by Matt Drabble
“Really? That much?”
Dexter smiled inwardly. “Oh yes, I think so, with a little work of course.”
“Well now, that’s a thousand pounds that I didn’t have this morning,” Lacy said, warming up considerably. “My wife used to take care of the paperwork. I’m afraid that I’m not much good at all that sort of thing,” the farmer shrugged.
“Oh I’m sorry, when did she pass? If you don’t mind me asking.”
“Some time ago now,” Lacy said vaguely.
Dexter suddenly heard a noise from another room. He had assumed that it was just the two of them in the farmhouse as he hadn’t heard anyone else all afternoon. He looked up at Lacy who looked away instantly.
“Do you need much longer?” Lacy asked brusquely.
“I’m afraid so,” Dexter shrugged. “There’s a lot to go through here and it’s going to take some time.” In fact, he was almost done but he had no apartment to go home to since his landlord had evicted him and he didn’t fancy sleeping in the rental car. He also didn’t fancy the idea of leaving the farm and the pot of gold behind just in case someone else turned up. He had taken the file from the office but he couldn’t trust that his luck would hold forever. “I don’t suppose that you’ve got a spare room?” he ventured hopefully.
“That’s out of the question,” Lacy replied abruptly.
“Well, it’s just that there is a lot of work to do here, Mr. Lacy, and I’m afraid that time is of the essence; every day that passes you will lose money,” Dexter lied. “Perhaps there is as much as two thousand here, I just can’t be sure without spending more time going through all of this.”
Dexter watched on as Lacy seemed to have an internal dispute, balancing whatever objection he had to the money on offer.
Just then a female voice spoke from down the darkened corridor. Dexter couldn’t make out what she said but Lacy turned and left the room immediately. Dexter heard harsh voices in hushed whispers. He heard Lacy’s low rumble followed by a sharp meaty slap and a woman squeal in pain. Dexter had no interest in saving a damsel in distress but on the other hand he didn’t want to get kicked out of the house because of a domestic row. The old man had said that his wife was dead, although now that he thought about it the old man had just said that she used to do the paperwork. Maybe the old dear was infirm or housebound. He stepped out into the hallway to try and win her over.
Lacy was stood at the far end, towering over a cowering female form.
“Everything all right, Mr. lacy?” Dexter called out in a cheery voice. He’d found that most folks didn’t like to argue in front of strangers.
Lacy shoved the woman back into a side room and slammed the door shut hard. “Fine,” he said tersely.
“Is your wife okay?”
“My daughter,” Lacy answered without elaborating.
“About the bed for the night...” Dexter ventured again.
Lacy said nothing for so long that Dexter wondered if he’d gone deaf. Eventually, he answered begrudgingly. “You can kip on the sofa in the office, but only for tonight. If you can’t get things sorted by the morning then you’re on your way. If we didn’t need the money so badly then you’d be out on your ear now.”
“No problem, Sir.”
“The kitchen is through there,” the farmer pointed. “And there’s a bathroom there,” he added. “You stay out of the rest of the house and away from my daughter.”
“Anything you say, Sir” Dexter smiled reassuringly.
Lacy suddenly took a few steps towards him and stood way too close for comfort. “You stay away from my daughter, you hear me?” he snarled menacingly. “I’ve got a shotgun above the fireplace for shooting rats and I don’t miss any especially when they’re of the large two-legged variety, understood?”
Dexter nodded nervously. The old farmer had seemed gruff and unfriendly but now he was downright intimidating and a little scary. “Yes Sir,” he tried but his voice caught dryly in his throat. “Yes Sir,” he said in a louder, clearer tone.
As he returned to his room he could feel the farmer staring hard at his back and didn’t turn around. He shut himself in the office and closed the door, suddenly wishing that there was a lock on the door. Everyone joked about farmers and them raising families too closely related to each other but now he genuinely wondered about Lacy’s overly protective attitude to his daughter.
