Birdie put her hands into fists, gyrated her hips, and made as if her fists were pom poms and pumped them in front of her. ‘Give it to me.’
Cally burst into laughter. ‘You’re nuts.’
‘No, I’m not. I have been anticipating andprayingfor this for a long time. Colin will be beside himself. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Who’s Estrella again? Let me at the estate. I’m going to dine out on this foryears.’
39
Cally had just come off the phone from the bank after a long conversation about her mortgage with a surprisingly nice and friendly mortgage advisor. After initially dreading the call and not being sure what was what about mortgages or the world of finance, the advisor had spoken her language and put her mind at rest. She’d had a really informative conversation which had told her loads of things she hadn’t realised. Firstly, her deposit was a lot more valuable regarding the term of the loan than she’d thought, and secondly, her proof of stable income over the previous few years and her job meant she was in a good place.
Therefore, as instructed by the mortgage advisor she’d started the application and got the ball rolling on officially starting theactualjourney to buy her own home. She’d spent a long time finding the correct forms, adding her details left, right, and centre, getting official documents together, and popping in what felt like the inside measurement of her left leg. After checking everything six times over, she’d pressed to submit and had wondered what would happen and when.
The mortgage advisor had given her a rough idea of the amount of loan she might be granted and how much thepayments would be each month. It turned out that what she’d inherited from her grandma had been more beneficial than she’d realised, and she would definitely have enough to buy a flat somewhere in the vicinity of Lovely Bay—something Cally was more than happy with.
So, that was one thing on the home front that was more or less sorted. The other thing was the moving-in or not with Logan thing. There had been a few more discussions with him about them living together, but ultimately especially in light of what had happened at the manor, they had not reached any cement conclusion. A plane crash had put paid to that. As the first time he’d mentioned it, Logan had been, in Cally’s eyes,waytoo casual about the whole thing. Again, his attitude had irritated her a fair bit. Not that he knew that, oh no. She’d kept that little morsel to herself. To be fair, he already had enough on his plate without her whinging about the way he’d asked her to live with him.
In her eyes, though, officially moving in together was anenormousthing. For him, it was very clear, not so much. From his side of the fence, he seemed to act as if it was a given anyway. After initially feeling put out regarding his utter nonchalance, Cally’d decided not to make a mountain out of a molehill and to roll with it. She’d taken on and got used to him acting as if he could take it or leave it and had decided that she was fine with that. He’d said a couple of times that, as far as he was concerned, they were almost living together anyway, so what difference did it make? Which, if you actually analysed it, was true. Fair enough.
It’s just that there was a severe lack of trombones playing in our Cally’s ears or happy-clappy hot air balloons floating on by. You see, she had expected, wanted, and possiblyneededmaybe a bit more fanfare. To indeed feel special about it. However, that hadn’t happened, and so she’d sucked it up.
In light of that and because of the accident, months had gone by and they’d just continued on as they were, living between the cottage and the flat, and bobbing along just as they had. Since going to Scotland, the job offer, the accident, and everything else that had come their way, the issue of them officially moving in together hadn’t really been that important in the grand scheme of things anyway.
Despite all of that and the fact that Cally was busy, she’d been adamant about at least getting the ball rolling with the mortgage application before they went to Scotland and had started tentatively looking for a flat. Logan was of the opinion that whatever they ended up doing, they couldn’t go wrong. Oh, how simple it all seemed to and for him. He was very black and white about everything; she would be able to fulfil her dream of having her own place, and if they moved into it together, that would be that. If they chose to do something else; she could rent the flat out. As far as he was concerned, it was a win-win. How easy everything was if you had the surname Henry-Hicks.
Taking all of the above on board, Cally was stalking the estate agents and online sites and starting to note prices, areas, and getting a real feel for what was out there. Her hunt for property had started in semi-earnest. What she hadn’t factored in and nobody had told her was that the hunt for a flat in Lovely Bay wasn’t likely to be a swift one. What she’d very quickly come to ascertain was that Lovely was very tightly held. There weren’t many flats in the first place, and the market was so competitive that it was almost to the point where it was one out one in. Often by way of a wooden box.
And so Cally had found herself with not much to go on at all. She’d been to see a two-bedroom flat on the harbour side of Lovely Bay, not far from Nina’s place, but had quickly realised it was too far out of her budget. She’d widened her net a little bit to the next town and gone to see a flat in a new building not farfrom a shopping centre. As soon as she’d arrived, she realised it was a no-go, and after quickly scooting around, she’d hurriedly crossed ‘new build’ off her list. Since living in the flat above the deli with its old fixtures and fittings and lovely boutique feel, she knew that an established building was a non-negotiable.
