Flowers in Bloom

Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

“I’m sorry Mr Hampton, but we can’t reach Camilla right now,” a faint voice crackled down the phone line. “Do you want to leave a message? She’s due back in a week or so.”

“A week? Bloody hell, woman, I could have died and been buried in that time,” a slightly deaf Edward Hampton, owner of the ultra-exclusive Riverside Golf and Country Club, shouted down the line. “Yes, all right then. Please ask her to kindly call her father when she has a chance between single-handedly saving the starving population of Africa and negotiating peace in the Congo.” He didn’t wait for a response.

“Bloody do-gooders,” Edward muttered. He struggled out of the chair behind the vast mahogany desk in his office overlooking the first hole of Riverside’s championship golf course. He was advancing in years and wanted to get out of the club while he still had some life left. At seventy-six, Edward was a shadow of the man who had once rowed Oxford Blues before taking over the family business, but he could still command a room. He had thick white hair, crinkly sparkling blue eyes, and a tanned, ruddy complexion that told of a lifetime outdoors.

A widower, Edward had been alone since the passing of his beloved wife, Pamela, seventeen years previously from ‘surgical complications’. His daughter, Camilla, had dealt with her grief by signing up as an aid worker, disappearing off to Africa almost the moment the funeral had ended. Her brother, David, had joined the army. A month into David’s first tour of Iraq his patrol vehicle hit an IED and he was killed instantly. Camilla returned to Appleton Vale for David’s funeral and had not been seen there since.

Quite why she had abandoned her father so completely was a mystery to Edward. They hadn’t fallen out, and as far as he was aware there simply was no other reason for her turning her back on him. He had been trying to get in touch with her for a month now, and even though he was positive what her response would be, he still felt he needed to tell her about his decision to sell The Riverside and retire gracefully. She wouldn’t want the club, it would only be a burden to her, an outrageous example of capitalism gone mad in her eyes.

The Riverside had been in Edward’s family for six hundred years. It was a three thousand-acre sporting estate with a magnificent and commanding mansion in the middle of its land. Hidden behind row upon row of trees, bushes and ancient walls, the main entrance was accessed through forbidding wrought-iron gates that shielded the ultra-exclusive club from the rest of the world. The club’s crest, a golden eagle, had been fashioned into the gates and there were raised flowerbeds either side studded with immaculate topiary.

As well as the eighteen-hole championship golf course, there was a tennis complex that had been cleverly developed using several ancient outbuildings as indoor courts, with a further six all-weather outdoor courts and a pavilion.

Inside the mansion there were luxurious locker rooms, sumptuous lounges and a billiards room. There was also a Michelin-starred restaurant, a more relaxed club house lounge, a wood-panelled bar, and a covered terrace that swept the length of the rear of the house overlooking the gardens and the final hole of the golf course.

Edward loved The Riverside but he was ready to move on and he had run out of time. Caleris Global was pushing him for an answer and he was ready to give it. The Riverside Golf and Country Club was indeed for sale.