The Inheritance

by Michael Phillips

  Rumors did not merely circulate around Lamont himself. His house, too, came in for its share of speculation. Tradition had it that a tunnel ran from its cellars westward to the sea cliffs of the inlet situated halfway between the harbor and the ferry landing. This smuggler’s tunnel was reportedly used to bring in a great variety of illegal goods from continental Europe between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. That Lamont was a history buff gave credibility to the notion that, if such a tunnel did exist, he would surely know of it.* After four years Lamont remained an enigma.

  David walked inside and glanced about, but he did not see Lamont. By the time the shop’s owner appeared, David was engrossed in perusing some enticing book spines in one of several alcoves.

  “Ah, Mr. Tulloch,” said Lamont, “I wondered who might be paying me a visit.”

  “The lure of books is always a temptation,” said David with a smile. “Not that I don’t already have more than I will read in ten lifetimes! How goes the business?”

  “I continue to be surprised how much I sell over a year,” replied Lamont. “As long as I keep my computer listings current, the orders come in.”

  “Do you have any buying trips planned?” asked David.

  “I’m going to Edinburgh in a couple of weeks for a book fair. Afterward I will spend several days browsing through its wealth of used books in the many shops there.”

  “A delightful prospect!” David enthused.

  “There are few things I enjoy more,” rejoined Lamont.

  “What are your personal interests, Armond?”

  “Mostly first editions of your beloved Scots authors—Scott, Burns, Barrie, MacDonald, Maclaren. Anything whose content matches the antiquarian value is for me the rarest of finds—unusual in my business. Mostly people are looking at the edition and the condition, the boards and artwork—the book’s externals. But when the content provides food for the soul as well, that is indeed what a book should be about.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.”

  “Though I deal in books to make a living, what gives me the greatest pleasure is to sit down myself in the evening and read the words of an author I admire. If it happens to be an exquisite edition and binding as well, then is the entire essence of book-ness brought into harmony. The body and soul of the book are one. To be able to enjoy both simultaneously is a joy indeed.”

  “A poetic image. I shall remember that next time I select a volume from my shelves and sit down in front of the fire.”

  By the time David completed his amble through the village, concluding with a stop at the inn and walk down to the harbor, then finally back to the Auld Hoose, he had resolved the question that had brought him outside three hours earlier.

  He walked straight to the telephone and soon had Jason MacNaughton on the line in Lerwick.

  “Hello, Jason,” he said. “With the disposition of my uncle’s estate still undecided, I think the time has come for more definite action on my part. I need to speak with your father as you and I discussed earlier. I know he is in England, but I need to know more of what’s going on.”

  “My father will be happy to see you,” MacNaughton assured. “We remain hopeful that probate will be resolved soon. But pending that, I will telephone him directly. How soon do you plan to go?”

  “I would like to fly to London as soon as possible—tomorrow if I can arrange it and if your father can see me on such short notice.”

  “I will organize a meeting for the day after tomorrow, or the day after that.”

  *Exactly such a smuggler’s tunnel was said to exist between the harbor of Symbister on the island of Whalsay in the Shetlands, stretching to the cellars of the laird’s house or the Auld Haa.

  45

  Stunning Revelation

  LONDON

  That same afternoon, preparatory to his trip to London, David held a private conference at the Mill in the office of his cousin. David told him of his intended trip to visit the head of the solicitor’s firm handling his uncle’s estate.

  “I am relieved to hear it,” said Murdoc. “I was about to come talk to you myself.”

  “Has there been a change?” asked David.

  “Only that the cushion in the Mill’s account is nearly gone. I will be able to make only one more payroll.”

  “What!” exclaimed David. “Murdoc, why didn’t you tell me it had become so serious?”

  “I kept waiting, thinking everything would be settled.”

  David rose in agitation and paced the small room, thinking hard. “One more payroll,” he said as if speaking to himself. He turned. “And then what?”

  “I don’t know, David. That’s why I needed to talk to you. What do you want me to do? We cannot operate the Mill with no money.”

  “We will have to think about what is best,” said David, shaking his head. “This is a blow. I suppose it had to come to this eventually the longer the thing dragged on.” He thought a moment more. “Don’t do anything yet,” he said. “And tell no one what we’ve talked about. There are enough rumors circulating already. Let me see what I can learn from my uncle’s solicitor. Then we will decide on a plan of action.”

  Three days later, in an environment whose contrast with the quiet, calm, cold, northern isolation of the moors of Whales Reef could scarcely have been greater, David Tulloch walked along a crowded and noisy sidewalk. Londoners around him were bundled in scarves and coats against the fifty-two degrees Fahrenheit of the late morning. For David it was twenty degrees warmer than what he’d left behind in the Shetlands—positively balmy!

  He and the elder MacNaughton were to meet for lunch at the Shetland Club off Oxford Circus where the solicitor’s firm maintained a membership. Walking into the dimly lit entry felt like entering the narthex of a cathedral. David felt as if he had left London’s bustle behind and was again in the Shetlands.

