DEADLY DECEPTIONS

by Bill WENHAM

  Chapter Six

  Back in 2003, in another part of the country, a man had just died. He hadn’t been murdered, run over or even fallen off a ladder. He had merely died of old age, and sadly with no friends or relatives present when it happened. He was in his eighties and he had died the way he had lived –very much alone.

  As a much younger man his occupation at the time had necessitated him to operate mainly on his own and in later years he just continued with that same life style.

  His next door neighbour, Rose Surridge, a plump, rosy cheeked and naturally friendly woman, came into his home twice a week to clean up for him and to do his laundry. She made no charge for these services and did it solely out of kindness and neighbourliness for a very old man trying to live his life out on his own.

  On Sundays, Rose would put up what she called a ‘pot luck Sunday dinner’ for the old man as well. She wanted to be sure that he had one good solid meal in his belly at least once a week. When she put out his cans and empty packets for him, she had a pretty good idea of what he ate for the rest of the week.

  “Man cannot live on macaroni and cheese and bread and jam alone,” she would say to her husband, Leo.

  Each Monday the old man would give Rose his grocery shopping list, further proof of what he was eating, and the money to pay for it. Most times she would throw in a few extra little treats into his grocery bag which she paid for herself. He would also ask her to pay his bills for him by mail. He would always enclose a cheque for payment and Rose was sure he was never in arrears even though she never actually saw the bills.

  Rose took pleasure in doing these simple things for him since she and Leo had no kids to look after and she ‘mothered’ the old man instead. To do his bit to help his neighbour, Leo kept the old man’s tiny garden tidy for him as well and gave him fruits and vegetables from his own garden when they were in season.

  One day, when she popped next door to do his cleaning, she felt that something was wrong when she opened his front door and the old man’s cat shot outside between her legs. She could hear the television on in the small lounge of the house and she called out to him as she came inside, just to let him know she was there. It was something she did every time she visited.

  When he didn’t reply, she went looking for him and didn’t need to look very far. What she actually found was far worse than that and explained perhaps why the cat had shot out of the house. She had hoped that the old man hadn’t fallen down somewhere and hurt himself.

  She found Eric Manning slumped in his favourite old armchair in front of the television.

  At first Rose thought that he was asleep and shook his shoulder gently to wake him. It wasn’t unusual since she had often found him dozing peacefully in his chair when she’d walked in.

  When he didn’t respond, she touched his face. It was stone cold and she could see that old Eric wasn’t breathing either. Eric Manning was obviously quite dead.

  Rose didn’t attempt to move him and returned quickly to her own house where she found Eric’s cat crying for food at her front door. It was now Wednesday and she hadn’t been in his house since Sunday. If Eric had died on Sunday night, Monday or even yesterday, the poor cat must be absolutely starving, she thought.

  For a moment, Rose pondered on what to do first, feed the cat or call the police. She decided that old Eric wasn’t going anywhere and consequently the cat won. She had some left over boiled cod from her and Leo’s previous evening meal. She had been planning to make fish cakes out of it but since she had no idea how long it was since the poor cat had eaten, she gave some of it to the cat along with a saucer of milk.

  Rose wasn’t overly fond of cats and would never have had one in the house by choice, but, she thought ruefully, it looked like she and Leo had just adopted one today.

  Anyway, she knew Leo wouldn’t mind. At least he wouldn’t have to take it for walks and all the necessary cat stuff was over at Eric’s place, so apart from food, they wouldn’t have to buy anything.

  She never bought cat food for Eric, only litter for its tray, so she guessed it just ate table scraps. If it had lived with old Eric it couldn’t be a finicky eater either. A moment later, when she looked down, the dish with the cod was empty. The cat was now lapping up the milk. Rose put some more fish down and then picked up the phone to call the police. She said she wanted to report the death of a neighbour.

  The mechanical sounding voice on the phone asked her how her neighbour had died.

  “How the hell should I know,” Rose said. “He’s just sitting in his old chair and he’s dead. Looks like he’s just stopped breathing or something – and, oh, yeah, he’s as cold as ice as well, poor old bugger.”

