For The Love Of Money, Brian Doswell [books for students to read .txt] 📗

all seemed so easy until he began to ask the questions. All he wanted was four more sheds. The council wanted plans. The architect wanted a budget. The bank wanted a business plan. All Harry wanted was sheds.
A foreign sounding girl at Andersons Bank had told him to download their business plan template and fill in the details on-line. They might as well have told him to deliver a load of furniture to the moon.
Sandra brought in a fresh brew and pretended to shuffle the pile of paper that served as Harry’s in-tray. “Why not get that girl from the bank and the architect together and see if they can explain what you need to do.”
Harry grunted by way of reply.
“I’ll arrange it if you like. “
“I suppose I can’t sit here all day looking at this bloody thing. See if you can get them here on Wednesday.”
Wednesday, late afternoon, Sandra cleared enough space in Harry’s office to call it a meeting room. She also brought in a set of clean mugs from her own kitchen having despaired of removing the tea stains from the resident set. A packet of hobnobs and a bowl of sugar lumps formed a centrepiece on Harry’s desk.
The architect, Julian Allyson, had been recommended by one of Harry’s golf partners. His office was in Slough and he had a reputation for industrial unit designs, or so it was said. Harry thought that Julian was a soft name and the bloke could do with a haircut.
Lia Patel from Andersons Bank seemed to Harry to be barely old enough to have left school. He had guessed from her name, when he spoke to her on the phone, that she would be Asian but he had no idea that she would be such a stunningly beautiful girl. She was taller than he had envisaged and the crisp cream linen business suit that she wore simply served to draw attention to her face, with pale creamy skin and jet black eyes that matched a halo of jet black hair.
Sandra ushered the visitors to the chairs around Harry’s desk. Perhaps the sight of Harry’s day-long tea-mug was the reason that both Julian and Lia declined her offer of tea.
Julian produced a folder of drawings from his briefcase. He seemed to know exactly what Harry wanted with regard to the size and shape of the exterior, but his idea of interior fittings soon left Harry wondering how much this would all cost. Every other sentence seemed to be about Health and Safety or Environmental regulations.
Lia opened her laptop and then passed her business card to the other two. PATEL Lia - Business Advisor. “Yes I know,” she said as if by apology, “the Bank insists on putting the names backwards. It’s an old school thing.”
Harry accepted the card, acutely aware that her fingers touched his as he did so. He had stopped listening to Julian and so he missed the ball-park estimate of £650,000 per storage unit.
“Times four, equals around £2.6 million,” Lia’s voice, broke his reverie, “I need to check with head office but I think we would look favourably on that sort of figure.”
“How much?” Harry woke up at last. “I want sheds not bloody palaces. Oops, sorry love, I didn’t mean to swear. How about we start again? Julian, do I really need all these extra bits and pieces? I need extra storage capacity as soon as I can get it. There’s business falling off a log out there and I’m having to pass up on it, for lack of floor space. I have these containers, see. I fill ‘em up with client’s furniture and stuff and then pile the containers in the shed until they want it delivered. I just need somewhere to lock them up in the dry. “
Julian sighed; he could see his industrial unit design talents being cast aside in favour of four tin sheds and a padlock. He tried again.
“I get the picture Harry, but the council will never approve planning for the size that you want without you going along with some of their rules. You are asking for something nearer to an aircraft hanger than a garden shed. Give me a few days to see what their minimum spec is and I’ll give you a new plan.”
Harry winced, for some reason it had never occurred to him that four sheds would cost anything like this price. He had a good sum in the bank and he knew that his land would be worth quite a bit if he ever got planning permission to build on it. He had just never put numbers on it all.
Julian packed away his design portfolio leaving an elaborately printed booklet of his past masterpieces, most of which looked like elegantly landscaped gardens with glass and chrome buildings nestling between the trees.
“Very nice”, thought Harry, “but not exactly sheds.”
As the door closed behind Julian, Lia inched her chair closer to the front of Harry’s desk. She leaned forward as if she was about to whisper some special secret. Harry leaned forward, catching the merest hint of her perfume.
“I have an idea,” she said, “Why don’t I get my colleague from Three Trees Estate Agents to come and do a valuation on your property here. My guess is that the current value will be more than enough to act as surety for a standard business loan from Andersons. All I need from you is a business plan detailing how you intend to spend the money and how you intend to repay it. It’s all in the software template.” She waved a nonchalant hand at the screen on the desk.
“Ah, now that’s where I do need a bit of help.” Harry found his voice at last. “You see, this computer thing is not exactly my forte.”
Lia laughed and the sound of her laugh went straight to Harry’s heart.
“Let me show you.” she said, rising from her chair and moving round to Harry’s side of the desk.
The hint of perfume got stronger as she leaned over Harry’s chair and reached for the mouse, her long creamy fingers tipped with maroon nail varnish resting gently on top of his rough masculine hand. Harry desperately tried to focus on the screen as Lia clicked on various buttons accompanied by a running commentary which Harry heard but completely failed to under-stand.
“There you are. Couldn’t be simpler, could it?”
Harry had no idea.
“I’ve an idea,” he interjected, “Why don’t you explain this to Sandra and we’ll have a go at a plan thing over the next couple of days.”
Lia stood back from Harry’s shoulder and looked down on his thinning grey hair. “Poor old sod,” she thought, “still I’ve got my quarterly target to meet and this could be worth a couple of million on my list.” Lia allowed her fingers to brush Harry’s shoulder as she returned to the front of the desk. She was already planning a separate meeting with Julian Allyson and Harold Evans from the council planning department. With a bit of luck, she could put it all together and all poor old Harry would need to do would be to sign on the line.
Thursday and Friday passed without a call from either architect or banker.
The first nine holes on Sunday morning were close to Harry’s worst ever score. Worse still, the beer tasted stale and there was no steak and kidney pie in the restaurant.

