Blood Ties

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Sure, what’s bothering you?’

  ‘Well, it looks as though it’s down to me to, you know, sort things out. I think I know who his solicitor is, or at least, who he went to to get his will drawn up, but as to next of kin . . . I’m a bit lost, really. We all knew Eddy for a long time but I don’t think anyone really knew about his family, not before they moved here.’

  ‘Maybe the solicitor will know. If he made a will then that implies there was someone to leave his possessions to.’

  Susan nodded. ‘I suppose so, but I know, because he told me, that most of his stuff was left to friends who’d appreciate it. His books, his detecting gear, all of that, and I’m not sure if he owned the house or what. I never asked. It was just, you know, Eddy’s house. It wasn’t the sort of thing we talked about.’

  Alec set his beer back down on the bar, feeling that this was going to take longer than he had first thought. ‘What did you talk about?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, what he’d found, the state of the world, art. He loved paintings. The books he’d found rummaging in the second-hand stores. His garden. Oh, we’d talk. Talk for hours. I know you only saw him here, sitting all quiet like, and he loved to listen, we all knew that. But get him on his own, on his own turf, and he’d talk.’ She glanced around as if for confirmation, was supported by nods and mutterings that Eddy was a good talker once you’d set him off.

  ‘But not about family?’ Alec found he was now addressing the wider company.

  The agreement was no, not about family. Not after Martha died, or even before, not really.

  ‘So, I kind of wondered if . . . if you’d got any advice. I don’t know where to start, I really don’t. I went to the cottage last night but it all feels so . . . intrusive, you know? And you being a policeman, you must be used to dealing with stuff like this?’

  Alec nodded. He was suddenly aware that he was the focus of general expectation. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘If there’s anything I can do, I’d be glad to help out.’

  He could almost see the weight of overwhelming responsibility lift from Susan’s shoulders and he felt a sudden urge to move away from the bar before it changed direction and settled on his. By the time he returned to Naomi he had agreed to go with Susan to Eddy’s little house, take a look around and see what they could find out about his wider family. He wondered how well that would go down with Naomi.

  ‘I heard,’ she pre-empted him. She sounded amused. ‘Look, it’s OK, I can amuse myself for a couple of hours. You’ll be miserable as hell if you don’t do your bit.’

  Alec chuckled softly. ‘You’re right, as ever,’ he said. ‘I suppose I would be.’

  Susan arrived back at her flat and pulled into her designated parking space. A familiar car was already occupying one of the visitors’ spots and Susan sighed deeply as she noted who it was. That was all she needed.

  Reluctantly, she got out of her car and the man in the visitors’ spot left his, hesitating before coming over as though not sure he was welcome.

  Good, she thought. Because he’s not. Her ex didn’t bother her very often, but even that was too much in Susan’s view. He’d been a mistake, she’d realized that quickly enough; had spent the next five years trying not to believe it, before she’d finally left. The solicitors had dealt with the rest, not exactly amicably.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘I heard about Eddy. I just wanted to make sure you were all right.’

  She hadn’t expected that for an opening gambit. ‘I’m fine. It was a shock, finding him like that, but I’m fine.’

  ‘So, what happens now, funeral and that? You’ll be organizing it?’

  ‘I expect so, unless family turn up, which is unlikely.’

  ‘He had much family, did he? I don’t remember you mentioning any.’

  ‘That’s probably because you stopped listening to me once you had a ring on my finger.’

  He looked away and in the yellow of the security light she could see the flash of anger as it skimmed his face. He was good looking, she’d give him that, and he was also aggressive and unpredictable and selfish and . . .

  ‘Look, if there’s nothing else, I’ve had a long day. If there is something else, say it quick or send a letter to my solicitor.’

  He laughed harshly. ‘You really are a piece of work, aren’t you? I just came to offer my condolences, ask you if you maybe needed a friend. From what I remember, friends were kind of thin on the ground after we split.’

  That, strictly, had been true. He had systematically removed her from any old friends or associations he had deemed unsuitable. What had been left had largely been his friends, his family, his . . .

  ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ she said. ‘Just go away, Brian. If I wanted a friend I’d call one up, and you wouldn’t even be on the list.’

