The Bell Ringers (7 page)

Her eyes moved to the window. A man was peering into the cafe, trying to see past the reflection, then a look of recognition lit his face and he mimed that he was coming in to join her.

A trim, eager person entered, flattening a tuft of sandy grey hair and brushing something from the jacket of a slate-blue suit that she had seen bobbing in the exodus from the church. When he reached the table he wiped his brow theatrically with the back of one hand and offered the
other to her. ‘Miss Lockhart? I'm Hugh Russell of Russell, Spring & Co., David Eyam's lawyer.'

She nodded. ‘Actually, it's Mrs, but I have given up making the point. Call me Kate.'

‘Oh, you're married – I hadn't realised.'

‘Was – my husband has been dead for nearly a decade.'

‘Ah, I see.' He looked embarrassed.

She asked him to sit and he began to explain that Russell, Spring & Co. had acted for Eyam since he'd purchased Dove Cottage.

‘I am so glad that I've managed to catch you before you left High Castle,' he said, wrinkling his nose in an odd way. ‘I found your photo on the internet but then missed you at the funeral. Mrs Kidd said that she had seen you slip in here.'

‘Ah, yes, Mrs Kidd.'

‘Yes, there's not much that escapes her notice,' he said and cleared his throat. ‘You may prefer to do this in my offices at a more convenient time, but if it would be of help I can tell you now the substance of what I have to say.'

Kate opened her hands. ‘Please do.'

‘I don't know much about your relationship with David Eyam, but I'm assuming you were close.'

‘We were, yes, but our jobs were on different continents and we saw little of each other over the last couple of years. Close but apart.'

‘You work for Calvert-Mayne in New York. That's a famous outfit – you must be damned good at your job.' His face assumed a professional cast. ‘All this must be very distressing for you – I mean the circumstances, Kate – if I may, losing such a close friend in that awful manner.' He paused. ‘Now, this is going to be a shock to you. It certainly would be to me.' He stopped again to give her time, and nodded to ask if it was all right to continue.

She revolved her hand and smiled. ‘Please go on.'

‘I have to tell you that you are the main beneficiary of David Eyam's will. I could have informed you by letter but he wanted me to give you the news personally – he was most insistent on that point.'

She put down her cup. ‘Left me everything! Good Lord! You can't be serious.'

‘I am. His estate comprises a house – Dove Cottage – a flat in London, which is currently rented out on a short lease, a car and all his shares and savings. He's made one or two big bequests to local charities and so forth, but essentially you are his main heir. The estate is worth well over three and a half million pounds. And I should tell you that the savings and cash will very adequately cover the inheritance tax if you are minded to retain the property.'

She sat back. ‘I'm astonished.'

‘I can well understand that, but I hope you feel that this news is some consolation in what I know will have been a very sad day for you. I have his will here and a letter addressed to you.' He unzipped a leather document case and took out two envelopes, which he placed between them on the table. ‘There are also some larger documents, which are in the safe at my offices. Perhaps you'd care to drop by this afternoon and pick them up and we can begin on the paperwork. There's quite a lot to go through.'

‘When did he make this will?' she asked eventually.

‘Let me think. September or late August. About six months ago: it was after he had had some . . .' He stopped and frowned.

‘What?' she said, leaning forward slightly.

‘I believe he received some worrying news about his health, though I am not sure of its precise nature. He intimated that he had been told to get his affairs in order. There was hope but he thought it was best to be on the safe side.'

That explained why Eyam had planned his funeral, but not what he was doing in Colombia. She thought for a moment. ‘You think it was cancer – something terminal?'

He shrugged.

‘Did he say why he was going away?'

‘No, I didn't know he'd left until I heard of his death. He was away about a month and what with Christmas, well . . .'

‘Why would he go away when he was ill? Presumably he was being treated in England.'

‘I'm afraid I can't say because I don't know.'

‘And these documents; do you know what's in them?'

