Inheritance

by Nicholas Shakespeare

  A client had left everything to a charity for the blind. An in-law contested, one ground after the other - fraud, undue influence, insanity. Each time, the judge found in favour of the deceased. In his summing-up, he had commented on Vamplew's integrity and propriety throughout the proceedings, and the clear way that he had drafted the will and presented his evidence.

  'Mr Madigan was interested in the subject of wills because he was brooding on his own. He rang the Law Society to ask where I practised, and offered to pay me handsomely to protect his last wishes with the same "tenacity".'

  Vamplew sat back.

  'I asked several questions to make sure that he wasn't completely insane. He then revealed his conditions. When I put forward my reservations, he threatened to go elsewhere. Since I didn't want to lose the business, I agreed to act for him. I did, though, recommend that he appoint another independent trustee - his accountant perhaps - so that we could watch each other, and there would be less risk of collusion. We lawyers know how people can behave. He told me that he'd already considered this, but he was clear in his head that the smallest number of people must be involved. He was happy to appoint me sole trustee and executor. I had "form in defending the dead". That's what he said. After that, we haggled over fees. I added a bit more for typing the will out - for irritation, basically.'

  'Did you ask why he wanted to make such a will?'

  Vamplew shook his head. 'I never enquire of my clients their motives. I only caution them that if they are minded to use their will to slander others, there is a risk that their estate will be depleted by claims of damages arising out of slander, and their testamentary intention may be defeated.'

  In drawing up Christopher Madigan's will, assuming he was sane, Vamplew had to ask three questions only.

  'First: is this will contrary to public policy because of the strangeness of the request? If Mr Madigan had left everything to Al-Qaeda, possibly it would have been treasonable, certainly seditious. I didn't consider his wishes either immoral or contrary to public policy.

  'Second: is this will void for uncertainty? Had Mr Madigan left everything, say, to all red-headed males in England, it was likely to be struck out by the court.

  'Third: is this will open to challenge by a beneficiary such as a spouse, a child or anyone who is dependent on him? When the deceased first explained his testamentary intentions, I anticipated that there would be claimants. I advised him that he was inviting real trouble.'

  Vamplew paused. He was making his point.

  Andy moved in his chair. 'What kind of trouble?'

  'It is remarkable how long-burning fuses will surface on death. Emotions that have been stored up are laid bare and put before lawyers like me. I'll have people in my office in a livid fury. They've gathered round to find out what the old bastard's done for them, and it's gone to "someone unexpected". Thankfully, I have a broad desk.'

  After thirty years of watching people across it, Vamplew was able to testify that patterns of human behaviour were dispiritingly unshifting.

  Vamplew leaned forward, not so stiff now.

  'When a client says: "It's a matter of principle" - my reaction is: "Oh good - the gravy train has pulled up at the station - here we go."

  'Good Godfrey says: "Please don't." But Bad Godfrey has become more and more cynical. He has to meet targets.

  'Another wonderful phrase: "It was a gentleman's agreement." As soon as they say that, I know they're going to stuff each other. A gentleman's agreement gladdens the heart of any lawyer.'

  Inevitably, the worst quarrels occurred within families.

  'Strong parents suppress all dissent. Once they're gone, it erupts. Often, the disputes are fuelled by nursery quarrels. "Mother always liked you better." This kind of resentment plays out in terms of money.

  'When that money is left to someone unexpected - grief and shock. Especially if the "someone unexpected" is a local cat's home. Furry animals - old maiden ladies love them! Green and furry and cancer. The blind not so much. That's why the case which alerted Mr Madigan to me was crucial for the charity to win.'

  With this in mind, Vamplew had questioned the deceased as to his family. His wife had died and there was only one person who might be regarded as family - a daughter with whom he had lost touch.

