The Hidden Legacy: A Dark and Shocking Psychological Drama

by GJ Minett

  ‘And you don’t think it’d be easier just to ask Sam?’

  ‘No point. Trust me. Not with the little we’ve got at the moment.’

  Maybe after the weekend, she thought. Maybe then she might have filled enough gaps to feel better about confronting him, but for now there were just too many of them for him to slip through. If he decided not to come clean, she didn’t have enough to twist his arm.

  ‘Ellie . . . you absolutely sure about this?’

  ‘Kate, you know what he’s like –’

  ‘I don’t mean Sam – I mean . . . all of it. This whole business. Are you sure you want to keep digging like this?’

  Ellen recognised the unusually serious note in her friend’s voice. She paused as she lifted a second crumpet to her mouth.

  ‘Of course. Why wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Well . . . gift horses spring to mind, for one thing.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Meaning you don’t have to go up there tomorrow. You could just put it all back into the solicitor’s hands, ask him to sell the cottage and walk away with the money, no questions asked.’

  ‘But why would I do that? What’s wrong with trying to get some sort of explanation?’ She licked more goo from her fingers and put the plate on the coffee table for a while. ‘Are you telling me, if you were in my place, you wouldn’t be curious about who this woman was and how you were connected to her?’

  ‘I’m sure I would be. But I’d have you there pointing out the obvious to me, wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That there’s something very iffy about all this.’

  ‘Iffy?’

  ‘What would you call it? I mean, you hear out of the blue that you’ve inherited this cottage from a total stranger. You go up to have a look around and you haven’t been there five minutes before some journalist’s on your doorstep, lying his head off about who he is and why he’s there. You’ve got a private detective agency traipsing around the country, looking for someone, presumably you, in places you’ve never even been in your life. Then, just a few hours after you’ve left the cottage, you’ve got someone breaking into it and –’

  ‘Not someone. O’Halloran.’

  ‘You don’t know that. Not for sure.’

  ‘Oh come on, Kate – who else is it going to be?’

  ‘I don’t know, Ellie, and neither do you, which is pretty much the point I’m trying to make here. You’ve got all these things going on around you and I get that you don’t like being the only one in the dark but if you’re right and people close to you are keeping things from you, isn’t the most likely explanation that they think it’s for the best? What if you’re better off not knowing?’

  ‘Now I know you’re not serious,’ Ellen laughed. ‘Is this by any chance the same Kate Goodwin who spent the best part of two years telling me that running away from my problems with Jack and burying my head in the sand wasn’t going to solve anything?’

  ‘Different, and you know it. With Jack you just had a straight choice to make – pull out or settle for a life of second best. You knew exactly what you were dealing with. Here you don’t. Look, I’m not trying to put you off going up there tomorrow or anything like that. You tell me you still want to go ahead and I’ll be there with you, asking as many questions as you like.’

  ‘Good, ’cos I’m going. I’ll see you tomorrow, OK? Bright and early.’

  Kate sighed. ‘One or the other,’ she said. ‘Can’t do both.’

  Ellen smiled and hung up.

  March 1974: Josef

  A couple emerge from the Prince’s Arms and start making their way up the hill towards him. The man is dressed in a three-quarter length coat, fastened at the throat with the collar turned up to protect him from the wind. The woman is wearing an inadequate-looking waist-length jacket, a short skirt and high-heeled shoes which are patently ill-suited to conditions underfoot. Their body language suggests there’s been a disagreement between them. He’s pointedly walking a few yards ahead of her as she tiptoes her way up the slope. She stops for a moment, leaning against the door of the telephone kiosk while she removes one shoe and tips it upside down. She calls out to him and he waits for her to catch up before offering an arm by way of grudging support. His impatience is unmistakable.

  They’re heading straight for his car and he thinks for a moment it’s him they’ve come to see. Then, at the last moment, they pause at the yellow Citroën immediately in front, exchanging a few words which he’s unable to decipher. The man unlocks his door first and rummages around inside for a good ten seconds before reaching across and letting her in. Through their rear window, he watches as she switches on the interior light and studies herself in a compact mirror which she’s taken from her bag. The man reaches over immediately and turns it off, and they’re still arguing as he pulls away, a touch more abruptly than the conditions will allow. The rear of the car slews round and it fishtails its way down the hill for a few yards before he manages to straighten it out. Josef can only imagine the conversation between them as the rear lights disappear into the distance.

  With nothing to distract him, he realises that his hands are still shaking. The unexpected encounter in the pub, almost literally bumping into the boy like that, has thrown him. It was so much more difficult than he’d expected. In the flesh. Close enough to touch. Everything seemed so straightforward in the abstract. Walk in, confront him, say what he has to say and leave. Simple as that. No discussion. No recriminations. In and out. He’s not interested in anything the boy might have to say – doesn’t see what possible purpose an apology would serve anyway. All he wants is to see the shock of recognition in his eyes and to have his say. It’s a long way to come just for the sake of a few words, but it’ll be worth it. He knows he’ll never have another opportunity.