‘No. These are his private communication to you. The contents do
not concern me.' He smiled sympathetically. ‘I know this is going to take some time to sink in. It is after all a rather large legacy to come out of the blue. But the one thing I did want to bring to your attention is the house, which has been unoccupied for over three months. There will be things that require attention: we can talk about all of that when you come to see me. The lease on the flat in London is due to end in a few months' time so you don't have to think about that for the moment.'

Her hand moved to the envelopes. ‘May I?' she asked.

‘Forgive me. All this is a little irregular, but please do.'

She opened the will first and read that Hugh Arthur Russell and Annabel Spring, wife of Russell's partner Paul Spring, were appointed as Executors and Trustees. She read on:

(i) I bequeath to Kate Grace Koh Lockhart absolutely the property known as Dove Cottage, Dove Valley, Near High Castle, in the county of Shropshire, all the contents therein and my car (Bristol Series 4,1974 Chassis number: 18462 Registration Number N476 RXL) and also the property at 16 Seymour Row, London W1, currently let on a two-year lease to George Harold Keenan, together with its contents.

(ii) I bequeath to Kate Grace Koh Lockhart absolutely the sum of £780,000 and the portfolio of shares and bonds held in my name at the time of my decease.

(iii) I give to High Castle Arts Trust absolutely the sum of £12,000 and to High Castle Film Society the sum of £12,000 to be used in an annual lecture and film screening and to The Marches Bell Ringers Society the sum of £125,000.

There were a few smaller bequests – Amnesty International and a charity called Tree Aid. Attached were a paper detailing the extent of his shareholding as of October 21st the previous year, and the address of his accountant in London.

She let the will drop to the table and picked up the letter addressed to her in Eyam's precise little hand.

At the top was a quote from Immanuel Kant: ‘Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing admiration and awe, the oftener and
more steadily we reflect on them – the starry heavens above and the moral laws within.'

For the moment the evening is mine, Sister, but soon it will certainly be yours.

If you are reading this, Hugh Russell must have found you and given you the keys to Dove Cottage, which will come to you after you receive the news of my demise. I am dead. How odd that sounds. Anyway, welcome to my home; welcome to your home. I do wish that we had made the occupation simultaneous, rather than consecutive, but leaving it to you is the nearest I can get to that now.

How did we let this distance between us happen? What did we do not to deserve each other? It was, I am sure, all my fault and I hope I have managed to express this to you in person or on the phone before you read this.

Anyway, that is all regrettably in the past and now I give you my life – less tax, as it were – and with all the problems and strangeness of the last year or so; but also all the hidden delights of Dove Cottage, which I believe you will come to love. Look closely, as I know you can, and you will discover much that is surprising here. All my earthly goods are now yours: my secrets too. Think of nothing as too private for your eyes. I am opening myself to you, Sis, and though it is too late to say it, I send my love – the most tender and heartfelt of my life – and I kiss your clever eyes for good fortune and the happiness that has not been ours.

Some of what I have left you will have been handed to you with this letter, but there is more to find because I could not risk placing all my eggs in one basket. What you have is a primer. The full legacy to you and others will reveal itself in due course. I cannot go into details here.

The evening I speak of at the start of this note is perfect. I write on a patch of gravel garden in front of the cottage resting on an old metal table, which I inherited when I bought the place. I have a glass of Puligny Montrachet at my side; a neighbour's dog is making eyes at a bowl of cheese sticks. It has been a very hot day. The sun has set and the sky is bruising a gentle purple in the west. It is just past eight o'clock, and the cuckoos call from the other side of the valley. There are hawks hunting in the dusk above me. As ever, the Dove is their prey. The birds sing but
mostly they listen and watch at this time of the day. You will find it all very much behind the times, but I have been happy here.

If you are reading this it means I'm gone. The evening is yours now with all its grandeur and its flaws: you are more than equal to both. Good luck, and look after my books, my beloved Bristol and my garden – especially my vegetable patch.

