As a schoolboy I was too busy for analysis. If there’d been an EU subsidy for sowing wild oats, I’d have been a rich man. I never had any problem with getting girlfriends and I found Mother surprisingly unconcerned by my success. The few who lasted long enough to visit our house often told me how lucky I was to have such a compliant parent and wished they could swap her for their mothers-from-hell. When I passed this on, she smiled and said, ‘You enjoy yourself, son. Just remember two things. Don’t get serious and don’t get careless.’
But of course I did get serious. There was this girl in the sixth form, Gina Lovegrove, daughter of Dan Lovegrove, the brewer. Three months after we started, we were still going out, and my friends were regarding us as an item.
Then suddenly we were done. No big scene. She started backing off, went clubbing with her mates, let some other guy take her home, that was that. I had one of my little bouts of mental over-activity which the capsules soon put right. Back to normal and determined to show I was cool, I soon took up with another girl, Kelly Hall, who was as blonde as Gina had been dark, and had left school to work in the family hotel business, so no overlap there. And very soon I couldn’t recall what I’d seen in Gina.
Then Kelly was gone too. She broke a date and when I rang her, she said she was sorry but it wasn’t working for her any more. My thoughts and my pulse went racing again, the capsules did their work, and very soon afterwards I had the welcome distraction of leaving school behind me and heading for university. I packed my bags and went off to find whatever solace this new experience could offer.
Now for the first time I began to see Mother differently. Hitherto I had accepted her on the same terms as everyone else, which is to say as an attractive widow of independent means, full of community spirit, universally admired for her charitable works, her compassion for the needy, and of course her devotion to her child. Okay, so she had men friends, but there was no hint of scandal, just an acceptance that she was engaged in the impossible task of seeking a man worthy to be my stepfather.
During my teens I did begin to get the message that we weren’t perhaps as well off as people thought. While I never wanted for anything essential, I got few of the little luxuries I yearned for, like a motorbike. One day, looking for evidence to support my argument that if we had money to burn, I might as well burn some of it through the exhaust of a Harley, I did a bit of snooping through her bank statements, but all I found were the day-to-day transactions of a woman making ends meet.
I salved my unease by concluding that all our money must be tied up in shares. But a little later when I got accepted at Mid-Yorkshire Uni, which seemed quite perfect for me – only forty miles away, far enough for independence, close enough for easy access to home cooking, laundry and cash top-ups – I was flabbergasted to hear Mother wondering whether it might not make economic sense for me to commute from home!
‘You mean we can’t afford it?’ I demanded. She backed down instantly, said there was no problem, no need to get myself excited. And that was the end of the matter.
But it stayed in my mind, and once I got to university and opportunities to run up bills came crowding, I decided I had to know just how well off we really were. Alone in the house during the Christmas vacation, I went looking for the statements from her shareholdings. What I found came as a real shock. They were worth a couple of thousand in total, no more. What was more, the house was mortgaged up to the hilt.
One other thing the search turned up was a scrapbook full of cuttings about you, Mr Dalziel. Mother was a real fan. I read through it, fascinated, and that’s how I come to be sure you’re the man to read this letter.
To confront her about her finances seemed impossible. I loved her too much to be her accuser. But I needed to work out what my new knowledge could mean.
I had all the necessary data, of course. A child sees far more than a parent realises. And gradually over the remainder of that vacation, as I matched memory with observation and analysis, I began to re-evaluate what I knew.
My conclusion was that the rumours of our wealth, the reputation for charitable open-handedness, the company AGMs and the share prospectuses, all were nothing but window dressing. Instead of taking one of the other routes open to a single mother – Social Security; menial work; remarriage; writing a bestselling novel! – she invited a certain type of man to subsidise our living style. Morally questionable? Perhaps. But she sold them nothing but their own greedy dream.
Of course it made me see her differently. I understood now just how ruthlessly single-minded she could be, but I felt just the same about her. Everything she’d done had been done for me.
