The Wedding Dress

by Milly Johnson

  ‘She acquired the land in the sixties. She started building . . .’ he checked his records ‘. . . in March last year. If you peruse the files you’ll find everything you need to know in there. Mr Glace has his copy also.’

  Eve totted up in her head how many months ago that was. Eighteen. That might explain a bit. Just over nineteen months ago, Aunt Evelyn had a mini-stroke. But rather than it grinding her down, she had bounced out of hospital like a spring chicken. Her brush with death had obviously geed her up to the n-th degree.

  ‘She never said a word about any of this.’ Eve shook her head in disbelief. Something was niggling at her brain. ‘How can you keep this sort of thing secret? You can’t. It’s too big. What was she thinking of? How come no one knew? This is crazy.’ If she scratched her head any more she’d reach bone.

  Mr Mead allowed himself a little smile. ‘Your aunt was a woman of enormous resource. If she wanted to keep something out of the newspapers, she knew the people who would keep it out of the newspapers. You could almost say she was born in the latter years of her life.’

  ‘So it seems,’ said Eve, who didn’t quite recognise the rather batty old lady with the power magnate alter-ego she obviously was. ‘What if I didn’t want to do anything with the project?’ Eve asked.

  ‘You both have three months to either undertake the project or all rights will revert to the other. If both of you resign your rights, then ownership will pass to the Maud Haworth Cat Founda—’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ Eve interrupted, holding her hand up. That’s what was nipping at the edge of her thoughts – that name. ‘Who the heck is Mr Glace?’

  ‘Mr Jacques Glace is the joint beneficiary.’

  ‘Jacques Glace? Who is he? I’ve never heard of him.’

  ‘All I can tell you is that is that he is the joint beneficiary of the estate and the person to whom your aunt bequeathed the care of Kringle and Fancy’s ashes.’

  Blimey, thought Eve. She must have thought a lot of this Mr Glace to leave her precious cats’ ashes to him. But that still didn’t explain who he was.

  Mr Mead shrugged. He would offer no more information on the man other than he was an associate of Evelyn’s, lived in Outer Hoodley and was very tall. And he, apparently, had been as gobsmacked as Eve about being left a theme park. Mr Mead had seen him that morning and given him the news. He was going to give both parties a week to study the files to decide if they wanted to take the project forward or resign their rights then next week meet together in his office. Eve looked up at the ceiling to see if there were any candid camera’s attached up there recording her reaction to all this.

  ‘So, let me just get this straight in my brain,’ Eve said, tapping both sides of her head simultaneously, ‘my aunt Evelyn wants me – and this Jacques Glace bloke – to finish off a theme park which she started to build.’

  ‘Correct.’

  Eve laughed. ‘Well, I presume she’s left us a fortune to be able to do that.’

  ‘Yes, that’s also correct.’

  Eve nearly fainted.

  ‘Subject to all the expenses being approved by each other and myself,’ went on Mr Mead. ‘Obviously you won’t be able to take the monies and spend the money on cruises and fine wines.’

  ‘How much did she leave?’ said Eve in a voice shocked into temporary laryngitis.

  ‘A very considerable sum,’ said Mr Mead. ‘I don’t have the exact figure in front of me because interest accrues at a daily rate, but I will have for our next meet. I do believe it’s in the region of ten million pounds.’

  ‘Ten mill . . .’ Eve couldn’t even finish the word. This is what lottery winners must feel like – seeing all those numbers on the screen that matched their own and yet there was a membrane as thick as a plank of wood over the part of their brain that let them absorb the information. ‘Mr Mead, you cannot be serious,’ she gulped like a bustier, Yorkshire version of John McEnroe. For a moment she thought her life had been hijacked by a computer game – Zoo Tycoon or the equivalent Christmas Park Tycoon. People inherited jewellery and photographs from old aunts, not ten million quid and future bills for reindeers.

  ‘A fifth percentage of the revenue earned by your venture will be split between your aunt’s affiliated charities: The Maud Haworth Cat Foundation and the Yorkshire Fund for Disabled Servicemen. Any remaining profit will be equally divided between yourself and Mr Glace.’

  It was sinking in, slowly but surely, that Mr Mead was not as mad as Aunt Evelyn. Not that it mattered. Eve had little interest of being part of such a ridiculous scheme. She was happy as she was with a good, profitable events-organising business and didn’t need to change professions and work alongside someone else. She was a lone wolf in business and always would be. Jacques Glace, whoever he was, could have the bloody thing. It all sounded far too good to be true – and that was a sure sign that there must be catches as big as man-traps waiting for her.

  ‘I’ll think about it all, of course,’ said Eve. She wasn’t that daft to dismiss it all out of hand without looking through the paperwork, but really it was all madness. A theme park in Barnsley wouldn’t work. People would laugh their socks off at the incredulity of it. A seasonal theme park was especially dodgy – who would want to see Santa in August?

  She left Mr Mead’s office determined to let the mysterious Jacques Glace take the helm and go bankrupt after three months – because that is surely what would happen. But by the time she had got to her car, Eve Beresford’s brain was fast at work. A change of mind might be possible . . .