The Case of the Missing Letter Read online

  “It’s a nice space, isn’t it?” Nat asked. “It was a church hall for a long time, until the council decided Gorey needed a library, back in the fifties,” she explained. “Before that, the Germans used it as a garrison. When we dug the new garden out back a couple of years ago, we found all kinds of army buttons and pins, even the odd bullet, but no bombs, thankfully.”

  “It’s very nice,” Laura agreed. “You must like working here.”

  Nat shepherded Laura along the shelves, showing her the Dewey Decimal System and where the stepladder was stored. “One thing I really like,” Nat confided, “is that there are very few hassles. The people here don’t need much help. We get some questions about loans from other libraries, but mostly people just read the paper or a magazine, or check out some books. They keep themselves to themselves mostly. During the daytime, it’s sometimes just me here, keeping things neat and tidy, while three silent, possibly sleeping, old men read the Racing Post.”

  “Sounds idyllic,” Laura said. “I’ve been looking forward to a quieter life.”

  Back at the distribution desk, Nat gave Laura a quick demonstration of the library’s book catalog software. It seemed simple enough, as did the interlibrary loan system and new library card and renewal procedures. “The only time,” Nat warned, “that it gets a bit rowdy is right after the schools get out, between half past three and four.”

  “Rowdy?” Laura asked. She visualized hordes of uniformed teenagers rampaging among Nat’s neatly arranged shelves.

  “Well, we had to change our Internet policy. I’ll spare you the details. Just kids being kids, I suppose.”

  “I can imagine,” Laura said. Nat printed Laura’s new credentials and a plastic ID badge that would be pinned to her top.

  A patron approached the distribution desk with two novels, and Nat efficiently checked the books out. “New librarian?” the elderly man asked.

  “First day,” Nat explained. “I was just telling her how the place gets crazy when the school kids are here.”

  The man gave a gentle laugh. “It’s the boys, mostly,” he explained. “A pretty lady is always going to get those teenage hormones racing.” Nat threw a paperclip at him, and the old man left with his books, chuckling.

  “Bad boy,” she said jokingly after him. “It isn’t just the teenagers. You’ll be finding that out for yourself. But don’t worry,” Nat smiled. “They know not to go too far. Good people here. Kind.”

  Laura spent a few minutes trying “dummy runs” to learn the library’s distribution software. Then, a pair of eyes framed with wire-rimmed glasses appeared just above the counter top. “Hi,” he said.

  Laura blinked. “Oh, hello. How can I help you?”

  “Got another loan request,” the boy said. He couldn’t have been older than nine.

  “Sure,” Laura said. “You’ll be my first, so it might take a moment.”

  Nat appeared at her shoulder. “I’ll help. Hey, Billy!”

  “Hey, Miss Nat,” the young man replied. He had straight-as-a-rod brown hair and a sprinkling of freckles across his snub nose. His eyes were hazel and framed by unusually fair, almost white eyelashes. “I think I’m onto something,” he said seriously.

  “Oh, really? Making progress with your moon project?” Nat asked, tapping briskly through the loan form; she knew Billy’s details by heart.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I can prove there’s still a prototype Russian moon lander orbiting the Earth!” he enthused. “Above our heads, right now!”

  Nat showed Laura how to complete the form, and they typed in Billy’s request for a book with a lengthy title available only from London. “Billy is passionate about space,” Nat explained. “He’s trying to figure out what happened to the secret Russian moon-landing project in the sixties.”

  Laura regarded the young man, whose eyes shone at the mention of his favorite topic. “Secret, huh? Didn’t know they’d had a project like that.” Billy gave her a quick look that was hard to read. Disbelief? Disapproval?

  He launched, with the gusto known only to nine year olds, into an explanation of how the Soviet Union had almost bankrupted itself trying to race NASA to the moon. Four minutes in, Laura felt sure that Billy could easily give an hour’s lecture on the subject, without notes, to an expert audience.

