‘The post office sells milk.’ Julia turned on her heel and disappeared, leaving Holly to her thoughts. The significance of Julia’s words did not emerge for another ten minutes, when Holly heard the sound of Julia’s shoes on the stairs and found a cup of steaming hot tea being thrust into her hand. By this time she had regained some sort of normality. She returned her eyes to the room and gave Julia a weak smile.
‘Thanks, Jules. You’re a star.’
‘And, before you ask, I washed the mugs thoroughly before using them. All right?’ Holly nodded. Her love – Julia had been known to refer to it as a fixation – of cleanliness was well known to all her friends. The story of her being caught in flagrante, vacuuming the floor of her office, had long since become a part of the folklore of the company where she worked. That, and her addiction to expensive shoes.
‘Thanks Jules.’ She sat down on the edge of the bed and took a sip of tea. ‘Mmh, that’s good.’ She looked up, still trying to come to terms with the emotions this place aroused in her. ‘It probably isn’t going to make any sense to you, but I realise I’ve spent twenty-five years of my life hating the man and now, suddenly, I remember how much I used to love him. He was my dad and I really, really loved him. I don’t know how to explain what I’m feeling. He went off and left us, after all, so he’s the bad guy in all this, but somehow I’m beginning to feel regret.’ She looked Julia in the eye. ‘Have I been unfair to him, Jules?’
‘You say he’s the bad guy, but he never did anything to harm you, did he?’ Holly could see that Julia was picking her words carefully. ‘I mean, did he at least pay maintenance, or whatever it’s called?’
Holly nodded. ‘As far as I know, money wasn’t the problem. He paid what he had to pay. And you’re right; he never did me any harm, unless you count just disappearing and never reappearing as doing harm. Thinking about him now brings it all back. I cried and cried and cried when he left.’ She rubbed her eyes with the back of a hand. ‘I don’t think I ever got over it really.’
‘It must have been awful for you, and don’t forget your mum. She must have been gutted when he went off, whatever the circumstances, so it’s inevitable that you should have grown up feeling the same way as her about him. Anyway, they’re both gone now, so there’s nothing more you can do. Maybe the solicitor will be able to shed some light on what happened.’
Holly arrived at the offices of Friar, Sutcliffe and Inglis a few minutes after four o’clock. Rather unwisely, she had taken a different road back from Brookford to Exeter and this had turned out to be even narrower and more tortuous than the route they had followed that morning. She left Julia in the car to sort out a parking ticket and ran the few hundred yards to the building where her father’s solicitor was housed. By the time she got there, she was rather regretting wearing her rather nice Alexander McQueen heels. A couple of times she almost turned her ankle over on the cobbles around Exeter’s old cathedral.
She was ushered into the presence of Mr Inglis, still desperately trying to cool down after the stress of the journey. He gave her a welcoming smile and waved her to a seat.
‘Miss Brice, how very good to meet you at last.’
‘I’m sorry I’m a bit late. I’m afraid I misjudged how long it would take me to get back here from Brookford.’
Mr Inglis waved away her apologies. ‘Devon roads can be a bit hard going, I’m afraid.’ He pointed to a folder on the desk before him. ‘I’m sorry it took so long to inform you of your father’s death. We had a bit of chasing around to do in order to find you. It would appear that all contact between you and him was severed many years ago.’
Holly nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’
‘Anyway, you’re here now and, as I said to you when we spoke on the telephone the other day, you are the main beneficiary of your father’s will. Would you like me to read it to you?’
Holly sat back and listened as the lawyer read the words written by her father. It was short and clear. The sum of £25,000 was left to Force Cancer Support Centre, £25,000 to a Mrs Diana Edworthy and the rest to Holly. When he reached the part where her father left everything else to his beloved and sorely missed daughter, she found herself wiping moisture from the corners of her eyes.
‘So you are now the owner of his house in Brookford, the contents of the house, garden and cellar, and the sum of £15,439.67 currently remaining in his bank account. We have to apply for probate, so I’m afraid that amount will be reduced in due course after payment of duties, taxes and my firm’s fees. However, more significant, from your point of view, is the fact that you are the sole beneficiary of a trust fund set up by your father. You may be interested to see the current state of the fund.’
He removed a sheet from the folder and passed it across the desk to her. She took it absently, still doing her best to control the emotion aroused by the words of his will. She glanced down at the figures and her eyes came to rest on the bottom line. It took a few moments for it to sink in and then her head jerked back up towards the solicitor, her mouth open in amazement. He was smiling indulgently.
‘A very useful legacy, wouldn’t you say?’
Holly nodded mutely and returned her eyes to the printout. The trust fund set up by her father for her benefit currently held a total of £2,238,366. She was not surprised to see the sheet of paper begin to shake. She lowered her hand until it was resting on her thigh, struggling to comprehend the enormity of this news and its implications for her whole life. The lawyer continued.
‘I will have to check the exact nature of the fund to see what the inheritance tax implications might be. I ran it across a colleague who has more experience of financial matters, and his initial reaction was that it looks pretty watertight. We will have to seek a ruling from the Revenue, so you had better be prepared to lose a proportion of this in tax.’ He gave her another smile. ‘It would still leave a tidy sum even if you do have a tax bill to pay.’
Holly blinked, set the paper down on the desktop, and took a deep breath. ‘But how on earth did he manage to save all that money? It’s a fortune.’
‘He told me he had a very successful company during his years in Australia. He sold up before coming back to the UK. I imagine this money is the proceeds of that sale.’
‘What sort of company, Mr Inglis?’ She gave him an apologetic look. ‘You see, I know next to nothing about him.’
‘I can imagine. Certainly, when he spoke of you, he was similarly ignorant of where you were and what you were doing. As far as I can remember, I believe he told me he was involved with the wine trade.’
‘Did you know him well?’
‘I met him on a number of occasions so I had the opportunity to get to know him quite well.’ He caught Holly’s eye. ‘He was a fine man, your father.’
‘Thank you, Mr Inglis.’ Holly was pleased to hear her voice sounding level. ‘Thank you very much. That’s good to hear.’ Inside, her mind was in turmoil. How could it be that the callous, selfish bastard who had abandoned his wife and child all those years ago could have left her such an amazing bequest and be described as a fine man? Somehow, she realised she was going to have to do a lot of rethinking about her father. ‘I’ve got so many questions for you. First and foremost, what did he die of? Presumably it was cancer?’
The solicitor nodded his head. ‘I’m afraid so. A very aggressive form of pancreatic cancer. I remember he told me it was only diagnosed in May and he died on November fifth. I saw him in Brookford in October, when he drafted his will, and he was already bedridden.’
‘And the lady mentioned in his will? Have you any idea who she is?’
‘Yes, indeed. She lives in the village and it was she who looked after your father in his final months. I believe she’s a distant relative of some description.’ Holly nodded,