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

A Ghost Wore Knowing

A Ghost Wore Knowing

By Jane Goodhew

The trial was finally at an end after several long months due to being held up more times than a bank.  The verdict, guilty to murder in the first degree, tomorrow she would be hung by the neck until dead.  I wanted to laugh as it was such a stupid statement what else would you be if someone hung you?  It was no laughing matter I had less than 24 hours of my life left and what had I to show for it.  The past 10 years I had worked in an office as a shorthand typist.  All very mundane, one day pretty much the same as the other.  Then I saw the advert for a travel companion and decided to take the opportunity to do something that might be exciting and who knows I could even meet Mr. Right, there had certainly been enough that were wrong. I typed up my CV and enclosed a hand-written letter setting out why I wanted to be given the chance to become the perfect companion.  The words flowed as I wrote my interests, my dreams and my appearance.  Admittedly there was some exaggeration to my finer points and I omitted my more negative aspects but poetic licence must be allowed if one is to succeed.

 

                                 

 

 

I then waited for the outcome and to make sure I did regardless of the answer I enclosed a SAE.  A week passed and then I saw the envelope written in my own fair-hand, trembling I opened it and I had to sit down, subject to a week’s trial before the start of the trip the job was mine.  I was to start immediately.  I was owed some holiday and so I handed in my notice and left at the end of that week and so began the adventure of a life time! I had never been happier, my companion was a widower who had been on his own for over a decade and decided that before it was too late he would go on a round the world cruise but not alone hence advertising for a companion.  He liked what he imagined I would be like and once he met me he knew he hadn’t made a mistake as I was just like his late wife.  He talked endlessly about her until I believed she was there with us, a threesome.  At night I could smell the aroma of Knowing by Estee Lauder it had been her favourite perfume and he still kept a bottle so he could envisage her there.  It lingered for hours and I began to feel ill as it wafted around the cabin, there was no escape.  He even brought her dresses for me to wear in the evening; it would seem we were the same size, how convenient!

One evening I met a couple who had known the late Mrs St John and it seemed I was a remarkable resemblance to her, spookily so they said.  I began to wonder what I had let myself in for; if only I had known I would not be sat here awaiting the hangman.

I suppose you must wonder who it is I have been accused of murdering; I am reluctant to use the term murder as I do not consider it as that as it was he who had doctored the drink and it had been intended for me. It was the last night before we returned to England and we had stayed up late drinking and talking to other passengers. He had ordered a brandy coffee to help him sleep and one for me as we were not docking until midmorning so there was no early start.  I don’t know what made me swap the cups but something did and the next thing I knew he had collapsed back into his chair and was quite dead.  The post mortem showed arsenic poisoning and there were dregs of it in his coffee cup, the cup that had been intended for me.  In his cabin they found a copy of his last will and testament and he had left all his estate to me, his travel companion. That was what convinced the jury that I had poisoned him, motive Greed.  None of it made sense why would he want to leave everything to me and then poison me, there was no logic to it but then it made me think of his wife and had he done the same to her?  I felt her presence in the cell as if she had decided to keep me company until the end as if she were thanking me for changing the cups as yes it was exactly what he had done to her and now she had her revenge she was just sorry that it meant I had to die too. 

Copyright Jane Goodhew

THE DEMISE OF POOLE STREET UNITED

 THE DEMISE OF POOLE STREET UNITED

By Bob French

It was starting to get cold on a late September day as Lucy stopped dead in her tracks, then looked up into the darkening evening sky.  She had heard the familiar noise many times and instinctively knew what to do.  Then she heard the sound of whistles,  some close by, others a long way off.  As if by magic, everyone started to run for the shelters.  No one screamed but for the hurried voice of a mother calling for her child.

          Lucy turned and yelled at her younger brother Thomas, who was carefully climbing down a huge mound of rubble that had, until five days ago, been their school.  A place where, according to Miss Jenkins, their class teacher, if they concentrated, they would learn more things about sums, famous people, music and countries far, far away, than their parents would ever learn.

          “Run Thomas Run! It’s the Germans. Head for the bridge!”