There was a photograph on the desk in the office that he hadn’t noticed before as his eyes had been drawn to the financial papers and little else. In the image there was the unmistakable Farmer Lacy. Standing next to his awkward pose was a woman. In an instant, Dexter knew that Lacy’s daughter was safe from him if she resembled either of her ugly pig-like parents.
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He woke and instantly looked at his watch. The illuminated hands told him that it was a little after 2am and he groaned inwardly. He rarely slept well at the best of times and now he was worried that he’d be up the rest of the night.
The sofa in the office was cramped and smelled fusty. He’d fashioned his coat into a makeshift pillow but he was too cold to sleep in any way but a fitful one.
He was trying to remind himself that the money was going to be worth the temporary discomfort but the case seemed a million miles away right now.
The old farmhouse was rundown and full of creaks and groans during the night. He wasn’t prone to being scared, at least not by “haunted houses”; most of the time he was just scared about paying his rent.
The floorboards in the hallway suddenly creaked as though set upon by light feet padding gently. His first instinct was to concern himself with thoughts of a rampant farmer who might be interested in seeing if Dexter squealed like a pig, but the footsteps sounded far daintier.
The handle on his door turned slowly and his heart skipped a beat as the black knob jiggled for purchase. The catch dropped and the door eased open. “Hello?” a soft female voice whispered into the dim light.
Oh great, he thought depressingly, the farmer’s daughter. He remembered the family photo of her parents and shuddered at the thought of the beast currently sneaking into his room.
He reached up for the lamp on the small table next to the sofa. He flicked the light on and prepared himself to give her a gentle rebuffing, with her father’s money foremost in his mind.
The lamp threw back the darkness and illuminated the daughter in a soft glow. His breath caught in his throat as she stood before him, a picture of radiating beauty. Her hair was long with luscious red curls just as he liked it. Her eyes were a hypnotic emerald green and dainty freckles dotted her cheeks. She had full lips with a sensuous mouth that was slightly parted, revealing perfect white teeth. She wore a long ivory night gown that was loose fitting over her sumptuous curves, curves that were exposed through a gaping neck hole as she leaned forwards towards his lying position.
“Hello?” she whispered again and this time he could feel her soft breath tickle his face.
“Who are you? What are you doing here?” he whispered, panting heavily - mainly at the glorious sight of her full and firm breasts that she was innocently exposing.
“My name’s Cora, help me,” she said in a small voice. “Please help me.”
She sat down on the sofa next to him and he had to shift slightly to alleviate the growing pressure in his underwear.
“What is this? What’s going on here?” he said as strongly as he could manage through her musky heat.
“You have to help me, he’s insane,” she begged as tears pricked at the corner of her eyes.
“Your father?”
“Yes, he’s mad, he’s kept me a prisoner here ever since Mum died. He blames me for her death and he beats me something awful,” she wept quietly.
Dexter looked on with undeniable arousal as she lifted her nightdress to show him large bruises of varying ages along her long smooth legs, reaching up to her thighs. “He did that?” he asked as his horror finally outweighed his excitement at the sight of her creamy
skin.
“Amongst other things,” Cora said, dropping her eyes as her face flushed red with shame. “Please, he’d kill me if he knew that I was talking to you. He thinks that the outside world is corrupt and evil and he says that this is all for my own good and my punishment.”
Dexter reached up and touched her flawless cheek with his hand; he brushed away the tears with his thumb and she clutched his hand with her own surrendering to his touch. He didn’t mean to kiss her, it wasn’t his plan to do so, but her face was just so beautiful and sad that his mouth moved with a will of its own. At first he felt her hesitancy and he started to pull away, fearing that he was just like her father, but then she exploded into him with a startling passion that both shocked and excited him.
The sex at first was over barely before it had begun as his excitement overtook his usual physical endurance levels. The second time was slower and gentler as she soon moved in unison with him, matching his speed and learning quickly.
