girl?’ said Jim innocently, although he knew exactly what she was talking about.

‘Jim, you have the world’s worst case of rose-tinted spectacles.’

‘Don’t try and tell me what I felt,’ he said, feeling defensive.

Elizabeth rolled her eyes. ‘You met a girl. It didn’t work out. Simple as that. Plus you were kids, another lifetime ago almost.’

‘And what’s that supposed to mean?’

‘
That you’ve spent the last twenty years measuring every other woman against
her
.’