An old man sat with the evening paper, which he examined closely. He smoothed the fine mohair fabric of his jacket and picked off a small lump of fluff. It was the only time she had ever intruded into his home. From the far end of the house, he could hear his grandchildren.
Then his plump wife came in with his tea.
CHAPTER TWO
Shearer-Marianne Jane, on 4th January, aged 51, at Kensington, London. Private cremation to be arranged. No flowers, please. Inquiries to T.Noble@NobleandCo.com.
It was a beautiful flat, if you liked that kind of thing, which Thomas did. It was an estate agent’s dream for the client worth a million, requiring nothing more than space without a single piece of evidence indicating a previous occupant of any kind. Cream walls, cream carpet, a kitchen full of stainless steel, a single, neutral sofa, marooned in the centre of a large living room, alongside a small perspex table so transparent it melded with the rest. A blank canvas, to be written upon, with no writing as yet.
The newspaper, left open on the floor, provided the only contrast. Black, against the white, looked almost shocking. One longed for the odd wine stain, even for blood. Any sign of life would do.
The taller of the two men, Thomas Noble, picked up the newspaper, which was offensive to him for several reasons. His shorter companion stood a good way off, leaning against the window with his arms crossed and admiring the view outside with a proprietorial air. The irritation which percolated between them was in control. Thomas had rarely disliked anyone with such intensity, and marvelled at the fact he could so loathe on sight a person who was the brother of someone he had counted as a close friend, but then, that same great friend had obviously been a bit of a mystery in her own right. Her failure to confide despair rankled like an itch. After all, she seemed to have confided so much. Marianne could be shockingly frank. Not so her brother. Thomas shuddered, imperceptibly, and in order to say something, picked up and read from the newspaper article she had ringed with the red felt pen. It provided the only colour in the room.
‘I have the feeling that this is the only evidence of why she chose to do it the way she did. It makes me sad.’
Frank Shearer continued to look at the view outside the window, enjoying it, listening without caring.
‘Pardon?’
‘She was reading an article in the Daily Mail,’ Thomas explained. ‘Page three.’
‘I thought she never got further than the law pages in The Times.’
‘She did this time,’ Thomas insisted. ‘She was reading an article about an unemployed woman who died in a bedsit in North London and was only found two years later. Almost a record. Two years! Doesn’t say much for her neighbours, who reported a foul smell, and then nothing after a couple of months, which according to this,’ he handled the newspaper carefully, it was evidence of a kind, after all, ‘is hardly surprising. She died with the heating full on, and it never went off. TV still murmuring away in the corner, central heating going full blast after two winters and a summer. Place infested, of course, but even the bugs had perished.’
‘Are you making a point?’
‘Yes. The point I’m making is that Marianne read this article which is dated two days before she died. It gives a clue to what she was thinking. She was thinking that if she stayed in her own flat, no one would notice she was dead. She didn’t want that.’
‘Your point is?’
‘The woman in the newspaper. Marianne definitely didn’t want to be undiscovered for two years. Or two weeks.’
‘So she jumped instead? And if she had died here, how long would it have been before the body was found? How long before a friend like you would have worried enough to break the door down?’
Thomas shrugged. He and Marianne Shearer met for civilised evenings as often as twice a month. That was his version of close friendship.
‘Knowing my sister,’ Frank Shearer said, ‘she might just as well have been reading the article to try and discover what type of boiler and TV that dead woman had. The sort that works for two years without servicing. She’d be looking for the same make and model. Or maybe it was just envy of someone who didn’t have to pay any bills. She was cute with money, my sis.’
He shook his head. ‘No, I don’t think it was that, even if she did leave this newspaper. There was that other woman who jumped out of a hotel window the other week, wasn’t there? Wasn’t she some kind of lawyer, too? Photos of her in the paper, but not nearly as good as Marianne’s. Marianne would have seen that and thought she could show people how such things ought to be done for maximum impact. Make herself the definitive hotel suicide. She did like having the last word in everything.’
Thomas knew that Frank Shearer and his late sister had not been close because she had told him. Bloody ne’er-do-well, sponger, with a touch of the vicious about him, you know? Work-shy, that one, spoiled rotten. No time for him. Frank Shearer had absolutely no interest in her life, only her death. The physical resemblance was there. Frank had her eyes and her hair, without any of her backbone; he was soft where she was slim and muscular. He was handsome: she was not, although she could be striking. That’s why I had to succeed, Thomas, I didn’t have the option of hanging around and being pretty. Thomas Noble, solicitor; friend of the deceased whom he had accompanied to many a football match in pursuit of a shared passion which surprised them both. If she wasn’t winning herself, she was certainly wanting someone else to win. She might have evolved into a hired assassin in another life, and if he had been a heterosexual man himself, he would have run a mile from her. As he was, he was free to appreciate a frightful friend and consider himself a mentor, although how much he had succeeded in that was sadly in doubt. Marianne had said nothing about what ailed her – that was insulting – and it seemed that she had never followed his advice to make a will. All the same, he had to admit there was something in what Frank had just said. There had been a similar suicide soon after Christmas, and Marianne could never resist upstaging another woman. This was surely an unfair thought, although it lingered because of the similarities. Marianne’s was definitely different. All she had done, on the same day she had read the newspaper article about the woman dead for two years, was transfer money into his bank account, with the cryptic email saying, Look after stuff, and have fun with this will you? Use Peter Friel for the business, he’s dull but dogged. Mx
He coughed. It followed from this that he was appointed in the role of her legal representative in the absence of anyone else. There was no one better qualified to sort the mess. It also followed that this foul, definitely homophobic man needed him, since Frank did not know where else to start and Thomas held all the cards. Frank was a car salesman with a history of debt and he needed a lawyer, since, as things stood, under the rules of intestacy, he the undeserving was going to reap the fruits of what she had sown. Ms Shearer’s brother was practically salivating. Worth nothing last week and now worth enough to strut like a cockerel.
‘Great apartment. The newspaper said it was worth a cool mill. And recent life insurance, you said?’
Thomas shook his head.
‘I doubt if the flat’s worth that much. And there’s a mortgage. She was a barrister for twenty-five years, but a Life of Crime doesn’t make you a millionaire. If we,’ he stressed the ‘we’ in the interests of companionship because it was important they did not fall out… yet, ‘don’t find a last will and testament, or other known relatives apart from yourself, then this,’ he nodded at the white walls, ‘falls to you. Subject to tax et cetera. The verdict at the inquest will have an impact on the amount, of course.’