Chapter 39

“See what is on this key ring? A safety deposit key! At last we have found it.”

“Did Jimmy have a lawyer?” I asked the two of them.

Phyllis answered, “No lawyer he used that I ever heard of, so Sandy suggested her father might be willing to act for me. You work for him, she says.”

“I do; nice guy, for a father-in-law!”

Sandy chuckled, “Yes, twice over.”

It took Phyllis a moment to recall our unusual family links, then she smiled, saying, “I don’t have to bring that up, do I?”

“Good Lord, no!” Sandy said quickly. “Keep quiet about that. You want him to feel good about helping you, not annoyed.”

“So what do I ask him to do for me?”

“Ask him to act for you in sorting out Jimmy’s estate, what there is of it, including where is the mysterious safety deposit box, somewhere or other. He can ask all the major banks if they have a safety deposit box held in his name, and where is it. He can get them to authorise him or you as the widow to access the box and remove the contents before closing the rental agreement as the owner is now deceased.”

“What about other things such as the house rental? It is in his name, I think.”

Sandy was clear about that: “They may be willing to transfer the let to your name, or else they have to give you 28 days notice of eviction. Transferring the tenancy is simpler and cheaper for them.”

“What if I would prefer to rent a room from you, Sandy?”

That caused Sandy to think for a little, as she let the ramifications percolate though her mind. She came to a conclusion.

“Wee are not in the business of renting out rooms, but we might allow you to do so, if we knew what your intentions were towards our Bob.”

I almost spoke, but remembered that Sandy was my love and my mentor, so I left it with her. In fact, I wandered off to look round the house, so as not to get in the way of what might become a hen fight.

Phyllis understood what the real question was, but sidestepped it.

“I am thinking purely in the short term, Sandy, until I get my head together after Jimmy’s death. At one time I believed I loved him, but that got bashed out of me. I was still used to being with him, living with him, much though it pained me. I kept thinking he would improve his behaviour, but he never did. I was probably stupid, thinking I could make things better. He is gone, and I have to mentally and emotionally adjust to that change, but it is not easy.”

“You didn’t ask the minister for help?”

“I did once, but when he came, Jimmy was short with him, and said, “When we need you, I will be the one who invites you, minister. Until then, stay out of our lives.”

“Oh, dear. That was unfortunate. Ask him to come see you again, this time as a widow, and find out how he acts. A minister of the gospel should always be able to forgive, and offer the support of the church again. I am presuming it is the parish minister, McAllister. If you need to apply a bit of pressure, or influence, tell him Sandy is a friend who is helping you. He wants to keep in with us, I can tell you that.”

“He is our minister, at least officially. Jimmy didn’t like me going to church; called the congregation a bunch of busybodies, always nosing around where they shouldn’t.”

“Well, that is one interpretation. Most folk would call it being willing to help and encourage other people. Anyway, give the minister a chance. He may be able to point you in the direction of extra help with your life. After that, tell me how we can help you.”

“So you are not willing to rent me a room in your house of refuge?”

“Phyllis, it is not a matter of refusing, it is a matter of going about things in the right way, the best way. You have your own home to go back to; you don’t need accommodation here for the present, do you?”

Phyllis grudgingly accepted the facts as Sandy explained them, then revealed another factor that she had been quiet about til now.

“So I can’t fuck Bob either?”

“The two subjects are not connected, Phyllis. You want to fuck Bob? If you do, you first cease your contraceptive usage, for fucking Bob also means being prepared to have his baby. He likes the idea of fatherhood. See what I mean?”

“Oh.” Phyllis was silent as she thought on this. “I have to get pregnant if I want Bob in my bed?”

“Try to get pregnant at any rate. Let me be clear, Phyllis. Fucking Bob more than that once means committing to having his baby eventually. If you don’t want that to happen, forget about making use of him for sex. He gets all the sex he wants from us; he doesn’t need you for more sex. It is you that needs him, or someone like him, for you to have orgasms that you missed out on before. The need is yours, not Bob’s.

Have a long think about that. It doesn’t affect us helping you with your life. It just means you don’t get to interfere in our marital bliss unless you want to have a baby as part of the deal.”

“But, a baby? That’s a major change in my life! I’ve never had a baby.”

“None of us have, Phyllis. A major change, eh? So is the fact of your husband being killed, and so is not being battered all the time ... Oh, and the baby gets brought up in Bob’s household after it is weaned. It is his child, remember.”

