A Dish Served Cold

by Diney Costeloe

  “No way!” she hissed at the empty room. “No way is that bastard, or his bitch of a daughter going to get their sticky hands on a penny of that money. It’s mine!”

  But how to make sure that he didn’t? Simple, really, she decided after some thought. The solution was obvious; Roger would never get his hands on the money because he would never know that she had won it.

  Well, so far so good, but how was she going to stop him finding out? Certainly no publicity when she claimed her prize, but that in itself mightn’t be enough. If she sued for divorce, presumably she would have to declare all her assets.

  I suppose I don’t have to get a divorce, she thought. I could simply do nothing and we’d just be separated. No, that wouldn’t work, Roger’d soon get to know I had money. Or, another incongruous thought struck her, Roger might want to marry again and go for divorce himself. She couldn’t imagine him wanting to re-marry, or that anyone could conceivably want to marry him, but one never knew, and if it happened, everything would come out.

  I could always lie, I suppose, Pam thought, but it would be clear I’d got money from somewhere, and despite the ‘no publicity’ deal, there are obviously going to be people who know who’s won. It’d be sure to get out in the end.

  The only thing to do, Pam decided was to disappear, vanish, become untraceable….and she began to consider how this could be achieved.

  Sylvia came home from London on Friday afternoon, with a new hair style and a great many Harrods bags. A delicate perfume drifted in with her, moving with her as she moved. She sat in her armchair, nursing the cup of tea Pam had made her, relaxed and serene, surrounded by an indefinable air of well-being. The strain and stress from the last weeks of term eased away, she seemed to Pam younger and more vibrant than when she went away.

  “Satisfactory few days?” Pam asked.

  Sylvia smiled lazily. “Delicious.” She was almost purring. “Three charming young men, all of them delightful and so imaginative!” She peeped at Pam above her teacup. “You really do have to try it sometime,” she said. “It does wonders for the ego, not to mention the libido.”

  “Sylvia!”

  “Don’t sound so shocked,” laughed Sylvia. “Everybody has one, and it never hurts to stir it up from time to time.”

  “I don’t think mine wants disturbing,” Pam said, “that’s if I’ve got one at all! I’ve never enjoyed sex, you know.”

  “Haven’t you? How very sad,” Sylvia sighed. “That’s because of Roger I suppose. Haven’t you ever had anyone else?”

  Pam shook her head.

  “Then I shall insist you come with me next time,” Sylvia said with a twinkle. “Someone like Jasper or Rory…..They could teach you so much. You’d soon forget dear Rog and his fumblings, I promise you.” Her eyes gleamed with remembered pleasure and her tongue touched her lips. “Next time I won’t take no for an answer. Now,” she went on lightly before Pam could reply to this promise, “tell me what you’ve been doing while I’ve been away.”

  “Quite a lot really,” Pam replied easily. “You go and unpack and have a shower while I cook dinner and then I’ll tell you all about it over the meal.”

  Pam had not wasted her time over the last two days. She had done a great deal of research and was well on with the plans for her disappearance. She decided that she had to trust Sylvia with the news of her win, not only because Sylvia had befriended her when she needed someone, but also because she needed Sylvia to accomplish what she had been planning.

  When they finally sat down to the dinner table that evening, Sylvia opened a bottle of her favourite rioja, and Pam said casually,

  “I owe you a bottle of champagne. I’m sorry, I hope you don’t mind. I opened the bottle in the rack while you were away.”

  Sylvia looked surprised, but said, as she poured wine into her glass, “No, I don’t mind. Were you celebrating something? Did you have a friend in?”

  “No, I’m afraid I drank it on my own,” admitted Pam.

  “All of it? Good God! You must have had a hangover!”

  “I did,” agreed Pam with a rueful grin, “but it was a real celebration, and I did it in style.”

  “So, come on, don’t keep me in suspense. What were you celebrating?”

  “A win. I had a win on the lottery.”

