Chapter 41
“Excuse me, I’m looking for Emma Andreyev.” The smart suited man hovered nervously in front of her, a fixed smile on his face. Emma’s chest clenched with fear and she grappled at the gate catch, contemplating shouting for Rohan. “No, there’s no need to be scared.” The man reached a hand out towards her and Emma shied away instinctively. The hand was pudgy, betraying a white collar worker’s smooth skin and a fat wedding ring adorned his left ring finger. He looked familiar. “I promise, I mean no harm, Mrs Andreyev. Christopher...” The man glanced down at a notebook on his hand, “Christopher Dolan told me where to find you. He said you’d be scared and I was to explain myself.” He bit his lip and Emma visibly relaxed at the mention of Christopher.
“Dolan,” she said softly, tasting the name on her tongue. “I didn’t know his surname.”
“Yes, I asked for his help in finding you. I employed Mr Dolan as a private investigator a while ago after the death of my client.”
“Sorry, what? You employed...but I thought Anton asked...”
“Yes! Anton Andreyev.” The well-dressed male took another step towards Emma and then thought better of it. “Mr Andreyev was my client. I’m a solicitor. I was his solicitor.”
Hearing Anton’s name spoken so easily by this formal, clearly affluent man, caused Emma to halt. She gripped the wooden top of the gate and studied him, wariness in her brown eyes. The solicitor was of squat build with a black mackintosh over his smart pinstripes. Dark hair stuck up from his head like the down of a baby monkey and blue rimmed spectacles shrouded eyes peering like a mole’s. “You’re the man, aren’t you?” Emma said with resignation. “He said you would be coming.”
“Who?” The solicitor looked confused. “Oh, my private investigator.” He nodded once and opened his arm, the pudgy forefinger pointing to a black car parked next to the house. “We need to take a small drive. Would you be ok with that?”
Emma glanced back at Rohan’s house with doubt in her eyes. As if slamming the door on her heart, she nodded, acknowledging there was no help available there with the tortured Russian. Rohan Andreyev had problems of his own.
The car was posh and the solicitor kind, helping Emma locate her seat belt catch in the centre between them. She felt underdressed and dirty in his opulent vehicle and pushed the ever present feelings of inadequacy back down. They pulled out onto the Northampton Road and headed south, moving quickly past the new housing developments and finding rolling green countryside. Emma watched as it flew past her window at speed. “Not far now,” her driver said, smiling sideways at her.
“Am I in trouble? I didn’t catch your name,” Emma said.
“Gosh, sorry!” The solicitor reached into a clean cigarette tray and pulled out a business card, placing it carefully into Emma’s hand. “No, you’re not in trouble.”
She held onto it with cold fingers and read the embossed wording twice before allowing it to sink into her brain.
Allen, Holdsworth and Bowes, Solicitors.
“Why did you employ somebody to find me?” Emma asked, confusion evident in her troubled eyes.
“You’ll see,” the man replied. “Two more minutes.”
“Which one are you?” Emma asked, glancing back down at the plush card in her fingers. “Allen, Holdsworth or Bowes?”
The solicitor laughed. “None of the above. I’m not a partner. I just work for them as a solicitor. I’d like to be a partner one day, but it’s a way off. My name’s Kieran Miles, but it will be irrelevant soon. You won’t need to remember my name. Any problems, you just deal with the company.”
“Nice to meet you, Kieran,” Emma said politely, deliberately challenging a statement which rendered him insignificant.
Kieran smiled in acknowledgement as the vehicle sped towards the border between Leicestershire and Northamptonshire. Emma glanced left and spied the beautiful manor house on the hill. The windows looked dark and sad against the watery grey daylight, its red brick taking on a dark sheen as the threatening clouds scudded overhead and threw it into shadow and back out again. An unloved heaviness hung over it, pulling Emma’s mood even further into depression. They passed the layby Emma usually parked in to gaze at the stunning building and then Kieran took his foot off the gas slowing the heavy car into a driveway.
