Inheritance Read online

  Inheritance

  Nearly Thirty Years Before

  The body was much lighter than others he had carried. Lighter than he had expected. It could be slung over one shoulder. A heavier body would need both shoulders. With both hands. Impossible given the terrain.

  Each step down the steep bank had to be tried first, tentatively, then committed. A steadying hand on the bridge wall an essential safety. There had been rain, there was mud. Branches caught on the body, snapped. Dragging would be easier.

  Lean forward, twist. The body was down in the grass, in the mud. Hands gripped either side of the collar and yanked. The long grass swished as the body slid along. No snagging branches so low. Much easier.

  The edge of the trees. Beyond a few metres of grass. Then their goal. His goal.

  He crouched on the wet grass and looked upon the body, its face. Sleeping. Was it sleep? Hard to know. He wasn’t an expert. His watch said it wasn’t yet time to wake him. Wait a few more minutes, just to be safe.

  So he waited, just to be safe. The timings were agreed. No need to change them.

  Then his watch said it was time.

  From inside his jacket pocket he withdrew a hard case. For spectacles. He opened it. No spectacles. A syringe and vial. This was the bit he hadn’t been able to practice. The timings gave him a margin for error. It wasn’t an exact science.

  The needle broke the skin of the body’s inside elbow. Cubital fossa. How did he know that? He had learnt it somewhere. But he wasn’t an expert.

  He looked at his watch again. The drug had two minutes to act. Longer than that was too long. The body would still be drowsy when the time came. It wouldn’t look so good. It wouldn’t look convincing. Though it wouldn’t make a difference to the outcome.

  He thought about life. He stared at the clouds. He wiped his nose.

  He would get rid of the car afterward. He needed to go for a drink too. Show his face. An alibi of sorts.

  Or maybe he would simply need a drink.

  The body groaned. That was good. It was expected.

  Another groan. He helped with a tap, a foot in the ribs.

  “You’d best wake up.” He looked at his watch. “Actually, take your time.”

  The body shifted, only slightly. Then sighed. Another shift. Then sigh.

  The routine lasted several minutes.

  “What.” The body spoke slow, toneless, distant. And not ‘where’ nor ‘why’. Something had caught its dim awareness.

  He bent over the body. It fingered a discarded beer can at its side. He shook his head. It was pathetic to die like this, among rubbish. He was sorry it couldn’t have been more dignified, more fitting.

  “It’s litter. You don’t need it.”

  “Certain?”

  “I’m sure. Can you open your eyes?”

  “They are open.”

  “They’re not.”

  “Certain?”

  He grunted a laugh. “I’m sure.”

  “Oh. It’s so bright.” They were open now.

  He looked up to the overcast sky and shook his head.

  “Your eyes have been closed for a long time.”

  “Right.” The body twitched violently. “Wait. What’s going on?” Childlike. His consciousness beginning to catch up.

  He smiled. He looked at his watch. He smiled again. Good timing.

  “Try not to worry. It’s better to stay calm.”

  “Right. Good. Thank you.”

  Thank you? For fuck’s sake. He didn’t need that. To be thanked, of all things, before what he was about to do.

  He shook his head. Ridiculous.

  The rails began to sing. Metal on distant metal. He looked at his watch for the last time.

  “Okay, shape yourself.” He yanked the body upright. Hoisted by a single arm.

  It slouched vertical, then slopped sideways. He caught it in a bear hug. Pushed it up against the wall of the bridge.

  “My legs are...”

  “I’m holding you.”

  “What’s that sound?”

  He thought about lying. He thought about the truth. Neither would make any difference now.

  “It’s a train.”

  “Oh.” The body’s eyes sharpened. An intake of breath. “Is this a railway?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why are we...”

  “No more questions. Okay? Trust me.”

  The rumbling engine grew in his ears. He shut his eyes and listened. There was a pitch, a subtle change, better than any watch to time the right moment.

  Not now. Not now. Not now.

  Now.

  He took the body by the collar. And by the waistband of its jeans. He heaved it forward.

  The body stumbled down the bank, half upright. A single foot sank into the loose ballast and the body fell across both rails.

  The screech of the brakes came first. The horn a close second. The body’s raised head, its vision, its awareness, a tragic third.

  It would have been better if he hadn’t looked.

  Then impact.

  It was eight minutes past ten. They would be picking up the pieces for the rest of the day.

  He really needed that drink now.

  Day 1: Wednesday 1 November

  “In pieces?” The young woman’s eyes widened. She paused, her step interrupted. The caller’s story was more unbelievable than most she had heard in the past eighteen months. “They sent a toe in the post? Yes...okay, and...the rest of him to come? Head last? Mrs Johnston...”

  Edith leant over to a rack high on the kitchen wall and plucked a slim black book from its keep. Folded sheets and sticky notes burst from between the pages. She sat down at the table and threw the book open. Pages and loose paper flickered through her fingers until she came to the section marked ‘K’.

  “Now, Mrs Johnston, Pimlico Associates would really like to help you. We really would. However, the situation is that...no, I understand, we have to do something. But we’re simply not taking on new cases at the moment.” Edith detached the phone from her ear and let Mrs Johnston scream out her frustration. Then back. “Mrs Johnston. Listen to me, Mrs Johnston.”