  He stretches his arms out and grips the steering wheel in the ten to two position, locking his arms straight in front of him in an attempt to exercise a modicum of control over the trembling. It works for as long as he maintains his grip. He’s obviously miscalculated, underestimated the effect all this would have on him. In his present state, he’s not sure he’ll even be able to face the boy, let alone string together a few coherent sentences. He hopes it’s just the shock and that he’ll be OK in a few minutes.

  It could have been worse, he supposes. At least the boy didn’t recognise him and take off like a startled rabbit. Mr O’Halloran doesn’t deserve that, not after all the work he’s done to set this up. The fact that the boy went on into the pub without even a backward glance and still hasn’t come out again suggests no damage has been done. He doesn’t suspect anything – not yet, at any rate. It’s still on. He just needs to compose himself. Taking a few deep breaths, he looks at his watch: another ten minutes or so before he’s due to go in. If he can just stop his hands from shaking . . .

  He puts one hand in his coat pocket and fingers the folded sheet of paper. Eyes closed, he tries to visualise the words on the page.

  I need a few seconds of your time, he begins. You’ve taken so much from me – it’s not so much for me to ask of you. Two minutes, that’s all – two minutes to tell you about my wife. You owe her at least that much.

  My wife is a loving, decent Christian woman who deserves far better from life than what she has received. It is . . . it is . . .

  He curses and takes out the sheet, which he unfolds on the dashboard. Peering closely at it, trying to decipher the pencil markings in the poor light, he finds the place where he’s stumbled.

  It is your great misfortune, and ultimately ours, that you have not had anything approaching her influence in your life. For that, if no other reason, you have my sympathy. If she had played any role at all in your upbringing, you could not have failed to be a better person for it.

  Despite the evil you have inflicted on us, despite the fact that you’ve ruined her life and taken from her the only person who has ever really mattered to her, she would forgive you in a
n instant if she had the opportunity. If she were standing here right now, her faith is such that she would seek to convince you it’s not too late for you to do something decent with your life. She cannot bring herself to believe that God has abandoned you and that what you did is no more than a random act of cruelty.

  I do not have the consolation afforded by her faith. My belief in God was never strong and any possible connection was severed the moment you took our daughter from us. You should know that I do not forgive you. I never will. At my time of life I should be seeking ways of building bridges and tying up loose ends, but I do not have it in me. I am not a saint. I can assure you that my dying breath will be spent cursing the day you were brought into this world.

  So I do not ask anything of you for myself but for my wife. And for my daughter. You took her life. Ever since that moment, it has become your responsibility to live it for her. My wife believes in the power of redemption. She is convinced it is not too late for you to learn from what has happened and turn the ultimate in evil into something worthwhile. For her sake, I ask you to do something positive with your life to make sure that our daughter’s death is not the meaningless sacrifice it has been until now. You owe us both at least that much.

  He looks up briefly from the sheet, his subconscious alerted to signs of activity further down the hill. Two couples have emerged from the Prince’s Arms. In the pool of light just outside the entrance, they’re exchanging embraces and handshakes before going their separate ways. He watches as one couple turns right, walking away from him in the direction of the car park. The other two huddle in the entrance for a few moments, casting anxious eyes towards the darkened skies from which the snow is still descending in flurries. Then they wrap their arms around each other and start to climb the hill towards him.

  Even as he allows his attention to drift back to the sheet in front of him, he’s aware of something at the periphery of his vision, something his mind hasn’t quite processed – a flash of yellow that causes his heart to beat a little more quickly. He sits bolt upright, rubbing furiously at the windscreen with a gloved hand while the other fiddles with the ignition key to activate the wipers. He leans forward, pressing his nose against the glass as he tries to get a better look.

  The couple are looming ever larger in his vision, effectively blotting out all but occasional glimpses of the main focus of his attention. They draw level with the phone box and his heart skips a beat as a hooded figure in a yellow kagoul steps out from behind them, pulls the door open and steps inside. Even with his back turned while he lifts the receiver and dials, there is no disguising who it is. The logo on the back, with its printed face locked in an inane grin, is all he needs to see.

  And now the blood is really starting to pound in his head. The questions come flying in thick and fast. Who’s he phoning? Why’s he out here? Has there been an argument or something? In his agitated state, all he can think is that the boy is planning to leave. He’s calling for a taxi – either that or he’s ringing someone else for a lift. And he knows he can’t allow that to happen – not until he’s spoken with him. Not after he’s lied to Dorrie about where he was going and spent the best part of a day just getting here. Inside, in a crowded bar, Mr O’Halloran can control things, remind the boy that the last thing he can afford to do is draw attention to himself. Then it will be time for his own entrance and Mr O’Halloran will have the photograph and the story he so badly wants and he can go back home and get on with what’s left of his life. But out here there’s nothing to stop the boy making a run for it and it will all have been for nothing. No, he decides. That can’t happen.

  He wonders what’s happened, while he’s been sitting out here, to make the boy want to leave so early. They can’t have had more than twenty minutes together. If there’s been an argument of some sort, Mr O’Halloran wouldn’t leave him literally in the dark, would he? He wouldn’t just stay inside, sitting on his thumbs while the boy wanders off. He’d have to do something. Surely he’d want to get a message to him to let him know they needed to bring it all forward. He’d be at the entrance somewhere, trying to attract his attention. He leans forward again and peers through the windscreen for any sign of him. There is someone at the entrance but it’s a much older man who seems to have come outside for a cigarette and a bit of fresh air. There’s no sign of Mr O’Halloran.

