The Sense of an Ending

might settle for “vexatious”. That’s quite strong enough.’
    ‘Right. And on another point. How long does it take to wind up an estate?’
    ‘If it’s fairly straightforward … eighteen months, two years.’
    Two years! I wasn’t waiting that long for the diary.
    ‘Well, you deal with the main business first, but there are always things that drag on. Lost share certificates. Agreeing figures with the Revenue. And letters sometimes get mislaid.’
    ‘Or slip to the bottom of a file.’
    ‘That too, Mr Webster.’
    ‘Have you any other advice?’
    ‘I’d be careful with the word “stealing”. It might polarise matters unnecessarily.’
    ‘But isn’t that what she’s done? Remind me of the legal tag when something is blindingly obvious.’
    ‘
Res ipsa loquitur
?’
    ‘That’s the one.’
    Mr Gunnell paused. ‘Well, criminal work doesn’t often cross my desk, but the key phrase when it comes to theft is, as I remember, “an intention permanently to deprive” the owner of the thing stolen. Do you have any clue as to Miss Ford’s intention, or her wider state of mind?’
    I laughed. Having a clue as to Veronica’s state of mind had been one of my problems forty years ago. So I probably laughed in quite the wrong way; and Mr Gunnell is not an imperceptive man.
    ‘I don’t wish to pry, Mr Webster, but could there be something in the past, perhaps, between you and Miss Ford, which might become relevant, were it eventually to come to civil or indeed criminal proceedings?’
    Something between me and Miss Ford? A particular image suddenly came into my mind as I gazed at the backs of what I assumed to be family photographs.
    ‘You’ve made things much clearer, Mr Gunnell. I’ll put a first-class stamp on when I pay your bill.’
    He smiled. ‘Actually, it’s a thing we do notice. In certain cases.’
    Mrs Marriott was able, two weeks later, to provide me with an email address for Mr John Ford. Miss Veronica Ford had declined to allow her contact details to be passed on. And Mr John Ford was clearly being cautious himself: no phone number, no postal address.
    I remembered Brother Jack sitting back on a sofa, careless and confident. Veronica had just ruffled my hair and was asking, ‘He’ll do, won’t he?’ And Jack had winked at me. I hadn’t winked back.
    I was formal in my email. I offered my condolences. I pretended to happier memories of Chislehurst than was the case. I explained the situation and asked Jack to use what influence he had to persuade his sister to hand over the second ‘document’, which I understood to be the diary of my old schoolfriend Adrian Finn.
    About ten days later Brother Jack turned up in my inbox. There was a long preamble about travelling, and semi-retirement, and the humidity of Singapore, and Wi-Fi and cybercafés. And then: ‘Anyway, enough chit-chat. Regret I am not my sister’s keeper – never have been, just between ourselves. Stopped trying to change her mind years ago. And frankly, my putting in a good word for you could easily have the opposite effect. Not that I don’t wish you well on this particular sticky wicket. Ah – here comes my rickshaw – must dash. Regards, John Ford.’
    Why did I feel there was something unconvincing about all this? Why did I immediately picture him sitting quietly at home – in some plush mansion backing on to a golf course in Surrey – laughing at me? His server was aol.com , which didn’t tell me anything. I looked at his email’s timing, which was plausible for both Singapore and Surrey. Why did I imagine Brother Jack had seen me coming and was having a bit of fun? Perhaps because in this country shadings of class resist time longer than differentials in age. The Fords had been posher than the Websters back then, and they were jolly well going to stay that way. Or was this mere paranoia on my part?
    Nothing to be done, of course, but email back politely and ask if he could let me have Veronica’s contact details.
    When people say, ‘She’s a good-looking woman,’ they usually mean, ‘She used to be a good-looking woman.’ But when I say that about Margaret, I mean it. She thinks – she knows – that she’s changed, and she has; though less to me than to anybody else. Naturally, I can’t speak for the restaurant manager. But I’d put it like this: she sees only what’s gone, I see only what’s stayed the same. Her hair is no longer halfway down her back or pulled up in a French pleat;