by S L Beaumont
“Oh, thank you.”
He gave a tight smile and said goodbye. I watched him walk down the little path and through the wrought iron front gate before I closed the door.
I took the box straight into Dad’s study and sat it on the large mahogany desk. The room still had his smell, a mixture of the cologne he wore and something else that was just Dad. This was his favorite room. Book-lined with a large armchair and lamp in one corner and his desk with two guest chairs in front of the window. It was just as Dad had left it. Organized and tidy. A yellow legal pad front and center on the desk, with two Mont Blanc pens resting at the top, a framed photograph of the three of us taken at my university graduation ceremony, a stylish desk lamp and a working replica dial telephone that had been a birthday gift from me one year.
I began emptying the box. Another family photograph, a small engraved desk clock, two large bound law books, several framed certificates and at the bottom an envelope addressed to me. I lifted it out and turned it over in my hands. The words ‘check, Nancy’ were written on the back. I smiled as tears filled in my eyes and a lump formed in my chest. Dad was referring to my childhood love of mystery novels, anything written by Enid Blyton, the Nancy Drew books, and so on. He and I had spent one summer communicating through coded messages, simple alpha numeric codes, but surprisingly effective. Mum would find notes written in code around the house and shake her head at us, as though we were crazy.
As I examined the envelope in my hand, I noticed a single silvery strand of hair caught under the tape which sealed the flap. I flicked on the desk lamp and held it under the light; it was intact. The envelope hadn’t been opened since Dad had sealed it.
I sat down in his big leather chair and pulled his letter opener from the drawer, sliced the envelope open and drew out a handwritten letter. Something dropped from the envelope, bounced off my lap and fell to the floor. I bent and picked it up; a small silver key.
I slipped it into my pocket as I sat back and read the letter.
Jessica, my dArling girl.
Hopefully, you will never have to read this. If you do, then something has happened to me. I aM so sorry. I have been trying to protect you, but there are some things that you need to know.
The key is for a safety depoSit box—I’ll leave it up to you to woRk out where in case anyone else should read this letter—I’m sure you will have determined if that’s been the case, by now, my cleveR girl!
Things are not what they seem. Be careful who you trust—everyone has secrets, particularly those closest to you. I don’t have all the answers so I’m passing my Quest on to you.
I love you always. Look after your mother.
Dad xx
I sat back, my father’s letter folded once again in my hands and tears pouring down my cheeks.
Be careful who you trust, what did he mean by that? A sudden coldness came over me. Dad must have thought his life was in danger, otherwise he wouldn’t have written this. Holy shit. Was he murdered?
I felt nauseous. No. This was crazy. Wasn’t it? I wiped my face and opened the top right-hand drawer of the desk and lifted out his business card file and flicked through until I found the card of our family GP, one of Dad’s oldest friends. His personal mobile number was handwritten on the back. Taking my mobile from the back pocket of my jeans, I keyed in the number. Dr. Sorrenson answered after three rings. Upon hearing my name, he sighed.
“Ah, Jessica. I am so sorry for your loss. I didn’t get to talk to you at the funeral. Your father was a fine, fine man.”
“Thank you, Doc. Had you seen him recently? Was he in good health?” I asked.
There was a pause and the sound of keys being tapped on a keyboard. “Yes, I saw him two months ago. Fit as a fiddle. Perhaps a little more exercise and a little less whiskey, but nothing to worry about. Let’s look here.” Dr. Sorrenson was reading his notes off a computer screen. “Blood work all good.”
“So he wasn’t a prime candidate for a heart attack, then?” I asked.
“No. I certainly wouldn’t have classified him as anywhere near high risk.”
“Mmm…” I said, my mind moving at speed. “And because it seemed natural, there was no autopsy, was there?”
“Jessica, it’s normal in these situations to look for answers where there perhaps aren’t any. It’s not unusual for seemingly healthy people of a certain age to suddenly take ill,” Dr. Sorrenson began in gentle tones.
“Look, I know all that,” I interrupted, “but he left me a letter, written recently, in the event of his untimely death.” My voice caught on the last word. “He thought his life might be in danger.”
There was silence on the line. “What do his colleagues say, Jess?” Dr. Sorrenson asked.
“You are the first person I have mentioned this to,” I replied.
“Leave it with me, Jess. I will see what I can find out. I do know that the doctor who pronounced his death is out of the country for a few weeks, but I’ll catch up with him for coffee when he returns. I’ll let you know what he says.”
I thanked him and tapped end on the call, pushing the chair back from Dad’s desk. The key in my pocket dug into me and I fished it out, holding it up to the light. Safety deposit box, but where? I turned it over in my hands. Something tugged at my memory, but it wouldn’t come. I pocketed it again as my mother called from the kitchen.
I knew that Mum had been itching to say something to me all weekend, but it wasn’t until we sat at the counter having a cup of tea, that she came out with it.
“Everything alright with you and Colin?” she asked.
I was surprised. “Sure, why do you ask?”
“Well, you’ve been here the last three weekends in a row without him and he hasn’t called you once,” she replied.