          Thomas, usually challenged his sister’s advice, but on this occasion, he dropped a cricket bat he had found in the rubble and started to run for the old railway bridge that spanned the River Lea. Just as it joins the Bow Creek. They had just made it under the iron posts that held the bridge in place when the first of the bombs hit a row of houses not far from Poole Street.  The ground shook; flames quickly spread across the street, sending scorched dust, splintered wood and glass everywhere.  Amidst the horrors of the explosions Lucy could hear the faint screams of those who were too slow or old to find shelter.  She hated this period, when the bombers had gone and all that was left was the dirty thick mist of debris and the faint wailing of those who had just lost everything they possessed.

          They both sought safety deep into the foundations of the old iron bridge.  As Lucy landed, she instinctively turned and grabbed hold of Thomas, pulling him in close to her and putting her hands over his head.

          After the first bomber had passed overhead, dropping its payload, the second was close behind and they felt the impact of the bomb much closer.  Lucy whispered into Thomas’s ear to reassure him.

          He forced his head above his sister’s protection and spoke.           “Blimey, was that Poole Street Lucy?”  When she didn’t reply to his question, he looked up to see his sister start to cry. With tears in her eyes, she replied.

          “Yes luv.  I hope Mandy and Victoria are safe.”

          “Blimey, if they aren’t, we’re short of two players for next Saturday’s Street footy against the Three Mills mob.”

          The sound of the bombers started to fade as they travelled further into the capital’s centre.  Lucy knew that what would follow was a walking nightmare.  Once the whistles sounded people would scamper up from their shelter and walk slowly through what was left of their homes. People would sink to their knees or stand and stare in shock at the total destruction of their street. A place where they had been born, a place they had played, danced and laughed with their friends, a place where they had got married. But that was a week ago and now several of their friends didn’t come out to play anymore.

          Lucy and Thomas, picked their way through the ruins of what had once been their home. It had stood proudly in East London, red-bricked and warm, until one of the many bombs of the Blitz had turned it into a skeleton of scorched beams and broken glass. Their parents were gone, evacuated, missing, or worse and the siblings had returned from their billet in the countryside without telling anyone, drawn by something unspoken.

          Lucy, the elder at twelve, led the way. Her coat was two sizes too big, the sleeves flapping like frightened birds. Thomas, just eight, clutched a wooden toy soldier in his pocket, fingers rubbing it smooth from habit.

          “I think it was here,” Lucy whispered, pointing to a half-collapsed corner of the house. The Parlour. The place they used to gather for tea and stories.

          They stepped over fallen timbers and twisted pipes, crunching glass underfoot. The fire had blackened the wallpaper, and the ceiling was open to the grey sky. And yet, as they stood there, a strange warmth crept in. The scent of toast and lavender, impossible, but real, floated on the evening breeze.

          “Do you hear that?” Thomas asked suddenly, tilting his head. A soft humming, like a lullaby. Lucy shivered. “It’s just the wind.”

          But it wasn’t. A woman’s voice, faint but familiar, sang a tune their mother used to hum when they were sick. The melody curled around them like a shawl.

          “Let’s go upstairs,” Thomas said, his voice hollow with curiosity and trepidation

          “There’s no upstairs,” Lucy replied, but Thomas was already climbing the splintered remains of the staircase. Lucy followed heart thumping.  At the top, or what was left of it, they found their old bedroom. The floor was mostly just a few sturdy boards clinging to the walls. But something shimmered in the air: a faint outline of beds, books, the teddy bear Lucy had lost.

          Thomas stepped forward. “Mum?” he whispered. Then they saw her. Or thought they did. A figure, more light than flesh, standing at the window, looking out as if watching for someone’s return. She turned, and for a breathless moment, smiled.

          Lucy reached for Thomas’s hand, squeezing tightly. The ghost, if that’s what it was, opened her arms, and Thomas made a move toward her. But Lucy held him back.

          “No,” she said softly. “We can’t.”

          The woman’s smile faded. Her form dimmed like a candle flickering in wind. And then she was gone. The humming stopped. Silence again. They stood there, cold and small against the vast, broken sky.

          “Do you think she was really here?” Thomas asked.

          Lucy didn’t answer right away. She stared at the space where the ghost had stood, then turned toward the stairs.

          “She was,” she said finally.”

          They climbed down carefully, the house groaning with every step. As they carefully made their way out into what was left of their street, the wind picked up, scattering ash like snow across the empty bomb site of Poole Street.