  “Did you?” Sylvia sounded delighted. “Fantastica! How much?”

  Pam kept her voice casual. “Eight million pounds.”

  “What!” shrieked Sylvia, knocking over her glass so that the wine pooled into a red sea on the tablecloth. “You’re having me on!” Neither of them paid any heed to the spreading stain as Pam grabbed her friend’s hands in hers.

  “No, I’m not. Promise. I won the jackpot. I won it a three weeks ago, but I didn’t know.”

  “Why? I mean why didn’t you know?”

  Pam laughed. “I didn’t check. I’ve never bought a ticket before, and I forgot all about it.”

  “Forgot about it?” Sylvia was incredulous.

  “I never gave it another thought,” Pam told her. “It was only when I was buying a paper and I found it in my purse that I asked the newsagent girl if it was any good.”

  “And what did she say?” asked Sylvia weakly.

  “She was as stunned as I was,” said Pam.

  “I’m not surprised,” Sylvia said feebly. “And…?”

  “And so I grabbed the ticket back from her and ran. I thought she might be wrong or having me on or something, so I came home and went on-line….and she’d been right. Eight million pounds!”

  “But why didn’t you tell me?” cried Sylvia. “Why didn’t you ring me?”

  “Didn’t want to tell you on the phone,” Pam said with a grin. “I wanted to see your face!” Her own face was alight with glee. “You know what this means, don’t you?”

  “It means you’re a multi-millionaire,” replied Sylvia huskily.

  “It means I am free of Roger…for ever!”

  “I doubt it,” Sylvia observed dryly, “not when he finds out, that is.”

  “No, well, I’ve thought of that,” Pam agreed. “I know he’d want to get his hands on the money if he could, so I’ve been doing some thinking.”

  As they sat over their meal Pam told Sylvia what she’d decided to do, while Sylvia kept shaking her head, unable to absorb Pam’s amazing good fortune.

  “It means I can’t get a divorce,” Pam explained. “If Roger knew how much money I had, he might be able to claim half of it.”

  “I shouldn’t think half,” Sylvia put in. “May be not any. You bought the ticket, after all.”

  “I’m not prepared to take that risk,” Pam declared. “He’s not going to have a penny of it. He gets any of that money over my dead body.”

  “He could just as well lay claim to it on the grounds that you are married,” Sylvia pointed out.

  “He’s never going to know anything about it,” Pam said firmly and outlined her plan. “I’ve decided to change my name, legally, by deed poll, then I can get on with my life as someone else. Roger doesn’t know where I am, so with a new name I can simply vanish into thin air. There’d be no trace of me…no trail for him to follow, even if he wanted to. Thank God I didn’t use my debit card or my mobile phone. I’ve bought a new one, by the way. Pay as you go with a new number. There is no way he can trace me…but unless he hears of my win, why would he want to? And if I claim it in a new name, he’d never connect it with me even if he did hear about it. You’ve been telling me that he won’t bother looking for me, he’ll wait to hear from my divorce lawyer. Well, he’ll have a long wait. I could be dead for all he’ll know!”

  “Can’t he trace you through the deed poll?” wondered Sylvia. “I mean there must be some record of the change somewhere.”

  “No! That’s the beauty of it,” Pam cried. “You can get all the papers prepared by a company on the Internet.”

  “On the Internet?”

  “It’s so easy,” Pam said. “I just typed ‘deed poll’
into Google…” she broke off in some confusion. “I hope you don’t mind me using your computer?”

  “No, I said you could, the other day.”

  “That’s what I thought,” said Pam. “I mean I would have asked if you’d been here, of course.”

  “Doesn’t matter, Sylvia said. “Tell me what you discovered.”

  “Well, it really is simple. You just put in all your details and the name you want to be known by from now onwards, your send a cheque or put in your credit card, and when it has all been cleared the papers are prepared and sent out to you. And that’s it.”

  “Then what do you do? Take them to a solicitor or a JP or someone?” asked Sylvia.