My immediate response was to defend him, but I hesitated. “I don’t know, Mum,” I replied. It was something that had occurred to me also, but I had dismissed it as silly. He was really busy and would have spent each weekend that I was away, with his head down, working. But hearing someone else mention it, I allowed myself to give it some airplay. “We do seem to be drifting a bit, but I guess that’s only natural.”
“When was the last time you went away together, just the two of you?” she asked.
I paused. I had been to Spain for a week earlier in the year with Rachel and Marie. I’d had several business trips to New York, which I’d extended slightly to spend some time with a university friend who lived there, but Colin and I hadn’t even had a weekend away. “Probably last Christmas, when we came here for a few days.”
Mum frowned. “You have to work at being married, Jess. It doesn’t just happen. You have to plan things together, do things together.”
I nodded as a lump formed in my throat. The thought of a week away on holiday with Colin no longer excited me like it used to. I’d really rather have another trip abroad with the girls. Did that mean we were in trouble?
“Are you still having sex?” Mum asked.
“Okay, this conversation is over,” I said, standing and putting my cup in the sink and beating a hasty retreat. There was no way I was discussing my sex life with my mother. Ew. Although, a nagging little voice at the back of my head told me that it had been many weeks.
***
I searched every inch of Dad’s study for a clue to where the safety deposit box might be. Perhaps the clue was in his office at the law firm. But no sooner did I have the thought, than I dismissed it. His office had been cleared out. Someone else was in there now. The idea left a bitter taste. How quickly life just moves on, even when a larger than life figure, such as my father, leaves it.
It wasn’t until Sunday morning, as I was leaving church with my mother, that it came to me.
I had stopped at the door, waiting to shake hands with the minister, when I spied the offering box on its carved wooden pedestal, standing behind the back pew, as if tempting us to deposit a further cash donation before leaving the church. The box had a shiny key hole in
the side. A sudden thought hit me as I studied it. Dad would have already left me the clue to the whereabouts of the safety deposit box, I had just missed it.
I tore up the stairs to my old room when we got back to the house and pulled his letter from the bottom of my overnight bag. I opened it again and this time found what I was looking for. How did I not see that earlier?
Scattered throughout the handwritten text were capital letters in the middle of sentences where they shouldn’t be and in the top right hand corner of the letter, was the code breaker, A3. I grabbed a piece of paper and copied the capital letters in the order that they appeared in the text of the letter: A M S R R Q. I could crack the code in my head. A3 meant move the letter A to the third letter of the alphabet. Dad and I had used a far more complex system of codes to send each other messages in the past. Either he was in a hurry when he wrote this one or he wanted to make certain that I would remember how to translate it. So, A=C, M=O, S=U, R=T and Q=S.
COUTTS
The safety deposit box was at Coutts Bank.
Chapter 8
November 22
Coutts Bank is located on The Strand. From the moment you are ushered through the glass doors by the dapper doorman, you enter a world of quiet prosperity. Soft carpet underfoot, plants with shiny green leaves, muted lighting. The paintings adorning the beige walls looked like the real deal.
I had telephoned earlier and booked an appointment to view the safety deposit box, so all I had to do was show the receptionist my identification and provide the box number. On the plane back to London, I had studied Dad’s letter further and realized that the date written in its DD/MM/YY format actually made no sense. 45/23/72 had to be the box number. I wasn’t turning out to be the smart code breaker that Dad assumed me to be.
A door opened and a stylish woman around my age emerged to take me to a bank of elevators. We travelled to the eighth floor where she deposited me in a small room with a desk and two chairs while she retrieved my box. The woman returned several minutes later carrying a black rectangular metal box. It had two key holes.
“Now, your key please?” she asked. I produced it from my handbag and inserted it into the lock she indicated. She inserted a key of her own into the second lock and the lid of the box popped open. The woman stepped back.
“I will leave you. Just press the button here on the desk when you are finished or if you need anything,” she said.
“Thank you,” I replied.
I waited until she had closed the door behind her, before I reached to open the lid fully. A sudden thought occurred to me. Would there be cameras in this room? I glanced around. I couldn’t see any. Why was I being paranoid?
I’m not entirely sure what I was expecting, but the stack of envelopes and papers were initially something of a letdown. I lifted the first envelope out and opened it. It contained a death certificate. It was for the accidental death of a woman by the name of Catriona Mackie on 30 May 1998. She was just twenty-three years old.
I frowned and put it to one side. I had never heard of her. Next in the box was a grainy photo of six teenage boys and an older guy wearing a cap, whose face was obscured by his hand holding a cigarette to his lips. The boys were dressed in fatigues, holding semi-automatic rifles and grinning for the camera. I turned the photo over; written in block capitals on the back were the words ‘The Unit’. I put the photo to one side. The next envelope out of the box contained a birth certificate. Colin’s. I frowned. This made no sense. Why would Dad go to such lengths to give this to me? I studied the document as a name jumped out. Colin’s mother was listed as Catriona Mackie. The space for his father’s name was left blank. I picked up the death certificate and made the connection. The dead woman was his birth mother.