          Thomas stood for a moment looking at what used to be the street where the footy was to be played.  Then he spoke to no one in particular and Said;

          “Dya think Harry and the Three Mills mob are going to let us play with seven players?”  Lucy smiled down at him.

          “Maybe.” then gently took his hand and walked on, hand in hand, into the smoke-thick dawn.

Copyright Bob French 

 UNCLE GEORGE       [Part 6 f 10] 

By Richard Banks

All this is very dramatic and exciting but at the same time very much yesterday’s news. I need to focus on the here and now and after making yet another journey to the tip I phone Ally and ask her to join me for the weekend. I need her to see the house and give her approval to it and all the things that will be needed to improve it. I also want to show her the local branch of the insurance company she works for. Even if she can’t get a transfer there there’s other firms nearby that might have vacancies she could apply for, or failing that she could commute into London like I might be doing. The future, uncertain as it is, is exciting and I can’t wait for it to get started. The past is over and done with and although tales of Uncle George may become a cherished part of family folk law they are not going to distract me from what is more important.

          Three days later I pick-up Ally from the station and take her back to the house. While she unpacks I order a take-away. When she comes back downstairs I can see she’s less than impressed, but then I tell her about all the improvements I have in mind: double glazing, central heating, a new kitchen, new everything I tell her, furniture, carpets, the lot. What we can’t afford from the sale of my flat we will pay for by taking out a loan; another forty to fifty pounds might be needed but what’s that compared to the average mortgage. She agrees on the condition that she gets to choose the décor and the kitchen, plus she must have the two piece suite she saw in Debenham’s. Ten minutes later she’s added a new bed to her list and we spend Saturday morning buying it and disposing of the old one. By tea time we have booked-in visits from two double glazing companies for the following Saturday and spoken to the wife of a heating engineer who says he will phone me back. Suddenly it’s too late to do anything else, tomorrow’s Sunday and, unlike London, there’s nothing much open.

         “Good,” says Ally who’s now determined to see the positive in everything. “You can show me the countryside and the stretch of beach where you say that storehouse is. Fancy your uncle being mixed-up in a big money smuggling operation. Do you think that some of what went missing might still be there?”

         “No chance of that after twenty years. Anyway,” I say, “I have next to no idea where this storeroom is.”

         “But you do,” she says, “it’s close to Gratham Wood. That’s what that reporter chap said. We’ll soon find it on Google.”

         We do, and an hour later we’re stood on the beach outside a large derelict building, sprayed with graffiti and minus a front door. We venture in but there are no windows and, away from the door, its soon becomes too dark to see. There’s a torch in the car, which I wasn’t going to mention, but Ally does and, despite my protests, she insists we retrieve it and continue our search.

         “For what,” I say, “anything valuable will have disappeared long ago,” but she tells me not to be a wuss, so we venture in a second time and pick our way across a floor strewn with broken glass and other debris. Something scuttles by which I’m guessing is a rat, but my intrepid companion continues on undeterred, shining the torch in a wide arc in front of her.

         “Any chance you’re going to tell me what exactly you’re up to?” I ask.

         “Keys,” she says, “hasn’t it crossed your mind that the keys you found in the kitchen might be for here.”

         “Hardly,” I say. “I didn’t know anything about this place until a few days ago. Anyway, as you may have noticed, the front door is missing so there’s no way we can test your theory.”

         “But there are two keys,” says she, “and one rather larger than the other. If your Uncle was keeping a watch on the storeroom it’s more than likely he had keys, and the one’s you’ve found don’t fit any locks in the house. So what if one key was for the front door and the smaller one for a room within?”

         “Which I’m seeing no sign off. Look there’s the back wall. This is just one empty space.”

         “What about over there?” She’s shining the torch to her right where the side and back walls should be meeting but don’t, at least not at ground level.  “That’s our room,” she shrieks. “What did I tell you.”

         While I’m touched that she wants to make this room mine as well as hers I’m struggling to match her enthusiasm for a shadowy shape that looks not much bigger than my father’s garden shed. When we get over to it the ‘room’ turns-out to be a large metal cupboard, solidly attached to the ground and outer wall. There’s a handle on the front which when turned to the right frees two doors that part and swing open towards us. We peer in at four shelves piled high with an assortment of rubbish spilling out of decomposing cardboard boxes. It’s no Aladdin’s cave but Ally isn’t giving-up yet. She means to see every square inch of this cupboard and nothing’s going to get in her way. Having dragged everything out onto the floor, including the shelves, she begins a forensic examination of the cupboard that at one point requires me lifting her up so she can peer into the top shelf.

