UNCLE GEORGE  [Part 10 & Resoution]

By Richard Banks  

We awake to find the window wide open and the sun streaming in between curtains we have neglected to draw. It’s ten thirty and after a half hearted attempt to clear-up we begin the journey back to London and our jobs, which despite the upturn in our fortunes may still be needed.

         On Wednesday we read about us in the on-line editions of the Chronicle and Echo, and by Friday we have reporters from the London papers wanting to speak to us. Of Carew there is no mention. This can only be good news. For him our meeting on Saturday will be about what he thinks can be salvaged from his shabby attempt to defraud us. We can hardly wait to see the look on his face now we have the better of him, but when we get to the road running past the Gallery we find it taped off and a policeman on sentry duty. There’s smoke in the air and ash on the ground. A short distance away a thin plume of smoke is wafting up from the blaze that, although hidden by the bend in the road, can only be that of the Gallery.

         A fire engine departing the scene pulls up on the other side of the tape and the policeman lets it by. We, however, are informed that the road is closed and that we can not pass. We turn around, find a parking place several streets back and return on foot to find the tape back in place but the policeman missing. A trickle of people are taking advantage of his absence to slip by unchallenged. We join them and on arriving at the entrance to the Gallery stare across the car park at the charred remains of the gutted building.

         The wrought iron gates at the entrance to the car park are closed and one of the two policemen standing there tells us that the road is shortly to be reopened and that, for our own safety, we must stand on the far pavement. Any hope of this happening is thwarted by the arrival of further sightseers who finding no space on the pavement have no choice but to spill out onto the road. Among them is a familiar figure who, is walking boldly down the centre of the road. On being saluted by one of the policeman he addresses them in the genial fashion for which he’s now well known. It’s Callow who takes it upon himself to address the crowd and request their dispersal. The fire, he says, is as good as out and the embers must be left to cool. An official statement will be made later that day, until then there is nothing more to be said or seen. The crowd evidently agree and after taking the usual selfies begin to drift-off in the direction they have come. As the crowd thins he spots us and saunters over.

         “Thought I would find you here,” he says. “As you can see your 2 o’clock has been cancelled. I’m afraid you will have to make do with me instead. Why don’t we have a bite to eat at that nice restaurant we were at last Monday. I’ve got quite a lot to tell you.”

         “What’s happened?” asks Ally whose initial bewilderment is beginning to give way to panic. “Has everything been destroyed?”

         “You mean has your precious picture perished in the flames. Alas, the fire spread too quickly, for anything to be saved. But before we get on to that, and while there’s no one within earshot, let’s talk about that letter informing your uncle of his lottery win. You might have got away with it but for the fact that criminals like the Beale’s know many other criminals and once they decided to check-out your story it didn’t take too long before they came across the forger who did it. Unsurprisingly, this led them to believe that the picture had been purchased by your uncle with money they regard as belonging to themselves. A subsequent meeting with Carew was more than enough to confirm their suspicions. Sadly it appears that he was still in the building when the fire took hold.

         “You mean, he’s dead?” Says Ally struggling to get the words out.

         “No doubt about it, I have it on good authority.”

         “You mean the Beale’s? Was it them who did this?”

         “Let’s walk. There’s someone I want you both to meet - the reason why we are having this conversation. Mr Kovac is his name, not his real name of course, but it will do. Mr Kovac is an art dealer on the black web, with clients in the far east, who is keen on adding your picture to the many others he has sold into private collections. While he is not adverse to a fire sale he is less than convinced that what we are offering him is what was in the Gallery until yesterday. We thought that if he was to meet you, the present owner and hear you say that we’re acting on your behalf we would then be able to agree a deal.” 

         “And why should I do that?” I say.

         “Why not. It’s win, win. You receive the insurance money for the picture while the Beale’s get to keep the money Mr Kovac will be giving them. Anyway, what’s the alternative? Do you really want to get on the wrong side of the Beales? You know what they can do. Why put yourselves at risk? No, better if you meet Mr Kovac, tell him that you are willing participants in our little enterprise, then we all walk away much better-off than we were before. Come on now, you know it makes sense. Indeed, given the circumstances, the Beale’s have been unusually generous.”

         It was an offer not to be refused, so we said yes, what else could we do? Our meeting with Mr K, his accountant and a large, muscular man with a boxer’s face lasted little more than thirty minutes, and on eating next to nothing of our meals, we returned to Petherdale.

