Bacchus and Sanderson (Deceased) (16 page)

“She had followed me between two of the schools that I work with. At the second school, she approached me and asked if I knew you and if I knew where she could find you. I asked her who she was and why she thought I would know where you were. I didn’t get a response. All of this very brief conversation was on her side very snappy, sullen and monosyllabic. Then her body language softened, she began smiling instead of scowling and she started to compliment me. What beautiful hair I have, what a gorgeous figure, that sort of thing. I’m a very happy realist. One of the things I realise is that I do have good hair, but my figure edges towards the Rubenesque because I have a passion for good food and wine. Anyway, she continued in this vein for a few more moments and then asked me out to dinner.”

Smiling, William asked,

“What did you say? Or should I ask where you are going?”

Doing her best to keep a straight face, but failing, Annabel replied,

“I thanked her and explained that it wouldn’t be possible for me to accept her kind invitation as I didn’t find her as attractive as she found me.”

“And?”

“She shrugged, smiled and wished me a pleasant afternoon. Why she wanted to speak to you, I have no idea. William, are you in trouble?”

William took a large sip from his pint of bitter before answering, weighing up how much he should tell someone he had only known for a couple of days.

“Are you free this evening, for dinner?  If not, please be a little more tactful when rejecting me than you were with Jemima.”

Blushing, she answered, her words spilling out in a long rushed sentence,

“I’d love to have dinner with you. I don’t have any attraction problems with you at all.” Pausing for a moment and looking surprised she continued,

“Did I just say that out loud?”

William smiled, and said,

“Yes, out loud.” he added,

“Come round to me for dinner, I’ll get us a Chinese take away. In answer to your earlier question, I don’t know. As I explained to you before I have just discovered that I have an unexpected father, a bookshop and, it would seem, an awful lot of money. However, I also have to sort some matters out for my late father. He left me a lot of computer files on a memory stick,” he dug around inside his shirt and pulled out the memory stick.

“These will give me all the information I need. I know we have only just met and you know nothing about me but, to answer your question, I need to tell you how I ended up here and what I think I might have to do.”

“I can’t think of a nicer way of spending an evening.”

***

              Gerald Thrasher sat behind his desk watching Felicity as she paced his office. Her assertion that Ernest Sanderson was irrelevant had lasted thirty-seconds into his explanation of the chain of events as he knew them to be.

“Who was the temp again?”

Gerald told her. Taking a deep breath she walked to the window that overlooked the park and stood still, staring out at the distant duck pond.

“Ernest Sanderson knew a lot more than we thought. It seems that I have underestimated his determination to cause trouble. Have we any idea how much he knew?”

              Thrasher looked at her with amusement. Seeing Felicity vulnerable, even though he knew it was transitory, was a rare pleasure. He considered how best to phrase what he had to say.

“Very little idea. Even that he knew a lot more than we thought is supposition. We have assumed that the note he left for William Bacchus and the note from the temporary worker purporting to be from him, amount to something. In reality, that is a leap of faith. All we know is that he stopped trusting me. We are presuming that was because he found out something about his brother’s death that he wasn’t aware of before or he discovered something about his brother’s time as an employee of CHC Industries. I can’t imagine what that could be as his brother died of a heart attack and was just a research scientist. Wasn’t he?”

              Could Thrasher be useful or was he becoming too inquisitive? She needed to decide. Tell him the truth, enough of the truth to keep him on side or let a colleague arrange another accident? A heart attack?

“Jonas Sanderson died because of an apparent heart attack. A very convincing apparent heart attack.  From his medical questionnaire, we knew that he had a history of heart disease on his father’s side of the family.” She added,

“You also have a history of heart disease in your family, don’t you Gerald?” Continuing her revelations, she said,

“Nineteen seventy-three was not a good year for medicine; no one suspected that he died of anything other than a heart attack. Nobody thought to look.”

              Felicity looked at Thrasher with contempt. She had always suspected that he didn’t have what it took to survive at the top of the tree in this business. To discover, now, that he was weaker and less able than she had supposed, was troubling.

“We always manage our problems within the family. I need you, with discretion and speed, to find out why William Bacchus was a beneficiary of Ernest Sanderson. He wasn’t picked at random there is a reason. Find it.”

Juanita’s exasperation boiled over. Was his obtuseness deliberate?

“We can’t do that. How many times do I have to explain? William helps us and we help him to help us, that’s possible. So we can watch a conversation in real time and let William know what was said. We can’t move inside anyone. We can’t read anyone’s mind, even William’s and mind control, however desirable, is slipping into the realms of mediaeval wizardry. William has his part to play and so do you. Also, we can’t be everywhere at once. We aren’t omnipresent; you can’t be the ubiquitous Ernest Sanderson. Before you suggest it; we can’t separate and watch different people. You have to be accompanied, at all times, by an accredited guide. Me. I don’t make the rules. The only person, who can override such things, wouldn’t. So please can we concentrate, focus, whatever you call it and tell me what you want to do now.”

              Ernest’s expression of contrition was genuine. He said,

“We need to visit William. I want to see how many of the files he has read, and what his initial thoughts on the information in them is. Once we know that I can point him in the right direction.”

***

              Thrasher poised with his finger on the intercom button on his desk. Did he have a choice? No, much as he despised the Ladrones, they were very good and discreet. He smiled  broadly, Ladrones wasn’t their names. When they had started working for him they wanted a code name to protect their identities. He had thought this amateur, melodramatic rubbish was quite ridiculous, but to placate them he had suggested the Ladrones. They had thought it appropriately exotic not realising that it translated from the original Spanish as ‘Thieves.’

