Reginald Hill: Child's Play

I await your reply hopefully,

Yours sincerely,

(Lady) Paula Webb (Hon. Treasurer)

‘Finally Women For Empire,’ said Thackeray.

This was handwritten in spindly writing, strong at first but failing towards the end, on pink writing paper with the address in Gothic script, Maldive Cottage, Ilkley, Yorkshire. Across the head of the sheet a rubber stamp had printed in purple ink Women For Empire.

Dear Sir,

I was much distressed to hear of Mrs Huby’s death. She was an old and valued member of Women For Empire and I was touched that she should have remembered us in her will. I myself am not in the best of health. Happily I am fortunate enough to have a young and vigorous assistant in the onerous task of running the affairs of Women For Empire. She is Miss Sarah Brodsworth, who has been vested with full authority in this and all other WFE matters. I will pass your letter on to her and doubtless she will get in direct contact with you.

God save the Queen.

Sincerely yours,

Laetitia Falkingham (Founder and Perpetual President WFE)

‘Well, Lexie,’ said Thackeray when she finished the last letter. ‘What do you think? You have the advantage of having spoken to two of the people concerned. What did you make of them, by the way?’

‘Mr Goodenough was Scottish and sounded, well, sort of down-to-earth, businesslike.’

‘And Miss Sarah Brodsworth?’

She hesitated, then said, ‘Well, she was businesslike too. Youngish but hard, sort of aggressive, but it was just a voice and some people on the telephone …’

‘No. I fear you may have heard all too accurately, Lexie,’ said Thackeray. ‘Silly old women and their unpleasant little organizations can attract some very dubious people when there’s money involved. Well, that’s the way the world wags, I’m afraid. Question is, what do you think will happen next?’

Lexie said, ‘I don’t rightly know, Mr Eden.’

‘Come now! I have a better opinion of your intelligence. Why do you think I asked you to take Miss Dickinson’s place?’

‘I’m not sure,’ she said ingenuously. ‘To tell the truth, when you sent for me, I half thought, what with Great Aunt Gwen dying …’

She let the sentence fade and Thackeray burst out indignantly, ‘My God, you didn’t imagine I was going to sack you, did you?’

‘Well, I thought, maybe, as I only got the job because of Aunt Gwen in the first place …’

A phenomenon often observed by Thackeray in his clients was the greater the guilt, the greater the indignation. It was a reaction he understood now, for there was no denying that without her great-aunt’s influence, Lexie Huby would never have done for Messrs Thackeray etcetera. Not that she lacked qualifications, but she was awkward of manner, careless of appearance, spoke what few words she managed to get out with a strong Yorkshire accent, and looked like a twelve-year-old. But when old ladies of great wealth pronounce, old lawyers of good sense take heed, and Lexie had been taken on and hidden away in the nethermost reaches among the storage cabinets and deed boxes so that she would not besmirch the Messrs Thackeray etcetera image.

That had been three years ago. Only a month after she joined the firm, old Mrs Huby had had her first stroke. Had it proved fatal, there was little doubt in Thackeray’s mind that after a decent interval, little Lexie might well have been urged to seek a job more suited to her taste and talents.

But the three years that passed had seen a change, not so much in the girl herself who seemed almost indistinguishable from the odd little creature who had first arrived, but in Thackeray’s conception of her. Observation and report had slowly convinced him there was genuine intelligence here. Checking back, he had seen that her school references all said she could have stayed on after O-levels, but family pressure had been brought to bear. That awful man Huby! Thackeray shuddered every time he thought of him. It was partly as an anti-Huby gesture, partly because he liked to toss the occasional cat among the complacent office pigeons, but mainly on the basis of true desert that he had elevated this little sparrow to Miss Dickinson’s perch.

‘Lexie, I won’t deny your aunt’s influence helped you get the job, but it’s your own abilities that will keep you in it,’ he said rather tartly. ‘Now, what do you think of these letters?’

‘Well, they’d all like the money sooner rather than later, but from the sound of the letter and from him coming all this way to see you, this Mr Goodenough at PAWS is the one who’ll do something about it.’

‘Excellent. Yes, even before he telephoned, I guessed that Mr Andrew Goodenough was going to be the focus of action.’

‘You don’t seem bothered, Mr Eden,’ said Lexie in a puzzled voice.

‘Bothered! I’m delighted, Lexie. Merely administering the estate until 2015 would be very dull. Not unprofitable, of course, but dull. But if we have to act on behalf of the estate against an attempt to overturn the will, that could be both lively and extremely profitable. Instant money too, always welcome. So, bring on the lawsuits I say!’

He sat back, pleased at being able to show this naïve young thing what a sharp and worldly fellow he really was.

The naïve young thing, far from looking impressed, was glancing at her watch.

‘Am I keeping you from something, Lexie?’ he said sharply.

‘Oh no. I mean, I’m sorry, Mr Eden, it’s just that I’ve got an appointment in my lunch hour and it’s nearly half past twelve …’

She looked so distressed, his sternness dissolved instantly.

‘Then you must run along,’ he said.

She left, darting from the room with the swiftness of a wren. An appointment? Hairdresser perhaps, though that close crop of indeterminately brown straight hair didn’t look as if it owed much to the coiffeur’s art. Dentist, then. Or boyfriend? Alas, least likely of all, he suspected. Poor little Lexie. He could see her growing old in the service of Messrs Thackeray etcetera. He must do what he could for her. Getting her out of the Old Mill Inn and away from the influence of that awful father of hers would be the first step. But how to manage it?

He sat quietly, applying his mind to the task. It was a good mind and it enjoyed the business of manipulating other people’s destinies.

He heard the building emptying. His nephew and junior partner, Dunstan Thackeray, stuck his head round the door.

‘Coming to the Gents, Uncle Eden?’ he asked.

This was not the odd inquiry it sounded. The Gents was the familiar abbreviation of The Borough Club For Professional Gentlemen, the prestigious Victorian institution which had had a Thackeray on its founding committee and of which Eden was the president-elect. As a liberal modernist, he deplored and detested it. As a senior partner in Messrs Thackeray etcetera he had to keep his mouth shut. But he was not in the mood for the usual Gents diet, conversational as well as culinary, of traditional stodge.

‘Later. I may be in later,’ he said.

He heard his nephew’s feet descend the stairs. Then all was silence. He fell into a reverie which a casual observer might have mistaken for a doze.

When he opened his eyes, it took him a few seconds to realize there actually was a casual observer to make the error.

Seated before him where Lexie had perched a little earlier was a man. There was something familiar about him, and not very pleasantly familiar either.

Suddenly it came to him. This was the same sunburnt intruder who had disturbed Gwendoline Huby’s funeral.

He jumped up, alarmed.

‘Who are you? How did you get in? What the devil do you want?’

The man stared at him as if looking for something in his face.