  She turned away and keyed the code into the door lock, careful that he didn’t see. She wouldn’t put it past him to try and follow her inside. He didn’t move and she opened the door just enough to slip through, shoved it closed behind her, annoyed that he’d know, that he’d see just how much he still got to her.

  Looking down from the window of her tiny flat she could see him in the car park, leaning against the bonnet of the car, and she was glad she hadn’t switched the light on, knowing that was what he was waiting for. He’d never been inside her flat, never even been inside the block. He didn’t actually know which window was hers and she was happier keeping it that way. She stepped back from the window, just in case he saw her shadow, and waited until she heard the car engine fire and her ex drive away. Only then, after another quick glance just to be sure, did she risk turning on the light.

  Eddy had been against the marriage right from the get go. He’d said it was her decision but that Brian was a bad lot. He’d known people like him and they were good for no one.

  Of course, she hadn’t listened. Didn’t women always think that they were the one? The catalyst by which such men changed their ways?

  But she’d been wrong. She’d sunk her savings into the house they’d bought and had had the devil’s own job getting anything out again. Eddy had advised her then; he’d directed her to his solicitor and she’d let them handle it. To her surprise, Brian had been forthcoming with her money and she’d been able to get a mortgage on this little flat.

  One thing was for sure, he’d never set foot inside.

  The following morning, Alec duly set off to meet Susan at Eddy’s house, leaving Naomi alone for the first time since they had come on holiday. Despite what she had said to Alec, she felt oddly bereft and rather more isolated than she’d anticipated. She could now find her way around the B&B without too much trouble and had been outside into the farmyard alone. She had also accompanied Alec down to what Jim and Bethan called the cut, the place at the perimeter of the kitchen garden through which one of the many dykes flowed – not a major one, Bethan had told her then; rather, one of the many offshoots from the main rhynes. It was a pleasant place even in the depths of winter and Naomi, with Napoleon in his harness, followed the narrow stone path through the garden and down to the little jetty Jim had built so that their grandchildren could sit and fish for tiddlers in the summer.

  The change of surface from stone to wood told Naomi they had arrived and she felt for the wooden railing she knew was there; finding it, she perched, Napoleon flopping down at her feet. The silence at first seemed profound but as her ears grew accustomed to the lack of ordinary noise – the occasional car, domestic noises from kitchen and farmyard – she began to hear what made up this new soundscape. The slow drip and slap of water beneath the jetty. The occasional plop of some small creature entering the dyke. Wind in the reeds and withies that Alec told her occupied the opposite bank. Every place had one, Naomi had discovered. Its own way of sounding – and, for that matter, smelling and feeling – and she wished she had paid more attention to those other senses when she’d still had her full quota. It had been a standing joke in Naomi’s family that the first thing she put on in the mornin
g and the last thing she took off at night had been her specs. Short-sighted from childhood, and basically nosy from birth, Naomi could not bear to miss anything. When she had been blinded, everyone had been terribly anxious that she wouldn’t cope, even to the extent that the doctors had put off telling her that she wouldn’t see again. But Naomi was also a pragmatist at heart; what you can’t change you learn to make the best of, and she was actually very proud of the way she had adapted and fervently grateful to all the people who had helped her get there.

  Footsteps on the stone path and the slow wag of Napoleon’s tail told her that Bethan had come to join her. She moved over and Bethan leaned on the fence from the garden side.

  ‘You all right out here?’

  ‘Oh, I’m fine. Dog will make sure I don’t fall in, won’t you, Napoleon?’

  ‘He’s a marvellous animal,’ Bethan agreed. ‘Our two are too daft for anything useful.’ She paused, clearly curious. ‘Alec gone out for a bit then?’

  Inwardly, Naomi laughed. ‘We were in The Lamb last night. Susan asked him for a bit of advice, tracking down next of kin and such. She seems to have taken on the responsibility for Eddy’s estate. Alec’s gone out to see what he can do to help.’

  ‘Oh, right. Poor love, she’s known him since she was a little girl. We’ve all known him an age. He’ll get a good send-off, that’s for sure.’ She sighed. ‘Just goes to show, doesn’t it? Life is so fragile.’

