Freddy Dodds spread his arms wide. ‘Well, you’ve come to the right place, then, haven’t you.’
A Lada. A Skoda. A Fiat towed in from Portobello. Except all of them were out of commission right now. Instead the fence was indicating another vehicle, just pulled up to the garage forecourt. Polished. All its trim sparkling in the sunlight. Solomon stared at his new ride. He hadn’t known that Freddy Dodds was in the funeral business. Dodds was smiling again, glint of gold appearing from behind his top lip.
‘The driver’s got a job to do first. Take you where you need to go after.’
‘A funeral?’ said Solomon.
‘Aye. Some old soldier. They wanted all the spit and polish.’
Solomon’s heart played its little dance. ‘I don’t suppose you know his name, do you?’
Freddy Dodds frowned. ‘Methven. If I had to guess.’
Three
Solomon Farthing rode to his final reckoning in a hearse, polished wood and silver fittings, glass on three sides wiped until it gleamed. He sat in the passenger seat, holding tight as they bumped and bounced over the Edinburgh sets. He had expected the hearse to proceed at a stately pace. But the minute they’d pulled away from Dodds’s garage, the driver had put his foot down.
‘Sorry about this,’ he said as they lurched around corners and flew over potholes. ‘Meant to have collected him at least an hour ago. Don’t want to keep the furnaces waiting. Trouble if they get backed up.’
But just when Solomon expected the hearse to plunge uphill towards the centre of the city and out the other side, it veered right instead.
‘This isn’t the way to the crematorium,’ he said, clutching at his folder of paperwork.
‘Not going to the crematorium yet,’ said the driver. ‘Got to do the pick-up first.’
The hearse accelerated towards its destination, deep into a Tory suburb of the city, houses that belonged to Edinburgh Men who wore beige and frequented the Probus, amongst other things. Solomon’s heart was pounding so loud he thought all of Edinburgh must hear it as the hearse drew alongside a property he had been to before. Generous driveway and French windows at the back. A lilac blooming on the far side of the road. The house belonging to a dead man. And the original scene of the crime.
As Solomon followed the driver through the front door and into the hall, soiled leather shoes sinking into that familiar pile, he had the startling sense that he might be about to meet himself coming the other way. An Heir Hunter, hair wild about his face, torn cuff flapping, the stink of Fino on his breath, sneaking down this very corridor as he tried a bit of breaking and entering in an attempt to turn his luck. His fingers were fluttering like a thousand butterflies as he entered the living room, found them staring back. Three women sitting in a ring around the dead man as though they were already in a church. Margaret Penny of the Office for Lost People. Margaret Penny’s mother, Barbara. Her friend, Mrs Maclure. The remnants of Edinburgh’s Indigent Rota, delivering a new service to the needy of the city.
Sitting in.
Wasn’t that what they called it? Holding vigil for those who did not have anyone else to see them safely on their way.
Also, there, in the middle of the room, propped on two chairs upholstered in brocade, a coffin with the lid being screwed down at that very moment. And inside that the mortal remains of Solomon’s client. Thomas Methven (deceased).
It began with a fight, as it always did, about who owed what to whom and why, three Edinburgh Ladies against an Heir Hunter. It was never going to be a fair fight. The first to mount the battlements was Margaret Penny of the Office for Lost People, rising from her chair the moment Solomon appeared and positioning herself in front of Thomas Methven’s coffin as though she knew Solomon’s sole intention was to strip the dead man of all he had left.
‘What are you doing here?’ she said, adjusting what looked like a fox stole tucked beneath her summer coat. ‘This is my case now.’
Solomon edged further into the room, clutching his folder containing Thomas Methven’s family tree high on his chest as though to prove his prior claim. Though even he knew his general air of dishevelment did nothing to aid his cause.
‘DCI Franklin put me in charge,’ he said. ‘Suggested there might be a delay at the QLTR end. Paperwork backed up.’
There was the slightest flush on Margaret Penny’s neck then, as though she had been caught in something she had tried to hide. An inefficiency at the office, perhaps. Or an attempt to expedite the growing backlog at the mortuary by spiriting Thomas Methven away before he’d been officially signed off. Or maybe it was just because she was wearing a fox around her neck in the warmth of a summer day – her funeral outfit, Solomon presumed.