         “It’s not here,” she mutters disconsolately.

         “Absolutely,” I say. “You’ve tipped everything out. When there’s nothing left, there’s nothing  to find.”

         “Not even a keyhole?” she agrees. “A keyhole for the key that might have got us into the space behind it.”

         She’s got a point. What’s in the seven or eight feet behind the cupboard? Probably something mechanical like an air conditioner or generator, but a something that someone occasionally needs to get to, but how? There’s no moving parts to make this happen except the handle that’s already been turned once to the right, but what if we give the handle a further turn to the right? What would happen then? The answer is probably nothing but if I suggest we give it a try I’ll at least get a few Brownie points from Ally for trying to prove her right. What I haven’t taken into account is that for Ally one more turn is never going to be enough.

         “What about two to the right,” she says when one fails to make anything happen. Then we’re into two turns right and one left and then one left and two right. The number of combinations seem endless, especially when, after awhile, you’re unsure what you have already tried. We’re becoming combination junkies when after thirty minutes our efforts are unexpectedly greeted with a loud hum that’s not coming from either of us. Was it two right, two left and three back I’m thinking, but it doesn’t matter now, there’s a click followed by more humming and the back panel of the cupboard starts to slide down to the floor. This is our eureka moment when we should be shouting ‘wow’ but the concrete staircase on the other side is only worth the “oh” we give it. There are eight steps down to a landing where a left turn takes us down another eight steps to a handle-less door that successfully resists Ally’s vigorous attempts to push it open - but she’s not seeing the thing she most wants to.

         “It’s there,” I tell her, grabbing the torch and pointing it at the keyhole in the door. “Have you got the key?”           

         Her hands are shaking so much she can hardly pick it out from the loose change in her purse, and when she puts it in the lock it doesn’t fit because she’s got it in the wrong way up. She takes a deep breath, says a word I’ve never heard her use before, and tries again. This time all that’s needed is a single turn to the right and the door swings inwards to reveal an intense blackness that the torch does little to pierce. We are about to venture in, regardless, when it occurs to the both of us that anyone spending time down here must have had more than a torch to light the way. Surely there must be lights overhead, and, to our relief, the switches that turn them on are found where light switches are usually to be found, at the side of the door. A dozen florescent tubes splutter into life and we find ourselves looking across a large space of similar dimensions to the one above. It’s empty except for a heap of cardboard boxes in the far corner to our left and, in mid floor, a table and chair. We examine the boxes first. There’s thirty of them and after finding nothing beyond the paper dividers that once fitted around the bottles, we make our way over to the table, which on closer scrutiny turns out to be a desk.  

         Ally sits down on the chair ready to pull open the several drawers on either side but she doesn’t get that far. On top of the desk is an envelope. It has my name on it and a message that reads: ‘The cupboard door closes automatically after ten minutes. If you don’t remember the combination grab this envelope and get out now!’

         We’re out in one of the longest, most traumatic minutes it still pains me to remember. Back above ground the sight of sunlight through the missing door has never been more welcome and, as we walk towards it, we hear a click followed by a hum, along with the heavy beating of our hearts.

          

Copyright Richard Banks

 UNCLE GEORGE        [Part 5 of 10] 

By Richard Banks 

         I arrive five minutes early to find him already there and halfway through a scotch and ginger. Suddenly apprehensive at what was to come, I sensed that he was too. We shook hands.

         “What are you drinking, Mr Jones? I have a feeling you may be needing one. You are, I take it, the beneficiary of your uncle’s will?”

         I replied that I was and that if he was buying I would have a Guinness.

               “Then that’s what you will have. To be sure, the lady at the bar is already pouring it. Bring it over Gladys when you’re ready, and another Scotch for myself. Now Mr Jones, what do you know about the London Run? And I don’t mean the marathon.”

         “Not as much as I would like to,” I said, fearing that my ignorance on that subject might dissuade him from sharing what he knew.

         He laughed. “Oh, don’t worry Mr Jones I’m going to tell you the whole story irrespective of what you have for me, although I’m anticipating that your visit to the bank yesterday is likely to be of interest. Anyway, I’ll go first and after that I’ll be wanting to hear everything you know. I’m sensing it may not be much but after all these years every last scrap of information is like gold dust to me.

