The Family Lie

by P L Kane

  The van sped away, leaving him behind – on foot as he was. But it was then that he remembered he hadn’t brought his bike back to the house last night. He’d left it round the side of The Plough, which the van was now passing. Perfect!

  As he made for the pub, Denise was outside, hands going to her mouth when she looked at the building he’d come from. Seeing the fire, probably thinking she’d been in there not so long ago. Almost certainly giving thanks for the fact Mitch was okay, knowing how she felt about him.

  ‘Wha—?’ he heard her say as he got nearer.

  ‘Call the police!’ Mitch shouted. He didn’t have time for formalities. ‘Tell them I’m in pursuit of the gits who did it!’ He didn’t say anything about where they might be heading, because he didn’t know. At this stage it could have been anywhere: the Commune, the farm, the caves, the woods? Or none of them. That was why he had to follow them, trail them to their destination and make sure. Mitch unlocked his bike, got on the back of it. His helmet was back in the house, so he’d have to do without. Let them fine him, like he gave a toss! If they caught up with him – and he doubted very much it would be Wilkinson who did that – then they could give him a ticket, as they were arresting those hoodies in the van. Wouldn’t matter then.

  Mitch gunned the engine, ignoring Denise as she came over, leaving her behind. He glanced down in the rear mirrors, seeing her standing there and staring after him. Worrying about him, just like Lucy did when he was on duty.

  Two of them now, he thought. Well done, Mitchel!

  That was the least of his problems at the moment. Number-one priority was catching up with the van, now that he could match them in the speed department. It was only when he was on the bike that he started to feel it again, the queasiness from last night coming back in waves. Mitch tamped it down, there was no time for all that, no time for letting up. He had to push the machine harder, until he could see the—

  There it was, the filthy grey van, just ahead of him. Mitch sped up, it wouldn’t take him long to cover that distance, and before he knew it he was coughing from a different kind of smoke, the van’s exhaust spewing out and hitting him in the face. He weaved, but managed to keep the Honda on track. Managed to keep behind the van, hopefully where they couldn’t see him through their own side mirrors.

  They must have spotted him approaching, though, because the van suddenly braked – and if he hadn’t hit his own brakes and slowed down, he’d have slammed right into the back of the thing. ‘Bastards!’ Mitch spat under his breath, leaning to try to get around the left-hand side of the vehicle.

  The van steered the same way as him, and he had to pull back behind again. Mitch gritted his teeth, tried the other side. If he could get in front, he might be able to force them off the road and into a ditch or something. A long shot, as they were much bigger and in a virtual tank compared to him – at the moment he was like a fly buzzing around their heads – but he had to take the shot, hope that his luck (his birthday luck) held out. Already he’d escaped from a flaming house today, so he was pushing it.

  As Mitch gunned the engine again and accelerated, he felt sure he was going to make it. Almost made it the length of the van, nearly to the front wheel – could see the driver through the open window, but not his face because of the hood, which was still up. Almost there, he thought to himself, almost there.

  Then suddenly the driver jerked the steering wheel right. Like the fire, it was as if he’d been waiting for Mitch before making a move: in this instance it was to clip the bike, then accelerate. Mitch lost his balance, skidded and ended up being flung off his ride into the long grass. He hit the ground and rolled over and over several times, flattening the greenery. By the time he managed to get to his feet again, reeling sideways, the van had disappeared – but there were still plumes of blackness being pumped out behind it.

  And he could see where it was heading.

  Shaking his head to clear it, Mitch ignored the cuts and grazes on his arms, limped back over to his bike. Even before he reached it, though, he could see it was done. In a passing place, all right, as in passed away. The front wheel was bent, would have to be replaced altogether. There was no way he was getting back on that to trail the van. Left with no option, he set off on foot. It would take a while but he’d get there even if it killed him. At this rate, it just might.

  Mitch set off, limping down the road. Making for the turning, which would take him to his destination.

