The Family Lie

by P L Kane

  ‘You get through?’ asked Denise as he’d sloped back to the bar with his drink. Mitch shook his head, then nodded. Denise laughed; it was a pretty laugh, he had to admit. A laugh he was remembering more fondly with each passing moment. ‘Which is it?’

  Mitch laughed himself. ‘I got through but they weren’t around.’

  ‘Ah, right.’

  ‘My sister,’ he clarified. Why the hell are you telling this woman? he asked himself. But more importantly, why wasn’t he telling her about Lucy? The first call he’d placed? ‘You remember her? Bella?’

  Denise stuck out her bottom lip, dredging her memory. ‘She was older than us, wasn’t she?’

  ‘That’s right. Not sure if she’d gone by the time we …’

  She smiled again, at the thought of her and Mitch back in school. ‘I can’t remember meeting her, so probably.’

  ‘Bella didn’t really hang around long after she could get out of here.’

  ‘In some ways I can’t really blame her,’ said Denise. ‘What’s she up to these days?’

  Mitch opened his mouth to answer, but didn’t really want to get into the whole psychic thing. It rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way, and around here was tantamount to being a leper if his aunty was anything to go by. ‘She’s in the entertainment business,’ Mitch said finally, supping his beer.

  Denise beamed, then leaned her elbows on the bar and put her head in her hands. ‘Oh, really? That’s something I always wanted to get into myself. I did a bit of singing and dancing when I was younger. Amateur stuff, but I did wonder if I could have taken it further. Acting maybe.’ She stood up again, batting the notion away with a hand. ‘What line is she in: TV, film?’

  ‘S-Stage mainly,’ replied Mitch. He had no idea why that made him so nervous, he wasn’t exactly lying to Denise – just withholding some of the information. And what about your girlfriend, Mitch? What does she do? Teaches lessons. Might teach you one if she finds out about these cosy chats with your ex!

  Hardly an ex, but he doubted Lucy would see it that way.

  ‘Nice. Acting herself, or …?’

  ‘Magic tricks,’ said Mitch. Again, not a fib as such. It was what some people called what she did.

  ‘Rabbits out of hats and whatnot?’ asked Denise.

  ‘Something like that. She’s in Golden Sands.’

  ‘Ooh, lovely.’ Denise looked about her, as if she was about to impart some government secret or something. ‘I can’t remember the last time I had a proper holiday, at the coast or wherever. And I’ve never been abroad.’

  ‘What, never?’ Mitch drank more of the Traditional. It was going down so nicely he’d almost finished his first. Should probably pace himself, needed to keep a clearer head.

  ‘Naw. Well, you don’t really, do you? Not when you live around here.’

  He’d forgotten how the people at Green Acres felt about venturing outside of their little bubble, their comfort zone; how they passed that on to their kids. Fear of those strangers, outsiders. It extended to going out amongst them. Only his dad had never really been like that, encouraged his curiosity if anything. Wanted Mitch to learn about the world, travel. There had never been any attempt to stop him from doing that. But there was also the fact they lived in some of the most beautiful surroundings on the planet. What location could possibly measure up? It explained why they didn’t want any of it to be sold off, to be ruined. Might be one of the few spots on Earth that hadn’t been messed about with, beyond the settlement that had always been here – according to the keepers of those history books. The people who’d come down from those caves and built the very first dwellings.

  Denise was already pulling him another pint of Traditional before he’d even asked for it, and before he had time to protest. She was talking about how she’d be finishing up before too long that evening. Mitch had nodded then asked if it was okay to use the pool table for a bit. ‘Sure,’ said Denise, looking crestfallen. She’d clearly been waiting for him to ask her out or something. That way lay disaster, and Mitch knew it. He decided instead to spend a bit of the change he had left from the phone calls knocking the balls around that table. It was how he spent some of his free time with Vihaan and Tammy after work when—

  Tammy.

