[Katsunami]

Originally Posted by Rumpelteazer

You're right that he doesn't want to lose. To illustrate:

Spoiler:

He had a conflict with a gardener, who didn't do the work he was contracted for as my uncle wanted him to, and my uncle refused to pay him the last installment. At one point a statue in my uncle and his girlfriend's front garden was broken. A little while later the girlfriends car was set alight, but my uncle kept refusing to pay. His girlfriend was so scared that she paid off the man. So he broke up with her.

That sounds remarkably like Stephen King's "Secret Window, Secret Garden" I've just read; a conflict where one of the two parties resorts to violence and terror...