“But it is my child, too: my son or daughter.” Phyllis was aghast; not so much at the prospect of having a baby, but losing it to the father. Sandy could see she was conflicted.

“These are the conditions; they are not negotiable, Phyllis. Think it over, then,” Sandy ordered, and left her to do so.

She met me in the upper hall, where I was gazing up at the attic hatch, wondering. She brought me up to date on the discussion they had been having, and the ultimatum that went with it. She noted my vertical fascination and asked, “What is so interesting up there, darling?”

“I was just wondering what Jimmy might have left in the attic, that’s all.”

“It is not a wide hatch, Bob. You couldn’t get an armchair up through it, for example. A deckchair, perhaps, but if he wanted to be comfortable, he had had his lounge chair downstairs. Attics are just dead space, mostly.”

“Yes, but attics are useful for storage. Boxes and things, you know; anything you don’t use much but don’t want to throw out can be packed in a box and shoved up there out of sight, and out of your way.”

“You think he has stuff parked up there?”

“Who knows? But I need to get up there and find out.”

“You’ll need a long pole to latch onto that ring sticking from the hatch. There is a hall cupboard along there. The pole might be in it.”

I tried that cupboard, and found the pole standing up in a corner. Beside it was an extending ladder, so I carried both along to below the hatch. I didn’t expect to find a fold-down loft ladder, as this was a council house with only the basics as standard, and I was right. Once the hatch was unlatched, it folded down on its hinge, exposing darkness above. Jimmy had been an electrician, so I thought there would be a light up there with a switch near the hatch. Once I got the ladder in place and myself up to the hatch, I saw the light switch to one side, affixed to a roof support, just as I hoped.

I switched it on, and the attic lit up from two light bulbs, one covering each end of the attic. Everything was exposed, and I could see a row of cardboard boxes down one side of a plank floor down the middle of the attic, flooring that he himself must have laid. The vacant remainder of the flooring was for walking on. The boxes looked to be ex-whisky boxes that hold half a dozen bottles for the retailer, so he probably got them from a shop that was throwing them out. But what was in them?

I levered myself up over the lip of the hatch gap, and then was able to stand, or rather crouch except for the central peak of the attic. I reached the first box and pulled the flaps open. The interior showed plenty of newspaper, wrapping whatever was inside. I tried the first bundle, and it contained a bulky metallic toy lorry, one I had never seen before, and with an American sticker on the side, showing it was an American product, so they probably called it a truck. It was still in the original box it came in which showed it was made by Tonka, whatever firm that was. I had never heard of it, but it sounded Japanese.

I recalled Jimmy’s fascination with children’s toys, so this must be more of the same. But why wrap them up and stick them in boxes in the attic? I wondered for a while. The only possibility that occurred to me was keeping his collection of larger toys in safe storage as an investment.

Perhaps this was his true ‘nest egg’ for the future. How long do you have to keep something before it increases much in value? Twenty years? Then there was the rarity aspect. If an American toy is rare in the UK, then it would be more valued by collectors. This particular design might remain rare and so valuable, if future versions were a different design; even if it was a minor variant. Stamp collectors went crazy over minor defects in a pristine stamp, I knew, and even the old penny black stamps from 1840 were worth something to stamp collectors. A librarian I met one day told me that old deed boxes kept by solicitors for many decades sometimes had bundles of old letters still with the penny black stamps on the envelopes. The stamps were valuable, but worth even more if still on the addressed envelopes, he said, as this gave more information about their usage.

Anyway, here was this US toy, still in its original box, so probably a collector’s item.

I dug through the rest of the cardboard box and found three more of these toys in their boxes: weird! I opened other whisky boxes in turn, and they were all the same. Somehow or other, Jimmy had got in his hands a couple of dozen mint condition US toys. They had to be worth a great deal, even if I had no idea what. This would need the services of a specialist auction firm to advise on this lot.

But I was puzzled. What was a council electrician, albeit a small-time thief, doing with imported toys not on the U.K. market as far as I knew? Where did he get the cash to buy them, and where from? I would guess that they came by ship, and possibly illegally. Perhaps they had been stolen in the US and shipped here to sell where their original provenance was unknown.

In which case, perhaps Jimmy did not buy them, but was merely a go-between, storing part of the haul until the main thieves were ready to offload them to a distributor who had a collector market ready to buy them, questions unasked.

I was beginning to be unhappy with my preliminary conclusions. I returned downstairs to have a look at the exterior door locks, but both front and back looked like 5-lever locks, so pretty secure. I suspected this was standard on council houses, so that any break-in could not be claimed to be due to council laxity.