  He forces himself to calm down. Wait. Unless he’s left with no choice, he doesn’t want to mess things up by jumping in prematurely. Far better to sit it out, at least for as long as it takes the boy to finish his phone call. If he is phoning for a taxi or a lift, it’s not as if it’s going to arrive immediately, is it? He can afford to wait and see what happens next. If he’s not leaving this minute, he’ll probably go back into the Prince’s Arms anyway. That would be the logical thing to do. The boy will be better off waiting in there than out here. Whatever it is that’s gone wrong, it doesn’t mean the chance has gone. If there’s a change of plan now, Mr O’Halloran will still have time to let him know.

  He snaps to attention as the door to the kiosk opens and the hooded figure steps out into the open again. Arms wrapped around his chest to ward off the cold, the boy skips easily down the hill, making light of the conditions. He appears to slip at one point but manages to turn it into a controlled slide as he draws nearer to the pub. He nods at the man who has come outside for a smoke and the pair appear to exchange a joke about something. Then the boy reaches the entrance but instead of turning he keeps going and Josef gives a silent scream.

  His fingers feel as if they belong to someone else as he wrestles with the ignition key and fires the engine into life. This isn’t how it was meant to be. The boy is now ten yards the other side of the entrance, heading away from the pub. The only thing out there is the car park and another line of cars parked on the verge. He’s not waiting – it looks as if he’s leaving now. He forces the car into gear and, in his anxiety, hits the accelerator too firmly for the conditions. The back of the car comes round in an uncontrolled slide and swipes the wing mirror of the nearest vehicle but he doesn’t stop. No time now. No time. The boy’s still on the move.

  And the silent scream is no longer silent. I need a few seconds of your time, he’s yelling through the closed side window. You’ve taken so much from me – it’s not so much for me to ask of you. Two minutes, that’s all – two minutes to tell you about my wife. And Dorrie is there in front of him all of a sudden, not the gentle, smiling woman who’s done everything to hold things together but a younger version, a dim, distant figure at the end of a corridor, a long, antiseptic corridor busy with people in uniforms and bustling metal trolleys. And he can see her there, talking with a man in a white coat and he’s about to call out to her when he sees her throw her head back in what looks, even from this distance, like despair, and she’s slipping to the floor as the man reaches out to grab hold of her, only he can’t keep her from falling, all he can do is prevent her head from hitting the lime-green tiled floor, and now he’s running, running towards her and it takes him an eternity to get there, which is probably no more than five seconds but long enough – long enough for him to know he’s never going to see his daughter again.

  She would forgive you in an instant, he’s screaming, as the car skids past the pub entrance and careers on in pursuit. And now it’s Julie there before him, not the fourteen-year-old teenager who was taken from him but the miracle who came into their lives when they had long since given up hope and the toddler who used to sit on his lap and pull his cheeks around with such an earnest, thoughtful expression on her face and the little girl who was always there at the door, waiting to greet him when he came home from work and You should know that I do not forgive you, he’s screaming as the boy looms large in front of him. I never will.

  And he’s on his way back up the hill, heading for the village and the freedom of the open roads beyond it by the time he reaches the crucial line, the most honest thing he has to say to the boy. My dying breath will be spent cursing
the day you were brought into this world, he says, his voice trailing away into the darkness.

  Somehow he doesn’t feel the need to say any more.

  February 2008: Ellen

  Having assured Kate that she’d be in bed within the next ten minutes or so, Ellen remembered there was just one thing she still wanted to do. She’d been thinking of asking Kate what she thought but it had slipped her mind as the conversation drifted into more sensitive waters. Now she decided to go ahead with it anyway.

  She picked up the card from the kitchen shelf where she’d left it the previous evening and carried it through into the lounge. Then she picked up the phone and started dialling. It rang several times and she was on the point of hanging up when a weary voice came onto the line.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘This is Ellen Sutherland,’ she said, her manner brisk and business-like. ‘We met yesterday afternoon at the cottage.’

  ‘Ah yes, Mrs Sutherland. Of course. Well, what a pleasant surprise. You know, I was saying to my dear wife only this morning . . .’

  ‘I think we can do away with the pretence now, don’t you? I know who you are, Mr O’Halloran.’

  There was a pause. She could almost hear him gathering his thoughts and deciding how best to play this.

  ‘Ah, I see. Well, well . . . we have been busy then, haven’t we? Or has our young friend Liam been less than discreet?’

  ‘I didn’t need any help from him,’ she said, happy to take any opportunity to puncture his irritating self-assurance. ‘Your act needs a little polish. He did his best with the hand you dealt him.’

  ‘I’m sure he did. I must remember to thank him next time I see him.’

  ‘That won’t be happening.’

  ‘It won’t?’

  ‘No, it won’t. I don’t think you’ll be having any further contact with Liam Sharp.’