just bet you are sitting in Ken’s leather chair squirming at the thought!). I mean emotional connections and honesty - the honesty of feeling and a 100% commitment to one another. You never saw that and don’t need to - but Julie did.
“She changed me and I will always be forever in her debt as a result.”
Her death was hard on Glen - but mainly because he saw what it did to his Dad. It was only two years ago and, up until Julie had that heart attack, Leonard had shown no signs of illness or fatigue. But he shut down after she died - as if a part of him had been buried with her. His life-force, his joie de vivre, it disappeared that April afternoon when the soil was filled in above her coffin.
Glen had heard of this happening to spouses of someone who died - especially after such a long marriage. He just never thought his staunch Dad would succumb. Now, after reading these revelations, he understood it better.
She was his crutch, his salvation. Without her, his father was himself again - a wizened version of the young killer that went to Vietnam and carved out a future. That was the person Leonard had spent many years getting away from, slowly driving out of his life through the unwitting salvation Julie brought.
“That’s it son - your future is what you make of it. I have given you everything you need but the most important aspect is within you. It’s a mixture of your mother, your brother, your life experience and me. It’s you, Glen. You are your own man - I wish you well and will love you always, Dad.”
Over the last few hours, Glen had learned that his father was not only a successful businessman, loving father and devoted husband, but also a trained killer for the government and a gun for hire for many years. He had an offshore bank account with the proceeds of his deeds invested which he gave away to the daughter of his last victim. He knew about Glen’s intervention in the rehabilitation of Joey’s killer as well - something that Glen thought he had hidden well.
But, as Uncle Ken left the room to make a cup of coffee, it seemed that Leonard didn’t know everything about Glen.
The young man slumped back into the leather chair, exhausted. It was an exhaustion borne of emotion and loss. He felt the energy drain from him and he let his shoulders relax, releasing the tension that he had unknowingly built up as he read his father’s testament. That relaxation was relief.
What Glen learned in these letters was the undying love Leonard had for his wife Julie - Glen’s Mum. But Glen knew just what affect his father’s absences had on her. Being older than Joey, he could see things his younger brother could not - he could pick up on the nuances that adults emitted which children didn’t yet understand. Glen knew his mother was having an affair.
If his father knew, he would have surely revealed it in these letters - but there wasn’t even a hint of it. His devotion to her was complete in these papers, something that seemed never to have waivered. Glen could see the effect the affair had on his mother, the heartache that she felt being torn between her family and the man she fell in love with - Joey’s science teacher at high school. Glen had left school by this stage but he still lived at home and he knew what was happening. His mother was a wreck and his father was away travelling with work. She was anxious, upset, constantly distracted - he had to find out what it was.
When he followed her one day, she had no idea she was leading him to the home of her lover.
She also had no idea she was signing that lover’s death warrant.
Glen remembered gaining entry to the house at night, several hours after his mother had left. In remembering this, Glen recollected that he was on autopilot. He could not recall any anger or vengeance in any way - it was simply a deed that needed to be completed to keep the family unit together. At the time he blamed his mother for this situation - how could she have been so weak as to allow this to happen? To put him in that situation?
Years later he blamed his father for being so consumed in the business that he neglected his own wife, driving her into the arms of another man.
But now he blamed himself - he chose to sort the situation out.
He chose to break into the man’s home.
He chose to stab him through the heart with a kitchen knife.
How he never got caught was simply a minor miracle. It was amateur at best, although he did try and make it look like a break in gone wrong. For days and then weeks later he hid his nervousness, shuddering each time the doorbell sounded or the phone rang. But, over time, the paranoia and anxiety faded.
Julie was a sobbing mess for days but she too, over time, recovered and returned to the arms of her husband Leonard. Soon his father curtailed his travelling - perhaps, Glen realised now, this coincided with his retirement from his nefarious activities as well? Life returned to normal and Glen locked the episode into a sealed container in his memory.
