Inheritance

Rowan Pierce hesitated momentarily with his hand on the worn knocker.

'What's behind door number three?' he muttered, sarcastically. He patted the small black Moleskine in the breast pocket of his jacket and re-assured himself for the umpteenth time that this was all going to be worth it.

The heavy metal knocker made an empty sounding clack on the metal plate, and a second later he noticed the modern doorbell next to the door. His anxiety spiked. Should he have used that instead? Would anyone inside have heard the knocker? Should he ring the doorbell, or was it too soon after knocking that it would make him look like a prick? Should use the knocker again, only louder this time? Maybe...

Maybe he should calm the hell down. He took a deep breath and willed himself to relax.

Through the frosted glass window, he saw a blurred figure approaching clad in bright red. The door opened, and Rowan flushed a similar shade of crimson. The woman who had answered was wearing a complicated-looking piece of red lingerie, made up of expertly tied strings and strategically placed lace. Her hair and make-up were flawless, although, he mused, maybe a bit much for the middle of the afternoon.

He realised he was staring, but the woman didn't seem to mind, and she flashed him a seductive smile.

'Not what you were expecting?' she purred.

'I, uh...no, not really' Rowan stammered.

Her smiled slipped briefly, but she composed herself, and stepped forward to take a playful grasp of Rowan's tie. Rowan was beginning to feel slightly overdressed, and extremely uncomfortable.

'Well perhaps you can help me pick out something else. Or I could just....' she trailed off, and her hands moved to one of the knots which appeared to be holding the whole thing together as though to untie it.

'No!' Rowan exclaimed, and felt his face get even hotter. 'No, I mean you're lovely! I don't mean...But, uh...' His brain wasn't working properly.

The woman frowned. 'You're Mr Farrell? Three O'clock?

The penny dropped. 'Oh!' Rowan managed. 'No, I'm Mr Pierce, I didn't make an appointment.'

'I don't take walk-ins. You have to make an appointment online'.

Rowan closed his eyes and considered just leaving.

'I'm not here for an appointment. I'm looking for Miss Melanie Maguire.' He pulled the Moleskine from his pocket in hopes it would somehow help him explain. 'I'm Rowan Pierce,' he continued. 'My uncle was Edgar Pierce.'

The woman's confusion melted, and she smiled again. 'Oh, yeah I'm Mel. Come collecting, have you?'

This was so weird, Rowan thought.

'Yes, that's right,' he said, relieved she had understood.

Melanie stood aside and waved Rowan inside. 'Just a minute,' she said, as she shut the door behind him. 'Twenty, was it?'

Rowan looked down at the bookmarked page in the notebook. "Melanie Maguire" read the header. Underneath was an address. The rest of the page was covered in text that had been blacked out by one of those inscrutable markers people always seem to use in spy movies. Redacted. At the bottom of the page a note written in an elegant, slanting cursive, read "Owing to Lord Pierce the sum of £25,000".

'According to this it's twenty-five, miss.'

Melanie gave a sly grin. 'Worth a try,' she said. 'Stay put.' She disappeared down the hallway, heels clicking on the faux hardwood. A few minutes later she reappeared and handed an envelope to Rowan.

'Here you are, paid in full. Tell His Lordship it's settled and not to bother me again', she said, extremely casually, considering she had just handed Rowan an envelope full of £25,000 cash. 'I don't expect to see you or any of his little friends again.' She paused, and the seductive smile crept back to her face. 'Unless, of course, you'd like to make an appointment. My business card is in the envelope.'

Rowan blinked.

'Uh... thank you,' he said, not even convincing himself. 'I will think of you next time I...' he trailed off. The blush that had eased off since the doorstep was back. He turned, opened the door, and hurried outside to the street, letting the garden gate slam behind him. He heard a giggle coming from the house as Melanie closed her front door.

Back in his car, Rowan cradled his face in his hands, mortified at the exchange. As far as he knew he had never actually met a prostitute before. Why on earth did one owe his uncle £25,000? He was faintly surprised that she readily had that sort of cash lying around. After a peek at the business card and a quick google search, however, he discovered that Miss Melanie Maguire, or "Miss Scarlett", as she was professionally known, was considered very high class. A quick bit of mental math suggested it wouldn't have taken her that long to obtain the cash.

An hour later back in his flat he tipped the envelope onto his kitchen table. He realised that he hadn't counted it at the time. Would that have seemed rude? He poured large drink from the bottle of inexpensive whiskey on his counter and took a large sip before he sat down to count. It was all there. Flicking open the Moleskine to the page with Melanie's information, he added a check mark next to her name.

The little black Moleskine had been his uncle Edgar's, who had passed away a few weeks earlier. Rowan hadn't been close to his uncle, so it was a surprise when a lawyer had contacted him regarding his inheritance, and even more confusing when the lawyer had handed him the battered Moleskine.