I took Sandy aside, informed her of my thoughts, and asked her opinion.

She was similarly unchuffed, saying, “If they have heard that he is dead and his wife missing, they may assume the house to be empty. As it is securely locked, the likelihood is they will try to break in via the windows, to retrieve their goods. It would not be safe for Phyllis to be at home, as she has no phone to call for help. I think in the circumstances, she had better stay with us, but she will not get to sleep with you, that’s for certain.”

“I am fine with that, Sandy. I agree that she will be safer away from home. I presume no burglar alarm at the house?”

“Do we have a burglar alarm in our house? No, so I expect the same applies to a council house. We could of course advise the police of the possibility of such a vacant house being a target for burglars. You agree that is advisable, Bob?”

“I do indeed. Who should tell the bobbies? Possibly your father, as he is a respected member of the community. Or even Fergus, speaking on behalf of the business. He can suggest that a tip came to them about a planned break-in, but the exact date and time is not known.”

Sandy smiled. “I think Fergus is a good idea, as if it happens, the police will see him as a reliable informant for the future. We ourselves ought to steer clear of the whole matter, on principle. We don’t want policemen taking too close an inspection of us.”

“Right. Can I leave you to speak to your father or Fergus? I think also it should be you who suggests Phyllis come to us as a safety measure, with restrictions applying. Me inviting her would be too suggestive of sex.”

Sandy grimaced, but saw the sense of that plan.

“Okay. I’ll be muggins and do the lot.”

“Thanks, darling,” I uttered, and gave her a loving kiss to go with it.

That was why Phyllis came home with us, complete with overnight bag. She smiled happily at me while I was driving under the supervision of Sandy, but I couldn’t spare the time to remove the smile by reminding her of the conditions.

The other girls were surprised to see her coming in, so while I escorted Phyllis to her room and warned her I was not available for sex, Sandy briefed them on the break-in threat, and they agreed that her being out of her house was warranted. Phyllis was less put out than I expected about the restrictions, so I assumed she was taking a long-term attitude for now. When I got back, the girls were in the kitchen discussing dinner. I asked if we could have something with rice, and Georgie mentioned we had chicken breasts in the refrigerator, bought yesterday, so we could do grilled chicken breast with a rice pilaf. I was delighted at the idea, and said so. The girls set to as a team and got started, as the whole thing was relatively quick to make, I was told.

Sandy used the phone to telephone her father and describe the findings and their thoughts about what to do. She ended, “We thought you could use Fergus to speak to the police about this anonymous tip-off of a planned burglary. If it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t reflect on you, but if it does, it will be a boost for Fergus with the police in future contacts.”

“Hmm ... good thinking, Sandy. I’ll get Fergus to phone shortly, to get it started. You okay, health-wise?”

“Daddy, my pregnancy has only begun! It is too early for any effect on my body. Stop worrying, Daddy. And before you ask, Georgie is fine as well.”

She decided to leave it at that and not mention Janet and Carol. Her father did not even think of them.

“That’s good. I hope it stays that way ... For both of you.”

“Thanks for helping, Daddy. Bye.”

The next we heard was the following morning when Fergus phoned our new telephone set to tell Sandy that the police had arrested two men who had broken in to a house in Gourock last night and were removing cardboard boxes when the police car arrived and spotted the broken window. Sandy asked how they had noticed a broken window, and he explained that the officers had got out and walked around the house, finding a back window smashed, and opened from the inside after the glass was knocked in. They could hear noises within the supposedly empty council house, so knew that the criminals were still there. One officer went back to the car and radioed for more help, then they waited for the burglars to appear. The thieves opened the front door to make exiting simpler, and they were apprehended easily as they were carrying boxes in their hands.

Sandy faked excited sounds as she congratulated Fergus.

“Did you tip off the police, Fergus? You must have done, if they have told you about what they did.”

Fergus bragged, “Yes, I gave them a phone tip-off, though I was not sure when the break-in was due to take place. It was just as well, as it was that night they were there.”

“So who were they, Fergus? And why that house?”

“That is the puzzling thing, Sandy. You would assume a council house would be hardly worth breaking into, but their target was very specific: It was boxes containing bulky American toy trucks, according to the men in blue. It seems the burglers were hired by a shady dealer in collectibles, and these were toys not yet available in the UK. How the heck they got into that council house is another puzzle.”