The Inheritance (12 page)

‘And I’ll definitely be better off
without a petty, po-faced scrounger who…’

But Emma charged out of the room before
Natalie could finish.

‘Dad, there’s no point,’ Kate said
as she swallowed the last of her coffee.  ‘I haven’t got time to discuss it
right now but I really think you should leave well alone.’

‘You’re probably right.’  Her
father sighed.  ‘I just have a niggling feeling that she’s in trouble.’

Kate stood up, leaned across the
kitchen table and kissed him on the forehead. 

‘Emma’s middle name is trouble,’
she said.  ‘Try not to worry too much about her.  I’m off now.  I’ll be back by
ten.’

It was getting dark as Kate walked
across the farmyard to her car.  Winter was just around the corner.  Her bag
full of books was heavy on her shoulder.   She tipped her head up for a moment
to look at the sky.  It was a clear night and there were millions of stars like
twinkling grains of sand in the inky black sky.  She shivered as she got in the
car, switching the heater on as soon as she turned the key in the ignition.      

Driving off, she reflected on what
her father had been saying.  He was so sure that something was wrong, that Emma
was in trouble.  Kate wasn’t.  She knew that Emma could look after herself and
was no doubt living the high life in London, going to fancy parties and having
a manicure every day.  And yet, in spite of all that had gone before, Kate did
care about her sister.  She hoped that Emma would one day be reconciled with
her and their father.  They were family after all.

The drive to the college was long
and Kate had to put her headlights on full beam to see properly down the dark,
winding country lanes.  She nearly came a cropper when a large car suddenly
appeared from nowhere as she was driving down a particularly narrow lane.   She
had to brake sharply.  Blowing her horn, presuming she hadn’t been seen, she was
incensed when the other driver gave her the finger as he drove past.  Although
it was dark, the headlights from her car shone into his and she was able to get
a good look at him.  She frowned as she saw his aggressive expression.  As if
it was all my fault, she glowered.

She could bet that he wasn’t a
local.  The car he was driving, the way he was dressed in a smart jacket and
shirt.   Everything about him suggested he was someone from a big city, not
from deepest darkest Cornwall!  He looked foreign too, dark and swarthy. 
What’s someone like that doing round here? she wondered and drove on, her heart
pounding.  After what seemed like forever, she rounded a corner and saw the
welcoming lights of the college.  She parked the car and got out, having a
breather for a moment.  Her heart was thumping.

‘Hi, Kate.  How are you?’ The voice
behind her startled her.  She turned to see her old teacher.

‘Oh, Martin.  I’m fine thank you,’
she said, feeling awkward.  She’d hardly seen him since she’d refused to help
him find Steven. 

‘I’m taking your class tonight,’ he
said.  He didn’t seem awkward at all.  ‘I just came out here to get some fresh
air before we begin.’

‘Oh, so Claire…’

‘She’s ill.  But don’t worry, Kate,
I know my Shakespeare!’

Kate laughed a little nervously. 
She’d felt ill at ease around Martin since they’d had that conversation about
Steven.  But she was being daft.  He was harmless enough.  He’d only been
trying to help.

‘I wanted to talk to you again
about Steven,’ he said. 

Kate’s heart sank.  ‘Look, I
really…’

‘Don’t worry; I’m not asking for
your help or anything.  But I thought you might like to know that Steven has a
brother.’

‘A brother?’ Kate frowned.  Martin
nodded.

‘Yes.  I’ve been making enquiries. 
He’s been wanted by the police for years.  It seems he’s quite the hardened
criminal.  I believe he may have been after Steven.  I’ve also found out that he’s
violent – he’s been known to bump people off who he was displeased with him.’
Kate breathed in sharply.  ‘It’s all right, Kate.  I have a feeling Steven is
still alive.  I’m not yet prepared to give up hope anyway.  The interesting
thing is their parents, what happened to them.  Steven didn’t seem to know much
about them.  When I was his guardian, the authorities refused to divulge any
information about Steven’s background beyond the bare minimum.  I was told it
was to protect him.  But I do have reason to believe that Steven’s brother may
have been responsible for the deaths of one or both of their parents.’

