The Phoenix Project

by Chrissie Loveday

  Or should have been. Whoever had done all this damage had removed the majority of his tools, and those of some of the other workers as well. This was a significant cost to them all. He went outside to Rosie.

  ‘They’ve stolen most of our tools. Obviously, this was the main reason they caused so much devastation. They took our tools,’ he repeated, as if still trying to believe it himself.

  Rosie was tearful. She slumped down on the ground.

  ‘I really can’t believe all this has happened. Who could hate me so much they could do all of this damage?’

  ‘I’m sure it isn’t personal,’ Drew tried to reassure her.

  ‘What else is it, then? It all seems pretty personal to me. Someone doesn’t want me to have a house here. I thought it might be Martha, but it couldn’t be her. She’s in prison. Anyway, how did they drive the digger? I mean, you must have locked it up last night.’

  ‘I certainly did. I’ve still got the keys in my pocket.’

  ‘Who else can drive it?’

  ‘Well, all the men have driven it at some point.’

  ‘So, it could have been any one of them. Bill, Jimmy, Tom or Fred. Hard to believe but maybe it could have been one them.’

  ‘I suppose it could have been.’

  ‘But where did they get a key for it?’

  ‘I really don’t know. I’m so sorry. I feel as if I’ve let you down somehow.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. It wasn’t you who caused all this damage was it?’

  ‘Possibly my carelessness. I must have left the keys somewhere. I still can’t believe it was one of our guys who could do this.’

  ‘Whoever it was, we can’t do anything till the police have been to inspect it. You’d better send them all home.’

  She rose from the ground and started trying to tidy some of the stones.

  ‘Rosie, please, stop it. They’ll need to examine the mess. Don’t try to tidy anything till they’ve been.’

  ‘I just can’t bear it. It was all looking so lovely.’

  She was as close to tears as she had ever been.

  By this time, the crew had arrived for work. They all came round to look at the damage.

  ‘Bloody hell!’ one of them exclaimed. ‘What a mess.’ It was Bill, looking the most shocked at the sight.

  ‘What are we going to do, boss?’ asked Jimmy.

  ‘You’d all better wait around till the police get here. I don’t know, but they may want to ask you some questions,’ Drew told them.

  ‘Right you are, boss. Is it all right if we go inside? It’s a bit nippy out here.’

  ‘I’d rather you didn’t – the police will want to look at the scene, I expect. Best you stay in your vans if you’re too cold.’

  Rosie was coming to terms with everything and beginning to take stock.

  ‘Drew’s already looked inside. I’m afraid a load of tools have gone. Whoever did this went into the house and took off with them.’

  ‘Heavens. I’d left all mine in there,’ Jimmy told them.

  ‘Me too,’ said Bill.

  ‘I took mine home in my van,’ Tom piped up. ‘You took yours too, didn’t you, Fred?’

  ‘Usually do but I think I left quite a few in the back room.’

  He was obviously not going to miss out on an insurance claim.

  ‘Well, make a list of what you think has gone. I can hand it to the police. I’m not sure if the insurance will cough up again,’ Rosie told them.

  However friendly and honest her builders seemed, she knew full well that they’d add a heap of stuff to their lists. These may or may not have existed, and she wanted to protect herself. It was probably almost second nature to them, to cheat like that, Rosie was thinking, possibly unjustly.

  At last, the police arrived.

  ‘Good heavens. That’s all a bit dramatic,’ one of them remarked. ‘OK, let’s see what we can see.’

  They took pictures and looked around to confirm if there was any evidence available.

  ‘I suppose we could take everyone’s fingerprints and see if we can gather anything, but I really don’t think it’s worth doing. Too many people have been involved in the construction to get anything significant.’

  ‘At least we know it was nothing to do with Martha. She’s safely in prison,’ Rosie commented.

  ‘I doubt Martha would have known with the value of the tools, or which to pick.’ The policeman spoke calmly.

  ‘It must have been someone who knew they were here. And they must have had some sort of vehicle to be able to take all the stuff away.’ Drew was still fuming. ‘I really can’t believe someone could do this. Downright vandalism.’

  ‘Let’s get down to business. Can you tell me where you left the keys to the digger?’

  ‘I had them in my pocket all the time, unless it was being used by someone during the day.’

  ‘So, anyone on the site could have taken them at any time?’

  ‘Well, yes but it would only have been temporary. I mean they couldn’t have got new ones cut in the time.’

  ‘I see. And can you give me detailed timings for your activities last night?’

  ‘Me? Well, we ate at home. Watched TV. Had an early night.’

  ‘And you slept right through?

  ‘Well, yes. Here, you don’t think I had anything to do with this, do you?’

  ‘Keeping our options open, sir. I’ll speak to your other workers and get a picture of what’s been going on.’

  ‘Be my guest.’

  He turned away and the policeman nodded. He stopped and looked back at him.

  ‘Of course, someone could have hot-wired it. Not too difficult, actually. I did it myself on one occasion when I’d left the keys at home.’

  He went back inside the house. He could scarcely believe that stupid policeman could suspect him of doing such damage.

