Claire took her time on the drive to Brighton. A mile before Marine House on Brighton seafront, Claire left her car. She walked along the wide path by the side of the beach until she reached Marine House where she stood and stared across the road. Its size made it an imposing building, three stories high; she admired the impressive Regency façade with its second-floor windows, each with wide balconies. The stark contrast with Arrow Hall, a house surrounded by green fields, immediately hit Claire.
Calling on Harry Stone was something she had thought would never happen again. On the drive to Brighton, she already felt today that she was running from Arrow Hall. She sat for ten minutes on a bench by the edge of the beach. Her curiosity rising to see the inside of this imposing property, she walked slowly back to her car and drove round to the garage at the rear of Marine House. But she was going to call at the front door. As she walked up the few steps that led to the wide entrance, Claire had a moment of doubt. What was she doing here?
Just a very few seconds after she pressed the bell and looked into the video link, the familiar voice of Harry Stone answered.
‘Claire, as always, you are right on time. Come on in and welcome to Marine House.’
‘I’ve only got an hour today, so my visit’ll have to be quick.’
Stone grinned as Claire stood and looked for a moment at the large arrangement of flowers on the hall table, even leaning over to savour the scent of the roses. For some reason, Claire knew that Stone wanted to impress her. He led her quickly into the elegant Regency sitting room that looked across a road to the sea.
‘Sit down. Do you want some tea, coffee, something stronger?’ Stone said, and he gestured to a deep sofa with cushions arranged around the edge.
‘Another time but not today. I just want to see Marine House and find out what you want me to do.’
‘Do you like this room?’ Stone asked, again looking for Claire’s approval.
‘It’s very imposing; it has an air of being refined but it doesn’t look comfortable.’
‘I’ve started talking to the people who own Marine House, but they don’t want to sell to me. Don’t think I’ve got the money. But it’s a Lady Ruth Jackson, with an idle, layabout son who had a sex assault case against him hushed up.’
‘If you have the money, that will always talk for you. You know that better than most people.’
‘Yeah, I’ve got it all. You remember my money in Panama? That’s moving back to London. Diamonds, some big, some small, is how I’m carrying it all home.’
‘Does Lady Ruth Jackson know that’s where your money’s come from?’
‘I dunno, but she doesn’t like the way I talk, and she thinks I won’t look after the place. She wants a meeting tomorrow, in her Mayfair office. Could you go, talk to the family, charm them so they can’t say no?’
Claire hesitated. She looked at Stone’s lined face. There was tension there, it was thinner than when she had known him before.
‘Yes, but what can I say to them that you can’t?’ she asked.
‘You know by now that it’s not always what you say but how you say it that counts. Her Ladyship wants to be sure that I will keep the house tidy when the agent brings another buyer to view the place, and she also thinks that, with just four weeks left, I will slip away without clearing the last quarter’s rent. And you can tell ’em that whatever happens, I’m going to buy this place.’
Stone started to pace the room. This was what he did when he was unsure of something, as if he could find an answer stepping in circles.
‘There’s something else you must know. I gave a diamond to the son, Josh, to buy him into the deal, and he was to pass it to his sister. I wanted to get them all excited that dealing with me would be different. Maybe it’s time to remind them about that.’
Stone sat facing Claire and again ran his hand through his short, silvery, hair.
‘I’ve got cancer. Prostate. It’s spreading, the doctors tell me I don’t have long to go.’
Stone blurted the words as if a dam had been broken. He could no longer hold it back and he looked at Claire, uncertain if he should have told her.
A frown immediately spread over Claire’s face. Her intuition had told her there was something wrong just as soon as he surprised her when he walked into the small cabin at Arrow Hall. His face was gaunt; his arms were loose in his jacket; and he had an ashen colour to his skin which was still there as she looked at him today.
‘That’s awful, Harry. How long have you had that?’
‘Don’t know. Probably some time. It’s eating up my bones, spreading around; it wasn’t caught early enough.’
‘That surely changes everything. Why on earth are you chasing such a grand property as Marine House?’ Claire asked.
‘It’ll be my one last big deal. I’ll be around long enough to see it remade into fancy apartments and then I need somewhere to live. So why not?’ Stone said.
There was a pause as Stone sat on the chaise longue. He closed his eyes and Claire saw the pain being etched into his face.
‘Show me quickly round this big house, so I know where I am next time I come to look through your papers for you.’
Stone took Claire into a dining room, into the kitchen and three of the other rooms on the ground floor. Upstairs, he quickly showed her his bedroom opening onto a balcony with views across to the sea, and he then led her into the study.
Claire frowned at the piles of paper littered around the room. Tidying this was not something she was going to do; she had done it before for Harry Stone and never again. But Claire saw how big Marine House was. And with all its chintzy Regency furniture, there was nowhere she had seen that looked easy to live in. This was not Harry Stone as she had known him, and it left Claire still unsure of the motive he had for buying this huge mansion and why he was in such a hurry to do it.
‘How are you being looked after in your illness? Who comes in to help you?’
‘I haven’t made any arrangements yet. But I’m never going into hospital. I get medication from the consultant I see at the urology clinic in London. The rest I’ll take as it comes,’ Stone said.
Claire had seen enough. Stone did not look well – he moved slowly, and his voice was flat. It was time to go. This visit was not what she had expected, though. Nobody ever got close to Harry Stone. Claire was no exception. But she felt him looking at her with almost pleading in his eyes. Was this a time when he would want her to know what he truly thought each day?
‘Call in again soon, and have this key so you can feel at home here. And will you visit the Jackson family tomorrow? You know what to say; you know what I want. Any of the technical stuff about buying the place is in this envelope,’ Stone said.
‘Yes, I’ll call on them. But from what you’ve told me, don’t expect answers.’
As Claire said goodbye, she felt his stare, and she walked quickly from the elegant Regency sitting room. Closing the back door noisily so he would hear, Claire did not look back. The garage at the rear of Marine House was dark and gloomy, and Claire sat in her car for many minutes. She suddenly had the overwhelming feeling of being squashed in the middle of the sinister problems developing with James at Arrow Hall, leaving Rick and Harry Stone a pitiable sight, sitting alone, lonely in Marine House.
On her drive back to London, Claire was tense, stunned by the dire news she had just heard from Harry Stone. Calling on Brighton again would be hard. All that had once seemed certain in her life was now evaporating as easily as an early morning mist. Claire doubted that tomorrow, a new day, would be any better.