  ***

  It felt like he’d never get there.

  He could have done with skipping over this part of the day, because the limp up there seemed like it took forever. Wasn’t the first time he’d made this trip on foot, but he hadn’t been in this kind of shape back then; had narrowly escaped serious injury, possibly death, twice. Now he just felt like death warmed up, that bad pint still affecting him.

  But he had to come, there was no choice. There was nobody else who could do this. Every step of the journey, the walk up here, Mitch had an ear cocked for sirens. For the cavalry he’d asked Denise to phone. Who was he kidding? You had to be on fire yourself around here before anyone took notice of you, and even then they took their sweet time responding. Wilkinson did anyway. The guy was practically in a coma, even when he was awake. Tammy flashed through his mind again as he thought that; Mitch wondered whether he would ever see his friend again. If she’d ever recover.

  He had to shove all that aside again, had other things to deal with that were more pressing. If he’d been thinking straight, Mitch wouldn’t have come within a mile of this place – it hadn’t exactly gone very well the last time, had it? And he’d felt like he stood half a chance then, unlike today. But he had right on his side and somehow that gave him the strength to carry on, like he was on some kind of one-man crusade. In a way he was.

  They weren’t even trying to hide what they’d done, which didn’t exactly inspire confidence. There was the filthy grey van, parked outside the barn where he’d had the altercation with Granger. Where he’d been threatened with the shotgun, and who’s to say that madman wouldn’t be back again waving his cannon around like someone from a Guy Ritchie movie.

  The place looked as deserted as before, so Mitch just lurched onwards. Moving towards the huge building again, which was open more than a crack this time. No sign of the chains or the lock at all, and a light was coming from inside.

  Mitch looked about him, expecting to be ambushed at any moment – or maybe they assumed they’d dealt with him back there when they rammed his bike. They hadn’t stopped to check, but had done enough damage that maybe they figured he wouldn’t be getting up and coming here. Who’d be crazy enough to follow them after all that?

  He had to wonder himself. Crazy. Is that what he was, is that what his dad had been? Forget about the dementia, this was just plain suicidal, right? The kind of action that gets you set alight in the woods. Gets you beaten up and the place where you’re living set on fire?

  When in Rome, however, and he needed to see what was inside that barn. What all this had been about. Felt sure the answers would be inside.

  Mitch stepped through, following that light. And some of the answers he already knew; even before he’d discovered them himself by coming back, he’d known. Some of the things he saw in there shocked him. Shocked him to the very core. Made him feel like he was well and truly lost.

  Then he was aware of someone just behind him, standing there by the door on the inside like he’d been waiting for Mitch to come through it and witness these sights. Not Granger, because as Mitch was turning he saw a fleeting glimpse of somebody else. As they whispered to him, a hand on his shoulder. One word, that made him lose time again. One word: more than simply a suggestion. Something embedded so deep he had no choice but to obey the command.

  The voice whispered, ‘Sleep.’

  Chapter 27

  As he yawned, he thought to himself: Sleep.

  That’s what he really needed, because Lord knows he hadn’t had much of late.
Not since Bella Prescott had waltzed into his nick, which seemed like such a long time ago now. No, Ashley Watts thought to himself, it felt simultaneously ages but only like yesterday. If you measure time by events then so much had happened since she’d come to see him, asked for him personally.

  It had culminated with him taking her in, staying at his place – which was what he’d first suggested when she’d told him about the break-in. A break-in he could find absolutely no evidence of, and she didn’t want to officially report. So off he’d gone again, looking into something that he really should have been keeping his nose out of. Speaking to a few of her friends after being so worried about her (like Vicky and Julie who went to her gatherings), following their chat on the beach. Finding out she’d been acting weirdly for a while, had cancelled things like the turn she did at The Majestic (was that the right name for it? Probably not – Bella saw it as more about helping people than a performance). Spending time investigating all that when he should have been working, had more than enough on. Going down that same rabbit hole he’d fallen into with Robyn when she’d been here.