  He realized this was the first time he’d thought about her in days. Lucy and Bella weren’t the only ones he’d been neglecting since he’d been here, and he thought then about how Green Acres had a tendency to do that. How time passed differently here and did a number on your priorities. She’d understand, he told himself. Tammy would be the first one to say he needed to get to the bottom of what was happening with his dad, the Commune, and whatever else was going on linked to this shitstorm.

  ‘Seriously, what’s got into you?’

  It didn’t stop him wondering how his friend was, though. Wondering if she was still hooked up to all those wires in that room? More than likely. He thought about going back over to the phone again to ring the hospital up, but spotted a couple of guys waiting for the pool table and wasn’t ready to relinquish it quite yet. By the time he’d played a few more games and was fed up with it, Denise had wandered over to see if he wanted another drink – on her this time.

  Mitch was just about to decline, when he was saved from that particular awkward conversation by another person joining them. Councillor Nuttall, who’d appeared behind them, leaning on his stick. Mitch had no idea whether he’d just come in, or had been in the pub a while and only just spotted him. Either way, the older man was offering to get the drinks in and before Mitch could say another word Denise had withdrawn to fetch them and put it on the older man’s tab.

  ‘How d’you like this heat?’

  Mitch gave a half-shrug; it wasn’t something he’d thought about all that much.

  ‘Hottest day of the year coming up, so they say,’ Nuttall informed him. ‘Hottest for some time.’ The Brits and their weather.

  It never rains …

  ‘Come on, come and sit with me, lad,’ said the man. ‘I never got a chance to thank you properly the other night for stepping in when, well, you know.’

  ‘I do,’ said Mitch, following the limping fellow to a booth. ‘But it’s fine. Happy to help.’

  Nuttall was staring now and smiled when he was caught doing it. ‘Ah, I’m sorry, but you really do look like him. Tommy, I mean. Especially now you’ve grown up a bit.’ Mitch waited for the man to sit, which he did with a bit of trouble. That hip he’d been talking about the other night was obviously causing him a great deal of pain judging from the air he sucked in as he slid down onto the seat. ‘Bloody thing,’ said the man. ‘Never get old, son. It’s definitely no fun.’

  ‘I’m not planning on it anytime soon, trust me.’ Regardless of the fact he had another birthday coming up, which he kept getting reminded about.

  ‘Not in any rush, I get you.’

  ‘So, you knew my dad well then?’ asked Mitch when they were both settled in the booth and Nuttall had leaned his stick up beside him. ‘I don’t really remember—’

  ‘Oh aye.’

  Of course he did, they both lived here in Green Acres for a start – but Mitch had to say he was struggling to recall Nuttall being around much. Wasn’t just the politics; when you were the age him and Denise had been, anyone not related to you and over twenty-one was considered ancient, and therefore not really relevant. How stupid, how arrogant that sounded to him now. ‘Then you know what happened to him.’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Nuttall, but stopped before the requisite ‘nasty business’ comment that always seemed to follow. If it was such a nasty business, then why wasn’t it being investigated properly? Why weren’t crime squads from the nearby town or city all over it like a rash? A man burned to death in the woods, not a stone’s throw from a bunch of cultists who’d set up camp and might well be conducting secret rituals in the nearby caves! It was something he considered asking the councillor, but Mitch needed to be more subtle than that.

  ‘I’m c
urious, what—’ said Mitch, but didn’t get to finish as Denise came over to plant two pints of Traditional in front of them.

  ‘There you go, sir.’

  ‘Thanks, love,’ said Nuttall. ‘Much appreciated.’ She hung about for a minute – was she expecting an invitation to join them? Had she even finished her shift yet? – but when Nuttall gave her a ‘that will be all’ kind of look, she wandered off again. ‘Cheers!’ said Nuttall, holding his glass up for Mitch to chink. Which he did, thanking him for the drink at the same time. He would take this one slow, he’d decided.

  ‘You were saying,’ Nuttall prompted, which was probably a good thing as Mitch had forgotten he’d even started asking him anything. That Traditional crept up on you. Definitely take it more slowly.

  ‘Right, yeah. That business the other night with Granger and Sheldon.’

