Fatal Legacy by Elizabeth Corley

his wife were playing by different rules, and Neil Yarrell had created so much distance between himself and the mess he knew they would find that Arthur felt very much alone.
    He stared balefully at the orange rent-a-crate in the middle of the floor and cursed the Wainwright-Smiths’ dangerous curiosity. There had never been any trouble before. He, togetherwith their external accountants, had always dealt with the year-end audit very nicely; no awkward questions and just enough testing to make sure that the files looked correct in case they were examined by someone other than their compliant auditors, which they never were. Now Mr Wainwright-Smith was demanding full access to the files, and Arthur knew what he would find – or rather, what he wouldn’t, if he was any good. He would not find the records and ledgers that would make the whole thing balance, simply because the books didn’t balance. Mr Alan Wainwright had known that and had never asked awkward questions. There was no way in which Arthur would be able to sort things out by morning. Neil Yarrell wasn’t worried because he thought that Alexander could be persuaded to be less inquisitive – for his own good. But Arthur didn’t agree. He detected a stubborn streak in young Mr Alexander and a toughness that he thought Neil was underestimating. And as for his wife! Well, he hadn’t met her yet, but by all accounts she was even worse than her husband.
    He glanced nervously at the clock on his desk: in less than twelve hours either Mr or Mrs Wainwright-bloody-Smith would arrive and expect to see that crate full to the brim with orderly management accounts. Arthur picked up the printouts that littered the floor and composed them into piles, sorted roughly by year. At eleven o’clock his phone rang and an irate neighbour summoned him home. He locked his door on the mounds of paper and tried not to think about the morning.
     
    ‘Sally, my dear, what a pleasant surprise. How lovely to see you again. You’ll recall we met at the Hall, just before your wedding?’
    ‘Yes, of course, you’re Neil Yarrell, the finance director. I’ve been looking forward to meeting you again. Alex is busy so he asked me to collect the accounts and take them home so that he can study them tonight.’
    ‘This is my financial controller, Arthur Fish.’ Sally and Arthur clasped hands and locked eyes. An alert observer would have noticed Arthur’s widen momentarily in shocked recognition, but Sally missed it as her gaze moved on restlessly to the crate full of paper behind him.
    ‘Are those the accounts?’
    ‘Yes, all of them. You didn’t need to come in personally, you know, we could have had them sent to the Hall for you like before.’
    ‘No, I wanted to come in, if only to meet you all. Anyway, within a month I shall start work here as Alex’s PA. I’m looking forward to it, but in the meantime he has asked me to help him pull the numbers apart.’
    She smiled brightly, a predator’s grin. Yarrell and Fish glanced at each other with barely concealed concern.
    ‘Wainwright’s is a very complicated company. You might not—’
    ‘Yes, yes, I know all about that. Don’t worry, Alexander and I haven’t yet found a problem involving money that has defeated us.’
    With that she motioned to the doorman hovering behind her, who picked up the crate and followed her out.
    Arthur scurried back to his office and closed the door once again on his bemused secretary. In the privacy of its confines he rubbed his hands with glee. He had her now, the mysterious Mrs Wainwright-Smith. She could pretend all she liked but he had recognised her instantly, and he had only to remember her real name to secure the hold over her that would mean that he would never again have anything to fear from little Miss Sally.
     
    That night Arthur returned from work at Wainwright Enterprises and eased his key into the lock of his wide front door. He put his shoulder gently behind the swing of its weight