by Kate Fulford
On hearing my news she had jumped up and down on the spot several times, picked up a china shire horse and made as if to throw it but, presumably deciding it wasn’t heavy enough, had put it down and picked up the cat instead. She had then climbed on to the dining table clutching the cat and was now threatening to chuck it across the room.
“Meg, please,” I said. “You’ll pull a muscle if you’re not careful. Or twist your ankle.”
“Aaaaarrrghh,” she roared, leaning back ever further in order to give the cat the best possible chance of doing the most possible damage.
“How is this helping?” I pleaded. “Do you want to get even with Marjorie or do you want to sprain your back?”
“I can do both!” Meg shouted in reply.
“Yes, you can, but why not just settle for getting even? After all, if you sprain your back it’ll only make getting your revenge that much harder. It’s so much easier to wreak revenge when one is fit and healthy, you know that.”
The reason for Meg’s anger was that, having done some research, I had discovered the probable source of Marjorie’s money and it turned out that a portion of it should have been Meg’s. I had found out, to be precise, that the main beneficiaries of Meg’s father’s will were Gideon and Helen. With a little judicious questioning I had also discovered that Gideon, and therefore I assumed also Helen, knew nothing about the will and had not received a penny. The will had also specified that Meg should get a small bequest, which she had also not received. Marjorie had been left nothing.
“The thing is,” I had explained, “Gideon and Helen should have received cheques from the executor of your father’s will.”
“But there was nothing left after the debts had been paid.” Meg replied. “That was what Marjorie told me.” Meg had taken the news that her sister had defrauded her remarkably well up to this point.
“She lied,” I continued, “there was quite a lot of money actually. But,” I paused to heighten the dramatic effect of what I was about to say, “do you know who the executor was?”
“What’s an executor?” Meg asked.
“It’s the person who’s supposed to make sure the money goes to the right people.” I explained. “And do you know who it was?” I asked again.
“Was it the fellow that lived next door to Dad? Oh no,” Meg went on, answering her own question, “it couldn’t have been him because he was albino.”
“Why couldn’t an albino person execute a will?” I found myself asking, goodness knows why.
“Did I say albino? I meant Albanian. He went back to Albania, that’s why it couldn’t have been him.”
“Anyway it was . . .” I readied myself, again, for my big reveal.
“Oh, I know,” Meg squealed, “it was Dad’s friend Bernie, wasn’t it? Bernie . . . Bernie . . . Winters?”
“I doubt it,” I replied. “He was a comedian. He had an act with his brother, Mike. Mike and Bernie Winters.” God only knows why I decided to volunteer this information, it was hardly relevant.
“They had a dog didn’t they, as part of their act?” Meg reminisced. “I seem to remember that they were dreadfully unfunny, but I had no idea that Dad even knew Bernie Winters let alone asked him to execute . . . is that the right word? . . . to execute his will.”
“He didn’t. It was Malcolm.” I said through gritted teeth, my big reveal having been rather ruined by all the interruptions.
“I thought you said it was Mike,” said Meg, clearly bemused.
“Malcolm,” I said very slowly, “it was Malcolm who was the executor of your father’s last will and testament.”
And that was when all the screaming, throwing, and leaping on tables had started. Having taken the loss of her inheritance pretty well, Meg was driven to fury, it seemed, by her brother-in-law’s role in all this.
“She lied, and Malcolm was in on it.” I reiterated. “Can you believe that?”
“The . . . the . . .” Meg had, much to my relief, put the cat down and was climbing rather inelegantly off the table. But she was still clearly furious. “She must have made him do it. I can’t believe he’d have done such a thing if . . .” I wasn’t really interested in whether or not Malcolm had been coerced into taking part. The only thing that concerned me was that Marjorie had defrauded Meg, Gideon, and Helen out of their inheritance. Now, that really did make her amazing, although clearly not in the way Gideon meant.
“And that,” I said with a flourish, “is how we will neutralise Marjorie!”
