by Sam Nash
“Not at all, first aid is something we are often asked for in these parts, so many hikers and um… one moment, if you please…” He dipped back into his office and I heard a metal cabinet wrench open and then slam close again. The manager returned to the desk with a large green plastic box with the familiar white cross on the lid. I thanked him, promising to return the kit to reception within a few minutes. He gave me a tired, unenthusiastic smile, and slunk off to his office.
It didn’t take long to dress David’s leg. The wound was not as severe as it had first presented once the blood was washed away. A couple of plasters cut into steri-strips held the edges together, and a larger waterproof covering, sealed it from contaminants. I took out a second plaster and tucked it into my travel bag, ensuring a clean dressing for the morning, before returning the box to reception.
The young lady was back at her station, grinning inanely, as though it were all her job entailed. “Please thank Mr Wendle for me.” I said as I slid the box across to her.
“Certainly, sir. Is there anything else I can do for you?”
I contemplated for a moment. There was an inexplicable itch in my brain. A wisp of an idea that escaped my grasp. “No, thank you. What time does service begin in the restaurant?”
“Around now, sir. Would you like me to book you a specific table?” She grabbed the telephone receiver, poised to deliver my request.
“Any table will be fine, thank you. My son and I will be down shortly, say… in half an hour?”
“Leave it with me, sir.”
I gave her my latest fake surname and room number, and left her to make arrangements. When I arrived back at my room, David had cleaned off our shoes and was scrutinising the photocopies, tracing our route to the abbey with the tip of a biro. He flipped the paper over and began drawing a more detailed plan of the ruins from memory.
“Okay, the river cuts across the area in a diagonal from south to east, like so…” He said, although it was almost inaudible. I glanced over his shoulder, as he sketched out the position of the main house relative to the ruins. “Kind of an upside down ‘T’ shape, wouldn’t you say?” I nodded in confirmation, and then watched him draw asterisks along one end and down the side of the buildings. “These represent the conifers. They must have been planted fairly recently.” This was not helping. He drew in the depression of shrub land, near to the end of the driveway, and stopped. “That’s all I have.”
I patted his shoulder. “And it’s more than we had yesterday.” I tried to sound encouraging, but we both knew that we had reached a dead end. “Come on, let’s get a drink in the bar before we eat. I am parched.” I scooped up my room key from a side table and went for the door.
“Do you think it wise to leave your stuff all out on display like that?” David gestured to my open travel bag, my real passport poking out between Phebe’s and my grandfather’s covered items. “What if someone comes sniffing about?”
“Hmm, perhaps you are right.” I slid out my passport and tucked it into my inside jacket pocket, and then lingered over the brooch and watch. “Wait…” Picking up the larger of the two bundles, I unwrapped the hanky from the fob watch and turned it over in my hand. “Wendle and Sons.” I read out loud.
“What about it? The watch manufacturers name.” He replied, stepping closer.
“No, it isn’t. Wendle is the name of the manager here.”
“No way… you think Phebe saw this all along? We have to speak to him, tell him our real name at least?” He made for the door.
“That poor man will think that I am stalking him.” I hurried after David, imploring him to slow down and think things through. I did not want to announce our business to everyone in the hotel. We needed to speak with him alone, and before he finished his work shift and disappeared for the night.
The bar was quiet and sparsely populated, it being early in the evening. David ordered our drinks.
“Excuse me.” I said to our barman. “I’d like to buy the manager a drink, by way of a thank you. He was gracious enough to help us out earlier. How might we organise that?”
The bartender dried a pint glass with slow deliberate movements, his expression one of suspicion. “As a rule, he doesn’t drink with our guests, but I will pass on your appreciation.”
“Nevertheless, I should like to thank him personally.” I persisted, my impatience bleeding into my voice. The barman, put his cloth and glass down on the counter and picked up the phone, his eyes flicking between me and the keypad. He punched in the extension number and waited. I could hear the dialling tone from where I stood.
“Hi, there is a man in the bar wishing to speak with you.”
There was a brief pause, then a tinny voice came from the handset. “Fob him off, I don’t want to be disturbed.”
