Back in the taxi, I was thinking about that chest. Did we check it before it was moved down to the cellar? Of course, we didn’t. I was too worried about the police, and it never occurred to me that someone could’ve been hiding in it. Besides, I was not actually there when a couple of our footmen carried it down upon my request. No, it was crazy, but it’s driving me off the wall now. I had to be sure.
I arrived at the train station on time and gave a generous tip to my indifferent taxi driver. I got on the train and threw myself into the seat. Now I could think a bit.
“Alex?”
I turned my head and saw my old university friend James Harding. His family were our neighbors.
The Hardings had lived in the area where our estate was situated long before Ezekiel Montague arrived but had lost most of their land piece by piece over the years. They had been land-rich but cash-poor and had to make many compromises to stay afloat. They still owned their Baroque-style manor house, Wintersmith Hall, which was built in the late 1600s, but it was mostly uninhabitable due to a lack of proper maintenance and funding. James’s family had been occupying one wing and using the former stables for their needs for as long as I could remember.
Our fathers had been friends until James’s dad passed away seven years ago, but our great-grandfathers had not been. I remembered my father used to tell me that when I became the head of the family, I would have to ensure that the Hardings were always welcome in the house. I used to see James and his family at the parties my parents organized, but we had not been especially close. Perhaps the closeness of our fathers had been the reason why James and I attended the same university, which technically made us close enough to call each other friends. He studied history, while I took business courses. After graduation, we didn’t stay in touch much, though we occasionally saw each other at various events in town.
I had always thought of him as a sloppy nerd with his head perpetually in the clouds. He was a bit shorter than me and paid little attention to either the cleanliness or tidiness of his wardrobe and hair. I remembered once, when I went to his dorm room to pick him up for some event during our university days, marveling at the chaos that cluttered his living space. He pulled a white dress shirt from beneath a pile of shoes, put it on, and declared himself ready to go.
James had started hiding his weak chin beneath a dark beard long before it became fashionable, though food crumbs often got stuck in it like little hostages. His lean body, which rarely saw the inside of a gym, was never particularly attractive to women. After his father passed away, James returned home to help his formidable mother with what remained of their estate, which, as far as I could remember, had never made them much money. After that, I hadn’t seen him much—until today.
“It’s been years,” he said. “How the heck have you been?”
It felt unexpectedly good to see him. I could see a few greasy spots, sauce from burgers no doubt, on his jacket.
“James” I said, “I haven’t seen you since …” I squinted my eyes, trying to remember when it was the last time we’d seen each other.
“Since forever would be the right estimation.” I laughed.
“Come, man,” I said pointing to the seat next to me.
He sat down.
“How’s your back?” he asked.
I’d had a nasty car accident a few years ago when my car’s brakes malfunctioned, and I crashed into a brick wall. I hurt my back, spent some time in hospital and went through an unpleasant recovery therapy after that. I had my car, a Firenze red Range Rover, fixed because it was new at the time and a real chick magnet but had been driving it rarely ever since.
“It’s all right as long as I don’t need to stand for a long time,” I said.
“So, what brings you to this neck of the woods anyway?” he asked.
I didn’t know if I should tell him the reason why I was on the train, but I had a feeling that I needed to share what was on my mind to feel better. Well, at least sharing some of it couldn’t hurt.
“I had a business meeting with Jared Shannon.”
“As in Jared Shannon, the founder of QC Solutions?”
“That’s the one. Trying to get some investors for this project that I have.”
I was trying to be as vague as possible yet attempting to make it important at the same time. It was futile because James didn’t have that much money nor did he have any good connections that could’ve been useful to me, but I couldn’t help it.
James widened his eyes and nodded. Suddenly he looked as if he just remembered something important.
“Hey, didn’t his mother work for your family?” he asked. As a frequent guest at Maple Grove House, he knew most of our staff. When we were kids, we would sneak into the kitchen to steal something that had been “forbidden before dinner.” James would always tag along and enjoy the fruits of our raids, which we would happily devour, hiding somewhere in the park.
“Yeah, he sort of reminded me about that,” I said.
“He did? That’s strange.”
“Why?”
“Well, I would think he’d try to avoid the subject, but it’s been years, and I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.”
“What subject?”
“Oh, that incident with his mother. Don’t you remember? She was fired. She was accused of something. Stealing, was it?”
“What? I don’t remember her being fired.”
“Well, it was just before… you know, Charlie’s disappearance,” James said, scratching his beard and releasing some questionable particles from its depths. “So it wasn’t that important to remember I imagine.”
“Still, it’s interesting why he never mentioned that,” I said mostly to myself, thinking out loud.
“Anyway, how have you been? Do you still date that girl I saw you with last time?” James asked, changing the subject for which I was thankful.
We talked all the way to my stop, reminiscing about our university days, discussing our families, James’s tense relationship with his mother—who kept him around but refused to give him control of the estate—and dissecting my poor choices in women. Although I couldn’t stop thinking about Jared, I made a deliberate effort to keep him out of our conversation. James, never a particularly inquisitive person, didn’t ask me any more questions about my meeting.
When it was time for me to get off the train—James’s stop was the next one—we agreed to catch up in the City the following week. I promptly forgot about that promise as soon as I stepped off the train.