Emma tensed, her legs and back locking up. A set of giant iron gates loomed up ahead, shrouded by a stand of trees either side of a long driveway. Kieran leaned out and pressed something into a keypad after opening his window. With a groan, the gates swung open on an automatic system and the car rolled forward. “No!” Emma gasped, memories of her last trip with strangers. “I’m sorry. This is stupid. I shouldn’t have come.” She grappled for the door handle, pushing with all her might. To her surprise it opened in a rush and she spilled out of the moving vehicle, losing her footing and tumbling onto the hard concrete driveway. The driver looked first astounded and then mortified, his lips opening in an ‘o’ of shock. Emma heard him put the hand brake on and the engine cut as she used her hands against a nearby tree to push herself upright. Fear made her breathing speed up and the world swam around her head, the trees curving into her vision in threatening arcs.
“Mrs Andreyev, whatever’s wrong?” Kieran Miles looked stunned as he rounded the back of the car and slowed down to approach Emma, his mackintosh flapping round his legs. He held his arms out as thought flying, palm upwards like an ungainly blackbird.
Emma wiped her nose on the cuff of her sweater. “I’m so dumb! I got into a car with a complete stranger because I was too proud to just go into the house and ask Rohan for help!”
“I’m not going to hurt you!” Kieran looked horrified. “That’s really not why we’re here!” He cast around him as though expecting armed policemen to jump out from behind the trees lining the driveway. The overhead branches creaked as though in accusation, bending to the freezing cold wind. “Look,” he made a decision. “Let’s leave the car parked here and walk up to the house. We can walk on either side of the driveway and I won’t come near you but it’ll give me an opportunity to explain.” He ran his hand through the spiky hair and looked devastated. “I’ve messed this up. I’ve messed it totally up.”
Emma watched him panic before her, sensing his genuine misery. She still had his business card in her left hand and peered down at it, seeing his name in small type underneath the name of the firm.
Kieran Miles, Legal Consultant.
She hadn’t noticed it before and ran her fingers over the deep embossing of the firm’s name, feeling the names, Allen, Holdsworth and Bowes rubbing against her skin. Emma studied the man in front of her, aware he was more afraid than her. She straightened her spine. “Tell me why we’re here and then I’ll decide if I’m going up there with you. I’ve been here before, anyway.” Emma pointed towards the imposing house on the hill and then looked back at Kieran. His brown eyes flickered in panic and he gulped, struggling to get a hold on his fear triggers. He relaxed his body with a huge effort of will.
“I know you have, Mrs Andreyev. The day of the auction I tried to catch you but you left before I got the chance. Ok, I’ll start at the beginning. My firm is based up the road in Northampton. The senior partner, Mr Allen is solicitor to Anton Andreyev and handled his affairs for just under a decade. He handled the conveyancing on Mr Andreyev’s property purchases and is also listed as the executor of his last and final testament. Mr Andreyev’s theatre company is also considered part of his estate.”
“Theatre company?” Emma shivered in the biting wind and Kieran waved his arm towards the shelter of the huge house up ahead.
“Can we walk and talk?” he asked, drawing his coat around him.
Emma nodded and stuck to the left of the driveway, forcing Kieran to call across to her. Gradually as the story unfolded, she edged closer without realising it. “So when Mr Andreyev sadly died, Mr Allen was informed as the executor of the will. The address we had for you in Wales was amended a few years ago and the will re
written to name only you as his sole heir, but the address in Lincoln proved fruitless.”
Emma stopped. “You knew about my address in Wales? Anton made his will that long ago?”
Kieran nodded with enthusiasm. “Oh yes! Everyone should have a will, even if they don’t have much to leave.” He smiled at Emma, confident with talk of his chosen profession. “A Mrs Lucya Andreyev was also an heir but I understand she passed away?”
Emma nodded sadly. “Yes. Lucya died just over two years ago. I moved back to Lincoln then.” Emma walked, observing the house ahead. “How long is this driveway?”
“Half a mile exactly.” Kieran stated the distance with such precision, Emma wondered if he had the deeds stashed in his copious mackintosh pockets. “So, Mr Allen travelled to Lincoln to visit you and met with...considerable obstacle.”
Emma’s head whipped round, curiosity blossoming in her face. “What do you mean? Because I was already down here, in Market Harborough?”
