Coffee time had already begun the next day when George entered the main hall and approached the table where the two ladies were sitting. True to form they had secured several of the morning papers and were deep into them. “May I join you?” he asked with his hands already on the back of a vacant chair. The papers were lowered in unison. “I have news,” he added.
“That was quick,” Gladys responded, as George sat down and put his arms on the table leaning towards them so that they formed a tight bubble.
“I had a look in the boxes of case notes which I brought here with me and found some material in there. Then I had a go at the official channels.” George’s air of self-importance was a complete contrast to the downcast demeanour he’d displayed for so long. He paused to allow the moment to gather dramatic significance before continuing. “That Charles Willis was indeed the one I remembered. The card belonged to him.” He picked the card out of his pocket and placed it on the table equidistant from all of them. “At the time when the body was found he was out of jail. He was picked up for a series of minor offences after that and served some more time but for the last fifteen years he’s been off the radar. That doesn’t mean to say he hasn’t been up to stuff. It may be the police just haven’t caught up with him, but it looks as though he’s retired.” He produced a piece of paper from the same pocket where the card had been. “I have an address for him. It’s about an hour away from here by car.”
Gladys clapped her hands together. “This is real progress.”
“We’ll have to write to him then,” Cynthia put in. “No other means of contacting him and we can’t just show up on the doorstep.”
“No, that’s true.”
“I’ve thought about that,” George came back in. “My suggestion would be to keep it short, tell him enough to raise his curiosity but not too much.”
“Maybe mention that we’re in a retirement complex,” said Cynthia. “It might put his mind at rest if he thinks he’s dealing with old farts.”
“That’s the ticket. We need him to agree to see you.”
“See us?”
“That’s right—can’t have my name involved. He might well recognise it, which would blow the whole thing. I don’t mind helping with the letter, though, and suggesting the way you conduct the meeting. If we get going with the letter, we should be able to make today’s post.”
The two ladies exchanged glances. “All right,” Gladys offered, “I’ll do a draft we can all look at. Should be able to do that by lunchtime.”
“Fine,” returned Cynthia, “division of labour—once we’ve agreed it, I’ll take it in to the post office in town to make sure it goes today.”
They all bumped fists together—the taskforce was at work!
**
The next gathering was in Cynthia’s kitchen after lunch when they sat around the table scrutinising the draft. Gladys had produced three copies, which read as follows:
Dear Mr Willis,
I am writing to notify you of something to your advantage.
My friend and I were out walking near the retirement complex where we live when we found something which belongs to you and we would like to return it.
Could you please give me a time and date when it would be convenient for us to call at your house.
With best regards
George fiddled with his beard as he rocked back in his chair reading through his copy for the second time. “What do you plan to put at the top of this?” he asked finally.
“Why—our address of course?” Gladys replied. Her tone was probably the one she would have used to some unruly pupil asking a question to which the answer was so self-evident that the mere act of asking it would have been enough to have a few precious marks docked. The self-same pupil would also have been scolded for tipping his chair back.
As if to halt the rebuke in its tracks, George brought the chair back to its rightful position with a thump. “Not a good idea.”
“Why?”
“I think George is probably thinking that we have Mr Willis at a disadvantage, dear,” Cynthia put in. “We know where he lives but he doesn’t have the same knowledge about us.”
“Absolutely,” George confirmed. At that moment Cynthia could well imagine him back in the interview room at the police station throwing the book at some wrongdoer who up to that moment had thought he might have got away with whatever misdemeanour he had committed.
“What do you suggest I put there instead?” Gladys asked. Her voice had abruptly lost the schoolmistress edge and become a little tart.
“Your email address would do—much harder to track down. I would take out the reference to the retirement complex as well, and don’t tell him where you were walking.”
“But I thought we agreed that should go in.” Gladys’s hackles were rising at this criticism of what she had thought was her perfect letter. “To show we aren’t a threat.”
“Well, that’s the benefit of a taskforce, isn’t it? Gives us the opportunity for reflection.”
Gladys was about to object at how her idea of the taskforce was now being hijacked after she felt it had been subjected to ridicule when she first proposed it. However, she thought better of it. “So how do we change it?” she asked sulkily.
“Just take those words out—My friend and I were out walking will do. Don’t give him any clues as to where you were. He’s a villain, remember, maybe an ex-villain but, believe me, once a villain, always a villain.” George rolled the word “villain” around in his mouth like a juicy piece of fruit which he was delaying the pleasure of swallowing for as long as possible.
“Perhaps we should also take out the first sentence,” proposed Cynthia. “It sounds like something which a solicitor would write.”
“Not sure about that,” George rocked his chair back again. “We want to stir his curiosity. Perhaps which may be to your advantage would be better. We don’t him to think you’re coming bearing bars of gold. And what about just regards at the end? We don’t want to be too chummy.”
Gladys dabbed at her eyes with a handkerchief. “I don’t know why I bothered with this—you’re both tearing it apart.”
Cynthia instantly moved towards her and put her arm round her shoulder. “That’s why we put our team together, isn’t it? Three brains are better than one.”
“That’s right.” George’s beard draped briefly on to the table as he got up. “Without you we wouldn’t have had the draft—have to start somewhere.”
They both looked at Gladys, who eventually raised her eyes towards them and nodded in the act of stowing her handkerchief away.
“That’s more like it,” said Cynthia cheerfully. “Now, if you get the final version done and stick it in an envelope, I have first-class stamps and I’ll deal with it. You can put my name on the bottom of it if you like and my email at the top. That would be a really fair division of labour.”
“All right—I’ll give you the finished version to sign.”
“Fine—let me know when you’re done.”
“You know, you could just put the letter in the main hall box for pick-up tomorrow,” George suggested as they stood on Cynthia’s doorstep watching Gladys scurry away. “It would save you having to go out.” He took a glance up at the gradually darkening skies above them. “And we might still have a reply before the next brandy night.”
Cynthia squared herself. “No,” she answered. “Having put the effort in, I want to send it off today.”
It wasn’t long before Gladys tapped on the door with the envelope in her hand. “Do you want me to come with you dear—to the post office, I mean?”
Cynthia shook her head. “This was my part of the deal. I’ll do it.”
It was about a fifteen-minute journey by car to the post office. Cynthia parked carefully between the white lines in the nearby carpark, remembering to take a ticket from the machine, which she positioned in the centre of the dashboard. As she slipped the letter equally carefully into the box after noting that she had made the last collection for the day, she wondered when they might receive a reply. Would it really be in time for the next brandy session as George hoped? Probably there’ll never be a reply, she said to herself. She could think of at least ten reasons why that might be the case. However, she thought on the way back to the car, at least it gave us an objective for a couple of days.
It was always a relief to drive back into the Village and see the gates close behind her. Cynthia smiled. She would have good news to impart over dinner—the letter was on its way.