  As soon a police car and an ambulance, siren blaring, arrived outside in the street. Rose went out to let them into Eric’s house. She told the policemen that she always ‘did’ for Eric twice a week, which caused one of the young constables to smirk until nudged by his partner.

  She told them how she found him and that she hadn’t seen him since Sunday. She added that she would take care of his cat but needed the food and water bowls and the cat’s litter tray. One of the constables said that would be okay to take them and she left them to get on with it.

  When Leo came home, she told him what had happened and that they now had a cat. She picked it up and put it in Leo’s lap as he was sitting at the kitchen table. The cat, a dark smoky gray female, immediately started to purr.

  Leo stroked it.

  “That’s nice, Rosie, look at that. What’s its name?”

  Rose looked surprised at the question.

  “I dunno, love, I never ever asked Eric that,” she said.

  Leo chucked the cat under the chin and she stretched her neck and purred even louder.

  “So, cat, what should we call you?” he said.

  “Make it something easy for me to remember, Leo,” Rose said.

  Leo grinned at her.

  “Easy, eh, Rosie. Well, here’s a real easy name. One even you can’t forget,” he said.

  He gently placed his hands either side of the cat’s head, looked into her green eyes and said, “I don’t know what Eric called you, sweetie, and you probably ignored him when he called you anyway, so in this house, you will be known as…”

  He paused and grinned at his wife.

  “Cat,” he said. “Reckon you can remember that one, Rosie, my love?”

  Rose just sniffed at him.

  “Well,” she said, “It’s not very imaginative, is it, Leo, but if that’s the best you can come up with, I suppose it’ll have to do.”

  The cat didn’t appear to object to her new name and promptly went to sleep on Leo’s lap.

  It was about two weeks after the funeral, at which Rose and Leo were the only attendees, when a middle aged man, wearing a pin striped suit and carrying a briefcase, knocked on Rose’s front door. Leo was at work and Rose opened the door just a fraction to peer out at her visitor.

  “Yes?”

  “Mrs. Surridge?” the man asked politely.

  “Yes.” Rose said.

  “I’m Hugh Grenville from the law firm of Lampton, Charlesworth and Jenkins, solicitors, ma’am. May I come in?” he asked politely.

  “Why?” Rose asked, and quite reasonably too, she thought.

  “I have some legal business to discuss with you, Mrs. Surridge. The matter of an inheritance and I think it would be best if it was not discussed out here on your doorstep, ma’am,” Grenville said with a slight edge to his voice.

  At the word ‘inheritance’, Rose’s interest was immediately aroused.

  “Well, yes, in that case I suppose you had better come inside,” she said and opened the front door wide. She ushered him in, looked quickly up and down the street to see who might be watching and then closed the door.

  Grenville had stopped right inside the door, waiting for her to lead the way.

  “This way,” Rose said, and preceded him down the hallway to the lounge.

  A
s Grenville followed her he said, “We’ve been trying to contact you by phone, Mrs Surridge, but there’s been no reply. I just popped by today on the off chance that you’d be home.”

  Rose indicated an armchair in the lounge but Grenville asked if they could use her dining room table instead.

  “I have a few documents to go over with you, Mrs. Surridge, if you don’t mind.”

  “Documents!” Rose said in a worried voice. “Shouldn’t my Leo be here then?”

  Grenville just smiled.

  “I can assume that Leo is your husband, then, can I, ma’am?”

  Rose nodded.

  “Thank you, but in answer to your question, no, Mrs. Surridge, your husband does not need to be present at this point. The purpose of my visit to you today is to merely advise you of the terms of Mr. Manning’s will,” Grenville said.

  “His will?” Rose gasped. “What the hell has his will got to do with me?”

  Grenville gave her a slight smile.

  “Everything, actually, Mrs. Surridge, since you are the sole beneficiary of it. I did mention an inheritance to you, didn’t I, ma’am?”

  Rose gasped.

  “You mean the old bugger left me something then?” she said.

  Grenville opened up his briefcase, removed some papers and placed them on the dining room table.

