Next of Kin

by TL Dyer

  Tipping my chin, I look up to Lauren’s bedroom window, hear again the conversations we had in there with the door closed, her complaints about her parents I shrugged off as her own spoilt selfishness. I didn’t want to believe they might be genuine, because that would have shattered the image I’d created of her beautiful parents and their beautiful home and their beautiful lives.

  From her room, I look to Craig’s. A boy so much more troubled than I had known. A boy for whom rejection didn’t sit easily, and yet time and time again he was subjected to it. First by the boys at school who weren’t like him. Then by the father who thought him timid and weak, and – in what ways I still don’t know and never will – ultimately made sure Craig left home and didn’t return. But perhaps the most bitter rejection of all came from his mother, who failed to protect herself and then him from his father’s violent outbursts. Lastly, there was my rejection of him. The one I imagine he created on my behalf, assuming I’d want nothing more to do with him after he’d cut me off so cruelly. He’d have been wrong, of course. I never would have turned my back on him.

  Once I might have said that out of all four of the Isaacs, Craig was the one who suffered the most from their fractured family existence. Now, though, I know that’s not true.

  The faint rain cools my cheeks as I walk further up the street to where, through the gap between the house and the old oak trees, I can see a small slice of the rear garden. The excavators have gone now, all evidence collected and taken away, but I can just about see the tips of small tumps of brown earth still there where they’d dug.

  It was the dog who sniffed it out, I was told, the German Shepherd’s tail wagging as it circled the garden several times, checking behind the bushes, across the lawn, back and forth around the patio slabs where we used to sunbathe, before returning time and again to some potted Acer trees alongside the wall. After double checking the garden one last time, he stood still, right there by the Acers, and looked to his handler for the reward. He was right, of course. Cadaver dogs always are.

  She’d been wrapped in blankets first, then plastic sheeting, the kind used to keep weeds at bay. At least thirteen months had passed since she was placed there, but the blunt force trauma to her head was immediately considered to be the cause of death, as confirmed later at the autopsy. A fatal blow with one of her own pots. The large, solid, ceramic kind. She still wore her gardening gloves, which means we can’t know if she fought back, if she tried to defend herself, or if she didn’t see it coming at all. I’m not privy to the details yet, but my senses tell me it happened right there on the patio, perhaps after another argument and while she was tending to her flowers. No one would have seen or heard, not up here at the top of the hill with no neighbours overlooking.

  Not surprisingly, Darren has pleaded not guilty to murder. Between now and his trial, sitting in his prison cell denied bail, he’ll think of plenty more he can say when this gets to trial, I suspect, but there’s no getting away from it – Eliza’s dead, he killed her, and he’ll go away for a long time.

  I’ll be interested to know the outcome of the trial and his sentence, but I won’t be there unless I’m called for. With any luck, I’ll never lay eyes on him again. Nor will Jake. Maybe when he’s older he might have something to say about that himself, maybe he won’t, but for now I’m the one with the responsibility so I call the shots. And I trust my judgement. Sometimes I wish I’d done so sooner. Then maybe I wouldn’t have gone to Darren at all, and that night in the back of his BMW would be as far from his mind as it is from mine, now. Except what I achieved by bringing my long-kept secret into the open is that I not only released the burden of shame I’d been carrying within me these last six years and that had tainted everything I was and did, but also, by some peculiar bittersweet irony, I freed Eliza too.

  Turning away from the house for the final time, I walk back to the car with my head held high. I get in and slip off my jacket, glance in the mirror, the bruises and swelling long since faded, the three-inch slice across my forehead a scar I hope will disappear in time. If not, there’s always laser surgery. Or a lightening strike tattoo. Jake would love that now he’s entering his Harry Potter phase.

  I start the car, flip on the radio. The road curves back down the hill, the house’s presence hovering at the edge of my sight in the rear-view mirror, but I don’t look at it again, and at last it disappears entirely and is gone.

