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I was happy where I ended up, far, far away from the madding crowd, a misquote from the title of one of my favourite books.

One of six siblings, I had three brothers and two sisters, and being the youngest of the six, I was the one the other five gave the hardest time

It might have been because my parents spoiled me rotten, being the surprise, they never expected.  That and much later, when our parents died travelling in a far away and relatively dangerous place, on their way home from visiting me.

That was the day I basically never saw or spoke to them.  In a sense, it was easy.  They were in England, too wrapped up in a squabble over the spoils of an undocumented inheritance, and I was happy being the forgotten son in Africa.

I had never wanted anything to do with family life in England, not living in the large house, the servants, the other properties in Europe, managing the farms, and later as grew older, watching the responsibility of it all slowly crush my father, trying to keep it all afloat while the other five siblings tried to squander the fortune in ways that beggared belief.

He knew what was happening, it was one of the reasons why he came to visit me. I wondered why he had come alone, but it turned out that the day they were both coming, she had got very ill.

It was then he told me that when they returned, the debt collectors would move in, and everything was lost.  He knew it wouldn’t bother me, I had never had any interest in the family fortune or now lack thereof as it turned out.

He had wanted me to return home and sort out the mess, but I declined.  Instead, we spent a few days together reliving old and better times l, then took him back to Nairobi and spent a day with my mother.  It was clear he hadn’t told her.  It would be a shock when they returned, but they would survive.

Except they didn’t return, at least not alive, killed in a freak accident on the way to the airport.  When I sent word home of their deaths, there was not one response from any of the children.

In the end, I made arrangements with the estate manager at their home to send them home to be buried in the family plot.  In a last-minute change of heart, I accompanied them back to England, and then to the Manor House which, when greeted by the Estate Manager, told me that the house had been repossessed by the bank and that everyone had been evicted.

In a final act of kindness, we were allowed to bury them in the family cemetery, in a service run by a priest I’d never seen before, attended by people I could not remember as family friends.  Perhaps the only relevant attendee was a man I recognised, my father’s legal friend, Dobbins.

He only asked one question: Did I have a copy of the last will and testament.  Apparently, my father had come out to discuss it.  I told him he did not, and I did not have anything.  We just talked about the old days, and he left.  He just shook his head and left.

Not one of my brothers or sisters turned up to the service.  Why would they? There was nothing in it for them.  That would come with the reading of the will…oops, there was no will.

You never get what you wish for, and apparently, Lamu Island, about ten hours’ drive from Nairobi in Kenya, was not far enough away.

It was no coincidence that I ended up in Kenya, the brother of my great, great, great grandfather had served in the British army and then retired, and instead of going home, bought a small plot of land on Lamu Island and built a place to spend the rest of his days.

Successive generations made improvements until the line died out, the place came up for sale, and knowing its heritage and connection to the family, I bought it.

It was why, on a bright autumn morning, I was sitting on the front porch staring out across the landscape, paying attention on a car heading along the road that rarely had vehicular traffic.

It could only be heading for one of three places, two further up the road, if it could be called that, to my neighbours, or to my place.  Neither of my neighbours was currently at home, and I wasn’t expecting anyone, so it was either trouble or an unexpected visitor.

I took a few minutes to prepare for any eventuality and then went back to my seat.  The car slowed as it approached my driveway, then stopped.  I could see there was only one person in the car, but it was hard to tell who it might be.

My cell phone rang.

Was it the person in the car?  If so, how did they get my cell number?

There was a phone number but not a name.  It was an English-based cell number, but no name, therefore not someone I knew.

I shrugged and pressed the green button.

“Jeremy?”

It sounded like my sister, Felicity, one year older and the one whom I had the most angst with.  I hadn’t missed her after leaving and deliberately avoided contact since.  I’d be very annoyed if my father had told the others where I was.

I could pretend to be someone else, but it would seem churlish.  I had no doubt it was her.

“Turn around and go home.”

“Can’t.  I flew in with a friend and they won’t be back for two days.  I figure you would at the very least put me up for that time.  We have things to discuss.”

“We have nothing to discuss.  You and the rest of the vultures might, but it has nothing to do with me.  I told Dad I wanted nothing to do with him, his assets, not that he has any, or you lot.”

“That might be what you think is the situation, but exactly the opposite is true.  He didn’t die intestate, nor did he die penniless like he told everyone, and despite your protestations, he left you the lot.  And I’m here to help head off the angry mob.”

As much as I wanted to believe it, this seemed a con to get in the door.  I’d hear her out and then get Adolf, a friend who lived nearby to take her back to the airport.

“Whatever.  You’ve got an hour to prove your case, and then you’re gone.  I know for a fact he had nothing. He proved it when he was here, so whatever you think you know, you don’t.”

“I don’t have any choice.” 

The line went dead, so I guess I would have to wait and see what the three of them had concocted.

I watched the car, and after the phone call, it surprised me that she did not drive in but sat outside and made another call.

I suspect she was calling the siblings to tell them she had found me and was about to plead their case.

It was stupid to think or believe that our father had left anything behind other than massive debts.  There was no way that our mother had left anything because her fortune or lack thereof was tied up in our father’s financial mess.

He had told me quite plainly there was nothing left and that the receivers were moving in the moment he arrived home.

And if her information came from our father’s lawyer, then he had not mentioned anything when I spoke to him.  He has asked if I had a copy of the will, and that I didn’t mean the last will stood which apportioned the estate to the other siblings, excluding me, because he and I had a falling out at the time.

Nothing she said made sense.

Ten minutes passed before the car continued from the front gate to the house.  I remained on the deck, and watched her park the car next to mine, get out, smooth out the wrinkles, and walk up the stairs.

