The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing

by Mary Paulson-Ellis

  Charge: Drunk. Disorderly. Breach of the Peace. All because of a scuffle at Gayfield police station once he’d been lifted from the street. A shout. Demands from Solomon to call a certain DCI Franklin from her bed. A wrangling and a twisting as two officers attempted to grab him. Then the kick, somebody yelping, the reckless flail of a fist (his own) connecting with flesh (not his own). Not to mention Breaking and Entering . . . with Intent to Steal.

  Solomon began to sweat as the clerk read through the disposals. Five years at Her Majesty’s pleasure. A ten-thousand-pound fine. Or worse, a community sentence – sent out to sweep the city’s gutters of little bags of dog shit while wearing one of those fetching fluorescent vests. What would his grandfather have said, Solomon thought, a man for whom the wearing of a uniform was a matter of honour rather than a mark of bad behaviour all round? He glanced down at his current attire, could practically feel the stink emanating from beneath his crumpled tweed. Whatever had life come to when he did not even have anyone in this city who could lend him a clean shirt.

  The sheriff cleared her throat and Solomon raised his eyes to the bench wondering whether to plead guilty and throw himself on her mercy (or at least on the fact that she was a neighbour), found the clerk of the court handing her a note instead. The sheriff frowned as she unfolded the small square of paper and studied its contents. When she looked up it was no longer Solomon Farthing she was concerned with, but someone at the back of the court. Solomon turned to look too, caught the flap of a peach-lined coat disappearing through the swing of a just-closing door. When he turned back the sheriff was adjusting her spectacles in preparation for annunciation. Solomon closed his eyes, a young boy again praying next to his grandfather, for freedom, or something like it. Then she said it.

  ‘Case dismissed.’

  Outside the city was flying its flags for summer, rather like the cuffs on Solomon’s shirt. He looked left. Then right. Then over his shoulder and back again, wondered whether it would be Dodds (or some other creditor) who would call in his debt first. Despite having spent a lifetime taking it from others, Solomon now found that he owed money in every nook and cranny of the city, an ever-expanding and yet unsustainable debt:

  That large bill at the off-licence and another at the deli;

  A tab to settle at his local in Jamaica Street (growing long now, unlike the patience of the landlord, which Solomon knew was growing very short);

  The former client suing him in the small claims court – three grand’s worth of an inheritance that Solomon had already spent;

  The Mini stolen from his aunt who wasn’t really his aunt, an Edinburgh Lady, just like the sheriff, knew where all the bodies came from, and where they were buried, too.

  Then there were the debts arising from his passion for the puggies, Lucky Sevens spinning always in his eyes. The turn of one playing card after another, the thrill with which he had tossed the dice across the baize, shovelling money he did not have into Freddy Dodds’s coffers. Five thousand or thereabouts, if Solomon dared to count it. How was he to know that all the opportunities to gamble in this city belonged to Freddy Dodds one way or another? Something Solomon hadn’t realized until it was too late.

  Now, as he exited the black gates of the Sheriff Court and hurried across George IV Bridge towards the statue of Greyfriars Bobby, Solomon Farthing could feel his hand begin again with its flutter against his muddy corduroys. He had feasted on Edinburgh for a long time, but it seemed that Edinburgh might be about to feast on him.

  The statue of the famously faithful dog was surrounded by tourists taking photographs, mainly of themselves. It was a new tradition, rubbing the little dog’s nose in the hope of good fortune – only started in the last five years and already the council was trying to ban it. But in the absence of his silver charm, Solomon would take any luck he could get.

  ‘Spare some change, sir.’

  A man was sitting on the pavement near the bottom of the statue. A beggar. One of Edinburgh’s regulars. And next to him another small dog, alive this time. Solomon pulled his trouser pockets inside out.

  ‘Sorry, Mr Scott. Nothing doing, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Solomon Farthing,’ said the beggar. ‘Haven’t seen you for a while.’

  ‘Hard times, Mr Scott. Hard times.’

