booby traps, no one was hiding behind doors with raised blunt instruments, no one had sent parcel bombs in the post.
I fetched him, and we unpacked. We both took it for granted I would sleep in my old room, and I made up the bed there. I had bought provisions in London to the extent of bread, milk, lemons, smoked salmon and caviar, a diet both of us now considered normal. There was champagne in the cellar and a freezer full of post-Moira TV dinners in cardboard boxes. We weren’t going to starve, I thought, inspecting them, though we might get indigestion.
Malcolm spent the afternoon in his office opening letters and talking to his stockbroker on the telephone, and at the routine time proposed to give the dogs their pre-dinner walk.
‘I’ll come with you,’ I said.
He nodded without comment, and in the crisp early October air we set off down the garden, through the gate into the field, and across to the willow-lined stream he had been aiming for ten days earlier.
We had all sailed toy boats down that stream when we’d been children, and picked watercress there, and got thoroughly wet and muddy as a matter of course. Alicia had made us strip, more than once, before she would let us into her bridal-white kitchen.
‘Last Monday,’ Malcolm said casually, watching the dogs sniff for water rats round the tree roots, ‘I made a new will.’
‘Did you?’
‘I did. In Cambridge. I thought I might as well. The old one left a lot to Moira. And then, after that Friday… well, I wanted to put things in order, in case… just in case.’
‘What did you do with it?’ I asked.
He seemed amused. ‘The natural question is surely, “What’s in it? What have you left to me?”’
‘Mm,’ I said dryly. ‘I’m not asking that, ever. What I’m asking is more practical.’
‘I left it with the solicitor in Cambridge,’
We were wandering slowly along towards the stream, the dogs quartering busily. The willow leaves, yellowing, would fall in droves in the next gale, and there was bonfire smoke drifting somewhere in the still air.
‘Who knows where your will is?’ I asked.
‘I do. And the solicitor.’
‘Who’s the solicitor?’
‘I saw his name on a brass plate outside his office and went in on impulse. I’ve got his card somewhere. We discussed what I wanted, he had it typed up, and I signed it with witnesses in his office and left it there for safekeeping.’
‘For a brilliant man,’ I said peaceably, ‘you’re as thick as two planks.’
Nine
Malcolm said explosively, ‘You’re bloody rude,’ and, after a pause, in what way am I thick? A new will was essential.’
‘Suppose you died without telling me or anybody else you’d made it, or where it could be found?’
‘Oh.’ He was dismayed, then brightened. ‘The solicitor would have produced it.’
If he knew you by reputation, if he had any idea of the sums involved, if he heard you were dead, if he were conscientious, and if he knew who to get in touch with. If he were lazy, he might not bother, he’s under no obligation. Within a month, unless you boasted a bit about your wealth, he’ll have forgotten your will’s in his files.’
‘You seem to know an awful lot about it.’
‘Joyce worked for years for the Citizens Advice Bureau, do you remember? I used to hear lurid tales of family squabbles because no one knew where to find a will they were sure had been made. And equally lurid tales of family members knowing where the will was and burning it before anyone else could find it, if they didn’t like what was in it.’
‘That’s why I left it in safekeeping,’ Malcolm said. ‘Precisely because of that.’
We reached the far boundary of the field. The stream ran on through the neighbour’s land, but we at that point turned back.
‘What should I do then?’ he asked. ‘Any ideas?’
‘Send it to the probate office at Somerset House.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘Joyce told me about it, one time. You put your will in a special envelope they’ll send you if you apply for it, then you take it or send it to the central probate office. They register your will there and keep it safe. When anyone dies and any solicitor anywhere applies for probate, the central probate office routinely checks its files. If it has ever registered a will for that person, that’s die envelope that will be opened, and that’s the will that will be proved.’