 ‘And you think that Steven knew
about this?’

‘You’re quick, Kate.  Yes, I think
that Steven knew more than his brother Dan wanted him to.’ 

‘So he killed him,’ Kate said in a
toneless voice.  ‘That’s why he hasn’t come back to me.’

‘Don’t jump to conclusions, Kate. 
That’s not necessarily the case.  I thought a lot about what you said when we
discussed Steven.  I think you were right.  Perhaps Steven doesn’t want to be
found because it would endanger his life and possibly yours too.’

‘Mine?  What would anyone want with
me?’

‘To get to Steven.  They may well know
that you were close to him.’

Kate leaned back against the car. 
Her head was reeling and she couldn’t think straight.  So there was a
possibility Steven was alive.  And that he’d disappeared to protect her as well
as himself.  She closed her eyes.  For a moment she allowed herself to feel
again the warmth inside of knowing that he loved her.  But only for a moment. 
The fact was Steven was still missing and there was still a chance he was dead.

‘Are you all right, Kate?’  Martin
asked.  Kate opened her eyes.  He looked concerned.

‘Yes.  What you’ve told me is a lot
to take in.’

He nodded.  ‘All right.  Well we’d
better get cracking.  I have a class to teach and you have one to attend.’

Kate gave him a small smile, locked
her car and shouldered her bulky bag.  She followed Martin towards the college
building, its lights glowing invitingly in the dark.  During her class she
found it hard to concentrate.  Her shoulder was sore; she realised she probably
had a bit of whiplash from having to brake so suddenly to avoid the other car
in the lane.  That man in the car – he’d looked so aggressive and could easily
have killed her…

Then Martin’s words came back to
her.  ‘Steven doesn’t want to be found because it would endanger his life and
possibly yours too.’  Was that man who’d nearly crashed in to her in the lane one
of Dan’s henchmen?  Had he been looking for her to harm her?  Don’t be
ridiculous, she thought.  Even so, something still didn’t seem right.  The man
in the car was out of place, with his big expensive car and foreign looks.  If
he had been after her, though, he most likely hadn’t realised it was her that
he’d nearly crashed into.

‘Kate.  What are your thoughts on
this scene?’ Martin’s voice broke into her reverie.

‘Um… Can I have a moment to think
about my answer?’ she murmured.

‘All right, but don’t let wandering
thoughts distract you too much.  We’ve got a lot to get through.’

Kate’s cheeks burned red as she
nodded and looked at the scene from ‘Much Ado About Nothing’.  She felt it was
a little unfair of Martin to pick on her like this.  Out of the corner of her
eye, she noticed another student staring unseeing out of the window into the
dark night.  I’m not the only one who isn’t paying attention, she thought.  Martin
seemed oblivious to her feelings after what he’d told her tonight.  It was hard
to take it in.  She wished he’d go easy on her.  For the rest of the class she
had to fight hard to concentrate.  She felt as though she was on a
rollercoaster and her stomach was dropping away from her.  When the class
ended, she was relieved and couldn’t wait to get home.

******

That night Kate’s dreams were
racked by nightmares interspersed with quivering wakefulness.  Every time she
closed her eyes she would dream of Steven’s smiling face, but then the vision
would change.  She would see him lying in a morgue, his face battered and
bruised out of all recognition.  The nightmares would vary a little but the
effect on her was the same.  Each time she woke up, her heart would pound.  It
was as though she’d suffered a physical blow to her chest.  I must get over
this, she told herself.  But it was impossible while she was all alone in her
room, with the night pressing in on her like an advancing army.  She felt as
though she were the last person awake in the world.  All the pain and anxiety
she’d felt when Steven first disappeared had returned. 