         I settled into my seat and, on Gladys bringing over our drinks, he began his tale.

         “Twenty five years ago, Mr Jones, I was a young reporter on the Echo doing the usual round of weddings and lost dog stories and dreaming of that big scoop that would get me noticed by the dailies in London. I was aware that some low level smuggling had been going on, mainly booze, which almost everyone in these parts was in on, even the mayor took a few bottles. Well, what was the harm in it? Smuggling along the Wash has been going on since the Stuarts were on the throne. It was almost like we had an unwritten charter to do it. Then, in the late ’80s, things changed and what had been a side line for a few fishermen and those who took two or three bottles became an altogether larger operation. Serious criminals were now involved and little of what they brought in was being sold locally. That’s when I decided to become the daring young reporter who was going to uncover what was going on and reveal all in a front page exclusive that would make my name.

         It didn’t take a genius to work out that Frankie Beale was involved and that his usual crew were doing the legwork. One of these was a farmhand called Johnny Bragg who after a few pints tended to live up to his name. My idea was to ply him with a few drinks at the Green Man on a Saturday evening and coax him into blabbing out what he knew, but as he was seldom very far from his likely accomplices this was never going to be easy. However, when I saw him buy a round from a roll of ten pound notes I knew beyond a doubt that he and his pals were making more money than they knew what to do with. What’s more, Frankie Beale was also in the house.

         Usually he stood at the bar with the rest of them but this evening he was sat by himself showing little interest in the lager in front of him. A few minutes later it all starts to make sense; who should come in but Roy Callow, our recently appointed Inspector of Police who without so much as a sideways glance crosses the floor and disappears into a corridor where there are two doors, one into the Gent’s toilet and the other, marked ‘No Entry’, giving access to the private rooms of the pub. A minute or two later Frankie follows on and when I check-out the toilet neither of them are in there. So now I have the Inspector and one of the biggest villains in Norfolk together in the same room where, I’m guessing, Ernie Spall, the landlord of the pub is also to be found.

         If only I was a fly on the wall, but maybe, just maybe, if I put my ear to the keyhole I will hear what they are saying, but when I do there’s nothing to be heard. I peer in and see an empty room and on the other side of it a door into another room where I’m assuming the meeting is under way. I creep in and park myself down by the door. There’s a key in the lock but that don’t matter, I can hear everything that’s being said. Callow is not in a good mood and everyone is speaking louder than is good for them. As usual Johnny Bragg has been saying too much and Callow wants him given a good beating and dropped from the team. Frankie doesn’t like being told what to do but knows only too well that Johnny is more trouble than he’s worth. If there’s been any blabbing, he says, he will put a stop to it, even if it means putting an end to the dickhead who’s doing it. Just make sure you do your job, what we’re paying you for.

         Callow responds with a terse, ‘no problem’ and they move on to what Spall refers to ‘as the next big event’. There’s a consignment of brandy coming into Anderson’s, an abandoned wharf, on Sunday, some of which is to be taken by road two days later to Spall’s contact in London. The rest will be kept under lock and key until Spall secures another order.

         ‘Where are you storing it?’ demands Callow, but Frankie won’t tell him. ‘It’s safe,’ he says, ‘that’s all you need to know. Just keep the boys in blue out of our way, that’s your job, storage and transport is down to me.’ Callow snaps back and, as their voices become louder and more acrimonious, I retreat back into the corridor. I’ve been lucky, and I’m not even on their radar.

         Come Sunday, I watch from a safe distance as hundreds of boxes are unloaded from a barge. Beale’s men load them onto two lorries and drive off along the coast on a private road built by the businesses along there, most of which are closed down or moved on.  There’s no way I can follow on without being noticed but they can’t go far; the road’s less than a half mile long, and the only way inland and onto the road system, is where I’m hiding.

         The next day I take my dog for a walk along the beach looking for their storeroom. There’s no end of buildings at the back of the beach, mostly wooden sheds, much vandalised, doors missing or flapping open in the breeze. Then I come across a place larger than most with solid, breeze-block walls and a door with a padlock on it - a shiny, brass padlock that’s not long out of the shop that sold it. This could be it, I’m thinking, then I’m more than sure. The building has a minder, some fifty yards away but near enough to observe anyone taking too close an interest. But maybe he’s not a minder, maybe he’s just an old guy in a deckchair, reading the ’paper on a warm Summer’s day.

