by Cathy Ace
‘So Car gets to stay home ’cos she’s a computer whiz and she’s up the duff. Mave gets the old bird ’cos she’s a nurse and knows how to handle the ones who’ve gone barking mad. Chrissy gets to stay at the big house ’cos she’s the posh one who can speak five languages and knows which fork is which. And me? Being born within the sound of Bow Bells, I’m the one who gets to stay in some rundown old fleapit of a village pub and mix with the peasants. I’ve got that right, innit?’ She strengthened her cockney accent to help make her point. ‘I’ll stick out like a sore flamin’ thumb in a Welsh village, me. Probably the only non-white person they’ve ever seen.’
‘Och, for heaven’s sake, Annie, stop it,’ warned Mavis. ‘We’re all very well aware that you prefer to remain within the confines of your beloved London, but we have to take cases wherever they present themselves. I have every expectation that Welsh villages are much more cosmopolitan than you think.’ She didn’t sound very convinced, or convincing. ‘Now, be a good girl, Annie, and heave that chip off your shoulder awhile. We all know you think the world doesn’t exist past the M25. It sounds like a very good plan to me,’ said Mavis with finality. ‘Carol, you can begin by working out the logistics, our detailed cover stories, and getting together a background briefing on the family.’
‘I’ve already started,’ said Carol from behind her computer screen. ‘I’ve pulled up the location of Chellingworth Hall, and I can tell you that from here to there it’ll take about four hours to reach a place called Talgarth, which is where I suggest you overnight tonight. That means you can all arrive by various means of transport at your target locations without appearing to be together. Luckily for you lot I know the trip from London to Wales pretty well, which means I’ll come up with a route for you that avoids the M4 from before the M32 interchange – it’s always a nightmare there – and you can probably get to Talgarth quicker by getting off the M4 sooner, rather than later. You should go through Gloucester. Annie, I’ll check out buses from Talgarth to Anwen-by-Wye for tomorrow. How do you fancy being Annie Parker, retired City worker, trying her hand at some Welsh rambling?’
‘Ramblin’? Me?’ Annie sounded alarmed. ‘I don’t so much as own a pair of socks I could go flamin’ ramblin’ in, let alone the whole kit and caboodle. What do you lot propose I wear while I’m flinging myself through Welsh thickets? Me Marks and Sparks jeans?’
Mavis replied smoothly, ‘I think they’d be ideal for a Londoner trying out the Welsh countryside for a change. Have you got anything you could walk in other than the shoes you wear to commute?’
Annie sucked her bottom lip thoughtfully. ‘Not really. These, pumps, flip flops, sandals and those boots I never wear any more. But maybe Eustelle’s got some. Being me mum, it’s her fault I’ve got such giant plates. Dad’s feet are normal size, for a man. Her and me? We’ve got flippers. She might have something that’ll fit me. I’ll ring her when I’m on the bus going home and maybe she can drop them over to my flat.’
‘Maybe you could phone her now, Annie?’ asked Carol. ‘In the meantime, while you lot all go about your business getting ready to go, I’ll hang on here, get my jobs done, and I’ll also draw up the contracts. Does the duke have an email address, Christine?’ Christine nodded. ‘And can I phone him directly to talk about what communications are in place there?’
Christine looked apprehensive. ‘I don’t know Henry terribly well, but he doesn’t strike me as the type to have Chellingworth Hall sorted with Wi-Fi, Carol. How about I check that first, then we can go from there?’ Carol nodded in reply as she began to tap away at her keyboard.
Mavis stood as she announced, ‘We’ll all get ourselves sorted out and meet back here by’ – she looked at her watch, which was pinned to her chest, a hangover from her nursing days – ‘two o’clock. On the dot. We should all be able to manage that. I’m assuming you’ll drive us to Talgarth in your Range Rover, Christine?’
Christine nodded. ‘Absolutely. But I don’t need to leave, so I can help Carol. I brought a weekend bag with me.’ She blushed as she spoke. ‘I was quite sure you’d all agree once I explained things.’