  'I could see straight away that she was going to be a problem. I emphasised that in order to head off a claim under the Inheritance Act, my client had to make reasonable provision for her. He maintained that he had already done so. It's not so simple as I'm about to say, but basically he had set up a trust fund with his former solicitors which she was to come into upon turning twenty-one. Trusts are normally irrevocable. However, in this case he had reserved to himself a "power of appointment" which enabled him, as Settlor, to reorganise the trust provisions. This at the very last moment he had decided to do - deferring his daughter's entitlement to capital until after his death.'

  'So she didn't come into it at twenty-one?' Andy said.

  'No, but she becomes entitled to it automatically now.'

  'Did he mention why he deferred it?'

  'It was something that pained him too much to discuss. The only person he wished to know about his funeral arrangements was Mrs Bernhard.

  'I said that I wouldn't put in the will his sentiments, but it would be good if he made his intent known to me by private letter.'

  Vamplew took some paper-clipped sheets out of a drawer. 'He wrote this to be included as a preamble. It's not unprecedented. I've seen one like it in verse - a first essay at rhyme, I suspect. Another took the form of a sermon. They are uncommon now, but usually they rant against the pernicious virus of socialism which has infected this country since the beginning of the last century and are an expression of a client's determination that not a penny of their hard-earned money shall go to the State. I see no reason why you, as his beneficiary, can't read Mr Madigan's preamble. I kept it in reserve for any proceedings; otherwise it just causes trouble. My secretary can run off a copy.'

  'Maybe it will explain everything.'

  'Maybe.'

  'You might not have questioned his motives,' Andy said, 'but surely you asked yourself why he made such an extraordinary will?'

  'It depends what you mean by extraordinary, Mr Larkham. Compared to many, Christopher Madigan was a pretty conventional testator. When he originally outlined his intention, I was put in mind of the Padua lawyer who disinherited anyone who wept at his funeral, appointing as sole heir "whoever laughed most heartily ". That was in the fifteenth century, but you might recall the recent example of a Portuguese aristocrat who asked his notary for a copy of the Lisbon telephone directory from which he then plucked seventy names at random, declaring that he wanted to sow confusion by leaving everything he owned to strangers.'

  Vamplew laughed to himself, his testiness gone. He had found his rhythm. 'Your case is less arbitrary. You at least showed up for his funeral. You at least were there .'

  'But he must have had friends.'

  'Evidently not.'

  'What about that chaplain? He seemed to know him.'

  Vamplew shook his head. 'Some "crem cowboy" appointed by the funeral director. The term, I believe, is a Dafa - Do Anything For Anyone. A twenty-minute slot, PS100 a throw and no questions asked - except those he asked of me. He rang up before the service to find out three things about the deceased.'

  'What did you tell him?'

  'He loved his family, gave a lot to charity, enjoyed many different interests . . . The usual platitudes.'

  There was a silence. Andy said: 'If Madigan wasn't mad, why did he do this?'

  'He had certain beliefs, I would say.'

  'What kind of beliefs?'

  Vamplew's various eyes examined Andy. 'How old are you, Mr Larkham?'

  'Twenty-seven.'

  'And your profession?'

  'A publisher.'

  Vamplew made a vague motion at his shelves. 'I have often wondered if there might not be an anthology to be compiled from these
cases.'

  'I'm sure there is,' Andy said. 'And you could do worse than Carpe Diem.' He needed Vamplew on his side. It was how Goodman had seduced his wives, offering to read what might more sensibly have been kept locked for all eternity in a sock drawer.

  Vamplew took off his spectacles and polished them with a Kleenex. He looked different; his face no longer ordinary. Andy saw the dark hair, the brighter eyes, the bushier tail of the young solicitor from Worcester. His voice, too, was different. It was a voice you wanted to listen to. All at once, the room was alive with what he was saying.

  'I don't know if this is your experience in publishing, but when I started out as a lawyer I was reasonably optimistic about the human condition. Now, I find, it's rare to come upon a client who's honest. That's why it is sometimes nice to see people get what they deserve one way or the other.'

  He put his spectacles back on. It may have been a trick of the angle from which he studied Andy, but his eyes seemed suddenly aligned, no longer concentric.

