The Family Lie

by P L Kane

  ‘I want to praise our brave men and women …’

  Worse, things were definitely worse.

  And it was then that he remembered. Still breathing heavily, he took out his phone again and stared at it. Went to his messages, the thing that had really got to him even before he was on the front line. Even before the rioting, before Tammy.

  Mitch listened again to the female voice.

  ‘This is a message for Mr Mitchel Prescott,’ it began, sounding a million miles away. ‘It’s the hospital at Green Acres.’ That name, the very mention of that place. A million miles away indeed. A million years as well. ‘We’ve been trying to get hold of you … actually we were trying to get hold of your sister first, but couldn’t. Mr Prescott, I’m afraid it’s bad news. If you receive this could you give us a call back please?’

  Mitch pinched the bridge of his nose, knowing what was coming next. Knowing also that he couldn’t put off phoning them back any longer, which caused a lump to catch in his throat. ‘It’s about your father, one … Thomas Prescott. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but he has passed away,’ the quiet voice uttered.

  Never rains. Isn’t that what they said?

  Scope to be worse …

  So much worse.

  Chapter 2

  Mitch recognised that look she was giving him.

  Even if he didn’t, the way she was following him around from room to room as he packed his bags – a backpack and a holdall – told him everything he needed to know. Lucy really didn’t want him to go. Especially as she couldn’t come along; too much prep to do and meetings ahead of the new term, she’d informed him. She said she understood that he was going anyway, and yet …

  It was just something Mitch had to do. It was his dad, when all was said and done. Even if he hadn’t seen much of him over the years, it was still his dad.

  And his dad – Thomas Stephen Prescott – was dead.

  Mitch still couldn’t really believe it. Hadn’t been able to find out that much from ringing the hospital back, from trying to get in touch with the authorities in Green Acres. Just that there had been some kind of accident. That his father had died in some sort of fire.

  ‘You mean the house? His house caught fire?’ Actually, that wouldn’t really have surprised him. His father had been getting quite vague of late – from what Mitch could tell when he phoned the man up, which admittedly wasn’t nearly often enough. Mitch even suspected he might have been starting up with some kind of senility. Had trouble remembering what he’d had for lunch, or even if he’d eaten lunch at all. Couldn’t recall what he’d watching on the TV the previous evening, just that he hated the presenters: ‘You know, those two that are always on everything. Little blokes, they are.’ That sort of thing.

  It was sad to hear, especially as his dad had always been so sharp. He’d had to be, doing what he did: working for the local newspaper, The Acre; its very name a shortened version of the place Thomas loved so much. Wasn’t to say that he ever covered anything more stimulating than a fete or a charity drive, but it kept him, and especially his mind, active. Then there was his research, into everything and anything. His conspiracy theories about this and that – don’t even get him started on JFK’s assassination unless you wanted a lecture that made the Kevin Costner movie look brief by comparison.

  One of Mitch’s abiding memories as a child was bits of paper everywhere. Folders and books (‘organised chaos’ his father called it … a bit like the riot), but also those scraps of paper his father had written things down on. Sometimes they weren’t even legible, and when she’d still been alive his mother used to say that he should have become a doctor like her sister, Helen.

  His mum. God, he still missed her, even though it had been almost twenty years since she’d died. Since—

  ‘I still can’t get my head around your sister,’ Lucy was starting up again, folding her arms and trailing him through to the bathroom on the landing now as he searched for the travel toothpaste. He caught sight of himself in the mirror and stared, the stitching still prominent at his cropped hairline, so he brushed it down to cover it. ‘This should be up to her really, she’s the oldest. Why isn’t she going?’ Lucy pressed, snapping him out of his reverie.

  All Mitch could do was shrug. ‘Look, I don’t get it either. When she was little she was always such a daddy’s girl. Inseparable they were.’ He used to get a bit jealous of the attention actually, because he was the youngest by a few years. But then there was that special bond, wasn’t there, between fathers and daughters. How could he compete with that?

  ‘So what happened?’

  Another shrug. ‘Something to do with a guy, I think. It’s hard to remember.’ Mitch froze, wondering if at some point in his life he’d follow his father down that road of forgetfulness. Already things from his childhood, his teenage years, were getting fuzzy and he was only in his late twenties.

  ‘Makes sense. It’s usually a guy.’

  ‘You speaking from experience there?’

  ‘No,’ she said, a bit too quickly, before changing the subject. ‘Why did you leave? You’ve never really said.’

  ‘Things weren’t the same after my sister bailed. But I guess I wanted a change of scenery as well. Something was telling me to see a bit of the world, find out what it had to offer. So I travelled a little, got it out of my system and—’

  ‘Ended up here.’ Lucy said the words like she couldn’t really believe it. There were much better places he could have gone. ‘Here, with me.’ That insecurity rearing its head again, maybe wondering if Mitch thought he’d made a mistake.

  It probably threw her back to her childhood. Lucy had told him fairly early on about being adopted, about her biological parents not wanting her. That rejection, no matter what happens afterwards, tends to stay with a kid.

  ‘Yeah,’ Mitch replied to the first statement, not getting into the second part. ‘I came here maybe thinking I could make a difference. That’s why I joined the police force in the first place.’