  “Okay, Space Commander-in-Chief,” Nat said, curtailing his spirited performance. “Laura has a lot of learning to do. Your book will be here in…”

  “Ten to fourteen days,” Billy finished for her.

  “Indeed. And we’ll notify you, as usual,” Nat said. “Anything else?”

  “Nope,” Billy said, and headed off back to the Science shelves in search of more clues.

  “Quite a character,” Laura said.

  “Billy? He’s the smartest person in Gorey, in his own way,” Nat said. “Unfortunately, his mother thinks books are a waste of time. I watched her chase him out of here once. You’d have thought we were offering him drugs or something, rather than a little knowledge and a safe place to hang out.”

  Laura watched Billy scouring the shelves, mouthing a Dewey Decimal number over and over to himself so he wouldn’t forget. He found the book he was looking for and grinned merrily to himself. He scuttled over to a desk to begin reading. “That’s sad,” Laura said. “But at least he seems happy here.”

  “He’s our best customer. I stopped charging him for inter-library loans six months ago.”

  “That’s kind of you.” Clearly the small library was, for many people, a storehouse of information, a community hub, and a place of refuge.

  And that reassured her. After all Laura had been through, it was exactly what she needed.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Five days later…

  DON STUMBLED DOWN the last two steps. He found his slippers at the bottom of the stairs, and frowned at the sorry state of his living room. Glancing at the clock, he saw it was lunchtime. Hungover or not, action was urgently needed.

  He poured a large glass of cold water and swallowed four extra-strength painkillers. Stumbling slightly, he made the decision to fling aside the living room curtains and push open the windows. The daylight made him squint uncomfortably for the next few moments, but the fresh air revived him a little and helped cleanse the living room of its dismal, smoky aroma. As he waited for the kettle to boil for a pot of tea, he bustled about, cleaning off ash and bottle tops from the cracked glass surface of his old coffee table and setting out his blue plastic folder of notes.

  “DESK,” was the heading of one sheet. On this page, he had written out everything he knew about Sir Thomas Hughes’ famous writing desk. There wasn’t much. Digging through his brain, he’d managed to remember the desk’s maker and roughly when Sir Thomas had acquired it, but his notes were absent a clue as to the most important detail: its location.

  The next sheet of paper related to “MYSTERY PERSON.” Don had little to go on except his mother’s mention of San Marcos. He’d found the tiny nation on a map, nestled between larger neighbors in Central America, but he knew no more than that. His notes were largely speculative: Rich? Playboy? Business associate?

  The third page was neatly entitled, “LETTER.” He had already transcribed the notes he’d hurriedly tapped out on his cellphone at the hospice as his mother slept that night. They remained the only record of her cryptic, confusing narrative.

  Underneath each page of notes were some pictures and related articles photocopied from the library or printed from the Internet. For now, the “Letter” pile was less substantial, but also less important. His top priority remained learning about the elusive piece of furniture that had been known in the Hughes family as the “Satterthwaite Desk” after its illustrious maker, Ezekiel Satterthwaite.

  The furniture maker had been born to a cobbler and his wife in 1761, one of nine children. He had looked destined to follow in his poverty-stricken father’s footsteps, but defying his working class roots, Satterthwaite built a reputation for designing fine furniture in r
ococo and neoclassical styles. His work had become highly sought after by the wealthiest people in Britain and Europe in the latter part of the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and Satterthwaite’s work now regularly exchanged hands for over a million pounds each.

  In addition to having creative flair, Don learned that Satterthwaite had a strong engineering bent. His furniture was robust as well as beautiful. He was a well-loved and kindly man who had a childish fondness for secrets. A signature whimsy was to occasionally, but not always, place compartments inside his pieces. He never announced their existence. As his reputation grew, it became a source of pride and excitement among those who owned his work to learn that theirs contained one of Satterthwaite’s secret additions. Many others spent hours examining their commissions only to be disappointed. Many more were never sure either way.

  An idea formed in Don’s mind. He wanted to locate the desk, but he had no earthly idea even where to start. Or at least he hadn’t until eleven-thirty the previous night.

