Blood Ties

by Jane A. Adams

  Brian shrugged. ‘Didn’t know, didn’t care.’

  Gavin frowned. ‘He was a bastard,’ he said. ‘He wrecked my life. Killed my father.’

  ‘Yeah, you told me. At length.’

  Gavin flushed but he said nothing, just poured himself another drink. That was something else, Brian thought, he couldn’t half put it away. ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Go tonight and apologize for coming on so strong. Play on her conscience. She’s got more than enough of it, God knows. You don’t get anything from Susan by trying to railroad her, but make her feel guilty and we’ll both be in the money. Just don’t overplay your hand. Don’t get greedy. A share, that’s all, she’ll go for that. I know Susan and she’ll want to salve her conscience. She’s into all that do as you would be done to you stuff.’

  Gavin took a large mouthful of spirit and washed it round his mouth before swallowing. ‘She doesn’t deserve any of it,’ he said.

  That evening Naomi and Alec had elected to go back to Wells for the concert they had seen advertised. This time they sat in the main body of the church while members of a local choral society and a string quartet joined with choristers and presented a very mixed programme, from sacred music to something Naomi vaguely recalled came from The Merry Widow.

  She thoroughly enjoyed the experience, but was aware that Alec grew restless in the second half.

  ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘Hard seats and I’m hungry. They go on a bit, don’t they?’ he commented as members of the choral society performed an aria from Madam Butterfly.

  ‘Alec, you philistine!’

  ‘The philistines were a very sophisticated people.’

  Naomi shook her head in mock sorrow. She was aware that the restlessness had nothing to do with hard seats or hunger and everything to do with his anxiety about what was going on at The Lamb. He was sure Gavin would return. Had both wanted and not wanted to be there. Naomi’s desire to go to the concert had swung the decision making and she had made certain he had switched off his phone – which he hated doing – and had also insisted he call a restaurant they had spotted earlier in the week and book a table for after the performance.

  Bugger Gavin, Susan and even poor Eddy. Naomi wanted a proper night off.

  They emerged from the cathedral into a chill but clear night. Naomi didn’t need Alec to tell her that; she could feel the frost begin to bite as soon as they stepped from the porch, hear the crackle of already frigid grass as she stepped on to the green. She shivered, but breathed deep of the cold, crisp air, suddenly exhilarated.

  Alec took her hand and slipped it through his arm. ‘Such a bright moon,’ he said. ‘And there’s a ring around it. Doesn’t that mean storms?’

  ‘It means there are a lot of ice crystals in the air.’

  ‘Then how come they all line up and form a circle?’

  ‘How can things line up to form a circle?’

  ‘You know what I mean. So, tomorrow we go and see ex-Inspector Bradford. I’m not holding my breath. As Blezzard said, it is twenty years ago.’

  ‘And as I said, coppers have long memories. Elephantine. You’d remember, I’d remember. He will.’

  Alec squeezed her arm. ‘Hope you’re right,’ he said. ‘We need something to pull all of this together, and Karen’s death seems to be the pivot point somehow. I just don’t get the mechanics of it yet.’

  He switched his phone back on when they got back to the car, as Naomi knew he would. She sighed, was unsurprised to find that he had three missed calls and two texts. All from Susan. He also had a missed call from Kevin, who was obviously trying on her behalf.

  Naomi sighed. ‘What do the texts say?’

  ‘Well, Gavin, whoever he is, came back. The locals kicked him out. She wants to know where I am and why I’m ignoring her.’

  ‘Okaay. So phone Kevin, find out what’s been happening and then text her back.’

  ‘Text her back? That will go down like a lead balloon.’

  ‘Well, call Kevin first. He’s likely to be a bit more reasonable.’ She could imagine Alec’s expression. She laughed. ‘And next time we go away anywhere and someone wants to know what you do for a living, tell them you’re a chartered accountant or something. Or a zoologist. Anything but a bloody policeman.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  Brian had visited Edward Thame’s house only on a couple of occasions and had not been made to feel welcome. He was not inclined to return, even though the occupant was now deceased, but Gavin’s frantic phone call had dictated that he should.

