Oliver had another large measure of Scotch and looked disappointed. Now, safely back home, she called her client.

‘Hi Hettie. How are you?’

 

‘I’m fine, dear,’ Hettie replied, ‘but concerned the brief mention on the television news up here, of a house blast down where you are, could be something to do with us.’ She sounded slightly out of breath.

 

Danielle took a moment to answer. ‘I’m rather afraid it might, and it also seems Ingrid moved in next door to him. Andrew is also on the scene.’

‘Oh, God, no,’ Hettie said softly. ‘Is he OK?’

 

‘He’s OK, Hettie - he’s fine.’ He’s well enough to flirt with me, thought Danielle. ‘I need to get him away from here, though. Can we bring plans forward? Can I bring him tomorrow? It’s too risky if we wait - they’ll find him before long.’

 

‘Of course, of course, as soon as you can. Tonight, or tomorrow.’

‘It’ll be tomorrow, first thing. If we’re on the road and moving, I’ll feel safer.’ Danielle paused for a moment. Hettie said nothing. ‘Hettie, I need to ask you something. I don’t want to appear rude or make it sound that I don’t trust you.’ She paused again. ‘But,’ she finally said, ‘is there anything you haven’t told me that might be important? Anything about Ingrid? Or a police officer called Dixon?’

 

‘I held nothing back,’ said the older woman firmly, ‘and know nothing about what you’ve just said.’ Danielle thought she sounded a little angry.

‘There’s too much going on - so much that makes little sense – it can’t all be coincidence.’

 

She heard Hettie sigh. ‘OK, we’ll set off first thing, but I’ll let Oliver know early in the morning, rather than tell him now. He’s had a lot to take in today and I don’t want to frighten the crap out of him any sooner than I must.’

 

Hettie spoke. ‘Yes, dear, that’s a good idea. Let him sleep first. It’s been a tough day for him.’

Danielle let out a small laugh. ‘You’re in mother mode now. I’ll call when we’re on our way once we’ve crossed the border. Goodnight Hettie.’

‘Goodnight.’

 

Danielle curled up in her favourite chair with a glass of red wine. Just how had she come to be working on such an emotionally complex case? She recalled the first time she and Hettie spoke. The woman had simply said: ‘I want you to find my son.’ Well, that sounded straightforward.

 

After a long journey north and a lengthy interview with Hettie, she had much of the information she needed. She spent a week back-tracking over Hettie’s family details - her family and her husband’s – and that of Hettie’s errant politician lover. Danielle easily pieced together the families, party, and Oliver.

 

Building a picture of Oliver’s father – Mr X as Danielle called him - had been harder. He had died in his 80s and the last 40 years of his life were hazy, to say the least, and he was perhaps best described as ‘off grid’. He simply fell from view when he was 45 – an age when most men would have a career path in full bloom. Danielle carefully considered and checked the possibilities. Was it because of ill health? Had he moved overseas or been in prison? Had he created or created a new identity?

 

It wasn’t easy either to build clear pictures of Hettie and her family, and Andrew Cunningham’s extended family all seemed a little vague, to say the least. It was during a background search of Andrew, the elder’s family she discovered Louise had existed and given birth to Ingrid. She connected those facts to Andrew, the younger; it wasn’t information readily available to her from Hettie. What concerned Danielle was the manner of 80-year-old Louise’s death – she died in a drowning accident at the family estate.

 

A story in a local newspaper explained that she’d been rowing a small dinghy on the lake when it capsized. Danielle’s legal and detective experience flagged this as strange. Why would an 80-year-old woman be rowing a dinghy on her own in a lake? She checked the date of the story. January 2021. January? Danielle was then even more puzzled.

 

There was another thing that puzzled Danielle, about her client and her client’s story about Mr X. She couldn’t remember anything about him other than he existed. The father of Hettie’s child, a well-known politician, was a stranger to her. That, Danielle decided, was weirder than weird.

