Roskov, Book 26, page 7
Rolf noted, ‘Driving from the airport, it is so different now to when Ingrid and I first visited, the twins just three years old when they first visited here.’
‘And what’s this hotel worth now?’ I asked him.
‘Michelle had some rich man offer twenty million for it.’
‘So it’s gone up in value some,’ I quipped. ‘When you first brought me here it was just an isolated villa surrounded by sheep!’
Rolf nodded. ‘Seems like a long time ago.’
A pair of long-horned goats wandered up, so we fed them, no brave guests in the pools at the moment, but one pool was heated.
Back up in Lake Valley, we boarded a water taxi with powerful engines at the rear, and we sped up the lake at fifty miles an hour, the driver pointing out new pontoons.
At Villa Rasmussen we pulled up and jumped across, the boat reversing and then speeding away, the minibuses arriving back a few minutes later. And the twins now wanted a fast boat to play with.
‘How about jet skis?’ Ingrid suggested as we made cups of tea. ‘For people to use, the lake is calm.’
‘We’d see a few crashes,’ I warned. ‘And I don’t want pensioners on jet skis.’
‘Limit the speed,’ she suggested.
Rolf made a call, and the speed could be limited to a sensible twenty-five MPH maximum. I called the Prefect, and his friend in Marseille would send us twenty jet skis. We would make them available for hire from the hotel, and local residents would be able to hire them a month at a time or just for the day.
Our police, however, would be issued with two high power jet skis, to chase after people.
Our guests that night were Roberto and Julie, plus Roberto’s daughter, something of a party atmosphere, and the twins had brought gifts for the girl.
Sat with Roberto and Rolf next to the roaring log fire, we discussed land and property here on the island, and how the island was rapidly changing – and what I might do to make it better,
But studying Julie I was saddened, because she was now a happy human and not alone and stuck in a cave. Problem was, I felt like I needed to help her more, but her destiny had been to marry Roberto; it was if I was her father and had lost her to a husband. I had walked her down the aisle.
Russel called that evening. ‘Are you busy?’
‘Just sat around the real log fire, cold here up in the mountains.’
‘We ran some numbers and checked some recent sales, and many of the houses and apartments inside the M25, the smaller places, are being bought by landlords.’
‘Nothing we can do to stop that, and it adds to the rental pool, and that lowers rental prices and therefore encourages young couples to rent and not to buy, so no upwards pressure on house prices.’
‘You wanted more low-income home owners…’
‘If we were to rent-out the places, and offer the tenants a fifty-percent mortgage, the uptake may not be great, say thirty percent.’
‘Interest rates are falling from their highs back in the Thatcher days, some good cheap deals available, and especially with a fifty-percent mortgage. We could see more than half buy the place later on.’
‘But we tie up more cash now, when I want to be turning it.’
‘More money coming into the funds, plenty of spare cash.’
‘OK, so start choosing properties to rent out instead of selling, and we’ll wait six months and offer a fifty-percent mortgage, no “for sale” sign outside, so long as that’s legal, a private treaty sale.’
‘You can sell to whoever you want but not show prejudice, but if you advertise with the local estate agents you take the first best offer not reject them without good cause. If we don’t use the local estate agents … then a private sale is legal, yes.’
‘Fine, aim to do that in larger numbers, and any tenant that’s suitable and has been there six months or more … start to offer them fifty-percent mortgages.’
‘First letters went out to selected rental clients, good credit potential or two incomes. And we have some land we were looking at, so we’ll build eleven of the cheap blocks on it, shops below.’
‘Let’s make sure that we don’t go back to the sixties and have horrible concrete blocks.’
‘These look nice, nice elevators and stairs, and no idiots living in them. You get the idiots with social housing, council flats. Our tenants will have contracts, pay bonds, and can be evicted.’
‘And if they lose their job and the council pays…’ I nudged.
‘Still a binding contract, just that their salary is replaced by council money.’
I told him, ‘Make sure we have rain covers and walkways, a café and a shop and a pharmacy, laundry, so that they save money by not travelling out.’
‘Could easily have twenty shop units or more.’
‘Have a think about the design, and crime and … what someone would say thirty years from now, ghetto or not. Design them better that the idiots that built our concrete hell in the sixties.’
‘I’ll have a think and get the team on it, I hate those old sixties concrete blocks.’
In the morning, we set off after breakfast, a longer drive than usual and to parts of the island that we had not visited before, up the east side past Pilgrim Valley.
We finally found the target valley and stepped down, and we all stopped dead at the natural beauty laid out before us.
‘My god,’ Rolf let out. ‘It’s beautiful.’
‘Will we destroy it?’ Rita worried.
‘No, we’ll build posh apartments and houses, keep the river and trees. No tall buildings, most just single storey, nice walks and paths. When ready you’d see the red-tiled roofs and the trees, and I’d bring in a few extra trees, tall ones.’
Our guide led us up a trail next to the river, which at this time of year was fast flowing. We wound around rocks and under tall pine trees and to flat rocks at the centre of the valley.