  ‘Drew?’ Rosie said. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Nothing. I’ve got work to do.’

  She gave a shrug and left him to it.

  Rosie went into the caravan and switched on her laptop. She sat staring into space for a while, pondering over why anyone could have caused so much more work for her. She felt tears forming in her eyes and sat crying gently for several minutes. Maybe she should give up and sell the place for whatever she could get. If someone wanted to stop her from building, they must want the place for themselves. It was certainly a thought.

  She dried her eyes and looked once more at her plans. Everything was muddled and seemed all a blur. She looked at her emails, deleting many of them as spam. She knew there was no way she was due a colossal fortune, nor did she want a Russian bride. There was one she stopped to read. It appeared to be from an old friend but, as she read it, she realised it could never be from her.

  “How’s it going?” she read. “I couldn’t believe you’d ever be daft enough to build a place on top of a cliff in Cornwall. I hear you’ve suffered a few setbacks. I’d give up if I were you. Get back to living your life properly. Yours Daphne.”

  Daphne had been someone she kept in touch with occasionally, after leaving university. How ever did she know about her building project? How did she know about the ‘setbacks’, as she’d called them? Besides which, she would never have signed her message ‘Yours’. Much more likely to have been signed ‘Love’. Obviously, someone had hacked either her computer or her friend’s. She would send Daphne an email to warn her, without saying anything about her project.

  Several similar emails arrived during the day, all urging her to give up and return to some city or other. Her own address book had obviously been hacked and email addresses stolen. This suggested her attacker was someone with a degree of intelligence who could use computers.

  Somehow, it seemed more sinister to be attacked this way. It was easy enough to delete the messages, but they began to pour in at such a rate, her mailbox was soon filled. She had kept it to herself so far, but now she needed to stop the flow somehow. She decided she should tell Drew about the
messages, and called him in to look at her computer.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked.

  ‘Good grief. This is ridiculous. I don’t know how they’re doing this. Maybe you need to change your email address. Passwords? I don’t know. Who provides your service?

  ‘Tempus.com. Maybe I need to change to someone else.’

  ‘Sounds like a good idea. Close the account right away. Haven’t you got a spam filter?’

  ‘Not on this computer. Oh dear. Just when I thought things were calming down a bit. I’ll close the account and figure out what to do next. I really need my email, though. No more can get in at the moment, as the In box is full. It all seems so much more sinister now, doesn’t it? I mean it isn’t someone stupid who can do all this.’

  ‘You’re right. Look, I really need to go and get on now. Hope you can sort it.’

  ‘I can at least still look up websites. Though it seems a bit daft. You’ll have so much more work to get us back to where we were. Damn them. Whoever they are.’

  ‘Don’t worry, love. We’ll soon be back on course. I’ve looked at the damage and it’s possibly less disastrous than we feared. If we can rebuild this wall and prop up the roof, that should do it. If I go and get on now, of course.’

  His hand on her shoulder felt very reassuring. She reached up and touched his hand.

  ‘Thanks, Drew. You’re so very kind.’

  He hesitated and then left her.

  With a sigh, Rosie looked up the phone number of her internet provider and called them. She decided to stay with the company, but changed her email address and password. It meant she needed to tell people on her list – at least those she wanted to tell – and set up an email filter. It took her the rest of the day but it was a great relief not to have the floods of nasty messages coming in.

  Drew worked grimly on repairing the damage caused by the digger. He still felt annoyed by the policeman’s remarks, or rather hints, that he could have been responsible. The property had to be made safe before he left that evening. He thought wistfully about Rosie and knew he was falling in love with her. Terrified of putting a foot wrong, he intended to say nothing. Instead, he was going to leave it to her to make the first move.

  It was a long day and everyone felt dispirited. Rosie had contacted the insurance company who agreed to send a loss adjuster out to see them, as soon as possible. It was fortunate that she had some money set aside to pay the men, but even that was disappearing rather more rapidly than was comfortable. She knew they would need to buy more tools to continue working, but that was going to be expensive, and she didn’t feel able to do that, not until the insurance company paid out.

  She went across to the site to see what was going on. They were all working at the rear of the building, where the digger had done so much damage. Much of the wall had collapsed when it was removed and they were busy shoring up the roof. It seemed that the roof hadn’t collapsed and it was urgent they build up the wall to keep it in place.

  ‘Who on earth could have done this?’ she moaned.

  The men looked slightly sheepish, she thought. Or is that my over-stimulated imagination?

  Any one of them could have taken the keys and got them copied at any time. Jimmy, Bill, Tom and Fred – and not forgetting Drew himself – though she felt she knew where he had been all the time since they had left the site. Surely it couldn’t be any of them?

  It was a battle being waged on many levels, what with all the stuff on her computer. She really didn’t think any of them were capable of causing so much IT havoc By the end of the day, she was exhausted, so went back to Drew’s place and cooked an evening meal. He came home a while later, having secured the site as well as possible.

  ‘I’ve cooked supper. Then I’m going to have an early night. I’m thinking of moving into the house soon. I can sleep in one of the bedrooms and that way I can keep watch on the place. I know it isn’t anywhere near finished but, well, it seems sensible.’