        

                              

                                    UNCLE GEORGE      [Final Resolution]

The prospect of remaining in Norfolk was now less than appealing and having put Uncle’s  house up for sale we departed back to London hoping against hope that we had seen the last of Callow and the Beale’s. The insurance claim that Mr Wells submitted on our behalf was settled a year later after the various investigations into the fire found no evidence of wrong doing. Of Carew nothing was found beyond charred fragments of bone from which it was not possible to extract DNA.

         We invested our ill-gotten gains in a Surrey mansion but otherwise did nothing likely to come to the attention of the Beale’s who we feared might still do us harm. Thankfully they never have. Others have not been so lucky. In 2021 Seth Beale, the second son of Frankie, was tried at the Old Bailey for murder but discharged when the main witness for the prosecution went missing, never to be seen again. It was in newspaper coverage of the trial that we learned that Frankie had died of a heart attack. While this at first seemed like good news the downside was that his sons were now in charge and, with no fond memories of ‘good old George’, might be thinking that our deal with their father was too generous to ourselves. Six years on from our altercation in a narrow country lane will not have been forgotten.    

         When my firm decided to set-up a new office in Prague I volunteered to help set it up, and Ally, who was in between jobs, came too. It was at the Havelska Market that we made fleeting contact with someone who had even more reason than ourselves to be keeping a low profile. The look of horror on his face when our eyes met was more than enough to tell me that this was no doppelgänger; Carew was alive and, judging by the way he was dressed, doing very nicely. On the crowded pavement he was past us and out of sight in seconds.

         It did not take us long to realise that if Carew was ever to be apprehended by the police what he had to say might well invalidate our insurance claim and send us to prison. Did the Beale’s know he was still alive - they who were supposed to have murdered him? Was there anything that made sense and might not, one day, become a danger to ourselves? It was with a sense of things unravelling that we returned to England in 2023 determined to live our lives to the full and without fear of things we were powerless to prevent. We cherish every day.                                                                    

                                                      *****      

         This document, relating mainly to the events of April 2015, has been lodged with the HSBC bank along with our separate wills which Ally insisted we make following the birth of our son, David George. It is to be handed to him, or his guardian, on the passing of both his parents.

         Having set out the circumstances by which we acquired our fortune my intention has been to both inform and forewarn. If read many years from now, its only function will, I hope, be to entertain - a ripping yarn in which his parents had the starring roles. As outcomes go there can be none better.

 

                                                                                          Phillip Jones

                                                                                            14^th March 2024.

 

[This paper handed to Mr Joseph Jones, executor of Mr Phillip Jones and guardian of his only child, David George, at the reading of the testator’s will on 12^th February 2025 – Caldow & Brent, sols.] 

 Copyright Richard Banks

 

Riddles 27

 Riddles 27

 

By the Riddler

The Riddler has two puzzles for us today:

 

No 1.  What is the fewest number of coins you can pay 99p with?

 

No 2. What digit has appeared in every date since 30.11.1999?

 

Keep em coming Riddler

 The Day the Rains Came Down

By  Sis Unsworth 

I am sure I heard the trees sigh, as I gazed up at the darkened sky

The flowers seem to bow and pray, in hope the rain would come today. 

All the earth was parched and dry, I heard the seagull’s eerie cry.

What they needed now had come, as angry clouds blocked out the sun.

The rain fell with sheer delight, continuing throughout the night.

Following the summer storm, lightning flashed till early morn.

The world became a different place, the trees stood tall & full of grace.

The grass revived began to grow, and mother nature seemed to glow.

The ponds and lakes so full of pride, now complement the country side

The rain cascading from the leaves, make music of the summer breeze.

I know how long we had to wait, but when it came it sure felt great!

I’m glad it rained, I really am, it saved me from a hosepipe ban.

Copyright Sis Unsworth

UNCLE GEORGE [Part 9 of 10]

 UNCLE GEORGE  [Part 9 of 10]

