‘Right,’Juliette said, the tone of her voice encouraging him to continue.
‘The public cango in and search the indexes to wills. I want to find out how much moneyJames Coldrick had when he died last year. Something doesn’t add up withthe amount Peter paid me compared with his house and his life.’
Juliettegroaned, slumped into the sofa and switched on the television. ‘Yes,fine. Can we stop talking about this job now?’
‘Yep,’ he said,casting a quick glance at Soraya Benton’s scribbled contact details. Theycould wait until tomorrow. Morton sat beside Juliette, coiled his armaround her back and pulled her in close. He was starting to realise whatthis was not going to be an ordinary research job. His previousemployment had simply been jobs. The Carder job. TheDungate job. The Ashdown job. This one needed a moreappropriate title. The Coldrick Case.
Chapter Three
Friday
On this occasion Morton was happy toconfer the driving seat over to Juliette. Not that she minded. Shehated his driving. She said that he overtook far too much, and far toodangerously; unlike her perfect driving. Her only concession torecklessness was the additional ten percent of speed she knew that she mightget away with if she were ever pulled over by the likes of WPC Alison Hawk orPC Glen Jones. Not that she would get pulled by them, it would much morelikely be Traffic Police, Juliette had explained to him in great detail one dayafter they’d driven past a car accident. They’re not Road TrafficAccidents anymore, they’re Road Traffic Collisions. Car crashes arerarely accidents, Morton.
Juliette pulledinto the Churchill Square car park in the city centre and found an emptyparking bay close to the exit to the shops.
‘Right, I’mgoing to go and look at some clothes,’ she said, climbing from the car. ‘You do whatever you’ve got to do and we’ll meet in Starbucks. An hourenough?’
‘Perfect,’Morton said, as they made their way from the car. He knew that Juliettewould be fine once the magnetism of the shops had worked its magic and pulledher in. Once she set foot over Karen Millen’s threshold it was like she’dpassed into Narnia and time meant nothing. She kissed him and remindedhim of their meeting arrangements, then they parted. He strode quicklythrough the busy shopping arcades, out the other side and along a quiet sidestreet until he reached the Probate Office on William Street, a plain, brickbuilding fronted by a wide run of steps upon which was assembled a collectionof nettled men and women, exiled by the smoking ban.
Morton headedthrough a small lobby area which fed a staircase and several key-padded doorsto which the public were not permitted. He approached a tiny servinghatch, behind which were half-a-dozen suited workers floundering around anopen-plan office, cooled by four industrial-sized fans. Nobody seemed inany particular hurry to do whatever jobs they had been charged withundertaking. Morton waited impatiently for someone to acknowledge him, astiny molehills of sweat pushed to the surface of his forehead. He wipedhis face and emitted a polite cough. Several sets of eyes glanced in hisdirection but only a woman who looked slightly crazed approached thehatch. She had a mop of tightly-permed, bleached-white hair and dark,squinty eyes framed by a bizarre pair of horn-rimmed glasses that could never,in the history of the world, ever have been considered fashionable.
‘Hi, I’d liketo have a quick look at the probate indexes, please,’ Morton said with acourteous smile.
She nodded andsighed. ‘Hang on.’ She disappeared from sight momentarily and thena door opened to Morton’s right.
‘Thank you,’ hesaid, heading into the tiny room with a slight odour of must, where each wallwas crammed with large leather-bound ledgers. It was at least ten degreeshotter in the stifling room than in the lobby area and Morton could feel theperspiration making a break for freedom down his back.
‘Have you beenhere before?’ the lady asked, leading him over to a solitary microfiche reader.
‘Yes, Ihave.’ He had been several times - it was a quick and free way of findingout if someone had left a will and, importantly, how much they’dbequeathed. It would only provide him with basic information – if hewanted more he would need to order a full copy of the will for five pounds.
‘Okay, so youknow that wills 1858 to 1980 are on the shelves and 1981 onwards onmicrofiche?’ she asked, somewhat suspiciously, as if he were beingtested. She pronounced fiche as fish. Microfish, likeplankton.
‘Yes.’
‘Right then,’she said, ‘I’ll leave you to it.’ Except she didn’t. Instead, shestood with her arms folded in the corner of the room, watching as Mortonstarted up his laptop.
When she sawthat Morton was more than capable of switching on the reader all by himself,she sighed and returned to the office, sending a momentary welcome burst ofcool air into the room. He picked up the thick folder of microfiches andselected the first of two fiches, covering wills administered in 2012.
He slid thefiche under the glass slider and the minuscule white lettering on a dark bluebackground became instantly magnified. Shifting the plate around until hecame to the letter C, Morton quickly located Coldrick. Ratherunsurprisingly, James Coldrick was the sole entry for that surname.
Coldrick, James of 15 Westminster Rise,Tenterden, Kent, died 3 January 2012, probate Brighton18 March Not exceeding £780,000, 9851305366G
Mortonwas stunned. He didn’t know what figure he was expecting to see but todiscover that Peter Coldrick, living an austere wartime existence in his drearycouncil house had been sitting on more than three-quarters of a million pounds'inheritance when he died shocked him. Where the hell had his fathergot that kind of money from? The general labourers that he’d everencountered in his genealogical work usually had a pittance at the end of theirlives; James Coldrick conversely had a small fortune.
Thewhite-haired lady suddenly pulled open the door. ‘Found what you werelooking for?’ she demanded. Morton didn’t want the woman to see what hewas looking at and hurried to type up the entry.
‘Yes, thanks,’he answered curtly. She moved into the room and stood behind him, her hotbreath heavy on his nape.
‘Blimey, he didalright for himself, didn’t he?’ she muttered. ‘Did you want thatprinted?’
‘No,’ hesnapped, hoping that his abruptness might make