“I’ll do more than neutralise her, I’ll . . .” Meg had both fists clenched and a look of utter fury on her face. “I can’t wait to see the look on her face when we confront her with this. I’d like to see her . . .”
“We’re not going to confront her.” I interrupted just as Meg began to wring her hands as if throttling a chicken.
“Why ever not?” Meg exclaimed, clearly outraged to be denied a showdown with her sister.
“Because,” I said, “it wouldn’t work.” I then went on to explain why we had to take a less direct approach to unmasking Marjorie as a fraudster.
The way I saw it, if I were to reveal to Marjorie what I knew I would also be revealing to her that I had been investigating her. I would, in addition, run the risk that she would call my bluff and tell me to do my worst. She would know that I couldn’t go to Gideon with my incendiary information without revealing my role in uncovering it. The most likely outcome of this encounter would be that, however angry Gideon was with his mother, he would be equally angry with me. It would undermine his trust in me, and ultimately could (in a risk I wasn’t prepared to take) bring our relationship to an end, which was the exact opposite of what I was hoping to achieve. I therefore proposed a different plan which would, I hoped, lead to a satisfactory conclusion for me rather than for Marjorie.
I needed to act quickly however, as I was fearful that Marjorie was closing in on my past. The cause of my unease was an incident the week before when I had stupidly answered the phone in Gideon’s flat without checking the caller ID first.
“Oh, hello,” said Marjorie, clearly less than pleased to hear me on the end of the line. “I wish to speak to my son.” I was no happier to hear her. Her voice had an unpleasant nasal quality which I had grown to heartily dislike.
“He’s not here,” I replied, inwardly cursing myself for my moment of inattention. ‘Check the caller ID’ has been my mantra for many a long year and this was no time to start getting sloppy. I also noticed that Marjorie was markedly less pleasant to me when Gideon wasn’t about to witness events. The pleasantries, such as they were, over Marjorie launched into the reason for her call. She was inviting us, yet again, for Sunday lunch, a week hence. I had eaten far more of these meals than I cared to remember, the most recent having occurred only two weeks before, and I was therefore not about to accept yet another invitation.
“I’m really sorry Marjorie, but I don’t think we can, we’re . . .” What could we plausibly be doing that we couldn’t get out of? “We’re going to my cousin’s graduation.” I said.
“You don’t have any cousins,” Marjorie countered, rather sharply. I don’t have any cousins, but I was pretty sure I had never shared this information with Marjorie.
“Well, she’s not actually my cousin,” I dissembled (which is just a fancy word for lying), “I just call her that.” Stupid, I know. No one calls someone a cousin if they’re not a cousin. Aunt or uncle, either of those would have done, but cousin? My only excuse is that I was caught off guard. Given more time I could have done much better, but that won’t butter any parsnips, or whatever it is one says in these circumstances.
“And on a Sunday?” Marjorie clearly wasn’t going to be fobbed off easily. “This person who you call your cousin, she’s graduating on a Sunday. Is that normal?”
“Oh, sorry Marjorie but that’s the door buzzer, I’ll have to go.” That was marginally better, perhaps I hadn’t lost my touch altogether.
“I didn’t hear anything.�
� Marjorie whined.
“It is very faint at the moment, but it’s being fixed next week.” I replied. “Oh, there it goes again, I really must go. Bye.”
In retrospect I realised that I had behaved stupidly. Now that I was actually on to Marjorie the last thing I wanted was to annoy her. I should have just said we’d go but it was too late for that now. And what else, I was concerned to know, had Marjorie found out about my past? Nothing she was ready to reveal, that much was clear, but enough to send the odd flare up. Things were moving on and I couldn’t have come across her part in the great inheritance swindle at a more fortunate time.
What Meg and I were going to do, therefore, was to devise a way to inform Gideon and Helen that they should have received an inheritance on the death of their grandfather without revealing our involvement. We then had to hope very much that one or other of them would take the matter up with their parents.
