Epilogue
Four months later
Sue Hayton had a problem.
A legal problem.
That was usually OK. After all, she was a senior partner in Hayton, Keats and Sheppard, a respected firm of solicitors in Manchester.
Legal problems were what they did. It was their bread and butter.
They dealt with legal problems, and they caused legal problems. It depended on who was paying them. This problem was different, though.
It was a letter.
Not uncommon in a solicitor’s office. The legal profession could only go digital so far. Some things had to be printed on paper, signed in ink and sealed with wax. But this letter was unusual.
It was a dead letter.
She’d inherited it from old man Keats when he retired.
He didn’t say who the client was, and Sue got the impression he didn’t know.
The only thing he’d told her was that on the first Monday of every January, she would receive a phone call.
A man would confirm he was still alive. If she didn’t receive the phone call, she was to assume he was dead.
And if he was dead, she was to open her safe, remove the sealed envelope and follow the instructions to the letter.
The arrangement had worked exactly as old man Keats had said it would.
On the first Monday of every year, a man would call and confirm he was alive.
Sue would acknowledge receipt of his call and wish him a happy new year.
The man would hang up without returning the greeting.
It was rude, although she secretly wished all her clients were as easy to deal with.
But now it was the first Tuesday in January.
And she hadn’t received her phone call.
Which meant the firm’s client was dead.
Sue had retrieved the envelope from her safe and opened it.
The instructions inside were brief and easy to understand.
She was to post the enclosed newspaper clipping to the man named in the instructions.
She wasn’t to add anything. No compliments slip.
No business card. She wasn’t even allowed to use headed stationery. The envelope was to be plain.
The newspaper clipping was old and yellow, but other than that it was perfectly readable.
It was about a fatal hit-and-run. The folio – the publication name that appeared at the top of each page alongside the date and page number – had been snipped off, so she couldn’t tell which newspaper the cutting was from or when it had been printed.
It didn’t look like a national, though. Probably a local.
She doubted it even existed any more. Not that it mattered.
All she had to do was post out the clipping.
As soon as she had, the contract with the mystery client would be complete.
Before she put the clipping into an envelope, she read the story.
It was a sad one. A young mother, mowed down in her prime.
The police were appealing for witnesses.
They were calling it a tragic accident. Everything else in the article was routine.
They had the location and the date of the hit-and-run.
A paragraph about the victim leaving a husband and a young son. There was a number to call.
What wasn’t routine was that the words ‘tragic accident’ had been circled in bold red felt tip. And across the article, in the same bold red ink, was printed a single word.
WRONG!
Sue didn’t try second-guessing the dead letter’s purpose.
It wasn’t her job. Her job – her only job – was to post the clipping to the person named in the instructions.
So she did as she was asked. She found a non-Hayton, Keats and Sheppard envelope and placed the newspaper clipping inside.
After she’d sealed it, she pressed her intercom.
‘Yes, Mrs Hayton?’ her secretary said.
‘I need you to find me someone’s address, Beth. It’s been a few years, so he might be hard to track down.’
‘Of course, Mrs Hayton,’ Beth replied. ‘Do you have a name?’
‘An unusual one,’ Sue confirmed. ‘The man you’re looking for is called Washington Poe.’