The Last Enemy

by Jim Eldridge

  ‘Maybe not,’ said a voice behind him.

  Jake and Lauren swung round, and came face to face with the girl who’d been arguing with the receptionist.

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Jake.

  ‘Meaning I’m here,’ said the girl. ‘And if you want to know something about the de Courceys, then I’m your girl.’

  Lauren frowned.

  ‘Who are you?’ she asked.

  ‘Gemma Hayward,’ said the girl. ‘My mum used to work for the de Courceys at the hall.’

  ‘And how do you think you can help us?’ asked Lauren guardedly.

  The girl gave a sly grin.

  ‘Because you’re going to have a job trying to find out about that bunch of crooks from anyone else.’ She gave a sour face as she jerked her thumb at the door of the solicitors. ‘That lot, all the de Courceys’ high and mighty friends around here, they all stick together. But me,’ her face darkened, ‘I know what they’re really like. Me and my mum have been on the receiving end.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ asked Lauren.

  Gemma looked around, suspicious.

  ‘We can’t talk here,’ she said. ‘They might hear us, and the next second they’ll have me in court for slander or something, like that cow up there threatened.’

  ‘You really know the de Courceys?’ asked Jake, still feeling that this was just a wind-up of some sort.

  ‘Know them? Me and my mum lived with ’em!’ said Gemma. She gestured along the high street. ‘Look, if you want to buy me a coffee, I’ll tell you all about ’em.’

  ‘Why would you do that?’ asked Jake, puzzled.

  ‘Because if you’re asking about them, I reckon they’ve got something of yours, same way they’ve got something of ours. And maybe we can work together.’

  ‘Maybe we can.’ Lauren nodded. ‘So, where’s a good place for coffee in this town?’

  Chapter 15

  Jake and Lauren followed Gemma down the hill back into the new part of Sevenoaks. As they walked, they passed various coffee shops that looked inviting, but Gemma headed for a burger bar.

  ‘The coffee’s rubbish, but the fries are good,’ Gemma told them.

  Jake left Lauren with Gemma while he went to the counter and ordered three coffees and a portion of fries. The coffee smelt like cheap instant stuff.

  He sat the tray down, and Gemma immediately began to tuck into the fries.

  ‘Gemma was telling me that her mum worked as a maid for Guy’s dad,’ said Lauren.

  ‘Yeah.’ Gemma nodded. ‘The old earl. Earl Edwyn. The one who died. We had a small cottage on the estate. Anyway, the old earl promised my mum that whatever happened, we’d be all right. He’d look after us.’ She scowled as she stuffed more fries into her mouth. ‘The next thing we know is he’s selling up and we get kicked out without a penny in redundancy money! Now we’re living in a caravan park and she’s on benefits. After all my mum did for them!’

  ‘They cheated you,’ said Jake sympathetically.

  ‘Yeah!’ Gemma took a sip of her coffee, and her face creased in distaste. ‘Yuck! This stuff’s gross, even worse than I remembered it. I should have had a milkshake.’

  Lauren shot a meaningful look at Jake, and he asked Gemma, ‘Would you like a milkshake?’

  ‘Yeah.’ Gemma nodded. ‘Vanilla. A large one.’

  Jake headed back to the counter and bought a large milkshake. When he returned to the table, Gemma was still venting her tale of being cheated.

  ‘Gemma says she wants to sue the de Courceys,’ Lauren told Jake as he sat down.

  ‘The estate owes us!’ said Gemma vehemently. ‘If I had the money I’d sue them!’

  ‘We haven’t got any money,’ said Jake quickly. Too quickly, because he felt a sharp kick from Lauren. But either Gemma hadn’t heard Jake, or she’d decided to ignore him.

  ‘My mum’s soft,’ she continued. ‘She says to let it go, put it behind us. My brother says the same. They say it’s not the de Courceys’ fault because the old earl was broke and couldn’t afford to pay her, but I say the estate has still got money somewhere!’

  ‘Do you know Guy de Courcey?’ asked Lauren.

  Gemma’s lips curled.

  ‘Him!’ she snorted. ‘That’s where most of the money went! What a waster! All the time I was growing up, he was having parties, everything he wanted. Spend, spend, spend!’

  ‘We heard he left.’