Either way, Margaret Penny placed her hand on one end of Thomas Methven’s coffin as though to reinforce her advantage as an actual government official, rather than someone who was simply doing a favour for somebody else.
‘This isn’t a police matter,’ she said. ‘Nothing suspicious in an old man’s death.’
‘It’s his outfit I’m interested in,’ said Solomon. ‘How the money got inside.’
‘The suit?’ Margaret Penny frowned. ‘What’s that got to do with anything?’
‘Might mean nothing. Could mean a lot.’ Solomon slid a hand into his pocket to hide its flutter. ‘Simply attempting to secure Mr Methven’s inheritance for the rightful next of kin.’
Margaret Penny waved an indignant hand towards the driver of the hearse, fastening the last screw on Thomas Methven’s coffin.
‘Well as you can see,’ she said, ‘it is too late for that.’
Margaret Penny was wearing shoes with a strap across the ankle. The shoes were red. An invitation. Or a warning. Solomon Farthing couldn’t be sure. Either way, she was proving an admirable adversary, he thought, in defence of the deceased. He felt his fingertips suddenly hot at the thought that together he and Margaret Penny might rule this city . . . if they could only get on. He flicked his eyes towards the driver of the hearse, wondered whether he might be able to wrestle the screwdriver from his hands and let the dead man out. But when help arrived, it was not in a form Solomon had anticipated – all that remained of Edinburgh’s Indigent Rota coming to his aid.
‘What inheritance?’ said Barbara Penny from her seat in the depths of a dead man’s sofa. Barbara Penny was old – well over eighty – was wheezing slightly with every breath, a grey NHS stick clutched in her hand.
‘Fifty thousand, that’s what I heard,’ said Mrs Maclure, blinking from behind wire-rimmed spectacles.
‘But I thought he was an indigent.’ Barbara Penny sounded indignant.
‘Apparently . . .’ said Margaret Penny, eyes sliding towards her mother, then away again, ‘we were misinformed.’
All three women turned to look at Solomon Farthing then, as though accusing him of something he had not even begun to understand. Solomon considered offering them a slice of his ever-diminishing commission as a way to get them to agree to set Thomas Methven free. But then he thought better of it. Whatever their peculiarities, Edinburgh Ladies (unlike Edinburgh Men) were not renowned for being bought or sold.
‘I need to find out if the burial suit has something to do with where the deceased’s money came from,’ he said, trying a different tack. ‘If we cannot confirm, all of his cash goes to the Queen.’
‘Oh,’ said Mrs Maclure, brightening. ‘I love the Queen.’
Solomon noticed that she was holding a small posy in her hands, three spring roses.
‘What?’ Barbara Penny stumped with her stick on the carpet. ‘The Queen’s got enough already, hasn’t she? Let the man see, Margaret, for goodness’ sake. No harm in that.’
‘Oh no,’ cried Mrs Maclure, reaching as though to touch the end of Thomas Methven’s coffin, before thinking better of it. ‘Don’t disturb him now that he’s at rest.’
‘He’s not at rest until they’ve put him in that furnace,’ said Barbara Penny, chest giving off a little whistle. ‘B
urned him to a crisp.’
‘Oh, for pity’s sake . . .’ Margaret Penny slapped the coffin, a gesture that startled them all. ‘If we don’t get a move on, he’ll miss his bloody slot.’
‘Language, Margaret. Please!’
Barbara Penny rattled her grey NHS stick again and they all subsided. The old lady frowned at him, then at Margaret, as though they were children.
‘Now,’ she said. ‘What makes you think this suit is what you need, young man?’
‘Just want to find out where it might have come from,’ Solomon mumbled.
All three of the women glowered at him then, as though he was a man at the end of a firing squad just before the hood went down.
‘Why on earth didn’t you say that when you came in,’ Margaret Penny demanded. ‘Could have saved ourselves this trouble.’
‘So you know where Thomas Methven acquired the suit, then,’ said Solomon.
‘Yes,’ said Margaret Penny.
‘Sort of,’ muttered Barbara Penny.
‘Oh no, dear,’ said Mrs Maclure, smiling and bobbing her head. ‘It wasn’t Mr Methven who acquired the suit. We got it from your aunt.’