Opening her laptop and clicking on a property website, she selected the drop-down button to change her preferences to ‘flat’ and then changed the sort order to ‘lowest price’. Only a couple of properties came up. She clicked on the first one and scrolled through the pictures. It fit the bill of one of her requirements in that it was in a beautiful old building with high ceilings and sash windows. That’s where it ended. A horrible modern renovation, apparently reflected in the price, looked back at her from the photos—a vast walk-in shower instead of a bath, complete with black fixtures and fittings, and a modern acrylic shiny kitchen with an oven hood so large it nearly swallowed the whole flat. Cally tutted and moved on to the next one.
The next one was better in terms of its aesthetics and what she would have to play with, but it was a basement flat, and the security issues and lack of light totally put her off. Changing her preferences, she scrolled down to the bottom of the page, clicked on the next page, and again scrolled to the end where beautiful old Lovely Bay houses looked back at her. She made a funny little laughing sound as she clicked on one of the pictures and scanned through—exactly what she was looking for. In her dreams. A magnificent old Victorian house with a few floors, high ceilings, beautiful skirting boards, a basement, original features galore, fireplaces, sash windows, and ceiling roses. Divine. With a divine price to match.
Sighing a little bit, she clicked the cross in the corner to close the website, put her hand on her chin and thought about how it wasn’t fair. Other people got to buy beautiful old houses with stunning gardens and all the things. She was stuck with aone bedroom flat. Swiftly following that she gave herself a stern old talking-to about feeling low about her property hunting. She was right on the cusp of being able to afford her own place, not only that, in the third smallest town in the country, too. She was no longer at the mercy of renting somewhere, no longer had to worry, no longer had to pour money down the drain.
She smiled about having a nice deposit in her bank account and how hard she’d worked for that. She needed to be happy, celebrate and be grateful for the good stuff. Cally de Pfeffer had reached her goal. What she didn’t know was that more good things were on the way.
40
Cally sat at a small makeshift desk in the back room of the chemist, surrounded by a new delivery, staring at the spreadsheet on her laptop screen. Numbers swam before her eyes, each one a reminder of the discrepancies she'd uncovered way back when she’d first worked at the Peaceton store. Estrella's abrupt departure niggled at her like an itch she couldn't quite scratch. From the word go, in her bones, she’d categorically known something wasn't right with Estrella. Estrella wasn’t as stupid as she’d thought, though, and had ducked out as fast as she could, playing her trump card before she’d been caught. That irritated Cally no end. Slimeball.
Cally had been turning over what she’d discovered for days, weighing up whether or not to bring it to Birdie's attention. She’d reasoned that with Estrella long gone, what good would it do to stir up trouble? It would all come out soon enough, anyway, when the accounts were correctly filed. But every time she tried to let it go, her conscience had prickled and poked her. It wasn't just about Estrella; it was about doing what was right for the business and the trust Birdie had put in her with the job. From her side of the fence, she just felt that Birdie should know.
With that in mind, Cally had decided to stop beating around the bush and had compiled all the evidence she'd gathered in an easy to navigate manner. She’d created a new spreadsheet, meticulously detailed each discrepancy she'd found, added notes about patterns she'd noticed, and cross-referenced everything with the records. As she’d worked, the scope of Estrella's deception didn’t change; if anything, it shocked more.
Cally felt a knot in her stomach as she wondered how it had gone unnoticed for so long. It wasn't until she heard Birdie calling her name from the dispensary that she realised how she’d been head down on her laptop thinking about it for ages.
'Our Cally? Are you still back there?'
Cally blinked. 'Yes, I'm still here.'
Birdie appeared in the doorway. 'Everything okay? You've been tucked away in here for hours.'
Cally took a deep breath. It was now or never. 'Actually, there's something I need to talk to you about. Do you have a minute?'
Birdie's eyebrows shot up at Cally’s tone of voice. She nodded. 'Oh, no. What now? Of course. I'll put the kettle on.'
A few minutes later, they were settled in the staff room with mugs of tea in hand and Cally perched on the edge of a chair at the small table with her laptop balanced on her knees. She could feel Birdie's curiosity radiating off her in waves.
Birdie took a sip of her tea. 'Right then. This looks serious. What's all this about?'
