Grace Smith Investigates

by Liz Evans

  HEIR APPARENT

  Table of Contents

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  Epilogue

  1

  One of my favourite fantasies consists of someone saying: ‘I’m filthy rich, and I’ve decided to make a will leaving the lot to a complete stranger. I’ve chosen you.’

  This morning Barbra Delaney looked me in the eye and said: ‘I’m filthy rich, and I’ve decided to make a will leaving the lot to a complete stranger. I’ve chosen you ...’

  But that was later. My day started early because - for pressing personal reasons - I needed to get to the office before the postman did. Unfortunately it didn’t start as early as I’d originally planned, since Sod’s Law dictated that today was the day my alarm clock would finally decide to rust in peace.

  When I finally fell out of bed, my watch said eight thirty. Generally the office post arrived around seven thirty. Janice, the receptionist from hell, didn’t get in until nine if we were lucky. (If we were really lucky, she didn’t show up at all.)

  There was always the chance, I realised, dragging on a T-shirt and trousers, that one of the other private investigators who shared the offices of Vetch (International) Associates Inc. would be in early, but they wouldn’t open any mail addressed to me. It was only Janice who made a point of largely ignoring the common post but invariably opening the envelopes that were marked ‘Private & Confidential’ or ‘Strictly Personal’.

  I shot round the corner at a fast trot. My watch now read eight forty-five. The first thing I saw was Janice, standing on the steps outside the office, scanning the street.

  Normally Jan tends to dress in black with metallic and leather jewellery by Torture-Chambers-R-Us. It gives her the appearance of being the Bride of Dracula, and last night it seemed the Count had finally struck lucky. Her hair - usually as pitch as her outfits had turned white overnight. She looked like a badly developed negative.

  ‘What the hell’s going on?’ I asked. ‘Did you have a shock or something?’

  ‘I’ll say. Vetch phoned me at home. Made me come in early.’

  ‘Not that. This.’

  I drew out a strand of my own hair. I keep it short in a hacked- by-nail-scissors style. Janice seemed to have gone for shorn-by-¬hedge-trimmer.

  ‘Oh, me hair. I thought I’d try being a blonde. All those girls who get on the telly are blondes. I want to be famous, you know.’ ‘You said.’ We’d already established that Janice had no discernible talent for anything - including typing (especially typing, actually) - but she figured it didn’t really matter. And given some of the celebs that regularly appear in the show-biz gossip columns, I suppose she might have a point.

  Janice rubbed the ends of a couple of clumps together, sending a small cloud of glinting fragments rasping into the breeze. ‘My sister did it. I don’t think she read the instructions right. She says I’ve just got wonky hair. What do you reckon?’

  I reckoned stupidity and inventive lying ran in Janice’s family, but I didn’t really care right at that moment. I had a crisis of my own to sort out.

  ‘Dye it back if you don’t fancy it. Has the post come?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Haven’t you looked?’

  Since the husband of an ex-client had taken exception to the information we’d provided on him and reciprocated with a bottle of petrol and a match through the letter box, all our mail is now held in the heat-proof cage clamped to the back of the open door that Janice was currently leaning on.

  ‘No. I’ve not come in early to work.’

  ‘So when do you come in to do that, then?’

  Janice folded her arms and glared down her nose at me. At five feet eleven she’s about the only person in the office who tops me in height. ‘I do as much as you, Smithie. More, I’ll bet. You haven’t exactly got clients queuing up, have you?’

  ‘That’s because Vetch pinches all the best cases for himself. If he passed a half-decent job my way occasionally he might get his rent on time for once.’

  ‘Sweet thing,’ purred a voice behind Janice. ‘Is that a promise?’ I threw her a dirty look. She could have warned me that our esteemed leader, Vetch-the-Letch, was in residence.

  Janice smirked, then called over her shoulder, ‘There’s no sign of them yet. I could have got in at my proper time.’

  ‘But you so rarely do that. Good morning, sweet thing.’

  I sauntered into the reception area. ‘Morning, Vetch.’