  Worried about Bella in the same way, actually. No, not exactly the same. Robyn was, well, Robyn. And he hoped, prayed, that one day something might actually … Then there was Bella. Who he’d only known fleetingly until the last week or more, but now considered a friend. A good friend. But that was beside the point, wasn’t it? He’d have been concerned about anyone who’d come to him saying that someone had broken into their place, who’d looked the way Bella had when he called to see how she was. How distant she’d become, preoccupied, not the confident woman he’d met the previous summer.

  He’d been worried enough to come back again, then stake the place out. Wait and see if she came back because she hadn’t answered his knocks. A good job he had, because her caravan had caught light not long afterwards and he’d had to get her out of the place. Only to discover that the intruder – sorry, intruders plural, because if she was to be believed there were more than one now – caused the blaze.

  If she was to be believed.

  Because he’d seen no one else around, had he? It was entirely possible they’d come into the park the back way, but he still would have spotted them. Wouldn’t he? Wasn’t as if he’d been doing anything but waiting and watching. Watching as Bella’s van caught fire, seeing her outline through the windows. Talk about a mystery.

  If she’d had insurance, and she told him not long afterwards that she’d never really been able to afford any, then he would have said she’d done it for the payout. Looking for a way to get away from this place, this life. But that just wasn’t her, was it? By all accounts Bella was – or had been – happy here. Had a life she was happy with in Golden Sands. Things had only really changed when she’d heard her father had died.

  ‘If you ask me,’ Vicky had told Watts when he’d spoken to her, ‘I think it threw her. I think she cared more about him than she let on. A tragedy like that, it can do strange things to people. Especially if you weren’t around when it happened.’ That woman definitely spoke from experience, she’d been through enough tragedy to last a lifetime: the whole family had. Yet Bella had been adamant about not going back home, it seemed. Had left her brother Mitch to deal with the arrangements, so maybe it was the guilt of that affecting her? But the death had nothing to do with whoever was staging these attacks. Or did it? Did Bella Prescott have enemies, real enemies? Organized enemies?

  If you’d asked Watts a couple of years ago whether it was possible thugs could be breaking into places and starting fires here, he’d have thought you were mad. But things on the crime front had certainly ramped up recently. Not just the murder case he’d been involved in, but drugs, prostitution, even rumours of human trafficking. Someone having a grudge against Bella – maybe someone from her past who hadn’t liked what she’d had to tell them from a deceased relative – and hassling her, driving her out of her home with arson. It wasn’t all that hard to swallow really.

  So he’d promised her he’d get to the bottom of it all, look into it. Watts had wanted to make it in an official capacity. Let’s face it, she’d be dead if he hadn’t been on hand to drag her out of the burning caravan. That was attempted murder, manslaughter at the very least – if the culprits had known she was at home. How could they not have known? It wasn’t that big a place she lived in! But Bella had still insisted on keeping it between them, made him promise.

  That hadn’t prevented it from coming to the attention of his boss, O’Brien. Not a lot escaped her notice in that town, but burning caravans had a tendency to stick out. Especially when Watts was personally involved, when he said he needed to take some time away from their current cases to make sure Bella was okay. O’Brien had been uncharacteristically charitable about it all, had been in a house fire and only just escaped when she was younger, it turned out, so could sympathize. But she had asked, ‘Is there anything we need to be worrying about with this one?’

  ‘I’m not exactly sure yet. Waiting to hear what the official report from the fire investigator says.’

  ‘And this is all about another woman, right?’ O’Brien had looked at him sideways, as she often did. ‘You’re not going to start mooning about the office again, are you, Watts?’

  Watts had shaken his head emphatically. ‘It’s not like that, guv. I’m just looking out for her.’

  ‘Yeah, that’s how it usually starts with you.’

