Sam scowled at him and ground his jaw and I looked between the two of them. For a moment I thought Hope really had been right, that there was some complication between the pair that was still to be unearthed.

‘I’m talking about the land sale,’ said Sam, ‘what else?’

‘The land sale?’ Joe frowned, and although he sounded confused, there was also an edge of relief.

‘When were you going to tell us, Joe?’ Sam glowered. ‘When were you going to warn us that the village was about to be changed forever. Don’t you need some sort of public consultation before you go ahead with something like that?’

‘How do you know about any of that?’ Joe demanded, now looking at me.

‘Had you come to us and explained,’ Sam went on, ‘we might have been able to help, you might have even drummed up a bit of support, but this is a whitewash, and if you think,’ he went on, now including me in his argument, ‘that just because you’ve hired her and the fancy bloody PR company that her family owns, that you’re going to convince us otherwise, then you’re a bigger fool than I thought you were.’

‘How do you know about Tyler PR?’ I stuttered.

‘I told you yesterday,’ Sam said to me, ‘that you weren’t the person I thought you were, didn’t I? Turning up here and helping pull the community back together, what a joke.’ He laughed. ‘I saw the franking mark on that letter, Tess Tyler. I know who you work for and how Joe has planted you here to soften us all up and convince us that a few more visitors to the area will be a good thing.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘That’s not it . . .’

‘Your boss even turned up here this morning looking for you,’ he cut in, ‘so you can hardly deny it, can you?’

‘Tess,’ Joe frowned. ‘How did you know about the land sale?’

‘I heard you on the phone and I saw the paperwork when I stayed at the farm,’ I admitted. ‘Bruce knocked it off the table and I spotted it when I picked it up.’

‘And you told everyone?’

He sounded absolutely wretched.

‘Yes,’ said Sam, ‘she did. Although I’m still trying to work out her motive for doing that. How she thought that telling us what was going on was going to create some good PR for the cause, god only knows!’

That was the last straw. I couldn’t cope with any more. I was going to pack up the last of my things, turn my phone back on and let Dad know that I was getting the hell out of Wynmouth for good.

Chapter 26

Chapter 26