Bessie trod the fields all morning, up and down, up and down, the furrows so straight, the Romans could have built their roads along them. Bray trotted along happily at her side. At lunch, when Barney sat down on an old tree stump to eat a sandwich, the two new friends stood side by side, chewing grass until he got to his feet again, and the trio went back to their labours.
The farm now had a new celebrity, and word got around fast. On Saturday morning, half a dozen children walked the half mile down the lane and formed an orderly queue at the farm gate, their pockets stuffed with apples and carrots. After a few minutes, a cheer went up as the farm lads led Bessie, and a noisy Bray, up to the gate to be patted, fussed over and fed their treats.
During the last week of the month, Toby called, to see how his old friend had settled in. I led him down to the pasture where Bray spotted him instantly. Calling out a loud greeting, she trotted across the field to welcome him to her new home.
‘Blimey, she’s like a new animal,’ said Toby with a huge grin. ‘If I’d have known she could run like that I’d have entered her in the Donkey Derby at the Country Fair.’
The two greeted each other like the old friends they were, but after a few minutes, Bray began to back away, and after giving Toby one last, lingering look, trotted back to Bessie who was watching proceedings from her favourite corner of the paddock.
As she turned the final page of the chapter, Jess found a photograph, placed towards the top of the page, as though used as a book mark. The picture showed an aging, dappled, shire horse and a grey-haired donkey, standing side by side at the paddock gate, both baring their teeth as if grinning for the camera. On the back, in Alice’s beautiful script were the words. The Inseparables. Bessie and Bray. April 1940.
Jess suddenly became very emotional. She had heard the story of Bessie and Bray from Alice’s own lips when she was a child.
She got up from the table, opened the back door and walked between the old barn and the dirty concrete slab, that was all that remained of the milking parlour, and strolled into the meadow that once housed the old shire horse and her best friend. The stone slab was in what Alice had described as, ‘Bessie’s favourite corner of the pasture.’ Jess crouched and pulled up a clump of grass that was growing over the memorial and using the tuft to brush away a layer of accumulated soil, she read out the words that had been lovingly carved into the stone. Bessie and Bray. Together Forever.
Chapter 34
At five forty-five, Jess’s phone rang.
‘Hello, Bradley. How are you?’
‘I was better before I heard from the SRA a few minutes ago, honestly, Jess, I—’
‘Hang on, what’s the SRA when it’s at home?’
‘The Solicitor’s Regulation Authority.’
‘Okay, what did they want?’
‘They want… to investigate my legal practice, especially my dealings with you and the trust.’
‘The trust… Why? What’s wrong with the trust?’
‘Nothing is wrong with the trust, Jess. It’s just that someone… Your grandmother, I assume, has put in a complaint, alleging malpractice.’
‘Malpractice? What are you supposed to have done?’
‘Well, according to your grandmother, I am using my position to take advantage of a client by forming an improper relationship. That client is, of course, you.’ Jess could hear the anger in Bradley’s voice.
‘That’s ridiculous.’
‘Unfortunately, according to the regulations, she does have a point regarding an improper relationship. Fortunately, apart from handing over the annual allowance you are entitled to, we haven’t made any joint decisions regarding the fund. So, she will have great difficulty proving her allegations. The one thing she can prove is that our relationship status broke the rules.’
‘Do you mean I’m not allowed to have any sort of relationship with you outside of the office? That’s hardly fair, and anyway, my friend’s mother married the solicitor who worked on her behalf during her divorce. No one tried to stop them.’
Bradley sighed. ‘It’s a grey area, Jess, but your grandma has obviously done her research.’ He paused, ‘I’ve just read a few paragraphs from the SRA guidelines. My contact emailed me a copy so that I could familiarise myself with them.
‘Basically, they state that while it isn’t illegal for a solicitor to have a relationship with a client, the practice must put systems and controls in place, to assess whether the depth of that relationship might impair the solicitor’s ability to act in the best interests of the client.’
Jess listened intently as Bradley continued.
‘A Family Lawyer should not have sexual relationships with a client. Should such a relationship develop, the solicitor should immediately make it clear to the client that they can no longer act on their behalf.’
Bradley cleared his throat. ‘So, you see, Jess. She has me over a barrel. I will have to stop acting for you, at least until the investigation into my practice is over. Fortunately, I spoke to Sarah, one of our partners and she is happy to take on the role of trustee on a temporary basis, which means we won’t have to offload the trust onto another firm of solicitors.’
‘Oh, Bradley, I’m so sorry. I thought you had called to say you were going to drop round. I was getting my hopes up.’
‘I can’t do that. Sadly, our personal relationship is over. I’m sorry, Jess, but I can’t risk my career over…’
‘Over what? A one-night stand, a fling that meant nothing?’
‘Jess, you have to understand, I’ve worked so hard to get where I am, I can’t just throw it away on… Look, I don’t mean it to sound as bad as it did, but…’
‘But it does mean what it sounded like. I’m not worth the risk to your career.’
‘No… Jess, look, I like you, I really do. I wish to God that your grandmother hadn’t turned up when she did, another half hour and I’d have been back at the office and she’d have been none the wiser.’
