Bill had been right to predict, shortly before his death, that his relatives – with one possible exception – would be unhappy with the terms of his will. Each of the four would have expected around a million pounds, realised from the sale of his house and engineering firm. So it came as a surprise when Mr Brewster, Bill’s solicitor and executor, read out the first clause of the will.
Each of them had been left only £100,000. Bill’s brother, Tom, stared stonily at the solicitor, his dream of buying a Lamborghini quickly evaporating. Tom’s son, Harry, burst into tears, his ambition to buy a delicatessen in Fulham likewise destroyed. The expression on the face of the badly in debt Jenny, Bill’s sister, changed from happy anticipation to panicky consternation. Only her daughter, Bill’s niece Zadie, continued smiling quietly, as she fiddled with the beads that hung down over her anti-capitalist T-shirt.
Reactions of disappointment changed into ones of perplexity and anger when Mr Brewster proceeded to read out the next clauses of the will. The estimated £3,500,000 remainder of the estate was to be divided as follows:-
1. £2,000,000 to The Jackdaw Trust – a small organisation dedicated to the protection of corvids, especially jackdaws.
2. £1,000,000 for the purchase of six acres of forest in Northumberland, the design by a distinguished artist of a 5 metre tall bronze sculpture of a jackdaw, the construction of this sculpture, and its erection in a clearing in the forest.
3. £500,000 for the publication and dissemination of free copies of a volume of corvid photographs, with an AI-assisted Foreword by Bill.
Mr Brewster looked up from the document on his desk and glanced at the open-mouthed faces of Bill’s sister, brother and nephew. Before any of them could speak, he explained that he had been charged by Bill to read out a letter to them. He cleared his throat and, with some nervousness, began.
‘“Dear relatives, I know that, with the exception of my green, vegan, communist niece, you’ll be disappointed by your legacies. You shouldn’t be. Let me explain.
‘Thirty years ago, you’ll recall, dear brother and sister, I was living in a small, terraced house in Portsmouth, scraping a living as a garage mechanic. One morning, the neighbour’s cat walked across the garden at the back with a bird in its mouth. It dropped the bird when I ran out and yelled at it. The bird was a baby jackdaw, shocked but uninjured except for a cut above the left eye. I put it in a box, fed it and nursed it until it was to fit to fly off.”’
Tom interrupted Mr Brewster: ‘Do we have to listen to this nonsense about a bird?’, he shouted.
The solicitor replied that it was his duty to read out the letter, cleared his throat again and resumed.
‘“A few weeks later, the bird returned. I knew it was Jacko – the name I’d given it – from the scar above its eye. He was carrying a bit of tinsel, which he dropped on the grass, looking at me. It was a present. I’d read about jackdaws that did this to thank people who fed them. Anyway, I gave him some raisins, and off he flew.
This went on for several weeks. Jacko would bring me tinsel, an old metal key-ring, the gold top of a beer bottle … all sorts of things. And I gave him raisins. I became very fond of him, and admired him too. You all know the stories about how intelligent jackdaws are – for example, filling a beaker with pebbles to raise the water level so they can reach it for a drink.
A friend sent me a poem by William Cowper, an 18th century bloke, called ‘The Jackdaw’. He’d happily swap his own head for a jackdaw’s, the poet says. He’s right. The bird couldn’t give a toss about all the silly stuff we humans worry about and waste our time on. All he’s got to say about all that is ‘Caw’.”’
Mr Brewster paused, glanced at the relatives – hatchet-faced apart from the gently smiling Zadie. After another clear of the throat, he returned to the letter.
‘“Then one day, Jacko arrived with something big in his beak. A 1962 Red Submarine Rolex watch. A week later he brought an emerald pendant, then a 20 carat engagement ring … and so it went on. Then it suddenly stopped. Maybe Jacko had been caught stealing a bracelet or something.
I never saw him again, but I’ve never forgotten him. How could I when I owe everything to him? For now you know, dear relatives, how I managed to set up the engineering firm – with the £75,000 I got from a crooked jeweller in Amsterdam for Jacko’s presents.
So you shouldn’t be disappointed with what I’ve left you. Without Jacko, I expect I’d still be a garage mechanic, and you’d have got nothing at all.
Cheerio
Bill.”’
It was fully thirty seconds before anyone in the solicitor’s office spoke. It was Jenny who eventually broke the silence: ‘I knew Bill was going mad the last time I saw him’.
‘Well, I’m bloody well going to contest the will!’, shouted Tom.
‘I was going to buy the delicatessen next week’, moaned Harry, still sobbing, ‘now I never will’.
Zadie, still smiling and fingering the beads hanging down her T-shirt, had just one word to say - ‘Caw’.
