A Well Kept Secret (15 page)

There was another brief silence, and then she asked; “How old are these girls?”

“They will both be thirteen in a few weeks.”

“I see,” she said, then after a pause she added; “As it happens, I am due some holiday from Scroggins. I will see in the morning if I take a week off as from tomorrow. If I can get leave, and it’s pretty quiet at work at the moment so I don’t expect any problems with short notice, I should be able to help out. I’ve always liked caring for youngsters, so this will make an interesting change. Yes, on thinking about it, I’m sure that I will be able to have everything ready for you when you return.”

He heaved a huge sigh as he heard her words. “You have no idea of how relieved I am to hear you say that,” he said. “I do so much appreciate you taking this on. First thing in the morning I will open charge accounts at whatever shops and stores you use; anything you think will be needed to cater for a couple of youngsters, just get it.”

“Very well; I will bring a list with me at breakfast time of what I feel is necessary, and the various suppliers I anticipate using,” she said.

“That will be fine,” he said, “and I repeat; I really
am
most grateful. Right, I’d better let you get back to what you were doing. Thanks once again; goodnight.”

“Good night.”

He replaced the phone and sat back in his chair again, his mind now pre-occupied by the sudden and completely unexpected turn of events. In a way, now that he had time to get used to the idea, he was actually glad that he would be able to have a few days with his daughter again. He had been so absorbed with his own grief he knew that he had failed to give her the sympathy, understanding and support she had needed at the time. Now that she had been back at school for a few weeks, in a sense the dust had settled a little; having her with him again would help him to make it up to her.

As his mind revolved around these matters, he continued to absently sift through the last of the papers on his desk. Old receipts, quotes for minor property repairs, notes to tradesmen; so much of the residue from the box was rubbish. He came across a small blue folder, and on casually opening it he saw that it contained old bank statements. A glance at the date showed them to be a good twenty years out of date and like so much of what he had looked at, really only fit for destroying. Out of sheer habit his eyes glanced down the neatly printed columns of transactions, and as his eyes reached the bottom of the page he suddenly stopped. Something was ringing a bell in his mind, and he went down the figures again, finally stopping at a single line entry about half way down the page. It was an entry for a direct debit payment of five hundred pounds. It was paid direct to another account, and it was the number of this account that had caught his eye. He looked at it again to ensure that he was not mistaken. He recognised the number immediately; it was his late mother’s personal account!

Thrusting thoughts of his daughter to one side, he started looking closely at the rest of the statements. On the same date each month five hundred pounds was being paid directly into his mother’s bank account. He quickly sifted through the remaining files on his desk, and presently he came across another folder of statements dated some two years earlier. Again on the same date there were regular payments to the same account. He sat back in his chair, a puzzled expression on his face. On the face of it, there appeared to have been literally thousands of pounds paid to his mother over the years, and this was the first he had ever heard of it!
 
Why had she never said anything about it to him? Why had there been no contact with his uncle over all those years? He simply couldn’t understand it. His father had died when he was very young, and when he had been old enough to think of such matters, his mother had vaguely assured him that his father had been well insured and that upon his death the money had been wisely invested, which was why they had had no serious financial worries.

When his mother had died he had left most of the drudgery of winding up her estate to his solicitor, merely signing whatever papers he had produced. It had never occurred to him to look through her business affairs, confident in Charles Gordon bringing to his attention anything out of the ordinary. Why had
he
never mentioned anything about this to him when he was dealing with matters? His earlier suspicion that there was something odd going on now returned as a much stronger belief. Why had his uncle made this allowance to his sister, why had there been no contact, and why had his mother said nothing to him? Why had the house been left to him? Who was the blond haired man Peter Buxted had warned him about, the man that he instinctively felt June Brent had recognised? Were all or any of these things connected?

