Page 100 of It Always Snows on Mistletoe Square
‘Where could they have gone?’ Ben says, looking up and down the street.
‘I don’t know,’ I reply, my eyes scanning the square. ‘They can’t have simply disappeared, can they?’
I’m about to question Ben further, when suddenly it begins to snow. Huge white flakes float down from the sky, landing all around us.
‘Nowit’s decided to snow?’ Ben says, aghast, trying to peer through the flakes cascading down. ‘Just when we’re trying to find Estelle and Angela!’
A man wearing a long navy wool coat, a burgundy scarf, smart shoes and a trilby hat walks briskly around the corner of Mistletoe Square. He’s carrying a briefcase and he looks a little nervous as he walks towards the house.
‘Oh good!’ He waves to us as he approaches. ‘You are here.’
We both stare at him, and then at each other, as the man pauses at the bottom of the steps.
‘Good evening,’ he says, lifting his hat in greeting. ‘Am I talking to Ms Elle Mackenzie and Mr Ben Harris?’ I’m about to say yes, when he continues. ‘Or would you prefer it if I call you Noelle and Ebenezer?’
‘Who are you?’ Ben asks as I wonder how he knows our real names.
‘I’m sorry, I should have introduced myself first. My name is Henry Foster. I believe you may know of my uncle Christian? He was the solicitor for the late Ms Estelle Christmas, and subsequently the late Ms Angela Jones.’
Twenty-Five
ChristmasHouse,Bloomsbury,London
24 December 2018
While Ben pours two more glasses of whisky from the cut-glass decanter, one for himself and one for Henry, I sit in front of the fire in one of the armchairs, sipping slowly on the glass of whisky that Ben has just handed to me.
As Ben sits down next to me clutching his own glass, I notice his hand is shaking a little. Henry unknowingly sits opposite us in the chair Estelle always chose.
‘I love a real fire in the winter,’ Henry says, warming his hands in front of the flames. ‘Don’t you?’
I can only nod.
‘And your tree,’ he says, gesturing to it. ‘Is absolutely stunning, if I may say.’
‘Thanks,’ Ben mumbles, taking quite a large gulp from his glass.
‘I’m so sorry this has all come as such a shock,’ Henry says, apologising yet again as he has done so many times already since we invited him in. ‘I did wonder if something like this might happen when I turned up tonight.’
‘Can you start again?’ I ask him. ‘What you said earlier outside, it was such a shock, I can’t quite take it all in.’
‘Of course,’ Henry says, putting his glass down on a coaster on the table next to him. ‘My name, as I said before, is Henry Foster, and I work, well, I’m a partner now in Foster and Jackson solicitors – a business set up by my uncle, Christian Foster, in the early 1970s. A few months ago, before my uncle sadly passed away, he showed me this envelope.’ Henry holds up an ageing brown envelope. ‘Apparently we’ve had the original for ten years. Our strict instruction was it should not be opened until 1st December 2018.’
‘Yes, I understood all that,’ I say, looking at the envelope in his hand. ‘But you said your uncle was known to thelateEstelle, and thelateAngela.’
‘Yes, I believe he used to live here in this house with them both when he was a student in the sixties. I bet they had some wild times here, eh?’ He grins, but quickly replaces his amused expression with a solemn one, when Ben and I don’t reciprocate his amusement.
‘But you said the wordlate,’ I repeat. ‘That would suggest … ’ But I can’t bear to say it.
‘That would suggest they had passed away,’ Ben finishes for me.
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Henry says. ‘Estelle passed away ten years ago, and Angela five. My father dealt with the legal affairs of both Estelle and Angela, if I may call them that? He was the one involved in drawing up what is both inside this envelope, and also inside the following three envelopes contained within this one.’
I stare wide-eyed at Ben.This can’t be happening. How can both Estelle and Angela be dead? We’ve just spent the last six days with them here in this house.
‘And what exactly is inside this envelope?’ Ben asks for both of us.
‘Now we get to the interesting part,’ Henry says, not understanding why we’re quite so shocked about all of this. ‘As per our instructions as solicitors, this particular envelope had to remain sealed until 1st December this year. There was great excitement, I can tell you, in the office when the day finally arrived to open it … Anyway,’ Henry continues when we don’t immediately share his enthusiasm. ‘We broke the seal on the envelope and inside we found the first part of our instructions and a set of keys … ’