By Richard Banks

We arrive back to find John vacuuming his car. He’s the first to receive the good news. “We’re celebrating at the Wheatsheaf I tell him. He’s invited and everyone he knows, the more the merrier, I say. I phone Fred Cummings who, I discover, is now Editor of the Norfolk Chronicle. I have a story for him, I say. It’s not the one he was hoping for but nevertheless it relates to my uncle so maybe of interest. Cummings declares that it’s the best good news story he’s heard in years and that every paper in Norfolk will be running it as well as the London dailies. He wants a photograph of the lucky couple, so I invite him and a photographer along to the pub. But before then he wants an interview. Better to do it now, he says, rather than when you’re half cut and not knowing what day of the week it is. I agree and with the unfaltering clarity you would expect from someone relating a recent, life changing event I tell him how we found the letter in the loft. We were really lucky, I say, it was in a cardboard box under a pile of magazines and I was taking it down to the bin when the bottom of the box gave way and everything in it spilled out down the stairs. You can imagine our surprise when we found it. My uncle never spoke of winning any money and, of course, our first thoughts were what had he done with it all. He had always lived a very frugal life. Clearly he hadn’t spent it on himself or the house he lived in. We would never have discovered the truth but for the business card to which it was stapled. Mr Alexander Carew of the Swaffham Gallery it said, so earlier today we took ourselves down there and Mr Carew gave us the wonderful news that my uncle’s money had been invested in a work of art which is now worth considerably more than the amount paid for it.”

         “And you’re quite sure it belongs to you and not the gallery?”

         “Oh yes. My uncle was the sole owner and there are legal papers confirming this. He wanted the picture to be on display in Norfolk where the artist lived and worked which is why he made it available to the gallery on loan.”

         “That’s very generous of him, but why didn’t he tell you what he had done?”

         “My uncle was a very private person and towards the end of his life increasingly eccentric. The publicity of being identified as the gallery’s benefactor was something he would have found very difficult to deal with. It was a secret he was content to share only with Mr Carew, knowing that he would contact me on my uncle’s demise.”

         “But you contacted him?”

         “Yes, Mr Carew was unaware of my uncle’s decease until we informed him of it. They met every other month in Swaffham and it was their firm understanding that if Uncle failed to turn-up at one of these that Mr Carew would drive over to his house to check if he was OK. As they last met only a month ago he assumed my uncle was alive and well; he was, of course, very upset to find otherwise. Is there anything else you would like to know?”

         Mr Cummings thinks that will do for now. He will see me later at the Wheatsheaf.

         Call over, we shoot off to the solicitors’ office where Mr Wells reluctantly agrees to see us. After a few minutes he’s very glad he did; we have become clients of note, our value to his practice much increased. “And you say that the owner of the Gallery has confirmed your uncle’s title to the picture, and that there are legal papers confirming this and the loan arrangement with the gallery.”

         “Yes, that’s what Mr Carew told us, so it must be so,” I say, suddenly not so sure of myself, but determined not to show it.

         Mr Wells beams at me with a benevolence not evident at our previous meeting. The papers, he assures us, if correctly filed, can easily be found. He had a similar case five years ago which was resolved with a minimum of fuss. He will contact us again as soon as the relevant papers are in his possession.

         Meeting over he escorts us to the front door and waves us off with a cheery goodbye. It’s nearly five pm and with only three hours to go until the big celebration we decide to fortify ourselves against the alcohol to come by dining out at Cromer’s swankiest restaurant. We’re almost finished and ready to pay when who should come in but Callow.

         “Hi,” I say, and for a moment he looks at me as though he doesn’t know me, then he does. I introduce him to Ally. “This is the man who came to my aid when I was attacked.”

         Ally looks suitably impressed while Callow insists that he did nothing worth the mention. “Just a silly misunderstanding,” he says. “Glad to have been of assistance.”

         Not at all,” I say, “We’re having a celebration this evening at the Wheatsheaf in Craventhorpe. If you’re free, you’ll be more than welcome.”

         Callow thanks me politely for the invitation and asks what we are celebrating and we spend the next few minutes telling him about Uncle’s lottery win and his purchase of an expensive painting which is now ours. This, I think, is working out well. Whether he comes or not he’s bound to mention this to the Beales. If he believes us he will likely convince them, and any thoughts they might have going back to the missing brandy will be ended before they begin.

         Callow congratulates us on our good fortune. Is there a flicker of doubt in his face? Does he believe me? I think he does. His presence at our celebration may, however, indicate otherwise. If he suspects we have something to hide he will come to observe and listen, to catch us out if he can, but when he opts to send us a bottle of champagne rather than attend it seems he has taken us at face value.

         Cummings arrives with photographer in tow, and we pose for pictures brandishing a photocopy of ‘Uncle’s letter’. The pub is full of our new found friends who soon get very drunk at our expense while we stick to low alcohol lager. The celebration ends at 5am when the after-party at Petherdale comes to an end and our remaining guests stagger home apart for one who is carried outside and abandoned in a bus shelter. We, also, are in an abandoning mood and, ignoring the multitude of bottles and cans left by our guests retreat upstairs to bed where we discover more cans and a pair of pants that aren’t mine. We’re beyond caring and fall asleep utterly exhausted. 

