That was another thing about him. Ben had morals, and standards, which made him the perfect target for a wife who turned out to lose interest in a man dedicated to his father. It also made it easy to believe that he’d been a hypocrite all along, instead of a gentleman with a heart of gold.
Hayley sighed. Of course, there was that other side to Ben too, the obstinate side and the pride with which he’d kept everyone away in those last five years. And the fact he didn’t care what people thought of him, which in turn convinced them further of his guilt. He kept out of their way, and they kept out of his.
Except Eve seemed to get through to him. Hayley yawned. Past midnight, and she needed to be up at seven. She really should hire more help.
Eve gazed through a chink in her curtains at the moon. It had reached the stage in between where she always failed to know if it was waxing or waning. A moon stuck in between, where it could go either way. Like Ben Dryden. Either she forgot about him or she found out more. If he was guilty, which seemed highly unlikely, considering the public information, she’d get the hell out of Dodge. If he was innocent, it would be pleasant to get to know him better. All she knew was that he had a soothing voice and a smile that lit up his face, if she could coax one out of him.
Eve pulled the duvet over her head; much easier than getting up and closing the curtains properly. She needed utter darkness to think through her plans. For a brief instant she remembered a documentary she’d watched, about women from all over the world falling in love with men on Death Row after exchanging letters. Nonsense, she told herself. She’d never be that gullible, apart from the fact that she wasn’t falling for Ben Dryden, and that odds were good he’d never killed a single human being.
Chapter 4
Ben stooped over his father’s wheelchair and wrapped the woollen throw around John’s spindly legs. Despite their best efforts the draught in the lounge persisted. Donna used to complain about it.
Ben’s stomach lurched. He had successfully stopped thinking about his wife for a long time, but since he met Eve, Donna popped up in his mind unbidden, and unwanted.
He must have winced. John looked at his son. His body had shrunken after the second stroke left him permanently crippled, but his mind stayed sharp as a tack, and his vision was clear enough to read his son’s face.
“Problems?” he asked as he moved his heavily veined hand towards Ben’s shoulder. John’s right side had suffered the brunt of the damage. He could still feed himself with his left hand and button up his shirt, he could even lift himself out of the wheelchair to use the bathroom, but in a not too far future he’d need help for that too.
“Bit of a headache,” Ben said. They never spoke about Donna. There was no need to.
Ben checked his watch. Chris Ripley, John’s massage therapist, should arrive any minute. He’d been with John since that first small stroke seven years ago, when weekly massage and physical exercises kept the old man upright solely with the aid of a cane. Since Chris’ partner during that period was on an active army tour, he also was available at short notice. Since Donna’s death, Chris came three times a week.
They’d turned Ben’s old nursery into a treatment room, with a hospital bed, bars along one wall and a powerful space heater which was switched on for ten minutes before the massage. When his father had to give up working the land and found himself without savings, Ben had sunk most of his money into doing the necessary repairs. Replacing the old wiring throughout had not featured on the list. They only used the space heater under supervision. The wiring in the main part of the building was new and should last while John was still alive. Ben didn’t intend to plan any further ahead.
The doorbell rang. Chris had his own key, but he always waited to see if Ben was home before letting himself in.
John’s eyes lit up as he saw his massage therapist. At thirty-five, Chris combined an easy-going personality with just enough sympathy for his patients to develop a bond without becoming too attached to them. He reserved a mildly flirtatious manner for the mature ladies in his care and a man-to-man attitude for his male patients.
Ben appreciated the arrangement. Chris did more than help John physically, he supplied entertainment and outside interest for a man no longer able to go out and about himself.
It also meant that Ben could enjoy a few precious hours of freedom without feeling obliged to stay close by. On days without Chris he rarely went further than the stream, in case his father needed him. They’d rigged up a system where John could call Ben on a mobile phone attached to the back of his wheelchair. The phone was voice-controlled. For emergencies John also had an alarm button on a string around his neck which would connect him with the local emergency services.
Ben knocked on wood. So far, they’d never needed it, but it helped him feel on top of things. Life would be easier if his father would be able to let go of this place, but his attachment to the house and the land was built into the very fabric of his existence. That’s why Ben had no choice but to come back and save it, no matter the personal price. Donna had never been able to understand the necessity. But for John, this wasn’t an outdated money-pit, it was the centre of his life.
Ben snatched his waxed jacket from a hook in the hallway. They’d cleared the pathways as much as possible for John’s wheelchair, which meant removing most furniture. The Georgian coat-stand dating from his great-grandfather’s days had brought in a three-figure sum at auction.
Ben wondered if he should change his long-held plans to go to the movies and take a stroll in the woods instead. It had been nice to talk to someone who knew nothing about him, or about Donna, for a change. But Eve Holdsworth would still be around tomorrow or the day after and seeking her out felt like an admission of his loneliness.
Eve kept an eye on the old-fashioned wall clock. Keeping busy usually helped, but despite her best efforts the hands of the clock moved at a pace that allowed her to watch her fingernails grow.