“You could come with me,” he offered as they lay spent and entangled on the small sofa.
“He’d never let me leave, not alive anyway,” she answered bleakly.
“You’re an adult,” he started. “You are an adult, right?” he asked, suddenly fearing that he might have committed a serious crime as she did seem so young; he only prayed that her apparent youth was due to her innocent and sheltered life.
“Of course,” she replied and his heart started beating again.
“Then he can’t stop you,” he said firmly. “Look, I can’t offer you much at the minute but it’s got to be better than this, right?” The idea of being a knight in shining armor was suddenly appealing to him along with the thought of finally doing something worthwhile with his life.
“He’d stop me, he’d stop both of us,” she said sadly, burying her face in his chest.
“Maybe I could talk to him, man to man and all that,” he offered.
“He’d kill you.”
“Not literally I hope,” Dexter laughed quietly until he realised that she hadn’t corrected him. “You can’t be serious?”
He looked down at her pinched expression which told him that she was. It was hard to envisage the old farmer going from knocking his daughter about and God knows what else, to committing murder. The old man was surely a few sandwiches short of a picnic, but could he really be a killer? Now that Dexter was thinking a little clearer there was also the thorny issue of the money at stake; he was hardly likely to get his hands on that if he upped and ran off with the farmer’s daughter. All of a sudden, her weight lying snuggled up beside him wasn’t quite so enticing anymore. The pound signs started to fall over his eyes again taking precedence over her attractive and curvaceous form.
He was trying to draw up a mental list of pros and cons when he suddenly heard heavy footsteps on the floorboards above him. This time there was no mistaking Lacy’s weight as the very ground groaned beneath him. Dexter held his breath as he felt Cora start to shiver beside him and guilt made a very rare appearance pricking at his conscience.
They both lay motionless as the footsteps above them moved around slowly at first before suddenly exploding into life. Lacy came thundering down the stairs and Dexter barely had time to catch his breath or gather a thought before the farmer threw the door open to the office hard enough to embed the handle in the wall.
“Mr. Lacy!” Dexter started as he leapt off of the sofa and struggled to pull his trousers up to cover his naked shame.
“WHORE!” Lacy screamed at Cora whilst she cowered beneath his wrath.
“Mr. Lacy, please!” Dexter tried to interject but the farmer ignored him and reached for the girl.
Lacy grabbed Cora viciously around the throat and dragged her up as she croaked and gasped for breath. Dexter watched as her eyes bulged and her slender legs kicked out uselessly against the man’s shins.
Dexter ran forward and tried to pry Lacy’s thick hands away from Cora’s neck but he was powerless to do so. He dug his nails into the raging farmer’s skin, gouging out deep groves, but to no avail. He looked around desperately for a weapon of some kind as the light in poor Cora’s eyes faded. Just as he feared that all was lost, he spied a glint of silver poking out from the stack of papers on the desk.
He ran and snatched up the letter opener and charged back to Lacy. He had no time to shout a warning as Cora would almost certainly be gone before he could utter the words; instead, he plunged the silver blade into the back of Lacy’s fleshy neck and drove it downwards as hard as he could.
The blade was short and not particularly sharp but Lacy loosened his grip on his daughter and Dexter watched thankfully as she sunk to the floor gasping roughly for air.
Lacy started to flap around wildly trying to draw the blade from his back but was unable to reach the offending weapon. Dexter dropped his shoulder and charged hard at the man, caring little for the plight of a maniac. He struck the farmer in the centre of his generous waistline and knocked the air out of the man with a loud whoosh. Lacy sank to his knees and Dexter turned back towards Cora.
He picked her up tenderly as she was still trying to massage some feeling back into her raw throat. Dexter could see large red finger marks from her father’s strong grip and he started to really hate the man for his abuse of such a flower.
