“Who in god’s name are you?”
“My name is Juanita, and I am Ernest’s guide. Now do as I ask and go to the mirror.”
William walked to the mirror in the hall, not hurrying, unsure why he was doing what the voice in his head said. Ok, he thought I’m here, I’m looking in the mirror and all I can see is my reflection.
“Ready William?” said Juanita.
“Ernest I think it will help William believe if you show yourself.”
For a moment nothing happened, William’s reflection stared back at him as it always did. Feature by feature, the face he was looking at in the mirror began to change. His hair colour changed from grey to light brown with grey at the temples. His nose became slimmer and aquiline, his face lost its fleshiness to take on a more haughty bearing and his Adams apple became more prominent.
“William, may I introduce Ernest, your father.”
“Hello William. This is how I looked when I died, how I would have looked if we had had the opportunity to meet. I really do need your help. I’m sure looking in the mirror and not seeing your own face is unsettling but we needed you to believe. You’re not hallucinating, not losing your mind. You are seeing something that very few people see. You should feel proud that you have been chosen.”
William continued to stare at the face of his father reflecting back from the mirror. He spoke to no one in particular, saying,
“This isn’t a dream is it? This is real. I don’t understand but I do now believe it, you are real.”
The voice of the guide Juanita broke in and said
“Good. Now you have realised that this isn’t an elaborate practical joke, we can continue. As Ernest was explaining, limbo is where you go if you have unfinished business. Unfinished business occurs if you die before we are expecting you to die, before your death date. That happens for one of two reasons: one, random chance, hit by a car, bus, etc., impossible to predict, and two, murder.”
“Ernest? Which one was he? The former or the latter?”
Juanita hardened her voice,
“Does it matter? It isn’t relevant, what you need to know is that he needs your help. Unfinished business cannot be left unfinished. As I have already explained to Ernest, eternity is a long time to be stuck in limbo.”
Ernest continued without a pause between Juanita finishing talking and his first word.
“I was murdered. In a way that left no trace. Murdered. That is part of what I have to deal with before I can get out of here. I’m a spirit, a ghost, which is why I need someone on earth; a living, sentient human being, to act on my behalf. That person has to have a connection with me. Our connection is at best tenuous; we haven’t seen each other for many years, you know nothing about me and I doubt very much if you are even interested in helping. The bequest of money and the bookshop would have been yours anyway. Now I need your help. I have no choice, there was, is, no one else I could trust. There you have it. Will you help me?”
William turned away from the mirror, no longer able to look at a reflection that wasn’t his own and went to the kitchen to put on the kettle. Looking at Wooster, he said,
“I think after the night we’re having an extra cup of sweet strong Colombian wouldn’t hurt, do you?”
He prepared the coffee and took the small cafetière, mug, milk and sugar through to the sitting room. Pouring himself some coffee, he sat down on the sofa; put his feet up to get comfortable and then answered Ernest’s question with a question of his own.
“What about Ben? He is a member of your family, someone you could trust. He seems the perfect choice.”
“I did think about Ben but only for a moment. I wouldn’t get the help that I need and I think that it would be cruel to Ben and could leave him psychologically damaged.”
Showing her fiery Spanish blood and her increasing impatience with Ernest’s inability to get Williams agreement and close the deal, she intervened,
“William, are you assisting your father or not?”
“Yes.”
“Ernest, what do you want William to do?”
“Read the files on the flash drive at the bookshop,” he said, answering Juanita’s question. Then addressing William, he continued,
“If you can read the files and notes that are in the safe and in a safe deposit box at the bank by this time the day after tomorrow you can give me your assessment and we can then decide what needs to be done first. If you need me before then, call and I will be there. Goodbye and thank you William."
Chapter 12
“Felicity speaking.” Jemima imitated her sister Felicity when she said,
“Jemima speaking.” Reverting back to her normal voice she continued,
“What do you want? I’m not, as you seem to imagine, poised at the other end of a phone waiting for you to call.”
Felicity winced; a more subtle approach was going to be called for.
“Jemima, I’m sorry for leaving such an unimaginative message. I’ve been under terrible pressure, can you forgive me?” Without waiting for a response, she continued.
“Do you remember the little job I arranged for daddy a couple of months or so ago? The apparent heart attack? It seems we still might have a little problem and I was hoping you could help.”
“You can’t keep killing. Whoever your mystery fixer is you might need to send them on a long holiday. Haven’t you something other than venom in that odious, skinny body of yours? Use some of the cunning you are so proud to have inherited from our departed grandfather.”
“No, much less complicated. I need to know how much information Ernest Sanderson left as part of a bequest he made to William Bacchus and whether the aforementioned Mr Bacchus is bright enough to draw any conclusions for himself. William is now in Sherborne, Dorset where he has inherited a bookshop and a cripple. Be a dear, pop down and see what you can see. Ciao.” Terminating the call before her sister could think of any cutting response, Felicity smiled with pleasure. Jemima was so easy to tease. Irrespective of the subject or how many times she had taunted her with it before, Jemima would always oblige. She knew that one day she would go too far, but until then, well a girl had to have some fun. She’d have a trinket awaiting Jemima’s arrival at the Eastbury Hotel, Jemima loved a bauble, as long it was a tasteful and expensive bauble. Education will out.
