by Alan Jansen
Back in London the next day, I first quit my job with Mr Smythe, who wasn’t too upset about my leaving, although he made a great show of regret over my decision. Smythe was quite old now, as was everybody I knew around me, and had problems of his own regarding his health, his business successor, and other pressing matters. I knew he wouldn’t miss me, either professionally or personally. In the many years I had worked for him, I was more a glorified housekeeper to him and nothing else. Smythe had five other employees, all with a host of grand professional titles to their names. They had their separate office cubicles and kept pretty much to themselves. On and off they would ask me to fetch maps and other general documents which I maintained and were stored in our filing room situated just beside my own cubicle, but otherwise they didn’t show any interest in me other than to stare at my legs and body from time to time. They typed out their own letters and stuff, as I often heard the rattle of their typewriters when I passed their rooms. Officially, I was Smythe’s secretary. I had instructions to answer his phone from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. and jot down all the names of the persons who called. Smythe came in sharp at 11:00 in the morning, closed the telephone extension connection between my phone and his, and thereafter answered all his calls himself. I answered his telephone quite grandly, saying, ‘Mr Smythe’s secretary here’ or ‘Mr Smythe’s secretary speaking’, but I never really understood the true nature of his business, and never had the slightest inclination to do so either. Sometimes Smythe would call me in and dictate a letter or two for typing, as he never typed his own like his employees did. At the end of the day, he would hand me a good many handwritten letters for posting before he left for home. As I suspected earlier in this novel, Uncle Cheroot had a great deal to do with my billet and its handsome emoluments. Smythe’s office was close to my little flat, and not far away from Mom’s fabulous house near Kensington. I guess Uncle wanted me to keep a permanent close watch over Mom and see that she was all right all the time. Smythe liked me well enough and, like all men, often ogled at my body even though I was fifty-two. I could hide my eternal youth with heavy make-up, but I was damned if I was going to wear shapeless dresses or padded midriff appliances under my garments to hide my natural curves.
After leaving Smythe’s office, I went straight to Mom’s house at Knightsbridge to sort out her personal belongings. I had my own key to all the doors in the flat, but I didn’t need them, as Mom’s household staff were still in the house. I gathered them into the living room before speaking in a shaky voice.
‘Dear friends. My mother’s untimely passing …’
Here Bunter stopped my speech, making the sign of the cross and exclaiming out loudly, ‘God rest her soul, gracious lady.’
I smiled at Bunter and continued. ‘Mother’s last will and testament will be read out to me and the rest of my family next week. I’m sure she would have left you all something to remember her by.’ (Loud sobs from Bunter.) ‘However, and for the moment, I have decided to pay you all four months’ salary, including this month’s salary, so that you may find a new billet without undue financial worry resting on your shoulders. I suspect that Mom has left the house to me, but I won’t be taking over. Mother’s death has saddened me too much; staying in this house would only make me more miserable. There are far too many memories for me here. I will be travelling abroad shortly, and I do not think I will be returning to England for a long time – if I do ever return, that is.’
The staff took it well. I guess they knew in their heart of hearts that I wouldn’t be taking over Mom’s house. Four months’ extra wages and the promise of further emoluments via Mom’s testament comforted them, although it had all come so suddenly.
Bunter helped me with going through all of Mom’s things, cataloguing them, and putting them into marked boxes. I let Bunter and the maid take whatever clothes and shoes they wanted. Of Mom’s jewellery, I retained her simple wedding ring, which she removed a short while after Uncle had started to visit us. I gave Bunter a gold chain with a ruby pendant, while I gave the maid Mom’s Rolex wristwatch, which Mom rarely wore. The rest I carefully packed away in a special box and took it away myself, fully intent on giving it all to Belinda down at the farm.
While going through Mom’s personal dresser, I made a startling discovery that further strengthened my decision to leave England and afterwards fake my death. Mom’s dresser was always under lock and key. Only I was trusted with a duplicate key. In the bottom drawer of the dresser, I found a large black leather-bound book – obviously a diary, and very similar to my late Uncle’s diary, which I had found so many years ago hidden in his old room. My curiosity got the better of me. I opened the book with trembling hands. There was only one entry in this new diary. Obviously Uncle had intended the diary to be a successor to the one I had found down at the farm, for the opening date corresponded well with the closing date of the previous book. How the diary had fallen into Mom’s hands, I didn’t know, but she had obviously read it and kept it all these years. The diary was almost blank in contents except for that one solitary entry at the start. Uncle must have written in it shortly after the Drakenwund incident. His ‘old’ diary, which was in my possession, hadn’t a single blank page left to write upon. Besides, I do believe that Uncle had left this new diary behind in Mom’s room with intent, hoping she would find it and put two and two together. Judging by Mom’s last words to me, she had indeed succeeded in finding out the truth – whatever it was …
Unlike the original diary, which Uncle had left behind by accident and which I had found when I cleaned out his room in the aftermath of his purported death in that plane crash so many years ago, I was quite sure the one in Mom’s room was left behind intentionally for her to find and discover the truth about him.