'To my nephew, Mr Rowan Pierce,' the lawyer had read from the will, 'I leave the black leather Moleskine from the safe in my study, and request he read the letter inside inside.' The lawyer had then had Rowan sign a few documents and briskly shooed him out of his office, clearly too busy and important for any questions.

Two thirds of the pages in the Moleskine were full of writing. Each page had a name at the top, followed by an address. At the bottoms of each entry was a sum of money "owing" to Lord Peirce. The rest of the pages were filled with redacted text, as Melanie's had been. Some entries were short, not even filling the whole page, while others were pages long, and all was redacted save for the name, address, and the amount owed. The letter was brief, but it had set Rowan on his strange quest.

Dear Nephew,

This notebook contains details of those who still owe me money. You'll find their details inside. Contact as many as you can within a month of my death and retrieve the cash. I bequeath to you ten per-cent of whatever you recover. At the end of the month, bring the notebook and the money to the address on the last page at ten o'clock in the morning. I suggest you do not attempt to learn the details of the transactions.

Thank you for your help in this matter.

-Lord Edgar Pierce

The envelope had been sealed with a wax seal stamped with his coat of arms. Rowan hadn't known people still used those.

At first Rowan had thought Edgar was playing a final joke from beyond the grave, but as he tallied up some of the totals he realised if he followed the instructions and it was true then he could be in for a sizeable chunk of money. Money that would be extremely helpful. While his uncle had been wealthy, he was not, and London wasn't cheap.

So Rowan had taken two weeks of vacation and started tracking down the names in the book. He didn't expect to have time to complete the list, so he started with some of the larger sums. He vaguely wondered who was getting the rest of the money, but he would find out soon. The due date was the next day.

If Rowan had been mystified when he received the notebook and letter, he only became more confused as he met some of the people who had owed his uncle money. Miss Scarlett aka Melanie Maguire had been a shock, mainly due to her afternoon attire, but others had made her look perfectly normal. The first call had been to Mr Martin Brandon, who owed uncle Edgar £35,ooo. When Rowan pulled up outside the address on Mr Brandon's page, he had to double check the notebook. The dingy, semi-detached house in a dodgy neighborhood surely couldn't be the place. The woman who answered the door said she was the housekeeper, though Rowan couldn't see much evidence of her work. She had curtly informed Rowan that Mr Brandon would not see him, but produced a cheque bearing the correct sum and ushered him out the door. In fact, none of the debtors had seemed surprised, and Miss Scarlett's vague attempt at knocking five thousand off the amount was the most resistance Rowan had come across.

The second house had belonged to an elderly woman named Martha who had force fed Rowan tea and ancient fruit cake in a heavily perfumed sitting room before providing a cheque for £30,000. She had then spent half an hour complaining about the government and the public transit system before Rowan found an excuse to leave.

The third house was nearby and was even more strange. Mr Francis Chisholm, who owed £1500, turned out to be a fifteen-year-old boy who was bunking off school to play video games. £1500 seemed to be a lot of money for a teenage boy to owe to an elderly Lord. He produced cash in a grubby paper bag without bothering to remove his gaming headset and slammed the door.

One person wouldn't open the door and spoke through the letterbox instead. When Rowan explained why he was there, there was silence for a few minutes, and then an envelope with a cheque for £10,000 was pushed through from the inside, with a sticky note on the front that read "go away."

By the end of the month Rowan had visited twenty-two debtors, trying without success to deduce their connection beyond being named in the Moleskine. He couldn't fathom what sort of services his uncle had provided to such a diverse group of people and as he approached the final address he wondered if he was going to get some answers. His GPS led him to the grounds of an abandoned old house an hour outside London. The gates were open, and he parked on the driveway, and got out to wait. Ten minutes later a sleek silver car with blacked out windows rolled into the drive and stopped. The driver got out and greeted Rowan with a handshake.

'Got the money?'

'£150,000,' Rowan answered, bemused. Was the driver the beneficiary or was someone else in the car? He handed the driver the cloth bag he had put the money into, with the Moleskin resting on top.

'Wait there,' said the driver. He got back into the car and shut the door.

Rowan waited for what seemed like ages, feeling the back of his neck burn in the sun. Finally the driver returned, and handed Rowan a cheque.

'Lord Pierce thanks you for your help, and asks that you don't tell anyone about this.'

'Lord Pierce?' Rowan repeated. 'But he's dead!' What was going on?

The driver shook Rowan's hand again, and got back into the car. The gravel crunched as the car began to pull away. Rowan stared. Was his uncle in the back seat? He glanced at the cheque in his hand and recognised his Uncle's signature from the letter. The cheque was made out to him on the correct date for £20,000. Turning it over, Rowan found a sticky note that read "Thanks for your help, I bumped up the reward. Have a nice life! -E"