Bacchus and Sanderson (Deceased) (20 page)

              Remaining behind the counter while they descended into the body of the shop, she studied them with interest. The girl was a well-bred, dim teenager
,
who she thought acerbically, would marry a banker called Rupert and live in the shires with two point four children and Labradors. Ben was tall and gangly with surfer dude blonde hair, bead necklace and bracelet, bookish glasses, a single crutch and a curious expression on his face.

“Tea, coffee?” Jemima asked Ben, smiling at him and ignoring the girl.

“Macchiato please,” he replied continuing to stare with open interest at Jemima.

“I’ll see you tomorrow ‘Rand,” he said to his companion
.
“
This might take a while.”

“I doubt it.” she said, shrugged and walked out of the double doors without a backward glance.

              Continuing to stare at Jemima, he limped to a brown leather chesterfield sofa in front of the windows and perched on the edge of the cushion.

“We haven’t been introduced. I’m Ben, and you are?”

“Jemima. You can’t find a good book at this time of the afternoon anywhere can you?”

“That’s why you’re here?”

“No.”

              She carried the tray of drinks with panache, twirling it around her head and body as she crossed the polished wooden floor to the sofas. Placing the tray on a low table, she stepped back and held her hands palm up at her sides in a gesture of voila. Ben applauded and then gestured for her to sit down and enjoy her tea.

“Good books are easy to find if you know where to look and what to look for.” Ben said smiling.

“You know what’s good and where to find it?” She asked, teasing him.

              Ben considered her question for a moment. He realised that he was being teased, but this time he didn’t mind. Usually, he would have reacted, snarling at the tormentor as he walked away. With Jemima he wanted his answer to be right, correct, whatever she wanted to hear. It was important; crucial. He looked up and gave her a big open, apologetic smile.

“Sorry, I drifted away.” Breathing a sigh of relief, he was thankful he had avoided looking like a complete fool. He had scared off so many girls with his vehemence, which had been mistaken for fierceness, but was only his inadequate grasp of social niceties. Calm down, be yourself. He had spent much of his childhood getting it wrong. Never quite understanding the expected responses. Alienating himself from his classmates by his misreading of social situations and reacting explosively at the inevitable cruelty that children display to the different. The combination of a leg that refused to cooperate and an inability to read people had guaranteed he’d had a lonely childhood.

“I know what I think is good. I’m lucky,” he said gesturing to the bookshelves,

“I can always find what I want. Knowing what you want is more difficult than knowing where to find it. Once you recognise that, you will know where it will be. Sorry, way too philosophical. I think too much, analyse everything to death and scare people away by being such a geek. Welcome to my world.” He said the last part with a welcoming flourish of his hands. Continuing without waiting for, or expecting a response, he said,

“For years, all through school and college I blamed the leg. The world sees a deformity of a leg or arm and expects the rest of the person to be deformed. Spastic leg equals spastic. Withered arm, misshapen personality. That’s bollocks, but it took me a long time to realise it. Now, with the help of friends, dad until he died and my brother, I’ve been shown that not everyone is taking the piss, most people see the person, not the disability and those that just see a cripple aren’t the people I want to be around. Sorry. Lecture over.”

              Taking a sip of his coffee, he gave Jemima an appraising stare. Attractive, good figure; curvaceous rather than slender, and a wicked sense of fun as he had already experienced. Vivaldi’s Four Seasons booming from his jeans pocket interrupted his distracted appraisal. Pulling the phone from his pocket, Ben looked at the display groaned and swore. Glancing at Jemima, he indicated his phone and cocked his head to one side asking with his gestures if it was ok to answer it. Jemima nodded amused that he had sought her permission.  Standing up as he answered the phone, he began to pace.

“William, hi. I’ve just noticed the time, sorry.” Ben listened for a moment and then answered,

“Of course, I can be with you in twenty minutes, is that ok? Great, I’ll see you both then. Oh, can I bring anything? Wine, takeaway?” Ben waited for a moment while William spoke to someone who was with him.

Ben replied to something William said to him,

“Ok, just wine and you’ll cook. See you.” Returning to his seat on the sofa opposite Jemima he said,

“Sorry, I need to go. I’d forgotten I was supposed to be meeting some friends for dinner. I’ve enjoyed chatting with you.” Correcting himself he repeated his previous sentence,

“I’ve enjoyed talking at you. Perhaps we could have another coffee or a drink and you could talk as well.”

Struggling to stop herself from laughing she replied,

“I’d love to. Tomorrow evening? Why don’t I buy you dinner at my hotel and we can have a few drinks before. Where’s good?”

Without hesitation he replied,

“The Digby Tap. Great beer, nice atmosphere.  Eight o’clock ok? I’ll text you directions. What’s your number?”

Thrasher looked at the clock on the wall of his office and saw that it was six thirty pm and he was not a single step further forward. The Ladrones had broken into Bacchus’s house and found nothing. No letters, no documents, no finger drives, and no laptop. Not a thing. They hadn’t found the documents that had been the bulk of the bequest he had given to Bacchus in his office. What had that priest done with every scrap of paper in his life? He knew the answer, but didn’t have a clue how he was supposed to break into a safe deposit box in a bank. Perhaps he needs to use Felicities contacts. Bank CEO’s shouldn’t cause her a problem.

              Staring down at his notes, he reviewed his efforts to date. William Bacchus had to be connected in some fashion to Ernest Sanderson.  He knew he was missing something but what? Why would a person be chosen to inherit from another person? Family? Of course, but he had not found any documented connection between the Bacchus’s and the Sanderson's. Close friendship? Maybe, but again, no contact between Sanderson and Bacchus’s mother.

