Should she or shouldn’t she? Then she remembered what Hobkins had let slip and decided this was no time to hang back. Picking up the letter, she slit it open with a kitchen knife and spread it out.

Beneath several rows of headings and contact details, the letter said merely:

Dear Mr Denning,

It has come to our attention that you are making alterations to property on your land at Saffron Lane without the appropriate Council authorisation.

This is against municipal rules.

Please contact us at your earliest convenience to make an appointment so that we can rectify this matter.

Dillon Hobkins

Manager, Building Variations and Extensions, Planning Department

It seemed an unlikely coincidence that two people would be enquiring about that piece of land within a few days after nothing had happened about it for years except for paying the necessary council rates.

She couldn’t see exactly how Hobkins would be helping Bryce Dorling, but people wanting to acquire some financially rewarding item could be very cunning in enlisting allies and trying to trick you. Bribery could take many forms and council employees were as susceptible as anyone else.

Even so, it’d take much bigger changes to municipal rules to force Angus to sell that piece of land, because for a start the matter would have to be made available for public discussion before Saffron Lane could be reclassified. And it wasn’t in the way of a new highway or anything like that.

Besides, they were only making internal changes. She felt quite sure people didn’t need official permission to put in new bathroom suites or rewire their houses, provided they used qualified tradespeople and got the work signed off. No, there was definitely something suspicious about this letter, she just knew it.

And the heritage question about Number 1 needed to be resolved as well. Did these people at the council know about the WWII operations unit? She doubted it. She’d keep that information in reserve till she found out more.

If this Hobkins fellow needed a rapid response, he couldn’t have chosen a worse time to make his request. Even if she dragged Angus to a meeting, either her partner would only be half aware of what was going on because he was lost in solving some complex computing problem, or he’d be so furiously angry at being dragged away from his task that he’d be crushingly blunt and offend the official, which was no way to sort out a problem.

Either way, she had to protect him if possible. And protect Dennings, of course. She’d grown to love the big old house and its grounds too. It was … a very special place.

What was the best way to deal with this officious man, though? Nothing immediately came to mind.

As she sat tapping her fingers on the table, she noticed the pad on which she’d been drafting an advert. She’d promised herself to get this advert finished and placed in a national newspaper by the end of the day and she might as well get that job out of the way at least. Yes, and she must send an email about it to the arts editor.