  ‘Ran away, more like,’ said Gemma. ‘His dad got fed up with having to bail him out all the time, fixing things, paying his bills. I think he was relieved when he said he was going abroad.’

  ‘How long ago was that?’ asked Jake.

  Gemma thought. ‘Umm. I was about thirteen when he left. I’m fifteen now. So, two years ago.’

  ‘And he never came back?’

  Gemma shook her head.

  ‘No, thank God.’

  ‘What about the library?’ asked Lauren.

  ‘What about it?’ asked Gemma.

  ‘The books in it. Were they sold, or did they stay with the house when it went to the National Trust?’

  ‘Why? Are you after one of the books?’

  ‘We’re just trying to find out what happened to them,’ said Jake.

  ‘Yeah, well, that was a right rip-off,’ said Gemma.

  ‘In what way?’

  ‘A tax dodge,’ said Gemma. ‘The old earl sold most of the really old books, the ones worth some money, but not everything was declared.’ She winked. ‘Part-cheque, part-cash. Know what I mean? A deal between him and this bookseller bloke.’

  ‘What bookseller bloke?’ asked Jake.

  Gemma frowned thoughtfully as she tried to bring the name of the bookseller back.

  ‘Jason something. He was a nice old bloke. Big whiskers, but pleasant. Not snobbish like some of the people who used to hang around the old earl.’ She shook her head. ‘No, not Jason, something weirder. Jasper. That was it. Jasper Brigstocke. I remember because I saw his card. I thought it was an unusual name.’

  ‘Was he local?’ asked Jake.

  Gemma shook her head.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘London. Somewhere in the West End, I think. I just remember his name.’

  ‘Can you remember what he bought?’ asked Lauren.

  Gemma shook her head.

  ‘Just a load of old books,’ she said. ‘A van full.’ She stopped sucking on the straw of her milkshake and looked inquisitively at Jake and Lauren. ‘Anyway, what are you two after from the de Courceys? Do they owe you money?’

  ‘No,’ said Jake. ‘Like we said, we were curious to know what happened to the books.’ He smiled. ‘We’re interested in old books.’

  Gemma gave a scornful laugh.

  ‘Do me a favour!’ she said derisively. ‘No one comes all this way just to look for some old books.’

  ‘Jasper Brigstocke did,’ pointed out Jake.

  ‘Yeah, but that’s cos he was gonna make money out of ’em. No one does nothing if there ain’t a profit in it. What you really after?’

  ‘Just some of the old books!’ repeated Jake.

  Gemma looked at them suspiciously.

  ‘All right,’ she said. ‘You don’t want to tell me, that’s fine. But I can tell that you’re after something from the de Courceys. So why don’t we work together? I know all about them. I can put you on to stuff. We can all benefit from this.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lauren apologetically. ‘It really is just the books we’re interested in.’

  Gemma sucked on her milkshake for a while longer, still studying them. Then she gave a toss of her head and said airily, ‘Well, if that’s your story, all right. But if you change your mind, we’d be better off working together on this.’

  ‘What makes you think we can be any help to you with the de Courceys?’ asked Lauren.

  ‘For one thing, you’re older than me,’ said Gemma. ‘Like I said, I’m only fifteen. I can’t sue people on my own, and my mum don’t want to get involved. But y
ou can.’

  ‘Why would we want to sue the de Courceys?’

  ‘That’s your business,’ said Gemma. ‘But, like I say, whatever it is, we’ll get better results working together.’

  ‘OK,’ said Jake. ‘We’ll think about it.’

  ‘Where can we get hold of you if we need to?’ asked Lauren.

  Gemma took out a scrap of paper and wrote an address on it in scrawling letters.

  ‘This is the park where we live,’ she said. Beneath the address, she wrote a mobile number. ‘And this is my mobile. What about yours?’

  Jake was reluctant to give their details to this girl. She seemed intense. She’d already hung around outside in the street and waited for them at the solicitor’s office. He was worried that if they gave Gemma their address, she’d turn up at their flat and start harassing them.

  Fortunately, Lauren had had the same doubts, and was already handling it. Lauren wrote her mobile number on a torn-off piece of the table napkin, adding her name after it.

  ‘This is my mobile,’ she said. ‘We’re in between places at the moment, so we can’t give you an address.’

  ‘Mobile’s fine,’ said Gemma.

