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Showered, dressed, lightly breakfasted and heavily fortified with both caffeine and nicotine, I was making my way up the flights of stairs in Clunie's apartment block. I knocked briskly. There was no immediate response. Perhaps I should have phoned ahead, but I didn't have her number to hand and, for a girl like Clunie, I doubted this kind of information was available in any publicly accessible directory. And accessing less-public information would have used up a favour which I'd rather reserve for something more important. I was just about to knock again when the door creaked open, a pretty feminine eyeball appearing at the slit so formed. "Findo!" Clunie called out, relief sounding in her voice. She threw the door wide and tugged me inside, closing and bolting the door behind us. What was she afraid of? Perhaps I had rattled her with my call yesterday morning. "I'm so glad to see you," she breathed, standing just a little bit too close for comfort, "I was so worried when you said you had got stuck on the surface. How did you get back down?" "Oh, I have friends in high places," I replied, grinning slightly at my own sparkling wit. Clunie didn't seem to have noticed. "Have you been to the police?" she wanted to know, "What did they say?" "Well, yes. I've spoken with the Captain of Police himself. He didn't give me any particular insights, though." She frowned prettily for a moment. Then her expression cleared, her thoughts evidently moving on to another focus. "Where's Merton's briefcase now?" she demanded, "Is it safe?" "It's stashed in a very safe place," I said, "But there's a problem." "What problem?" she squeaked, grasping my arm and looking wide-eyed at me. She seemed intent on overpowering me with her personality, or something. "Do you know what's in Merton's will?" I asked, gently disengaging myself from her grip and taking half a step backwards. She looked confused. "Will? I didn't know he had a will. Why?" I explained that there was, apparently, a will, and about the conditions for reading it, and the not-at-all-subtle pressure that had been put on me to deliver. "I don't want you to give them the briefcase," she protested, once she had understood, after a little gentle repetition, just what I was being required to do. "I have to do this," I said gently, "I've no choice. It's got to be in the Court of Probate this afternoon. Two-thirty. Otherwise they'll take away my PI licence and quite possibly throw me in jail." All this was more or less true. It was hairy stuff, tangling with lawyers. Any direct opposition is likely to be buried under a welter of writs and injunctions. There were ways around, of course, but I didn't feel like trying any of them just at the moment. "But I promised to look after it for him," she said, with a slight suggestion of a spoilt child being told that she couldn't play with her favourite toy. "And now it will be safely in the hands of the lawyers," I told her, "And I expect his will contains a release for those protections. So you will have done what Merton asked." And, I didn't tell her, it would be in front of a load of extremely reputable witnesses, few of whom truly trusted any of the others, so that nobody could deny knowledge of whatever it was that briefcase contained.
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Part 41