§§§§§

Monday morning found Harry Joyce looking blankly at the screen on his desk - again. Sandra brought in a second mug of tea and was about to explain about the planning software when the phone rang.
“Good morning Mr. Joyce, this is Roy Jones from Three Trees. Would it be convenient to pop over this morning to do the evaluation for Andersons?”
He arrived shortly after eleven.
Harry showed him around the cracked concrete slab and the existing sheds. There was not much to show and they were back at Harry’s desk inside twenty minutes.
Sandra brought tea and Roy opened his briefcase to extract a folded map of the area. “Mr. Joyce, I took the liberty of checking your land registration on the internet and I’ve tried to copy it onto this local area plan.”
Harry looked over the map, recognising the familiar place names like the proverbial back of his hand.
“I’ve marked your land with the red felt tip pen. Of course the felt tip pen covers a lot of yards so this is only a guide.”
Harry nodded. The red line traced along North Breakspear Road and the lane off into Harry’s yard. It also circled the land beyond the yard including the common land through as far as Mad Bess Wood on one side and the Crematorium on the other. Harry looked up at Roy.
“So what’s your point?”
“The point is Mr. Joyce that you own close on twenty-seven acres of land on the edge of Ruislip when the Council are desperate to build houses to meet this new government directive. I reckon that you are sitting on a gold mine.”
“How much of a gold mine?”
“Enough to retire on twice over if you want to.”
Harry had never once thought about retiring, let alone twice. “Do Andersons know about this?”
Roy shook his head. “No chance, plus I needed to see the place before I got back to that Patel girl.”
Harry twitched at the curt way Roy spoke of Lia Patel. Her perfume and the soft casual touch of her fingers still lingered in his memory.
“I get the feeling that there’s something you’re not telling me Mr. Jones.”
Roy held up his hands in surrender style.
“Don’t get me wrong, she’s a cracking good looker but she only thinks about money. The word around town is that she will kiss as many frogs as she has to, to get her quarterly bonus.”
Harry laughed, embarrassed, suddenly wondering if he was being kissed, and then instantly realising that he was that frog.
“So, Mr. Jones, where do I go from here, I wonder.” Harry tugged his jaw with one hand and scratched his leg with the other. “Do me a favour, will you. Keep this to yourself for a few days and check with me before you tell Miss Patel anything more.”
Roy Jones smiled, life was pretty dull in an Estate Agent’s head office and he sensed that this business with Harry might provide a ray of sunshine for a while.
“Just as you say Mr. Joyce. Just as you say.”
It was no secret that Harry had left school somewhat earlier than most of the boys in his year. He was on the school record as a persistent truant, a fact that he never denied, claiming that he learned more about life pushing a hand-cart than pushing a pen. There had been times when he regretted not having a better education but then nothing he might have learned when he was in school would have improved his handicap on the golf course or taught him to work the wretched computer. Harry and his wall of post-it notes might be a shade special but together they managed a very successful business that provided a good living for himself and his team.
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know. That’s what makes the difference.” Harry’s father had been a fund of useful sayings and through the years he had proved to be right over and over again.
Harry told Sandra he might well be late back, as he left the office headed for the golf club.

§§§§§

Monday mornings at Northwood Golf Club was, by convention rather than by rule, reserved for ladies who often seemed to stay on for lunch afterwards. Harry rarely visited the