  ‘Uh-huh, and how’s that working out for you?’ Lucy knew full well how it was working out at the moment. Terribly.

  Her face had been a mixture of panic and relief when he told her the news about his job, that he’d jacked it in. She’d never really liked the fact he was a copper, with all the danger that entailed. But still, it was a job and the loss of his wage would hit them incredibly hard. ‘Well, jumped before I was pushed,’ he elaborated, going on to explain the circumstances of his departure.

  ‘God, Mitch. You’re going to go after them, though, right? Wrongful dismissal or whatever?’

  ‘What’s the point?’ He told her then about Staton and his powerful friends, that they would crush him like a bug. Mitch wasn’t important; he was nobody special. ‘The system’s more corrupt in Downstone than it was in Redmarket a few years back.’

  ‘They cleaned up their act though. Or had it cleaned up for them, I should say.’ It had been in all the news at the time, that the dodgy dealing in said town had been brought to light and straightened out. Mitch had to ask himself though, had it really? Could you ever truly get rid of a poison like that? Something rotten at its very core? ‘Took people willing to stand up and be counted, but it turned itself around,’ Lucy continued. ‘They didn’t just give up!’

  ‘I’m not … Christ, I don’t really want to have this conversation right now, is that okay?’

  ‘And when do you want to have it? You’re heading off to the middle of nowhere. Do you even know when you’ll be back?’

  ‘Not really,’ he’d replied in all honestly. There was so much to do: find out what had happened, sort out the funeral arrangements. Things that Lucy insisted should be his older sister’s responsibility. ‘But it’s not like I have any choice. Even if Bella was heading there too, I wouldn’t just leave it all to her.’

  ‘It’s your birthday soon,’ Lucy stated.

  ‘I’m aware.’

  ‘I thought we were going to … y’know, maybe do so
mething? Spend some quality time together.’

  ‘Lucy, my dad just died,’ he reminded her, as if she needed it.

  ‘I know, that’s not what I—’

  ‘I can’t think about much else right now.’ She’d looked wounded again at that. And Mitch understood her wanting to get things squared away before he left, maybe get their relationship back on an even keel after all the ups and downs of late. More secure. But there was a time and a place, wasn’t there?

  ‘And what about Tammy?’ asked Lucy, hitting him where she knew it would hurt. His friend was still in that coma, Zach still by her side.

  Officer Fitzpatrick and her family will be well compensated.

  How would that help her?

  ‘I haven’t forgotten about Tammy, trust me,’ Mitch said, tears pricking at the corners of his eyes, thinking about the shitty way he’d spoken to her before everything kicked off. ‘I just need to … to sort out all this stuff first, okay?’

  ‘And then what?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ But he knew exactly what she meant. They’d been having money troubles before all this. Having … other troubles as well. Putting off conversations about where they were heading, about the future. About whether they even wanted the same things from life anymore. Like marriage, kids.

  ‘Are you sure you haven’t had a marital with Lucy?’

  A marital, even though they weren’t married – which was just one of the problems.

  ‘You just lost your job, Mitch!’ She looked around her at the small house they shared; the place they’d been living in together for almost three years now. Was probably wondering how they’d cope. Whether they even would.

  ‘Listen, if it’s money you’re worried about, Dad had a bit put by, I think. Not a huge amount, but some. Plus there’s his place, whatever might be left of it.’

  ‘That’s not what … You make me sound like some kind of heartless monster,’ Lucy blurted out.

  ‘No, that wasn’t …’ He couldn’t do right for doing wrong, thought that would reassure her on the cash front at least. ‘All I’m saying is we might not have as much to worry about as you think. Rent-wise, I’m talking about. I’m not sure how much interest Bella will have in Dad’s home even if it’s sold.’

  Bella.

  That brought things back to the here and now, snapping him out of his daze, because Lucy was once again talking about how selfish his sister was being. ‘I mean, what is her problem? It’s not like she has any ties, not like she has a proper job or anything.’

  They were going round and round in circles, literally as she trailed him. And he wasn’t even sure it was Bella who Lucy was upset with; not really. She just didn’t want him to go, that was the top and tail of it.

  ‘She doesn’t owe me any kind of explanation, Lucy. She doesn’t want to go. Simple as that.’

  Lucy threw her hands up in the air, followed him as he tramped downstairs now. It had been hard enough for Mitch to get hold of the woman in the first place, finally succeeding where the staff at the hospital had failed. In the end he’d left a message for Bella at that hotel in Golden Sands where she did her turns. Her psychic evenings, if you could believe such a thing – and he didn’t.

  (‘What’s the difference between what I do, and that sixth sense thing you have?’ she’d said to him once when he’d visited a few summers ago.

  It was different. Very different indeed. Just good instincts, that’s what people said …)

  ‘Regardless of anything else, I really don’t think you should be alone there,’ Lucy continued.

  ‘I won’t be alone. I have family still in Green Acres, remember? My aunty and uncle. It’s okay, let it drop. Please.’ But Lucy had got him thinking again about that strained phone conversation he’d had with Bella, who’d called him from the hotel payphone – she’d always hated mobiles. Something about her voice as she told him, ‘I-I’m sorry, Mitch. I just can’t.’ A tremble in it, like she was scared.

