New Directions (39)

Hello, Alan this is Alice’s aunt Wendy. I hope you don’t mind me leaving a voice mail but it’s a lot to write down. Alice said you knew a man called Dev who you worked for at Daniels. I would like you to help me get something from a house he owns. There’s an old lady called Miss Bow living in it and she has a lot of things there. I used to help her when I lived in the post office with my husband, his name is Alan like yours.  Alan was the postmaster until he was accused of stealing and he got sent to prison. He didn’t do anything but we could never prove it. He’s in a really bad way now. The thing is I wanted Miss, bloody, Bow to tell the court how honest he was. A character witness the solicitor said, but she refused, she said she didn’t like travelling and there was nothing to worry about because he’d never do anything like that. After all we did for that old bitch . . . I could have killed her.

Alan met some people in prison who said they can get some of her things that are worth selling, but we need someone to go in and make a sort of list of nice things so they know what to look for. You don’t need to worry about Miss Bow, she’s really rich and I know all her stuff is insured for a lot of money. She won’t miss none of it, but we need it really badly. We’ve lost everything. 

I thought if you went to see Miss Bow and told her you worked for Dev and you needed to check something for him she would trust you and let you in. You don’t need to worry she never contacts Dev, she just sends him the rent. 

If you help me I’ll give you five-hundred pounds and a share of anything we get. I expect this sounds a bit, you know, dodgy, but I know you won’t tell anybody because of the trouble you had before you managed to get a job at Daniels. Anyway I reckon this Dev person didn’t do you any favours when they closed Towcester office, you might like some payback. Let me know as soon as you can if you’re interested.

***

I couldn’t believe anyone could be so stupid. Sure WhatsApp is supposed to be encrypted but to risk sending something like this was naive to say the least. The woman must be pretty sure Mercer would keep quiet. We need to find out what that something nasty was but for now it wasn’t particularly important. 

Much more interesting was the fact we now knew the background story, but of course there was much more to it. We needed put flesh on the bones meaning we had to find the blaggers who, most likely, put old Alan up to it by threatening him. Another half hour of trundling through Mercer's uninteresting private life I found his reply. It was quite a shock.

What do you think you are doing, you must be mad. I don’t want to know nothing about this. Leave me alone you stupid fucking old bag. I don’t want anything to do with you or your shitty family.You can tell that to Alice too. It’s over, I don’t want to hear from any of you ever. If you contact me again I’ll go straight to the police and play them your voice mail!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I closed the PC, my head was beginning to ache behind my eyes. I needed a rest. Snatching a beer from the fridge I slumped on the puffy couch Karen made me buy and selected some cool Steely Dan tracks from a music file while I mulled over what or who persuaded Mercer to do the job. As the final notes of "aja" faded out I felt relaxed enough to call Karen hoping she’d had a quiet night. My phone rang before I could.

’Terence it’s Dev,’ A cold shiver went down my spine, his voice sounded weird.

‘You OK, Mate?’

‘Co . . . complicatio— complications. Celia died this morning.’ 

I could hear him sobbing into his phone. I joined him.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYZwVf07tHA