Birds Of A Feather Episode 39
The ground floor of the cottage consisted of a kitchen with a small dining area and a reasonable sitting-room in what used to be the shop part of the property.
Rob’s grandfather’s lovely old desk that his father took such a pride in was squashed into a corner of the sitting-room between a large armchair and a couple of packing cases.
The top of the desk was piled high with yet more packing cases.
The only thing that had been unpacked was a silver-framed photograph of his parents in evening dress at some official function.
Rob pushed the armchair to one side to get to the desk, making a mental note to put it back in exactly the same place.
He didn’t want to alarm his mother into thinking there had been a break-in.
He sat down at the desk, searched through the drawers and found what he was looking for.
It was the ledger in which his father kept the company’s accounts (he refused to trust them to a computer) and under that, a folder containing bank statements and correspondence.
The bank statements told their own sad story and confirmed what Alice had predicted.
Heston Buildings Supplies, which had given his parents a very comfortable lifestyle for many years and provided him with an expensive private education, was broke.
The ledger, too, made depressing reading.
Over the last two years, the turnover had fallen off dramatically. A quick glance showed that the company had lost its two biggest customers within a month of each other.
Was it then that Rob’s father had become involved with Brigstocke?
A glance through the bank folder found a letter from the bank confirming that Kevin Brigstocke, who was described as a director of the company, had been added to the list of names authorised to sign company cheques.
Rob remembered how Paloma had described his father’s extreme reaction to the petition she was raising against Brigstocke’s proposed redevelopment of the village pub.
“No wonder you didn’t want Mum to take on the petition, Dad,” he murmured as he flicked through the old ledger, covered in his father’s neat handwriting.
“Seeing as the guy’s your business partner.
“Just who have you got yourself involved with and why? What hold does Brigstocke have over you?”
Rob had been hoping the ledger would have given him some answers. Instead, all it had done was give him more questions.
He was still flicking through it when he heard a car pull up outside.
He crossed to the window and peered out.
A woman was out of her car and was looking across at his van.
For a moment it looked as if she was about to come to the cottage, but to his relief she went to the back of her car, took some bags from the boot and went to the cottage next door.
Obviously she lived there and was home from a trip to the supermarket.
His problem now, of course, would be getting out of the house and replacing the key without being seen.
He watched, simmering with impatience, as she came back out for the next load of shopping.
As he did so his phone rang. He froze as he saw the woman stop and look in the direction of the cottage.
He pulled his phone out to decline the call and stop it ringing and saw that the caller was his mother.
She never called him and only had his number because he’d tried three times to call her today.
But now she was phoning him.
“Mum? What’s wrong?”
“You’d better come quickly,” she snapped. “It’s your father.”
Rob raced out of the house and past the lady with the shopping bags, not caring that she saw him.
Then he jumped into his van and drove to the hospital.