(to be Continued)

Copyright Richard Banks

 

 Old Sid’s True Friend

By Sis Unsworth

Old Sid so loved his Wheelbarrow, he proundly did confess,

he said it gave him pleasure, and made hardwork seem less.

Out on his allotment, his produce he would share,

in golden days of summer, you would always find him there,

pushing his wheelbarrow home, at the growing seasons end,

A smile and a wave he always gave, as he passed by with his friend.

in winter time he used it, to carry home his wood,

A warm log fire with curtains drawn, made our Sid feel good.

My wheelbarrow is a real true friend, Sid would often say,

I can recall his very words, down to this very day.

Time passes so quickly, but memories linger on,

reflecting Sid and his Wheelbarrow, though both are sadly gone.

 

Copyright Sis Unsworth

 

 

UNCLE GEORGE [Part 8 of 10]

 UNCLE GEORGE    [Part 8 of 10]

By Richard Banks 

At nine we phone our offices declaring ourselves unfit for work and, at half past, set-off for Swaffham intending to have brunch there and visit the gallery in the early afternoon. We arrive well fed and watered but with a head full of emotions that doesn’t know what to think. The gallery itself is a large grey brick building that used to be someone’s country home. Inside there’s eight or nine rooms with pictures and another two that doubles up as a museum. Of the dozen or so people inside, eight are in the Jones Room gathered around ‘Meadow at Twilight’. It’s the gallery’s main attraction and the room it’s in a shrine to the artist whose life is recorded on large information panels on all four walls, along with photographs of his other works to be found in collections around the world. A listing of the painting’s previous owners ends with the information that it is now on indefinite loan to the gallery by person or persons unnamed. Could this be the Jones after whom the room is named? If so, this is a more than generous clue, but of the many Jones in this world who would be thinking of Uncle George.

         “Time to talk to the man in charge,” says Ally. I agree, and we turn back to the reception desk where a studious looking young lady, not long out of school, is easily persuaded to inform the curator and owner of the gallery that George Jones’s nephew is downstairs and wanting to speak to him. We hear him greet the news of our arrival with an audible “oh”  followed by a stunned silence. What he says next we can’t hear, but on replacing the receiver of her phone the young lady informs us that Mr Carew will see us upstairs on the first floor. By the time we get there he is standing in the open doorway of his office. He greets us politely and bids us enter. “So you’re George’s nephew,” he says. I confirm that I am and that Ally is my fiancee. He declares that he is delighted to meet us both and smiles broadly, but there is a tension in his voice that suggests he is anything but pleased.

         “So sorry to hear about George,” he says, allowing himself a few minutes to express his regrets. “We were friends for many years. Did he ever mention me?”

         I reply that I don’t think he did.

         “No, I don’t suppose he would have. Well let’s get down to the reason for your visit, the picture, Meadow at Twilight. As you are only too well aware the owner of the picture, our anonymous benefactor, was your uncle. Thanks to him this small provincial gallery has been able to display one of the most evocative English landscape pictures of the eighteenth century. Now, as the beneficiary of your uncle’s will, it is yours and you are entitled to do whatever you will with it. If you decide to take the picture from us you have every right to do so and, of course, we will comply with all reasonable instructions from yourself. On the other hand if you should choose to continue your uncle’s benevolence art lovers throughout the county will be forever in your debt. Thanks to your uncle this gallery has been able to display a wonderful work of art that would have been far beyond its means to purchase and display. George could not have been more proud of what he was able to do. Should you decide to continue his legacy he would, had he have known, been equally proud of you, the son he never had.”

         “But, Mr Carew, if my uncle wanted the gallery to have his picture he could have gifted it to you in his will, but he didn’t. How do you explain that? And, anyway, did you really know him that well?”