I told them, ‘We’ll keep these rocks, create a park around it, houses under the trees.’
‘It would sell very well,’ Rolf commended. ‘More than the other places.’
‘I’ll make it select and expensive, not too many people; each small house would be surrounded by trees, streams and gardens. The medical centre and indoor pool would have flat roofs and bushes on top, to blend in.’
‘That would be better, yes,’ Rolf commended.
Laz, I called out in my mind, any issues with this valley, the rocks and water?
There are no caves here, some further into the hills, the stream appears to be stable and it does not flood much, no subsidence here.
Great, thanks.
Down at the road, our local architect, surveyor and head builder arrived, and they stood taking in the valley with us, commending its beauty.
I told the architect, ‘Keep as many trees as possible, and bring in more trees, taller trees. I want single storey cottages twenty metres up from the river, paths and gardens and bridges over the river.
‘Behind the cottages would be a glass walkway for winter but with dirt on top and small bushes, so that it was hidden. The medical centre, shops and pools, they’ll all have flat roofs and dirt on top with grass and bushes.’
‘To make it natural, yes,’ the architect approved.
‘Quality comes first here, not numbers, this place will be all about the luxury. Each cottage should be six metres to the next one, close but not too close. No large buildings here.’
He responded, ‘We need to be sure of no flood, the valley floor is quite flat. So we run a second waterway left and right, and a pump to send water through the drains if it rains heavy here.’
I nodded. ‘This is high water, I think.’
‘Yes, this time of year, but once every ten years we get bad rain, it can be higher for two days.’
‘Make a start, put a team on it, design a luxury nursing home complex, mostly Phase One, glass walkways at the rear of the houses, nurses’ station not too far away.
‘Down here, at the road, staff quarters and shops and petrol station.’
He glanced around and nodded. ‘The main road is close, a good road, and the tunnel making machine will make it better. Already they have a tunnel to Maskal Valley, dirt road, trucks going through.’
‘Mention to Lars that we need more cheap apartments for workers coming to the island.’
He nodded. ‘Now every woman here has two jobs, but not because they need the money. More women come from Marseille, soon … not enough men.’
The men around me all laughed.
Heading south, we popped into Pilgrim Valley, several large churches now stood proud, as well as a large Vatican Seminary. Three hotels were operating, numerous beach clubs and swimming pools, and staff quarters had been built behind the hotels. It was now a small town in itself.
We met the cardinal responsible for the valley, at least the religious side of things, and he described the new features. Down at the hotels we found them busy, but these were pilgrims and not tourists – they were not here for the sunshine.
When they saw me they greeted me as if I was the second coming, most bowing heads reverently, and we stopped to chat to a few from Britain and America.
After a look at the beach and a hot cup of tea in a beach café, we headed down to Mandoch Valley, and to the special villa, Leo’s son Henri in residence with some of his family, a meal laid on for us, the waterfall looking cold – and a quick dip was definitely not on the cards today.
Henri had a roaring log firing going, and that warmed up the large villa nicely. He told us, ‘I’ve had three TV crews come to film here, this valley seen as exclusive now, prices rising steeply.’
‘And the cave hotel?’ I asked.
‘Full, even in winter, a waiting list for the nursing home, very select now.’
‘And the beach apartments?’
‘Old people come in winter, maybe a third full, but now they build swimming pools and cafes there.’
‘You see Leo much?’ I asked.
‘I am mostly retired here now, my sons take over the business on the mainland, so we see him a few times a week when we go to the hotel, and that hotel is mostly full in winter, old people again.
‘We have the log fire, people sit around with candles, we have a singer and small band; the guests love it.’
‘Sounds nice. Is traffic getting bad?’
‘Not so bad, many new roads, and your tunnel machine made a new road past the orphanage, so that is much faster now. But in some places, big mountains and … not easy to make the road.’
I nodded. ‘In the lake valley we now have a speedboat taxi, soon to have some jet skis.’
He told me, ‘One rich man, he has a powerboat and permission from the Prefect, police present, and he can test it at speed. He hopes for a new record, because the lake is so long and so calm.’
‘Something for the residents to look at,’ I noted. ‘But I don’t want a dangerous lake.’
‘He has to notify the police if he wishes to go fast. And the police boats on the lake can make sixty kilometres per hour.’
‘And his speedboat?’
‘More than a hundred and twenty kilometres per hour. But it is safe to use when the water is so calm.’
Back up at Lake Valley, as the sun hid itself behind the hills, we stopped at the conservation labs and asked questions of our fish stocks. The “green stuff” was growing, they confirmed, but not fast enough, it would take years, so fish feed was still being added.
But mud from the mainland was still coming over, a truck or two a week, and it would be dumped in various shallow places to create nature reserves.
One particular section of the lake was naturally sheltered, and just eighteen inches deep, so the mud had been dumped and then spread out by men in wetsuits, the area soon – hopefully - to see a new ecosystem developing in just twelve inches of water.
And that mud already had plants and seeds and a great many insects, so it was kind of a ready-made ecosystem. Waste food was being dumped at the site, to encourage growth, fish fry released there.