  The beggar shuffled along a little, indicated that Solomon could share his cardboard if he wished. Why not, Solomon thought. Rich man. Poor man. Beggar man. Thief. He’d been three of them already in his life. Might as well add the fourth. He squatted next to the beggar, felt the touch of a dog’s nose cold on his wrist. The dog was wearing a spotted kerchief, as though he were the gentleman and all the rest the knaves.

  ‘How’s tricks, Mr Scott?’ Solomon asked. ‘Good business?’

  ‘So, so,’ the beggar replied. ‘Worried about the vote. What might happen after.’

  Remain or Leave. All anyone was talking about this summer. The same question Solomon was asking himself now. Stay in Edinburgh and face up to his troubles. Or do what he had always done before. Flee. The dog circled and went to sniff at some nearby railings. A passer-by dropped a coin onto the cardboard at Solomon’s feet. One pound. Only four thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine to go. Plus whatever interest Dodds wished to charge, of course. The pound coin glinted in the sunlight, as though it contained real gold rather than fake. But Solomon resisted.

  ‘After you, Mr Scott. After you,’ he said.

  Begging was a profession in Edinburgh. There was an established hierarchy, Solomon Farthing at the bottom once again. Like any good Edinburgh Man the beggar did not demur, lifted the coin and tucked it into one of his many pockets.

  ‘Not sure begging will get you what you need.’

  Two black boots. Size five. The voice female. Young. Discerning. The inscrutable PC Noble returned to taunt Solomon with those impenetrable eyes. Despite the mud dried now on cuff and knee, he attempted a dignified demeanour.

  ‘Something I can help you with, officer?’

  ‘You forgot these,’ PC Noble replied.

  She was holding out a small plastic bag, transparent, so that everyone in the city could see at a glance what Solomon Farthing was worth now:

  A packet of orange tic tacs, almost empty;

  A Nokia with no charge;

  The half-shell of a walnut rubbed to its bones.

  He stretched his hand to take the bag, but PC Noble dropped it at his feet instead.

  ‘Don’t bother to get up.’

  She really was magnificent.

  Solomon tipped the contents onto the pavement – all his worldly goods tumbled at the feet of Greyfriars Bobby. It made a certain kind of sense. The dog with the kerchief returned to sniff at each of the items, gave the walnut shell a cursory lick. Solomon slid the dead Nokia into his jacket pocket, along with the tic tacs, realized PC Noble was offering him something else, too.

  ‘You forgot this.’

  Small. And white. A business card. The sort of thing a proper Edinburgh Man might carry. Or an Edinburgh Lady, of course.

  On one side, in neat black print, the card said:

  DCI Franklin.

  On the other, scribbled in biro,

  You owe me.

  Solomon Farthing felt it then, that flutter in his hand. There was a reckoning to be had, and it was coming sooner than he had anticipated it might.

  Three

  Seven thirty-two a.m. and Solomon woke from a dream of dark water for a meeting that was due to start at eight. Pain pressed in behind his left eye as he turned with a groan, wondering if this was the moment his universe might explode. Aneurism in the brain. Pop. All over. No one to look after him but that dreadful Penny woman from the Office for Lost People, come to pick over what was left of his life like some sort of carrion poking through the bones.

  He’d phoned DCI Franklin the day before, as instructed, lifted the receiver like a boy expecting trouble, only to be offered something else instead.

  ‘I’ve got a case you might be in
terested in,’ DCI Franklin had said. ‘Fresh. Not even gone to UH yet.’

  Ultimus Haeres, the Last Heir – his usual hunting ground.

  ‘It has your name all over it. No win no fee.’

  No win no fee used to get Solomon’s heart jumping. Now he worried it might tip him off the scales of life for good.

  ‘What sort of case?’ he’d asked.

  The DCI had been evasive. ‘You’ll find out if you say yes.’

  ‘A favour, then.’

  She’d laughed at that, the short bark of a fox in the night. ‘We both know it’s the other way around. I’ll pick you up at eight.’