Annie sighed, kicked off her flats, and began to pull on her trainers.
‘I’ll look it all up, search it all out, and make sure you have printed maps,’ volunteered Carol, ‘just in case your GPS doesn’t know where it’s going, Christine,’ she added. Every member of the team knew that the heiress, for all her Mensa brilliance, wasn’t very good at making sense of, or following, the instructions given to her by her car’s system. ‘Can you give me any insights as to how I can direct my research into the family, and maybe elsewhere, now, Christine? In other words, would you please tell us what it is we’re all going to be investigating?’ Carol asked, sounding almost patient.
Christine nodded. ‘Now that I know we’re going to do it, I can tell you all I know. It happened a week last Wednesday. The Dowager Duchess claimed to have heard an intruder, got out of bed to investigate and telephoned her son to say she’d found a dead man lying on the floor of her dining room.’
Mavis looked puzzled. ‘I rather think that’s something for the police to be looking into, Christine. I hope you said as much to your friend. Why on earth would we become involved in such a case?’
Christine nodded eagerly. ‘I said the same thing. But the problem is that, when Henry got to the Dower House, there was no body. Just a bobble hat with some blood on it.’
Silence.
Carol cleared her throat. ‘All right then, so we’re investigating a non-existent dead body seen by an almost-octogenarian, and a bloodied bobble hat of uncertain origin. Is that right?’
Christine nodded timidly. ‘Yes, it doesn’t sound like anything really, I know, but poor old Henry sounded very worried about it all – even though it’s not much to go on. That’s one of the main reasons I wanted you to spend some time with his mother, Mavis. I know you’ll be a good judge of how batty the old bird might be.’
Mavis straightened her back. ‘I’m not sure I admire your choice of terminology, my dear, but I understand the point you’re making. Though, if there’s an item of clothing with blood on it involved, then that does give one pause for thought. Have there been any previous concerns in the family that the dowager might be exhibiting signs of dementia?’ asked Mavis. ‘Are we sure she saw something real?’
‘Possibly, and no,’ replied Christine. ‘Henry’s worried about his mother, which, as I expressed rather poorly, is where I thought we could use your expertise, Mavis. But, of course, the bobble hat has him very concerned too. He’s shown it to the local police, who have told him, politely, that there’s nothing much they can do. Nothing was missing, you see. The whole place was locked up, the alarm was working at the time, and it didn’t sound at all. Henry did mention that his mother is convinced that her staff were all drugged and that, because she didn’t eat the stew they all shared that night, she was the only one awake to hear the noises she claims disturbed her. The local constabulary have rather poo-pooed that idea. However, at Henry’s insistence, they have agreed to conduct some tests on some items of the food they took away. No news on that front yet. Reading between the lines, I’d say that we’re dealing with a couple of local policemen who have said they’ll do something to pacify the local gentry, but without giving it much priority. Henry is concerned and confused. And I really do think we can help him by looking into every aspect of the situation for him. The bobble hat, the mother’s health, the reasons why anyone would have been inside the Dower House without having stolen anything, and, of course, how they might have gained entry to, and exited from, the Dower House without having tripped the alarm.’
Carol peered over her spectacles and her screen, and observed, ‘Well, we certainly need the money, and I think you’re right that we could do something concrete, Christine. We do have the right skills, between us, to maybe help this man.’
‘I agree,’ said Mavis, ‘and you all know I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t think we cou
ld help at all. We each have a role to play. So, if no one has anything else for now, off we all go,’ she concluded. And they did.
THREE
Alex Bright would never live up to his name. Everyone knew it, and most people told him so. A theoretical father, a mother who inhaled alcohol as though it were oxygen, and a stammer that never left him – no matter how often the kids on the estate tried to kick it out of him – all meant he learned, very early in life, how to become invisible. Especially when anyone from the social services bothered to try to find out why he wasn’t at school.