         Carew looks thoughtful, the smile fading from his face. “Yes, I suppose we were an unlikely pair. Me, public school educated and the younger son of an Earl, he a casual labourer, down on his luck and fifteen years older than myself. We might never have met, but meet we did in a public house called the Hare and Hounds. I can see from your face, Mr Jones, that you know of that establishment and its reputation. What you don’t know is that your uncle and myself were as close as any two people could be for twenty years, our feelings for each other made even more special by our mutual love of art. I was aware soon after our first meeting that your uncle was not long out of prison. There should be no secrets he said, no skeletons in cupboards that might one day be discovered and erode the trust between us. When he realised that it made no difference to the way I felt about him he told me of the banknotes he had totalling over £70,000. The Meadow at Twilight was coming up for auction and he wanted me to have it for the gallery. It was a gift to be shared by myself, the gallery and the people of Norfolk. The idea that he should retain ownership and loan it to the gallery was my idea, not his. Even so there was no way we could allow it to be known that he was the owner. The picture we had purchased had been bought with stolen money, a fact that would have been only too apparent to the police and the Beale gang, who unrestrained by any notions of proof and lawful process, would have been at your uncle’s door demanding with menaces every penny they thought was theirs. Having murdered one of their number and several others from rival gangs your uncle would almost certainly have suffered the same fate. Needless to say that was a risk we were not prepared to take and your uncle was more than happy to be the anonymous Jones that only a few legal papers identify.”

         “But after his death you made no attempt to contact his solicitors.”

         “How could I? Once it became known that an apparently penniless labourer was the owner of a valuable work of art both the police and the Beales would have been at my door, the picture lost to the gallery and me either dead or prosecuted for criminal conspiracy. No, the only way this matter was ever going to be resolved was through a confidential agreement between ourselves. And before you ask why I haven’t been in touch with you the answer is that your uncle asked me not to. You see, he was by no means certain what he wanted to happen after his death. On the one hand he wanted me and the gallery to have the picture, for it to remain in Norfolk within a few short miles of the meadow that Harmsworth painted. That would have been your uncle’s legacy, his enduring gift to the county he loved, but he also had a traditional loyalty to kith and kin, particularly yourself. Did he have the right to deprive you of wealth that would normally be passed down the generations? It was a dilemma he was never able to resolve. In the end he decided to let fate decide. He would make it possible for you to discover the truth but he wasn’t going to make it easy. You were to have a chance and what you made of it would determine what he was unable to decide for himself. So, Mr Jones, it’s now up to you. The good news is that if you were to sell the picture at auction you could realistically expect to receive over two million pounds, a very good return on your uncle’s investment. The bad news is that if someone was to inform the Beale’s of what has happened you will almost certainly end up paying a very heavy price for your good fortune.”

         “Is it likely they will find out?”

         Mr Carew expresses the opinion that almost certainly they would, in fact he can guarantee it. There’s a hardening in his expression and voice. His charm offensive is at an end, less effective than he had hoped; he has now moved from carrot to stick.

         “But if you tell the Beale’s what you know you will be putting yourself at risk. My uncle may have deprived the Beale’s of what was theirs but you took his money knowing full well how he came by it.”

         “But then I would deny all knowledge of your uncle’s crime. I would say he won the money in a lottery.”

         “And you think they would believe that?”

         “I can be very convincing, Mr Jones, but if necessary, as a last resort, I would show them the letter notifying your uncle of his win. You see, one of the advantages of noble blood is that there’s always someone ready and able to help a chap out, or put him in touch with someone who can. The old boys’ network, gold class, which is how I came by this.” He unlocks a drawer in his desk and takes out a folder in which there is a typewritten letter on headed paper. “Believe me, Mr Jones, this is as genuine as any fake can be; the notepaper is that of the lottery concerned, in the correct font and ink, bearing the signature of the Chief Executor who, if he was alive today, would not know it from his own.”

         He returns the letter to his desk and relocks the drawer. “Well that should keep me safe, but as for yourself and your charming fiancee who knows what misfortune might befall you. To buy them off may well cost you most, if not all, of what they think the picture to be worth.” He laughs. “Oh, don’t look so worried, Mr Jones, I’m not going to let you walk away from here with nothing more than you came in with. George would, I’m sure, have wanted you to have something, so here’s my first and only offer, £72,000, the exact same sum your uncle gave me all those years ago. Take it or leave it, Mr Jones but, if you take it, there will be certain conditions you will have to sign-up to regarding your interest in said picture.”

         “You mean conditions leaving you one of the most expensive pictures in the county.”

         “That’s about it, Mr Jones, although neither me or the picture will be staying in Norfolk.”

         “But that’s what my uncle wanted, why he put-up the money to buy it.”

         “Your uncle’s wishes are immaterial now. He had his way for twenty years. What happens now won’t be troubling him.”

         I’m a sentence in to telling him what I think of his offer when the heel of Ally’s shoe makes painful contact with my ankle. Having staunched my flow of invective she now administers a gentle, but firm rebuke.

