“I saw his ticket when he removed it from his coat pocket to find a handkerchief.”
“What was in the package?”
“I’ve no idea. He left with it intact. I offered him my services and help if he required them. He chose not to take me up on my offer. He left after he had shredded a letter he had received as part of the bequest. I wasn’t happy. Shredding what was a legal ...”
“Shut up.” her voice combined glacial frostiness and fury. She spat the words down the telephone line at a nervous Thrasher; his tic began a slow twitch.
“He shredded a letter from Ernest Sanderson, a letter you had not seen, in your office shredder and you let him?” Felicity shrieked the final three words at Gerald Thrasher causing him to hold the phone away from his ear. Assuming that the question had been rhetorical Thrasher remained silent listening to the heavy breathing at the other end of the telephone, waiting for the next outpouring of rage. He had known that his admission of failure would have infuriated her. The smallest thing could cause her to erupt. Finally Felicity spoke having regained a semblance of calm.
“I am going to Waterloo station. I will find Bacchus, talk to him, bribe him, or seduce him. If necessary, I will bludgeon him to death but I will see the contents of that package. I need to know what Sanderson put into that package, what he knew. You are fired. You are incompetent, untrustworthy and stupid. Clear your desk.” She paused for a moment; all he could hear was her ragged breathing echoing down the mobile connection.
“No. I need to know what was in that letter, why he had to destroy it before he had even left your office. If you want to keep your job, exorbitant salary, perks, and regain my goodwill; piece it together. Put that letter into a form that can be read. I hope you enjoy puzzles. Call me in the morning with good news.”
Gerald Thrasher sat staring at the reproduction of ‘The Hay Wain’ by Constable above the fireplace and listening to the dial tone of a finished phone call. Putting the phone onto its stand, he slumped back into his chair staring at the ceiling. Taking a deep breath, he pressed the intercom to his assistant Siobhan.
“Siobhan. I hope we have a lot of fucking cello tape.”
Chapter 7
William sat on the ornate chaise lounge in the guest room in the South Canonry, which had been the Bishop of Salisbury’s residence since 1947. It had been decided that the Bishops Palace was too large to use as a family home and had been given over to the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral School. He had spent many days and nights here over the years enjoying the splendour of the house and the generosity of his hosts; attending meetings with Freddie, his bishop, invited to formal events, family events and small family dinners. Here he had been groomed for his bishopric, as Freddie’s successor, Bishop of Salisbury.
William picked up the large padded manila envelope he had been carrying since leaving Thrashers office earlier that afternoon and sat staring at it wondering what he should do. His commitment to Ernest Sanderson was at this moment minimal. Opening the envelope, acknowledging the responsibility, would set him on a path that passed control of his life to a dead man he had never met.
The train Journey from Waterloo to Salisbury had given him time to consider Ernest Sanderson’s bequest. What did a wealthy businessman need an unassuming middle aged vicar for? William’s range of skills where essentially cerebral and, since his heart attack, exclusively so. If Ernest needed an Indiana Jones style adventuring vicar, his requirements would be delayed for some months until recuperation, diet and exercise had reshaped his generous figure.
Using a letter opener he had taken from the bureau, he slit the wax seal and tipped the contents onto the coffee table. The envelope contained a set of deeds for the book shop in Sherborne, a key with an ornate, monogrammed top and an expensive handmade paper envelope. William opened the envelope with the letter opener and removed five sheets of double spaced typing on expensive handmade paper. Smoothing the sheets of paper, he began to read.
‘Dear William,
If you are reading this letter then I am dead and you have already met with Gerald Thrasher. I hope you trusted my advice and have severed any connection with him. I will offer substantive evidence of his duplicity later in another letter I have written to you and in the documents that I have amassed to assist you.
However, first things first. I am certain you are both confused and if you are at all like me, a little annoyed at my presumptuousness. I apologise, but as you will see over time, I had little choice. I am sure you are wondering why you are the beneficiary to my estate and what the tasks are that you have been set. Let me deal with them one at a time.
Why are you my beneficiary? There is no gentle or easy way of saying this to you, so I will just say it. You are my son...’
William dropped the pages onto the table and stared into space. Ridiculous. His father had been Gary Mulholland, an itinerant welder who struggled with domesticity and responsibility. He had left before William had a chance to remember anything about him, before he had made an impression, good or bad, but he was still his father. He and his mother had reverted to her maiden name; Bacchus and that was the name that was on his birth certificate. His mother had said his father hadn’t been with them long enough to give him a feed or change a nappy.
If this letter were true, his mother was a liar. He picked up the letter and started to screw it into a ball. His mother wasn’t a liar, not on this scale, not on any scale. Something stopped him. He needed to read more of the letter to see if there was any substance to this man’s claim. He wasn’t sure what it was or why he stopped short of tossing the letter onto the fire, but he smoothed the pages flat again and put them back onto the coffee table.