  ‘Not to me it doesn’t. I think you’d be crazy to go and stay there. Seriously. Think about it. Do you think you could have stopped them? Whoever they are.’

  ‘I’d have rung the police.’

  ‘Rosie, I’m scared for you. I don’t know who is doing all this stuff but it’s clear someone doesn’t want you there.’

  ‘But why? I mean the site has been left derelict for years. I know Martha didn’t like me rebuilding the place, but she’s in prison. In any case, she couldn’t have caused all the hassle with my computer. She’s barely literate. No, I think someone is working to get me to move away. It must be someone who knows much more than Martha. If she was involved at all, it was together with someone else.’

  ‘I’m not sure who you’re thinking of?’

  ‘I’ve no idea at present. Someone, somewhere is dead set against me. But, let me tell you, they’re not going to beat me. It just makes me all the more determined.’

  Life resumed at a more peaceful pace during the next few weeks. The insurance company paid out some of the money, enough to replace the men’s tools. Rosie’s computer seemed to be working normally and, gradually, she restored the email addresses of people she trusted. She began to forget the problems, and watching and waiting for her rebuilt home to become habitable. The plasterers moved in and some of the men were let go. Drew worked with the digger outside to begin preparing her garden and then off-hired it.

  ‘I want the thing out of harm’s way,’ he told her.

  ‘You don’t think it might have been someone from the hire company who came over, do you?’ she suggested.

  ‘Maybe. It’s possible, but I doubt it really.’

  ‘I keep thinking of this Mr Tilbury, whoever he may be. Perhaps he’s bought the farm and wants my piece of land to add to his bundle. I suppose it would make some sort of difference.’

  ‘He could put possibly half a dozen more houses at least.’

  She stopped her speculation.

  ‘They’re delivering the kitchen tomorrow. I can’t wait to see it installed. How long will it take do you think?’

  ‘Probably not much more than two or three days. They’re sending their own fitters and they’re usually pretty good. Mind you, it’ll probably be a while before they turn up.’

  ‘I shall soon be able to move in. Then you can have your house back all to yourself. Heavens, I’ve been living there for well over six months.’

  ‘A lot’s happened in those months.’

  ‘It certainly has. We’ve never really solved who was responsible, though. I still feel pretty vulnerable. Until they’re caught, that is.’

  ‘I was thinking … wondering really…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘How would you feel about having a lodger? You’ve got a spare bedroom.’

  ‘I don’t know. Hadn’t thought about it really. I suppose it might be a good idea, in view of the previous threats. But surely, once I’m living here, nobody is going to try to damage the property?’

  ‘You never know, do you? But I’m thinking more about me, just in case you’re worrying.’

  ‘You? But you wouldn’t want to leave your place would you?’

  ‘I only rent it. Most of the stuff in there belongs to the place.’

  ‘Let me think about it.’

  ‘Sure thing. But we get on pretty well, don’t we? I mean, we have done for the past six months.’

  ‘Of course. It’s just that I hadn’t thought about it. Hadn’t really thought much beyond moving in.’

  Drew shrugged and decided not to say any more, for the time being. He really hoped for their relationship to grow deeper but, once more, decided to keep quiet.

  She really was everything he could have wanted in a woman. She was intelligent and full of good ideas. She even managed to preserve a sense of humour, despite all the stress she was under – and she was very beautiful. In his eyes, she was perfect. He wondered what she thought of him. He knew she was very friendly towards him, but he wanted so much more.


  ‘I haven’t seen anything going on at the farm. Have you?’ she asked.

  ‘Nothing at all. I thought it would have been started after selling so quickly. It’s in a dreadful state at the moment and probably disintegrating badly while it’s left empty. Still, at least the weather’s reasonably dry at present.’

  ‘Maybe we should offer our services to the new owners. I’m sure I could present them with a decent design and you could supply the building skills necessary. Perhaps we should set up in business,’ she joked.

  ‘Now there’s a thought. You know, it’s not a bad idea.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Think about it. You designed this place …’

  ‘… and you built it to my design. It’s certainly worth considering.’

  Three days later, the kitchen was almost finished. When the workmen had left, Rosie was playing with the easy-open drawers and looking in the cupboards. Drew had gone home and she was alone in the house. She had incorporated a dishwasher and a fridge and was delighted with the way they were unobtrusive. She smiled as she walked round, touching everything fondly – she was so looking forward to getting her own belongings and filling the place with new gear.

  She heard a sudden noise and called out,

  ‘Drew? Is that you?’

  There was no answer. She went to look and, to her horror, there was a load of mud and other more objectionable things dropped in the hallway.

  ‘Hey, you!’ she shouted at the retreating hoodied figure. ‘Stop! Who are you?’

  But he – or she – had run away and was already out of sight.

  ‘Bastard!’ she yelled after the person.

  With a sigh, she began to shovel up the mess. It stank and she gave a slight heave, swallowing hard to stop herself being sick. It had stained the wall, meaning that would probably need re-plastering again. She shook her head, cursing whoever it was who seemed determined to ruin her new home. She dialled Drew’s number.