He supposed his father must have been black. Or at least not white, because his mother was, but he wasn’t. His skin was just light enough to make him an outcast from the non-white gangs in Brixton, and not nearly white enough to save him from the beatings of the anti-blacks. He reckoned invisible was good. So he practiced it. Alex hunted out all the places to hide in the daylight, and knew where not to hide after dark. He knew how to get from Max Roach Park to Brixton Water Lane without anyone being any the wiser. By the time he hit fourteen, most people either didn’t know, or didn’t care, that he existed. He made money by delivering packages, a trade which benefitted from his talent for moving within crowds unnoticed. He never asked what he was carrying. He felt that not knowing was easier. Though, deep down, his soul was aware that what he was doing was probably not only illegal, but possibly very, very bad.
Not much of a talker, and never one to use his real name, because the letter ‘A’ was especially difficult for him to pronounce, he was known as ‘Issy’. It was the noise he’d made when a very large man of Jamaican origin had asked him his name, just before he’d told him where to take the bag he stuffed into the boy’s hands.
By seventeen, ‘Issy’ had somehow managed to gain a reputation as a tough, silent, reliable type. The scars he bore from youthful beatings were interpreted as the marks of battles from which he’d walked away the winner. His silence lent him an air of mystery. His invisibility was legend. It was universally known, among a certain type, that if you needed an impossible delivery made, with no questions asked, Issy was the one you put the word out for. He’d come to you, he’d do the job, he’d take his money. He was expensive, but the best.
As the years passed, Issy almost forgot he’d ever been Alex Bright at all. He was just Issy. He lived a solitary life, filling his hours sitting, unnoticed, in cafes or pubs, where he’d be sure to learn who was who, who did what, and what was going on right across south and southwest London. His patch. By his early twenties he had more money than he really knew what to do with, so he started spending it on the things that had fascinated him, but had been beyond his non-existent means, as a child. Little models with intricate moving parts. Other than these few indulgences, he stashed his money in his small bedroom in his mother’s old flat. She was long gone, but no one asked any questions so long as he kept paying the rent. So he did. He kept his head down, learned what he could, including how to read properly, and set about filling in all the holes left by the school teachers he’d rarely met. It turned out that he was very good at retaining the information he read, and he consumed knowledge of all sorts, from many sources, like a man who would die for the lack of it.
When the recession came, Issy was ready to assume his original identity. He set up a few companies that allowed him to buy houses and flats that people were desperate to sell. He employed men thrown out of work to spruce them up, then rented them out to deserving families. It was a cash business, which he could manage at arms’ length. His companies employed people he’d come to know over the years. He hired plumbers, jobbing builders, painters and decorators who didn’t know him, but whom he had observed as the ones who didn’t brag in the pub about how they’d inflated a price for a job they were doing. Those for whom doing a good turn was something about which they didn’t boast, but he’d heard about their thoughtful deeds from those who had benefitted. He was careful. Very careful. He paid a fair day’s money for a fair day’s work and, when it came to setting rents, he never ripped anyone off. That wasn’t his style. He always reckoned that if only he’d had a better start, he wouldn’t have ended up being a starving, scared kid, as good as living on the street.
He saw himself as a philanthropist. Ten years earlier he hadn’t even known the word existed, let alone what it meant.
The day he turned forty, he’d opened a bottle of Dom Perignon champagne and drunk it all himself. He had no friends. Acquaintances, yes, but no one close enough to really know him. Not one. No one called him Issy anymore; he was, once again – or maybe for the first time – Alexander Bright. He’d left Brixton far behind and owned an elegant, minimalist penthouse apartment on Shad Thames, overlooking Tower Bridge. The people he mingled with every day as he drank coffee and raced through the crossword in The Times hardly noticed him. His ability to be invisible had not deserted him, though his stammer had. A substantial investment in speech therapy and elocution lessons had resulted in the surprising discovery that he was possessed of a very pleasant speaking voice, which his tutor had described as ‘warm and engaging’.
