Jimmy Chambers

Treasure in a Dead Man's Chest

In many ways, Jerry Mason preferred his uncle Julian dead. He’d always been a rather odious character while he was alive; his love for his own voice accommodated perfectly by his tendency to throw the most woeful dinner parties at his chintzy mansion in the Sussex countryside. Jerry would often find himself stuck to the man for hours, listening to some anecdote about world politics (or a chastisement regarding Jerry’s financial situation) while trying to distract himself from Julian’s halogenic breath by counting all the different variations of argyle on the upholstery. Yes, he was not much going to miss the man - this was made all the easier to digest by the fact that all he had received at the reading of the wills earlier that week was a smug-looking china piggy bank containing small change from most of the countries that had made up the British Empire. Half of them weren’t even in circulation anymore! A fiscal dig from beyond the grave, from a man who seemed to have a bottomless bank account nonetheless.