              Thrasher leant down and picked up a folder that contained all he had accumulated on Ernest Sanderson since he had first been instructed by him. He had resolved to keep his research to himself for the moment, as Felicity could be paranoid and suspicious of anything and everything. Why encourage her capriciousness if he didn’t need to.

              The folder was uninspiring, the potted biography of an ageing conspiracy theorist with more resources than sense. Thrasher had constructed a timeline of Sanderson’s life from school through to the present identifying any points that were relevant to his bequest or CHC Industries. He had run his own multinational group of companies, bagged a society wife and been blessed with good looks and charm. Each portion of his life was documented; school, college, university, general work, then career, friends, his marriage; everything.

              A similar though less detailed timeline had been produced for Angela Bacchus again split into distinct sections to show the different areas of her development. Angela Bacchus had known Sanderson at some point and their relationship, because that was what it must have been, had been one of friendship. Thrasher sat back in his executive chair and thought. He had to prove beyond doubt that Angela Bacchus and Ernest Sanderson had met.  Until he could show they had met he couldn’t show they had shagged and little William was the outcome of this supposed liaison.

              Laying the two timelines side by side, he compared each section of their lives. There was no point that intersected they can’t have met. Then he saw it a small inconsequential detail that he had almost overlooked. In the early seventies, Angela had been a legal secretary for a silk who was based at Gray’s Inn. Sanderson began a relationship with that set of chambers at about the same time, a complicated patent problem that he was handling for Jonas. Had they met? A furtive look over the photocopier, a bashful glance as they pass on the stairs?

              Thrasher rationalised that this was the only connection he had. It was tenuous, but it was a connection.

“Siobhan, could you get me the Master Treasurer at Gray’s Inn please and a cup of your delicious coffee. Thank you.”

***

William sat at the dining room table deep in thought. Annabel was right they would need a computer genius to rationalise the volume of data that Ernest had left for them. The small dent he had made in the hundreds of files on the memory stick hadn't given him more than an inkling of what they would need to do or how they were going to do it. Ben would be perfect, but would he want to? William knew very little about Ben and wasn’t sure how he would react to helping William. Wooster’s damp nose butted against his hand. When this failed to illicit a response, he licked Willia
m’
s hand and forced his head through the crook of Williams arm.

“Are you bored Wooster? Would a walk help? Perhaps a bowl of tea and a teacake?”

              They walked in the morning sunshine along the quiet residential streets that led into the centre of Sherborne. William thoughts slipped back to the implications of the previous evenings meeting with Annabel and Ben. Annabel had known what he had wanted to talk to them about, but not the detail. They had discussed how much they should tell Ben. They had decided that for the moment they should keep their contact with Ernest to themselves. Annabel had been an enthusiastic proponent for including Ben in the ghost dilemma. She argued that she knew Ben quite well. Ernest, she said, was guilty of still being overly protective now that Ben was an adult. He hadn’t recognised that Ben had become a confident, articulate and balanced young man, who had the advantage of an interesting leg. Ben didn’t see his minor disability as a problem. If he thought about it at all, it would be as a feature. Ernest hadn’t felt that Ben was strong enough to cope with hearing his father’s voice in his head or mature enough to understand what it meant or how to deal with it. Annabel was sure he was wrong and William on balance agreed. William had been on the verge of sharing his meeting with Ernest and Annabel’s subsequent epiphany. What had stopped him was Ernest’s desire to save his son from psychological damage. It was misguided, but was it any more than that?

              As he walked with Wooster down Long Street, he considered Ben. Was his father, right? Would he be able to cope with the voices and seeing his father’s face again? William’s instinct was yes he would cope. It would be a surprise; a shock even at first, but having the chance to speak with Ernest again would be worth the initial fear and confusion. William decided to bide his time before broaching this with Ernest, he needed to know a lot more about Ben first.

              Arriving at the bookshop, he went straight to the office taking with him strong sweet Colombian for himself and a bowl of tea for Wooster. Retrieving the computer from his backpack, he pushed the power button and waited for it to start working. Nothing. Pressing the power button again, he watched for an array of lights at the front of the laptop. Nothing, no lights, no noises, nothing. Panicking he closed the lid of the laptop, opened it and pressed the power button again; hoping that these random actions would encourage the computer into life. Nothing.

              Picking up his iPhone, he selected the number for Ben he had input the previous evening and dialled him. Ben answered in a deep authoritative voice,

“Ben Sanderson”

“I gather you like your new phone.” William said, continuing he asked,

“Can I separate you from the instruction book for as moment and ask your advice?”

Ben began,

“Annabel is a very complicated woman; you need to approach her with caution and sensitivity..
.
”

Interrupting; William continued, ignoring Ben’s gentle teasing.

“Computer, my computer won’t do anything. I’ve pressed every button twice, closed the lid, opened the lid, nothing.”

Ben replied,

“I’ll come to the shop and have a look. Twenty minutes ok?”

“Thank you.”

Muttering to himself he said

“Not problems, opportunities.” William and Wooster walked across the road to the bank to deposit the cheque Ernest had left him and to collect the source document’s from the safe deposit box. Completing both of these tasks, he walked the short distance to the front of the mediaeval abbey then stood and stared.

              How had the mason’s known that if the proportions were correct then the Abbey would be beautiful?  How could they build with their archaic tools a complex structure and achieve such startling elegance? The Abbey’s vaulted ceiling was a case in point.  Depositing Wooster outside, he walked through the Norman porch into the Abbey, William walked to the centre of the Nave and looked up at the ceiling.  The fan vaulting perfectly made, it had remained almost untouched for five hundred years. The design of the intricate carving was thought to have been that of William Smyth who was the master mason of the main Abbey and the Lady Chapel at Wells where fragments of a similar design were found.