  Naomi nodded and silence fell for a moment or so. Something large splashed into the water and she wondered if it could be a vole or if it was too late in the year to be hearing ‘ratty’.

  ‘I hope you don’t mind me asking, but you’ve not always been blind then?’

  ‘No. Car crash. One of those multi-vehicle things on the motorway. I was a police sergeant before that.’

  ‘Oh, so is that . . .’

  ‘How we met? Yes. I’m like Alec, never really wanted to do anything else until now, so it was all a major shock and something of a wrench.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  Can you? Naomi wondered. She would certainly not have been able to; not until life changed and gave her no option.

  ‘Wonderful, how you cope.’

  Naomi laughed. ‘People worse off than me and all that. Hey, when you have to do something, well, you just have to do it.’ She looked for a change of subject, not comfortable with talking about herself to a relative stranger, however nice she was. ‘You said you knew Eddy for a long time. Did you ever hear him mention family?’

  Bethan thought about it. ‘I vaguely think there was a brother or a brother-in-law,’ she said. ‘But he didn’t come to either funeral. Not when Martha died nor when the girl was killed. You’d have thought . . .’

  Naomi nodded. ‘Families can become estranged, though,’ she said. ‘It doesn’t always mean they don’t care. Sometimes it’s just that they don’t know how to make contact again.’

  ‘But you’d think something as big as a funeral would bring them back together, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I suppose so. It depends how far apart they’ve drifted.’

  ‘Doesn’t seem right though, does it?’

  ‘Does what?’

  ‘Well, I know Eddy probably doesn’t have much to leave, but it doesn’t seem right that someone he hasn’t seen in years should get it all, not when they couldn’t be bothered to come and see him even when he must have needed them.’

  Naomi didn’t think there was a lot she could say to that. She shivered. She’d come out in a heavy sweater, but the day was damp and chill and the cold now beginning to permeate.

  ‘Best come inside,’ Bethan said. ‘I’ll make you a cuppa.’

  Alec arrived at the house before Susan and wondered if he’d found the right place. Set back from the road and reached, as Susan had described, by a short but heavily rutted track, it was a pretty place . . . or would be in summer, Alec guessed, when the now rather forlorn looking roses would be climbing around the porch and the – was that wisteria? – wisteria or whatever would be in flower. Alec liked gardens; he just had a rather vague notion of how they were made up. Naomi was the gardener in their house and she and her sister had managed to create a wonderfully lush, sweetly scented haven, despite Napoleon and Alec’s efforts to help.

  Closer inspection showed Alec that the window frames were in need of a coat of paint and the front door, though it had been daubed with red in the not too distant past, had been redecorated over previous layers of flaking paint. The knocker had rusted, and its face, which Alec presumed was some kind of pixie, was heavily pitted. ‘A pixie with pox,’ he said aloud.

  The front room curtains were closed and he could see little through the letter box except for the bottom steps and an area of tiled floor. The scene of poor Eddy’s death. He was about to go round the back and snoop some more when Susan’s Volkswagen pulled up beside his own car.

  She got out, looking flustered. ‘Sorry I’m late. I seem to be having trouble getting the day started today.’

  ‘No problem. You still want me here? I won’t take offence.’ She’d had the night to think on her impulse and Alec knew just how fast such impulses could seem wrong or foolish.

  ‘Oh, do I want you here,’ Susan said fervently. ‘I’ve been driving here dreading the thought you might have changed your mind. I don’t think I could face going in on my own again.’ She shook her head. ‘Which is silly. It was always a place I loved to visit.’

  ‘It’s hard after the person is gone though,’ Alec said. ‘My uncle died a while ago and left me his house. Going back there without him was really difficult. Right, what do we do now? Shall we go inside?’

  Susan slipped the key into the lock and Alec followed her, then walked past as she came to a stop in the hall, staring at the place at the foot of the stairs.

  ‘What’s through here?’ he asked. ‘Ah, the living room.’ He opened the curtains and let in the grey November light. ‘Kitchen at the end of the hall? Yes?’