Until now.
He was glad Leonard never knew of Julie’s infidelity and the extreme solution Glen had for it. Some secrets deserve to remain that way for a good reason.
Before Uncle Ken returned with his coffee, Glen took all the notes and papers from his father’s last will and testament, folded them into one envelope and left. These papers would never see the light of day again, they would disappear into oblivion along with the details of his father’s clandestine life – where they belonged.
Ken made the coffees but, when he returned to his office, his secretary told him that Glen had left - saying he would be back tomorrow to finalise the legal requirements of the will.
What a day, he thought to himself as he slumped into the saggy leather chair, his aging girth taking up its familiar position within the soft folds of the chair behind the desk. Papers were strewn all over the large wooden desk but there was a system in there - only Ken knew what that system was though. For an ex-military man he was oddly messy and disorganised, but that was just the way he wanted it.
The acidic coffee slid down his throat, heating him as it sustained him. He took off his glasses and closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose as he did so, relieving tension. Glen took the news pretty much as he had expected - and how Leonard expected. Glen certainly was a chip off the old block. The similarities with Leonard were amazing - their temperament was identical.
Like Leonard, Glen was scary. He was capable of anything and there was no warning it was coming. It was cold, detached, automatic. Ken had seen it in Leonard many times - as if someone else was controlling him. There was a fearlessness and determination in him that Glen had as well and that made him dangerous.
Ken knew exactly how dangerous too.
He took out the small Dictaphone – a remnant from the 1990’s that seemed to have disappeared as digital surveillance took over. He opened the last envelope in Leonard’s file and the only contents of the file fell out into his hand – a micro-cassette. He placed the cassette in the player and pressed ‘Play” – Leonard’s voice now filled the room via the tinny speaker on the player. Ken taped all of his phone calls
“Ken.”
“Hi Lenny what’s up?” Ken hated the sound of his voice when recorded.
“Let me speak mate, I have something I need to tell you. We have been through so much, you and I, that I have to tell this to you - don’t worry, I’ll be brief. You’ve been my ally, my confidante, on so many occasions - yet this time, I need your advice.
“Julie’s having an affair.
“It’s not paranoia because I’m travelling, I’m not imagining it - I know it’s a fact. I have sensed it for a while so I returned yesterday to find out. I followed her and she went to Craig Curruthers’ place - a teacher at Joey’s school. But she wasn’t alone - I saw Glen follow her too.
“Julie left about 9PM but Glen stayed. When he thought the coast was clear, I saw him jump the side fence and enter the house. I feared the worst and was about to go in through the front door myself when I saw him exit out the back again. I was hidden but I could see his face - and the look on it, even in the darkness.
“The look was mine - he looked like me.
“ I knew then what he had done. I didn’t have to wait until today’s paper to confirm that Curruthers was dead. I saw that in my son’s eyes.
“I know he’ll get caught - he would have left DNA all over the place. He’s a kid, an amateur. Even I would have left some sort of calling card and I know what I am doing - no one is invisible. My question is - what do I do?”
The tape went quiet – Ken had ended the recording. Ken never put his advice into ink and words, onto tape or disc - he simply told his brother this:
“Use your government contacts to advise the police accordingly. Glen will not get caught. You must come home, love your wife, stay with her. This is entirely your own fault - do not blame Julie. Give up ‘the life’ like you said you would after the General. Be a man.”
Ken took the cassette out of the player and unravelled the brown plastic tape. He piled it into his ashtray and set fire to it - destroying it as he should have done years ago. Ken lit his cigar - a vile soggy-ended habit that he could never kick. The acrid smoke wafted out of his nostrils, aimlessly wandering around his head in the stuffy room.
Ken evoked pride. He knew he had done the right thing - he had always done the right thing. His brother, Lenny, always listened to Ken. For Leonard, Ken’s word was golden and he believed everything Ken ever told him. Their understanding and mutual reliance upon
The Will Page 4