The barman, turned to me, smiling. “I’m afraid Mr Wendle is in the middle of doing the accounts and cannot come to the bar at present.”
I sighed loudly. “Then I should like to make a complaint. Please inform him that I am coming to his office right this minute.” I put my drink down and marched to reception, just as Wendle was making his escape. He took one look at me and spun around, confused as to his next course of action. I had him pinned.
“Mr Wendle, I apologise for ambushing you like this, but I must speak with you. It is of the utmost importance.” I tried to sound as meek and non-confrontational as possible. He scampered backwards to put the reception desk between us, and then flicked his head at the young lady, signalling her to leave and get help. David caught up with me, and stood a respectful few steps behind.
With the bundle removed from my pocket, I unwrapped the watch and laid it face down on the countertop. “My grandmother left me this. As you can see, it is engraved with your name.”
He drew his head down closer to the watch, squinting at the wording, and then looked up at me. “So it does.”
“Is there anything you can tell me about it?”
His face altered to one of incredulity. “No, sir.”
“Is your family well known for making watches?” My desperation funnelled into my clenched fists.
He took a pace backwards. “They are not. Wendle is a relatively common name around these parts, sir. Have you tried the Yellow Pages?”
It had to be linked to this man and his family. Phebe would not have sent us on a wild goose chase. What was I missing?
“If not watches then something else perhaps?” I observed him as his expression changed. Where once a timid mouse stood, a vengeful rodent now bared his teeth.
“I wouldn’t say famous, as such. My brother carried on the family business. He is a solicitor.” The sibling rivalry oozed from him unimpeded.
Another solicitor? It had to be where Phebe planned to direct us. “Is your brother local? Could you provide us with his contact details please?”
This abrupt turn in my interrogation, however abhorrent to him, spurred him into action. He could see that by granting us this favour, he would pass on a potential problem to his brother, thus leaving him to wallow in his mediocrity unchallenged.
With an address a telephone number stowed in my pocket along with the watch, we returned to the bar and made plans for the morning.
Friday 3rd August 1990
The first real video footage of Saddam Hussein’s attacks on Kuwait, dominated the news. Shaky images coming in via all channels, are of a coordinated military strike on Kuwait City. Tanks, ground troops, missile launchers, aerial bombardment, the lot, and it looks set to continue throughout today. Detailed information is all guesswork at this point, but verbal descriptions via the telephone from a British reporter trapped there, has continuous gunfire and shelling noise in the background.
This has not come as a surprise, and yet allied forces have not made any kind of response to the invasion. I am shocked by this, thinking of the horrendous conditions that Kuwaiti civilians face, but a part of me is glad of the distraction. Anthony Knight will be on
every battle planning committee and task force that allied forces can manifest. David and I have a short reprieve, unless Tawnie’s father has other plans for us, assuming that our whereabouts are known.
I roused David early. We called Wendle and Sons solicitors at bang on 9am, and made an urgent appointment to see the hotel manager’s brother later in the day, offering to pay double his rate for his time. The receptionist marked the spot on our photocopies, where his office is located in the nearest town of Egremont. She also gave us some leaflets of nearby tourist attractions and a ‘come hither’ smile to David, that went wholly unnoticed.
With so little to occupy us at the hotel, we decided to make the drive to Egremont, and visit the castle shown in the leaflets. It was a pleasant drive along a new bypass, peppered with roundabouts and surrounded by open farmland. David was in high spirits, having finally achieved a receptive phone call with his wife in Wales. As we passed a small village to our right, I noticed a battered sign to an abandoned iron ore mine.
With time on our side, I instructed David to pull into the lane. Red brick encased the majority of the redundant winding gear, above broken windows and a rickety outer staircase. The iron ore chutes still hung from their lofty positions at the building’s side. Corrugated iron sheeting, rusted on rooves and walls. It was a sorry sight. A knotted rope hung in loose boughs between makeshift fence posts, and across the hand railings of the metal steps.
