Apportionment of Blame Read Free Page B

to reality from a place deep inside my subconscious.
    Sitting up, it hit me. The note was meant for me. It was supposed to be me who looked under the bench, not Joyce. Something was going to happen to me, along the lines of what happened to Helen, but they got the wrong person. That is why Joyce was just dumped outside my office.
    But how did they know it was Joyce? I couldn’t figure that one out, so I gave up for the time being and got up, hoping that a shower and some caffeine might kick start my grey cells.
    In the shower I thought some more of what had happened to Helen and who might have caused it. Could it be someone she knew? How could I find out?
    Wrapped in a towel, and with water still dripping from my hair, I retrieved my mobile and called Joyce.
    â€œHi. I had a thought. Did Helen have a computer?”
    â€œYes, a laptop.”
    â€œGreat. Could you bring it with you this morning? It might just contain some useful information.”
    â€œOK. I’ll do that.”
    â€œSee you soon,” and I closed the phone and applied the towel some more to my hair.
    Down in the kitchen I waited for the kettle to boil, wondering again why I was doing this. This detective thing. It was a far cry from the city job I had recently left, and that had seemed the obvious thing for me to do at the time.
    I had my Economics degree and everything seemed set for a successful career. I can’t say I ever enjoyed it, though. Hard, concentrated work and early mornings were never my scene. And fighting for a seat on the seven o’clock train every day wasn’t my idea of fun. Some seem to like it; at least they are happy to tolerate their working lives, but not me. All that stress and aggro to achieve a shortened life expectancy. What’s the point?
    Looking round at colleagues, in what few idle moments I had, I used to wonder what was the appeal. What drew them into the rat race and caught them in the maelstrom of selfperpetuating financial jugglery?
    It was the money, of course, and I was well paid, with a company car, private medical care and all the rest, but I wasn’t happy and became increasingly frustrated as I could see no way out and had no desire to continue going my frenetic, capitalist way until burn-out in my middle to late thirties.
    Then my grandfather died and left me most of the fortune he had quietly built up from his business. Everyone in the family had considered it a small business and the amount he left caused a few eyebrows to lift. The fact that he left me the money lifted a few more.
    We had always been close, my Granddad and I. I got on well with my parents too, but with him there always seemed to be a special bond.
    If I had a problem, he was always the one I turned to. He was the sort of person you could totally rely on, whatever happened. He never apportioned blame, just talked things through and made it possible to find a solution to almost anything.
    The possibility of a private income caused me to reconsider my future, and when I began to feel the City work becoming even more monotonous and tiring, I began to look around for something else to do, preferably something more exciting and worthwhile.
    With this intention, against everyone’s advice and to the horror of my parents, I hung up my black umbrella, took my cell phone and signed a lease on a little upstairs room near Euston Station.
    Granddad would have been great at detective work. It would have been good to have him there now, helping to sort out the conundrum that was Helen’s death.
    I realised the irony of the situation. He was not there to help me, but without him the business would not have been possible in the first place.
    I had no idea how to run a detective agency, but figured it couldn’t be too difficult. Always fascinated by detective novels, movies and TV series, I had some idea how to work things out from clues. Perhaps it might be a bit dangerous at times, but how hard could it be? Just