The Girl in the Red Dress by Elaine Chong

Author:Elaine Chong [Chong, Elaine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: PublishNation
Published: 2020-04-18T22:00:00+00:00

Richard

Henry Silver, my father’s solicitor, is prompt in getting back to me: a message has been left on my phone to call his office at my earliest convenience. When I ring back, his secretary tells me that he’s free this afternoon and would be happy to meet Julia and me whenever it suits us.

Julia is shopping in Regent Street when I call her.

“Can you get to Shenfield by three o’clock?” I ask her. “It’s a short walk to Silver’s office from the station.”

I press the phone close to my ear to hear her reply because the background noise of traffic muffles her voice. I think she says ‘okay’, but I know she sounds cross, which I find extremely annoying because it was Julia who wanted this meeting. I’m happy to let this half-sister have whatever is legally if not rightfully hers.

I have to spend the remainder of the morning fielding questions from long-suffering contractors about the progress not yet being made at ‘Hotel Albatross’. Yes, the building work finally began this week, but no we won’t need plumbers or plasterers, electricians or painters and decorators until we actually have a pile of bricks that resembles a hotel. Everyone is unhappy except the client although she’s now dithering over colour schemes and flooring materials. It’s at times like this that I wish I were a pizza chef and not an architectural project manager.

Thankfully I manage to get away from the office in good time to drive to Shenfield and meet Julia: she’s travelled by train out of Liverpool Street station, so we don’t actually meet up until she walks through the barrier. She has an anxious look about her, but she greets me in her usual perfunctory way. “I hope it isn’t far,” she says waspishly. “I don’t mind walking, but I only bought these boots this morning and they’re a tad too tight. Couldn’t you just drive us?”

“My car’s parked behind the station already and it’s literally five minutes from here, Julia,” I tell her.

“Oh, alright then,” she says. She quickly moves the conversation onto Henry Silver. “He must be at least as old Daddy would have been if he hadn’t … you know … In Singapore, most solicitors specialise. How can we be sure he knows what he’s talking about?”

“For goodness sake, Julia! You haven’t even met him and already you’re questioning his competence.

“Have you?” she lobs back at me.

“No, but I’m going to assume that Dad appointed him as his solicitor because he trusted him.”

In fact, I’m as certain as I possibly can be that our father wouldn’t have appointed anyone to represent his interests either ante or post mortem unless he was completely convinced that he’d do the job with the same attention to detail that my father would have given it, and my father gave his last will and testament the most careful consideration before he signed it. The old bastard, I think to myself angrily, but I keep this thought to myself – Julia doesn’t need to be antagonised.

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