  She took out her mobile and dialled the number Lauren had written. Immediately, Lauren’s mobile rang.

  ‘That’s all right then.’ Gemma smiled, clicking her phone off and cutting the call.

  A shadow fell over the table and they heard a young man say, ‘Gemma!’ in a weary tone of voice.

  They looked up. A boy of about eighteen was standing there, looking at Gemma, and Jake and Lauren could see at once the family resemblance between them. Her brother, thought Jake.

  ‘What?’ demanded Gemma irritably.

  ‘I just had a phone call from Mrs Ward at the solicitor’s,’ he said. He let out a groan. ‘Gemma, you’ve got to stop doing this!’

  ‘Doing what?’ demanded Gemma.

  ‘You know what I mean,’ he said. He looked at Jake and Lauren, and then appealed to Gemma: ‘Maybe it’d be better if we talked about this outside, in private.’

  ‘No!’ said Gemma firmly.

  ‘They’re talking about taking out an injunction against you for harassment,’ he said.

  ‘Oh yeah!’ snapped Gemma. ‘I’d like to see ’em try!’

  ‘They’re solicitors, Gemma . . .’

  ‘Yeah, small-town solicitors,’ sneered Gemma. ‘Well, I’m gonna get me some big-time solicitors, and then we’ll see what that creep Ainsworth does!’

  ‘Gemma, this is crazy talk . . .’

  ‘Oh yeah? You’re just prepared to take it lying down, are you? Just like Mum. Well, I ain’t! You can do whatever you want, Dan. Me, I’m going to get what’s rightfully mine!’

  With that she got to her feet, pushed past him and stormed out of the burger bar. He stood looking after her, helpless.

  ‘Trouble?’ asked Lauren sympathetically.

  He turned back to them.

  ‘It’s not your problem,’ he said.

  ‘In a way it is,’ said Lauren. ‘We’re after some information about the de Courcey family.’

  The boy gave them a look filled with bitterness and suspicion.

  ‘You’re planning to sue them as well, are you?’ he demanded.

  ‘No, absolutely not!’ Lauren hastened to assure him. ‘We were interested in the old library at the hall, that’s all. Gemma offered to tell us about it.’

  ‘We met her at the solicitor’s,’ added Jake. ‘We’d gone there to see Mr Ainsworth.’

  Dan sighed, and then sank down on to the seat his sister had just left.

  ‘Then you heard the row?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lauren. ‘It was a bit of a shouting match.’

  ‘I don’t know what to do about her,’ he said, forcing a small smile at them. ‘I’m Dan, by the way, Gemma’s brother.’

  ‘We guessed that,’ said Lauren. ‘Family resemblance.’

  ‘Only in looks,’ sighed Dan. ‘We’re pretty different. She’s always flying off the handle, losing her temper. Me, I prefer a quiet life. Yeah, I was angry over what had happened with us being kicked out of our cottage and ending up in a caravan, but you can’t go on being bitter all your life. It just eats at you. Like it’s doing with Gemma.’

  ‘What did Gemma mean when she spoke about getting some real lawyers?’ asked Jake.

  Dan shrugged and let out a heartfelt sigh.

  ‘Yesterday we had a phone call at home from this firm of solicitors in London. Pierce Randall, they called themselves.’

  At the mention of the name Jake tensed, and he felt Lauren fidgeting beside him.

  ‘What did they want?’ asked Jake, doing his best to make his voice sound casual.

  ‘They wanted to talk about the de Courcey family.’ He frowned. ‘In fact, it was something about a book.’ He looked questioningly at Jake and Lauren. ‘Is that why you’re here? You mentioned the library at the hall. Are you after the same thing?’ Suddenly his questioning look turned into one of suspicion. ‘Are you from Pierce Randall?’

  ‘No,’ said Lauren. ‘I promise.’ Swiftly she changed the subject, asking, ‘How did Gemma know about them if they phoned you?’

  ‘She was listening. She’s always does that, eavesdropping. They said there could be money in it for us. She heard me tell them I wasn’t interested, and she got angry. She said I was an idiot to turn down the chance of getting what we were owed. I bet that’s what she’s doing now. Getting on to these Pierce Randall people.’ He shook his head. ‘No good’s going to come of it. I told her, she’s only going to get us in trouble, but she won’t listen to me.’