  Nuttall gave a bitter laugh. ‘That’s a whole pile of manure you might not want to get into.’

  ‘Mr Sheldon wants to build some properties in the area, as I understand it?’ said Mitch.

  ‘You understand correctly. But it’ll never happen.’

  ‘Oh?’

  Nuttall took a draught of his pint, sitting back in the booth. ‘Just because he’s got a foothold in the area, because he had relatives here way back in the day and scooped one of the nicer cottages on the fringes of the village itself, Neil thinks that gives him the right to come and shout the odds. In here and in the council meetings.’ The thin man shook his head curtly. In spite of the fact he’d tried to keep the peace the other night, that he’d even apologized to Sheldon for the ruckus, Nuttall came down on the same side of the fence as Granger, as Mitch’s aunty and uncle. Progress, change and – when you got right down to it, money – could go and whistle. ‘He’ll get bored when things don’t go the way he wants.’

  ‘I’m not sure I understand, you’re on the council and you don’t want investment in the area?’

  ‘Not his kind,’ said Nuttall. ‘Not if it means that things have to change beyond all recognition.’

  Mitch took a sip of his pint, then wiped away the froth with the back of his hand. ‘Things can’t stay the same forever though, surely?’

  ‘They have so far, more or less,’ stated Nuttall, and actually Mitch found he couldn’t really contradict that. Green Acres had stayed pretty much the same for as long as anyone could remember. ‘Anyroad, what’s so fantastic about change?’ It wasn’t something you’d expect a politician to say, but then again, the system here was more like a little kingdom in its own right, to be ruled as they saw fit with as little outside interference as possible. ‘You’ve been out there in the world, my boy. Which would you say is better?’

  Mitch thought then about the unrest in Downstone, the rioting in the streets he’d been in the middle of. The rioting that had resulted in Tammy – who he really did need to check up on – being in that coma in the first place. ‘I’m not saying either way is better,’ offered Mitch. ‘Just that you can’t hold back the tide.’

  Nuttall nodded, then shrugged. ‘Perhaps. Doesn’t mean you can’t try. Your dad, rest his soul, if he was sitting here, would have said the same thing.’

  ‘My dad …?’ Was Nuttall saying that his father was as resistant to change and progress as the rest of them here? It was at odds with what Mitch knew about him, but apparently he was coming out with all sorts towards the end. Didn’t know what planet he was on. Maybe even knew something that had got him killed? ‘How about those people up at the Commune? You seem to share some of their views about a simpler life.’

  Nuttall’s lip curled. Mitch thought for a second the man was going to spit on the floor. ‘Hardly. Those lunatics are nothing like the good people of Green Acres. They should never have come here.’

  Now they were getting to it, the animosity Nuttall had for them was all too palpable, the same as his own family. Not for the first time, Mitch wondered whether his father had got caught in the crossfire of some conflict, between the villagers and the Commune. Whether Mitch should be asking if he could join whatever army was fighting them. ‘They told me that things might be better if we just started again.’

  ‘You went to see them?’ Nuttall seemed both shocked and angry at the same time. ‘What in the name of … What were you thinking, lad?’

  Mitch held up a hand. ‘Yeah, I know. They’re dangerous, I’ve been told.’

  ‘You don’t know how dangerous. You need to steer clear of them.’ The third time he’d been told that. Just what did this man know that he wasn’t telling him?

  Mitch went for broke, came right out and said it: ‘I think they had something to do with what happened to my dad.’

  That shut Nuttall up. Either this was news to him, or he suspected as much himself. But he didn’t say anything in reply.

  ‘And I think they’re up to some stuff in those caves that they shouldn’t be.’

  ‘In the …’ Once again, Mitch couldn’t work out whether this was news to Nuttall or he was simply astonished that he knew about it. ‘Look, young Mitch. You need to tread very carefully here. There are ways of tackling such things.’

  ‘Correct ways, you mean?’ he said, quoting his Aunty Helen. Did she have the inside track on whatever was going on? The inside track on Nuttall? Had they known what his dad was investigating? Had they been helping him?