He suddenly recalled that Charles had mentioned that an offer had already been made for Springwater House. He hadn’t thought anything about it at the time it was mentioned, now it seemed to be part of the puzzle. If the offer was known to Charles, it had to have been relayed to him either by somebody in Wellworthy, or the offer had been made to him direct, which implied that somebody was remarkably well informed about the new owner’s existence and the possibility that the house might be put on the market. If the house had possessed something of special significance the initial interest would almost certainly have been shown locally. That meant that local estate agents would have been the first to be alerted to possible business. June Brent worked for an estate agent, and there couldn’t be many in a town the size of this one, yet she had made no mention of any interest in the property. Was it all sheer coincidence, or was there really something going on that he knew nothing about?

He made a mental note to set wheels in motion the following morning to discover if there were any plans afoot for large scale developments in the area, or if there was a suspicion that the house might be situated over a valuable oil or mineral deposit of some sort; anything of this nature would naturally add value to an old property which otherwise might be a bit difficult to shift at a reasonable price. For the first time he regretted not bringing his laptop computer with him. His uncle had obviously never bothered to keep up with the pace of modern technology at home; there wasn’t even a cordless phone in the place. As his mind started rambling away into all sorts of unlikely scenarios, he suddenly pulled himself up short. Common sense told him that once again he was pandering to his well-known love of ‘mysteries’; the need to be distracted. More than likely there was nothing really strange happening, almost certainly it was all in his imagination, and equally as certain would be that there was a simple explanation for everything, if only he knew it. Well, even if that should prove to be true, he would rest somewhat happier once he knew that ‘explanation’.

He looked again through the remaining files and papers strewn over his desk in an effort to discover if there was anything further that might shed light on matters. There were no more bank statements; obviously most of them had been destroyed, with just these two files surviving. How long had this regular payment gone on, he wondered? Right at the bottom of the box of papers supplied by his late uncle’s solicitors, the last thing he came across was an old photograph album. He removed this carefully, and laid it on the desk in front of him. It looked pretty well worn, and probably had lain unused for a good number of years. He opened it carefully at the first leaf, and studied the old snapshots mounted within.

The first ones he vaguely recognised as pictures of his own maternal grandparents. He had never met them in life, but his mother had had one or two pictures in an album of her own, and at least one he recognised as a print from the same negative. On one or two pages there were empty slots where pictures had been removed for some reason and never replaced. There were pictures of young children, and the captions identified them as being of his late uncle, together with his young sister, his mother. He turned the pages carefully, studying each picture in turn. There was little that could be construed as remarkable, yet they were a fascinating insight into what his forebears had looked like.

There were pictures taken at school, college, and even university, many showing friends probably long since deceased, dressed in the manner of a bygone age. There was one page devoted to his own parent’s wedding, and a nice one of the brother and sister together as adults. They were laughing and obviously happy. What on earth had driven them apart? There was a posed photograph of his uncle on graduation day, and then pictures of May, who later became his aunt. There were no wedding pictures as such, he assumed they were in a separate album that had not as yet come to light. On the last pages were some photographs of Springwater House, which he studied closely. Although taken many years since, there were no obvious changes to the property that he could detect, apart from the outbuilding that was recognizably stables, now converted into a garage complex.

There was also a picture of his uncle and his wife as a happy young couple standing in the hallway of the house. They were smiling at the camera and probably had only just moved in to their new home. He sat back looking at that last picture, wondering what it was that had happened that had driven the brother and sister apart. What had happened on that sole visit he recalled making as a young child? It was as he was looking at that last picture that something jarred. He couldn’t put his finger on what was wrong, yet something seemed out of place. But how would he know that? He had only been in the house for a couple of days, so how on earth could he feel that something was out of place? It was like looking at one of those ‘spot the difference’ puzzles that used to fascinate him as a child, where one had to compare two pictures, and then pick out a number of secret variations between the two.

He was still looking at the picture trying to figure out what was jarring on him, when the phone rang again.

“Is that you Martin?” asked a familiar voice.

“Charles,” he responded. “I was going to phone you at your office tomorrow; what can I do for you?”

“I just wondered if you had come to any decision as yet re the house?”

