The Holiday Home Page 0,49

up her tone and agreed. ‘Yes. We’re lucky, really.’

Pru, who was sitting as far away from Connie as possible, gave her sister and husband a scathing look before returning to her paper.

The silence lingered on until Francis cleared his throat. The rest looked up expectantly.

‘I have noticed that we need some more loo rolls. Any preference in colour?’ he asked.

Pru rattled her broadsheet pages and spoke very clearly. ‘No.’

Francis bent back to his list. ‘OK, I’ll get the white then.’

The silence returned. Only the scraping of Francis’s chair as he stood up to stock-take in the larder disturbed them.

This was how Henry found them when he knocked on the patio doors.

Pru leapt up before Connie and hurried to welcome him in. ‘Hi, Dad.’ She kissed him.

‘Good morning,’ he said sternly, surveying the four of them with a look that the girls remembered from childhood. All four felt a chill in their stomachs. They were in for a telling off.

‘Morning, Daddy,’ Connie said in a small voice.

‘I hear you two have been arguing –’ he studied Francis’s sore face – ‘and Francis has come off worst, by the look of things. Mind telling me what it was about?’

The sisters looked anywhere but at each other or their father.

Henry bellowed at them, ‘I am going to remain here until this is sorted out. What’s been going on?’

Connie leapt in: ‘Pru said that you and Mummy would be leaving Atlantic House to her instead of sharing it out between us. And then Greg got that idiot Merlin Pengelly to look at the boiler and we had a flood and now we’re waiting for Merlin to come back with the spare parts because we still don’t have any hot water.’

Henry pursed his lips. ‘Let’s deal with the plumbing first. Merlin Pengelly – is he that bugger who made a mess of our summer twenty-odd years ago?’

‘Yes,’ said Connie. ‘And now Greg’s got him to mess up the plumbing as well.’

Greg spoke: ‘Come on, I was only doing my bit. You asked me to find a plumber and I did.’

‘How did you manage to come up with that waste of space? He’s not even a plumber!’ boomed Henry.

Greg reached across to a pile of discarded newspapers and pulled out a copy of the parish magazine. ‘Here, it says: “Merlin’s Magic Plumbing Services. No job too big or small.”’

‘Oh,’ said Pru nastily, ‘it wasn’t too onerous a task for you to track him down then? All you had to do was read through the recycling. Well done.’

Greg clenched his hands. ‘I can do without your sarcasm, Pru. And if it wasn’t for you plotting to con Connie out of her inheritance, we wouldn’t be in the situation we find ourselves in. Would we?’

‘Exactly.’ Connie threw a spiteful look at her sister and then laid her hand on Greg’s. ‘Well said, darling.’

‘I see,’ said Henry. ‘Tell me, Pru, what is this about you inheriting Atlantic House?’ He looked her straight in the eyes.

She dropped her gaze under his scrutiny and whispered, ‘That’s not quite what I said.’

Connie shot back, ‘It’s exactly what you said.’

Henry raised his hands to silence them both.

‘Did you say that, Pru?’

Pru squirmed. ‘In a way, but—’

‘But what? Since when do you decide how I divvy up my home and worldly goods?’

Pru, shame-faced, didn’t answer.

Connie chipped in: ‘Exactly, Daddy. She wants all the good stuff and she’s trying to cut me out.’

Now Henry’s stony gaze turned on Connie.

‘“All the good stuff”? What do you think the firm is? I made your husband managing director. Carew Family Board Games has made me what I am today, what Greg is today and what you are today. Without the factory and the business, there would be no Atlantic House.’

Connie opened her mouth as if to say something, but Greg caught her eye and shook his head, so she closed it again.

Henry placed his hands palms down on the table. ‘So, my two venal, selfish daughters, you want to know how much you’ll be worth when I’m dead and gone?’ He waved away their vehement protests. ‘Yes, you do. And the answer is that I don’t know. Your mother and I intend to go on living for a while yet. And we may as well indulge ourselves a little, since neither of you have done anything to deserve Atlantic House or the company.’

Greg, looking aggrieved, protested, ‘Hold on, Henry, I’m keeping the money coming into the firm.’

‘True. But I would expect nothing less, you are a salaried managing