  He’d thought about ignoring it, telling Gavin where he could go; the initial idea that Gavin could force Susan’s hand, with Brian’s help and information, and that both he and Brian could benefit from the will had seemed like a good one, but increasingly Brian was regarding Gavin as a liability.

  ‘Tell me about her,’ Gavin had said at that first meeting, when they’d sat relaxing over a pint, Brian’s curiosity piqued by the notion that Eddy had a relative he didn’t know about.

  At that point, he told himself, he’d actually thought he was doing a good deed. Susan had, inadvertently, denied the true relations of Edward Thame their right to inherit and that just had to be wrong. The promise of a cut, should Brian be able to help Gavin rectify that situation, seemed only fair.

  ‘Think of it as a fee,’ Gavin said. ‘You know, like these no win no fee lawyer blokes that advertise on the telly.’

  The first warning bells had sounded then. It was the no fee bit that alarmed. But he had chatted about his ex-wife and even indulged in a bit of alcohol induced nostalgia. Susan may doubt it now but there’d really been a moment when Brian had thought she might have been ‘the one’.

  But, as the conversation meandered and Gavin outdrank Brian two to one, the truth emerged: Gavin was no more a relation than Brian; his agenda had more to do with profit and revenge than it had to do with anything resembling natural justice. The alarm bells had rung again, but Brian had failed to give them the proper amount of attention. It was only afterwards, when he’d sobered up and thought about the deal, that Brian thought to himself: this bloke’s mad as a box of frogs.

  He had decided to tell Gavin where to go with his ideas and that he wanted nothing more to do with a plan so absolutely doomed to failure, but the Gavins of this world, Brian discovered, don’t take no for an answer. He had his mind set and he would not be swerved, diverted or otherwise distracted from his goal.

  Driving out to Eddy’s, Brian asked himself why he hadn’t just put the phone down. Why he was obeying this new summons, which had come so late at night that he’d been getting ready for bed.

  ‘Must be as nuts as he is,’ Brian said. He thought about turning round and going home, but something stopped him. Several somethings stopped him, if he was being totally honest.

  The first was curiosity. What if the old man really had found something worth laying hands on? Compared to Gavin’s convoluted game, simply swiping something from the house seemed clean and simple and Susan had plenty coming to her from the sound of it. She’d not miss . . . whatever it was.

  The second, in a contradictory way, was a faint vestige of loyalty. Susan was essentially a good person and he knew he’d been a fool to muck her about the way he had. She hadn’t deserved it and, in his heart of hearts, he knew he’d been the real loser in the situation.

  Third was fear. There was something about this Gavin bloke that was feral, vicious and that didn’t operate by anything resembling normal rules. Brian, skipping all his life along the verges of dishonesty, recognized the type and knew to be afraid of it. If he let Gavin down now, Gavin would come looking to find out why.

  A few more brains and he’d be dangerous, as my gran used to say, Brian thought. She’d used to say that about Brian, actually, but he’d never felt he really deserved the vague insult. Gavin certainly did. So, thinking about it, did Eddy, with the major difference that Edward Thame had had the required number of brain cells. Edward Thame had shown himself to be both deviou
s and dangerous, and Brian was sort of looking forward to demonstrating that fact to Susan. That particular revenge would be very sweet.

  This obsession that Gavin had about Eddy, seemed, to Brian, to exactly mirror that which Eddy had demonstrated towards Gavin’s father. ‘Twenty years,’ he said aloud. ‘Twenty frikking years? That’s commitment. Boy, is that commitment!’

  When Gavin had first told Brian about Eddy’s persecution of his father he’d thought he was joking.

  ‘Sent cards and presents. Aw, come on, that’s just—’

  He broke off, Gavin’s face darkened. ‘Letters, too, and press cuttings. He kept the pressure on, didn’t let my dad get over what had happened. Eddy Thame kept my dad in prison for twenty years, just like if they’d put him away. But if he’d gone to jail he’d be out by now, he’d have served his time. Eddy didn’t see there was an end to it. He’d have carried on till the day he died.’

