you’re buying is within the urbanization control area, and as such, no brick buildings are permitted.’
Alice feels as if the blood flowing around her body has reached a dead end. ‘But surely Nathan would have flagged that up to me,’ she says, rubbing at her forehead with the palm of her hand. ‘Why would he have let me go ahead with the purchase, if nothing can be built on it?’
‘I don’t know,’ says Liz tentatively.
Or maybe Nathan already knows there’s a problem, thinks Alice. ‘But why would he advise me to go ahead with it?’ she says aloud. ‘It’ll risk the business, our salaries, our home, all of it. It doesn’t make any sense.’
‘I’m only reporting what we’ve found,’ says Liz.
‘Who’s the vendor?’ asks Alice abruptly.
She hears Liz turning over papers at her end.
‘A company called Excelsior. I really think you need to get to the bottom of this before you agree to completion. It would be ill-advised to go ahead on what I’m seeing here.’
The name means nothing to Alice. ‘Okay, thanks for your help,’ she says, and puts the phone down. She starts typing an email to Mr Yahamoto, heading it up ‘Private & Confidential’.
Dear Mr Yahamoto,
It has come to my attention that there are one or two discrepancies in the contract for the purchase of Embassy Docks, Tokyo, that I would like you to comment on, ahead of completion.
Therefore, I would like to postpone completion until such time that I am confident that all is as it should be.
Please inform the vendor’s solicitors of this decision immediately and let them know that we will revert to them in due course.
I would like to remind you to exercise discretion in this matter, and remain aware that I am the sole purchaser and so should therefore be your only point of contact.
Yours sincerely,
Alice Davies
Alice grabs her handbag from her desk and heads out through the open-plan office. ‘I’ll be back in five minutes,’ she calls out, to no one in particular.
‘Hey, where are you going?’ says Nathan, frantically. ‘Alice!’
She races up the high street, and is out of breath by the time she arrives at the bank. On seeing her, the manager grabs a cup of water from the cooler and offers it to her.
‘Mrs Davies, are you okay?’
‘I need to stop the transaction,’ she says, breathlessly. ‘We’re not completing.’
Five minutes later she’s waiting in the manager’s office as he prints off confirmation that the transfer has been halted. If her fears are unfounded, then she may have just lost out on the deal of the century. A no-brainer, as Nathan would say. But if her instinct is right . . .
Beth’s words ring loudly in her ears. Don’t let him anywhere near it.
Her chest falls and rises heavily, every fibre in her body fighting against the growing possibility of Nathan being more corrupt and cruel than she could even begin to imagine.
Her phone rings and, seeing it’s Nathan, she hesitates, as if it’s going to stop him from saying what she thinks he’s going to say. Knowing that if he does, it means that everything Beth has said is true.
‘Jesus, Alice,’ barks Nathan down the line. ‘What the hell are you playing at?’
‘What’s up?’ she says, as calmly as she can, though even she can hear the quiver in her voice.
Don’t say it. Please don’t say it.
‘Why have you stalled completion?’ he says, and with those five words, Alice’s world comes crashing down around her.
She hangs up and with shaking hands calls Beth. ‘You won’t be getting any money back from Nathan,’ Alice says.
45
The deceit is crippling, like an unknown force rippling through her body, slowly shutting down her vital organs, one by one.
Beth drives the car in silence, the pair of them contemplating their next move whilst Alice’s phone rings off the hook.
‘How can you be so sure that Nathan’s the vendor?’ asks Beth eventually.
‘Because the vendor is the only other person who would have been told that completion’s delayed,’ she says.
‘And you were buying it for a million pounds?’ asks Beth incredulously. ‘How much do you think Nathan bought it for?’
‘It’s worthless!’ says Alice, as she bangs the dashboard with a closed fist. ‘He’d have got it for a song because nothing can be built on it. It’s no man’s land.’
‘Shit,’ says Beth. ‘He was going to do it all over again.’
Alice leans back on the headrest as a text from Matt pings through on her phone.
Good news! Looks like the payments to Visions are all