  “No, Mrs. Surridge. He didn’t leave you something at all, ma’am.”

  He paused, smiled at her again and said, “He has left you everything, Mrs. Surridge.”

  Rose’s eyes opened wide in shock.

  “Oh, my God!” she said, breathing heavily, and then, almost in the very next instant added, “So, what exactly is everything, then?”

  Grenville picked up a copy of the will from the table, placed a pair of spectacles on his nose and scanned the document.

  “Well, Mrs. Surridge, for starters, probably the largest bequest would be his house, which is fully paid for.”

  “The old sod left me his bloody house! I don’t believe it!” she gasped.

  “There’s more, Mrs. Surridge. He has also left you the house contents which you can either keep or dispose of as you wish. Then there is his bank account and investment portfolio, Mrs. Surridge. They will amount to a very tidy sum, the total of which you will be advised of in due course,” Grenville said.

  “I get all that?” Rose gasped again. “Why, for God’s sake?”

  “It will be less death duties, taxes, funeral expenses and our legal fees, of course, but yes, Mrs. Surridge, the rest is all yours. And the reason, ma’am, it all goes to my good and kindly neighbor who has always looked after me so well, as Mr. Manning put it, Mrs. Surridge.”

  “Oh, my goodness,” Rose said breathlessly. “Whatever will my Leo say when I tell him?”

  Grenville smiled.

  “I would imagine he will be quite pleased, ma’am, as I would be if it had happened to me. Its not often that something like this just falls into one’s lap, as it has into yours, is it?”

  “Oh, thank you, sir. Thank you so much,” Rose said, her lips trembling.

  “No need to thank me, Mrs. Surridge. I’m merely the messenger boy today.”

  Rose’s hand suddenly flew to her mouth and she looked devastated

  “Oh, my, whatever must you think of me, Mr. Grenville? Where are my manners? You’ve brought me all this good news and I haven’t even offered you a cup of tea. I’m so sorry. Let me just put the kettle on. It won’t take but a minute.”

  Grenville put up a hand to stay her as she started to stand up from the table.

  “There’s no need for tea, thank you, Mrs. Surridge. This is merely an advisory for you. You will need to come to our offices to finalize the details, sign, and to be advised of the actual monetary details. Here is a business card with our office phone number and address on it. Please call us when it is convenient for you to pop by.”

  “Can I bring my Leo with me?” Rose asked anxiously.

  “Of course you can, Mrs. Surridge, so long as he understands that it is you who is the beneficiary of Mr. Manning’s will and not he. What you do with it all afterwards will be entirely up to you, of course.” Grenville replaced all the papers into his briefcase, closed it and stood up. Rose stood also.

  “Well, I’ll be off then, Mrs. Surridge. You be sure to take good care of his cat, now, won’t you?’ he said. He picked up his briefcase and then turned and walked towards the front door.

  Rose followed him, opened the door and shook his hand.

  “Thank you, Mr. Grenville, you’ve really made my day and you have a good one yourself,” she said.

  “It was my pleasure, Mrs. Surridge and I hope to see you again before very long,” he said.

  “Just as soon as I’ve told my Leo, we’ll be in touch, sir. You can bet on it. He’s going to be more than tickled pink about all this, I can tell you,” she said.

  Grenville smiled again and walked across the street to where he’d parked his car. Rose waved at him from her doorway and didn’t care now what any of her other neighbours might think of her having a male visitor.

  On a day like this, I feel just like Santa Claus, bringing some real joy into a couple’s life, Grenville thought, as he got in, placed his briefcase on the seat beside him and started the car.

  But real joy wasn’t exactly what Hugh Grenville had brought with his visit to Mrs. Rose Surridge on this day. Something else that old Eric Manning had also left her would begin a whole series of events that would affect many lives and cause many deaths in a small place far away from this crowded London street.

  As she had predicted, her Leo was a lot more than just tickled pink when Rose told him her news. He was absolutely astounded.

  “Jesus, Rosie, my love, this is like winning the bloody Pools!” he said excitedly when Rose had told him everything.