         “Phil, I don’t think you should be too hasty in rejecting Mr Carew’s offer. After all that’s  what your uncle gave him, and £72,000 will come in very handy at this time. The picture is much more valuable of course, but if it’s going to put us in danger I for one would rather we didn’t have it. And anyway, you can only profit from the picture by selling it and, while Mr Carew may be prepared to disregard your Uncle’s wishes, I doubt if you could do the same. At least take a few days to think it over. Is that OK, Mr Carew? We’re off to London today but we’ll be back at the weekend. Can we talk about it again then?”

         Carew seems reassured and replies that he will see us again at 2pm the following Saturday. Until then he will do nothing to our disadvantage.

         Ally is definitely up to something. As Carew transfers his desk keys to a wall safe she gives me a look that tells me her cosying up to Carew is not for real. She apologises for taking up so much of his time. “I fear we have made you late for your 2pm.”

         “My,” he begins to say, then he realises that his diary is open on his desk and that he has only a few minutes to get to a meeting in the town centre.

         We get up to leave and Carew follows us down to reception where Ally bids him a polite goodbye and departs to the loo while informing me that she will see me back at the car. Carew and myself continue on to the car park where he gets into a BMW and shoots off to his meeting while I check my map for the journey back.

         Ally’s trip to the loo is an unusually long one and I’m beginning to think that something is amiss when she finally appears looking rather pleased herself. “Drive!” she urges, in a way that suggests I should do so quickly.

         “In a hurry to get back?” I say

         “We’re not going back. There’s stuff we have to do here.”

         “What in Swaffham?”

         “No, of course not, just get out of here. I’ll explain on the way.”

         I pull out of the main entrance and turn right as directed and then, before any other directions are issued turn left into the first road without yellow lines. I stop and turn-off the engine.

         “What are you up to?” I ask in what I hope is coming across as my firm but patient, no nonsense voice.

         “I’ve got it”

         “Got what?”

         “That fake letter about the lottery win. The one that Carew was keeping back as a last resort to save himself.

         “Yes, I know the one, I heard him too. A fat lot of good that would have done us shut away in his desk.”

         “Exactly, but now it’s not. I went back to his office when that girl on reception wasn’t looking. Thought I would have a go at picking the lock on his desk. Managed to do it once or twice at the Pru I lost my keys. It worked then and it worked this time too which is why we need to be getting back to Petherdale.”

         “OK, calm down. How, exactly are we going to turn this to our advantage?”

         “By letting as many people as possible know that your uncle once won a lottery and that he used the money to buy the picture. That gets the Beale’s off our back, and the police too. And once we inform your solicitor that the picture is part of your uncle’s estate there’s nothing that Carew can do to keep it for himself. We need publicity, lots and lots of publicity, so why don’t you speak to that newspaper man you met. We also tell everyone we meet, have a big celebration at the Wheatsheaf. Put it on Twitter and Facebook. We’ll cause a stir that will go viral.”

         “But how did we discover the letter, and where? Everyone will be asking that, and why didn’t Uncle George mention his win to anyone. We have to get this right, no mistakes. There’s no you saying one thing and me another. We’ve got to agree on every last detail.”

         “No problem. We’ll work it out on the way back. Come on, get driving.”

 

(to be continued)

Copyright Richard Banks

UNCLE GEORGE [Part 7 of 10]

 UNCLE GEORGE      [Part 7 of 10]

By Richard Banks

“Let’s get back to the car,” whispers Ally and we sit there silently contemplating what might have been. For a few minutes the envelope is forgotten and when she asks me where it is I don’t know until a thorough examination of my pockets for some reason reminds me that I put it in the glove compartment. I take it out and open it. Inside there’s a single sheet of notepaper covered back and front in slanty writing that’s not unlike my own.  It’s not too difficult to decipher and I’m well into the first para when Ally nearly explodes with impatience.

         “Well read it then, I’m here too!”

         So I do.

         ‘Dear Nephew, if you be the clever young fellow I thought you would become you will have found this letter and now be reading it. To get this far you will have found out about my involvement in a criminal enterprise smuggling premium brandy for which I spent time in prison. Sorry! I hope this is less embarrassing for you than it was to your mother. If not, you at least have the consolation of knowing that I made a small fortune out of it and that, as little of it was spent on myself, my ill gotten gains may now be the twenty-first century equivalent of buried treasure. What did the silly old chap do with it all, you’ll be thinking. Well, let’s answer the ‘how’ question first. Even though it’s not the first thing on your mind I want you to know what I couldn’t let onto in my lifetime.