 

She went to bed but lay restlessly for a couple of hours, slept fitfully and then woke early.

Oliver also woke early and then lay staring at the ceiling. His mind was so jumbled he couldn’t think clearly on any one thing Danielle had said the day before. He remembered that after she left him, around four in the afternoon. He’d wandered around the nearby streets, sat in a noisy restaurant eating a pizza and then came back to the hotel for another whisky. His head was full of facts, figures and details about people who were complete strangers to him. She had taken his world and turned it upside down and inside out. He picked up his phone to check the time. It was nearly 6 am.

 

As much as his adoptive parents had been loving, they had deceived him and, it seemed, for the financial gain as much as anything else. The thought of not being legally adopted or given parentage also troubled him. Did Janet know about Oliver’s proper parents? Did she know anything about how he shared the family nest? Sure, she knew he wasn’t her brother, but had she held anything back? His head was spinning with questions. Ever present, too, was the buzzing in his ears.

 

Did the good outweigh the bad? He shared a happy childhood with Janet, whether she was or wasn’t a legal sister, and with his parents, whether they were or weren’t. There was always ample money; he never went without, but he was never over-indulged. They had sun filled holidays and his friends were always welcome at their home. They were, he knew, more than anything else, good people. But they were dead, so he couldn’t quiz them about anything.

 

Even his ex-wife had liked them, and she didn’t like many people. His children always enjoyed visits to their ‘grandparents’ home, a large Victorian semi in a quiet village in the north of England. How was he going to break the news that grannie and grandad were a sham?

 

It was, he thought, unlikely Janet knew anything more about him, kept secrets or harboured suspicions. After all, she was only a year older. She’d have no recollection of anything but of a baby arriving in the house.

 

He smiled to himself. But, at least now he knew why, as an 18-year-old, he’d towered over his father and mother by more than a foot, and why Janet was so petite, just like her mother.

 

He was the odd one out, the cuckoo in the nest. His physique, his interests, his sense of humour; he couldn’t find traces of himself in anyone he knew in either of his parents’ families.

​

Danielle told him about her client, his mother, alone in an enormous house and often visited by her late husband’s family, all – according to Danielle – positioning themselves for a piece of the action. She believed she was rapidly nearing death, and that, if things continued as they were, her late husband’s granddaughter and great-nephew would inherit. If Danielle could prove the case for her client, then Oliver would inherit.

 

‘Is she dying?’ Oliver had asked the detective.

‘She believes she is,’ said Danielle.

‘Of what?’ he’d asked.

 

Danielle drew a breath and then sighed. She responded softly: ‘Misery and regret, guilt and remorse.’ She smiled at Oliver. ‘Other than that, she’s as fit as the proverbial fiddle – probably fitter. She walks miles, potters in the garden almost daily, helps with village fund-raising events, has a host of male admirers held firmly at arm’s length, looks 20 years younger than she should, and eats well.’ Danielle let out a sigh. ‘I think I’m envious.’

‘Of what?’

 

‘Well, I’m nearly 30 years younger, eat junk food, need hours of sleep just to look awake, and don’t exercise as much as I should. I don’t go out, have no other interests than work, and don’t have any male admirers.’

‘Yes, you do.’ He smiled at her. ‘How old is she?’

‘She’ll be 80 in a month.’

 

‘That’s it, then. You’ve obviously got years to go before you come to your best.’

Danielle threw her head back and laughed.

Oliver asked, ‘And what of the errant politician?’

 

‘Oh, him. He was a naughty boy in so many respects. Unfaithful, a bully, a dodgy dealer who took bribes, and, would you believe it, there were whispers in the secretive, dark recesses of government buildings that he was even a small-time spy.’

‘Small time?’

 

Danielle nodded. ‘Uh huh… peddling little titbits that would never amount too much and were of no consequence to the security services. He didn’t alarm or astound the authorities. They simply watched him, amused.’