  “No. All I have to do is sign them, saying that from now on I will only be known by this name, and get someone of good character to witness my signature.” She grinned at Sylvia. “Someone like a teacher.”

  “But surely it is then registered somewhere? There must be a central register.”

  “There is one, but you aren’t obliged to register with it. It’s optional. All you do is ask for some certified copies to send off for a driving licence and a passport and such, in the new name, and there you go. You’re somebody else.”

  “There must be more to it than that,” insisted Sylvia.

  Pam shook her head. “As far as I can tell, there isn’t,” she said. “But I’ll know more when I get the pack?”

  “Have you sent for it already?”

  “No, I haven’t. The thing is, well, I wondered if you could write the cheque. I’ll give you the money, of course, it’s just that I don’t want to start drawing on our account. Roger could find who I’d made the cheque out to and know I’d changed my name, and as I said, I don’t want to leave a paper trail. I haven’t got a credit card, only a debit, but it would be the same with either of them, anyway, wouldn’t it? Will you do it, write the cheque I mean…and witness my signature.”

  Sylvia was shaking her head in amazement. “Pam, you’re unbelievable!” she said. “Yes, of course, if this is what you’ve decided to do, I’ll help you all I can. But don’t you think you’re rushing into this? Don’t you think you ought to take some advice from someone? We could still go and see David Watson and see how things stand legally about the money.”

  “No.” Pam was adamant. “No way. Look, Sylvia, I given this a lot of thought…let’s face it I’ve thought of nothing else…and I’m not telling anyone but you. It’s too risky.”

  “But with David you’d have client confidentiality,” Sylvia pointed out.

  “I’m still not telling anyone, Pam said stubbornly. “Suppose this David bloke tells me that Roger is entitled to half, or a quarter or whatever. Once he tells me that, then if I don’t tell Roger about the money, I’m in the wrong. If no one has told me that then, well, I don’t know. Right? I’m telling no one, asking no one’s advice…except yours.” She grinned then and said, “Well, not even yours really, just your help.”

  Pam thought about the caveat that she had read on the deed poll site, that the change of a name could not be used for fraudulent purposes. Well, she decided, this wasn’t fraudulent unless she knew that some of the money belonged to Roger. As long as no one told her that, then she reasoned, she was not committing fraud. Taking advice on this point would bring someone else into the picture, and she might not like the advice she was given.

  “Have you decided on your new name?” Sylvia asked, as they had brandy and coffee in front of the fire. “Will you keep the Pamela part?”

  “No.” Pam spoke fiercely. “I’ve always hated my name. Pam. Pam. Pam. It sounds like a punch in the face.”

  Sylvia laughed at that. “Oh, come on, Pam, it’s not that bad.”

  “It is to me,” asserted Pam. “Pam! Whomp! Pam!”

  “OK,” Sylvia conceded. “So who will you be?”

  “Arabella,” replied Pam, her tongue rolling round the name. “Arabella Agnew.”

  “Wow!” cried Sylvia. “That’s certainly different. Arabella Agnew. What shall I call you? Bella?”

  “No, I intend to be Arabella, but if I do decide to shorten it at all, I shall be called Arab.”

  “Well, Arabella Agnew,” Sylvia said raising her brandy glass, “here’s to you and the beginning of the rest of your life.”

  They chinked glasses and Pam said, “You’d better start calling me Arabella, so that I get used to it.”

  Chapter 9

  Arabella sent off her deed poll application the next day. She sat at Sylvia’s computer and printed off the application form which she filled in, using Sylvia’s address as her own. Sylvia wrote the cheque and Arabella solemnly handed her the money to cover it. They had decided that this was the best way to go about it even though a postal application took a little longer as the cheque had to have time to clear.