  I refused to apologise for my earlier grumble, since it had some justification. Vetch was the only official employee of the business. The rest of us were self-employed. In theory, by working under the one name we benefitted from a Corporate Identity (the brass name-plate outside); Shared Office Facilities (Janice and a fax machine); and the chance to re-allocate clients when one investigator was overly employed and the rest of us had a window in our schedules. Recently I seemed to have had enough windows in mine to give the Empire State Building an inferiority complex.

  Leaning over Janice’s desk, I hooked out the top drawer where the key to the mail box was usually kept and shuffled the assorted debris.

  ‘Lost something, sweet thing?’

  ‘I wanted to see if I had any post.’

  I tried to keep my tone light. Judging by the glint in Vetch’s eyes, I didn’t succeed. I sensed the tops of his pointed ears were pricking.

  For once Janice did something useful. ‘Is this them?’ she yelled from the step.

  The engine roar announced a heavy vehicle just before the body of the truck slid into the kerb and blocked out the sunlight. The writing on the side announced it belonged to Speedaway Removals. My first thought was that Vetch had finally sold the building out from under us.

  Three men clambered from the cab. Two headed for the back of the lorry, while the third climbed the office steps with an expression of deepest gloom. I revised my opinion. It looked like we were about to be hit by the bailiffs.

  Vetch beamed. ‘Good morning, Mr Ifor. Beautiful day.’

  ‘If you like that sort of thing, I suppose.’

  ‘Everything’s ready. You’d better bring the larger items through the internal stairway. I doubt they will fit down the outside one.’

  ‘It makes no odds. They’re bound to break something,’ sighed the joyful one, gesturing to the carriers before disappearing into the depths of the cellars.

  ‘What’s going on?’ I asked Vetch.

  ‘I’ve rented out the basement.’

  ‘Why?’

  Like the rest of the buildings in the street, this one had started life as an Edwardian boarding house. When Vetch had inherited it from his granny, he’d converted the upper storeys into office accommodation, but as far as I knew the basement had always been closed up.

  ‘Cash flow, delicious, cash flow. And Mr Ifor will provide a useful aid to our own business.’

  What was he into? I wondered aloud. Surveillance equipment? Credit checks?

  ‘Instant printing,’ Vetch said.

  ‘That would have been my next guess,’ I agreed.

  ‘Sarcasm does not become you, Grace. Mr Ifor will do wonders for our turnover. Do you know one of the main reasons we lose clients before they’ve even set foot in our offices?’

  ‘They see Janice?’

  ‘Public
ity,’ Vetch elaborated. ‘Very few people want to be seen going into a detective agency. It tends to alert their nearest and dearest to the fact there is something nasty in the wood pile.’

  This was true enough. We often got clients from a radius of anything up to a few hundred miles away, simply because they didn’t want to consult a local agency for the reasons Vetch had just outlined.

  ‘I’m not acting as his receptionist too,’ Janice protested, extracting herself from between the door frame and the photocopier that had just arrived.

  ‘You won’t have to,’ Vetch assured her. ‘In fact, I have added a couple of large bolts to the cellar door to ensure there is no access between us and those wandering the lower regions. Normally Mr Ifor and his clients will use the outside stairs to the basement.’

  He inflated his puffball cheeks and prepared to elaborate but was interrupted by a shrill whistle from the street.

  ‘Are these the barricades, Vetchy, or is someone nicking your furniture?’

  ‘Barbra!’

  ‘Hi, sweetheart. All right to come in?’

  The female he helped over the jumble of Ifor’s possessions currently blocking the entrance didn’t seem to mind the way he kept his arm around her waist as he ushered her into the former residents’ lounge that now served as his office. In fact, she dropped an affectionate kiss on the top of his bald head. Because, like most of the world, she was taller than him, this was his most accessible spot.

  Janice and I exchanged raised eyebrows.

  ‘I blame care in the community myself,’ I said.

  ‘Yeah. And she looked dead normal, didn’t she?’ Jan nodded. The movement set the couple of huge haunted-house-type keys she was wearing as earrings jangling, and reminded me why I’d dashed in here in the first place.

