Cathy Kelly 6-Book Collection: Someone Like You, What She Wants, Just Between Us, Best of Friends, Always and Forever, Past Secrets

In these halcyon days, the only fly in Hannah’s ointment was David James. For some reason, their relaxed relationship had vanished to be replaced by a stiff-necked formality that had Hannah wondering exactly what had gone wrong.

It wasn’t that David wasn’t polite or friendly to her: on the contrary, he was both. Yet nothing more. They didn’t indulge in their chocolate-chip biscuit passion any more: meetings in his office were brusque and utterly businesslike, and without the distraction of dunking biscuits in coffee.

Hannah tried to convince herself that it was something else bothering him, something that had nothing to do with her. But she couldn’t rid herself of the sneaking suspicion that Donna had been right and that David did like her in a way that had nothing to do with work.

The day Felix rolled up in a borrowed Porsche to collect her didn’t make things any clearer. Abandoning the car in his usual reckless manner right outside the door, Felix sauntered into the office and went bang into David who was leading a client out.

‘Felix, hello,’ said David shortly when his client was gone. The urbane, charming manner he’d displayed for the client was gone. From her desk, Hannah watched the proceedings nervously.

‘Hi, my man,’ said Felix, clapping David on the shoulder, seemingly impervious to the chilly atmosphere. ‘I’m here to collect Hannah.’

‘Sorry, I’m going a bit early this evening,’ Hannah apologized to David, appearing beside her boyfriend. Damn Felix for being early.

David’s frosty face cracked a bit and he managed a smile. ‘That’s fine,’ he said, almost jovially. ‘Look after my top employee,’ he added to Felix.

‘What’s up?’ Felix asked as he opened the car door for her.

‘Nothing, just a bit of a headache,’ lied Hannah. Felix, jealous as he was, could do without being told that Hannah suspected her boss fancied her. Or perhaps he didn’t. David hadn’t appeared lovelorn at the sight of Felix. Hannah shook her head as if to loosen the thought. She really was imagining things.

‘Thank God you’re in.’ For once, Gillian looked delighted to see Hannah.

‘Why? What’s wrong?’ Hannah knew she was late but it was only ten past nine. What disaster could have befallen the office in that twenty-five minutes?

‘Donna’s daughter has had to go into hospital, something to do with an asthma attack,’ Gillian said.

‘Poor Donna, poor Tania,’ Hannah gasped. Donna had often confided in her about seven-year-old Tania and the severity of her asthma attacks. But she hadn’t been in hospital with one since she’d been very young. Donna had been hoping her daughter had out-grown the really vicious attacks. Obviously not.

‘…and she’s got three appointments this morning and nobody else is around to fit them in,’ Gillian was muttering, staring at the appointment book with the horror of the easily flustered.

‘Somebody is bound to,’ Hannah said impatiently. ‘It’s not the end of the world, Gillian. Let me see.’ She stared at the book, rapidly assessing where the other estate agents were and working out who could deal with Donna’s clients. Three minutes on the phone to the other agents solved two of the problems. But nobody could fit in her first client in Killiney at nine forty-five. Hannah knew the house in question: a rather ugly semi owned by a couple who were trying to buy a house in Drumcondra. They desperately needed to sell their home because they couldn’t afford bridging finance and a previous sale had fallen through. If they couldn’t get a sale agreed within a day or so, they’d lose the house in Drumcondra. Donna had liked the couple and hoped this morning’s viewers would make an offer after seeing it again. If it had been any other house, Hannah would have cancelled the viewing but she knew this was important. David James was unavailable so she couldn’t ask his advice.

Briskly, she shut the appointments book. ‘I’m going to take Donna’s nine forty-five myself,’ she told an open-mouthed Gillian.

On the way, she left a message on Donna’s mobile asking if there was anything she could do to help with Tania. ‘I’m so sorry to hear about what’s happened, Donna. Ring me if you need anything,’ she stressed, ‘and don’t worry about work. Concentrate on getting Tania better. We’re all thinking of you.’

A gleaming four-year-old BMW was waiting for her at the house when she drove up. Conscious that her elderly banger wasn’t the ideal vehicle for a thrusting, would-be estate agent, Hannah parked a few doors away, pleased that at least she looked the part even if her car didn’t. The burgundy trouser suit from Wallis worn with her high-heeled boots was perfectly suitable for this unexpected change of job.

The clients were waiting impatiently at the door and the woman looked pointedly at her watch when Hannah walked confidently down the driveway.

Blonde, expertly made-up and dressed in expensive casual clothes, Denise Parker obviously thought she was the last word in yuppie chic and liked to give the impression that her time was very valuable. Her husband Colin, a less impressive looking sandy-haired man in a suit, appeared equally impatient.