“Give me a
chanc
;, I’ve only just got here! Why, is there some sort of rush?”

“Not really; I’ve had another call from the man who wants to buy the place. He seems to be in a bit of a hurry and wanted to know if I had mentioned his offer to you. He seems extraordinarily keen.”

“I wonder what he finds so attractive about the place? Granted I’ve not had a chance to assess everything yet but frankly, I don’t see people falling over
themselve’s
to get in here; the house needs quite a lot spent on it to bring it into the twenty-first century, and it’s a bit isolated for most tastes.”

“You shouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth; maybe you should take him up on his offer?”

“Which is?”

“One million pounds.”

“You’re not serious?”

“I don’t have it in writing, still, from what little I know of the place it sounds an extremely generous offer.”

Martin scratched his chin thoughtfully. “An offer like that makes me a bit suspicious, Charles,” he said. “What’s going on that I don’t know about? Are there any big developments in the pipeline for this part of the world that you know of? There has to be something that makes a person keen to speculate that sort of money on a place like this?”

“Precisely what I thought; do you want me make some enquiries?”

“Yes, keep him on a string for a bit and see what you can dig up. What’s his name, by the way?”

“Carl Bremner.”

“Well, see if you can dig up anything about him as well while you’re at it.”

“Will do, although all this might take me a day or two. I’ll get back to you when I have something of interest.”

“Yes do that. Now, whilst you are on the line, there was something else I wanted to ask you about.”

“That sounds ominous.”

“I’ve been looking through a lot of old paperwork up here. I found some of Dr Marston’s early bank statements. They make interesting reading.”

“And you have found something that has caused you a degree of concern?”

“I’m afraid I have. Why was my mother in receipt of a regular allowance from her brother, and why was I never told anything about it?”

“Yes, I was wondering if you might stumble on that.” He didn’t seem surprised by the question. If anything a trace relieved. Martin waited for him to continue.

“Well, you would inevitably have discovered matters for yourself at some stage,” Charles resumed, “so I’m glad that at least you now know.”

“Frankly, beyond the fact that this allowance has been made for an unknown number of years, I don’t ‘know’ anything.”

“It was a financial arrangement that came into being when your father died,” Charles explained. “Your uncle was anxious that you should have the best schooling, and although your late father’s estate left your mother in reasonably comfortable circumstances, a public school education for you might have been pushing the budget a bit hard.”

“I still don’t get it; if he was that interested in our family welfare, why was no other interest shown? I only recall seeing him once and so far as I know, he never visited or called or made any casual contact of any sort. Frankly, up until the time he died I had forgotten he even existed!”

“I don’t have all the answers Martin. All I can tell you is that the allowance was set up on the strict understanding that nothing was said to you about it, and that there should be no contact with him on this or any other matter.”

“But that simply does not make sense?”

“I quite agree, but your mother accepted these terms, and adhered to them strictly. As her solicitor at the time of her death I had also given an undertaking never to speak to you on this matter unless you stumbled upon the information for yourself. As soon as I knew that you were proposing to visit Springwater House I suspected that sooner or later this odd financial arrangement might come to light. Frankly, I’m glad that it has; I never liked keeping anything from you. As to the why of the matter, I’m as much in the dark as you are, I merely acted in accordance with the wishes of those concerned. If you come across any sort of explanation of this curious arrangement I shall be very interested to hear of it.”

“Charles, I’m becoming more than ever convinced that there is something funny about this whole set-up. Why pay my mother all that money, yet refuse to have anything to do with either of us? And why leave me his estate without as much as a single word of explanation?”

“I can’t answer that.”

“Maybe you can’t, any more than I anticipate you can answer other questions I badly need answers to.”

“Other questions?”

“Believe me, I have several, and the list is growing!”

“You surprise me!”

“Charles, I haven’t been here five minutes and I get the impression that the whole place is riddled with mysteries!”

“What sort of mysteries?”