  Chapter 16

  As Jake and Lauren walked back to Sevenoaks railway station, they talked about Gemma and Pierce Randall.

  ‘Once she tells them about Jasper Brigstocke, they’ll be moving in on him,’ said Jake. ‘We need to get to him first.’

  ‘I still think it’s all too simple,’ insisted Lauren. ‘There’s no way we’re just going to walk into his bookshop and find The Index on his shelves.’

  ‘There is if he doesn’t know what it is,’ said Jake. ‘Think about it. If it just looks like a book with a list of place names, as far as he’s concerned it’s nothing more than finding an old phone book. It’s nothing special. Not like a first edition of Dickens, or an original Shakespeare.’

  ‘So why would he have bought it in the first place?’

  ‘Because he’d have seen that it’s from the fifteenth century, so it’s bound to be worth something to some book collector.’

  Lauren thought it over and then said, ‘Maybe you’re right.’

  Jake was already checking out Jasper Brigstocke on his iPhone.

  ‘Got him,’ he said. ‘Jasper Brigstocke, antiquarian books. His shop is in Notting Hill Gate.’

  Jake dialled the number. It rang, and then went to voicemail. A man’s voice said, ‘This is Jasper Brigstocke. I’m afraid I’m not available at the moment, so do leave a message and I will get back to you in due course.’

  Jake hung up.

  ‘He’s not there,’ he said. ‘Or, he is, but he’s not answering the phone.’

  ‘Then let’s hope we get to him before Pierce Randall do,’ said Lauren.

  Sue Clark sat at her desk, scanning a row of figures on a balance sheet. They were from the accounts of a large multinational company, which the tax authorities were accusing of fraud and tax evasion. Of course it was tax evasion; her job, along with the firm’s accountants, was to prove this was a case of tax avoidance, an entirely different and perfectly legal situation. Her desk phone rang. It was her secretary.

  ‘I’ve got a Gemma Hayward on the line, Ms Clark,’ she said. ‘She said you were talking to her brother, Dan, the other day.’

  Immediately, Clark was alert.

  ‘Put her through,’ she said.

  Jasper Brigstocke’s Antiquarian Bookshop was a narrow-fronted shop on a tiny old street about halfway between Notting Hill Gate and Quee
nsway underground stations. Although the surrounding area was busy with traffic and people, this street was virtually deserted; just a few people using it as a short cut between the main thoroughfares.

  The shop was ancient. The door and window displays were dusty. The books in the window looked as if they’d been there even longer than the shop.

  ‘It doesn’t look like a business that makes a lot of money,’ commented Jake.

  ‘Maybe that’s just a cover,’ suggested Lauren. ‘Keeps the tax man off his back.’

  Jake was about to push the door to go in, when he saw that the sign hanging inside the glass panel said ‘Closed’.

  ‘What!’ he scowled. ‘Closed! We’ve come all this way for nothing!’

  Lauren pressed her nose against the glass. As she did so, the door swung inwards.

  Jake and Lauren exchanged puzzled looks.

  ‘D’you think he’d really go out and leave his shop unlocked?’ asked Jake. ‘Especially in London.’

  ‘Maybe he just forgot to turn the “Closed” sign back to “Open”,’ suggested Lauren.

  She pushed the door open wider and stepped in, Jake close behind her.

  The shop had been trashed. Books had been pulled from the shelves and lay scattered on the floor.

  ‘Trouble,’ whispered Jake apprehensively.

  ‘Hello!’ Lauren called. ‘Mr Brigstocke!’

  There was no answer.

  ‘Maybe we should call the police,’ she muttered.

  ‘Let’s see if Brigstocke’s here first,’ said Jake. ‘He may have already done that.’

  The shop, although narrow, seemed never-ending. As they walked through it, doing their best to avoid treading on the books on the floor, they could see that it widened out, as if it expanded into the neighbouring shops.

  It was a maze of very tall free-standing wooden shelves that formed alleyways. Each shelf must have been stacked with books, most of which were now ankle-deep on the floor.

  Again, Lauren called out, ‘Mr Brigstocke!’ There was no reply, just a silence hanging over the whole shop.

  They moved along one of the narrow alleyways, over the carpet of scattered books, and finally, at the back of the shop they came to a door with the word ‘Office’ on a nameplate fixed to it.