  ‘So, you’re claiming he drove your father to suicide. Right. Gavin, why didn’t he just go to the police? Tell them what Eddy was doing? There are such things as restraining orders, you know.’

  ‘Oh, you’d know all about them.’

  Yeah, actually, he did. Susan wasn’t the only woman who’d taken the legal route to separation.

  ‘Why didn’t he go to the police? Because he was guilty, man, you can see that. He caused that crash but the police couldn’t do nothing about it. So Eddy Thame acted like a bloody vigilante.’

  A vigilante that sent presents and cards. OK, so presents and cards for a dead child, which was a bit weird, and Brian could sort of see how that would get to someone after a while – if that someone had a guilty conscience, anyway.

  It was to Brian’s credit – at least, in Brian’s eyes – that he’d been curious enough to ask around and find out a bit about the accident that had killed Karen and her friends. He could sort of countenance leaving the scene of a crime, but what he’d found out actually made him think. At least one of the girls was likely to have survived if Gavin’s dad had phoned an ambulance. Even if he’d left the scene, he could have stopped somewhere and got help.

  That, in Brian’s view, made Eddy’s persecution of him more comprehensible and it also made it clear why Gavin’s dad hadn’t gone to the police. He wasn’t sure what crime he’d have been charged with, but something like leaving the scene of an accident and that leading to involuntary manslaughter came to mind.

  Driving out to Eddy’s cottage, Brian made a decision. He would tell Gavin he no longer wanted any part if this and he’d tell him why. That his father had not just driven drunk and caused a crash, but he’d probably been responsible for killing someone who might have survived. In some crazy way that Brian couldn’t quite justify, that made it all ten times worse: that he could have done something to make the incident just a fraction less tragic than it had been, but he had failed to do so.

  He turned into the short drive and saw Gavin’s car already there.

  ‘What kept you? I’ve been here a bloody hour!’

  ‘I’m not stopping. I just came out to tell you I’ve done with this.’

  ‘Yeah, right.’

  Gavin turned away and headed into the house. It seemed he had already unlocked the door, and Brian wondered why he’d waited outside.

  Reluctantly, he followed. ‘Hey, I mean it, you know.’

  Gavin took no notice of him. He walked ahead, going through the house and turning on the lights. He wore no gloves, Brian noticed, and didn’t seem to care that someone driving by might notice the lights being on.

  ‘Gavin, what the hell are you doing?’

  Gavin paused, turned to face him and Brian knew that if he was wise, he should get out now and go and find the nearest policeman.

  ‘Looking,’ Gavin said.

  ‘Looking for what?’

  ‘Whatever there is.’

  They were in the kitchen at the back of the house and Gavin turned away from Brian and started to open cupboard doors, slamming them back as far as they would go and peering in. A swipe of his arm brought the contents crashing out and on to the floor.

  ‘Gavin!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’m going.’

  ‘No. You’re not. You’re going to help me look.’ Suddenly he was beside Brian, a knife from the block on the counter in his hand.

  ‘What the hell? Oh, you’ve lost it big time, you really have.’

  He backed away and Gavin followed him into the hall.

  ‘Look,’ Brian said. ‘Let me talk to Susan, she’ll see reason. She’ll understand what your dad went through, what Eddy did to him. She’s soft like that. We can settle this, all come out of it with what we want. Now put the bloody knife down.’

  A thought struck Brian and he wondered why it had waited until now to appear, it was so obvious. ‘Did you kill Eddy?’

  ‘Old fool tried to fight me so I gave him a shove.’

  ‘Did you want him dead?’

  Gavin shrugged. ‘Eventually. I’d have liked to make it slower, just like he made my dad die slowly. You should have seen him when he was younger, Bri. Just so full of it. Yeah, he drank, but he was a good dad. He played footie with me, he took me out with him, he didn’t take no rubbish from anyone. Eddy took him away from me. He changed after that; died a bit at a time and Eddy made it happen. I wanted him to feel it, to know what he put us through, but I shoved him and he fell. We don’t always get what we want, do we?’

  Brian wanted to leave. That was what he wanted. He backed away towards the front door, glad he’d not bothered to close it. His hand in his pocket found his keys and he pressed the fob, hearing the familiar beep of the lock disarming.