So I resolved to watch my expenses for her sake, but no resolve could make me follow her advice about girls.
Once more I got serious. And this time I also got careless.
Michelle Powers was perfect for me. We shared so many interests and tastes it was unbelievable. She was gorgeous to look at and incredibly sexy. And she adored me as much as I adored her. I never met her family, who are reputed to own half of Mid-Yorkshire, but I didn’t doubt I could win them round. As for mother, she and Mitch seemed to get on famously.
Once more I was on top of the world and this time I could see no reason why I should not remain there.
Then it happened again. This time much more dramatically.
Mitch vanished.
I hadn’t seen her for a couple of days but we had a date on Saturday night. On Saturday morning, I got a text cancelling it, no reason given. Getting no reply to my return texts, I called at her flat. The girl she shared with, a media studies student called Donna who didn’t much care for me, said she’d gone away for a few days. When I asked where, she answered, ‘If Mitch had wanted you to know, I think she’d have told you,’ and closed the door in my face.
I made enquiries among my friends. None of them could help, but one recollected seeing her a few days earlier, having lunch at a pub outside town with an older woman. From his description, I was certain it was Mother.
I decided to go and talk to Donna again.
I got on my bike (push-bike not a Harley, but a lot more use at the uni) and headed for the house where they had their flat. As I approached, I saw Donna unlocking her bike from the railings.
I pulled in behind a parked car and watched as she rode away. Wherever she was going it wasn’t towards the media studies centre.
I followed.
Half an hour later, we were on the outskirts of town. Finally she turned into the drive of an imposing suburban mansion. A sign on the gate read, The Cedars Clinic.
I rode up the drive and left my bike beside hers outside the main door.
There were some rose bushes blooming on either side of the doorway. I picked a small posy and went inside. Donna had vanished, but there was a woman sitting at a reception desk.
I smiled at her and said, ‘Miss Powers?’ and when she looked at me doubtfully, I flourished my posy and said, ‘I’m her brother.’
‘First floor, turn left, Room 14,’ she said.
I think she regretted it almost as she was saying it, but I was off running up the stairs. I turned left down a long corridor, and when I reached No. 14, I didn’t hesitate but pushed open the door and stepped inside.
Mitch, pale as death, lay on a bed with Donna sitting by her side. Two pairs of eyes rounded as they registered me. Neither registered welcome.
I said something like, ‘Oh Jesus, Mitch, what’s happened to you?’
Donna jammed her finger onto a bell-push and demanded, ‘What the hell are you doing here?’
And Mitch turned her head away and began crying.
That was as much meaningful conversation as we had before a nurse arrived followed by a security man and I found myself bundled down the stairs and out of the door.
I had to wait nearly an hour before Donna appeared. When I rode up alongside her shoulder she glanced at me, then said flatly, ‘Listen to what I say because this is the last time we’ll talk. Your mother tol
d Mitch about your father being some kind of nut and warned her the condition was hereditary and you needed medication from time to time to stop you going the same way. Not surprisingly Mitch doesn’t want any part of this, so consider yourself dumped.’
This was so devastating that the air seemed to go dark and I’ve no recollection of the next several minutes. When I took notice of my surroundings again, we were almost back at the flat.
I said, ‘But why is she in The Cedars? She looked really ill.’
Donna dismounted, chained her bike to the railings, went up the steps and opened the door.
‘She had an abortion,’ she said. ‘There were complications, but she’s okay now.’
She stepped inside, and slammed the door behind her.
I went back to my room and lay on my bed to think things through.
It didn’t take long. Everything now became crystal clear. My mother had invested so much of her time and energy in binding me to her that she couldn’t bear the thought that one day I must break free. As long as I was flitting from girl to girl, she didn’t mind. But as soon as I started getting serious, she sat up and took notice.
It had never struck me before that love could be a destructive force, but now for the first time I wondered if it might have been some aspect of this same obsessive love that drove my father to plunge into Greendale Gorge. That was speculation. What I was now certain of was that she had told Gina and Kelly the same lies as she’d told to Mitch!