“Oh, I have an idea!” said Meg. “I could call Gideon using one of my voices . . .” Meg, I had learnt in our short acquaintance, was under the misapprehension that she was a good mimic. Whenever she told a story she was in the habit of impersonating all the characters in it. Unfortunately her impersonation skills extended only so far as being able to mimic her twin perfectly, and that was hardly a stretch.
“Or, alternatively I could write a letter and . . .” I countered.
“ . . . I could pretend to be Scottish and . . .” Meg wasn’t giving up that easily.
“ . . . I could put it on official looking letter headed paper and . . .” I continued.
“ . . . say that I was rrringing frorm a fearm of . . .” Meg said, giving it her best shot at what I assumed was a Scottish accent, but then again it might have been Welsh.
“So we’ll go with the letter then.” I concluded.
“Oh, well, if you think that’s for the best.” Meg clearly didn’t, but this was my plan and so we were going to do it my way.
“And we’ll send one to Helen too, just in case Gideon doesn’t bite, and because it will add verisimilitude.” It was almost worth all I’d had to put up with from Marjorie just to be able to slip the word verisimilitude into conversation.
“They’ll bite, you can be sure of that.” Meg said, only just stopping short of rubbing her hands with glee and letting out an evil cackle.
“OK, so we fake a letter from some made up solicitors explaining that there were some irregularities surrounding your father’s will. We’ll put in a form for them to return so they won’t need to call anyone.” I explained. “We say that they have been reviewing some old paperwork and discovered a discrepancy . . .”
“But what if Helen or Gideon call anyway?” Meg asked.
“Good point,” I replied. “OK,” I said having given the situation a little more thought. “I will get you a mobile phone and you will simply tell them the person they need to speak to is out and will get back to them. We’ll worry about what to do next only if that happens.”
“Och,” said Meg, “thart’s grrreeeet!”
CHAPTER 18
Gideon and I were each standing on a piece of newspaper by the back door in Marjorie’s kitchen as we were, she had deemed, far too dirty to be allowed any further into the house. We had been cycling in Richmond Park and as it had been raining overnight and much of the park was now attached to us there was some justification for her actions. When we entered the kitchen Malcolm had been sitting at the kitchen table, his Sunday newspaper laid out neatly in front of him, waiting to be read. He was not allowed, I had learned, to take newspapers into the lounge for fear they would leave black marks on the furniture. He was not destined to read this newspaper at all, however, as it had been whipped from the table by Marjorie, hastily pulled apart to make two mats and was now fast being made illegible under our soggy feet.
“I got a letter the other day Mum.” Gideon began.
“Oh, did you?” Marjorie was now busying herself wiping the worktop. She wiped her worktop incessantly. I don’t think I was ever in that kitchen without seeing her wiping the worktop at some point.
“It was from the solicitors who handled Granddad’s will. They seem to think that I should have received some money when he died,” Gideon went on, “well me and Helen, we should both have received some money, but neither of us can remember getting anything.” Gideon paused for a moment, perhaps expecting a response. He didn’t get one. “It seems,” he continued, “that they think there may have been something odd going on. Do either of you know what they are talking about?”
I once worked as a paralegal and despite having left under something of a cloud (for the record, I still believe that if you don’t know that something is illegal you should be given the benefit of the doubt, for a first offence at least), I do know how to put together a very legal sounding letter. My letter had therefore been so convincing and comprehensive that neither Helen nor Gideon had felt the need to call the fictitious solicitors, and so were spared Meg’s execrable accent.
“I have no idea what you are talking about.” Marjorie said sharply, but she did look rather discombobulated. Having made her pronouncement she returned to wiping her worktop with renewed vigour. Behind us Malcolm made a coughing sound as though readying himself to speak. Marjorie stopped wiping long enough to glare at him. If anyone has ever been turned to stone by a look, which I doubt, it would certainly have been a look very like the one Marjorie gave Malcolm that morning.