She climbed onto a rickety chair and buffed the exposed wall beams with beeswax although they already gleamed. She reached a stage where she’d do anything to distract herself.
When the phone rang, she lost her balance. The chair fell, and she saved herself with a jump that ended with her scratching her hand on an empty picture holder.
Eve sucked on the bleeding graze as she picked up the phone. No wonder her heart beat so fast after this brush with catastrophe, she told herself as she said, “Hello?”
“Eve, darling.”
Eve’s hope deflated. She knew that voice. It belonged to a woman who only called when she had an urgent assignment to fulfil and needed Eve to cram in a week’s worth of work into half the number of hours. An email from her was always welcome, because it would contain a reasonable deadline. A phone call instead was a reason to break out into cold sweat, although at least the payment was prompt and almost generous.
Eve listened to a long string of instructions, to which she agreed without complaint. Then she put down the phone and swore. By now she had developed an impressive list of invectives. They served as an antidote to the pain of agreeing to the job.
Five days for a list of translations that would comfortably take twice as long. While being a freelancer afforded Eve the luxury of working from home, she still could but dream of reaching the coveted state of being able to pick and choose, at least if she wanted to eat regularly.
This meant she had to forego her walk, and her owl-watching, and her brief chat with Ben Dryden unless she’d be willing to work until midnight.
She glanced at her backpack, and her computer, and again the backpack. One last sigh and she brewed a pot of strong coffee to boost her concentration while she tackled the job from hell.
Ben waved Chris off and locked the door. He bolted it as well and shuttered the windows. Although there were no valuables left in the house apart from his computer equipment and a few cumbersome antique furniture pieces, he did this diligently. There’d been one attempt to break in, shortly after Donna’s f
uneral, and while the door held fast, two lead-pane windows shattered under an onslaught of rocks. Wrapped around them was paper bearing the single word Murderer.
John dozed in front of the fire. After the massage he needed extra warmth.
“Dad?” Ben put a hand on John’s shoulder, knowing his father enjoyed the physical contact, although he’d openly snort at the sentiment.
The old man grunted and opened his eyes. “I wasn’t napping, if that’s what you think. Just resting my eyes.”
Ben stifled a grin. He only needed to worry when his father admitted being tired, or lonely.
“Sandwiches and soup okay?” he asked.
Ben cut the sandwiches into small cubes. In the beginning he’d tried to find a daily help to clean and cook for them, but no-one local wanted to set foot into the house of horrors, as they no doubt dubbed it.
Ben and John had fallen into a routine that was uneasy at first, with the many unspoken things between them that would never be discussed now, with his father so helpless. Over time the tension eased, or at least it did for Ben. His father needed him. That was all there was to it. In a way it helped, to be forced to focus on the present, with no dwelling on the past and no useless dreams about the future.
In rare moments of self-indulgence, Ben allowed himself fantasies of freedom. No-one to judge or fear him, no-one to protect, no-one to care for.
“Like Robinson Crusoe,” he said to himself as he tested the soup to make sure it wasn’t too hot. But Robinson would have gone out of his mind if it hadn’t been for his faithful companion, Friday. Ben still had a few friends left, but they were few and far between, and mostly down in London. As for his old mates, no-one but Hayley had believed in him. If anybody else had given Ben the benefit of the doubt, they’d hidden it well.
Tomorrow afternoon he’d go down to the stream. Maybe Eve would come again. A few words with another person, that wasn’t much to ask for. It wouldn’t last long, he knew that. One day people would tell her about him and on her face would be that sickening look of hurt and fear.
Soup dripped from the ladle over his shirt. He wiped it away and went to fetch his father. After dinner John would watch television for a few hours while Ben sat in his study and worked on his software coding, or they would watch something together. Their lives were as small and clearly defined as the cells of a beehive.
Maybe he didn’t deserve more, not after Donna.
There she was again, buzzing around in his head unbidden and unwanted.
They’d been married for six years, first putting off having children to enjoy their independence and then no longer interested in any offspring, at least not together.
She’d been pretty, even underneath all that carefully applied make-up and the Marilyn-Monroe-hair that turned more and more into a work of art the further they grew apart.
Had they ever been happy after that first rush of hormones, or did they marry because everybody else around them seemed to get hitched? How many of the memories resembled the original moments at all and how much were reshaped by time, retelling or suppressing them?
What he did remember in every excruciating detail was their last long conversation. It should have been a fight, but by then he hadn’t cared about the why or who. He only cared about the effects on his father. With good reason, as the second stroke proved.
“When you go out today, don’t forget to take the card for your business account,” Donna said. She didn’t bother to make eye contact. Instead she studied her fingernails. They were painted blood-red, a detail that stuck in his mind. He rarely noticed anymore, and since she moved out of their bedroom there were few occasions anyway to really see her. Or reasons why he should want to.
“I won’t,” he said.
“You’re not asking why?” She looked up, a mixture of defiance and bravado in her voice, tinged with anger.
“Sure. Why?”
“Because I’ve cleared out our joint account. Two more days, and I’m out of here, out of your life, Ben Dryden, out of this miserable god-forsaken rural hell.”