  Solomon got dressed as best he could in the time he had left, drenched himself with patchouli body spray picked up cheap from the local Scotmid to disguise the fact that he hadn’t managed to shower. The grandfather clock in the hall began to strike the hour as he attempted to smooth his reflection in its glass.

  Ding

  Ding

  Ding.

  Eight a.m. and counting, small sun rising. Quick lick of his thumb across a mud stain on his shoe, then up through his hair. He would surprise the DCI with his punctuality. But when Solomon opened the front door she was outside already, waiting to surprise him.

  He’d looked her up, of course, DCI Franklin and all her antecedents. A fox to catch a fox, wasn’t that the idea? Insurance, Solomon called it, the ability to dig for family secrets, a perk of his profession. He used to do it for all those from whom he might one day require a favour.

  You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.

  Needless to say DCI Franklin’s relatives had turned out to be run-of-the-mill charlatans and pretenders like most ordinary folk. A few names changed here, a bit of slipperiness on dates of birth there, a patina of legitimacy. Nothing that any reputable Heir Hunter hadn’t dealt in every time he opened a new case. It wasn’t that long ago people wanted to hide anything disreputable or illegal, nothing to show but one perfect generation after the next. But even in Edinburgh – a place as dirty underneath as it liked to appear clean on the surface – Solomon knew that things were beginning to change. Nowadays all the amateurs revelled in whatever squalor they could find. Adultery. Bigamy. Madness of a virulent sort. Wore their genealogical discoveries like a badge of triumph, as though they added colour to otherwise colourless lives. It had destroyed Solomon’s job really, this absence of shame. That and the Internet, of course. Opened all of Pandora’s boxes at once without so much as a specialist like him to intervene.

  And yet . . .

  There had been one thing where the DCI was concerned. A baby boy carried off by a nurse years ago, before his mother even had the chance to touch his tiny toes.

  A favour, the DCI had called it when she asked him to look. Just as she was repaying Solomon with another favour, now. One last chance to turn the wheel of fortune in a more favourable direction, as he had spun it for her. A little digging here. A few questions there. Then stand aside and watch the DCI’s long-lost son surface, as though he had been waiting for her to find him all along. Solomon had heard through the city grapevine that the DCI was in touch with the boy now, a young man grown glorious off the back of both his mothers. He was glad. Solomon had a lot of time for DCI Franklin. What did it mean to lose a child, he often wondered, because you made a mistake once when you were still a child yourself.

  Now, as he made to open the passenger door at the front of the DCI’s car, she didn’t say a thing to greet him, just indicated with a silent incline of her head that he should get into the back. As they pulled away from the kerb, Solomon sank low into the leather, wondered what the neighbours would say as they watched him being escorted from the premises by somebody whose car alone suggested three letters before her name. That elegant Edinburgh crescent full of elegant Edinburgh Men. Accountants and Financiers. Solicitors and Advocates. Not to mention a sheriff somewhere on the opposing side. Though she was an Edinburgh Lady, of course, a whole different breed. Why was it, Solomon thought as the DCI’s car glided away, that he always ended up surrounded by the law?

  They proceeded at a stately pace towards their destination, no sense of urgency despite the early morning call. All the way along Solomon could smell it – fresh earth and a thousand sticky buds blooming. Unlike him, the city’s sap was rising now.

  ‘Bit early for a case conference, isn’t it?’ he said as they passed a group of children making their way to school.

  ‘Not exactly in a position to choose, are you?’ the DCI replied.

  It wasn’t a question so much as a statement of the facts. What did the DCI know about his current circumstances? Then again, this was Edinburgh. What did the DCI not know about what went on in her patch.

  ‘Besides, you owe me for that fuss you made at Gayfield.’ F words and C words and words that DCI Franklin must have heard a million times. ‘You should know by now not to take my name in vain.’