         I decide to make his acquaintance; it might look suspicious if I don’t, so I amble over to him and make the usual observations about the weather. That’s when I realise I might have seen him before, and, if I have, maybe he’s thinking the same about me. Perhaps he knows exactly who I am,  but if he does there’s not a flicker of recognition on his face. On an otherwise deserted beach he seems pleased to have someone to talk to, but not for long.

         ‘If you’re wanting a walk why don’t you try Grathham Wood,’ he says, ‘it has a lake, ancient woodland and a colony of beavers. It’s only five minutes away, down that path on the other side of the road.’

         I thank him for the information but say it’s time I was heading back. We bid each other goodbye; I turn-about and, in unhurried fashion, return to my car.

         So far so good but a story that started-off no more serious than some smuggled booze has now expanded to include police corruption. Any thoughts I had of tipping off the local bobbies and being on hand to witness the villains’ arrest has got altogether more complicated. I need advice from someone more experienced than myself, so next morning I waste no time in telling Bill Frindley, the Editor, what I have been up to. I’m nearly done when the News Desk ring through with breaking news: a young farm worker Johnny Bragg has been killed in a hit and run accident. For the first time since I joined the paper Bill seems stunned and less than sure what to do. No doubt he’s thinking who he can trust and who he can’t but to his credit his first concern is about me; if Beale has had Bragg killed then I too could be in danger.

         ‘Do you think the man on the beach knows who you are?’

         I say ‘no’, then ‘maybe’, I really don’t know.

         Bill says I’m to stay in the building and out of sight. If necessary I can bed down there for the night, but at 4.30 in the afternoon he summons me back into his office. He’s dug deep into his contacts book and spoken to a guy he once knew in Essex who is now in the Serious Crimes Unit of the Met. As the brandy is bound for London they will take the lead and follow the consignment all the way to London where Beale’s gang and those taking delivery will be arrested. The Met needs someone who knows the local area and can identify the targets to be followed.

         ‘Will you do it?’ says Bill.

         I tell him, yes. I know the lorries used at the wharf and where we can wait for them unseen as they come off the coast road and onto the B1158. This is shaping-up nicely, the cavalry’s been summoned and is ready to go, and I’m about to get the story that will make my name. What’s more, if Frankie and his crew end up in prison, which they surely will, they won’t be doing me any harm.

         At 11.30 the following evening I’m in the front passenger seat of an unmarked police car, just off the coast road, with three coppers who look every bit as desperate as the villains they’re pursuing. There’s a van further on with armed back-up inside that will be following in our wake and sometimes taking over as the nearest pursuit vehicle. We’re all set and when a lorry shoots past us I  know, for sure, it’s one of those I saw being loaded at the wharf. Twenty minutes later we’re on better lit roads and heading south. There’s nothing more for me to do now but enjoy the ride and get some photos at the other end. This is a dream come true, my ticket into Fleet Street.

         An hour later we’re on the A10 and passing through Ware when the lorry takes an unexpected left and accelerates away before taking another left into a suburban road and screeching to a halt. By the time we catch-up, the doors of the lorry are open and everyone inside has fled into the night. The support van arrives and the coppers spill out, guns at the ready, but with no one in sight their pursuit is as good as over. But it’s not done yet, I’m told, a police helicopter is being scrambled and a message has gone out to every police car within miles to be on the look-out. But no one knows how many men we’re looking for, what they are wearing or anything else about them. The cops try and put a good face on it. They have the contraband and there will be fingerprints, they say, no matter how careful those in the lorry think they have been there’s bound to be fingerprints.

         At first light the police break into the storeroom on the sea front but find only a dozen boxes inside. But there should be more, I say, much more, I saw them load-up two lorry loads of the stuff. Three of Frankie’s gang are apprehended next day but only one of them has left fingerprints in the lorry and he claims it’s a hire vehicle he sometimes uses for rubbish removal. Any other prints found in it will probably be those of pals who help him out from time to time. As for the storeroom the police keep talking about he knows nothing of it.

