All of a sudden I was rushing for the bathroom. I made it to the toilet just in time and vomited violently. After I’d flushed, I hastily gathered myself together, washed my face, blew my nose and scuttled down the stairs like a frightened spider. Some sleuth I was. I decided I’d wait for Mr Young outside.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

The atmosphere in the private room in The Dartmoor Lodge was strained to say the least. I sat on one of four upright chairs, facing the table where young Mr Young presided, just me and three other people who wondered who I was and what right I had to be sitting there.

I had to wonder myself. I’d received a phone call from old Mr Young, thanking me on behalf of the family for my efforts in their father’s flat. They had visited it, apparently. He also informed me that I should be present at the reading of the will because I was a beneficiary. I couldn’t imagine what Nick might have left me, or why, for that matter. I commented that it must be quite a recent will and Mr Young replied that yes, it was, and had only come to light in the last day or two, when the family were in the flat looking for something else. Fortunately, he added, and I didn’t really understand the relevance of his words until later, young Mr Young had been present at the time.

I didn’t get a good look at the family at the funeral. They’d been down in the pew at the front of St Andrew’s Church and I’d stayed with the handful of people at the back: Tom and Vicky Smithson, Mr Singh, Ricky, Morris and me.

Nick’s family obviously weren’t expecting anyone but themselves to be attending.

There were no refreshments laid on for mourners afterwards, and they didn’t even wait at the church door to receive our condolences. They just swept off. Mr Singh had to get back to his shop, but the rest of us made our own little party and raised a few glasses to Nick’s memory in the bar at The Exeter Inn.

Now I was close enough to get a good look at the three of them. Helena Burgoyne was in her fifties. She wore an expensively tailored black suit and high heels, but whilst she was certainly not fat, she was too thick through the waist and in the calves to look really elegant. But she was well maintained, her red nails glossy and her blonde hair, cut in a smooth bob, highlighted in shades of caramel that don’t exist in nature.

She sat rigidly upright, staring straight ahead, as if trying to pretend I didn’t exist.