  ‘Where’s your mail-box key?’

  ‘No idea.’ Taking out a bottle of dark green varnish, she prepared to paint her nails, but was forestalled by Vetch asking for coffee. With a heavy sigh, she rescrewed the bottle and started sorting out three cups.

  I needed that key. It wasn’t in the right drawer, nor any of the wrong ones. It wasn’t on top of the reception desk and, by crawling on the floor, I confirmed it wasn’t amongst the drifts of dust under the thing.

  ‘For heaven’s sake.’ I straightened up as Jan returned from her waitress duties. ‘Can’t you remember where you put it last night?’

  ‘I never put it anywhere. It’s been missing for days. I’ve been getting Vetch to open up. He’s got a spare.’

  ‘Why didn’t you say so in the first place?’

  ‘You asked if I knew where my key was. And I don’t.’ Crossing her ankles on the desk, Jan drank her coffee and squinted at her reflection in the computer screen. Wrinkling her nose, she crumbled another load of split ends. ‘God, this is chronic, ain’t it? I just hope I don’t see anyone I know before I can get it fixed.’

  Delving inside her handbag, she extracted an enormous pair of sunglasses and slid them on her nose.

  Frustrated, I went back to the door and pushed my fingers in the slot to see if I could detect any envelopes in there. I had a lock-picking set back at the flat. But if the postman hadn’t already called, and he delivered while I was out... I glanced speculatively at Jan. Ordering her not to open anything addressed to me would be the equivalent of slashing my wrists and shouting ‘Grub’s up!’ to a great white shark. On the other hand, Vetch was distracted, and if I stuck my head round his door and casually asked for the post key ... Hopefully, I might even interrupt something personal and highly embarrassing.

  Vetch frustrated the potential high-spot of my day by opening his door before I could reach it and asking me to spare him a moment of my time.

  ‘Got the key to the post box?’ I asked at the same moment as Vetch said, ‘I think Grace might suit you, Barbra. Unless you’ve a prior engagement, sweet thing? Parachuting behind enemy lines, for instance?’

  This was a crack about my choice of clothing. Vetch tends to favour made-to-measure conventional, whereas I’m more Oxfam-groupie. My trousers this morning were patterned in camouflage khaki and brown splodges and had been a real snip at fifty pence. I assured him the SAS would just have to manage without me this week as I perched on the other visitor’s chair.

  ‘Mrs Delaney,’ he explained, ‘requires our services. Barbra ... Grace Smith. My most ... available investigator.’

  I nodded my hellos. She was in her forties, I guessed. Sleek blonde shoulder-length hair, light make-up, plain gold watch and wedding ring.

  ‘So how can I—’ I was about to say ‘help’ but was interrupted by another wave of deliveries crashing through the front door.

  Since I hadn’t shut Vetch’s office door completely behind me, we could all enjoy the leading bloke asking Janice, ‘Where d’you want this lot, darling?’ as he decanted what sounded like several large cardboard boxes on to the reception floor.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nexon Printing Supplies. Here’s your delivery schedule. Want to check them off?’

  ‘No, I flaming well don’t! I’m nothing to do with that lot downstairs.’

  ‘Give them a shout then. We’re in a bit of a hurry ourselves. Stick ’em there, Paul’

  From where I was sitting I couldn’t see the delivery man, but I guessed from the crash his load had touched down.

  Murmuring his apologies, Vetch levered himself once more from behind his executive-style, over-large desk and slipped out to the hall.

  ‘I believe the gentleman you require is currently working in the basement. Kindly take this lot downstairs.’

  ‘We’re running late.’

  ‘Then run a little harder,’ Vetch advised. Returning to the office, he took one of my new client’s hands and raised it to his lips. ‘Now. Where were we?’

  ‘Cut it out, Vetchy.’ Barbra reclaimed her fingers but used them to give his pointy lobe an affectionate tweak. ‘Me and your mate here have got serious money to discuss. Fancy breakfast, Grace?’