He remembered a pause before he said, “Is there anything I can help you with?”
“Anything you can help me with?” Underneath her make-up her face went pale. “That’s all you have to say after all these years?”
“I assumed your mind is made up.” Her sudden anger bewildered him. It was at odds with the happiness he’d felt in her since she decided their marriage was over.”
“It is,” she said. “Absolutely. I wish I’d done it ages ago. And the money I’ve taken is only a down payment on what you owe me. I want every single last bloody penny that’s my due. I don’t care if you have to sell your precious paddocks to do it.”
“Does my father know?”
“He will. Believe me, he will.”
“I see.” He’d picked up his briefcase, a monogrammed leather affair she’d given him for his first birthday as a married couple and left. What disturbed him most about he scene, was his utter detachment.
Donna was dead before the end of the day.
His father’s cough jolted Ben back into the present. “Ready to eat?” he asked as he wheeled John’s chair into position.
“I hope the soup isn’t too hot again.”
Eve made a pact with herself. She’d work non-stop for two hours, take a ten-minute break to stretch or have a snack, and then work for another two hours. The mulling over the subject of Ben Dryden would be strictly limited to her thirty-minute lunch break and after she’d finished her word count for the day.
Usually she spent her jealously guarded idle periods during urgent assignments browsing properties in places she might one day want to live in, but she could do that any day. Allowing herself to think about Ben on the other hand would prevent it from turning into an obsession. As it was, part of the fascination stemmed from the cloud of suspicion shrouding him. Probably, at least. It appealed to the carefully hidden romantic in her, and to the lover of mysteries.
Her alarm shrilled. The deal was on, and the first two-hour period began in earnest.
When she’d reached her word count shortly before midnight, her eyes smarted and her brain felt too fuzzy for any coherent thought. But it didn’t matter much. There was always tomorrow.
Chapter 5
Ben perched on a three-legged foldable stool by the stream. Fish shot past his line, oblivious of the hook, especially because he’d not baited it. He had enough fish for the small pond outside the house, and the rod served more as an excuse, although he wasn’t sure if for himself or someone else.
He glanced towards the path. She wasn’t coming. Of course she wasn’t. By now Eve Holdsworth would have heard every single theory about him and his murderous ways. He wondered if the rumours stuck with Donna or if he’d reached the status of a Bluebeard, with any number of unsuspecting females barely making their escape alive.
It would be too late now anyway, even if she appeared against all odds. He needed to get back to John. His father had coughed all through the morning, and a regular chest-rub with peppermint and eucalyptus oils might help.
Ben pulled in the rod, once more ready to return to his duties.
Ben only half concentrated on the film they watched. Instead, he concentrated on his father’s physical state and fretted over it in silence. John seemed to cough less, and his breath was less ragged, but he picked up colds and little ailments with an alarming frequency. It was the dampness in the stone, and the climate with its lack of sunshine and the constantly changing temperatures. Ben had tried to take his father away on a holiday in the sun for years now, but the old man resisted stubbornly.
“I was born here, and I’ll die here,” was John’s constant refrain. “I didn’t prance off to Italy or Spain when I was in my prime, and I’ll be damned if I make a spectacle of myself now in this blasted wheelchair.” He’d discounted the doctor’s opinion too, and so he and Ben had stayed home, season after miserable season.
What John needed, what they both
needed was a change of scenery, and if Ben was honest, a separation at least during the days. He longed to be somewhere he could explore, carefree and without worrying about a bone-headed old man, just for a few weeks.
As things were, his father’s physical condition had imprisoned him almost as much as if he’d been convicted for Donna’s death. Except in his case there was no early release for good behaviour. The only thing that would set him free was to see his father gone or confined to a nursing-home, which was sure to finish him off in a matter of weeks.
“You’re awfully quiet.” John’s speech was still slow, but on good days the slight slur hardly mattered. Today was such a day, despite the cough. Ben had trained himself to notice any changes to such an extent he’d do it automatically. “Business problems?”
Ben forced himself to a chuckle. “No, simply trying to remember a few things. Anything that’s not in my electronic diary gets forgotten.” The last thing he wanted John to do was worry about money. Never, ever again. He’d take care of that.
John lifted his good hand to tap at his temple. “Still the best diary I’ve ever had. Keep it all up here. Nothing’s ever forgotten. My body may not be what it used to be, but there’s still light on in the attic.”
He wiped his mouth. His right hand rested in his lap, the muscles all but wasted away. His zest for life had its up and downs, but so did Ben’s. It had taken him a while to accept his status as a pariah, and to learn to hide his true feelings from everyone, most of all John. Sometimes he suspected them both of playing some kind of masochistic game, where they both set themselves up for more pain. At least John never had to experience what it had been like to walk through the streets and have people either flee or spit out after him. Parents pulled their children aside when they saw him. He’d deliberately slow his walk to a crawl, so they got a good look at the wife killer in their midst.
Let Sleeping Murder Lie: A cozy mystery Page 3