‘Why did you have to go?’ she
whispered into the dark.  ‘I don’t think I can go on like this.’ 

I won’t go on like this, she
thought.  Kate knew she had to take control.  She had managed nine years
without Steven.  She had to carry on.  Whether Steven was alive or dead, he
would want her to be happy.  This thought soothed her a little and eventually
she managed to drop off to sleep. 

The alarm woke her at four am the
following morning.  Kate and her father were milking the cows.  This morning
she found it harder than usual to get up and had to force herself to clamber
out of bed.  She was helping less on the farm these days though.  Her father
was encouraging her to do more work on her studying.  So two days a week she
would have a break from the farm work.  As she was standing in front of the
mirror in the bathroom cleaning her teeth, she wondered how Emma was.  Probably
sitting in her immaculate living room on a plush sofa, Kate thought enviously. 
That was the strange thing: she hadn’t envied Emma much till now.  Of course
she had always known that she was living a frivolous life in London with no
cares in the world.  It hadn’t bothered her before.  But now that Kate was at a
changeable period in her own life where anything could happen, she envied Emma
her carefree existence.

She knew that she could ask for her
own part of the inheritance at any time.  But she’d wanted to wait until she
had something worthwhile to invest it in.  Since she’d started her evening
course she’d begun to seriously consider using it to fund her university
education.  She recalled the conversation she’d had with her father about it
the other day.

‘So what do you think?’ she’d asked
him.

‘That sounds like a wonderful
idea,’ he’d replied beaming at her.  Then his smile faded.  ‘I just wish that
Emma had done something more worthwhile with her portion of the inheritance.’

Kate sighed.  ‘What she did was
very wrong, we both know that.   And I think she could run the risk of ending
up alone.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Just that she’s not facing up to
her responsibilities.  If she carries on that way, I think she’ll lose her
friends.  Very often people become close to those they feel they can rely on. 
We’ve found to our cost that we can’t rely on her.  I reckon the people she’s
getting to know in London will soon realise that too.’

‘So you’re saying that it’s
possible she won’t be happy in London in the long run?’

‘I think there’s a fair chance she
won’t be.’

Her father had nodded and put his
arm around her shoulder, giving it a squeeze.  Kate had given him a sad smile
and they didn’t talk about Emma again for a while after that.

Kate threw herself into the farm
work that morning.  She always found it therapeutic; the reassuring heat of the
cows’ bodies, their gentle lowing and their softly swishing tails.  She joined
her father in the cowshed after breakfast and at five am the cows began to
gather into the milking parlour.  It always amused her how they would
voluntarily appear in the shed, as if they were keeping an appointment in their
diary.  As she helped her father to gather the cows for the milking, she felt
her anxiety lifting as if she were shaking off a heavy load.  She smiled as she
watched the cows enter the cowshed.  They were amenable and placid and this had
a calming effect on her. 

Kate and her father worked mostly
in silence.  He had always been taciturn anyway.  But that didn’t bother her. 
It gave her a chance to think.  They worked hard all morning, leading the cows
into the parlour for milking and entering each cow’s details into the computer
to make sure they were each given the right amount of feed and to record the
amount of milk they produced.  Before putting the clusters on the cows’ udders
to milk them, they washed and dried the udders to make sure no muck from the
teats got into the milk.  Then Kate and her father placed the clusters on the
cows’ udders to begin the milking.

When the cows had been milked,
their udders had to be sprayed with an iodine solution to prevent infection. 
Then once the whole herd had been milked, the two of them washed everything
down and scrubbed it clean.  It was hard work and although it was November,
Kate could feel herself working up a sweat.  When the cleaning was finished, she
and her father herded the cattle into the nearby shed as they always did in the
winter months.  After that they took a break to have an early lunch.  Kate
heated up some of her homemade leek and potato soup her father had always
loved.   She found cooking relaxing too and would often spend hours concocting
her favourite meals, like a happy scientist given free range of a laboratory.

They were about to eat their lunch
when the phone rang.