  Too loud, she had begun to shout. She must be quieter. Somebody would overhear and it wasn’t the kind of call which tolerated eavesdropping. Every word must be clear and firm, but quiet.

  “Mrs Johnston. Even though Pimlico Associates are not currently taking on new cases we would like help you. We have a select list of other private investigators whom we can personally vouch for.”

  She ran her finger down ‘K’ in the black book. It had been her father’s book, his master index, of everybody he knew and trusted. Frank Kenton. Rahim Khalid. The latter’s mobile number had been scrubbed out. A blue sticky note hanging from the far side of the page contained his new one.

  The next name was Mike Kirkham. A phone number with an eight–pointed star beside it. What did that mean? She would have to ask her uncle. He had helped add a cross–reference of sorts, filling in the details she didn’t have or didn’t understand. As far as he knew them, anyway. He professed his ignorance as often as he demonstrated his knowledge. Together they had managed to figure out what kinds of case each investigator might take on. It was better than nothing.

  Her father would have known in an instant the best placed man for any job, assuming that he ever trusted anybody but himself. The book was just for phone numbers, the names needed no introduction to him. The key had been kept in his head. He would laugh at her attempts to unlock it all.

  She put her finger on the word ‘Kidnap’. The two names beside it had long since been scrubbed out.

  “Shit.”

  ‘Sorry? Excuse me, are you going to help me?’

  “Mrs Johnston, your case seems to be very c
omplex. Have you ever considered taking it direct to the police?”

  Edith distanced herself from the phone once more in anticipation. The suggestion of police never went down well.

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. Yes, you did say that your son was involved with the Albanians, but surely a few years in prison for drug smuggling is better than dead? Can’t you just give them the money they’re asking for? I know, I know. Please, just wait a second.”

  ‘E’ for ‘Extortion’. It wasn’t there. ‘D’ for ‘Drugs’. Plenty of suggestions.

  “Mrs Johnston. I have the name of a private investigator who specializes in cases involving drugs and I can...no, as I said, Pimlico Associates are not currently taking new cases. I know you want to speak with Ben Pimlico but he’s not available. I am...yes, in a way I am his secretary, but I can...”

  The call went dead without even a curse or a final frustrated scream from the other end. The woman must have accepted her fate, or her son’s fate. Or maybe she threw the phone at a wall in anger.

  Edith could have done likewise.

  Her phone, now quiet, she laid calmly on the kitchen table. She lowered herself into a chair and rubbed back the burgeoning tears..

  Once certain they had been forestalled she stopped and stared blankly at the wall ahead. They were sweetcorn yellow. She had painted the kitchen one summer while on break from university, lacking anything more useful to do. Now she saw the accumulated scratches and marks from five years of daily use. They would need painting again, maybe next summer. She made a mental note.

  Then with a sigh she wept. The callers can’t have known what they were doing to her.

  Most requests came by email. They were easily handled. Edith responded to them at her own pace. She had made a template, customizable for any imaginable request. Suggestions for other private detectives were added in profusion, giving the enquirer no doubt the plethora of other avenues to go down. Other people they could bother. Those who persevered, stressing that they wanted Ben Pimlico and nobody else—they had been assured he was the best in Manchester—and swearing their ability to pay double or triple his usual fee, were politely ignored for a week then sent a curt, ‘no’.

  It would have been easier to let the emails pile up, unanswered. Not bother with even charade of engagement. Except for the fear that an unanswered email became an incitement to call.

  Calls were much worse. Any time of day, even the middle of the night, they thrust other people’s crises straight into her life. People in tears straight from discovering a terrible secret or hushed as though their tormentors could hear them speak. Sometimes they danced around their problems interminably, refusing in shame to name what had driven them to call. Other times they recounted tales so terrible that she doubted her father would have agreed to take the case, were he still able to.

  Some callers asked directly for Ben. They were friends, so they said. She told them that friends would have known it was impossible. They had nothing further to say. They left no details.

  The calls and emails had to die away, one day. They had to stop at some point. The message that Pimlico Associates was no longer open for business would get through. They had best go elsewhere.

  After eighteen months it seemed doubtful that she was making a dent in the demand. The calls were certainly making a dent in her.

  Pimlico Associates had never advertised. It never had to. Her father’s work was its own advertisement. There were plenty of happy former clients who liberally passed his details on to new prospects. They came claiming that Ben had helped their friend, or their cousin, or their workmate, or somebody they knew from the golf club. Word of mouth, as they say, is the best advertising money can’t buy. Maybe the news of his accident would spread in the same way, eventually.

  Edith rose from her seat and loped over to the sink. The dishes which she had abandoned to answer the phone call lay unwashed. She plunged her hands into the water to find that the water had grown uselessly luke.

  The water gurgled as it drained away. Turn the tap, fill the sink ,and start again.

  As the water ran she stood at the patio doors and gazed out onto the garden. The first of November; the middle of autumn. The trees shed their leaves with abandon. The garden was carpeted in brown and gold. Everything would need to be raked up, tidied, readied for winter. She sank at the thought of more work to do. Another year over. Another summer squandered.