She arrived then as though she was the Queen, Solomon’s aunt who wasn’t really his aunt, all dressed for a funeral. And after that, a wake. She swept into the living room like a latter-day Frida Kahlo, hair piled high on her head gleaming like freshly polished steel, speared at the top with a turquoise clasp. She was wearing some kind of robe, black, with Chinese embroidery cascading down the trim. Every one of her knuckles was adorned with a lump of silver. Solomon was sure that he recognized her earrings from his grandfather’s old cabinet – two heavy drops of jade.
‘Apologies,’ his aunt announced as she came through the door. ‘I was delayed by some business.’
Turning cash into gold. Or gold into cash, perhaps.
‘About time too,’ said Barbara Penny thumping her stick. ‘We need you to explain to this young man—’
‘Ah, you are here at last, Solomon,’ his aunt pronounced. ‘Dunlop found you, I presume.’
You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
Solomon pulled at the edges of his jacket as though to straighten himself out now that his aunt who wasn’t really his aunt had arrived. Margaret Penny stepped forwards as though to explain, then subsided as her mother gave her a stare that could have put them all in a coffin. Perhaps he and Margaret Penny had something in common after all, Solomon thought then.
His aunt moved to stand in front of the dead man’s wooden box, Solomon Farthing and Margaret Penny parting like the waves to make way. She placed both hands on the top as though she was about to pray over Thomas Methven, sing him on his final journey.
‘So here he is, then, Mr Methven. All ready to go.’
‘Hang on . . .’ Solomon felt a sudden agitation in his chest at the idea that now his aunt had arrived Thomas Methven might disappear into the furnace, no more questions asked. ‘What about the suit?’
‘What about it?’
‘I need to know where it comes from.’
His aunt who wasn’t really his aunt turned slowly towards him, frowning as though the answer was obvious and he was the stupidest one in the room.
‘It comes from my stockpile, of course.’
Black shoes. Trousers that had seen better days. Sunday gabardine.
The remains of Solomon Farthing’s inheritance, piled into his aunt’s spare room and kept for forty years, just in case he should ever change his mind.
‘It’s all still there,’ said Solomon’s aunt, a graceful wave of her hand.
Blankets and seed pearls. An otter in a case.
‘Minus a few items we deemed necessary to donate, of course. For charity, you understand. We didn’t think you’d mind.’
‘For charity,’ breathed Solomon.
As though he was not a charity himself.
All of Godfrey Farthing’s worldly goods turned over to the indigent of his adopted city. Another service on behalf of the dispossessed – anything the abandoned might need to go out in, once the end finally came, but did not own themselves. Shoes. And waistcoats. Jackets. And shirts. Or in Thomas Methven’s case, a suit, blue like a starling’s egg, lining dark as midnight. The perfect burial gown.
Mrs Maclure clasped both hands together now as though she too was praying. ‘Such a wonderful man, Mr Methven. It was the least we could do.’
‘You knew him, then?’ said Solomon, staring at the coffin of his deceased client as though willing him to open the lid from the inside out so that he could explain.
‘Of course,’ said Mrs Maclure. ‘We all knew Thomas Methven.’
‘He sold me a life insurance policy once,’ said Barbara Penny from her corner of the sofa.
‘I didn’t know you had life insurance,’ said Margaret.
‘Protection from thieves.’ Barbara frowned at Solomon then. Or, perhaps, at his aunt.
‘A stalwart of the flower and vegetable shows.’ Mrs Maclure smiled. ‘Loved his roses almost as much as his wife.’
She indicated through the living-room window towards flowerbeds crammed with great blooms in pink and orange all up and down the path. Both Solomon’s hands had begun with their agitated flutter now.
‘So this is Thomas Methven’s house?’
‘It used to be,’ replied his aunt. ‘Sold it long ago. But I have an estate agent friend, told me it would be empty. We thought Mr Methven would like to rest somewhere he once belonged before he departed. A small gesture from his friends, in memory of a long and happy life.’
Estate agents, thought Solomon sinking onto the corner of one brocade chair, Thomas Methven’s coffin occupying the other. Another type of Edinburgh Man, not that far removed from the Heir Hunter end of things.