Those to whom he spoke were never quite sure of his origins. His café au lait skin tone, the faint scars close to his hairline, his made-to-measure clothing and shoes, the throaty sports car, his ambiguous accent – everything about him was pleasant, though unremarkable. He blended in. He never belonged to any cliques. He was not so handsome that men found him a threat, but his ability to listen – thoughtfully it seemed – made him popular with women, who interpreted his silence as sensitivity. He was invited to parties, gallery openings, concerts and soirees. Most people knew him as a friend of a friend. He was referred to as a man possessed of wide-ranging tastes and knowledge, with a particular penchant for art, architecture, fine foods and wines, and music.
His real-estate empire, plus the companies he owned which renovated, decorated, managed and rented out property, kept the money rolling in very nicely. He’d begun by choosing tenants personally, selecting those who were trying hard to make ends meet, but who needed a break. They were the people who looked after their homes, were proud of them, and made sure they looked as attractive as possible. Over a period of years, it became clear that areas with ‘Marion Rental Properties’ – he’d named the company for his late mother – were much more desirable than other rental ghettos. Tenants who took a pride in their homes were ‘rewarded’ with frequent and timely maintenance and upgrades. Those who didn’t look after the flats or houses appropriately were found to have been moved on quickly and quietly. Marion Rental Properties thrived. The organization was praised as a social blessing, and even became a model espoused by politicians who knew nothing about the set-up’s origins. Alexander Bright was very wealthy, but quite anonymous. If anyone went so far, in a social setting, as to ask him what line he was in, he would reply vaguely, using phrases that hinted at property in some way. But few asked. His demeanor didn’t encourage inquisitiveness.
Eventually, Alexander decided to indulge the love and knowledge of art and antiquities he’d developed over the years by buying up a struggling business which dealt in their import and export. With a heritage that stretched back to the eighteenth century, the family-run business, Coggins & Sons, had been just about to sink without trace. Alexander was seen by many as something of a hero, rescuing a British gem from the rising tides of multinational conglomerates. He viewed his purchase as a way to be able to come into close contact with beautiful objects on a daily basis, and he became a frequent visitor to the shop and warehouse close to Chelsea Harbour, where he enjoyed nothing more than to examine all the wonderful items that ebbed and flowed through the respected trader’s doors.
One day, Alexander found a curious, rather than beautiful, object that had been discarded in a drawer in the office where the last member of the Coggins family – the one who’d been remiss in failing to produce either a son or even a daughter to carry on the business – battled with invoices and bills of lading.
Peerin
g at the bizarre find, Alexander pondered what he held.
‘Don’t know how you can bring yourself to touch them,’ said Bill Coggins as his be-capped head popped through the door.
Alexander looked up, smiling ruefully. ‘It is estimated that almost fifty thousand men died in less than twelve hours at the Battle of Waterloo. Battlefield scavengers worked through the night to pick the corpses clean of anything of value. The teeth of the dead were taken, leading to a massive influx of a rare commodity into Britain at a time when false dentures were needed by many, but could be afforded by few. These “Waterloo Teeth”, as they became known, were the most sophisticated dentures ever to become available to the middle classes. Real human teeth set into hippopotamus bone with metal pins. I’ve been fascinated by dentures since I was …’ He paused, recalling how his mother would put her false teeth into a glass of vodka overnight, thereby providing herself each morning with a clean set of dentures and her first drink of the day. ‘Since I was a small boy.’ He turned the set of six bottom incisors in his hand. ‘A work of art indeed.’
‘Well, if dentures is your thing, you’ll want to visit Chellingworth Hall, in Wales. A few dukes ago there was one that was mad about them, and they say they’ve got the best collection in the world. Not that I know much about it. We’ve never had a lot of them come through here. Specialized market, I’d say. Know him, do you? The duke?’
Alexander gave the matter some thought. He didn’t know the Duke of Chellingworth, but he was pretty sure he knew someone who did, and he’d love to see that collection.
‘Mind if I keep these?’ he asked casually, rather than answering the man’s question.
Bill Coggins laughed. ‘If you want them, sir, you have ’em. You own the stock, you know. They’re yours to do with as you please.’
Alexander replaced the tissue that had wrapped the dentures and popped them into his jacket pocket. The bulge rather spoiled the line, but he’d take them home and find an appropriate place to display them.
