Abigail Hamish Lansdown and Grierstone
Commissioners for Oaths
14A Bedford Row
London WC1N 5AB
12 July 1999 Dear Mr Freeman, We have received your letter addressed to our client Miss Abigail Hamish. I regret to inform you that Miss Hamish has suffered a slight stroke and is undergoing treatment in a private nursing home. It may be some weeks before she is well enough to reply to your letter, or to receive visitors. In the meantime, however, we are instructed to make available to you the keys to the house at Ferrier's Close 34, Heath Villas, Hampstead. These may be collected at the above address at your convenience, on presentation of appropriate identification, such as your passport. Yours faithfully,
Giles Grierstone From: Parvati. Naidu@hotmail. com
To: ghfreeman@hotmail. com
Subject: Alice is fine and sends you all her love
Date: Tue, 20 Jul 1999 20:12:46 +0100 (BST) Dear Gerard, Alice asked me to email you as soon as I could (I'm the ward sister) to tell you that the operation was a complete success. Mr MacBride says she'll have to lie completely still for the next forty-eight hours to let the sutures settle down. She says she'll write to you as soon as she's allowed to sit up. I hope you don't mind me saying, but I think it's so romantic, the two of you having waited so long. Alice is so beautiful, we all love her. I'm sure you'll be blissfully happy together. Must dash, Parvati
From the laneway outside, all Icould see of Ferrier's Close was a mass of rampant foliage, towering above a weathered brick wall. The wall itself was at least ten feet high, shrouded at the top by overspilling branches, holly and buddleia and rampant blackberries. A solid wooden door, reinforced with iron straps, was the only entrance, just as Miss Hamish had said. Further along to my right, the lane was cut off by the stone wall of another house, with a third wall, painted white, running back behind me. Though most of the houses in the Vale opened directly on to the narrow streets, the occupants of this corner (somewhere on the western side; I had lost my bearings among the twists and turns and narrow passageways that had brought me, circuitously, to this cul-de-sac) clearly cherished their privacy. Luxury cars, stained with sap and bird droppings and humped up on the pavement, were the only evidence of occupation.