 

‘So, he did well in politics then. No bloody use,’ suggested Oliver, ‘and full of his own sense of importance. A bloody fool who believed he was above us all, and, in truth, was clueless.’

Danielle had shrugged. ‘Well, he reached the rank of junior minister, then slid slowly and profitably down the greasy pole until he quietly left politics and retired to somewhere in rural Lancashire. He died a couple of years ago.’

 

So, another person Oliver couldn’t rely on for more information. He was staring at the ceiling as the early morning light filtered into the room through the flimsy curtains.

He had resisted the temptation to call Janet or the children. In fact, he was taking Danielle’s advice. ‘Call no-one, trust no-one, at least for the next 24 hours. I’ll do more research – we need to understand what Janet knew back then or knows now. OK?’ It had been difficult to resist but, somehow, he managed it.

 

He got out of bed and made himself a cup of coffee, and opened a packet of biscuits. Then he pulled back the curtains and sat by the window, watching the town below come to life as he sipped the coffee. ‘Shit,’ he murmured, looking disdainfully at the mug. ‘That’s disgusting.’

 

He gazed out of the window and across the street, where already there were signs of early morning activity. Delivery vans, pedestrians, and one or two cars all passed by a figure huddled in the doorway of a chemist’s shop. In a way, he thought, today is the first day of my life as a homeless person. His thoughts went back to the blast.

 

He’d noticed the blast launched contents from his house into neighbours’ gardens. He sincerely hoped his tome on ancient oriental eroticism landed on Mrs Scantily Clad’s lawn, rather than on the other side, where the ever pompous and correct Mr and Mrs Miserable lived.

What he learned yesterday was that Danielle Skinner was not a hardened, cynical private eye.

 

‘I fell into this almost by accident,’ she’d told him before leaving. ‘I was working as a solicitor and relied on private detectives from time to time to gather info on people. Unfortunately, the solicitor’s practice was my husband’s. He bedded younger women regularly, so I no longer have one of those.’

 

Oliver looked puzzled. ‘One of what?’

‘A husband,’ Danielle smiled at him. ‘Or come to that, a solicitor’s business. My sadness soon passed though, so I guess I wasn’t that much in love or felt connected to him. One day, I went for a drink with the private detective I liked the most. He was an old copper who became a friend. He told me he was packing it in. One thing led to another, and I took over the business, such as it was.’

 

At that moment, his phone ‘pinged.’ It was a message from Danielle. “Sorry, it’s so early and if I’ve woken you, but I need to speak as soon as you wake. Danielle.” It was now 6.30, so he called her.

 

She answered after a couple of rings and sounded wide awake. ‘Thanks for calling so quickly,’ she said. ‘Have you ever been to Scotland?’ she asked. Oliver thought he sensed excitement in her voice.

 

‘Once or twice. Lovely place, overall. I wasn’t too keen on haggis, though.’

‘Well, pack your bags because we’re going. Unless you have something else on today.’

‘I can’t pack my bags. I don’t have any.’

 

There was a brief silence and then Danielle said, ‘Grab a few things and we’ll share my suitcase. You can buy more stuff and a case on the way or when we get there. I’ll drive. You can take a shift or two to give me a break. Is that OK.?’

 

‘Err, it seems sorted,’ replied Oliver. ‘But why? Why are we going to Scotland?’

‘You’re invited to meet the lady in the big house.’ There was a brief silence. ‘Oliver, your mother wants to meet you.’ He didn’t know what to say. ‘It’ll be OK, Oliver. Trust me, please.’ He sat on the edge of the bed. ‘Are you OK, Oliver? Are you still there?’

 

He cleared his throat. ‘Yep, I’m still with you.’ He stared at the window. He was trembling slightly; his eyes were stinging, and his cheeks were wet. ‘And I trust you,’ he murmured.

A little while later he cancelled his week-long hotel booking and paid for the one night.