Minerva Ch. 06 of 10

"Oh, by the way, you were ultimately responsible for him being let-go Gilroy. He was supposed to have kept the likes of you away from Minerva."

"I can understand that Lady..."

She gave me a frown, so I tried to correct myself.

"I can understand that Tanya. After all, Minerva and I come from very different..."

"Balderdash Gilroy. Let me assure you that there is only one thing that's important in life; that's being happy. So you work for your daily bread, who gives a cats fiddle? I know that I don't! Two of my husbands, didn't have a penny between them and I had the time of my life whilst I was married to both of them. Oh, I've been widowed four times Gilroy. Each time I married for love, not money... or position, and I don't regret one minute of my life."

Tanya looked thoughtful again for a few moments, then added.

"Well, except for being in the jungles of New Guinea, when Minerva needed me! But this is silly, talking about the past; you want to know why you are here."

"Well, I'm having a little trouble trying to figure what is going on exactly." I replied.

"Gilroy, you are not on a wild goose chase, even if you have been lied to. I have left you very well... looked after, in my will. You are wondering why you're here now, and to be perfectly honest with you, you are here to become my would-be assassins next target. Well we hope you will be!"

As you can imagine I was staring back at Tanya Simpson with my mouth wide open. As I'm sure you would have done as well, if you'd just been told the same thing.

Tanya went on to explain that they had a very good idea of who had tried to poison her. The same culprit was apparently a very good suspect in both the two previous attempts to kill her, that were not so much known about, more suspected. Two, inexplicable, similar cases of food poisoning among dinner guests at her house. On both occasions Lady Tanya had felt unwell herself, but apparently she must have a cast iron constitution.

The plan was simple, after the latest assumed attempt on her life and with the help of certain authorities, Lady Tanya Simpson had been declared dead; if only temporarily. The next move was going to be the reading of her will, in which my name featured prominently.

It was then assumed -- or rather hoped -- that this mystery assassin -- I got the feeling that I was going to be kept in the dark about who exactly -- would be contacted by whoever had employed him... or her, and given instructions to find a method of doing away with me a bit sharpish as well.

Apparently the police and Lady Tanya's security people were pretty sure of whom, on both occasions, and were looking for some evidence to hang a "Conspiring to Commit Murder" charge on, or something like that anyway. By a weird anomaly, charges of conspiring to commit any offence, sometimes hold a greater tariff, or penalty than the crime itself, in the UK.

I can't say that I was very enamoured with their plan myself. But it was assumed, that what was planned to be a very carefully choreographed arrival on the scene on my account, would most certainly instigate a flurry of nefarious activity.

Whoever the villains were, they would have very little time to act, before the will was actually read. I kind-a gathered that theoretically, -- a word that many people have come to distrust -- once the will had been read, then my death would do no one any good, except the beneficiaries of my own will.

I did wonder how all that theory would work in practice, if some other members of Lady Tanya's family were to try to challenge her will in court. But the consensus of opinion seemed to be that the would-be assassin and his/her employers would want to get things over a little less... publicly, than a court hearing.

I had to assume that all likely conspirators were being watched very closely. And I hoped, a lot more clandestinely than my own security was being handled.

End of chapter 06.