But instead, she would be sitting on a train, all alone, hurtling back to Great Torrington and her bedroom. And, more depressingly, to her mother. Ana sighed and moved towards the window. Down on the street below, one of the burly, bare-chested removals men was already hoisting a box into the back of the van. Ana recognized it as the one into which she’d packed Bee’s shoes and felt suddenly and horribly sad.
It didn’t take long to load up Bee’s paltry possessions, and by ten-thirty Ana was waving off Bez, Al and Geoff and watching Bee’s life trundle down Bickenhall Street towards Devon. She had an appointment with Bee’s solicitor at twelve, so she returned to the flat to bid farewell.
Mr Arif was also preparing to leave, slotting paperworkinto the inside sleeve of a maroon leather attaché case and whistling under his breath. ‘So, Madam,’ he said, smiling widely at her now that he was convinced that everything was under control, that the flat was being cleaned and that his Prima Ballerina could happily move in the next morning, ‘now it is all over. Your sister is in boxes and your task is complete. To where are you going now?’
Ana shrugged. ‘Well – I’ve got to see Bee’s solicitor first, sort out her financial affairs, that sort of thing. Then I’m going home. I guess.’
‘And home is?’
‘Home is Devon.’
‘Ah yes! The beautiful English countryside. You are very lucky. Very lucky girl. Maybe if your lovely sister here had stayed in the beautiful English countryside, instead of living here in this cesspool city, then this bad thing here would never have happened?’ He laughed, uproariously, and highly inappropriately, but it suddenly struck Ana that here was a man who may have been with Bee recently, may have had conversations with her while she was living and breathing – and possibly contemplating dying.
‘Mr Arif,’ she began, ‘I, er, didn’t see my sister very much in the last few years. Twelve years, in fact. I just wondered if you’d spoken to her recently or anything. You know – how she’d seemed?’
‘Seemed?’ questioned Mr Arif, his hooded eyes springing open momentarily in surprise, ‘seemed?’ He clicked closed his attaché case and adjusted the cuffs of his shirt. ‘Madam – I find this question very peculiar. If you are asking me how she seemed, all I can say is that she seemed like a very beautiful, very charming tenant who paid herrent on time and who died on her bed and left herself for me to find. Now. I have many urgent appointments and I will have to be leaving you. I thank you for your efficiency and I wish you a safe and pleasant journey home, Miss Wills.’
He turned to leave but Ana had one last thought. ‘The cat, Mr Arif …?’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Bee’s cat. What happened to him?’
‘Ah. The animal. Naughty Miss Bearhorn deceived me for many months with her animal. But her deception was uncovered and now her animal resides with a friend.’
‘Friend? Which friend?’
‘Oh my goodness, Miss Wills. You cannot expect me to be knowing all this minutiae of my tenants. A friend. That is all I know. Now I leave.’
And then he left, the only sign that he’d ever been there the dense fug of aftershave lingering in the living room.
7
Bee’s solicitor worked from a very small office in a very large office block in Holborn and he looked like neither a solicitor nor someone who would be called Mr Arnott Brown. He was wearing a T-shirt for a start. It wasn’t exactly a Megadeth T-shirt, or anything – it was just plain and red – but it was still a T-shirt. (‘I do apologize for my appearance, Miss Wills,’ he’d said when he greeted her at the lift, ‘we’ve just introduced a Dress-Down Friday policy. I can’t say I’m awfully comfortable with it, myself.’) And he looked extraordinarily young. The sun streaming through his office window sat on his smooth pink skin and clearly picked out the sparse, almost prepubescent tufts of hair poking from his chin. He wore a wedding band and on his desk sat photographs of an equally young-looking wife and a pair of photogenic toddlers.
He was very shy and appeared to be having trouble maintaining eye contact with Ana through his spectacles. ‘Yes,’ he was saying, almost in a whisper, ‘your sister kept her financial affairs very much in order. Well, perhaps not your sister, exactly. I’ve always had the feeling that she’d have kept all of her money under her mattress if it had been up to her. But she had a good accountant and everything is as it should be. No debts, no tax bills, no overdrafts. Unfortunately she didn’t make a will. It was something I’d been trying to persuade her to do for a longtime, but she thought it was a, aaah, silly idea. So. All her assets will go to her next of kin who I believe is her, aaah, mother.’ He looked up from his paperwork and directly into Ana’s eyes until she nodded, and then he looked abruptly away again.
‘Yes,’ said Ana, ‘she is, but she’s agoraphobic, you see, she can’t leave the house, so I’m here on her behalf.’
‘I see. I see.’ He began leafing through his paperwork again and pulling out various sheets. ‘Yes – Bee inherited a very large sum of money in 1988. Her father’s maisonette in South Kensington, which she sold for £210,000 and a small cottage in the Dordogne which she sold for a further £12,000. She also had a large sum of money she’d made from a music-publishing deal back in 1985. Around £80,000.’
Ana held her breath.
‘However, Bee appears to have had an expensive lifestyle. Her monthly outgoings were substantial and seem to have eaten into a large chunk of her inheritance. And then’ – he swivelled a large document towards her – ‘she purchased this in, aaah, 1997.’
On top of the document was an estate agent’s particulars – a chocolate-box cottage, painted fondant pink, covered in Albertine roses. £125,000.
‘She paid cash for it. It was the only property she ever bought. She preferred to rent …’
Ana stared at the cottage in disbelief. The writing above the picture named the location as Broadstairs, Kent.
‘ … I think it may have been purchased on a whim, to be frank. As far as I’m aware she never visited it. Shame – it’s awfully pretty, don’t you think?’ He turned it towards himself to appraise it, and Ana could almost see what was in his head: the image of him, his young wife and their two children enjoying lovely weekends away together at the seaside.
‘Can I keep this?’ she asked, staring in wonder at the particulars of the cottage.
‘Well, I, aah, I don’t see why not. I have no need of it.’ He slid it across the desk towards her and she slipped it into her bag. ‘So,’ he said, ‘all in all, including the cottage, your sister’s estate has a net value of around £148,000. Plus, there are still some active royalty accounts which bring in another £1,000-2,000 per annum. Also, there was one other, slightly smaller matter. Your sister had a cat. He was called, aaah, John, I believe.’
Ana sat up straight.