The Godson's Legacy

by Gait, Paul;

  ‘Geoffery Foster, turn in your grave. That’s two to me, nil points to you,’ she said, in a mock French accent.

  The sharp pain in her neck, reminded her that the ‘fortunate’ incident hadn’t come without a cost. However, the thought of having a few million in the bank was a small consolation for a bit of neck pain.

  ‘I suppose I ought to do something about my neck. Perhaps I should get a collar. I don’t want to go to the hospital, just in case people tie me up with the missing woman report.

  I wonder if I can get something off the internet,’ she thought.

  As she gazed at the picture of the carnage, she pondered if there was anything that could link her directly to the crash. ‘My fingerprints would have been incinerated by the fire. Hopefully nobody there recognised me. Umm… are there any road traffic cameras in that section? Perhaps I ought to look at the internet.

  What about the Taxi driver? He was too talkative for my liking. I wonder if he had one of these in-car cameras?

  I might need to think about an alibi, just in case.’

  With all these thoughts flooding through her head, she slowly and painfully returned to her bed and plugged in her laptop.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  25th December

  Amidst all the family festivities, Geoffery’s beneficiaries, with the unfortunate exception of Rupert, spent time variously reflecting on their changing fortunes and forthcoming inheritances. Each reassessing how their lives had changed unexpectedly for the better in such a relatively short time. Father Christmas had brought a new helper with him this year, his name, Geoffery Foster.

  Tim and Carrie joined Kay at her home for a traditional, ‘with all the trimmings’, Christmas dinner, that she’d cooked for them.

  ‘This might be the last time you have to do this Mum,’ Tim said, his mouth full of turkey, ‘because this time next year we will be holidaying in the sunshine on a beach, rather than freezing our wotsits off in a miserable British winter.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ Carrie said, chinking her glass against Tim’s.

  Kay smiled, but said nothing. She recognised that she would be unwise to assume she would be included in that arrangement.

  Although she had been pleasantly staggered by the changes in her formerly self-centred son, he might yet surprise her.

  Tim had, at last, become uncharacteristically concerned about somebody else other than himself. Carrie had transformed him.

  Carrie had become his ‘rock’, and her ‘episode’ at the funeral had brought out a caring side of Tim’s nature that Kay had never seen before.She had even influenced his Christmas present list too. For the first time in many years, Tim had no games for his Xbox. She had banned all war games.

  ‘These are an insult to real soldiers who put their lives on the line,’ she’d said, intensely scrutinising his collection. It’s despicable that people actually think that war is a cosy affair. War is hell. There is no glamour in killing. Most people would shit themselves and run scared if they were shot at.

  Every day while you’re serving, you wonder if it’s going to be your last. The worst thing is losing a mate, somebody with whom you have come through the good and bad times together. They become family. You share everything with them. I know it must be difficult for you to understand, but no more war games, OK?’

  Tim had agreed. Kay was amazed. Carrie was definitely in charge.

  James was slowly getting his head around being in the rat race again. This would be the first Christmas for many years when he was going to be sober and he wasn’t sure about coping with the emotional baggage.

  Certainly it was the first time, since he was a kid, that he shared a meal in the bosom of a family, albeit a slightly tense one.

  Ben’s Grandad had invited him to share an alcohol free Christmas meal with him, together with Ben and Beth at his house.

  Although he was pleased that he’d been able to talk Ben out of running away, at least until after Christmas, he empathised with the mounting pressures that the boy was experiencing.

  The death of a friend, accusations of desecrating his grave, the body in the burial ground, the forthcoming Police interview, the ‘found’ mobile phone and his mother’s seemingly incurable addictions, were terrible emotional burdens.

  ‘If you could choose absolutely anything for Christmas,’ James had asked Ben, ‘what would it be?’

  ‘Anything?’

  ‘Yes, anything.’

  Ben thought for a few minutes and said, ‘I want a Dad and a normal family life.’

  Uncharacteristically, James swore ‘Shit! You don’t want much do you, old man?’

  But Ben’s naïve desire rekindled James’ own childhood dreams of having a normal family life.

  Orphaned at an early age, he had spent most of his childhood in ‘Public’ schools and felt deprived of the love and joy he assumed all children received at home.

  He ‘choked’ when he thought about the emotional gap in his own life that he shared with Ben.

  Composing himself he said, ‘I’m sorry, Ben. You and I both share that dream. On a practical level, what can I buy you for Christmas?’

  Ben had thought about it for a moment, ‘Would it be possible to have a rucsac.’

  So James had bought him the rucsac. He just hoped that it wouldn’t be used as an enabler to run away and escape from all the problems in which he appeared to be ‘drowning’.

  James wondered what he should do with his inheritance. Did he want to go back to his former social set or not. If he did, he would have to forget the past and start again by finding some real friends, rather than those superficial parasites that helped him spend his money and then deserted him when he needed help following Sebastian’s death. He wasn’t sure.