The solitary entry in this new diary read as follows:
The time is nigh to say goodbye. Looking closely at dear Julia, I know now that the blood exchange I had made with her has not, and will not, take effect. Julia is still wonderfully beautiful, but the lines on her face have deepened and the grey in her hair is no longer limited to the few strands growing at her temples. All the signs of natural ageing manifest itself on her person. It will break my heart to leave her, but I have to, for I would be terribly heartbroken to see her getting old before my very eyes while I remain young and virile. I guess it would affect Julia tragically either way. For starters, if she knew the truth, she would realize that I am no mortal man and would be appalled that I had used her to my own ends, although I didn’t. Then again, if she didn’t know the truth, she would be heartbroken knowing that I had left her for good for no apparent reason. I have no choice but to leave behind this diary for my dearest darling Julia to find. It will tell her why I had to leave. Some things in this world are hard to bear, but parting with the one you love for good is such a cruel blow. I have watched Turtle keenly in recent times after I forced my blood into her body when she was almost at death’s door after the beast Drakenwund’s sharp scale had come loose and almost sliced off the main artery in her neck. Sadly, it is too early to see if she is ageing or not. Perhaps the blood exchange didn’t affect her as well – only time would tell. Right now, I don’t know. … My blood had stopped her bleeding from the wound Drakenwund gave her and healed her damaged artery within seconds. I have found through the ages that my blood has healing powers – amazingly strong healing powers. Of course, I never intended to give the blood gift to young Turtle with the hope of turning her – it was just a necessity and nothing else. It would be a cruel turnaround if I have unintentionally ‘made’ Turtle and failed in the same task with Julia! It is so painful knowing that I have to disappear from Julia’s life. I hadn’t cried for decades, but I cried all through the week after I made my decision and booked my flights to France and my chateau to live alone – yet again. I know someday I will end it all like Akawander, my late and dear vampire friend, and walk into a healthy roaring fire. I am not Nosferatu like Akawander was, but I’ve had to drink
blood at times to survive, although I can eat most normal food and drink normal beverages too. Meat I can’t eat. I have pretended to eat – yes – but I carefully retched it all out shortly afterwards through a technique I had mastered with time. Some human food and drink actually delights me. In fact, I developed an insatiable fondness for champagne and sweetmeats. Akawander’s gift of the bloodstone made me no longer prey on humans, though to be honest I have never, not even once, drained a human fully and taken a life, not even before I had the bloodstone in my possession. I always drank a little from my fellow humans prior to my getting the bloodstone from Akawander, but my victims didn’t even realize that I had done so, for I put them into a hypnotic trance before I proceeded operations …
That was the end of Uncle’s solitary entry in the new diary.
I knew now more than ever before that Uncle wasn’t a normal human being. He had eternal life of some sort and had most probably even survived the plane crash he was supposed to have succumbed to. Taking stock of my situation, I knew then not only that I had to disappear but also that I had to seek out and find Uncle, wherever he was. I just had to know who I am, what I had become, and what my final fate would be. I needed to have another passport, maybe several. As soon as Mom’s will came through, I would be inheriting a vast fortune. I knew this for sure, as I usually did Mom’s tax returns and knew that her total assets were worth over several hundred thousand pounds.
My assumptions proved correct. Shortly after Mom’s death, the family were summoned to Mom’s solicitor’s office in London, where the details of her last will and testament were read out to us and explained. We all became filthy rich. Of course we all had our own money in our own right, with Pop and Ben doing well on the farm, and with me having already inherited money through Uncle Cheroot’s will, but our wealth was peanuts compared to what we inherited.
Money talks. Soon I had, through an unscrupulous but very well-known lawyer, acquired a new identity. I no longer had to use any make-up to alter my young looks. I paid the lawyer a substantial sum of money for his silence. With a new name and passport, several new bank accounts, and a new wardrobe under my belt, I looked forward with enthusiasm to the future. Mom’s last words before she died confirmed what I had always kind of half suspected – Uncle was definitely alive. … What Uncle had done to me or what he had turned me into just had to be investigated. As Shakespeare wrote in The Merchant of Venice: ‘But in the end the truth will out.’ I swore then to make this the quest of my life – to find Uncle and force the truth out of him and, with the truth, an explanation of my seemingly eternal looks and what it all meant.
I decided upon a plan of campaign. I would first travel to France, buy a country house there – nothing spectacular, just an old house (I detest new and modern houses) with a big garden – and settle down there in obscurity for some time, after which I would by hook or crook seek out Uncle Cheroot and force out the secret of our seemingly eternal lives and to what purpose we had been given this gift or curse. Were there others like us? Were we always destined to be alone? I was determined not to rest or leave any stone unturned until I found my relative. Uncle was unsure what his blood gift to me would do, as he wrote in the new diary, and he may not know that I, like him, do not age. I might give him a mighty big surprise if I ever found him …
Before I set my resolute plans into action, I had a small private chat with Bunter. The lovable rotund woman cried a lot without interrupting me. I had of course disposed of all of Mom’s personal effects and jewellery by then, but I had forgotten an expensive winter coat and a diamond ring which she had left behind in my flat some months back. I gave both to an appreciative Bunter.
