FLINDER'S FIELD (a murder mystery and psychological thriller) (22 page)

‘Good for you,’ she said. Her eyes studied the rim of her coffee cup. ‘Whose funeral was it?’ she asked.

George
noticed how her voice changed. A hint of emotion in it.

‘My father’s.’

‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘No need to be. Him and me, we just didn’t get on.
I’d prefer it if they were all dead, every last one of my family. I’d do the deed myself if I had the courage.’ Then he realised what he’d said and smiled an apology.

‘That’s so
harsh. And sad.’ Her tone was genuine. ‘You know, the only thing worse than having a family is not having one.’

‘
Yeah, whatever,’ he dismissed. ‘So what were you doing there? At the church. Funerals aren’t exactly fun things to be around.’

She placed the cup on the table, twirled it round. ‘I was twelve when they buried my dad. I loved him to bits. I guess that’s when it all started to go downhill, for mother, for me.
I miss him terribly. He was like a rock to me. You know, like one of those big rocks they build lighthouses on? Even the strongest seas can’t wash it away. But my dad was washed away. Nothing could stop that.’ She looked at him, smiled wanly. ‘I guess it hurts me to see other people hurt. Your father’s funeral reminded me of my own father’s, I guess.’

‘You said it went downhill after he died. How’d you mean?’ He was being sucked into those eyes, could feel himself being absorbed by them.

‘I was never very good after that. I didn’t handle it well. Depression, tablets, bad behaviour, finally shoplifting… Spent most of my youth in one kind of centre or another for off-the-rails delinquents. Got into more trouble when I got older. I spent time behind bars once. Briefly.’ She glanced up at him. ‘Naughty girl, eh?’

‘Is that why you’re living rough? Are you on the run from somewhere?’

She smiled, but it was a thin affair. ‘I’ve told you enough already. I don’t get why you have that effect on me. Maybe it’s because you’re a writer and I’m star struck.’

‘Yeah, right,’ he said. ‘That would be a first. Nobody’s ever been star struck by me.’

‘You say it like you feel nobody likes you.’

‘Do I? I didn’t mean to. I hate feeling sorry for myself.’

‘Surely there must be someone.’

He shook his head. ‘Just me, and I don’t like me either.’

‘Seems we’re two of a kind, huh?’ she said.

He smiled warmly at her. ‘You know, maybe we are.’

And still Cameron remained unaccountably quiet.

It was after
midnight when George finally arrived home. His mind was buzzing with recollections of his time with Amy. He could not describe what was happening to him. He’d never felt anything remotely like this for anyone. It was as if the woman – a woman who had been a complete stranger but a few hours ago – had kick-started a throbbing desire to live life again, like a monstrous, vibrant, powerful engine that he wanted to let roar. He lay in bed that night, hardly able to sleep, like a kid on Christmas Eve awaiting Santa Claus. The barbs of his sister’s words and their implications were removed, and he felt as if he were floating in a pool of inexplicable elation, warm and comforting.

When he woke up the sunlight was streaming in through the thin curtains, lighting up his old bedroom with a bright, cheery glow he’d never really noticed before. His first thought was of Amy and how he’d like to see her again.

This is ridiculous, he told himself. She came from God knows where, and on the run from God knows what. She might not be who he thinks she is. She might be a damned murderer for all he knew.

But he loved her!

He was surprised at his admission. Can you fall in love so fast, so wholly? It was an alien experience for him, but he could not deny that it was like a drug rushing though his system, making every inch of his being fizz with excitement, aching and longing.

He looked at his bedside clock. 12.20 p.m. Christ, he’d slept in longer than he’d anticipated. But he felt good for it, he thought. As he sat on the edge of his bed, threading his legs into his trousers, there was a light knock at the door.

‘Come in,’ he said, quickly zipping up the fly.

His mother poked her head around the corner of the door. ‘Good morning, George,’ she said, her voice the equivalent of someone testing how cold the water was with the tip of a toe. ‘Did you sleep well?’

He regarded her with mounting trepidation that wiped the edge off his good humour. ‘Sure,’ he said, turning away from her to get his shirt.

‘A parcel came for you this morning,’ she said, handing him a Jiffy Bag.

He took it, glancing at the postmark. It had to contain the Sylvia Tredwin tapes sent by Patricia Talbot, he thought. ‘Thanks.’

‘George…’ she said.

‘Yes?’

She smiled. ‘Nothing. Nothing, really. I… we’d like to have a word with you, when you come downstairs.’

‘We?’

‘The family. Your Uncle Gary and
Robert are here.’

‘What for? What do you need to talk to me about?’