“There is something wrong about the whole set-up here, and nobody seems to want to tell me anything; for a start I get the impression that my late uncle’s doctor and solicitor are being evasive about something.”

“I don’t see that there is anything mysterious about that?”

“Maybe not, and if that was all there was to worry about I wouldn’t be bothered, only it isn’t. There’s a shifty character hanging around in Wellworthy who has been asking questions about the house. I’m fairly certain I’ve also seen him close to the property. When I questioned the gardener on the subject he said that this person claimed that he was looking for someone whose name I do not recall at the moment.”

“There’s not much odd in that; quite probably the man was speaking the truth.”

“Possibly, but I somehow doubt it. Anyway, as if that isn’t enough, I’ve also had a visit from a man who claims to be an old friend of my uncle, and there is something about him that whispers ‘phoney’ as well!”

“What does the housekeeper think about all this?” Charles asked.

“That’s another thing; she’s a woman with a real king-sized chip on her shoulder, and I’ve had a devil of a job getting through the shell she’s built about herself. By all accounts my uncle thought highly of her, yet I can’t imagine why. Without question she’s very efficient, yet at the same time as prickly as a hedgehog! Anyway, as it happens, she doesn’t rate the ‘friend’ very highly, and when I mentioned the shifty character who had been asking questions, she appeared to like him even less.”

“She knows him?”

“I’m not sure; she denied it yet I’m not convinced.

“Well, I suppose it might all seem a bit odd,” he conceded doubtfully. “Equally, it might all be a bit of a mare’s nest of course. After all, you have absolutely nothing go on other than ‘feelings, have you?”

“You’re probably right,” Martin sighed, “Never-the-less I’d ‘feel’ a bit easier if you could dig up some answers for me.”

“What exactly do you have in mind?”

“I know you retain the services of some sort of enquiry agent; can you get him to look discretely into the background of a company called Buxted Security Systems, and its Managing Director, Peter Buxted?”

“Peter Buxted being the claimed friend of your late uncle?” Charles asked shrewdly.

“That’s right,”

“Where are they?”

“Hold on a moment, he left me a business card. Ah, here it is.” He then read out the details from the card as Charles made a note of them to pass over to his agent.
 

“That shouldn’t present too much of a problem; anything else?”

“Yes, whilst he is at it, see if he can come up with anything concerning the background of the housekeeper, Mrs June Brent.”

“You don’t suspect
her
of something as well, do you?”

“No, I think she is completely above board, only there is something about her that doesn’t add up. She seems to have appeared in Wellworthy from nowhere, apparently destitute, and intentionally or otherwise, she latched on to my late uncle and stayed. There is no suggestion that she has benefited much from his death, apart from being granted security of tenure of the flat she is living in. I agree that there is nothing particularly sinister in that, what concerns me is that there has been no mention either by her or anyone else I have spoken to of her background. There is no reference to family home, husband, parents, children or even friends. Maybe she is just naturally reticent, yet there is no denying that she is most certainly a woman with an attitude.”

“Well, if it makes you any happier, I’ll set wheels in motion first thing in the morning; you take it easy for a few days.”

“Not much chance of that; I’ve had Beverley on the phone. Seems the school is closing down for anything up to a week; I’m collecting her and her friend tomorrow, and bringing them up here.”

“No offence intended, but rather you than me!”

“I know exactly what you mean!”

“Seriously, how are you going to cope with a couple of youngsters to look after?”

“Luckily for me, the formidable Mrs Brent has agreed to take on the job.”

“Has she now? Maybe she’s not quite the monster you think she is?”

“I’ll just have to keep my fingers crossed on that one!”

“Right, then I’ll wish you the best of luck. Meanwhile, leave everything with me; I’ll be back in touch as soon as I have some information. Good night Martin.”

“Goodnight Charles.”

After replacing the phone he settled back in the chair, lost in thought. There was no longer any question in his mind that there was some sort of mystery attached to his late uncle, and he knew that he would need to resolve matters if he was to achieve peace of mind. More than likely the answers to what seemed an odd set of circumstances would be terribly boring and mundane, but until he uncovered them he would always be wondering.
 
