93: Panic

‘All done, Mr Cleverly.’ I spoke. ‘And I can quite appreciate the bank’s desire to move on, I’ll do what I can to expiate matters.’ Back in Archie’s office I was met by expectant smiles. ‘Well, we mustn’t delay the staff Charlie, onward and upward.’

Back in the street; ‘Well?’

‘Bit of luck that, being able to just breeze in, I quite thought such arrangements were a thing of the past, there was no indication as to how many boxes were still in use, so to speak.’

‘You know damn well what I meant. Are we now the possessors of a wad of escape cash, several false identities and an automatic pistol?’

‘You really are quite romantic when you want to be. No, none of that, just more notebooks and old documents, masses of them, they weigh a ton! So, to the Villa, for as long as it takes for me to do an initial assessment of the two bags.’

‘Archie was really quite nervous.’

‘He shouldn’t be, they have us and we have them. In the fullness of time a local media event, highlighting our discoveries, might solve their problem.’

‘But surely, they could just get the police and some sort of officer of the court and the crooks are busted.’

‘You’re still not getting this. Remember your heuristics. Separate in your mind; empathy, feeling what others feel, from “theory of mind”; the realisation that others think differently from you. The bank, are bricking themselves over what is in the boxes of the honest punters, okay?’

‘But?’

‘Just suppose the bank does decide to end the service and open the boxes, the owners of the contents are anonymous and most probably long dead. The crooked stuff? Ten per cent at most. The vast majority is the property, if they only knew it, of well to do and influential locals - jewels, historic artefacts, documents giving title to, investment certificates of one sort or another. Some of the best of the city was flattened in the war, killing their owners. Before you know it, multiple multi-million-pound lawsuits from people claiming to be the rightful owners of the same stuff!’

‘And you think you can gain kudos by helping them avoid all that by publicising something you don’t actually know anything about yet!’

‘Just thinking ahead.’

‘We need to tell Julia something! It’s getting late.’

‘Er, text; “MT frail but okay, hope to return by tomorrow evening”.’

Charlie was towering over me as I was trying to make sense of our cache of documents by arranging them on the floor of the media room. ‘Done. Now, what have we got?’ She asked.

‘In essence, Mr Tufnell’s name on title deeds for numerous properties, across the entire county it would seem, but what’s odd is these are piddling bits of land. Mainly brown field sites, occasionally built on. I can’t see rhyme nor reason to any of it.’

‘Someone must know.’

‘Sure. But which of his contemporaries would be in the know? And how to get them to talk?’

On our way back to the manor, we couldn’t resist dropping-in at the Park. There was raucous laughter and cheering emanating from the bar. ‘What’s going on?’

‘Buffy’s gone.’

‘Gone where?’

‘Sacked, thrown-out, they’ve deserted him. He’s gone too far. The right-thinking element have told him to walk.’ Said one of Buffy’s long-time critics.

‘I see.’

‘Glass of bubbly old man?’

‘I’ll just stick with the black coffee, if it’s all the same, need to keep a clear head.’

We retreated to the lounge, only to be confronted by Prudence, pacing the ground before the hearth.

‘It’s the end, certain defeat at the next election, money gone, Rory jobless, hopeless, the shame of it, Tony you’ve got to help, I’ll do anything, I’m begging you.’

‘You need to show patience, Prudence.’

‘What?’

‘You’re local, Rory’s local, that’s your appeal. You fight for the seat with all gusto, unapologetic about Buffy, if you lose, you merely stay where you are, campaign for the local party, fight the next election after that, return in triumph, the problem is the money. Rory’s unfit to do anything else, you have to find the cash doing something part-time that will raise enough. Focus on that.’

‘That’s all very well for you to say!’

‘I know, but that is the answer, the only answer.’

‘But how?’

‘Well, you’ve got two years to put your plan B in place, hang around here as much as possible, the money is here. With the individual members. Who likes you, who do you get on with, what do they need that you can supply, get my drift? Oh, and remember, membership here, is a fixed cost in your accounts.’

‘Er?’

I walked towards the garden for some fresh air, Charlie had drifted off somewhere as is her habit. I needed time to think. As I wandered towards the pond, I was surprised to find Don Wooley, newspaper man extraordinaire, seemingly on much the same mission. ‘Wouldn’t have thought you’d be operating from here at a time like this?’

‘I’ve been sneaking into the conference area and using the fibre, it’s still copper wire in the first-floor bedrooms. I don’t think that Fiona likes me!’

‘I see. Okay, well I can get the issue of more fibre throughout the occupied parts of the house further up the “to do list” because the relative cost is falling, Fiona is another matter entirely. Fiona always has to be in the room, so to speak. She is the public face of the Park, she’s the one in front of the camera. She may not have authority in decision making but she does have to be included. Charm her Don, after all she’s an old friend of Charlie’s, Charlie got her in here.’

‘Shit! Er, look I’ve got an idea about your conference centre, let’s go inside and have a look.’

It turned out the Don was concerned about the smaller of the two rooms leading off from the ballroom. ‘So, you don’t like the tables and chairs?’

‘Most of the time it’s being used as a media room now, no point in it looking like a college seminar room when by the simple act of replacing them with a sofa and a couple of chairs from upstairs, you have the grand country house decor along two sides, and your cameras and a perch for the technician come director on the other two sides. Now what does that set-up make you think of?’

‘The posh-ist Breakfast Time or Daytime tv studio ever?’

‘Exactly! Or to be more precise the summer residence, or perhaps winter residence, of The Don Wooley Podcast. Daily rent for at least three months of the year.’

‘I like it.’

‘Not that different from your home set-up really?’

‘Who, told you that?’

‘Oh! No secrets between me and Charlie these days, I know all about her, spread out on the chaise-lounge, whilst you fiddle with your gadgets.’

‘I beg your pardon!’

‘Fear not, she’s one of the special people. Anyway, what do you think Buffy will do now, now he has time on his hands, write his memoirs?’

‘Buffy doesn’t write.’

‘Really? Now that is interesting.’

‘Apart from reading agendas, and scribbling notes for speeches, he is a cultural desert!’

‘What are you two conspiring about?’ Came a voice from the doorway.

‘Charlie!’

‘There’s progress at the stables to be inspected, sir. Before we hit the road.’

‘Well, don’t let me detain you any longer.’

‘I’ll speak to the committee.’

‘What’s he doing?’

‘Distressing a brick!’ Our stone mason’s mate, had just chucked a brick into the portable cement mixer, whilst the man himself was attending to a piece of the decorated stonework which intermittently broke the monotony of the brick work. Only the garaging of the minibus could be said to be complete.

Speaking from atop the portable scaffolding, the boss said; ‘We’ve been taking a few days off from your Magdalen Place properties, while matey rescues bits of wrought iron guttering and down pipe from the back, to make the front entirely genuine again, so the back alas, will be entirely fake.’

‘Which it’s going to look anyway because of the sure-ing-up you’ve had to do?’

‘Well, that’s the way we see it, sir.’

‘No worries! Right then Sparkwell, we can’t hang around here watching other men work, we have places to be and things to do.’

Back at the manor about a week later, Julia sort me out in the grounds; ‘Tony, I’ve just taken a call from Victoria Herring.’

‘Oh, lord.’

‘I’m sorry, Mary’s gone. Passed away whilst still at the house apparently.’