  Once the application was in the post Arabella had to possess her soul in patience and await the return of the papers. As Sylvia had another week of holidays they spent the time exploring the countryside in the car. It was like trying to keep a child amused, Sylvia thought as she took Arabella round to local places of interest, filling the days until the deed poll came back; waiting for the day she could claim her win. As they drove out to country pubs for lunch or to beauty spots for a walk or a picnic in the spring sunshine, they talked of the future, Arabella’s future; a life of luxury and leisure. It was not the sort of life Sylvia herself would choose, but having heard of Arabella’s restricted life so far she was not at all surprised by her friend’s ideas.

  “I shall buy a car, a silver convertible….a house in the country….a holiday home somewhere hot….a flat in London….”

  The last Thursday of Sylvia’s holidays they spent shopping in Belcaster. Arabella still had half of Roger’s money left and as they strolled round the shops she tried on several summer outfits.

  It was as she was admiring the cut of an attractive summer dress that she remembered the pearls. The assistant in the smart boutique to which Sylvia had taken her said casually, “You need to wear something to set off that neckline. A pendant or a necklace of some sort, something simple.”

  “I’ve got my pearls,” Arabella began and then realised with a stab that she hadn’t. They were still in the house in Cardiff Road.

  “They would be perfect,” the assistant was saying, but Arabella didn’t hear her. She was no longer listening to the woman’s cooing tones, she was remembering the pearl necklace hidden in the loft and knew she had to go and get it back. With an impatient movement she turned away and stepping back into the cubicle, stripped off the dress. She said abruptly, “I won’t take it today. I have to go. Sorry.”

  Sylvia and the assistant stared at her as she struggled back into her own clothes and strode impatiently to the door. Sylvia, shrugging, apologised to the surprised assistant and followed Arabella out into the street.

  “Arab. Arabella. What was all that about?” she demanded angrily as she caught up. “You were very rude in there.”

  “Was I?” Arabella was unrepentant.

  “Yes, you were. And I shop there quite often.” Sylvia caught her friend’s arm and pulled her to a halt, swinging her round to face her. “Whatever came over you?”

  “My pearl necklace,” Arabella said. “It’s still in Bristol. I’ll have to go and get it.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Sylvia said. “That would jeopardise everything! You don’t need it, not now. You can buy yourself umpteen pearl necklaces!”

  “The pearls were my grandmother’s,” Arabella reminded her. “They’re the only thing that I have left of her. I have to get them back.”

  “Let’s talk this through properly,” Sylvia said, and dragged Arabella into a café. “You’ll be risking everything,” Sylvia pointed out again as they sat over their coffee.

  Arabella looked across at her. “When I left the house that afternoon, I was determined I’d never go back, right?”

  Sylvia nodded. “Right,” she agreed.

  “I assume
d that when my divorce was finalised, Roger would send my belongings on to me, or perhaps I might make one visit to pack them up myself.” Arabella looked earnestly at her friend across the table. “Now I can’t, can I? Not if I’m doing a disappearing act. As you pointed out, I don’t need to fetch anything, I can replace everything, except my gran’s pearls.”

  “Are they really that important?” asked Sylvia.

  “They’re the one thing of mine that Roger never got his hands on. When we were first married I thought I’d keep them safely to pass on to any daughter we might have. Roger told me to put them into a safety deposit box in the bank.”

  “But you didn’t.”

  “I did for a while, but then, when things were going wrong, I got them out again.”

  “So where are they?” asked Sylvia, intrigued.

  “In the loft. I hid them on a rafter behind the water tank.”

  Sylvia laughed. “In the loft? Why there?”

  Arabella shrugged. “I didn’t want him to find them, he might have sold them,” she replied simply. “If he’d ever realised they weren’t in the bank he wouldn’t have hesitated to go through my drawers and my desk.”

  “If Roger finds you in the house…” began Sylvia.

  “He won’t,” Arabella said determinedly. “I shall go tomorrow evening. It’s Friday, his card night. He’ll be out until at least midnight.”

  “Supposing he isn’t? Supposing he’s changed his routine?”