         As well as keeping an eye on the old fish house where we kept the contraband, I was also stock-keeper. Whether this was because I was regarded as the most honest man in an unprincipled bunch of desperadoes, or because I was the easiest to intimidate and therefore control, I cannot say, but no one was better placed than myself to squirrel away some of the merchandise. But I didn’t, even when I discovered the unusual functioning of that cupboard. Who was going to notice if I took a few bottles every week or so. If I wasn’t too greedy the answer was no one but, as I say, I didn’t. Who says there’s no honour among thieves, well maybe I wasn’t much of one, just a poor man tempted into something he would normally have kept well clear off. Anyway was it really thievery? Smuggling has been going on for hundreds of years in these parts and if the Revenue lost money they didn’t have in the first place there were many drinkers grateful to be paying less for their booze.

         Anyway, be that as it may it’s not what you’re wanting to know so let’s move on to the events of 25^th August 1992, the night our little operation was busted by the London police. We had a big delivery to make, a lorry to load up and once it was away nothing else for me to do until the following day. Rather than walk home late at night I did what I often did and bedded down on an old lilo I had found on the beach. At 1am the mobile they gave me goes off and one of the guys in the lorry phones to say that they are being followed by the police and are about to abandon the vehicle and make a run for it. Get the hell out of the storeroom he says, and if I get caught don’t grass on him or anyone else because they’ll get even with me however long it takes. It was sound advice, but as to fleeing the storeroom I had a better plan, and one likely to win me their approval. What if I moved the remaining stock down below where no one was likely to find it. Five hours later I had all but a few boxes underground when the police arrived and began to smash down the front door. As they came in I closed the cupboard door with me behind it.

         Two days later it went quiet above and I ventured out to find them gone and the front door replaced by wooden boarding. I left by a side door and went home hoping against hope that I was in the clear, but a reporter from the Echo had seen me on guard duty and the description of me he gave to the police was enough to point them in my direction. I should of course have denied all involvement. They had nothing much on me but in the end I buckled under pressure and confessed myself guilty of everything I had done. What they couldn’t do was make me inform on the others, and because of that, as much as what I did, they sentenced me to three years. 

         My accomplices, more practised criminals than myself, fared better and two of them visited me in prison. While they were aware that a large number of boxes had gone missing they had no hesitation in putting the blame on the Met. There were even rumours that they had sold them to a south London criminal with a chain of night clubs. No one thought me responsible and that’s when the idea began to form in my mind that I might do very well for myself.

         Having served half my sentence I returned home to find myself out of work and with little prospect of getting any. Nobody wanted to know me now, and my criminal associates who promised to see me alright on my release were only good for the occasional fiver. The storeroom which had been abandoned before we took it over was still empty and, as no one knew who owned it there was talk in the local rag of the Council taking it over. There was, it seemed, no time to lose and within three months of my release I found an honest villain who gave me a fair price for what I had and on a misty day in February I saw it taken away to Lord knows where.

         The money went in the loft and then into the Upshire Bank in monthly instalments unlikely, I thought, to attract much attention. A few years on it would all have been in my account, but new money laundering regulations changed my plans and weeks before they were introduced I withdrew the whole amount. What I did with it and the rest of the cash is a mystery known only to myself and one other person. If you want to be number three you still have some work to do, but having got this far I’m thinking the odds may now be in your favour.

         Why don’t I just tell you where the money is? Do I really want you to have it? The truth is I’m not that sure. Perhaps things are best left as they are, but you are kith and kin so I suppose I should be giving you a fair chance. You’re done well to pick-up on the clues I left: the passbook, the letter from the Echo and the keys in the kitchen drawer. Let’s hope for your sake you haven’t taken too much of my stuff to the tip. If you have, your chances of success may now be zero, even though there’s only one more clue to solve. Ready or not here it is: MAT 0279718764  201.

         Good hunting. Be right, do right, you’re nearly there.

 

Uncle George.’

                   

         “Ever had the feeling you’re being played,” says Ally. “He’s got us on a piece of string, and what’s more he’s not even sure whether or not you should have the money, assuming there’s any left.”

         She’s got a point but, as I tell her, there’s no harm in attempting the conundrum. Solve it and we could be home and dry. If not, and it’s taking us somewhere we don’t want to go, we can put it to one side and never come back to it. Ally says nothing in reply but, judging by the expression on her face, she’s already thinking about Uncle’s clue. It doesn’t take us long to reach the conclusion that the long number in the middle is a mobile or landline, but when I dial it we’re a digit short. I add in the 2 that follows and when that don’t work I do the same with the 0 and 1, still no joy. If it’s a landline the first five digits will be an area code but when Ally googles it we find they’re nothing of the kind. 