‘Mistress is with the angels now, madam. I know that for sure. A kinder employer I’ve never had. She was so good and kind. An angel on this earth.’
‘Aye!’ I replied, reverting to my thick Gloucestershire accent, which only surfaced whenever I was deeply emotional. ‘Yes indeed, Bunter! She was an angel on earth, and it’s only right that she is with her own kind now.’
Bunter wasn’t the very pushy sort, so I personally saw to it that she got a very good billet in a great family home in London and wouldn’t want for anything.
One day the next week, I locked all the doors and windows of Mom’s house, put a heavy chain on the impressive front iron gate, and walked away without looking back. I had booked myself in at the Ritz Hotel, indefinitely making it my headquarters until I started to form my plans for faking my death. I didn’t inform Ben or Pop that I was living at the Ritz. There was no need to, as they rarely, if ever, contacted me on their own accord. Through my connections with some powerful business associates of Mom, I found a lawyer (yes, yes, the very same I have mentioned a few paragraphs up) who, besides being a top-notch man in his field, was capable of performing unconventional actions for very specific clients. Only a handful of persons knew the double nature of this man’s business. Don’t ask me how I unearthed this bit of information. I can’t reveal it because to do so would compromise others whom I do not wish any harm to come upon. The lawyer, a certain Mr Eccelstone, was suave, charming, and polite, but I immediately sensed his double nature the moment I met him. Like Uncle Cheroot, I had the power of ‘sensing’, or rather decisively knowing, the true nature of people when I met them for the first time.
Chapter 10
Ωmega
The time has come, the walrus said,
To talk of many things,
Of shoes and ships and sealing wax,
Of cabbages and kings.
Lewis Carroll
A week after my arrival at my new house in France, I set about earnestly on the trail of Uncle Cheroot. I had chosen a residence at Rennes in the north-western province of Brittany – a well-known retreat famous for its Roman heritage, packed art galleries, museums, and theatres, as well as for having a documented history with some leanings towards Celtic culture. As the name of the province indicates, many British settlers made their home in the province after fleeing the Anglo-Saxon conquest of England during the fifth and seventh centuries. Uncle Cheroot had always spoken of his Celtic heritage and loved telling us histories of the Anglo-Saxon War, so I thought it appropriate to settle down at Rennes. Pivotally, Uncle always said his address in France was in Brittany, although Mom and I never knew exactly where. Uncle was careful to cover his tracks that way. If Uncle was alive, as I now suspected even more that he was, I didn’t expect him to be living in popular Rennes itself. He might visit Rennes and other big cities from time to time for some reason or other, but deep in his heart he wasn’t comfortable in largely populated places. Uncle loved the country – to live as isolated as possible. Anyway, I had to start my search somewhere, so I decided on Brittany, buying a modest two-storey house set within a few acres of land deep in the interior.
In the city, I had made an appointment with Arnaud Duchamps, a pugnacious but very pleasant man and the président-directeur général of one of the best solicitor firms in the city. Arnaud didn’t just see anybody, always checking out minutely any persons wanting to retain his services. My financial status was not a public secret. Any bank or commercial institute doing a financial check on me would be very impressed by my wealth. My new name and identity also came with a spotless social and business record. It showed perfectly legitimate avenues by way of which I had acquired my wealth, courtesy of my infamous lawyer in London. Everything was in immaculate order – a clean slate. I explained very clearly to Arnaud that I wanted to find out the whereabouts of my uncle, Mr Cheroot Voldemort. I gave the eminent lawyer all the known details I had of Uncle, which amounted to very little, really. I produced a short list, giving Uncle’s full name and the names of some of his business associates I had come to know of during our acquaintance, and explained that my relative had on several occasions said his residence in France was in Brittany, before his ‘demise’ in that plane crash so many years ago.
‘It’s not mu
ch to go by, Miss Southton, but I’ll set about it at once. I employ a very good private investigator who has done a lot of similar work for me before, and I am confident he can unearth something concrete and useful.’
‘Oh, that’s wonderful, Director Duchamps! I can ask for nothing more. Please, please, spare no expense. The matter is very important to me. It is imperative that I find my uncle.
It was an easy matter faking my own death back in England. I had given Eccelstone, my new-found lawyer, explicit instructions. Eccelstone projected a false geniality, but through my special gift of ‘reading’ people, I knew he was capable of just about anything. To be absolutely sure of his silence, I made it known to him that if he ever went back on his word, I would make public the entire history of his shady deals, which I had meticulously wormed out from various sources. I had learnt to be a smooth operator and made it my business to know inside and out the man whom I was entrusting a lot of my future plans with. My investigations revealed that Eccelstone had been involved in many a cloudy deal and transaction that could result in his spending the rest of his life behind bars if ever the British or international law enforcement authorities came to know of them. At a meeting with Eccelstone, I told him fairly and squarely what I knew and warned him for good measure that if anything happened to me, his unscrupulous deeds would be made available to concerned governmental MI sections via measures I had taken. Eccelstone went a shade of ambergris as I mentioned what I knew. He was at first immensely angry, all the geniality in his face vanishing in an instant, but then upon seeing the helplessness of his situation, he cooled down and went along with all my plans.