He pulled the car around the gravelled yard until a faded sign was level with my window. It gave us no information other than a warning of private property to potential trespassers. Despite the persistent rain, I left the warmth of the car to get a better look at faint lettering, carved into a stone lintel near to the top of the building. As the sun broke through a thin section of raincloud, the words ‘Phebe’s Bane – Egremont’ stood prominent. David clambered out of the driver’s side.
“Hey…can you see the rainbow?” He said, pointing to the coloured arc overhead.
“I can. She could not have made her wishes any clearer.”
David read the carved letters and gasped. “And so, the plot thickens…” He said, in a false theatrical voice. “Her gift was truly extraordinary.”
“It was indeed. The question remains, how is all this related to our problems with three of the greatest and most dangerous international powers?”
“At least we haven’t got the Chinese or Russian dissidents on our backs.”
“Yet. What was it you said about tempting fate?” I chastised, but it was nice to have him buoyant for a change.
Returning to the car, David switched on the radio and tuned into the running commentary from the news reports on Kuwait City. More horrendous acts of violence and force. It sounds like the Kuwaitis were banking on western aid in their time of crisis. Thus far, none is forth coming. The Kuwaitis are completely outnumbered, disorganised and suffering mounting casualties. As is always the case with war, civilian mortality rates are astronomical.
In a more sober frame of mind, we refuelled and then parked just off the main street in the centre of town. The castle itself, is little more than a few remaining walls and crumbling towers. Blighted with repeated Scottish invasion, its centuries old battlements are patched with quarried red stone, pebbles and newer brick, dependent on the voracity of the attacks. It does have a pretty view from its raised vantage point though, so worth the walk.
When, at last, the time came for us to meet the solicitor, Wendle, our expectations were high. As his secretary showed us into his office he stood up from his desk to greet us. Where his brother was willowy, this man was rangy and hardened like a moorland hare. His pouched eyes and liverish skin tone informed me that business was bad.
Having rehearsed our conversation points in the car, we began by reminding him of the confidentiality afforded to clients, and that we had given his secretary a cheque to secure this privilege. He nodded, thanked us and sat back in his leather chair.
“Very well, how may I be of service, gentlemen?”
For a few seconds, I debated with myself whether I should divulge the entire history of our lineage, the earldom, estate lands and everything tied to it, but I held back. I do not know this man, nor can I trust his affiliations and motives in a tough economic landscape.
“I recently inherited this fob watch from my grandfather and an allowance that was held in trust by my grandmother. I believe that she was once a client of yours, or your father’s perhaps? Did she leave any instructions at all?” I handed over my genuine passport as proof of identification and pointed out his name etched in gold. “Her name was Phebe Lawrence, wife of Judge Charles Lawrence.” I added, in hope that would suffice.
Wendle examined the watch back, running an index finger over his moniker. “Lawrence, you say. It does ring a bell.” He stood up and poked his head around the door to his secretary. In a quieter voice, he instructed her to dig out any files pertaining to the name Lawrence and bring them through immediately.
It was an awkward wait. I almost wished I had accepted the offer of coffee, if only to break the uncomfortable silences. With the prospect of obtaining more work from us, Wendle tried his best to fill the gaps with polite utterances. We covered the weather, the closest, most beautiful walks and a brief history of the castle, before his secretary returned clutching an A4 folder.
“Ah yes…” He muttered, thumbing through the pages within. “I remember now. It has been a long time since this was reviewed. Your grandmother, Mrs Phebe Lawrence, left a small annuity for the continued upkeep and maintenance of a specific plot of land, with a facility to draw further funds should the area succumb to vandalism or such.” He looked up at us expectantly.
“A plot of land? Does it say where this land is?” David enquired.
“It does indeed. It is within the tiny cemetery at St. Bridget’s Church, in the village of Sedgewell.”
David and I looked at each other, our mouths slack with amazement. We must have passed that church at least three or four times.
“And whose grave is cited at that specific plot?” I asked, my stomach grinding in tight knots inside me.
“His name is listed as Derek Cross.”
***
Part four is available to those in my readers group for free, and also for sale.
If you have enjoyed the series thus far, I would be sincerely grateful if you could spare a couple of minutes to pen a brief review on the website from which you downloaded Part One. Many thanks and with best wishes, Sam.