  Solomon flushed. Embarrassment, or the after-effects of a bottle of Fino drunk to the last the night before, he couldn’t be sure. He shrank even further into the leather as the car took a left turn down a road that seemed all too familiar. Generous driveway. French windows at the back. The sudden cloying scent of a lilac bush blooming in the night. Whatever Solomon had been expecting, it was not a return to the home of a dead man little more than forty-eight hours since he had broken into it himself.

  But the real scene of the crime turned out not to be the site of his recent Breaking and Entering, rather a nursing home built on the brow of a hill in Edinburgh’s south-east. The home specialized in soldiers – a last resting place for the old guard, counting them out one by one, just as once their officers had counted them in. The Reckoning, that was what Solomon’s grandfather used to call it, a roll call of those who were still living after the battle’s end, compared to those who had been lost.

  The entrance to the home was adorned with a centenary banner:

  1916–2016 Celebrating 100 years of serving the troops.

  ‘Started life as a hospital for the limbless,’ said DCI Franklin as she pulled into a space marked reserved.

  Another form of reckoning, Solomon thought as he clambered from the back seat. The naming of body parts after a shell has fallen:

  One arm;

  Two arms;

  Two legs;

  Five fingers.

  All that was left of a man on which he could rebuild.

  Inside, the home was full of people who still had most of their limbs but were wandering the corridors as though they knew where they were going, when (rather like him) Solomon knew that they did not. A little shudder rippled through him. Despite his job and everything that came with it, Solomon didn’t really like the elderly. The terrible stink and cloy of old age.

  The DCI flashed her badge and set off down a long corridor. Solomon followed, before being intercepted by an elderly man wearing slippers and a tracksuit embroidered with some sort of crest. The old man winked at Solomon as he attempted to pass.

  ‘Hello, sailor. Want to go below?’

  His eyes a sudden, startling blue. Solomon blinked as the man’s attendant, a young woman with hair like molasses, laughed and touched her patient’s shoulder.

  ‘Come on now, Mr R. You know he’s not your type.’

  What did she know, Solomon thought, as the old chap was led away. He always had enjoyed the company of servicemen. They had a good sense of humour, dark and degraded. Liked a drink, too.

  As he continued down the corridor in pursuit of the DCI, Solomon found his old instincts kicking in. Eyes left. Eyes right. Looking for anything that would tell him who to target first. A hint of hidden wealth, of absent family members waiting to be hunted. Or even better, the smell of loneliness, that whiff which meant any relatives he did find would be distant and untethered, the sort to sign straight away if they were offered the right price. Whatever their generally unhealthy appearance, Solomon knew there was money to be made in an old folks’ home. All those properties worth a milli
on left empty by decrepitude, just waiting to be plucked. Perhaps Solomon could chat to Mr R. over a lunch of peas and omelette, identify a likely candidate for his next foray into the past. When he caught up with DCI Franklin at the door to one of the bedrooms, the look on her face suggested she knew exactly what he had been thinking, didn’t like where it might lead.

  ‘After you,’ she said opening the door without even knocking.

  It reminded Solomon of his entry to that cell at Gayfield – a place from which there might be no escape.

  The dead man’s name was Thomas Methven. At least that was what DCI Franklin said. Solomon wondered how long that name would stick given the blank slate of their surroundings. A bed. A wardrobe. A chair. Not even an antimacassar. Nothing to indicate that a life had taken place here, let alone a death.

  ‘How old?’ he asked.

  ‘Ninety-five, maybe, ninety-six,’ said the DCI. ‘No one’s quite sure. Wife died twenty years ago or so. No children that we’re aware of.’

  ‘Siblings?’

  ‘Only child.’

  Solomon couldn’t resist a small smile at the idea of a big space all around the dead man on whatever family tree might grow from his demise.

  ‘What about his next of kin?’ he said. ‘Have they been informed?’

  ‘There aren’t any,’ said the DCI. ‘At least none that anyone knows about. That’s where you come in.’

  That, and the money, of course.

  Fifty thousand in used notes. That was what it amounted to. The treasure Thomas Methven had left behind.