Distracted; he paced around the room, thinking about his mother and everything she had ever said about his father. He realised, with regret, that it amounted to next to nothing. His father had been a welder who survived on the periphery, finding work where he could. They had met at a dance and he had swept her off her feet and within weeks they had been married. He had been born a couple of years later and then his father had left. Not a glowing portrait of the man he had known as his father, even if he had never met the man.
Sighing, he picked up the letter and resumed reading, wondering if there would be anything he would recognise that would substantiate what Ernest Sanderson had written.
‘I’m sure that reading that short sentence was shocking and unbelievable. It is, however, true. I met your mother when she worked as a secretary at a set of barristers chambers I used in London. She was married to your father, miserable and married, but still married, though when I met your mother they were living apart. Your mother and I fell in love. We saw each other for a number of months and had started to talk about a life together. Then Angela, your mother, disappeared. She left her job, her home and disappeared completely. I searched for her, asked questions at her work and at her home address. Nothing. I employed a private detective, who searched countrywide, advertising in local newspapers for information. Nothing. After searching for months, I had to accept that Angela didn’t want to be found. Two years later, I received a call from the private detective; I had kept him on retainer to keep trying to find her. He had found Angela living in a small village in called Batcombe, in Dorset without her husband but with a small child.
In the meantime, I had married Jess, an old family friend and we were very happy with each other. I was in love with her; I had found my soul mate.
When I received a call from the private detective, I contacted your mother. Her husband, the man you had thought was your father, had left you both when you were three months old, telling your mother he didn’t want the responsibility. He sent a little money for the first couple of months, but this had petered out to nothing.
I turned up on Angela’s doorstep without warning soon after she had moved to Dorset and I learned why she had disappeared. Your father had persuaded her to take him back, telling your mother they could move away and have another try at life toget
her. Your mother, guilty because of our friendship when she was still married, agreed. Not long after this your mother discovered she was pregnant and, knowing that the baby must be mine and not her husband’s, she panicked. You have to understand that even though we were in the permissive sixties, not everything was viewed as permissible. So when her husband found a job in Manchester, she moved with him. She convinced her husband that the child, you, was his and the plan he had conceived, that they would have a fresh start, she embraced with an enthusiasm she wasn’t feeling. Their fresh start lasted three months and that’s when he left.
We talked for hours and hours about what we should do and how we should do it. I decided that I had to tell Jess about both you and your mother. She had a right to know even though you had been conceived before Jess and I had begun our relationship. I explained to her that I had a financial obligation to you and Angela and that I still had an emotional attachment to you. Jess was always a pragmatist and was aware that I would need to be as involved as I could be with your life. We reached a compromise that suited everyone. I could spend time with you and your mother and enjoy a type of family life with you.
The only stipulation that Angela had was that you were to be brought up as your father’s son and not mine. Once you got to an age where you would form lasting memories, I was to fade into the background and see you and your mother from a distance, whenever it was possible.
This situation continued until you were about five when your mother could no longer cope with such a fragmented relationship. She said she wanted to be alone, just her and her son. I continued to provide financial support for you both and returned to my life with Jess. I kept a discreet eye on your progress and was always proud of your hard work and intelligence.
When your mother died a few days before your examinations, I almost contacted you. I didn’t, as Jess felt that you had enough to cope with. I think she was right. Jess died the following year leaving a large hole in my life. Again, I contemplated contacting you but the time wasn’t right, so I busied myself as best I could with work and projects. More of my projects later. Not having had the opportunity to get to know you is something I regret very much. I hope that through the tasks I am asking you to help me with, we can become spiritually closer.
I have left you a more technical letter in a safe in the bookshop in Sherborne; the ornate key will open the safe. This addresses the difficulties of adjudication and my criteria for success. I have left a flash drive with the fruits of all of my research on it. It contains, images of documents, spreadsheets and hundreds of indexed source documents.
Thank you for agreeing to help me, albeit without realising what you were letting yourself in for.
Kind regards
Ernest
P.S I would be obliged if you would keep an eye on Ben.’
William sat motionless, tears running down his cheeks and dripping off the end of his chin. He didn’t know how he should feel. Discovering his biological father in such a bizarre manner, he found he could accept with equanimity. The idea of having Ernest as a father was strange, but vaguely comforting. Never having had a father figure to refer to during his formative years had left him with some odd feminine and idiosyncratic mannerisms. He had discovered that some of his friends perceived them as affectations, a way for him to show off; be the centre of attention. At the time, this had hurt him more than he had shown and had left him with a determination not to allow other people to influence him in any way.
Wiping his eyes with the back of his hand, he turned his attention to the deeds that had been in the same envelope. A bookshop in Sherborne? He knew Sherborne quite well, both as an enthusiast of ecclesiastical architecture and of medieval history. He could only think of one decent bookshop and he couldn’t remember if that was still there.
“Didn’t it become a dress shop? Or was that on the other side of the road next to the pub?”