         “So, if it’s not a telephone number, what is it?” she says

         “No idea, but clearly it relates to something he had in the house, a something that Uncle George thought I might take to the tip.”  

         “So what could that be?”

         “Nothing I can think of.”       

         “Nothing?” She looks at me in a way that suggests I’m being less than convincing.

         Who can blame her, I’m not sure I believe myself. Then I remember the mattress I took to the tip, and the ‘MAT’ in Uncle’s clue becomes only too obvious. There’s no time to lose and we drive at break neck speed to the tip to find it closed and a seven foot wire fence keeping us out.

         Tomorrow we should be getting-up at 4am and returning to London to resume our jobs, but now that’s the last thing on our minds. The tip reopens at 8am and there’s no prize for guessing who will be first in the queue. We head back to Petherdale feeling like we’re just about to pluck defeat from the jaws of victory. But maybe, just maybe, the object we’re looking for isn’t the mattress, maybe it’s something still in the house, so we put-off tea until we’ve checked out every last thing in the house.

         At ten minutes to midnight we give up and go to bed. We still haven’t had anything to eat, but who cares, we’re so tired all we want to do is sleep, and that’s what happens until Ally half wakes from a nightmare that has her trapped in the storeroom basement. In a frantic attempt to find the door she cuffs me in the face. There’s no sleeping now even though we don’t need to be getting up for another three hours.

         “Coffee?” I say, switching on the light.

         She nods and by the time I return from the kitchen she’s sitting up in bed reading a book.

         No one should ever have a eureka moment when they’re holding two mugs of tea, especially when the spillage lands on their bare feet. While Ally is less than pleased when more tea spills over the bedside table she’s even less impressed when I snatch the book from her hands. Ignoring her protests I turn to the acknowledgements page and count the number of digits in the ISBN code.

         “That’s it,” I say.

         “That’s what?” she asks in a tone of voice that suggests she’s more annoyed than inquisitive.

         “The ten digit number in Uncle George’s clue is an ISBN number.”

         “Didn’t know your uncle had any books.”

         I assure her that he did, a small library of some thirty volumes.

         “So where are they now?”

         My euphoria leaves me as quickly as it came. “At the tip,” I say.

         Ally appears to be struggling with her emotions. When she speaks it is her low, monotone voice, the one she uses when she’s angry but trying not to shout. “So, this morning we will be scouring the tip looking not just for a mattress but one of thirty books.”

         I’m about to say yes when I realise it’s thirty minus one. Uncle’s catalogue from the Swaffham Gallery is in the boot of my car. It’s still dark but at least there’s no one around when I dash out in my boxers. I retrieve the book and make equal haste back into the house. I set it down on the dining room table and, with Ally looking on, open it up and turn to what has suddenly become the most important page in the book. The first few digits have a familiar look to them but those that follow don’t. Somewhere in the middle should be a date from history that is famous for something that happened in the 1700s but, “it’s not there,” I wail.

         “What isn’t?” says Ally who, without waiting for an answer, is already reaching out for Uncle’s letter. “OK, keep calm, I’ll read, you check.” She speaks slowly and precisely like someone on Radio 4 reading the shipping forecast.

         I check, trying desperately not to blink. Four digits in we’re on course, four more despite the absence of historical dates we’re still good, and when she reads the final two figures it’s time to celebrate. “Bingo!” I shout as my mother once did at the Roxy. But we’re not there yet, wherever ‘there’ is, but the three digit number that follows can only be one thing. I turn to page 201 where there’s a picture by Roger Harmsworth, an eighteenth century landscape artist, entitled, ‘Meadow at Twilight’. If we need any further evidence that we are where Uncle was pointing us, the initials of the title spell MAT.

         “So much for the mattress,” says Ally whose elation at our discovery is changing to puzzlement. We google both the artist and picture to find that Harmsworth, a well known artist in his own time, was ‘rediscovered’ in the 1990s and is now regarded as one of the early giants of British landscape painting, his paintings to be found in the National Gallery and the private collections of the rich and powerful.

         Meadow at Twilight appears to be one of his lesser works having made it only into the Swaffham Gallery, a private collection, but open to the public three days a week. Could this picture be what Uncle George spent his money on? The idea seems too absurd to be true. More likely we’re looking at yet another clue, at worse a cruel joke from beyond the grave. But, whatever the truth, the picture we have to see. It’s Swaffham first then back to London. After that, who knows.

 

Copyright Richard Banks