***
“Hello Ben.” William said. He had spent much of his walk into town reflecting on the best approach to use with Ben. He remembered the advice he had received from Monty Taylor when he first started his training. He wasn’t sure how to deal with what was, he later realised, a straightforward parish problem. Monty had said that some people liked their vicars to be knowledgeable and have all the answers. Those where the unreasonable, unrealistic minority. Most of a vicar’s parishioners wanted advice they could understand. Monty advised him to remember the acronym K.I.S.S.-Keep It Simple Stupid.
This time his approach had to be flawless. It was important to him to gain his half brother’s trust. He wasn’t sure why, an obligation to his newly acquired father? It didn’t matter. What was important was that he struck the correct note and their fragile relationship was given the time it needed to flourish.
Ben looked at him, remembering their first meeting the day before and felt uncomfortable. He spoke quickly, all of the words cascading into each other.
“Sorry about yesterday. Do I still have a job? I’ve not had a brother before. We need to get to know each other.” Pausing to catch his breath, Ben went across to the counter and made two cappuccinos for himself and William and a bowl of tea for Wooster. He also grabbed a teacake, which he offered to Wooster. Wooster swallowed it in two large bites and then licked his hand to say thank you.
“He likes you.” William said, “Most people wouldn’t have got the lick. Thanks for the coffee. Can we start again? I didn’t explain anything very well yesterday and, without meaning to, upset you. I’d like to get to know you too. Also, I’m going to need your help.” Ben flared up, interru
pting William and snapped at him,
“Don’t patronise me. I’m not stupid. I have a crippled leg, that doesn’t mean I’ve had a frontal lobotomy and can’t see when people are trying to be sweet and nice to the poor cripple...” William interrupted, anxious to complete his sentence and clarify what he had meant for Ben.
“Ben I’m a vicar, I’ve never run anything. I might now own the shop but you’re still in charge. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea of where to begin. I haven’t come to take this away from you. I’d like to work with you, to learn what to do, for you to teach me, that’s all.”
Ben sat for a moment staring at his coffee.
“I do that a lot. Mum and dad were always telling me to be a bit less defensive, not to assume everyone wanted to take the piss out of me or take advantage. I must try harder for them.” Smiling Ben said,
“Would you like to view your empire?”
They walked around the shop. The upper floor mirrored the main sales area downstairs but without the coffee counter. The store rooms, toilet and office where on the first floor behind what appeared to be a wall of bookshelves. However, slotted into the centre of this bank of shelving was a doorway, which was overlaid with false book spines to give the appearance of a continuous wall of books. The stores and office covered one-third of the upper floor, the majority assigned to the stock room. The office was small, very small, consisting of a tatty antique desk, leather captain’s chair, filing cabinet and three shelves covered in stacked box files. That was it. No safe.
William turned his bulk with care in the confined space and said to Ben,
“Is that everything?”
Looking puzzled, Ben replied,
“What else were you looking for; it’s a bookshop come coffee shop, not a department store.”
“In his letter to me Ernest said that he had left a package in a safe for me. I haven’t seen a safe.”
“We don’t have one. I cash up at the end of each day and put the takings into the night safe at the bank.” He indicated a building on the opposite corner.
“If we need change we just walk the ten yards across to the bank and collect it as we need it.”
A voice penetrated the office from the shop beyond the wall,
“Ben can you come down, delivery.”
“Ok, Debbie I’m on my way.” To William he said,
“It’s all yours, look around, whatever you want. If you have any questions come and find me. I’ll tell the staff what’s happening. Coffee later?”
Once Ben had left to deal with the delivery, William surveyed the small stock room and office. Starting in the storeroom in wandered up and down the metal racking that held books on every subject imaginable. The popular titles side by side with esoteric fiction and obscure non-fiction volumes. Audio books on CD’s, nestled in the corner of the stock room alongside e-readers and next to them; stationery for the shop, brochures, till rolls and other miscellanies. Nothing else; no doors into cupboards or doors into hidden rooms.
William sidled past boxes of books that had yet to make it onto the shelves and went into the office. He stood at the door and looked around the room. There was a desk and chair, shelving for files and catalogues and a digital radio set to Classic FM. He examined the desk, searching inside the drawers that formed two plinths for the top of the desk to sit on. No false fronts hiding miniature safes, just drawers.
He leaned back in the captain’s chair stroking Wooster’s head and stared at the untidy shelving in the corner of the office. Something caught his eye, nothing he could put a finger on. Then he saw it. Who had drawn on the wall? Intrigued, he went across to have a closer look. The line extended from the floor to a height of about five feet. This was mirrored at the other end of the shelving. The shelving had been extended beyond the lines on either side in an effort to disguise them. William removed the files from the top shelf and was rewarded by another line connecting the two upright lines. A door? Moving the remainder of the files to one side, he saw that there was a recessed handle folded flat to the woodwork and a keyhole.