  I haven’t gone far down the road when my phone vibrates in its holder on the dash, Jarhead flashing up on the screen. I can’t help but smile. The poor boy’s been running in circles since what happened, he can’t do enough for us. It took me a while, but eventually, after some home truths from that plain-spoken brother of mine, I realised that by accepting Jared’s help I was actually doing him a favour. He wanted to do something. It pleased him to know he was making Jake’s life and mine a little easier. And since his parents failed in their matchmaking and he’s single again, I at least don’t have to feel guilty that I’m stealing his time away from someone else. So he drops by for coffee now and then, kicks the ball around the garden with Jake, runs errands I could do myself, and picks up takeaways that do nothing for my figure but for which he seems oblivious. And I’ll be honest, with Jen spending so much time at Shaun’s so he doesn’t feel alone in the house by himself, it’s nice to have some company of my own.

  I bring the car to the side of the road and reply to his message, tell him I’ll be home in around thirty minutes after I’ve picked Jake up from school, to come round if he wants, we’d love to see him. Then I text Dad before I forget. Just a brief message this one. Flights booked. See you Saturday. I hit send on the text and pull the car back onto the road, heading for Cwmcarn and the school.

  When Shaun, Jake and I return from Scotland, the school run will become Lucy’s job then, my wonderful new childminder. She’s young and enthusiastic and, most importantly, Jake likes her. Not having a family of her own yet means she can be as flexible as I need, and for the nights she has to stay over, she’ll sleep on a sofa bed in the spare room, which is now her room. Jake’s sleepovers at Uncle Shaun’s are still a thing, too, so I needn’t have worried. I have all the help I could wish for.

  It’s not over, though. Not entirely. It never can be. There are times in the middle of the night when I wonder how I can ever reconcile such an evil, cruel and controlling man to my beautiful, gentle, caring son. But then I tell myself there’s nothing to reconcile. As far as I’m concerned, there is no connection between the two of them. He’s had no influence over Jake’s life up to now and he never will have. At some point when Jake’s old enough, I’ll have to explain what type of man Darren is. Not his father, not his dad, just Darren. It won’t be an easy conversation, but the alternative is to lie, and there’s been enough of that. He’ll know everything about Darren Isaacs one day. He’ll know as much as I do. He deserves that much. But I’ll be bloody sure to let him know that who he really is comes not from that man but from my love for him, Nanna Sue’s love for him when she was alive, Grampy’s, Uncle Shaun’s, Nanna Shirley’s, and anyone else who comes into our lives. Each one of us makes him who he is. Just as they make me who I am. Our family. The only one that matters.

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  A summer heatwave. A cruel game. An ice-cold heart.

  NOT THE TYPE is a standalone novella based on the Hoskins & Fletcher US crime series

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  Dedication

  Thank you to our UK police officers, staff and volunteers, and to all our frontline emergency personnel

  To those who serve

  To those who have served

  To those who made the ultimate sacrifice in the line of duty

  Useful organisations:

  Police Care UK are a charity for serving and veteran police officers and staff, volunteers, and their families who have suffered any physical or psychological harm as a result of policing, www.policeca
re.org.uk

  Police Charities UK, www.policecharitiesuk.org

  Mind, www.mind.org.uk

  Samaritans, www.samaritans.org Tel. 116 123 (UK)

  Our Frontline, Mental Health at Work, www.mentalhealthatwork.org.uk/toolkit/ourfrontline-emergency

  Also By TL Dyer

  The HOSKINS & FLETCHER series

  Not The Type (Free Novella)

  Never Seen

  Never Heard

  Never Spoken

  The CODE ZERO series

  Critical Incident

  Without Consent

  Next of Kin

  The HIDDEN SANCTUARY series

  Rafe’s Story (Free Novella)

  Hidden

  Exposed

  Unmasked

  About The Author

  T.L. Dyer is a writer of character-driven fiction, including contemporary, crime and dystopia. Her stories and characters always delve, discover and disrupt, teetering precariously on that thin line between darkness and light, right and wrong, good and bad.

  She is particularly keen on exploring those individuals who set themselves apart from the norm or who stray down a different path. Taking her lead from the characters themselves, she trails behind scribbling notes and trying to keep up as they take her on a breathless, heart-thumping and thought-provoking journey, with no knowing where she might end up.

  T.L. lives in South Wales, UK, with her family and eternally bedraggled Yorkshire Terrier.

  Find out more, get in touch, or sign up to the mailing list for the latest news on new releases at: www.TLDyer.com

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