BooksBarbecue
Back The Favor Save as PDF
Chapters (78)
  1. Title Page
  2. Dedication
  3. Prologue
  4. One
  5. Two
  6. Three
  7. Four
  8. Five
  9. Six
  10. Seven
  11. Eight
  12. Nine
  13. Ten
  14. Eleven
  15. Twelve
  16. Thirteen
  17. Fourteen
  18. Fifteen
  19. Sixteen
  20. Seventeen
  21. Eighteen
  22. Nineteen
  23. Twenty
  24. Twenty-One
  25. Twenty-Two
  26. Twenty-Three
  27. Twenty-Four
  28. Twenty-Five
  29. Twenty-Six
  30. Twenty-Seven
  31. Twenty-Eight
  32. Twenty-Nine
  33. Thirty
  34. Thirty-One
  35. Thirty-Two
  36. Thirty-Three
  37. Thirty-Four
  38. Thirty-Five
  39. Thirty-Six
  40. Thirty-Seven
  41. Thirty-Eight
  42. Thirty-Nine
  43. Forty
  44. Forty-One
  45. Forty-Two
  46. Forty-Three
  47. Forty-Four
  48. Forty-Five
  49. Forty-Six
  50. Forty-Seven
  51. Forty-Eight
  52. Forty-Nine
  53. Fifty
  54. Fifty-One
  55. Fifty-Two
  56. Fifty-Three
  57. Fifty-Four
  58. Fifty-Five
  59. Fifty-Six
  60. Fifty-Seven
  61. Fifty-Eight
  62. Fifty-Nine
  63. Sixty
  64. Sixty-One
  65. Sixty-Two
  66. Sixty-Three
  67. Sixty-Four
  68. Sixty-Five
  69. Sixty-Six
  70. Sixty-Seven
  71. Sixty-Eight
  72. Sixty-Nine
  73. Seventy
  74. Acknowledgments
  75. About the Author
  76. Remarkable Praise for Nicci French
  77. Also by Nicci French
  78. About the Publisher

Jude laid the piece of paper down and rubbed her eyes. There was no way she could do this. She turned to the end of the document where the other executor was identified: Dermot Robert Birch. There was no phone number or email by his name, just an address. He lived about ten miles away from here, near Shrewsbury.

She took a sip of tepid tea and adjusted the pillows, then turned back to the sheaf of papers. Liam had left everything to Danny. If she should predecease him, it passed to Alfie. He had appointed his mother as Alfie’s guardian if both he and Danny died. That was simple enough. Presumably, Liam didn’t own much except the mortgaged house and Jude had no idea what that was worth nor what his other debts might be. She couldn’t imagine him with a pension, investments, money put by for a rainy day.

The last sheets were the handwritten ones, a scrawled list of objects with a name put beside each one, running over three pages: Liam’s bequests. His circular saw to Vin, his acoustic guitar to Irina, his bike to someone called Dessie O’Toole, his fishing rod to his father, his photos and a gold chain to his mother (how her heart would break, thought Jude), his leather jacket to Bjorn Jansson, his chessboard to Graham Matlock, his favorite hat to Bill Friend and his hand-operated coffee-grinder to Megan Friend with thanks for all the coffee she’d made him, his lucky deck of cards to Benny Slater, the small wooden table with steel legs to Peter Cosco . . . Jude’s eye skimmed down the list then, with a small intake of breath, stopped. Between the three-legged stool for Rainer Monk and the two-man tent for Sandy Balkan was the bequest of the wooden bowl he had carved for Jude Winter.

Jude sat quite still, propped up against the pillows, looking down at the papers. Tears stood in her eyes. She felt tired, sad, confused and very alone.

She turned to the final handwritten page. There were a couple more bequests, and then Liam had written that he wanted a secular funeral where everyone should laugh and dance and get blind drunk. He wanted his old leather boots to go on top of his wicker coffin. He wanted to be buried in Walthamstow cemetery with a simple headstone.

Jude put the papers back in the envelope and the envelope on the floor beside the bed. She turned off the bedside lamp and slid down under the covers but as she lay there, she felt something hard against her skin. She pulled off Liam’s carved wishbone on its thin leather thong and laid it on the bedside table beside her. It hadn’t brought him much luck.

Twenty-Four