“Oh, no!” Kieran looked scandalised, his brown eyes round and staring. “Some thug refused to allow him access to the estate you lived on. Our letters went unanswered and there was no phone number for you. Mr Allen’s personal visit was not a positive one! He made a complaint to the local police and they promised to look into it.”
“Sounds like you met Fat Brian,” Emma mused. “But it’s worrying if he was intercepting my post. I never heard anything to suggest he did that kind of thing.”
“The letters arrived back in our office as undelivered towards the end of November, by which time we had already engaged Mr Dolan to find you.”
“Our estate wasn’t very nice and the post office didn’t like sending people out there to deliver mail. Things did sometimes take a long time to arrive. I once had this birthday card which Anton sent in June and I didn’t get it until...” Emma stopped. “It’s hard to believe he won’t be sending me any more cards or funny jokes; that he won’t just turn up unannounced.” Emma sniffed and Kieran poked around in the inside pocket of his jacket. He pulled out a packet of tissues and offered it to Emma. “Thanks.”
The first one tore into pieces and parts of it blew away, dancing over the wide expanse of lawn in front of the house like confetti. The wind tore at the next one as Emma lifted it with frozen fingers but she managed to hold on and dab at her eyes. She handed the packet back to Kieran and he wrestled it into his pocket. “Nothing you’ve said explains why we’re here.” Emma looked at the solicitor with accusation in her eyes.
Fine pea gravel appeared underfoot, littered with weeds and the brown autumn leaves that hadn’t yet blown away on the harsh wind. It crunched under Emma’s boot soles and she winced as a tiny nut of gravel spat up and hit her spitefully on the chin. “I’ve been here,” she said to Kieran, rubbing at her sore skin. “I wandered in and there was this auction. They sold everything.”
Kieran looked at Emma with a coy smile. “I know. I saw you. But we didn’t sell everything.”
Emma shrugged. “Yeah, it seemed such a shame. The auctioneer said the owner died and...” She stopped abruptly. “Who was the owner? Who owned this house? What have I got to do with this?”
Even before the solicitor uttered the name, Emma knew. She paled as the realisation hit her like a force ten gale, shock dilating her pupils until her eyes looked black against her white face.
“This was Mr Andreyev’s home.” Kieran looked at her with sympathy in his face, his head tilted slightly in a there-there posture.
Anton’s house rose above Emma, two main floors and the servants’ attic. An unexpected shaft of sunlight lit the scene, cheering the red brick and making Emma feel as though Anton’s embrace warmed her through the yellow glow. “Why are we here? It’s Rohan you need to talk to, not me.” Emma grew nervous again as the solicitor stepped up to the front doors and placed a key into the lock. A paper label flapped from it, twisting in the breeze.
“Welcome,” Kieran smiled, stepping back to allow Emma entry.
Their footsteps echoed in the cavernous hall and Emma gasped as she looked around. “You lied. It’s all gone! They sold everything!” Her eyes sought out Freda’s dent in the oak paneling but it was too small to see from a distance and Emma gave up. She rounded on the solicitor. “Why am I here? This is nothing to do with me.”
Kieran smiled again and walked down the long corridor to the sitting room. He pushed open the doors to the huge square room which overlooked Market Harborough from its vantage point. The bare wooden floors creaked under his shiny black shoes. “Please, sit down, Mrs Andreyev.” He held his arm outstretched to indicate the window seat. Even the plush cushions were gone, leaving bare, painted wood against cold windows. Emma dragged her feet, not wanting to be confined any further with the stranger.
“Not unless you tell me why. I’ve got my mobile phone; I can call for help,” she lied, remaining standing, her face set stubbornly in a look which resonated of her son’s rare petulance.
Kieran sighed and pulled a sheet of paper from his inside pocket, flapping at it gently until it opened into its full A4 size. He directed his voice towards the window seat and began reading as though Emma was already sitting there in abject obedience. She pouted in the doorway at the weird charade. “This is the last will and testament of I, Anton Stepanovich Andreyev, written in the presence of my executors, Mr David George Allen and Mr Andrew John Holdsworth...”