  'You ask me what kind of man my client was, and I understand your curiosity. That's why I regret I have so little to tell you. I met him twice only. I couldn't say what made him tick. I'm not even sure I would recognise him from a photograph.'

  Vamplew dropped the Kleenex into his waste-paper basket and closed his eyes, as if trying to narrow his thoughts on what he had decided to say.

  From his brief acquaintance with Christopher Madigan, he had formed the impression of a close, solitary, mistrustful, slightly deaf man who kept to himself, lived simply and was careful with his money, except in a couple of areas - he liked very good shoes and fine wines, to judge from the claret that Vamplew had received from him. On the other hand, he was not a malevolent testator.

  Vamplew would go further. Madigan seemed an exceptionally truthful man who did not indulge in too much self-deception. He had thought about how to dispose of his wealth. His instructions were designed to frame his will so as to allow the least room possible for dishonest emotions to play their part. At the same time, he did not wish to slam the door on random chance - on the same slender crack of luck, as it were, that may perhaps have formed the basis of his own fortune. Vamplew stressed that Madigan never said as much; this was his interpretation. And it led him to speculate whether some painful experience or disappointment had occurred in Madigan's life to make him disbelieve all subsequent protestations of affection, loyalty or love. Vamplew was even more convinced of this when he read Madigan's preamble. His desire for solitude seemed to be that of a man of maimed integrity who had suffered an extraordinary hurt. He was tired of people being interested in him for his money alone, and was exacting his revenge by giving away his fortune to anyone who took the trouble to attend his funeral.

  'He probably anticipated that his daughter would not do so, while at the same time secretly hoping that she might. When she turned up, late, and I refused to let her sign the register, I considered that I was interpreting his wishes.'

  'Did you know she was his daughter?'

  'She never said so at the time. My suspicion was confirmed when she telephoned the next morning to enquire if she was a beneficiary. I told her that she was not. She then ranted at me. I told her she should take separate advice. On Thursday I received a request from Bennett & Blaxworth, acting on her behalf.'

  'What did they want?'

  'They were writing as a matter of procedure for me to courier over a copy of Mr Madigan's will. I sent them a copy of the relevant provisions. But only after I had divulged their contents to the beneficiaries - the reason I invited you to my office.'

  'So that's why she came round to my flat . . .'

  Vamplew glanced at Andy. 'If she learned you stood to inherit his estate all due to an accident, it might stimulate her to litigate. You should avoid that if possible.'

  'But I did tell her that I knew her father.'

  To this, Vamplew said nothing for a moment.

  'From a legal point of view you had no need to say anything. I told you before, the money is yours.'

  What had prompted Andy to say that he knew her father - to come leaping to his defence, with all his flaws? What old tic?

  'Maybe I was thinking of my own father.'

  Vamplew nodded. As though in watching Andy he had guessed a few things about him. 'Well, let's wait and see what she does with that information.'

  'But could his daughter challenge the will?' Ever since Jeanine had said who she was, this was what Andy had feared.

  'It rather depends.'

  'On what?'

  Vamplew sat back, his hands laced together and his thumbs chasing each other like gerbils around a wheel, considering.

  He still liked to regard the law as an eighteenth-century siege operation, he said: you sap a bit, open a battery up, and summon the opposition to surrender. In other words, go through the correct motions in a civilised way. But then you had twenty-first-century lawyers whose priority was to massacre you and build up the costs, who would exacerbate any situation and string it out so that a fat portion of the estate ended up not in your pocket but in theirs.

  'From what I know of Mr Madigan's former solicitors, they are ballsy cost-wasters. They would be pretty raw to have been left out of this juicy probate.'

  If her lawyers wanted to irritate, they might freeze everything by slapping a caveat on the will before it came to probate - if they thought something was dodgy or undue influence was exercised or the testator was mad.

  'Once probate is granted, they'll have to go for any subsequent claim on the basis of reasonable provision. She is, after all, his only living relative. And because she's his daughter, the court will give her a right to be heard.'

