William smiled, a big cheesy grin. He laughed, wiping the tears from his cheeks with the palm of his hand.
“I don’t want to. But Horatio’s right, it would solve a lot of problems.”
At the thought of it, William’s face seemed to change. He lookedtired. Suddenly, I could see the weight he’d been carrying around.
“Your money trouble. Is it… bad?”
William looked up at the ceiling and closed his eyes. The great bulk of his chest grew as he slowly filled with air, then gently deflated again as he slowly released it. When his eyes opened, the moonlight glinted in his tears. He walked across the room, smoothly sweeping the joint out of my hand and sticking it in his mouth on the way. He reached for his book and plucked out a brown envelope. He passed it to me and sat back against the windowsill, sucking back on the last of the joint.
“Open it,” he said, coughing. “Do you want any more of this?”
I shook my head. “Not without anaesthetic.” He dropped the roach into his glass.
I turned the envelope over in my hands. It was from His Majesty’s Revenue and Customs, the wordsURGENT: DO NOT IGNOREwritten across it in red ink. I’d never seen one like that before. I was horrified.
“You’re meant to open these.”
William waved a hand. “You open it.”
I stared at him, unsure if he was serious.
“Please.”
I slid my finger into the corner of the envelope and extracted the letter. It started out boring enough. Then my eyes landed on the number.
“Holy shit, William, you owe HMRC four point three million pounds.”
He sighed, his shoulders slumping.
“Did you know about this?”
He shook his head. “I knew we owed a lot. I had no idea it was so much.”
I kept reading the letter. “William, you’ve only got like five months to pay this. The deadline is Halloween.”
“That’s fittingly ghoulish,” he said, forcing a laugh. “Perhaps this year I should dress up as a taxidermied version of myself? Being as I’m so completely stuffed.”
I couldn’t imagine having that kind of debt. How was William functioning? This letter was dated weeks ago. Why hadn’t he dealt with this? He was going to lose everything.
“Do you have the money?”
“Nowhere near it.”
“What are you doing about it?”
“Well, I thoughtThe Love Manorcheque would help?—”
“William, that’s not even going to scratch the sides. What else are you doing?”
He looked stricken and lifted his shoulders. “It all helps, right?”
“How did this happen? I thought these sorts of places were always in a trust?”
“It is. But every ten years you have to pay tax on it. My father didn’t leave enough. He might have had a plan to pay it, but if he did, he didn’t tell me. He might have told David, but…”
The tears were silently streaming down his face, along his neck and over his chest.
“William, I’m so sorry.”