That last meeting, however long ago it was, and it still rankled, and I was angry.  There were not going to be hugs nor apologies for distancing myself from all of them.  I had nothing in common with any of them, and I’d made my views quite plain the last time I saw them all together and didn’t pull any punches.

It was odd that she was here now.

“Don’t get settled,”  I noted she had left her bag in the car.  “State your case.”

I didn’t move, and there was no way she was setting foot inside.

She held out a piece of paper, neatly folded.

“A copy of the will.”

I glared at her and then at it.  “Where did you get it?”

“It was under one of the drawers in his study.”

“Who found it?”

“Jacob.  You know what he’s like?”

“I do.  His most notable trait, forging his father’s signature so he could escape school.  If that’s your evidence, then it’s not.”

I took it, unfolded it, and glanced at the contents.  It was worded like a six-year-old would, and had about ten lines that simply left all his worldly possessions to me.  The writing was scrawled, as were the witnesses’ names I didn’t recognise.

“It’s a forgery.  And he had no worldly possessions.  Who are these witnesses?”

“Dobkins partners.”

“Why didn’t he tell me that when I saw him at the funeral?  Moreover, why did he ask me if I had a copy of the will?”

OK, I could see what might be happening here. The angry mob were throwing a fake, hoping I would proffer the one they believed her left with me that was to their benefit.

This was Andrew’s doing.  He was the most devious of the lot.

I had my cell phone, and I’d put Dobkin’s phone number on it when my father visited.  He had said I would have to talk to him when things got bad.  When they had, I’d expected a call.  He did not.

Was he in league with the siblings thinking there were a few pounds to be made?

I called the number, and he answered.

“It’s Jeremy.  I’ve got Felicity here with some cock and bull story about me being the only beneficiary of a non-existent fortune my father didn’t leave behind, in a will that was obviously forged by Jacob.  I’ll be happy to prove it.”

His response was predictable. “You have a new will then?”

They were all in it together.

“We had this conversation.  There is no other will, and this one I’d rubbish, and you know it.  He died intestate.  If there’s spoilt to be had, the vultures split it between them.  If not, don’t bother me again.”

I hung up.

I glared at her. “Whatever this is, whatever you lot have conspired between you, forget about including me in it. There’s nothing to be bad.  I don’t have a copy of my father’s will.  That’s not why he came here.  While he was here, he told me between Mother and you lot, you have bled the estate dry, and there was nothing left.  Since I was the only one who wasn’t a bloodsucking leech, he thought I might have some idea of how to save the family home.  Short of a miracle, I did not.”

“Then how do you account for this?”

She pulled another neatly folded piece of paper and held it out.

“What is it?”

“A list of assets.”

I took it more out of curiosity than anything else and looked at it.  It had the title ‘Investments’ and was a list of stocks and bonds with the purchase date, and another date, about a month before he came to see me.  Under the latter date was a value.

It was written in the same spidery handwriting that was almost the same in the will but with key differences.  This was his writing. The will wasn’t.

It was the same documents he had shown me when he visited, and he had said when he cadged it all in to pay the debts, it had fallen short by nearly three million pounds.

He’d also shown me the bank documents, including the one that advised that he had a specified period to find that remaining sum or risk foreclosure.

They were still in the satchel the police had delivered along with what belongings he and our mother had at the time of their deaths.  It was all upstairs in the attic, none of which I could find the desire to look at or send home.

I could see now why the vultures thought there were spoils to be had.  That asset list was worth nearly twenty million pounds.

“I bet you and your fellow vultures eyes lit up when you saw this?”

“Only the fact he left it to you, not us.  We all need that money, and as you say, you don’t.”

I shrugged.  “You have spoken to his investment bankers before you came, didn’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

I shook my head.  None of them had any common sense, not where money was concerned, and not while there was an endless well to draw from.  They wouldn’t because none of them considered investing or even saving for a rainy day.

“You’ve come a long way for nothing.  You can stay until your ride returns.  I gave her the two sheets of paper back.  “The will is fake.  The list of investments, he cashed in trying to save the family home.  He fell short by three million.  Is any one of you still living in the house, or did the bank take it?”

She didn’t have to answer.

“Andrew and Jacob set you up, Felicity.  If they came, I’d shoot them without hesitation.  You, I would think twice.  And I think you know that Will was a fake, and that because the bank took the house, there was nothing left.  If you don’t, then perhaps I should shoot you.”

She was sullen over dinner after I showed her around the house.  It wasn’t much, but I never had the same expensive tastes as the others.

They had all worn the mantle of the Lord’s in waiting, pushing that life of privilege to the limit.  It was never a matter of keeping up with the Joneses. They were the Joneses.

Until the well went dry, and it was interesting reading their comeuppance one by one as they found themselves explaining what happened.  Or not being able to, because none of them understood the nature of their problems.  They had spent all their time relying on our father to do it for them.

I knew that Felicity was smarter than the rest of them, she had been the only one who was academically gifted and had aspirations of being, of all things, a jet fighter pilot in the RAF.  Neatly succeeded if there hadn’t been an accident that, in the end, saw her discharged from the service.

From there, she became an airline pilot, an envious job, and how she managed to get to my place. 

It didn’t make sense to me why she would buy into Andrew and Jacob’s scheme, and I tried to draw it out of her.  Perhaps giving her the facts had made her realise what a waste of time the exercise was.

Whatever the reason, she went to bed a very sad woman.

Assuming that she was not going to believe what I had told her, I made that trip to the attic and found my father’s satchel.  I took it down to my study and laid the papers out on the desk.

Then I went to bed.

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©  Charles Heath  2024