He pushed the photo album to one side and looked back at the old folder of bank statements, reading down the entries, trying to deduce something more of Dr Marston’s life style.

On the expenditure side it seemed that his late uncle was not in any sense an extravagant man. As far as he could tell, there was very little in the way of luxury purchases, and although it was difficult to be sure from the limited material available, it seemed that he was not much given to taking holidays either. On the income side, as well as what his medical practice earned him, it seemed that he also had a wide folio of shares and other investments from which he derived a considerable income. Look as he might, there was nothing in those statements that he could construe as irregular. It was obvious that he had no money worries, and as far as he could see there were no large cash withdrawals at any time that might lead to the suspicion of blackmail.

He finally gave up in disgust, and went and poured himself a whiskey and soda. The question he had to settle was whether the various odds and ends he had; Peter Buxted, the yellow haired man, the mysterious payments to his mother, the inheritance of the estate, were all parts of one puzzle, or simply a series of unrelated matters that he was stringing together simply to create a mystery, (as Charles’ tone had clearly indicated he believed to be the case,) where one need not exist? He simply couldn’t decide, and he eventually left the study and wandered across to the lounge where he switched on the television set and settled in one of the armchairs to watch the late news. It was the usual round of political scandals, industrial unrest, economic fluctuations and the dubious antics of certain fading pop stars. The decorative blonde with the improbably whitened teeth that appeared after the ‘news’ assured viewers that the weather was set to warm and sunny for the foreseeable future. He finally decided that he had had enough and switched it off. He felt surprisingly tired and decided that he would retire. Suddenly recalling the warning he had received, he thought that he should make one last round of the house to ensure that all was secure.

He went from room to room; methodically checking locks and bolts, and ensuring that the French windows were properly latched. Everything was in order and as he strolled into the kitchen area at the end of his circuit he suddenly stopped short with all his senses suddenly taut. The room was in darkness, and from where he stood he could make out the outline of the door leading to the rear patio. It had a frosted glass pane in the upper half through which the light of a full moon was visible. What had stopped his progress dead was what he saw through the panel. Silhouetted on this, he could just make out the shadow of a figure!

He stood perfectly still, his eyes firmly fixed on the dark shape. Was it really a figure, or was it the shadow of something else standing just beyond the door? Martin was not a nervous man, and his immediate reaction to the thought that some sort of criminal might be in the act of trying to break into the house was a feeling of anger. He had done a bit of boxing in his single days, and he had also been a very useful rugby player. The thought of having to physically tackle a burglar did not fill him with the degree of apprehension that it might another. Whatever it was he could see through the glass appeared to be moving, and ever the man of action he moved swiftly across the room to the door. As he moved, the moon went behind a cloud, and the shape vanished from sight in the sudden gloom that enshrouded everything. He reached the door, swiftly undone the bolts and lock in a matter of seconds, and flung the door open ready to deal with whatever situation faced him.

There was nobody there. The moon left the shadow of the cloud, and he could see well enough in all directions, and everything was as it should have been. There were no sounds of running footsteps, no waving shrubbery to indicate that anyone could have dived in for concealment. A quick glance either side failed to reveal anything that might have thrown the shadow on the door glass to mimic the outline of an intruder. He was about to give up and accept that it was simply a trick of the light when he just happened to glance down. There on the patio flags, a matter of only a pace away, was a glowing cigarette end!

It was proof conclusive as far as he was concerned. He was a non-smoker, and there had been no evidence that June Brent smoked either, and even if she did, a cigarette-end discarded by her would have been extinguished long since. Somebody had definitely been there on the back patio within the last few minutes. No doubt the would-be intruder had seen or heard him crossing the kitchen, and made good his escape. Was it an opportunist thief, or was it the man he had been warned about? He was tempted to start a search even though common sense told him that whoever it was had already fled the area.