“The letter says that they,” Gideon continued, “the solicitors that is, raised a cheque each for Helen and me but, and this is the funny thing, we never received them.” The funny thing, I had to stop myself from saying, is that your ‘amazing’ mother pocketed the cheques. “I know it was a long time ago . . . maybe you don’t remember.” Gideon was being a bit hopeless. I had to, quite literally, clamp my mouth shut to stop myself from speaking up. I really didn’t want to draw attention to myself, but I had a horrible feeling Gideon was going to accept being brushed off, which would not suit my purposes at all.
It had taken quite some effort and all my extraordinary powers of persuasion to get him this far. He had been almost ready to ignore the whole thing. I had, in the end, appealed to his sense of the greater good. What if, I suggested, his mother had been defrauded too? What if there were lots of other people who had also gone without their inheritance? Could he, I asked, stand idly by and let evil triumph? I might not have used those exact words, but that was the gist of my argument.
“Do you remember anything Malcolm?” I asked, having released the clamp from my mouth. In my defence I really couldn’t help myself. “The thing is that you were the executor of the will. I thought the executor was responsible for making sure everyone got their money, although I could be wrong. I’m not a lawyer.”
“Marjorie and I decided that the money should go to her.” Malcolm rather unexpectedly dived right in with a confession. I had thought it might be harder to extract the truth, but perhaps he had been waiting to get this off his chest for years. I once read about a man who confessed to having murdered his wife thirty years previously. A skeleton had been found near his home and when he read about it in the local paper he handed himself in at the earliest opportunity (not the absolute earliest, obviously, as that would have been right after he’d killed her) to the local wooden tops. As it happens the skeleton was a couple of thousand years old and male, but the poor fellow (if one can call a murderer a poor fellow) had been weighed down by guilt all that time and found it, so he said, a relief to come clean. Not that this did his dead wife much good. Perhaps Malcolm felt the same. Whatever Malcolm’s reason, he had clearly decided to go ahead despite, or perhaps because of, that look from Marjorie.
“Shut up Malcolm!” shrieked the woman herself, her furious wiping of the worktop finally ceasing.
“Sorry, I don’t understand.” Gideon looked genuinely befuddled, but then he didn’t yet know the truth, but when he did . . .
Malcolm cleared his throat again and continued. “Your moth
er gave up her career to raise you and your sister. As a result she was forced to be financially dependent on me, which was very difficult for her.” He sounded very much as if he were reading from a prepared statement. Perhaps he was, he’d had long enough to come up with one. What utter nonsense it was though. Had Marjorie been desperate for a career of her own? I don’t think so. Marjorie had told me many times how wrong she believed it was for mothers to work, and had even gone so far as to suggest that women working at all was only acceptable if there was no suitable man for the job. She had, as far as I was aware, never shown the slightest inclination to do anything other than ensure her house was a shrine to cleanliness, go shopping, bitch about the neighbours, and plot to stop me from marrying her son.
“So,” Malcolm continued, ignoring Marjorie’s ever more penetrating glare. “Your mother, we, I,” he was clearly not quite on message, “decided that the money should go to her in lieu of the salary she had been forced to give up. The money would, she, we, I thought, give her a small measure of independence.”
“It was mine anyway,” Marjorie added shrilly, “he only cut me out of his will to teach me lesson.” Quite what lesson this might be wasn’t clear.
“So, let me get this straight,” Gideon began, “Granddad left money to me and Helen, but you two decided that Mum should have it?” I was rather worried as Gideon looked bemused rather than furious, but perhaps he was just having trouble comprehending the awfulness of what his mother had done. She had kept her children’s inheritance (and her sister’s but Gideon didn’t know that and I could hardly tell him). How could she? I started to feel a sense of righteous anger and I had known about her perfidy for a while. I had only really seen the incident as a way to cut Marjorie down to size, but now I realised that she had behaved in a quite appalling manner. I’m no saint, but this really was beyond the pale.