‘And there was me thinking you were different to the other men I’ve had the bad luck to form relationships with, but you aren’t, you’re just the same. Your interests will always come first; you’re only ever going to think of yourself. Christ, Bradley, you’re as bad as Calvin.’ Jess felt tears well up in her eyes.
‘I’m nothing like him. Jess, listen. I don’t want to fall out with you over this, let’s wait until the inquiry is over. Let the dust settle. Maybe we could meet for a coffee and I can explain what I really meant to say, face to face.’
Jess’s voice began to crack.
‘I really liked you, Bradley. I thought my luck had changed.’ She wiped at the tears running down her cheeks. ‘It seems to me that you got what you wanted and now you’re looking for a way out. Well, you don’t have to look any longer. You’re out.’
‘Jess, please, let me explain properly.’
‘Do you think I’m stupid or something, Bradley? You explained it all perfectly. You see me as a liability. Well, that’s fine. You’ve just got rid of that problem. Now, if I need to sign anything agreeing to Sarah taking on the trust role, post it to me, I’ll sign it and send it back. Actually, thinking about it, it might be best for her to take on the role permanently.’
‘Oh, Jess, don’t be—’
‘Goodbye, Bradley.’
Jess hit the red button on the phone to end the call. Then she walked through to the front room, threw herself on the sofa and let the tears flow.
Chapter 35
At seven-thirty, with no tears left to cry, Jess got up from the sofa, picked up her car keys, grabbed her coat and walked out to the car. A frost was already beginning to form on the roof and bonnet of her Toyota. Jess looked up to a cloudless sky to see the universe open up before her eyes. The farm was well away from the light pollution of the town and she had a clear view of the ancient, blinking stars that had emitted their twinkles billions of years ago, arriving just in time for her to see them.
Still thinking about the vastness of the un
iverse, she started up the car, switched on her lights and drove to the Tesco Direct store in town where she made her way to the wine aisle and picked up two, mid-priced bottles of Pinot Grigio from the chiller cabinet. On the way to the checkout, she suddenly thought of her mother and the alcohol problems blighting her life. Jess could remember her mum drowning her sorrows in a wine glass when she was growing up, and making a quick decision, turned around and placed one of the bottles back in the chiller.
At the counter, she produced her card to pay for the wine, then, seeing the glass cabinet behind the till operator, she ordered a packet of twenty cigarettes and a disposable lighter.
Back in the car, Jess switched on the radio just as the weather forecaster was speaking.
As temperatures plummet to minus five degrees overnight, residents of the area are being asked to keep an eye on their energy use as one of the region’s power stations is shut down for maintenance.
Jess shivered at the thought even though her car heater was on. The farmhouse was centrally heated, Alice had installed a new boiler only three years previously, but the old place had many a draughty corner.
When she arrived home, she poured herself a generous glass of wine, picked up the cigarettes and lighter and closing the back door behind her to keep in the heat, she sat on the back doorstep and spent half an hour stargazing as she smoked cigarette after cigarette.
She had given them up, supposedly for good when she first met Calvin who hated the smell of tobacco smoke, but quitting had always felt more like a bereavement than an achievement. She had often thought about grabbing a packet as she stood at the supermarket checkout during a particularly difficult time in her relationship with him. She had always managed to overcome the urge, telling herself that it was stupid to take up the habit again after the horrendous time she’d had getting over her addiction. Tonight, felt different for some reason. Maybe it was the absence of Calvin’s accusing look as he sniffed her clothes when she got back in from shopping, or a trip to the library. Maybe the stress of all that had happened over the past few weeks had finally got to her. Whatever the reason, she thoroughly enjoyed the three cigarettes she had smoked and stubbed out on the concrete floor.
Craving sated, she picked up her empty glass and stepped back into the kitchen where she took off her coat and hung it on the back of a chair before pouring herself another glass of wine. Carrying it through to the lounge, she placed it on Alice’s old lion’s foot coffee table and picked up her phone, intending to call her best friend, Sam. Noticing the black screen, Jess cursed and pressed the start button only for a charging bar to appear, showing her that her phone was almost completely dead.
‘Damn,’ she said as she plugged the USB cable into the mobile and sat it on Alice’s writing bureau to charge.
Picking up her glass, she sat on the sofa and wriggled her bottom about until she became comfortable and picking up the remote control, she switched on the TV and flicked to Netflix.
Selecting an episode of The Crown that she had already seen. Jess leaned back into the cushions and thought about the ramifications of what Martha had done.
She decided that she would call in on her grandmother in the morning for the heart to heart she had allegedly been craving. She was just working out which approach would work best, when the power went off.
Chapter 36
Jess suddenly found herself in total darkness. Easing herself off the sofa, she took baby steps across the lounge until her knee made sharp contact with the corner of the coffee table. Cursing, she reached down and rubbed her leg, then placed her hand on the edge of the table as she worked her way around it. Trying to visualise the room that she had spent so many hours in with Alice, she edged sideways until she bumped into the wall, from there she felt her way along until she found the frame of the kitchen door. Trusting her judgment, she stepped through, turned slightly to the left and groped her way across the room until she found the big, oak table. She ran her hands over the surface carefully until she located her new lighter, then flicking it on, she crossed to the wall units and rummaged through what Alice called her ‘bits and bobs’ drawer, until she found one of the candles that Nana had kept for such emergencies.