She maintained the warm but decidedly forced smile. ‘Oh, just a few things. When you’re ready.’

Puzzled, he finished getting dressed and ripped open the packet. There were two
audio tapes inside – the old-fashioned kind, the sort he used to use to record stuff from the radio when he was a kid. There were no markings on them, no letter or other information included with them. Looking for somewhere safe to put them, he slipped the tape-cassettes into his coat pocket that he’d slung over the back of a chair in the bedroom, thinking about how he might play them. Tapes had gone out of fashion a while ago. He thought he remembered seeing an old hi-fi unit up in his father’s loft. That had a tape deck. He wondered whether it still worked or not.

He went downstairs to the kitchen. Sat around the table were his mother, both his uncles, and Amelia.

‘What’s all this, the Spanish Inquisition?’ He didn’t smile or even acknowledge them properly. He went to a cupboard and took out a box of cereals.

‘
George, I think it’s time we all sat down and talked,’ said his Uncle Robert.

George swung the fridge door open, grabbing the milk. ‘Go ahead, talk, I’m not stopping you.’

‘With you, George,’ said Amelia.

‘I’ve said all I’m going to say to you, sis,’ he returned abruptly. He saw his mother and Uncle Gary exchanging glances.

‘We’re worried about you,’ Gary ventured. ‘Please sit down.’

‘Well there’s no need to be worried,’ George said, feeling himself getting all heated up inside, though he tried to tamp it down. ‘I’m perfectly fine. In fact I’ve never felt better. I’ve met someone…’ It slipped out before he had chance to even think about it.

‘His mother said, ‘What do you mean you’ve met someone?’

He turned and faced them all. Their four faces stared at him like a bank of lights i
n a football stadium. ‘A woman. I’ve met a woman. I like her. I like her a lot.’

‘What, back home?’ his mother said. ‘You never told me.’

‘No, not home, here in Petheram. She’s at the old Tredwin place right now.’ He wished he’d not said anything now. It was foolish of him and he was just getting himself deeper into it the more he opened his big fat mouth.

‘
She lives with Adam and his sister?’ asked Robert, his brows lowering. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Have you seen the place?’ said
Gary. ‘Nobody lives there if you ask me, let alone George’s new girlfriend.’

‘Do you doubt me?’ His Uncle Gary didn’t reply. ‘Look, give it a rest,’ George stammered.

‘So who exactly is she, George, this new woman of yours?’ asked his Uncle Robert.

‘None of your business, uncle,’
George said. He noticed how his uncle’s face had been burnt above the left cheek, not much but enough to look mighty painful.

‘Is she local?’ said Amelia.

‘Like I said, it’s no business of yours.’ He scrabbled around in a cupboard to find a cereal bowl. Gave up and slammed the door shut. ‘Look, what’s going on here?’

‘Is she real, George?’ his mother said quietly.

George blinked. Had he heard her correctly? ‘What do you take me for? Of course she’s real! I wouldn’t make something like that up!’

‘No?’ said
Robert. ‘That’s not quite true, is it? It’s something you used to do a lot of. It’s always been hard to determine what’s real and what’s not real, George, when it comes to you.’

‘That’s so fucking cruel!’ he burst. ‘I was a kid!’

‘Language, George,’ his mother admonished.

‘We think you ought to go and see a doctor
again,’ said Amelia.

‘Screw you! Have you heard yourself? I ain’t going to see any doctor. I’m perfectly fine. It’s you lot I’m getting worried about. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll find out, trust me.’

‘Nothing’s going on, George,’ Gary said, rising from the table and reaching out a hand to put on George’s arm. George pulled sharply away. ‘We just need to have a talk, about your health. We know how stressful it’s been these last few months, if not years, for you. The divorce, your father’s death…’

‘My health? There’s nothing wrong with me, damn you!’

Gary held out a piece of paper. It had been ripped at some point and stuck back together with tape. ‘This is the so-called bank statement you shoved in front of your mother, claiming your father was sending money to Adam Tredwin.’ He watched as George took it and stared at it uncomprehendingly. ‘See, it’s not a statement at all. It’s a utility bill, nothing more.’

George, wide-eyed, mouth hanging open, said, ‘That’s not what I showed her. I showed her a bank statement. She got upset and tore it up.
You saw it Amelia.’

‘I didn’t see a bank statement, George. I only saw a piece of paper you claimed to be one. When mother taped it back together it turned out to be a bill.’

‘That’s a lie!’ George said, his heart beginning to thump.

Gary
shook his head solemnly. ‘Sorry, George, that’s the paper that your mother was given. You imagined it to be a statement. Of course your mother got upset – you’re making all sorts of fanciful assertions at a time when she’s so fragile – your dad has just died and been buried, George. She can hardly hold it together because of that, let alone deal with a son that is imagining things.’

