Birds Of A Feather Episode 31
Rob put the last of the pots on the cooling shelf, wiped his hands, then went across to the trestle table that served as a desk.
As he picked up the folder of notes, his heart contracted as it always did at the sight of Alice’s scrawled handwriting.
She wrote as she spoke: quick, decisive, brimming with self confidence and with the conviction that she was always right.
But the notes had been for her eyes only: a series of names, references and scribbled diagrams that meant nothing to him.
He sighed. He couldn’t concentrate.
He kept seeing his father lying in that hospital bed, wired up to tubes and monitors.
His mother was at his side. She was there to repel all visitors – and that included him.
“When he comes round, the shock of seeing you could be too much for him,” she had declared.
He looked at Alice’s notes again. Why hadn’t he listened when she’d tried to talk to him about it?
Because he didn’t want to believe, as she did, that his father was involved in criminal activity.
He looked up at a tap on his door. It was Jess.
He’d met her a few times now and she always came across as positive, but now she looked defeated.
Even her hair didn’t have its usual shine, but was scraped back into a careless ponytail.
“Are you OK?” he asked. “You look –”
“A mess?” Her hand went to her hair. “Thanks.”
“Of course not,” Rob replied, embarrassed.
“I’m teasing.” Her smile softened her face. “I’m fine, honest. I just have a few things on my mind. How’s your father?”
“He’s stable, but I feel so helpless. My mum doesn’t want me there because she’s afraid the shock would be too much for him.”
He looked down at the notes spread across the desk.
“Doing this makes me feel I’m helping in some way.”
“Of course. So these are the notes?”
“I can’t make any sense of it. Alice had her own system when it came to taking notes.”
Jess smiled as she leafed through the notes.
“My writing’s no better. She was obviously focusing on Brigstocke.”
“According to Alice, he was my father’s business partner. But Dad always said he’d never take a partner.”
“Briggsy!” Jess exclaimed as she turned a page of the notebook. “I knew there was something about Brigstocke.”
“You’ve met him before?” Rob asked.
“Not exactly. There was a spot of trouble in the village a few months before you arrived.”
Rob nodded.
“Wasn’t a guy charged with manslaughter or something?”
“Steven Taylor.” Her eyes were full of pain. “And the man he killed was my grandfather.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I didn’t know I had a grandfather until I had a letter from his solicitor telling me I was his sole heir, which is how I came to be here.”
“That must have been hard,” he murmured. “But what’s the connection between that and Kevin Brigstocke?
“You don’t think he killed your grandfather, do you?”
“No. That was Steven. He made a full confession.
“I discovered he’d been pushing Maggie, who owns Folly Farm, to bankruptcy and went to the pub to tackle him about it.
“I overheard him talking to someone he called Briggsy and boasting about how he’d killed my grandfather, obviously trying to impress him.
“Briggsy told him the deal they had going was off.
“After that, Steven went mad and was going to burn down the pub, with me and Maggie’s mother, Vanessa, locked inside.”
Jess shivered.
“I’m sorry,” Rob said. “I shouldn’t have asked.”
“It’s all over now and it helps to talk about it.”