***
Juanita looked at Ernest with a mixture of surprise and respect.
“Your son? How can you not know your own son? It’s not possible.”
Ernest smiled. How do you explain to a girl from medieval, Catholic Spain, that people have affairs, make love and have babies, even if they’re not married? What do you say to explain the circumstances that stopped you seeing your son for all of his life? How can anyone describe the sorrow at not only missing watching your child grow and develop but dying before you could explain?
“It’s a long story. One day when we have the time, I’ll bore you with it. So, to business. In theory, we’ve filled the connection requirement, as William is my son. What happens next?”
Juanita paused before answering, thinking how to phrase what she was going to describe next.
“Next, we need to contact William. You have to begin resolving the problems that you left behind. William is your conduit to mortality, your facilitator. What happens next is that we need to contact William and in contacting him walk a very fine line so that we don’t scare him half to death. However, we do have to get across to him that he is obliged to help you.”
Looking sceptical, Ernest struggled to contain his exasperation.
“Obliged to help me? What do you mean, ‘obliged to help you?’ I’m not really in a position to obligate him to do anything. If he doesn’t understand whatever it is that I am trying to explain or he does understand, but he isn’t interested, what exactly can I do from here? If this is the best you can think of; we’ve got a problem.”
Juanita frowned. She had known that this moment would arrive, it always did. After hundreds of years of doing this job, she should know better. How many times had she spent months getting a case back on track?
Juanita looked at Ernest and smiled in what she hoped was an encouraging way, while wiping her hands on her tunic.
“When I say, ‘has to help,’ that is exactly what I mean. Now you have nominated them as your earthly representative they are committed until our tasks are completed and you move on. To be blunt, they do not have a choice. If unfinished business remained unfinished the mortal world as we call earth, would be a mess. God isn’t all seeing. She can’t possibly know what every single person is doing every second of every day. The woman is busy, keeping track of every crime, misdemeanour and act of unkindness involving nearly seven billion people give or take a couple of hundred million, would not be possible. On top of monitoring such a massive number of people, we have approximately fifty-six million deaths a year to allocate, process and send either up, down or in here. With this level of activity, keeping track of what was happening on earth was an administrative nightmare and was getting worse all of the time. So, it was decided that the deceased would have their souls examined upon arrival, as this was a more manageable number, and outstanding issues could be identified and dealt with from limbo. To ensure that this process wasn’t fudged in any way, guides were given the power to compel assistance from your nominated helpers. By compel I mean exactly that. I have the power to make William do as we need him to do. If he cooperates after he recovers from his initial shock, most people do, then great. If not then I will persuade him to cooperate. I have never yet failed. If we need to force him to help you, his father, then he is not the man you imagined and would be of little use to us. Let us hope your faith in him isn’t misplaced”
Juanita had ensured her voice was level, calm and quiet when she had spoken the last sentence. This had given her words added emphasis.
Now she had finished and silence had descended on the room Ernest had a moment to think about the implications of what she had said. With a depth of clarity he hadn’t experienced since before Jess’ death, Ernest realised that William had no choice, that at this moment, he couldn’t protect him and if he could have chosen again knowing what he knew now, he would still have chosen William.
Chapter 8
William left the bishops house and turned left onto West Walk, to take his habitual constitutional. Every time he came to see Freddie here in Salisbury he realised he
followed the same route always ending at the same place; the cathedral. The route he followed allowed him to enjoy some of the finest architecture in southwest England and was long enough to stretch his legs, while short enough not to be too exacting. That had always been his rationale for repeating the walk so many times. Now, when he needed more, rather than less exercise, he would have to complete two circuits before he allowed himself the pleasure of listening to choral evensong before dinner.
William ran over the contents of the letter in his head. Some of the events Ernest had described in detail, William could recollect. His life had always been with his mother. Irrespective of her faults, even a generous spirit would admit there had been many, she had given him an honest and loving upbringing. They had never wanted for anything, a fact he hadn’t considered until he was at college and old enough to understand that money didn’t grow on trees. He assumed that her job was well paid and that his father’s money covered their living expenses.
When his mother had been on her deathbed he remembered her saying that all she had left him were some photographs and books, although he didn’t need to worry as his father would make sure he was well provided for and they had set up a small trust fund to see him through university. He had always presumed that she was describing the man he had been led to believe was his father, his dad, not a stranger.
William walked on. William’s sixth sense had kept him out of trouble many times. He became aware from his early teenage years that he had the ability to notice people and events that either weren’t yet there or hadn’t yet happened. This accomplishment also made him aware of his surroundings and the people in those surroundings.
As he started on his second circuit, he felt the presence of another person following him. He stooped to tie the shoelace on his brogues and looked back in the direction he had just come. As he glanced over his shoulder, he caught sight of an elegant, well-dressed woman coming to an abrupt halt fifty yards behind him.
Bacchus and Sanderson (Deceased) Page 6