Her eyes started to clear and she saw him through the haze of her misty eyes. She reached out and he made to take her in his arms but she suddenly barged him aside with more strength than he would have credited her with. As he fell to one side, he realised that she was throwing him to safety just as Lacy launched himself through the air towards them.
The farmer’s large foot crashed down onto the floor as he swung his squat, but wickedly powerful leg. Cora suddenly let loose a scream of pure rage that Dexter could only imagine had been brewing during however many years of torturous abuse that she had suffered. She ran forward and shoved Lacy with all of her repressed fury. Despite the huge weight and strength difference between father and daughter, the rules of physics were temporarily suspended. Lacy was sent flying backwards and landed flush on the floor.
Dexter expected the man to leap forward again like a slasher movie villain, but now only his legs started to jerk and tap. Dexter suddenly remembered the letter opener that had been sticking out of the back of the man’s neck and shuddered as he realised the blade must have been driven forward under the man’s weight as he’d landed on the floor.
Dexter walked forward carefully and stood over the farmer. Lacy’s mouth was open slightly and a thin trail of dark blood seeped out and ran slowly down his chin. Dexter could see that he was trying to speak and knelt down beside him.
“S…orry,” Lacy gasped as his chest hitched and heaved. “I’m…, so…, sorry…, monster,” he whispered. “Monster,” he managed before he lay still.
“Yes you were,” Dexter replied to the dying man and felt little pity.
Then Cora was at his shoulder and weeping softly. “Don’t you dare,” he snapped. “Don’t you dare weep for that monster, not after everything that he did and tried to do. He’d have killed us both; you know it as well as I do.”
“I’m not crying for him,” she sobbed. “It’s just that you were so…, so…, romantic, you saved me.”
Dexter held her and felt that for the first time in his life he had finally done something of substance, something that mattered beyond his own selfish wants and desires.
At the thought of his own selfish wants and desires he suddenly remembered the money that he’d come here to take in the first place. It wasn’t that he was completely amoral, but if he was going to complete the job of rescuing the damsel in distress then he couldn’t really do so when he was broke and homeless. A further, darker thought crept into his mind when he started to view the evening’s activities from the point of view of the authorities. He had a couple of arrests on his record, both for fraud, and he had actually come here in the first place to cheat the Lacys.
His rational mind started to
tick over with calculations of self-preservation. He started to worry that when the police arrived they might well take a very dim view of the body. Cora would obviously back his story, along with the abuse by her father, but how credible a witness would she be? She was a farmer’s daughter, locked away from the world. Would she hold up to questioning or would she get confused and drop him right in it? The more that he thought about it, the more that she seemed like a liability rather than a help. Already she looked confused and disorientated; it wouldn’t take much from an experienced detective to get her to sign whatever they wanted her to.
“Is there anyone else that lives here?” he asked her.
Cora was now kneeling next to her father and gently holding his hand. “Huh?” she answered looking bewildered.
“Is there anyone else here?” he snapped sharply.
“No,” she replied, shaking her head.
“What about visitors? Who comes up here on a regular basis?”
“No one,” she shrugged. “Father didn’t let anyone come up to the farm.”
Dexter’s now rational mind was joined by the accountancy division. “Cora, what other relatives are there in the family?”
“It’s just us, well just me now I guess,” she answered dutifully.
“How much land is there on the farm?” he asked, unable to remember in the stress of the moment.
“About 250 acres, why?”
“Is it sellable?” he asked, ignoring her question.
“I suppose so. I know that Father had some offers but he’d never sell this place, it’s been in his family for generations.”
“Do you know if your father had a will by any chance?” Dexter asked, trying to keep the excitement from his voice.
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It didn’t take long for Cora to find her father’s personal papers in a well-worn blue leather briefcase in his room. Dexter watched on pleased as Cora busied herself with his orders without question. A part of him knew that he seemed to have replaced her father in the chain of command but while it might have made him a little uncomfortable, given just whose shoes he was filling, he had to admit that it was certainly expeditious.