  I always fancied food if someone else was paying. But my suggestion of a trip to my favourite greasy spoon was vetoed.

  ‘The Rock Hotel,’ Barbra said firmly.

  ‘Fair enough. Hang on a minute, Mrs Delaney.’

  ‘Barbra.’

  ‘OK. Vetch, have you got the key to the mail box? I want to collect my post.’

  ‘I don’t think it’s arrived yet.’

  ‘There’s a strike at the sorting office, isn’t there?’ Barbra said. ‘I didn’t get a delivery this morning.’

  A large black cloud lifted from my heart. There was a kindly fate out there rooting for me for once! ‘Let’s hit the full English fry-up then.’

  We stepped out into the hall. Through the open front door I could see it was a beautiful morning where the sun was shining, the gulls were singing (off-key, but who was complaining?) and the sky was cloudless. The happy trill of a local maiden filled the air.

  ‘Oi! You! Hold on!’ Waving a piece of paper, Jan charged past us, down the front steps, sprinted along the pavement, and planted herself in front of a van that was just pulling away from the kerb. The printing suppliers, I assumed.

  They seemed to be having a row. Jan’s foot was braced against their front bumper and Speedaway’s truck was blocking them from reversing out of the gap. Eventually the back doors of the van were thrust open and a hand threw a box on to the pavement. With a self-satisfied saunter, Jan retrieved it as Paul and Co. sped away.

  ‘What was that all about?’ I asked.

  ‘That order came to more than fifty pounds.’ She waved the copy of the delivery note under my nose. ‘It says here you get a free desk diary for this year if your order comes to more than fifty pounds.’

  ‘It wasn’t your order. It was Laughing Ifor’s. Anyway, what the hell do you want a desk diary for? It’s August.’

  ‘I don’t care. It’s the principle of the thing, innit?’

  ‘I like a woman who knows what she wants,’ Barbra Del
aney said. ‘I always did. It just took me half a lifetime to get it. Come on.’

  She marched me to the Rock Hotel and waited until we were seated overlooking the beach with a full English breakfast en route to our table before explaining the reason for our meeting.

  Looking me straight in the eye, she said: ‘I’m filthy rich, and I’ve decided to make a will leaving the lot to a complete stranger. I’ve chosen you .. .’

  2

  ... to trace them for me.’

  ‘You what?’ The fortune that had so nearly been mine for a good two seconds was rapidly galloping over the horizon.

  ‘Find them,’ Barbra reiterated. ‘I know I said “stranger”, but when I thought about it, I decided it might be safer to split it a few different ways.’ Taking one of those glossy folders they give you in developing shops from her shoulder bag, she passed it over the table. ‘All you’ve got to do is get me their names and addresses so I can stick them in the will. And I’d like to know if they’ve ever been in bother with the law.’

  Life was beginning to feel a little surreal. I couldn’t quite believe she was intending to leave everything to a collection of photo snaps she’d never met. A sudden nasty suspicion that this was all a wind-up - courtesy of Vetch-the-Letch - took root.

  ‘Mrs Delaney,’ I said, deciding to go for the dignified professional approach, ‘if this is a joke, it isn’t particularly funny.’

  ‘Who’s laughing?’ she said, helping herself to a slice of toast. ‘And I thought you were gonna call me Barbra. That’s Barbra without the second ‘a’, like in Barbra Streisand. Do you want the honey?’

  I shook my head and twisted the cap off a Mr McGregor’s Genuine Chunky Highland Marmalade with a Whisper of Drambuie.

  ‘So why the beneficiary hunt?’ I asked. ‘Don’t you have any family?’

  She took a large bite from the corner of the toast triangle before asking me if I was married.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Ever been?’

  ‘No. I lived with someone for a while, but we never made it legal.’

  ‘I have. Twice. First time I was eighteen. Sean Delaney. Bought me frock from a catalogue. Got married in the registry office. Had our reception down the local pub.’ She whipped out a leather holder and passed it over, open at a couple of snaps.