  “So, what now, do you reckon?” he said.

  “Well, we’ve got to call and make an appointment, Mr. Grenville said, and we can’t do that today,” she told him.

  “That’s a shame, Rosie, ‘cos I’ve never even been inside his house, have I? His stuff might be a whole pile of rubbish for all I know,” Leo said.

  Rose just smiled and took a key down from a hook on the kitchen wall. She held it up in front of him.

  “We can soon get that sorted even if we don’t exactly own his place yet, Leo,” she grinned. “Because I’m in and out of there all the time, aren’t I? One more time can’t hurt, can it? Let’s you and me just go and see what the old boy’s got over there.”

  The first surprise they got as they started to go through the old man’s belongings was to find out that his name wasn’t Eric Manning at all – it was Erik Mannheim!

  “Bloody hell, Rosie,” Leo exploded. “That old bastard wasn’t even a bleedin’ Englishman at all. He was a bloody Jerry!

  Actually, Leo was only half right. The old man had certainly been German, but when they looked up in his loft they found something else that told them a lot more about him than that!

  In an old pre-war and steamship label covered wooden trunk, they found his wartime suitcase radio and code books. Rose discovered, to her chagrin, that the nice old man that she’d been ‘doing for’ all this time, was in fact a Nazi – a German spy from World War II!

  “What are we going to do now, Leo? Go to the police?” Rose asked fearfully. She had a sudden vision of all their sudden good fortune, including the house, being confiscated by the Bobbies. All gone, just like that, like a puff of bloody smoke. She started to cry.

  Leo had had similar thoughts himself as he put his arm around his wife’s shoulders comfortingly.

  “Nah, Rosie, they can’t do nothin’. All this stuff of old Eric’s is from years back. The old geezer’s gone now anyway, so what’s the point,” Leo said.

  Rose sniffed and said, “I suppose so, but German or not, and spy or not, he’s been very good to us, hasn’t he? And as you say, Leo, it’s been years. Even people who commit bad crimes are let out of prison eve
ntually, aren’t they?”

  Leo just laughed.

  “Well, not all of ‘em, Rose. Some of ‘em get to go for the Big Drop,” he said.

  “Big Drop?”

  Leo put his head on one side, made a fist, pulled it up above his head and poked his tongue out to simulate hanging.

  “Oh, yes, I suppose so, but it’s too late for that now anyway, isn’t it? He’s already dead and they can’t kill him twice, can they?”

  Leo shook his head.

  “And anyway, Leo, how do we even know he was the actual spy? Maybe he just collected all this stuff.”

  Leo laughed and pointed at the loft’s tiny window.

  “Will you just look at that, Rose?”

  Rose turned to look where her husband was pointing.

  “Ah, too late, Rosie, you just missing that pig that just went flying by. So, come off it, my sweet, of course he was a bleedin’ spy, but so were some of our lot too. They wouldn’t want the Jerries looking for them after all this time either. Anyway, as you say, he’s gone now and it’s too late to do anything about it now.”

  “Good,” Rose said. “Because, spy or not, I liked the old man or I wouldn’t have done for him like I have. I’m liking him even more now that he’s given us all his stuff. Its just like he’s trying to make amends somehow.”

  Leo snorted derisively.

  “What the hell else was he going to do with it, Rose? Take it all with him?”

  Rose just sniffed again.

  “No, Leo, of course not, but he didn’t have to give it to us either, did he? I think it was a very nice thing to do and he could have easily donated it all to a dog’s or cat’s home, couldn’t he? You know that as well as I do. Old people do that kind of thing all the time. I read somewhere that some daft American woman left everything she had to her bloody poodle, for God’s sake! Millions it was, Leo!”

  Leo wasn’t listening to her and was looking very thoughtful.

  “Just a minute, Rose, hang about. There’s a bloke I know down at the pub who’s interested in all this wartime stuff. Old Parker, he’s a collector of some sort, I think. I’ll have a talk to him about all this once this place is officially ours. He’ll probably give us a few quid for it, no questions asked, I’ll bet.”