  It had been the bitter end of the toughest and most despairing day Don had ever lived through. Susannah’s funeral had been held at the tiny St. Mark’s Church, a few miles from where she’d grown up. The small volunteer choir had outnumbered the congregation.

  The priest made some heartwarming references during the service. There was no way of knowing if he said them at every funeral, but he seemed to have known Susannah a little. He had called Don the previous Wednesday, inviting him to speak at the funeral, but on reflection, Don had decided not to.

  Someone from Kerry Hill was there, a man in a dark suit who spoke briefly with Don after the service and then left. There was Angela, an old school friend of Susannah’s, who claimed to have visited her regularly at Kerry Hill, though Don couldn’t ever remember meeting her. And there was Miss Pardew, who had been running the corner shop for decades. She told Don an endearing story about how a young Susannah had helped look after the store when old Mr. Pardew was losing his battle with heart failure. In all, they’d managed to say goodbye to his mother with dignity and sincerity, even if the loneliness she often felt in life was mirrored in death.

  The silence in Don’s living room in the hours after the funeral was utterly intolerable, so he’d laid out the complete contents of his liquor cabinet and methodically steered himself toward a state of oblivion. As midnight approached, there was a brief moment of clarity amid the crushing depression and loss. Still able to hold a pen at that point, Don had roughly scribbled a word at the bottom of the “DESK” sheet. Now, in the light of the following morning, it took a little deciphering. The first letter was certainly a “P,” but recognizing the other letters was a struggle. Eventually, Don recognized the name. And it was one which, if he were lucky, could really open some doors.

  He drank the tea he had made and rummaged in a couple of drawers looking for his address book. It hadn’t been used since the days before cellphones. Finally armed with the number, he tried to think back to when they had last spoken. Was it ten years? Twelve, probably. Don decided it didn’t matter. The awkwardness of a Friday afternoon call following years of silence was trifling compared to the importance of his task.

  The phone rang at length. Don looked out onto his dejected garden, finding that the weeds had truly taken over following a year of neglect. After eight rings, to Don’s great relief, there was a voice.

  “Prendergast.”

  Thank God. “Carl? Hey… It’s Don English.”

  “Don?” There was a pause. “Ah, Don! Yes. Sorry,” the man chuckled. Carl Prendergast was the Hughes family lawyer, a slight, wiry man with rimless round spectacles, and a spectacularly creased face. “How are you?” Prendergast asked, politely enough.

  Hurting, lonely as hell, and probably still drunk. “I’ve seen better times, Carl. Did anyone give you the news about my mother?” Nobody had, of course, and so Don was obliged to recount her story once more: the steady decline in Susannah’s memory during those last few months at Kerry Hill, the lazy, negligent staff, and then the peaceful three weeks at St. Cuthbert’s when the nurses had made her comfortable so she could die with dignity.

  “I’ll be sure to tell the rest of the family,” Prendergast said, after offering his condolences. “I’m sure they’d wish to keep your mother in their thoughts.” Yeah, right. “While we’re talking, I should ask, is everything alright with the stipend?” There was a rustling of papers, evidence that Carl liked to keep things old-school. “No change in the account numbers, or anything?

  “The money’s fine,” Don lied. It hadn’t covered half of his bills even ten years ago, and the forty-year-old agreement didn’t even provide for an inflation-based increase. These days, a month of Sir Thomas’ generosity wouldn’t have bought a bottle of whisky. Even the cheap stuff. “Actually, I’m calling about something else. I’ve got a question about one of Sir Thomas’ possessions.”

  Carl clicked a pen. “Oh?” he asked warily.

  “There was a desk. A rare collectors’ piece.” Don picked up the best picture he’d found, printed from a website on antique furniture. “I’m probably going to say this wrong, and I can barely spell it, but the designer’s name was…”

  “Ezekiel Satterthwaite,” Carl announced. “I know, it’s a mouthful, isn’t it? Beautiful piece, though. One-of-a-kind, hand-crafted, a stunning example of his work. What do you want to know about it?”