  A squirrel scuttled down the tree at the garden’s end. It reached the height of the back fence, made a short hop and leapt into the overgrown bushes of the railway bank behind. She remembered how her father had once told her that squirrels don’t hibernate, they just stay in their dens throughout winter. She had asked what the difference was. His reply had fallen short. ‘It’s just different, isn’t it?’

  Maybe she should have studied biology. It would be good to have an answer to the question. An expensive answer, sure. Instead she had spent three years studying chemistry for no solid reason other than it was a science. Good prospects her father assured her. Not prospects that interested her however. Four years out of university a career was growing unlikely. Most of it had been forgotten anyway. And no wiser about hibernating squirrels.

  The sink was full. The dishes wouldn’t clean themselves. Soapy water. A search for the dishcloth. Lift a plate just out the water and wipe in quick circles. No thought required.

  The phone rattled on the table where it had been left.

  ‘No.’ Under breath. Through teeth.

  She dropped the plate, splashing water on her jeans. She wiped her hands roughly on the kitchen towel and reached for the phone.

  “Yes?” She stood frowning, hand on hip, hoping that the caller would somehow hear her body language.

  “Am I speaking to Miss Edith Pimlico?” The caller’s voice was false-friendly, the product of corporate training.

  “Yes, yes you are.” She shifted the weight of her body. Not one of her father’s calls. “Who is this?”

  “I’m calling from North West Power about your outstanding electric bill.”

  “Oh. Wait a second.” She span round and explored the rack from where she had earlier plucked the black book of her father’s contacts. The bottom slot was crammed with letters in wild disarray. “I have the bill here somewhere.”

  “We’ve sent out multiple warnings. The bill is significantly overdue.”

  “Just a second! I think I’ve got it.” A slew of letters slid from the rack and teemed over the floor tiles. “Shit!”

  “Miss Pimlico. Miss Pimlico.” The caller’s voice rose. Louder. Sharper. Corporate menacing. “You have to listen to me.”

  “Can you send me the bill again?”

  “Miss Pimlico, the purpose of this call is take payment for the bill. We have sent you multiple reminders and warnings over the last few months. There will be no more letters. You either pay now, while I’m speaking to you on the phone, or North West Power will begin proceedings against you.”

  “Proceedings?”

  “We will obtain a court order and disconnect your supply.” He left a practiced pause. “Do you have a credit or debit card with which you can pay the bill right now?”

  She slumped into a chair, struck silent. Why hadn’t she paid this bill? The same reason as always. The bills had come, the warnings too, and she had simply pushed them to the back of the queue. Money was not something she had in abundance. Decisions had to be taken. There were more important things to pay, more pressing things to think about. Though not having the electricity disconnected seemed pretty important.

  “How much is it?”

  “Five hundred and seventy–three pounds and twelve pence. Do you have a card available to pay with immediately?”

  “Okay, okay. One moment.” She dragged her purse toward her and flicked out the only bank card she had. Doubtful that it had enough money on it. She had checked it recently. Six hundred pounds would not have escaped her notice.

  There had once been an arranged o
verdraft, in her student days. It might never had been cancelled. Possibly. It was a bad choice to put the bill on her overdraft. It was a better choice than all the others before her.

  The payment was processed efficiently and the caller’s tone switched from menacing to corporate cheery. He said his thanks, wished her a good day, and rang off.

  Edith crumpled over the table, face down and arms sprawled. She listened to her breathing until it seemed to come from outside herself.

  She turned her face to peer at the wall clock: nearly ten. A good day? The morning wasn’t over, not even close. Maybe the day had a reset button, conveniently accessible by crawling back into bed.

  There was a knock at the door.

  “No!” She banged her fist against the table. “Just go away!”

  The rapping at the door repeated. It could be the postman. Or a delivery man. She hadn’t ordered anything recently. Or even not recently. There was no money to order anything.

  Another knock.

  ‘Okay, definitely just the postman.’ She lied to herself. ‘Just answer the door, take the parcel, say thank you, and it’s over.’

  She traipsed into the hall, spying a figure outlined in the glass of the front door. She paused before the mirror, because maybe the postman cared what she looked like. Her dark curls framed her angular face. Her skin pale, no, wan. A tentative smile practised on her lips.

  The knock came once more.

  “Okay! Coming!” She unlocked the door and swung it open. Standing before her was neither the postman nor a delivery man. Nor anybody she knew. “Hello?”

  The visitor was intent at his phone but turned his eyes upward at the sound of her voice. He was no taller than her, slim build, with short brown hair. His face had a fading boyish quality which, given his age—she guessed him around thirty—would soon be replaced with a full masculine maturity. His clothes were smart, casual, unplaceable. He had spent a lot of money to look like he hadn’t spent all that much. A glance at his shoes belied the fact: they were expensive.

  “I’ve been told to call here,” well–spoken, but with a local accent, “for Pimlico Associates.”

  Edith screwed her eyes tight at the imposition. Nobody ever called at the house. Nobody was meant to call at the house. Nobody. Were people handing out their address now, too?