Стивен Бут - Drowned Lives

A few minutes later, as I sat in the Plough and watched the dark water of the canal being flicked into life by the wind, I found myself reminded too vividly of the three-quarters of an hour I’d spent sitting in the Earl of Lichfield, watching Samuel Longden waiting for me. The old man had walked away and died. But the memory of him wouldn’t leave me. It had embedded itself in what I suppose must have been my conscience. I wondered if there was a way I could dislodge the memory. The beer in my hand might work in the short term, but it wasn’t the permanent solution I needed.

I sat and stared at the canal for a long time. But my thoughts were blown along as helplessly as the small waves on its surface were being driven by the wind.

The next couple of days passed in a blur. I was busy working, of course. The launch of the website was due soon, and we needed some content. So I could hardly concentrate on anything but routine, while at the same time being aware that significant events were happening that might affect my life. And then it came to Thursday morning.

On Thursdays I’d started to have the Lichfield Echo delivered. Sometimes the local hacks don’t realise they’ve got hold of something that will be of interest to the nationals. Or their editors frown on the idea of reporters flogging stories they’ve written for their own papers. It means more opportunities for people like me, and every unconsidered trifle is potential grist to the freelancer’s mill.

This Thursday morning, there was little in the Echo to interest me. The front page was concerned with a nasty assault on an elderly couple during a robbery that had gone wrong, and a report from the planning committee about the siting of a new supermarket. It was purely local interest.

But when I got to page five, a small item caught my eye. ‘Inquest adjourned’, it said. It named Samuel Joseph Longden, aged 83, of Whittington, and said that he’d died in a road accident a few days earlier. Cause of death was given as multiple internal injuries. The entire item was only three paragraphs long, and it concluded by saying that the coroner had adjourned the hearing until some future date, so that police could continue their inquiries.

By one of those coincidences that could make anyone believe in the action of fate, there was another item in my morning post that was demanding my attention. Not a bill, but a letter from a firm of solicitors in Lichfield called Elsworth and Clarke. They invited me to make an early appointment regarding a will. The will of Mr Samuel Joseph Longden.

The solicitors’ offices were in St John Street. The modern-looking facade of smoked glass and pink brick concealed a rabbit warren of corridors that seemed stuck in the 1950s. Maybe the decor was deliberate, to give clients an impression of age and solidity, a reminder that Elsworth and Clarke were an old-established firm on the inside, though they were aware on the outside of the imminent arrival of the next millennium.

Mr Elsworth himself gave much the same impression. His desk might have contained a computer loaded with the latest electronic database package, but his mind was still a dog-eared card index. He motioned me to an uncomfortable chair and took off his glasses, which hung from a cord round his neck. His suit was an aged grey pinstripe, but his tie seemed to be a cartoon strip, in which I vaguely recognised Wile E. Coyote.

‘Could I just confirm that you are Mr Christopher John Buckley, of 6 Stowe Pool Lane, Lichfield, Staffordshire? And that your parents were Arthur and Sheila Buckley of the same address?’

‘Would you like to see some identification?’ I asked, surprised. I felt like a young-looking eighteen-year-old being challenged in a pub as an underage drinker.

‘A driving licence perhaps?’ he said. ‘Ah yes, that’s fine.’ He replaced his glasses to study my licence, made a brief note on a pad with his pen and handed the licence back. ‘Just a precaution, you know. There’s no great formality about the reading of a will these days. Even when it happens to involve substantial assets.’

I wondered what Mr Elsworth was like on a formal occasion, if he thought he was being informal just now.

‘So I’ll press straight on to the business in hand, if you don’t mind,’ he said. ‘There’s a clause in Mr Longden’s will which is of interest to you. Also, there are one or two other items.’

‘Go ahead.’

‘You’d like me to read the relevant clause?’

‘Of course.’

‘Well, it reads: “And to my great-nephew, Christopher John Buckley, I leave fifty thousand pounds, in addition to all my manuscripts, notes, letters, and any other items which may already be in his possession relating to my work on a publication called The Three Keys . The bequest of fifty thousand pounds is to be conditional on the said The Three Keys being completed and published before the end of the year 2000, that being the two hundredth anniversary of the death of my ancestor, William Buckley.”’

‘Sorry, how much?’

‘Fifty thousand pounds. Quite a generous bequest. I dare say it will come in useful, Mr Buckley?’

‘Useful?’ I laughed. ‘It’ll only save my life, that’s all.’

My brain must not have been working too quickly that day. My surprise was so great at hearing my name and the sum of fifty thousand pounds mentioned in the same breath that it took me a few moments to track back to the beginning of the sentence and work out what else was wrong with it.

‘Hold on. Did you say “great-nephew”?’

‘That’s correct.’

The great surge of hope that had washed through my body a moment before was instantly smothered, leaving me flattened and more hopeless than ever. But there was no point in claiming to be somebody I wasn’t.

‘You’ve got the wrong person then, Mr Elsworth.’

The solicitor removed his glasses and looked offended. ‘I don’t believe so, Mr Buckley.’

‘I met Samuel Longden only a few weeks ago. I’m certainly not his great-nephew.’

‘But Mr Longden was very specific. He gives your full name and address and the names of your parents, which you agreed were correct.’

I sighed. It came painfully hard to give up the chance of so much money. God knows I needed it. But I couldn’t take it under false pretences. I had the sort of luck that meant I’d be found out and have to pay the whole lot back some time in the future, probably with interest. Redundancy and debt were quite enough, without a charge of deception and fraud to add to my troubles.

‘Samuel Longden did seem to take a liking to me for some reason,’ I said. ‘But he was a very old man. I suppose his mind must have been wandering towards the end, and that led him to imagine I was a long-lost relative.’

Mr Elsworth pursed his lips as if I’d accused him of some legal misdemeanour. He replaced his glasses to refer to the front page of the will. ‘This document was signed and witnessed in these offices on the 15th of June last year.’

My mouth fell open in astonishment. ‘You must have got it wrong.’

‘I assure you, Mr Buckley, there’s no mistake. You say you met Mr Longden a few weeks ago. But clearly he knew of your existence some time before that. And he believed you to be his great-nephew. Also, may I state that this firm does not allow clients to draw up a will if there’s any doubt about their mental condition.’

‘I wasn’t suggesting that, I’m sorry. But this is very difficult for me to understand. You did say fifty thousand pounds?’

‘I see it’s come as something of a shock.’ The solicitor withdrew a white padded envelope from the folder. ‘Perhaps this will cast light on the situation, Mr Buckley. My instructions are to deliver this package into your hands once the provisions of the will have been communicated to you.’