  O’Brien wasn’t wrong, it was how he got into a lot of his messes. This time, however, he was genuinely just looking out for Bella. That’s why he’d offered the use of his flat. Or was it because he wanted to keep an eye on her? A bit of both?

  That, however, had resulted in his current exhausted state. The first night, when he’d taken the couch and she’d reluctantly taken his bed (also borrowing a pair of his pyjamas), he’d been woken by loud crying. Watts wasn’t sure whether she was asleep and dreaming, or just upset about her home. No one would blame her. It had settled down sometime in the wee small hours, but that hadn’t meant he’d been able to drift back off. Then, before he knew it, the alarm was going and it was time to make his visitor breakfast. He’d cooked scrambled eggs, his morning speciality – and it wasn’t often he had guests, certainly not ones who stayed overnight (Robyn had never even seen the inside of his place), so he’d decided to push the boat out. He’d laughed at that thought as he put the eggs in the pan; where better to push boats out than at a place like Golden Sands?

  Bella had emerged from the bathroom looking like a panda, the shadows around her eyes blacker than ever. If he’d thought she might feel more relaxed, more secure here – enough to be able to catch up on her rest – then he’d been sadly mistaken. All she’d done with her eggs was shove them around the plate with her fork, choosing instead to nibble on half a slice of toast, cut into triangles in honour of her staying.

  It had crossed his mind to ask her about the crying, but Watts had no idea how to raise the subject. Wasn’t that great at chatting to the opposite sex anyway, didn’t have that much experience of it (not that the lads down the station were aware of this). Wasn’t your typical blokey bloke in the slightest. So all he’d said was, ‘Bella, listen.’

  She’d looked at him then with bleary, blood-shot eyes, and he’d never felt so sorry for anyone in his life. ‘Yes?’

  ‘You know you can talk to me, don’t you? Tell me anything.’

  Bella had nodded, but said nothing.

  He’d needed to pop out, grab her more clothes apart from anything else (all of hers had gone up in flames), just casual stuff like jeans and T-shirts once he had her sizes, but wondered if he should really be leaving her on her own. Bella wasn’t the type to do something stupid, though, was she? Hadn’t been before – she’d been much more confident back when he first met her. Still wouldn’t take too kindly to being babysat, he figured. So he’d headed out for a little while as she sat there and let old movies on the TV wash over her, knees pulled up and hugging herself on his couch.
‘You going to be okay?’ he’d enquired before he went out and she’d given a faint nod. ‘You’re sure?’

  ‘Ashley, I’ll be just fine,’ she assured him, shades of her old self. ‘Please stop worrying.’

  She’d still been in the same position when he returned later on, hadn’t moved an inch as far as he could tell. At least she hadn’t tried to slit her wrists or anything. Then she’d headed off to bed quite early, he assumed to try to grab some of those z’s that had escaped her the previous night.

  The screaming had woken him at about 2 a.m. – he’d only just managed to get to sleep – but that was probably because Bella was standing in the middle of his living room bellowing her lungs out. ‘Jesus!’ Watts had cried, sitting bolt upright on the sofa and flicking on the side lamp that was next to him.

  There she was, just gazing out into space, now that she’d roused him. Him and probably everyone else in the entire building, though there was no knocking on walls, the floor with the end of a broom or banging coming from the ceiling. ‘Bella?’ he’d called out to her, but she hadn’t answered. It was like she was awake, but not awake. Seeing something that wasn’t present, holding her hands out now as if he could help. Sleepwalking? he thought to himself. No, this was different; his dad had done a bit of that, so he had some prior experience. And this was infinitely more chilling.

  He didn’t know whether to call to her again or not. You shouldn’t wake sleepwalkers, Watts knew that much. People in trances he wasn’t sure about. And it occurred to him then that this might be connected to that thing Bella did, regardless of the fact she’d told him a couple of times now that it didn’t work that way. That she heard voices, didn’t see things like other mediums might.