Chapter 2 : A Review of the Files

Although thoughts of Erica made it difficult for George to concentrate for the remainder of the afternoon, he finally finished the tax return forms that he was working on for Allison Callow. He'd called her to say they were finished and she'd offered to come around and pick them up. George, wanting to spend his time thinking about the work for Erica, put her off. "No," he said, "don't worry. I'll post them."

Allison had seemed disappointed for some reason but George didn't really understand why and besides he had other things to do.

He picked up the folder that Erica had left behind, catching himself lifting it to his nose to see if it still held a trace of the scent she had been wearing. Feeling foolish, he dropped the file to the desk and opened it.

As he had suspected, Erica adopted an extremely organised approach. The various invoices and receipts had all been categorised and filed together in date order. It was a pleasant surprise. So many of his clients expected him to work his magic on a pile of dog-eared receipts, all jumbled up in an old shoe box.

He went through the entire file. By the time he had finished reading it, a few things puzzled him. There were quite a few bills for construction work. George supposed that was reasonable. Presumably Erica had needed work to be done to set up the consulting rooms. He wasn't sure though, why, there were bills for things like steel bars and heavy balks of timber. The various medical items, the examination couch and lamp for example, were also to be expected he supposed, but he hadn't thought that Erica's therapy service really required that sort of equipment — after all she wasn't a medical doctor or anything, although one of her associates could be, he supposed. And then there were the bills from a local horse tack business. It was all a little puzzling but he was sure that Erica would explain what it all meant. She obviously saw all of these items as legitimate business expenses.

On the other side the revenue aspects of the business looked extremely healthy. All her clients appeared to pay for their therapy sessions in cash. There wasn't any detailed breakdown of receipts from individual clients but from the bank account statement he could see that there was plenty of cash coming in. George could only assume that Erica's therapy was extremely well regarded. Either she was treating a very large number of people or her clients were paying hundreds of pounds for each session. He could quite see how she could afford to dress as she did and run that Mercedes.

With his initial work finished, he telephoned Erica the following day to suggest that they met.

"Good morning, Ms Wilkie," he began. "George Franks here. I've finished looking at those files and I wondered when it would be convenient to have a talk?"

"My," said Erica, "you have been quick. That's very good. Well, I feel obliged to respond similarly. How about this afternoon?"

"Well yes, but we haven't discussed fees or anything yet."

"Oh, I am sure your fees are only fair, Mr Franks. I'm coming back to the offices and driving right past your place at about two o'clock. I could pick you up. That way you can see our offices. I could show you what's there and that will help to put things into a proper perspective, I'm sure. Then I'll run you back."