  ‘I’m leaving,’ he said, trying to keep his voice as calm as possible. ‘This is over. Now.’

  ‘Not now, not ever,’ Gavin said.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Naomi dozed in the car as Alec drove. She’d had a bad night – and not enough of it, anyway.

  Susan had been hysterical by the time they reached The Lamb, telling them that Gavin had arrived just after eight and that he’d clearly been drinking, but had also clearly decided to try a different tack, buying drinks for anyone that would accept one and asking questions about his Uncle Eddy.

  ‘He was weird.’ Kevin’s verdict was unequivocal.

  ‘Maybe just because of the drink?’

  Kevin shook his head. ‘Nah, not drunk weird, just weird.’

  Several people had accepted a pint from him – why not? Kevin said. He was paying. But it seemed there were strings. Gavin asked a lot of questions about Eddy, about his research and his treasure maps and what he’d found. The locals, predictably, began to wind him up.

  ‘They were telling him, like, Eddy struck gold.’ Kevin didn’t know if to be amused or annoyed. ‘They kept telling him, like, Eddy was a treasure hunter. I told him that Eddy was a serious historian, but he’d stopped listening by then. He just got mad, wanted to know where the maps were and what Eddy had found, and when Susan said he’d found nothing valuable he accused her of wanting everything for herself.’

  ‘I stopped serving him,’ Susan said. ‘I let him have one drink, then told him he had to go, but he just got more and more abusive. Ken and Larry threw him out later and Kevin hung on with me and said he’d follow me home.’

  Which is what he’d done later, after Naomi and Alec had smoothed the ruffled feathers and told her, again, that she had to report the incident to Dean or Blezzard and to Mr Cole, and after which Naomi and Alec had tried to get some sleep.

  ‘How far is it now?’ Naomi asked, rousing to find that the smooth rhythm of motorway driving had given way to the frequent gear change demands of a B road.

  ‘Ten minutes, maybe a bit less. You feeling any better?’

  ‘Not really. Are you OK?’

  ‘When we’ve seen DI Bradford, we’ll find ourselves a café and I’ll stoke up on coffee.’

  ‘OK.’ She fell silent, listening to the changing note of the engine and the
tyre noise on the uneven road. ‘I hope he’s in, after all this.’ They’d been unable to reach him by phone but had decided to come up anyway.

  ‘Well, we’ll soon know.’ He slowed and she assumed they were now in a village. She heard the satnav tell him to turn right. Moments later, they stopped.

  ‘We’re there?’

  ‘Yes. Hang on and I’ll help you out; I’ve pulled on to a verge.’

  Naomi waited until he came around to her side, releasing Napoleon from the back seat first and then helping Naomi out on to the soft verge. The air smelt of recent rain and the damp was chill against her skin. She turned her head, catching the scent of winter honeysuckle.

  ‘OK?’ Alec led her through a small gate. She heard the latch fall back again as it closed behind them. They walked up a gravel path and Alec knocked on the cottage door. It opened only seconds later.

  ‘My friend Matt Blezzard called,’ a voice said. ‘Told me I should expect you. I told him it was about time someone came looking. About bloody time.’

  ‘When Eddy had been a much younger man he had felt certain there was a solution to everything. Life had fallen into place for him. Good degree, good job, happy marriage, wonderful child, even though she’d been a little late coming on to the scene. From such a height of grace it seemed inevitable, that the fall should be so heavy and so far.

  ‘Cancer, the doctor said. Then, that it had metastasized. Then, that there were only months – and then weeks, and nothing that had fallen so neatly into place before could compensate for the chaos that those few words had brought.’

  ‘And then Martha was dead,’ Alec said.

  ‘Martha died and there was worse to come. I remember breaking the news about Karen, saying to him, I’m sorry, sir, but your daughter, Karen. There was a car accident. I’m afraid . . . I’m afraid she’s dead. And he just stood and looked at me like the words didn’t make a scrap of sense. It was as though he could not comprehend a world in which such a mess of grief could be thrown at him. The fall from grace was complete, and none of it of his making or in his power to change.