  'And then?'

  Vamplew's fingers stopped circling, and started rotating backwards. And then he could see it being argued that she was entitled to her father's estate. If she was grown up and self-supporting, the courts used not to care so much. But looking at more recent cases, Vamplew could not guarantee what position a judge would take.

  'She'd probably get something. And if she hires a sharp QC in the Chancery court who can lead the judge from soup to nuts she may get rather a lot, although this could depend on what the judge had for breakfast.'

  'But she is getting something. She's getting her trust fund.'

  'Oh, she'll get something. The more interesting question for you to consider is whether, as sole descendant, she decides to claim the rest of the estate.'

  'What happens if she does challenge the will?'

  'You must understand, Mr Larkham, that as the executor I'm not fussed - I don't care how the estate is distributed because I get paid. The golden rule for executors is that they must remain impartial in any dispute between beneficiaries. For as long as the dispute rumbles on, the estate is likely to pay everyone's costs.'

  'Then what would you advise me to do?'

  The half-smile left Vamplew's face. His neutral eyes looked at Andy through the bottom half of his glasses. 'I can't personally advise you, although it strikes me the less suspicion you arouse in Mr Madigan's daughter the better. She ought never to suspect that you were at her father's funeral by accident.'

  12

  T HE AIR SMELLED OF hops and the road pointed straight and empty before them. He remembered chevrons of geese and rhubarb clumps and ziggurats of baled straw. Once he saw a bald eagle perched on a fallen aspen. The flatness was confounding, with no variation for the mind to dip into. It was like a child's steady gaze.

  They had crossed the provincial border and were driving east into Saskatchewan when his father gripped the steering wheel and said: 'I've had a marvellous life, I don't regret a moment of it.'

  George Larkham was not a demonstrative or confessional man. Simply a romantic one. His obituary in the Blackmore Vale would say of him:

  'When he left school he went to RAF Chilmark with a letter from the Prime Minister extolling him as an astronaut, with Winston Churchill spelled Winstin Cherchill.'

  About his life, he
rarely talked. Once, Andy overheard his sister question him about his brief first marriage, to a woman called Avril. He had looked glumly away.

  'The past is a door you don't want to bang open, love, not unless you've got a meat-cleaver in each hand.'

  He had the secrecy of a cat who crept away from trouble and yet caused a lot of it.

  'Your father - he was a character,' Andy's mother would say, and give a short laugh and start looking around for her secateurs.

  Andy tried not to think about him. He left too much smell of burnt hair. But then, springing out of nowhere, a memory would catch him at the back of the throat.

  Much as he concealed it from himself, he missed his father terribly. For several years after his death, Andy unconsciously played out the possibility that his father was watching. Reading his name in the paper. Impressed by something he had done. He had wanted to live for him, this man he remembered as tender, impassioned, overwhelmingly positive.

  His mother and sister had protected Andy from the truth. He was a pilot and therefore unfaithful.

  There had been plenty of women, apparently, but this Canadian one had unbalanced him.

  'What did she have?'

  'Youth,' rasped his mother, who had gone white when he was seven. 'And flying.' She had suddenly lost patience with Andy's fantasy.

  His mother had been the more forthright parent. She could not stand life as a service wife, just hated it. Her feelings got to be so bad that when Andy was six his father resigned from the RAF and found work as a civilian helicopter pilot. Among his incarnations, he was a heli-logger and firefighter. His job took him away for long periods.

  When Andy turned ten, it took him to Newfoundland, where it was arranged for Andy to join his father over the summer holidays. A place called Grand Falls.

  'How was the flight?' as they drove from Gander Airport.

  'Not so bad,' Andy said, admiring the spacious back seat.

  He had been nervous about flying on his own to Canada. Down a crackling line, his father had made every effort to calm him. All the pilots had to do was to take off, punch in the IFR flight plan, and even if both pilots fainted the plane would still land and taxi to the end of the runway and turn itself off. 'If both pilots drop dead, you'll probably have a better flight than if they were alive.'