  MacNaughton was waiting for him and approached with outstretched hand. “Ah, David,” he said. “How good to see you again.”

  “Thank you, and you,” rejoined David with a smile as they shook hands.

  “It has been a long time. I’m not sure I have actually spoken to you since your mother was alive.”

  “I came into Lerwick about four or five years ago with Uncle Macgregor,” said David. “But your business was with him. I was in the office but briefly.”

  “Right . . . yes, I recall it now. But come, I have a table waiting for us.”

  He led David into the dining room where white tablecloths and carefully laid silver service caught the light from the tall windows.

  “Something to drink?” said MacNaughton as they seated themselves and a waiter approached.

  “Tea, I think,” said David.

  “Tea for my friend here, Fellowes,” said MacNaughton. “I’ll have my usual—a single malt Shetlander with a bottle of spring water.”

  “Very good, sir.” The man nodded with old-school dignity, then evaporated away.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Mr. MacNaughton,” David began. “I know you are with family here in the south, and I apologize for the intrusion.”

  The gentleman waved away David’s apology with his hand. “Not a problem at all. Actually, it’s rather a respite for me away from a houseful of grandchildren.”

  Both men laughed.

  “I am happy if there is something I can do to help,” the solicitor added.

  “Thank you,” said David. “Well then . . . my problem is relatively straightforward to state, though certainly not to resolve. As the probate process drags on, the situation on Whales Reef has become increasingly difficult. I simply need some answers.”

  “Yes, my son has filled me in on your . . . shall we say, your dilemma? You did not know that Macgregor had no will, I take it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “That fact has complicated matters immensely. I did my best to urge him to make one—”

  “I understand. Obviously his sudden death caught us all off guard. I am aware of the complexi
ties of the probate process and the reality that I may not be Uncle Macgregor’s closest heir after all.”

  “Right, I’ve been kept informed of that development . . . Hardar Tulloch, I believe.”

  David nodded.

  “I know his father. An ornery one, the son?”

  “You could say that,” David replied. “However, even if I do not inherit, I am not so worried for my own future as for the island, for its people. Much of the island’s welfare and livelihood, directly and indirectly, comes from the wool factory. Especially for many of those without other means of support, which was the purpose of the Mill from the beginning. It has now come to a point, however, when the Mill’s bank account is nearly empty. After next month there will not be enough to meet payroll. The ongoing mystery is that there is plenty of business. Orders are coming in as always. I understand my uncle’s accounts had to be frozen, but I am having difficulty getting a handle on why his death has so dramatically altered the finances of the factory.”

  The lawyer looked down, pondering how to begin. David waited.

  “It is actually much simpler than you may realize,” said MacNaughton after a few moments. “The correlation between your uncle’s assets and the factory’s operating account . . . actually, that would include your personal account as well—”

  “The trust, you mean?”

  MacNaughton nodded. “Your uncle wanted the relation between the accounts kept strictly quiet. We are, of course, bound by client confidentiality to honor that request, even in death, until his estate is settled and his heir named. I am, however, going to take the liberty of divulging your uncle’s secret with you alone. As you are the presumptive heir and were always considered such by your uncle, I do not think I shall be disbarred for it. Our firm represents you as well as your uncle, and I see no serious breach of protocol involved.”

  He paused a moment, clearly deep in thought.

  “Much of this, David,” he went on, “goes back even to the time of your grandfather. And I must ask you to keep this conversation absolutely confidential. No one must know what I tell you until the estate is settled. I am bending the rules in your case. Nevertheless, we must still honor your uncle’s wishes in the matter.”

  “Certainly. Agreed,” said David. “What secret did my uncle hold concerning the factory?”

  “Profitability, David.”

  “I’m not sure I follow you.”

  “There is none. No profit, and hasn’t been for years. Accounts receivable is not able to cover expenses. Even if we were able to release the income from that account, which I believe my son explained we could not—but even if we could, the income generated from the factory’s orders is only enough to generate about a third of the company’s operating budget.”

  “But the factory has been operating smoothly for years, paying decent salaries, good benefits, with good working conditions. Anyone on the island in need of a job is given one, or at least that was the policy up until now.”

  “I understand, and that may partially, though not entirely, explain why a cash flow deficit exists every month. Simply put, the factory has been operating in the red, and substantially so, for as long as I can remember.”

  David stared across the table. He sat for a moment as one stunned. “I simply do not see how that can be,” he said at length. “How has it survived, then?”

  “The truth is, David, your uncle has been subsidizing the factory for decades. Our office had been under instructions from your uncle to make a deposit into the factory bank account each month in an amount necessary to keep six or eight months operating capital in the account as a cushion at all times. It was to keep his hand in the factory’s finances invisible that he arranged for all income and accounts receivable to flow through our office. As far as anyone in Whales Reef knew, the monthly deposits in the factory’s accounts came from income generated by the sale of its products. He wanted no one to know that the factory was being supported by his monthly subsidy.”