He took the key that Ernest had left him and tried to fit it into the hole, but it was too big. Had he hidden the key or was he carrying it with him when he died? Fighting a sense of rising panic, he thought for a moment and then began to search the desk. The drawers were all empty apart from a wide, shallow one that ran along the middle of the desktop. This contained a few pens and a stapler and an out of date flyer advertising the Sherborne Literary Festival, two thousand and ten. He looked under the desk, around the back of the desk, on the sides of the desk. Nothing.
“If you tell someone to look in a safe Wooster, it would help if you told them how to find the safe and where they had hidden the key for the secret door.”
Handel’s Messiah came flooding into the room from William’s jacket pocket. He took his ancient mobile phone out and answered it.
“Hello, William Bacchus.”
“William, it’s Annabel. Just wanted to see how it was going with Ben, can you talk?”
“Fine thanks, we seem to have overcome our earlier difficulties.” William was about to continue the obligatory pleasantries when he remembered a conversation he had had with Annabel the previous evening. They had been discussing families and William’s newly acquired sibling. As an only child he was out of his depth on behaviour etiquette with a younger unpredictable brother. Annabel had told him about her own sister and the complicated relationship they had endured until puberty had been dealt with. They had evolved from two warring amalgamations of adolescent hormones to best friends in a matter of two months.
“Annabel, let me ask you a question. If you wanted to hide a key on or in a desk, where would you put it?”
There was a slight pause, with only the regular sound of breathing coming from the telephone, while Annabel considered the question.
“When I wanted to hide my diary key from my sister, I taped it to the bottom of one of the drawers. Any good?”
“You might be a lifesaver; I’ll let you know later. Coffee, this afternoon, here?”
“It’ll have to be late; four thirtyish, see you then.”
Removing the drawers one by one from the desk, he found the key taped to the third drawer he tried. William put the office back the way he had found it, adjusting the box file positions on the shelf so that he could put the key into the keyhole and so he could reach the door handle. He slid the key into the lock it fitted. He turned it clockwise until he heard an opening click. Without the need for the recessed handle, the door swung open three or four inches; wide enough to slip his hand in and ease it open. Expecting to go into a room, William was surprised that the door led to a set of stairs up into the attic of the building.
William peered up the stairs into the gloom, seeing nothing other than a discoloured ceiling due to the acute angle of the stairs. He pulled the door closed behind him sliding a small bolt across to hold it in place and ascended the stairs to the room above. At the top of the stairs he flicked a light switch that bathed the room in a warm yellow glow. He entered a dusty replica of the office below, though a little larger. It contained the same style of desk, captain’s chair and filing cabinets and in the corner next to the desk was a large solid ornate safe. Opposite the top of the staircase was a small dormer window with a padded window seat that looked out along Long Street.
William looked at the safe, intrigued by what might be in there. Taking the key from his pocket, he slid it into the safe’s lock and turned it clockwise until he heard the tumblers releasing. Grasping the large brass handle, he twisted and the bolts slid back into the door and let him pull open the safe door. The safe contained a letter address to him and a computer memory stick, nothing else.
Sitting down at the desk, he opened the envelope. Inside was a banker’s draft payable to him for one hundred thousand pounds and a handwritten note. Setting the banker’s draft to one side, he spread the letter out on the desk and began reading.
‘Dear William,
1123581321 (one, one, two, three, five, eight, thirteen and twenty one) if you have any mathematical knowledge you should recognise it!
The draft is the first annual payment. Use it to open an account at the bank. On each anniversary of the date of the account opening, a further one hundred thousand pounds will be deposited. You know all the details from your meeting with Thrasher. There is a new Apple laptop computer in the bottom right hand drawer of this desk along with a rucksack to transport it in. I hope you are au fait with computer technology.
Bon chance.’
The letter was unsigned.
William opened the bottom right hand drawer and removed a new Apple MacBook Pro laptop and a padded laptop messenger bag. He turned the computer on, slid the memory stick into one of the USB drives and waited for it to upload the file list onto the screen. William counted twenty-five separate Pages documents, more Numbers files and a large number of .jpeg files that he assumed would be photographs of some description. Clicking on the first Pages document at the top of the list, he muttered to himself,
“This might take a while.” when he saw it was one hundred and fifty pages long.
Chapter 13
Thrasher stared at the screen of his computer, seeing nothing. He had decisions that needed deciding, plans to plan and thoughts that needed thinking. He wasn’t managing to achieve any of those. All he could think about was William Bacchus. He didn’t care how Bacchus was related to Ernest Sanderson or even if he was. Did it matter? To him no, to Felicity Cortez, it did. If Mr Bacchus could have an impact on her lifestyle, freedom or power he was a threat that needed to be considered. His possible connection to Ernest Sanderson and Thrasher’s loathing of Felicity were the only things keeping him alive. Thrasher had to discover the connection, if there was one, or invent one if there wasn’t. He needed Bacchus alive. For the moment. The intercom on his desk gave a low beep and then another. Startled away from his thoughts he slammed his hand onto it and said,
Bacchus and Sanderson (Deceased) Page 10