  Nuttall finished his drink and started to get up, struggling to stand. ‘I think I’ve said enough already.’

  ‘I don’t think you’ve said nearly enough, to be honest.’

  Eventually, he got to his feet and leaned more heavily than ever on that stick of his. ‘Have a nice rest of the evening, lad,’ he told him. Then, as he passed, Nuttall patted Mitch on the shoulder. ‘Don’t go looking for trouble.’

  He almost said back, ‘I don’t have to, it seems to come looking for me.’ Particularly these days, and since I got back here. But then the man was gone, and Denise had returned – as if she’d been waiting for her chance to pop over. Before she could even say anything, he’d ordered a couple of bags of crisps to soak up what he’d already drunk; it had been a while since the stew. And was already deciding he’d get back to more research, which meant Denise was flat out of luck. Sad really, if she’d hung on to see if he was free. God, the ego on him!

  Mitch remembered about phoning the hospital then, only to be told that they couldn’t release any information about Tammy unless he was family. Even when he told them who he was, that not only was he a colleague (he left out the ‘former’ bit) who’d been there when she was brought in, but that he was practically family, he’d got precisely nowhere. Wouldn’t have put it past Staton to have left orders for him not to be told, just out of spite.

  But it was only when he was done that Mitch remembered he’d meant to go and get some more tinned food in for the cat. Consequently. he’d found himself asking Denise, ‘I don’t suppose you have any leftovers from the kitchen I could take back with me?’

  ‘If you’re hungry, we could—’

  Mitch cut in and explained to her about Cat. ‘I seem to have inherited it, but I’m running out of things to feed the animal.’

  ‘Ah, right. Okay.’ She appeared quite put out, but then smiled again. ‘I’ll go and see what we have in the back.’ Denise returned a few minutes later with a plate of scraps covered in clingfilm. ‘This should see you right. My shift’s pretty much over, if you need some company …?’

  Mitch didn’t have to fake the yawn, he was actually quite tired – and the alcohol hadn’t done anything to help with that; though he hadn’t had that much, had he? ‘Do you mind if we take a raincheck? I’m pretty wiped actually.’

  Another crestfallen look followed a smile. ‘Sure. Absolutely. I’ll hold you to that,’ she said.

  Mitch gave her an uncertain smile back, holding up the plate and thanking her one last time. ‘See you soon.’

  ‘Hope so. Don’t be a stranger!’

  With that, he’d left The Plough, making his way back home. Nig
ht had just started to fall, and the shadows in the village were lengthening. Mitch had that feeling again of being watched, which in a place this small was probably inevitable – though he did have enemies here, he reminded himself. By the time he arrived home, the feeling had died down a bit and Cat had returned to curl round his legs, sniffing the air for the plate of scraps. This distracted him enough that by the time he’d got through the door, put the food down, it was already happening.

  The crashing, banging, the smashing.

  What now? Mitch rushed into the living room and threw on the lights, wondering why he hadn’t sensed what was about to happen – an after-effect of the Traditional perhaps? Though it had been ages since he finished that last pint … Didn’t matter, he saw what the problem was immediately: it was hard to miss. His eyes darted from the hole in the window, which looked like someone had punched through it, to the glass sprinkled liberally over the couch, to the rock in the middle of the room. Going over, he noticed something had been painted on it in red.

  It was a simple enough message: Stop!

  Mitch ground his teeth, reached for the poker that had been replaced and was back out through the door in seconds – the cat had apparently disappeared, frightened by the commotion and leaving the plate untouched. Glancing left and right, looking for the culprits, he waved the poker around, shouting: ‘Who did that?’ He must have looked like an American chasing racoons off his porch. Glancing back over his shoulder, he saw curtains twitching, including his neighbour with the phone.

  Mitch hung his head, the culprit was long gone. Culprits? The same people who’d staged the robbery? Because it was starting to look more and more like it was a put-up job. ‘I won’t stop!’ Mitch shouted a final time. ‘I won’t!’