George threw the paper to the ground. ‘I know what I saw! There are more statements, I can get them and prove it.’

‘You mean inside this?’ Robert produced the large envelope George had had in his room. ‘We’ve had a look, George, and they are more of the same, just old bills. You know how your dad was for keeping such things.’

‘That’s not true
! I know what I found. They’ve been exchanged. And the policy that matured, where did the money go?’

Robert
said, ‘Gary went up into the loft and found the policy. It was awaiting payment into a designated account, that’s all. Your father didn’t have time to get around to sorting it out before he died. It’s all sorted now.’

‘What the hell is going on here?
’ George blurted, feeling his defences being breached, his composure starting to shrivel away like ice under hot water. ‘He had connections with Sylvia Tredwin – Amelia said so last night. She said she thought dad was having an affair with him.’

‘That’s water under the bridge,’ said
Gary quickly. ‘A man’s temporary loss of self-restraint, but the main thing is that he stayed with your mother, till the end.’

‘But that would explain why dad ran Bruce Tredwin over and killed him. He wanted to be with Sylvia.’

Robert sighed. ‘There you go again, George, letting your imagination run away with you. Gary changed the car’s wing because it was corroded. There was nothing more sinister going on than that. Isn’t that right, Gary?’

Gary
nodded. ‘That’s right. It was corrosion. Bruce was killed by a hit-and-run person from outside the village. The police said as much.’

‘Oh yeah – and who can believe you?’ George said, thrusting out an accusatory finger. ‘What
’s your connection with the death of Arthur Talbot?’

Gary Cowper looked forlornly at his bro
ther, sighing heavily.

‘Who on earth is Arthur Talbot?’ asked
Robert.

‘
Gary knows,’ said George. ‘Brendan Mollett’s Ford Classic Consul – it was black before you sold it to him, huh?’ he put forward to his Uncle Gary.

‘
Sure it was. So what?’ said Gary, shrugging helplessly.

‘A big black American car was seen
by a witness in the vicinity of Talbot’s body.’

‘What is he going on about?’ said
Gary, looking at everyone sat around the table in turn. He appeared genuinely quite troubled. ‘George, who the fuck is Arthur Talbot? What body?’ Gary threw his hands up in the air. ‘God, George, do you know how much you’re upsetting everyone? We all love you, we all care for you, and we’re all thinking of how best we can help you. But you keep piling fiction upon fiction, till we don’t know what’s real anymore. And neither do you. George, we want you to see a doctor, get some help.’

‘I don’t need help!’

‘But you do, George,’ said his mother, tears in her eyes. ‘Please, for my sake if not for your own. I can’t take you acting like this, not so soon after your father’s death.
Please
, George!’

Feeling like a
helpless, cornered rat, his nerves in tatters, George dashed by them and went upstairs to his bedroom. He slammed the door closed and locked it, leaning on it and panting heavily.

Was it all true? Was he imagining it? Everything?

He sat on the edge of his bed, his head cradled in his hands, and his body rocked back and forth. Was Amy imaginary, too? No, she couldn’t be. She just
couldn’t
be!

Wait, he thought, the tapes!

He went to his coat, and gratefully laid his hands on the two tape-cassettes. Relieved at their solidity, he unlocked the bedroom door. Standing out on the landing he heard the low chatter of concerned voices reaching him from the kitchen below. Planning what to do with him next, no doubt, he thought darkly. He crept across the landing to the stairs to the loft, and climbed them, once more entering his father’s private den. It was obvious that someone else had been up here, sorting through the boxes and files, because a great many of them were missing now compared to how he’d left them.

He soon found out the hi-fi, though, and placed it on his father’s desk, locating a socket in which to plug it in. Pressing the power button, sensing some satisfaction as the amber lights lit up, he took one of the tape-cassettes out of its box and slid it into the drop-down compartment. He pressed play and listened intently as the tape spooled over the heads, a quiet hiss issuing from the speakers.

Nothing. Not a sound. He frowned, taking out the cassette and peering at it. It should be playing now. Fretfully, he slid it back in and pressed play again. Still nothing.

And that’s when he felt something tug at his insides, wrap a cold, clawed hand around his intestines and give them a squeeze. Maybe this was all imagined. Maybe they were right.

He felt hot tears begin to film his eyes.

Then a calm voice floated
over the speakers.

‘Try and relax, Sylvia. Make yourself comfortable. That’s right…
OK, are you ready to begin?’

George heard an affirmation, soft, gentle, nervous.