  Packing the last of his stuff, he left it by the front door next to his motorcycle helmet and turned around to find Lucy right behind him, still tense. ‘Maybe … Maybe it’s not such a bad thing. A bit of time away from each other,’ she suggested then. A final volley. ‘Like you said.’

  He paused, thrown. ‘I didn’t say anything about—’ Then he remembered, he’d mumbled something about her probably being glad he was getting out from under her feet while she worked. That was dangerous: Lucy remembered everything; read too much into the slightest thing sometimes. ‘Is … Do you really think that?’

  Lucy was close to tears, half-shook and half-nodded her head so he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. Another mess.

  ‘I will miss you,’ he told her then, leaning in to give her a kiss, a hug. She stiffened at first, and finally hugged him back. ‘We’ll talk,’ he promised her. ‘When I get back, we’ll talk properly.’

  Another nod-shake, and the tears were flowing freely now. He hated leaving her like this. Felt torn in a million directions at once. But knew inevitably there was only one way he had to go. He owed it to his dad, his family. Wanted to know exactly what had happened, if nothing else.

  Mitch sighed and put on his leather jacket, to match his trousers. Next he picked up his backpack, slinging it on. Then he grabbed his holdall and helmet and opened the front door. He wasn’t at all surprised that it had started raining.

  It was as he reached his bike parked by the side of the road, about to undo the combination lock, that Lucy called out something which made him pause one final time. Made him wonder about the real reason she didn’t want him to go.

  ‘Mitch, be careful,’ she shouted. It was something she only usually told him when he was going on duty. He frowned, looked back, and said that he would.

  ‘I’ll see you soon, Lucy.’

  Yet even as he strapped the holdall to the back of the Honda, put on his helmet and swung his leg over, Mitch couldn’t help wondering …

  Wondering if he wasn’t the only one with a ‘spider-sense’ that warned them of danger.

  Chapter 3

  It wasn’t easy to talk to the dead.

  For them to talk to you, more accurately. It wasn’t just the contempt some people showed for it, those who thought what she believed in was insane. Usually, she could just shrug that off, she was used to it. Had been dealing with the ridicule most of her life. No, at the moment she also had a splitting headache which wasn’t helping matters in the slightest. Bella Prescott had tried everything she could think of to shift it: calming mediation, herbal teas. Had even been forced to take painkillers the previous evening, which was always a last resort for her. They dulled the mind, the senses, made it harder to hear those on ‘the other side’ (the departed, as she so often called them). Though anything was preferable to the thumping that was going on and had been for a day or more.

  It had made it virtually impossible to sleep, tossing and turning and just not being able to get comfortable at all. Not knowing where to put herself, as they used to say. She’d found herself up and walking around in the wee small hours, padding about in the static caravan she called home. Even popping outside to sit on the steps and watch the sun rise over the ocean. It really was such a beautiful sight, tranquil and relaxing. Or it would have been if there wasn’t a marching band playing inside her skull. Well, the big bass drum at any rate.

  Bella knew what had set it off, of course she did. Talking to her younger brother Mitchel on the phone, hearing the news. They’d been trying to get hold of her apparently, the authorities at Green Acres, though nobody had said a word to her at the hotel. Trying to get in touch because she was the next of kin. She hadn’t thought of herself as that in a long time, not next of anything. Not kin. Ironic really that she put people in touch with their loved ones all the time, even after they’d passed, and yet there was an overwhelming gulf between Bella and hers.

  Not so much Mitch, she had to say. They’d made an effort – not a huge effort, granted, but an effort nonetheless �
� to keep in touch over the years. He’d even visited her, though his disdain for what she did was blatantly obvious. Yet another person who didn’t take her work seriously at all. And it was work for her, hard work sometimes. She was as much a counsellor to the people she encountered, whether it was during her stage shows at The Majestic (a building which was anything but) in Golden Sands, or her private sessions with her regulars. Bella liked to think she was helping them, and usually she did. Not always, but usually.

  Oh, she was well aware of what some people thought of her, that she was a charlatan. Downright evil, others called her. And she had to admit, there were definitely frauds out there. People who called themselves psychics or mediums, but were just con artists screwing people out of their money. Playing on their grief and their fear … of what came afterwards. But there were also the genuine articles like her, she’d argue, and really, there was nothing to be afraid of. If they could hear what she heard, everyone would know that. The danger never came from the dead, always the living.

  Bella had never claimed to be anything she wasn’t, and in most cases people found their way to her by word of mouth and necessity. Out of desperation. She didn’t charge them, only said that if they thought her service was worth something then they could offer a donation. The hotel paid her for putting on the live evenings, naturally, but then she had to eat, pay the rent, same as everyone else. Every now and again, when things had been rough, she’d done part-time jobs – especially when Golden Sands was in-season. But Bella much preferred to spend her time offering comfort to those who needed it. Felt it was her calling in life, if that made sense. Resented, if she was being frank, the time spent waitressing in cafés when she could be giving some relative peace of mind.