The native Osprey population were now booming, as were the other endangered species, and our swans were doing well – but still being hand-fed some of the time. The otters and ducks we had introduced were doing well, and they were breeding in isolated coves.
Upstream, at the old bridge, several tonnes of waste food was still being dumped each week, and it would float down the lake slowly and attract bacteria, would then decay and be eaten by microbes, which would be eaten by tiny insects, which would be eat by larger insects and then finally by fish.
During the summer, the bacteria levels had been very high upstream, as was the microbe and insect density, which was good - so the biologist reported to us. Just that most all of it got eaten by the hungry fish. What we needed was a sustainable eco system, and that meant more lakeside green plants, many more.
I asked Laz to delegate, and to plant some “green stuff”, but not too much, or too noticeable.
Moving on just five hundred metres, we entered the main builders’ cabin, and they soon showed me the valley plans. Three side roads full of villas were now complete and occupied by happy residents, three more were under construction above them.
Below them, four side roads had been completed, water and electrics in place, and work would start on villas soon. Across the lake, many square villa plots had been cut out of the rocks along the road down to the golf course and beyond, a new circular road cut out on a ridge above the golf course to house forty villas.
Along the lakeside’s east road, north of the golf course, they had cut many offshoots, short roads that would support villas, and some four hundred villas would be built on the east side eventually.
West, two miles above the dam hotel, they had started on Frances House style nursing homes, four in a row with facilities below them, and they would offer their residents a view southwest towards the original Frances House. They would also be invisible from the main road and from other Lake Valley residents.
Above them now sat a new road, but out of sight, and it would hold the first Barclays posh nursing home here in Lake Valley, two sets of sixty apartments with common medical facilities.
Above that road, five hundred yards, was another road offshoot, and it would host my own posh nursing home clusters, two blocks of sixty apartments, a copy of the Barclays place – which they might offer to buy from me. I was being sneaky.
At the top end of the valley, next to the new petrol station, now sat a cluster of workers’ houses and apartments, a village created on the east side of the road, and opposite – the west side – would lie offshoot roads for posh villas, hundreds of villas.
And the workers’ village here, that now housed four hundred workers and two hundred care staff. There were even permanent pool boys living there, and most got around on a scooter, some in a van with kit.
Our own property management company now had offices here and a warehouse, staff to maintain properties, to handle rentals, and to clean pools. Dave Maurice worked out of offices next to our original consortium offices, near the airport, but a move up to the valley was likely.
Back at the villa, and Dave Maurice turned up with Michelle and the baby, the twins going all soppy over the baby, and my Lake Valley partner turned up ten minutes later.
Sat with Rolf, Dave Maurice and my Lake Valley partner we looked over figures, and we were set to make an obscene amount of money from new builds in the valley.
Our existing rental income was huge, and growing, and the new rental income would be in the millions a year. We would need more staff for next summer, more pool cleaning boys, more maids and cleaners, so we were now planning more apartments in the workers’ village to house those staff.
And we would import sixty scooters from the mainland, many of the Lake Valley staff to use them to get around. Walking was not an option and there would never be any public transport.
I spoke to Ross Daniels, and he could get us a good deal on two hundred scooters, so I placed the order. Next plan … was to plan a garage, as well as a scooter sales and rental showroom in Lake Valley, next to the workers’ village.
But these would be quiet scooters, no loud noises allowed near our residents.
Ross Daniels called me back, and he had funny little cars that were basically large golf buggies. They had a roof, and plastic sides to close if it rained, and they could drive at twenty miles per hour, a two-hour battery.
I ordered two hundred straight away for Lake Valley, but the licensing for the golf carts would mean that they could not leave the valley, which was fine.
Rolf noted, ‘Better for the elderly residents, these golf carts, they use them in Florida, and we have them in Scorfo Valley now for Phase Two people.’
I nodded. ‘Quiet and eco-friendly in Lake Valley.’
My partner put in, ‘Some of the pool boys have bicycles, the hills are not steep, and they stay fit.’
I faced Dave Maurice. ‘How long for you, to drive there?’
‘To the workers’ village? Fifteen minutes only.’
‘You can live in Lake Valley if you wish.’ I waited.
‘Then Michelle has the commute to work.’ He shrugged.
‘Up to you, but you can have a nice lake villa if you want it.’
‘Cosy where we are, money in the bank going up.’
‘Plans for kid number two?’
‘Soon, so I’ve been told, not that I have a say in these things.’
Myself, Rolf and my partner smiled, but then tried not to.
After another night in a warm bed with a huge thick duvet we flew out on separate flights, and I was soon back in the slushy snow and the freezing rain, but thinking about being with the twins under a thick duvet.
An upwards trend
As March came around the stock markets were up strongly, partly due to our own trading efforts, and we were sitting on a large profit, more to make, the old FTSE100 highs not reached yet.
And the new Taxpayers’ Fund, that was worth one-point-one billion on paper, so we’d have more money to spend on the new prisons, construction already underway, the plans rushed through.