With my love, David.

Dove Cottage, August 20th

She read it again while the lawyer looked on.

‘Do you want some coffee? Have a drink?' she said absently.

‘I won't, thanks.' He cleared his throat again. ‘Is there something wrong?'

‘The letter: it doesn't sound like him at all. I mean the pretentious stuff at the beginning is very much Eyam, but the rest of it sounds like he's on drugs.'

‘Perhaps he was conscious that you would read this after his death. Maybe it was hard for him to write.'

She thought for a moment. ‘You're probably right. What time do you want me to come in?'

‘Any time up to eight.' He got up and gave her a card. ‘These days we country lawyers have to keep our heads down to make ends meet. You can give me your contact details when you come.'

‘Of course,' she said, returning the letter and the will to their envelopes. ‘I'll see you later then.'

‘If it's past six and my secretary has gone home, just ring the bell.'

He left and a few moments later she watched him hurrying across the square, nodding to people as he went, one hand on top of his head as though at risk of losing his hair in the wind. From where she sat she could almost see the whole square, and if Hugh Russell had not gone at quite such a gallop, she would probably not have noticed. But what she saw now was the discreet choreography of a close surveillance operation. The moves were all there: the man swivelling from the market stall and walking ahead of the target; the woman with a plastic bag tracking him in the left field, pausing to window shop and watch the target in the reflection; the builder's labourer folding a tabloid and
keeping pace behind him as the main ‘eyeball', the ordinary silver saloon containing two men whose heads did not look up from their newspapers as Russell and then their colleagues passed.

Russell reached Mortimer Street, a wide thoroughfare with unbroken terraces of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century merchants' houses that ran down to a medieval gate. He crossed the road with a forearm pressed against his jacket to stop it flying up and entered a large cream-coloured townhouse, which the card on the table told her must be number six, Mortimer Street – the offices of Russell, Spring & Co. At this point the energy of the pursuit suddenly gave out and the men and woman dispersed without acknowledging each other.

Kate realised they must have picked up Russell at the cafe for the first time, otherwise they would have known who he was and followed him less aggressively. This could only mean they'd latched onto the lawyer because he'd been seen with her. So, she was the main target, not merely someone who was being watched as part of the security measures in advance of the funeral, which was what she had assumed.

Well, damn them, she thought: if some milk-faced security bureaucrat thought she was worth watching, good luck to him. She didn't give a damn. She didn't belong to the town, nor did she have any part in the morbid hyper-anxiety that seemed to have gripped the country in her absence. But in the next seconds she reminded herself that she was now indeed part of High Castle, even if only for a few weeks. Eyam's will effectively tied her to the coordinates of his mysterious exile. Perhaps he was forcing her to become involved in whatever it was that had made him leave the centre of things.

The wake conformed to the pattern in the church. The locals gathered in three defensive circles near the buffet table, juggling plates and glasses; the people from Eyam's Oxford days staked out the middle of the room for a reunion, while the politicians, civil servants and business people claimed the Old Pineapple House, a conservatory built along the inside of a high garden wall, where they were being conspicuously hosted by Ingrid Eyam with veil raised and a sparkle in her eye.

Kate took a glass of wine from a tray of drinks and almost immediately became aware of someone clutching at her arm. She turned to find Diana Kidd with an ardent look in her eye. ‘We're claiming you as ours,' she said and wheeled round to the half dozen people. ‘This is the person who saved me from those dreadful police. Lord knows what would have happened if you hadn't stepped in. I'd probably have been charged with assault or something. These fine people are David's closest friends in High Castle. Aren't you?' she said encouragingly.

‘Do you know the Indian gentleman?' asked a large man with a stubble beard who looked uneasy in his suit and tie. Then he added, ‘Chris Mooney is the name. Mooney Photographic.'

‘Yes, from Oxford,' she replied.