         It’s not looking good and despite pulling-in Frankie and everyone else likely to be involved no one’s talking. Ditto Callow and Spall. But Callow’s mobile has been taken from him, and what do you know, there’s a call on it to Frankie five minutes before the lorry was abandoned in Ware. Did he find out what was going on and warn Frankie who in turn phoned through to the guys in the lorry? The Met think so, and if they can find Frankie’s phone they will likely have their proof, but no one’s surprised when it can’t be found.

         It’s as satisfactory as a no score draw in football. A crime’s been prevented, the contraband seized, but there’s insufficient evidence to charge anyone with a criminal offence; a young reporter gets only half a story and Callow survives an investigation but agrees to resign, later reinventing himself and returning to Buremarsh as a genial member of the gentry. As for the man on the beach, three months later I see him again and follow him, all the way back to his home at Petherdale.    

         Yes, Mr Jones, the man I saw on the beach was your uncle and having ascertained his name informed my Editor who duly told the Met. A police raid on his home recovered a single bottle, and after a long interrogation he admitted his part in their unlawful importation.

         If, like the others, he had denied his involvement he would probably have got away with it but unlike them he was not a street wise criminal and soon confessed his guilt. However, one thing he wouldn’t do was name any of his accomplices even though he would have escaped a custodial sentence had he done so. Whether this was out of loyalty to Frankie and Co or because he thought time in prison preferable to the retribution that might one day come his way, I can’t say. What I do know is that in 1994, after serving eighteen months of a three year sentence, he was released. He returned to his previous life as a casual labourer whose periods of employment were now even less than before. It was at this time that I contacted him requesting an interview which he unsurprisingly declined. A pity that, there’s so much he might have said, things we may now never know. Two hundred boxes were recovered from the lorry, with a street value of sixty grand, but that’s only half of what I saw unloaded two days before, and who knows how much was in the warehouse from previous shipments. So what happened to it all, Mr Jones? Do you have something to tell me?”

         His long monologue was at an end.

         “No idea, Mr Cummings, my uncle left me his house and everything in it, his furniture, furnishings, a few books, even an unopened box of teabags, but bottles of brandy there were none. He was a poor man struggling to get by. Far more likely it was Frankie who kept hold of what was left, but how he did so I have no idea.”

         Cummings looks disappointed, but not altogether surprised. “If only I could prove that and put him away; even after all these years, there is nothing I would like better. What happened to Billy Bragg will always be on my conscience. I should have warned him that he was in danger but I didn’t. Otherwise I’m an old dog with a large bone he can’t crack. It should have ended so well for me, the arrest and imprisonment of the villains, including a senior policeman, and the recovery of valuable contraband. It should have been my big break, but it wasn’t. It was only half a story, and not until five years later was I able to escape the shackles of grass route journalism. Well, there’s no changing that, but nevertheless I need closure. So tell me, please do, how did you fare at the bank? Could it be, despite what you say, that your uncle once had some serious money, money he chose to count rather than spend, money he has now passed onto you. Is there something I should be telling the police, Mr Jones?”

         “Tell them what you like! There’s no money, it’s gone, where to I have no idea.” For a few moments I’m irritated by what he’s just said, then even more annoyed when I realise I have told him more than I intended. The man’s obsessed, there may be no getting rid of him now, but then, what do I have to hide, so I tell about the money in my uncle’s account, how he withdrew every penny of it in cash and did who knows what with it. I say I will get Matlock & Wells to write to the bank and get them to confirm what I have just told him. “Will that satisfy you, Mr Cummings, otherwise there is little I can tell you. My uncle and Frankie have occasionally been seen together, once with Callow, and that although nothing was heard of their conversation my uncle appeared less than easy in their company. One thing I’m certain of is that my uncle never made any serious money from the brandy otherwise there would have been no need for him to live in poverty for the rest of his life. The one occasion on which I’ve met Frankie he went out of his way to praise my uncle; if he ended up with the money in uncle’s account he would have had good reason for doing so. I wish I could tell you more but, after twenty years, I suspect that only a death bed confession is going to solve this particular mystery; unfortunately for the both of us Uncle died in his sleep.”

         Cummings looks dejected but appears to accept what I say. We finish our drinks and he gives me his private mobile number. “Let me know,” he says, “if anything else comes to light.”

          I assure him that I will, and we go our separate ways.

 

(To Be Continued)

 

Copyright Richard Banks