  David sat shaking his head. “That indeed explains everything,” he said. “But did my uncle have the money to continue doing so indefinitely? What you describe must have been a serious drain on his resources. And the rents on the island are ridiculously low. He’s never raised them that I am aware of. I must admit, this makes his finances yet more a puzzle. How could he afford to subsidize not only the wool factory but in a sense the whole island?”

  “It was something he wanted to do,” replied MacNaughton. “His own expenses were modest at best.”

  “It is all the more remarkable when many on the island considered him a crotchety old hermit.”

  “He was not unaware of what was said of him. Still, he cared more for the people of the island than for his own reputation.”

  “So how could he afford to be so generous . . . benevolent, I suppose, is the better word?”

  “Your uncle was a wealthy man,” said the lawyer, “and a shrewd manager of his affairs, all appearance to the contrary. His estate is worth a great deal. Some of the land that came into his possession from the Auld Tulloch’s estate was on mainland Shetland. There were several lucrative sales to oil interests back in the seventies and eighties. With the help of oil, your uncle’s business acumen turned the Tulloch estate from a struggling, semi-feudal arrangement that could not have survived many more years into a very lucrative enterprise. The estate continues to receive income from certain oil leases that have proven profitable over the years. Believe me, you stand to inherit a small fortune, David. Subsidizing the Whales Reef wool factory made but a small dent in your uncle’s assets.”

  “That no doubt explains why Hardy lost no time in stepping forward. It wouldn’t surprise me if he knows more about my uncle’s finances than he lets on . . . even more, apparently, than I did.”

  “You may be right. But he could know nothing about the factory. We have taken every precaution to keep that enterprise and the endowment invisible.”

  “You also mentioned my account and the trust my parents established for my sister and me. How did that come to be involved?”

  “In the same way,” replied MacNaughton. “The money for the trust went into your account every month from your uncle’s account through our office, just as for the factory.”

  “He was subsidizing my parents’ trust as well?” exclaimed David in surprise.

  MacNaughton folded his hands together on the table, looked away for a moment, then back at David. “There never was a trust from your parents, David.”

  “What do you mean? Now I am really confused!”

  “Your parents never had much money to speak of. There was the income from the legacy left by the Auld Tulloch to Leith and his descendants. As you know, your father raised sheep and had his fishing. The Auld Hoose with its hundred acres came down to your father unencumbered. So he possessed assets, but no cash. After your father’s death, Macgregor saw the handwriting on the wall. He knew things would be hard for the three of you. He came to me requesting I set up a trust for your family to provide for you and your sister indefinitely. This included funding for your education.”

  “Yes, I was aware of that aspect. My mother never made any secret of where the money for university came from.”

  MacNaughton nodded. “He and your mother were not on the best of terms. But she knew of his arrangement. And when he went to her privately to lay out his scheme for an ongoing trust, she could hardly refuse. Even though it was entirely financed by your uncle, we established the trust in your parents’ name as he directed. Neither you nor your sister were ever to know. But, again, because of there being no will, the payments into the two trust funds also had to be suspended pending probate.”

  David sighed and once more shook his head in disbelief.

  “Your uncle took care of everyone else, watched over the villagers, provided for your future. He wanted you to be free to carry on your writing and research—he believed in the work you were doing—without having to worry about finances. Yet the one person for wh
om he did not make plans was himself. And now for lack of a few scribbled lines on a sheet of paper with his signature, the rest of his schemes are crumbling.”

  “All this will resolve itself once the estate is settled?”

  “Of course. You will then control your uncle’s assets and would be free to resume payments into the factory account. There could be sizable estate taxes. You may have to sell off some assets, but we can help with all of that. As for your trust, I suppose that will be unnecessary as the whole estate will be in your hands. The only decision would be to continue your sister’s trust.”

  “Right . . . I see. And everything you say is based on the assumption that I indeed do inherit. If Hardy is named my uncle’s heir, then all bets are off.”

  “In that eventuality, yes. All bets would, as you say, be off.”

  David returned to his hotel at the conclusion of his meeting and promptly telephoned Murdoc MacBean on Whales Reef.

  “I see no alternative but for you to take steps for gradual cutbacks,” he said. “Pending resolution of the estate, we need to stretch out what money remains in the Mill account for as long as possible.”

  “What do you want me to do, David?” asked Murdoc.

  “Lay out plans for a reduced operating budget. You and I will go over it when I return. Think of ways to decrease costs, perhaps making gradual cutbacks in hours. If some workers would like time off, this is a good time to take it. We have to adopt a belt-tightening strategy while continuing to fill orders. But take no drastic steps that will arouse worry. We will do everything slowly. Assure your people that everything is fine.”

  David spent the next four days at the Kings College Library, researching for his current writing project. He also met with two prospective clients who were planning explorations to collect core samples of glacial ice, one to Greenland, the other to Alaska.