I knew that Colin had been adopted. I did a quick calculation in my head. Catriona would only have been seventeen when she had him. I wondered if Colin even knew who his birth mother was or that she was dead? It was something we’d never discussed.
I picked up the photo again. One of the boys was looking up at the older man, saying something. I peered at it. It looked like a teenage Colin, the same side profile that I saw every day. I didn’t recognize any of the other boys.
I wondered whether I should show this to Colin, but something made me hesitate. Surely Dad would have shown Colin the old photo when he was last in London a few weeks ago. Why hadn’t he? I trusted my father’s judgement. I would wait too.
The next two envelopes were something of a surprise. Each contained a stack of £20 notes, at a guess, £1,000 in each. I turned the envelopes over. Dad had written, Emergency Fund, on the outside. Weird.
The next bundle of papers was secured with a bulldog clip and had a handwritten page on legal paper attached. I recognized it as coming from the type of legal pad that Dad always kept on his desk in the study at home. I swallowed the lump that appeared in my throat and brushed a stray tear from my cheek as I noted Dad’s small neat hand writing. I studied the page. At first, I thought it was a family tree, until I realized it contained the names of companies with solid lines linking them indicating ownership and dotted lines indicating money movement. It was like a labyrinth.
Two names jumped out, Loch Freight Logistics International Ltd and Labour For Hire Ltd, both Colin’s companies. What was going on here? What was Dad looking into Colin’s businesses for?
Beneath the handwritten chart was a thick document. I scanned the front pages. It looked like a copy of a British government contract with a company called Mendelson.
I shook my head. None of this made any sense.
The final items in the box were three newspaper clippings from our student days with photos of Colin on the podium at several different Scottish Independence rallies with a number of other individuals including the current First Minister of Scotland.
I sat back, still unsure exactly what the ‘quest’ was that Dad had left me and why. He obviously had been looking into Colin’s businesses along with a number of other associated companies and trusts at the time of his death, but what Colin’s mother’s death certificate, an old photo of Colin and news clippings had to do with anything, I wasn’t sure.
I repacked the certificates, photo, newspaper clippings and cash back into the metal box, and closed the lid, locking it and removing my key. I slipped the documents into my bag to read later.
***
Colin came up to Edinburgh with me the following weekend and received a very cool welcome from Mum.
“How nice of you to finally come and pay your respects, son-in-law,” she said when we walked in the door.
He leaned over and kissed her cheek before launching into a grand apology.
“It was just as well that nice friend of Jessica’s was able to come to the funeral. I don’t know what we would have done without him,” Mum said when he’d finished.
“Who was that?” Colin asked.
“Will and Marie came to the funeral,” I said in a quiet voice.
“What? Will from your work?”
I nodded.
Colin frowned, but said nothing else about it until we were in the plane on the way home on Sunday night.
“God, that house is awful without your dad. I don’t think I want to go there again,” he said.
I looked at him in surprise. “How do you think it feels to me? You can’t say that."
“Well it’s true. Why did Will come? Did you invite him?” he said.
“No, you don’t invite people to a funeral, Colin. I turned around at the end of the service and he and Marie were sitting there,” I explained. “Mum was right though; he was a great help. Rolled his sleeves up and got on with it.”
“I’m sure he did,” muttered Colin. “I didn’t realize that you knew him that well or did the bank send him as their representative?”
“No, we’re good friends,” I said.
Colin sat in silence for a while peering at his laptop screen as I flicked through the latest Red magazine that I’d picked up at the a
irport.
“Has he been to our flat?” he asked.
“Who?” I murmured, engrossed in an article.
“Will,” Colin replied.
“No.”
“Mmm... You will have to watch him. Single guy sniffing around you,” Colin advised.
“Oh you are so gross sometimes. He’s my friend. That’s all,” I responded, hating Colin in that moment, for making my friendship with Will sound so tawdry.
I looked across at him typing away on the keyboard of his laptop and considered again how little he involved me in anything that he did of late, business or otherwise. Perhaps he just didn’t want to burden me with his work issues when I was grieving for Dad. But perhaps Mum was right. I looked at our life. We didn’t plan anything together, we almost never went out together, just the two of us. If we did go out, it was usually with his mates. He was hardly at home; he only ate and slept there. I wondered if he had someone else, but there was no evidence of that.
I realized with a start that I actually didn’t really care and that scared me more than anything. What I was feeling was anger; anger at Dad for dying and leaving me too soon and anger at Colin for not being there when I needed him the most. Colin looked up and caught me staring at him.
“What?”
“What are you working on?”
He closed the lid of his laptop. “Just work stuff. Why?”
“Just wondered. Anything I can help with?”
He shook his head. “No.” His voice was sharp and his posture tense, as though he was ready to pounce.
“You’d tell me if anything was wrong,” I added.
“Nothing is wrong, Jess.”
I looked sideways at him. “Do you miss your student politics days?”
“That’s an odd question,” he said. “But yeah, I do. When we move back to Scotland I will get involved in local politics again.”