Case 2 - Episode 10 - Felicity and Harry meet at the office

When Felicity arrived at Harry’s office late in the afternoon, she found the outer door locked.  Had he gone home for the day, was her immediate thought, but then, she knew that he lived in his office, so he may well be inside.

She knocked on the door and waited.  It gave her a minute or so to consider telling him he needed to put some sort of door chime in so the sound of an arriving visitor could be heard in the inner reaches of the office because if he had the door closed between the outer and inner office, it was doubtful if she heard the knocking.

Except…

She knocked louder on the door, much louder, and enough to draw a look from a discrete neighbor who stuck her head out her door to see what was going on.

Felicity was saved from talking to her when Harry opened the door.

“I was coming, you know.  I can hear the knocking.”

“I thought you had the door closed.”

“No.  I was waiting for the delivery person to arrive.  Chinese.  Again.”

She was going to have to do something about his diet because it consisted of noodles, rice, hamburgers, fried chicken, and pizza.  Another year of that he was going to be overweight and have a heart attack.

He stood to one side and let her pass.

“Checking up on me?”  He closed the door and leaned against it.

Felicity took off her coat and put it over the back of Ellen’s chair, then sat in her seat.

“Should I have to?  You are doing as you’ve been told by the doctor?  Resting?”

“As much as possible.  We have a new case, you know.”

“And I hardly think anything is going to happen to your father, that probably hasn’t happened already.  Had I not seen the note, my first guess would be that he’s gone to ground with a new girlfriend.  Corinne seems to think so.”

“So do my brothers at work, and others, though I’m not sure if they’re trying to convince me, or themselves.  It’s a very dysfunctional office.”

“If you don’t mind me saying, you’ve got a very dysfunctional family.  One may very well follow the other.”

Another knock of the door saw Harry go over and open it.

Not exactly what Felicity would do, but it was something else she would have to talk to him about.  A camera outside the door so they could screen callers.

It was the delivery man.  Harry passed the man the money and got a box in return.  Harry closed the door and put the box on the desk where Felicity was sitting.

“I thought you’d drop in, so I got enough for two.”


After setting out the boxes he sat on the other side of the table and they ate.  He had brought two bottles of beer from the fridge in his office.

“So, as you were saying, you visited the office.  Any leads?”

“Ellen, my assistant, is one of Aunt Giselle’s spies, sent here to make sure I don’t get into trouble.”

“She failed badly.”

“No, it happened after she went home.  She doesn’t live here, so you can hardly blame her for what happened.”

“You’re too forgiving.  Anything else?”

“I don’t believe a word my other Aunt, Alicia says.  She hates my father, and I think she believes she should be the head of chambers.  She was quick to take my grandfather’s office when he died.”

“Self-preservation, perhaps.  Who got all the money?”

“There wasn’t any.  My father thought she had squirreled it away the day after he died.  No one will ever really know.”

“She play golf?”

A rather odd question Harry thought.  “Why?”

“You know that character Florenz that I mentioned to your mother, and she said was one of your father’s golfing partners.  Seems he has a connection to a woman named Mandy Prenderville, as apparently does your father.  Do you know anything about the Prenderville’s?”

It was the same name as on the sheet of paper inside the envelope that Alicia Wentworth had given him, and enough to send a chill down his spine.

What the hell had his father got himself into?

© Charles Heath 2020