The lighter was getting hot to the touch, so Jess quickly lit the wick of the candle and extinguished the lighter flame. Taking a saucer from the cupboard, she allowed a little of the melted wax to fall onto its smooth, white surface, then sat the candle in it. Placing the saucer on the table, Jess walked to the kitchen window and looked out. All of the lights were out across the entirety of the housing estate that had been built on the land that Alice had sold to the developers over the years. In the far distance, the street lights on the Gillingham road were still lit, telling her that a local substation must have gone down under pressure of demand. Suddenly, feeling an urgent need to pee, Jess picked up the saucer and carried it upstairs.
When she came out of the bathroom, she went through to the spare bedroom where she had stored Alice’s old landline telephone. She plugged the RJ11 connector into the upstairs phone socket, picked up the cordless handset from the cradle and held it to her ear but there was no dial tone.
‘You idiot, Jess,’ she said to herself. ‘These digital phones have to be plugged into the mains to work.’
Shoving the phone and cradle back into the cupboard, she held the candle in front of her and walked along the passage to her own bedroom where she had left her laptop. She placed the saucer carefully on the bedside table and opened up her computer. Finding no internet signal because of the power cut, she sat down on her bed and read back the twenty-paragraph article she had written the day before.
Half an hour later, satisfied with the work in progress, she snapped the laptop shut, stuck it under her arm and picking up the saucer again, she headed for the stairs.
Shielding the flame in case her movement caused it to go out, she walked along the landing, but as she reached the top of the stairs, a single flash of light exploded across the window that overlooked the front of the house. Puzzled as to who would be wandering along the remote lane in a blackout, Jess put her laptop on a side table, hurried to the front window and looked out just in time to see a figure carrying a torch, walk slowly past her car and disappear down the side of the house.
Thinking quickly, Jess assessed the situation. Surely if it was someone she knew; they would come to the front door? Why would they go all the way around to the back?
She pricked up her ears as she heard the click of the gate latch, then, panic struck as she realised that she hadn’t locked the back door after going outside for a cigarette earlier in the evening.
Holding the saucer in front of her, Jess raced for the stairs but as she reached the top step, the candle flame flickered in the sudden rush of air, then died.
‘Noooo.’ Dropping the saucer, Jess reached out her hand and felt for the banister. Using it as a guide she hurried down the stairs, turned right into the hall and after stumbling twice, found the kitchen door just as the torch beam flashed across the back window. Taking advantage of the small amount of light that filtered into the kitchen, Jess fell to her hands and knees and crawled as quickly as she could across the wooden floor. Reaching up as she neared the door, she twisted the key in the lock, turned her back to the door and tucked her knees under her chin as the sound of the creaking gate, echoed across the yard.
Jess wrapped her hands around her knees, and scarcely daring to breathe, twisted her head to the right as the full torch beam was directed into the kitchen. The ray of light moved back and forth across the room, lighting up the table, then the cupboards and the door to the lounge. She put both hands over her mouth and closed her eyes tight as she heard footsteps approach the door.
Jess held her breath as the intruder tried the handle. Then she felt a shiver of terror run down her spine, as whoever was outside, put their shoulder against the door and tried to force it open.
Thirty of the longest seconds in Jess’s life later, she heard the foots
teps retreat towards the gate. Desperate to know what the interloper was about to do next, she got to her hands and knees, then moving to a crouched position, scurried through the darkness until her shoulder hit the doorframe leading to the lounge. Forcing down the yelp that tried to escape her mouth, she felt for the opening, then slid along the floor on her stomach until she found the coffee table. Lifting her hand, she groped about on the table top until it came into contact with her phone. Hoping against hope that it had received enough charge to enable her to make a call, she pulled it off the table, pressed the ‘on’ button and with her heart pounding in her chest, watched the screen as it loaded up the phone’s operating system.
As the home screen appeared, Jess took a quick glance at the status bar, and seeing only a tiny amount of charge in the phone, decided it would be better to speed-dial Sam, than spend time she might not have, waiting in a queue for the police to answer.
‘Please, pick up, please pick… Sam? It’s Jess… Yes, listen, my power is off and someone is trying to—’ Jess looked at her phone in horror as the in-call icon disappeared, to be replaced, once again, by a black screen. Tears of frustration filled her eyes.
‘Damn,’ she spat as she dropped the useless phone onto the floor.
As someone tried the handle of the front door, Jess lay flat to the floor, then she listened intently as footsteps crunched on the gravel path beneath the window. A second or two later, a broken beam of light broke through a small gap in the curtains and flickered onto the TV screen and along the back wall. Hardly daring to breathe, Jess waited until she heard the footsteps walk back along the gravel path before crawling down the hallway, one hand flailing ahead until it made contact with the heavy, front door. Sitting sideways on, she rested her ear against it and listened.
The Legacy: Trouble Comes Disguised As Family (Unspoken Book 2) Page 22
