Wheel of Fire by Hilary Bonner

Author:Hilary Bonner [Hilary Bonner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Severn House Publishers
Published: 2018-08-12T16:00:00+00:00

FIFTEEN

Meanwhile Bella Fairbrother had been fully occupied throughout the day. In the afternoon she kept her appointment with William Watkins, the Taunton solicitor her father had been using for the past year or so, at his office in Hammett Street, Taunton’s premier location for legal and financial professionals.

It turned out, however, that he was rather different to most in his profession. He was well past usual retirement age, for a start. Bella had been told by Peter Prentis, her father’s London solicitor, that this was down to the cost of a number of failed marriages and an even greater number of children.

Prentis had been somewhat scathing about Willian Watkins, and had even indicated that, because of his precarious financial situation, the Taunton solicitor might not be beyond bending the law when it best suited him or his clients. Bella suspected that Prentis had no way of knowing that, and was merely jealous of the man who seemed to have virtually stolen his number-one client. But she certainly would not put it past her father to employ a solicitor he could bend to his will.

Watkins came out into the corridor and greeted Bella at the lift she had taken to his fourth floor office. He was a handsome man, with a full head of silver hair, belying the age Bella knew him to be. He had a gentle smile, and a quiet manner about him.

He ushered Bella in, and gestured for her to sit on an upright chair in front of his desk whilst he sat down behind it facing her. The first thing she noticed was that the west-facing windows had no curtains. Instead, pieces of old newspaper had been stuck over the windows, presumably in order to prevent William Watkins and his clients being blinded by the afternoon sun.

‘I am not sure how I can help you, Miss Fairbrother,’ said Watkins straightaway, placing the tips of his fingers together so that they formed a point upon which he propped his chin.

‘Well, I do understand, and I realise this may be difficult because of client confidentiality and that it’s probably against legal protocol for you to discuss in detail my father’s affairs with me, Mr Watkins, even though he has passed on,’ said Bella. ‘But I am hoping you may at least be able to tell me what papers he has lodged with you here, in particular whether or not there is a will—’

‘No, it’s not that, Miss Fairbrother, it’s not about client confidentiality or anything like that,’ interrupted Watkins. ‘You see, I don’t have anything at all archived for your father here. He took away all the papers I did have almost a year ago, and I haven’t seen them, or your father since.’

‘Did he go to another solicitor?’

‘I couldn’t say, Miss Fairbrother. Although I have a feeling your father employed a number of solicitors over the years – in different parts of the United Kingdom, and probably overseas, and that he deliberately limited what each of us dealt with so that none of us knew the full picture concerning either his business or personal affairs.

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