‘We are in a rush, you know,’ Denise said, before Hannah had a chance to say hello.

‘Of course,’ Hannah said soothingly. ‘Ms Nelson told me all about you both. I know you’re very busy people.’

She couldn’t actually see how a hairdresser and a computer salesman were any busier than anyone else but realized that flattery would be a balm to this self-important pair.

‘A pleasure to meet you both,’ she said, shaking hands. ‘I’m Hannah Campbell. I don’t normally do viewings,’ she added gravely, ‘but Ms Nelson couldn’t make it and as we wouldn’t dream of cancelling your viewing, I said I’d come.’ She hadn’t actually lied, Hannah knew, just implied that she was far more important than she actually was in the hope that the Parkers would be impressed. They were.

Denise sniffed. ‘Thank you,’ she said graciously.

Inside, the couple strolled speculatively around, Denise rubbing an unimpressed finger along walls to see if the darkened colour was damp or dirt. Colin screwed up his nose at the chipped marble fireplace that no amount of trailing ivies could camouflage and grimaced at the porridge-coloured curtains that were included in the asking price.

Prepared to wait for them to go through the entire house with painstaking slowness, Hannah sat down on a sofa and calmly looked through the list of properties she’d brought with her as if she didn’t have a million things waiting for her back at the office. It was important to look as if you had all the time in the world for your latest clients, explained the psychology bit in her real estate manual.

‘Make them feel special, as if finding the precise home for them is your mission,’ said the book. Hannah tried not to roll her eyes to heaven. Doing anything for this pair of surly customers was a mission, all right. Mission: Impossible.

She remembered talking to Donna about the psychology of showing a house.

‘Some agents praise everything, tell the clients that it’s wonderful and that it’s perfect for them,’ Donna explained. ‘I don’t do it that way. I’m very matter-of-fact about a house, I point out that they’re going to need to spend money on it. They want to know what needs to be done, especially the three most expensive things in a house: wiring, windows and heating. Honesty, that works for me.’

Honesty, Hannah thought, nervously. She could do this.

When the Parkers finally arrived back in the room, Hannah tried her best to look as though she was surprised they’d been so quick.

‘It has buckets of potential, doesn’t it?’ she said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘I’d rip out the fireplace, naturally. But imagine how good it’d look with a modern black slate one.’

The Parkers looked wonderingly at the fireplace, as if astonished that the estate agent was pointing out a negative feature of the house.

‘Well,’ Hannah added with a casual shrug of her shoulders, ‘some people would probably like that fireplace; they’d leave it here, in fact. But anyone with an eye for interior design would see it has to go. I could see you hated it.’ She allowed herself a small smile. ‘But not everyone has your taste.’

Denise looked pleased. ‘No, you’re right. I was just saying to Colin that the fireplace was the first thing I’d rip out.’

Hannah nodded approvingly. ‘And change the bathroom suite. Navy is so eighties.’

‘Lord, yes,’ rushed Denise. ‘That’s just what we said.’

Hannah began organizing her papers. ‘I’d love to see what you two could do to this house,’ she said conversationally. ‘I’d say you’ve great ideas and it’s a nice area.’

‘Isn’t it,’ agreed Colin, looking much less po-faced.

‘I’ll just check all the windows upstairs are closed,’ Hannah said, escaping to give them a moment alone. When she came back down the stairs, they were waiting for her in the hall with smiles on their faces.

‘We’ll take it,’ Denise said triumphantly. ‘I can just see that living room done in greys and greens with a slate fireplace. We’ve got to have it.’

‘That sounds fantastic,’ lied Hannah before congratulating them and asking for a deposit cheque.

Ten minutes later, the BMW sped off down the quiet road and Hannah allowed herself to squeal with delight.

She was good at this! Bloody good! The Parkers were the sort of people who expected to be bullied into doing things and their instinctive belligerence meant they were always poised to fight back. She’d taken them totally by surprise by pointing out the bad features of the house, treating them as if they were naturally more intelligent than your average client, and so they’d never had the chance to be aggressive.

The only sour point was that poor Donna’s misfortune was the reason she’d been given this wonderful chance. She switched on the mobile she’d taken from the office and rang Gillian, anxious to see if Donna had phoned in with an update on poor little Tania’s condition.

‘No,’ said Gillian, sounding put out. ‘Mr James rang in and he said to tell you it was a great idea to take over Donna’s client yourself.’

Hannah grinned at the little sniff with which Gillian finished this sentence. Obviously Gillian had delighted in telling the boss that Hannah had stepped out of line, hoping Hannah would get her knuckles rapped. How irritating for Gillian to have her plan backfire.

‘Thank you for telling him what I was doing, Gillian,’ she said calmly. ‘That was efficient of you. I’ll be back shortly.’