“Siobhan? The Ladrones brothe
r’
s can you contact them and ask them to call me? Thank you.”  They were the best housebreakers he knew. He needed them to go to Sherborne to Bacchus’s address and without anyone realising, let themselves in. If they could find documents, zip drives, computers, anything. It might give him some leverage with Felicity.

***

              “What has possessed her? Why have I trusted her instincts? I have no idea what she is doing. Can’t she see what’s in front of her eyes?” He turned to Helena his guide and indicated with irritation his granddaughter Felicity. His face was red, suffused with anger.

“How can I rely on her to protect this family? Is she my granddaughter?” The next sentences he bellowed with rage, his frustration bubbling over.

“Stop walking around girl and focus. Who is the threat? How much do they know? Do they know what it means? Do I have to spell it out for her?” Charles paused in his frustrated diatribe for a moment and thought. He then said to himself as much as Helena.

”Of course, spell it out for her.”

              Turning around, he stared at his guide, who was standing at the other side of the room. The guide smirked at him and raised her right eye, asking a question. Straightening his jacket, he said,

“Could we?” Taking a last sideways glance through the hole in the floor that looked down at anywhere or at anyone he thought about, he walked over to the dark brown leather chesterfield sofa and sank down, waiting for her affirmative reply. Instead, he received a stream of invective that surprised him.

“Could we what Charles? Could we go for a tour of downstairs, the pits of hell? Yes, we can, if you continue to be quite this dull. I have tried; I have tried to the very limit of my forbearance to ease you in the direction that you need to go in. But no. No, no, no. I cannot fathom how you managed to make such a success of your endeavours on earth. And still you haven’t understood, even when I have ranted that you are duller than the dullest thing in all creation, still you stand there opened mouthed, stuttering and stammering. Let us try one final time. If, by some miracle, you stumble on the meaning I am trying to drag you toward, then I can answer your question.”

Shuddering, Helena took a deep breath, stared at the ceiling and began.

“From our previous conversations we have established that we are in limbo. A place for those who die with unfinished business. Some complete their unfinished business with alacrity and go upstairs. Others go straight to hell. A bit warm but a lot more fun. And some..
.
”

“Like you and I,” continued Charles, struggling to contain his exasperation as he rode roughshod over her.

“Have our fun in limbo.” Pacing around the cramped quarters that had been allocated to him when he had arrived; he continued, brushing aside her attempts to regain control of the conversation.

“Correct me, and I’m sure you will, if I get any of these complicated facts confused. We should be in hell. No questions asked, no second chances. But, we’re not. Why? Well, in your case and now in mine, we were chosen to assist. Someone chose you and for a reason that you have yet to share, you chose me. At some point in the future, you will be found out. When that happens, it’s straight downstairs, for good. Until you are found out, you can continue to involve yourself in life on earth. So answering my own question ‘could we?’ the answer is, yes we could. Anything to add?”

              Sighing and clapping her hands together, Helena shook her head.

“What? What?” Charles said. What had he missed?

“Close, Charles, very close. However; you are missing one vital point. You passed so close, even mentioning it, but then passed on by in a frenzy of self-congratulation. Have you guessed yet?” she asked, cocking her head to one side, mocking him.

“No, of course you haven’t or you would be pushing your cleverness at me like a bulldozer pushes earth. Why have I chosen you? Why have I chosen you? Why Charles? Why? Do I need you? Do you need me?” Pausing to let the question sink in and to see if it would elicit an answer, Helena waited. After a few moments when it became obvious that he had no intention of answering, she stared hard at him and said,

“So Charles, we need to talk about why you are here. I am an unpleasant person. As you surmised, I should be downstairs, but I’m not. For two reasons. One, I’m too smart for those moronic angels and two it suits Satan to have me up here doing what I do. I’m allowed to choose my own projects and run them for as long as I can avoid getting caught. You Charles are also unpleasant,” she held her hand up to stem the tide of outrage.

“That was a complement. You are my chosen project. I will help you do whatever it is you want or, indeed, need to do. In return, before we start on your problems I have a little something, someone, who needs to be dealt with. I can’t deal with them, I’m up here and I’ve been dead too long to have anyone on earth who I could connect with. So Charles, we need to select someone to help me and then to help you. Who?”

Charles looked at Helena to try to ascertain how serious she was.

“I help you and then I can do anything I want; anything?”

The reply was a simple,

“Yes.”

“If I can convince her that there will be something in it for her, a prize worthy or her efforts, then Felicity is our woman.”

Smiling, Helena replied,

“She can have whatever she wants.”

“This should be on my ‘no’ list. The salt, monosodium glutamate and sugar they use is bad for me.” Sighing with contentment, William continued,

“But doesn’t it taste sublime? When I could eat, drink and smoke whatever I wanted, I didn’t think about what I was drinking and eating. Now an occasional treat reminds me how good it is, when you’re bad.” Standing up and walking out to the kitchen followed by a hopeful Wooster, William called over his shoulder,

“More wine or are you ready for some strong, sweet Colombian?”

“Hmm, a strong Colombian, please. I haven’t any early services or tutorials tomorrow but if I have anymore I’ll be walking home not driving.”

              Wandering into the kitchen with the remains of the takeaway and their empty plates, she stared at the back of William, watching as he measured the coffee into the cafetière, poured on near boiling water and gave it a gentle stir to encourage the coffee grounds to give up their flavour. Annabel put the debris in the sink and said,