‘I knew it was you.’ Mrs Maclure’s eyes widened at the memory of her previous meeting with Solomon Farthing in this very room. ‘What a fright you gave me. Thought you’d come to pay your respects. Until you ran away, of course.’
‘Nothing new there then,’ muttered Solomon’s aunt.
Solomon blushed a furious red as all four of the Edinburgh Ladies impaled him with their gaze. His aunt put a hand heavy with silver rings to her hair, as though to adjust it.
‘Well, now that’s sorted, we can get on with things. Don’t want to keep Pastor Macdonald waiting at the crematorium any longer than we must.’
But Solomon Farthing was not an Heir Hunter for nothing. Knew where his loyalties lay.
‘What about the money?’ he demanded. ‘If you provided Mr Methven with the suit, you must know where it came from. It was stitched inside after all. Very neat, too. That’s what I’ve heard.’
‘What?’ Margaret Penny sat down on the edge of the other brocade chair. ‘I thought they found it in his room. Or some bank account or other. I didn’t know it was inside his suit.’
‘Sewn into the lining,’ said Solomon. ‘Like a second skin.’
‘Absolutely nothing to do with me,’ said Mrs Maclure, bending towards Solomon as though about to offer him a bowl of tea.
‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Barbara Penny, wheezing again. ‘Nobody thought that it was. We all know your sewing’s terrible.’
‘I arranged it.’
They all looked towards Solomon’s aunt then, standing beside Thomas Methven’s coffin with the air of an evangelical preacher ready to call down the fire. Except it wasn’t a prayer she was opening with, but the truth about Thomas Methven’s legacy. Or one version of it, at least.
‘You arranged it,’ Solomon repeated, his voice faint now.
‘Yes,’ replied his aunt. ‘After we chose the suit for him, I arranged for the money to be sewn inside. There was no other way to get rid of it.’
She did at least have the courtesy to blush then, a slight colouring of her cheeks at the audacious nature of her claim. All of them could imagine a better way to get rid of fifty thousand pounds than sewing it into a dead man’s suit and casting h
im into the fire.
‘But why did you need to get rid of it?’ said Margaret Penny.
‘He didn’t leave a will, did he.’ Solomon’s aunt was somewhat flustered now, fiddling with a great silver ring on her middle finger. ‘Unless I’ve been misinformed.’
‘No,’ said Solomon. ‘You were not misinformed. Thomas Methven did not leave a will. Why on earth do you think I have become involved?’
It was then that Solomon’s aunt who was not his aunt showed why she was feared throughout the city – from the east to the west, from the southside to the north – rising in a mighty flame of indignation, earrings jangling, robe swirling as she sought to put her putative nephew in his place.
‘And why on earth did you not come and see me when I asked, Solomon Farthing?’ she declared. ‘I sent word four days ago when I realized you’d been put on the case. Did you bother to come and visit? No, you did not. If you had, everything would have been cleared up at once. Instead I was left to my own devices and this is the result. Poor Mr Methven yet to go to his rest. And the debt still unpaid.’
There was general astonishment in the living room then, the ladies of the Edinburgh Indigent Funeral Rota open-mouthed at this display of wrath from the one member of their little band who was normally so self-possessed. Margaret Penny looked scandalized by the whole intrigue. Barbara Penny, amused. Mrs Maclure a little bewildered at this strange turn of events. Solomon Farthing felt sick like he’d never felt before at what might be coming.
‘What debt?’ he said.
His aunt who wasn’t really his aunt leaned against the coffin.
‘The one your grandfather owed to Thomas Methven, of course.’
1918
One
Godfrey Farthing left in the early, early morning like the coward they probably imagined him to be. He had fed Archie Methven all that remained of Stone’s brandy to prepare him and wrapped the injured man’s shoulder in a fresh field dressing, binding the tender livid flesh until the wound disappeared. Methven was the most lucid he had been for some time, no longer whispering those long strings of names. Instead he followed Godfrey with his eyes, the way a baby watches its mother. Godfrey was not comforted by the injured man’s stare. Archie Methven believed his captain would save him. But they had both seen enough carnage by now to know it was impossible for one man to carry that burden alone.
The Inheritance of Solomon Farthing Page 29