That early interference I could just about forgive. Only my pride had been hurt. But when it came to Mitch, not only had Mother ruined my hope of happiness, she had so terrified the poor girl that she had ended up in The Cedars, destroying our unborn child and almost losing her own life.
I felt my mind spinning out of control and I reached for my capsules. As I took them, I recalled my mother’s reluctance in handing them over to me for self-administration when I left for the university. Now I understood that in her eyes the act must have symbolised a relinquishment of power. Even then she only gave me as many as she estimated I might need in half a term, keeping the rest of the six-month prescription ‘safe at home’ as she put it. Keeping me safe at home was what she meant! At this moment I hated her and never wanted to see her again.
Then my mobile rang.
It was Mother. I was so worked up, I didn’t give her the chance to speak but launched into a tirade of abuse and accusation. When I finished there was silence at the other end. What else could there be? Justification? Defence? No, not even Mother, realising she had been responsible for the death of her own grandchild, could try that.
I said, ‘Mother, I’m coming home to pick up my things. Then I’m out of there forever. Don’t try to stop me. I can never forgive you. We’re done.’
And I rang off.
I had calmed down by the time I got home. I was sure she’d be waiting for me, ready to promise anything in her efforts to make me change my mind. But I was resolved. For once in my life I was going to be the controller, not the controlled.
But she, as always, was ahead of me.
The broken capsules (my capsules, of course! she wanted me to suffer) lay all around her chair; the glass was still held lightly by her almost lifeless hand. All my cold rationality fled. I could only think of everything she had been to me all these years. There was time for only a few words, of love and forgiveness. Then the glass fell to the floor and her eyes closed forever.
Perhaps I should have called for help, but I fell into a trancelike paralysis of grief. When I emerged from it, I found myself sitting at her bureau, writing this letter.
I had to talk to someone, Mr Dalziel, and I thought of you. By the time you read this, I will have joined Mother in a better world. I know how and where I shall make the transition, high up on Greendale Pass where my poor father ended his life all those years ago.
Like father, like son.
All I ask of you, Mr Dalziel, is that you tell it like it is.
Yours sincerely
William Appleby
I floated in a featureless world of light and shade, myself a part of the chiaroscuro, till a strange rumbling sound like distant thunder drew me upwards and gave me once more a sense of individual being.
I opened my eyes. Before me I saw a tremendous figure, menacing, judgemental, and I was filled with fear.
‘Lord?’ I croaked.
‘Eh?’ said the figure.
I blinked. And blinked again.
The figure slowly reduced to a grossly fat man overflowing a small chair by the bed on which I lay.
I whispered, ‘Sorry. Thought you were God.’
‘Common mistake,’ said the man. ‘Name’s Dalziel. NURSE!’
A nurse came bustling in. She said sharply, ‘We do have bells.’
‘Like a bike, you mean? Which bit of you’s it fixed on?’
She took my pulse and my temperature, gave me a glass of water, and said, ‘I’ll tell Mr Kali the consultant you’re awake. Try to rest. No talking.’
With a glower at the fat man, she left.
‘I love a bossy woman in uniform,’ he said.
He shifted his huge buttocks in the chair and once more I heard the rumbling sound.
‘Better out than in,’ he said. ‘Now, Mr Appleby, William, okay if I call thee Bill? Or mebbe Willy? You wrote me a letter.’
‘Did I? Yes, I remember. Oh God!’
I closed my eyes and a sob rocked my body.
‘Don’t tek on, Willy,’ he said. ‘You’re a very lucky boy. Airbag saved you. Plus you can’t have been going fast enough to clear the undergrowth and get a straight drop into the gorge.’
‘It doesn’t feel lucky,’ I murmured.
‘Not to worry, you’re still young, all your life to kill yourself in,’ he said consolingly. ‘So let’s see. You say you wrote to me ’cos you wanted a man who’d not be scared of the truth.’
