New Directions pt24

By Ed Crane
- 34 reads
24
It took quite a bit of persuasion to stop Karen from grabbing the key and going to the cottage while I finished my second pint. ‘You have to leave on Sunday afternoon, Sunshine.’ I said, ‘we have precious little time together as it is. I’ll go Monday morning before I meet up with Dev to visit Celia. I’ll let you know if I find anything interesting . . . promise.’ We both knew if she’d fetched the papers we wouldn’t be able keep our hands off them and we’d waste our days talking about something that wasn’t really, “our prob.”
We left Ted and Lucy promising to keep in touch carrying a pretty decent bottle of red they gifted us for saving Celia’s life (Ted’s words). We spent a few very pleasant Celia-free days doing stuff that was nobody else’s business.
*
Dev called on Sunday night. ‘I have a board meeting tomorrow, Terence. There’s one every month. I don’t go to all of them, but with Christmas getting close there’s a lot to go through. I can’t get out of it. I won’t be able to visit Celia. Can we make it tomorrow?’
‘Why don’t I go in the afternoon and you Tuesday? If there’s anything you need know I’ll call—, dammit I’ll call you anyway.’ Satisfied, Dev rang off before I got a chance go through the story about the key, he sounded a bit stressed.
I arrived at the cottage just after nine, earlier than expected – lucky with the traffic even for a Monday. The weather was bright, a rare crisp winter morning with a Mediterranean blue sky and crunchy frosted grass. Specks of dust dancing in air warmed by the early sun poking through the small cottage window encouraged me to stay in rather than drive to a motorway service area to go through the papers cramped-up in my car.
There was nothing of any interest in envelope, only the contents of Celia’s now ripped apart leather file and invoices from the firms who delivered to her and such like. Probably those bastards were just emptying the Georgian cabinet before loading it in their van.
Originally Dev and I wanted the envelope to get an idea of what they were looking for. I’d drawn a blank. Not even anything which might refer to this joker David, AKA Andrew Mercer I’d promised Dev I’d find.
The attack on Celia put a whole new spin on the situation. If the law tracked down Celia’s attackers there’d be a good chance they would come up with his name. I needed to find him before they did. That wouldn’t be hard given the pile of paperwork layers of management had to generate before anything got done. Leaving him lying in a pool of his own blood was off the agenda. Questions would be asked. Retribution would have to be put on hold.
Even when I found him it could be risky approaching him DNA technology being what it is and every man and his dog’s got a bloody security camera. I even have one in my place. The teté a teté with Barry Stokes didn’t require the same level of restraint though.
Annoyed at wasting most of the day and kicking myself for being paranoid about the Duke’s fixation with the cellar I shoved the papers back in the envelope and prepared to leave. I had about four hours to kill. Tea seemed a good idea except we’d emptied the fridge and tea without milk is poison. Breakfast at Reading services looked a good option, but I wasn’t hungry and Ted’s pub wouldn’t be open for at least an hour.
The LED in my noddle labelled curiosity flickered: stuff like letters from solicitors are generally confidential. Celia likely put them somewhere she considered safe . . . no harm in having a look.
I struck gold in the bedroom. Tucked in the corner of an ornate wardrobe probably worth more than my car I found a flower patterned strongbox the size of a small suitcase. Locked of course. Common sense told me the key had to be somewhere in the cottage, probably close by. Like a domestic cliché I found it in the bedside cabinet.
There were papers in there going way back before the time Celia moved into the cottage. She’d separated them into folders labelled by year and subject. That made it easy for me to find the addresses of Celia’s solicitors and the Duke’s family lawyer. The two firms seemed to have communicated with each other a lot. There were letters to Celia confirming various topics over the years. The legal bullshit was mind numbing. I got the impression Celia felt the same. As far as I could see she just accepted whatever they told her – that bothered me.
Too much to get my head around in a few hours – or even at all, I shuffled through the files photographing anything that looked like it referred to her trust or property on my smartphone. I’d seen people do this in detective films on TV, it seemed a good idea. You never know when things might come in handy.
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