  Don leveled with the lawyer. “What happened to it, Carl?”

  “The desk?”

  Don knew that this was not the kind of question the lawyer would be expecting from the estranged stepson of a wealthy, dead client.

  “That’s right. Was it sold, or does someone in the family have it?”

  More papers shuffled. “Don, would you mind holding the line for a moment? I’ve been the Hughes’ family lawyer for thirty years, but I’m afraid I haven’t memorized every last detail of the estate.”

  “Take your time,” Don said, and took two more painkillers.

  “Right,” Prendergast said, moments later. “I’ve got the will, and the desk is near the top of the list, as you might imagine.”

  “Okay,” Don said. He managed to keep his tone even, but he was trembling with impatience. His fingers rattled quietly on the scratched wooden surface of his coffee table.

  “I’m just tracing the disbursement of assets,” Carl explained. “Desk….desk…. where are you, desk?” he muttered, flipping pages. “Ah-hah! Right, yes. I remember now.”

  Don waited, his nerves jangling.

  “It’s on Jersey.”

  Don blinked hard. “Eh?”

  “Yes, I remember now. Sir Thomas left strict instructions,” Carl explained. “On his death, the Satterthwaite Desk was to be bequeathed in perpetuity and without further family discussion to the Jersey Heritage Museum, where it was to be displayed in honor of the craftsman’s connection with the Bailiwick of Jersey.”

  “Hang on,” Don said, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Are you talking about New Jersey, in America?”

  “No, no. The island near France,” Prendergast clarified. “Satterthwaite’s father was born on Jersey, and though the great man kept his workshop in London – logically enough, I suppose – he retired to the island and died there. Some time in the 1820s, I believe.”

  This was hardly the worst case scenario, but it wasn’t a straightforward outcome, either. “So, it’s on display at a museum? On Jersey?” Don asked.

  “Indeed. Damned difficult to get it there, as I recall now. Your father,” he began, “Sir Thomas, that is, felt strongly that the museum should have an important Satterthwaite piece. I haven’t been to the museum, but one can guess that such an elegant, seminal work now has pride of place in their collection. Um, may I ask as to the nature of your inquiry?”

  “Oh, you know, I was just wondering. I’ve been reminiscing and was curious as to what had happened to it.”

  A museum. Don would have given it odds of twenty-to-one. It was a real surprise to him that
Sir Thomas hadn’t kept the valuable desk in his family. Selling it for a quick profit would not have been out of character for his stepsiblings. This was an interesting outcome and also his first lucky break in a long time. “Okay, Carl. That’s very helpful,” Don said, scribbling notes.

  “No trouble at all,” Carl said. “Anything else I can help you with?”

  “Actually, yes,” Don said. “It’s about the stipend…”

  “Well, I’m afraid my hands are tied there,” Prendergast explained. “You see, the agreement is binding, so any alteration has to be co-signed by…”

  “Carl?”

  “Er… yes?”

  “Stop sending it.”

  “I’m sorry?” Carl said.

  “I want you to stop paying it into my account. Send it to a dementia charity.”

  Carl was shuffling papers again. “Really? You’re quite sure?”

  Don considered for one more moment, but then couldn’t resist. “Absolutely sure. Thomas Hughes was a liar, a cheat, and an all-round nasty piece of work. I don’t want any more of his dirty money. Understand? Good.” Click.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  JANICE PUSHED open the double doors with her hip, holding one of them ajar with her elbow as she maneuvered her way through. She held two coffees in front of her. They sat precariously in a cardboard tray. She hadn’t shoved them far enough into their slots, and they were threatening to tip over. Adding to the threat of disaster, the strap of her shoulder bag was slipping down her arm. It was about to make the quick slide to the crook of her elbow, at which point she knew her efforts to keep the coffees upright would be in vain. She awkwardly sidled over to the reception desk as fast as she dare, scuttling like a crab, and lay the coffee tray down on its flat, solid surface. She heaved a sigh of relief.