‘Yes.’
‘Well, you’ve come to the right shop. So let’s have a look at this truth, shall we? And to start off, I’ve got to tell you there’s one or two things you’ve got a bit wrong. Best get them out of the way first off.’
He pulled my letter out of the inside pocket of a jacket which could have doubled as a marquee at a small wedding, and stabbed his finger at one of the pages.
‘This stuff about your dad’s accident. Suicide you guess. Trouble is, there were three witnesses. Walkers. Saw him skid on a patch of ice. Straight over the edge, no airbags to save him. So definitely an accident.’
‘Does it make a difference?’ I asked dully.
‘Likely not. Except it does relate to what your mam said to put your girlfriends off you …’
‘Oh God,’ I interrupted. ‘How could she tell those dreadful lies?’
‘Likely her being a woman helped,’ he said. ‘And your mam. Plus, they weren’t exactly lies.’
‘I’m sorry?’
He patted my shoulder, sympathetically I suppose, but it felt like being clubbed with a baseball bat.
‘Something you need to know about your dad, Willy. He weren’t a very nice man. I mean, he had lots of charm, no problem getting in a girl’s knickers. Bit like you. But underneath it … well, you’d likely not know he’d been married before when he met your mam?’
This was news to me and I said so.
‘Aye, over in Lancashire, young woman, bit of money she’d inherited from her parents, plus the family house. They got wed, he soon went through the money, mortgaged the house, went through that too. Then she died. Accident. Fell down the stairs. Luckily for him he’d taken out a hefty chunk of term insurance on her. There was talk. There always is.’
‘What’s this got to do with anything?’ I demanded.
‘Just thought you might be interested. Any road, nothing proved, talk died, he moved away. But there was this old uncle, ex-cop, he didn’t forget, he kept on digging. Found a similar case, down in Cheshire. Different name, but the newspaper pics looked like the same guy. Now he trac
ked your dad across here to Yorkshire. And when he discovered he’d got married again, he alerted the local CID chief. That’s me in case you’ve forgotten.’
Suddenly I began to understand Dalziel’s connection with Mother. I should have guessed there must have been something that kick-started her interest.
‘And what steps did you take?’ I demanded.
‘Bloody careful ones! But when I found out that he’d taken out a big term insurance on your mam, well, I had to talk to her, didn’t I? It were hard, mind you, what with her having a babbie. That ’ud be you. You were an ugly little bugger. At first your mam didn’t want to believe me, but I think deep down she were already having doubts. The insurance policy came as a real shock. But afore we could decide what was best to do, your dad had his accident. The clincher came when the lawyers told her that he’d got through her own little bit of cash and most of what they’d got from mortgaging the house – it was your mam’s house, did you know that?’
I shook my head.
‘At least she didn’t get pushed down the stairs. But she were left with a kid to bring up and not much money. In the circs I think she’s done pretty well. A lot of what you say about the way she made ends meet is probably true, but after her experience, you can’t blame her if she took advantage of a lot of greedy men, can you?’
‘No, no,’ I said faintly. ‘I didn’t blame her. I make that clear in my letter.’
‘So you do. But this business of putting your girlfriends off, well, think about it. There’s you, with all your dad’s charm, girls at your beck and call, but somehow it was always the ones with a bit of money behind them that you get really close up and cosy with. Gina’s dad owns a brewery, Kelly’s family’s got a chain of hotels, and with Mitch, you were really farting through silk. Landowners, huntin’, shootin’, fishin’, all that crap. When your mam saw that, no wonder alarm bells rang. You’d been diagnosed borderline psychotic early on. Big mood swings, low moral sense, all right if you kept taking the medicine. She tried to keep it from you just how serious your condition was, but I think you knew, didn’t you?’
I ignored his question and protested, ‘But what she made Mitch do, there’s no justifying that!’
The Detection Collection Page 18