  ‘Yes.’ She finally braved the living room, glared at the empty fire grate.

  ‘Maybe we should make one up,’ Alec said. ‘We may be here a little while and I’m guessing there’s no central heating?’

  ‘No, he didn’t like the idea. He was a bit set in his ways. I don’t know, it feels a bit . . . intrusive, making up a fire.’

  ‘Better that than freeze or let the damp take hold. You know, it would be a good idea to make up a fire every day or so, to keep the place dried out until all this is sorted. Houses like this, with solid walls, they’re a devil to dry out once the damp gets in.’ He knelt, sorting kindling and logs, and, after a moment more of hesitation, she fetched matches down from the mantelpiece.

  ‘I think there are some firelighters somewhere. In the kitchen, maybe. I’m not that good with fires.’ She laughed. ‘I’m afraid I am a fan of central heating.’

  ‘Firelighters would be good. I’m out of practice. Where would Eddy have kept his papers, do you think? Did you manage to sort out the solicitor’s name?’

  ‘Um, yes. Wright and Cole in Somerton. Apparently, they have the will. I’ve got to see the doctor and get the death certificate to them and so on. They don’t know about family either.’

  ‘Right, so it looks like it’s up to us, but I’ll go and have a chat to the solicitors if you think it would be helpful.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I really do appreciate this, you know.’

  ‘You are very welcome. I know how hard it can be.’

  She brought the firelighters and he lit one, tucking it beneath the kindling and trying to recall what else he should be doing. They had a wood burner back at home, but Naomi normally set it ready and he just did the manly thing of lighting one of the funny rolls of newspaper she placed beneath the kindling and which seemed to do the trick. It occurred to him suddenly, catching him off balance, that Naomi seemed to have made a point of taking over those tasks everyone assumed would be difficult for her to accomplish without sight. Garden
ing, setting the fire, cooking; she excelled at them all and, as he watched the fire reluctantly take hold, he realized too that this was probably her sister Sam’s doing. Even before Naomi left hospital, and while the rest of them had been flapping round making sympathetic noises, Sam had been insisting Naomi learn to apply her own lipstick.

  He sat back on his heels, other vague thoughts suddenly clarified. ‘Do you have kids?’ he asked.

  Susan laughed nervously. ‘Um, no. I’ve got an ex-husband, but thankfully we never got around to the having children part.’

  ‘We’re thinking of having some,’ Alec said. ‘I’ve been putting it off, I suppose. Work is so demanding and I always worried about coping.’

  ‘You mean with Naomi? I mean, it must add an extra dimension, problem wise, not being able to see.’

  ‘No, actually.’ Alec smiled, more to himself than at Susan. ‘I kept telling myself that was the problem, but, you know, I think I’ve just realized it was me. I was worried on the coping front. I want to do a good job, you know, and I’ve seen so many broken marriages in my job, especially once the kids start coming along. Sorry, you know how sometimes things just feel very clear very suddenly?’

  Susan was laughing at him, her expression bemused. ‘And kneeling on a frayed rug, in a stranger’s home, trying to light a fire, it all became clear?’

  Alec got to his feet, watching with satisfaction as the fire took hold. ‘Put like that,’ he admitted, ‘I do sound like an idiot.’ He glanced around the shabby little room – at the shelves, over-stacked with books; at worn chairs, their threadbare arms polished bare by years of hands. ‘When did Eddy’s wife die?’ he asked.

  ‘Twenty-odd years ago. His daughter two years after that. Karen was fifteen when her mother died. It was all very sudden and I don’t think he ever recovered. The furniture wasn’t new even back then and I can’t think of anything he’s bought since.’

  ‘What did he do? Work wise, I mean.’

  Susan moved through into the kitchen. ‘We should light the fire in here too,’ she said. ‘He taught History, secondary school. When he lost his family, he lost his mind too for a while. Never worked again after that. I think there must have been a bit of a pension, but he was in and out of hospital, mental hospital, for several years. He had a lovely family, a lovely life, and when it all came crashing down I don’t think he had the resources to cope, poor man. Hard to know how you’d react in a situation like that, isn’t it? I think we just have to pray we never find out.’