  He wasn’t sure about a lot of things, including the future of his own health. Would his body allow him to enjoy the legacy, after abusing it for so many years? Would he be strong enough to stay alcohol free?

  In spite of all the angst, Ben had a bonus year for Christmas presents- Geoffery’s early present of a couple of bikes, the rucsac from James and a light weight tent from his Grandad. His Mum tried to make up for her relapse and ‘fall from grace’ by buying him a sleeping bag. Materially, he was fortunate. Emotionally he was less fortunate.

  Beth kept herself busy doing the household domestics; food preparation, table laying, washing up, all the while trying to keep her demons away, still fighting the craving for a drink.

  Andy had a traditional family Christmas with the excited Amy getting more fun out of pulling the paper off the presents than the presents themselves. Molly slept through the excitement in spite of being dressed in a Christmas baby-grow. Helen had a bottle of Eau de Toilette in a posh box. Andy got the cold shoulder.

  Sue spent a lonely and miserable time dosing herself up on painkillers to relieve the agony of her whiplash injuries. She managed to struggle to the kitchen and made herself some soup, which she duly spilt down herself carrying the tray to her chair.

  Rupert and Joanne missed Christmas altogether.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  26th December

  Sue heard the Boxing Day edition of the local newspaper being delivered and was anxious to read of any updates about the Crash.

  She slowly eased herself out of bed and carefully, putting on her white towelling dressing gown, painfully shuffled, stiff shouldered, downstairs to the front door.

  She was relieved to see that the newspaper boy had ignored her instructions this time and the paper was stuck by the flap of the letterbox, so she didn’t have to go through the convoluted procedure of the previous occasion.

  She slowly hobbled her way into the kitchen and taking her time, sat down carefully at the kitchen table. She decided to spread the newspaper over the table to read it, hoping this method wouldn’t strain her still painful neck.

  Unfortunately, as she did so, she knocked over an empty champagne flute that she had been using to celebrate her newly acquired milli
onaire status. Although she’d struggled to open the bottle, she had been determined to celebrate whilst jubilantly fantasizing about her new life as a rich widow.

  ‘Bugger,’ she said, as it rolled off the table and shattered on the ceramic kitchen floor tiles. ‘I hope that’s not an omen.’

  The front page headlines caught her eye ‘Body found in Hill Cemetery’; with concern she quickly read the article.

  Police cordoned off Churchup Hill on Christmas Eve following the discovery of a man’s body. The man, who has not been formally identified, is believed to be that of a Gravedigger who had been working in the Parish burial grounds. Police are treating the death as suspicious until the results of a post-mortem examination are known. Night time temperatures in the area were reported to have plunged to minus six degrees and there is speculation that the man could have died of hypothermia.

  ‘So the Gravedigger died! Oh dear what a pity,’ she said, callously. ‘Well, I only hit him on the head. He was alive when I left him.’ Sue reassured herself. ‘I didn’t kill him. Well every cloud has a silver lining. At least he can’t identify me now,’ she added, coldheartedly.

  A sudden thought came to her, ‘Drat, what about that photo he took on his mobile though? Perhaps it didn’t come out or perhaps his phone went down the drain after all. Damn, that’s an irritation I could do without. Well, what’s done is done. As soon as I get Rupert’s money I intend to leave the country anyway.’

  Further down the page she discovered a small article entitled ‘Vandalised Grave.’

  Police are appealing for witnesses to help identify vandals who desecrated a grave in the Churchup Hill Parish burial ground. A teenager is currently helping Police with their enquiries. A representative of the Parish Council was not available for comment.

  ‘Well, well. This is my lucky Christmas.’

  She was buzzing with excitement. She couldn’t believe her luck. She had not been linked to either the death of the Gravedigger or the vandalism.

  ‘I guess sometime soon I should go to the Police and report Rupert missing,’ she mused.

  However her mood soon changed as she turned to page two and read the headlines ‘Christmas Crash victim identified.’

  Police today said the man killed in the pre-Christmas M5 crash was a married 35 year old Salesman from Stoke on Trent. His name has not been released until his family have been notified…..she threw the paper down angrily without reading anything more, her dreams of inheriting her husband’s legacy all but disappearing.

  ‘If Rupert’s not dead, where the hell is he? Why hasn’t anybody contacted me?’ she fumed. ‘Even if he was injured, somebody should have called me as I’m his next of kin? Unless of course he isn’t badly injured and then they wouldn’t need to call me,’ she mused. ‘Damn it!’

  She chided herself for celebrating too soon.

  ‘I’ll have to ring some hospitals to see if I can track him down,’ she said, standing up.

  As she did so, she stood on a shard of glass from the flute which cut the sole of her foot.

  ‘Shit!’ she said, quickly sitting down again and pulled the glass out of her foot, the hem of her white dressing gown now stained red.

  Carefully avoiding any more glass, she hobbled across the kitchen leaving a series of bloody footprints.

  After wrapping a tea towel around her bleeding foot, she set up her laptop and logged on to the internet, quickly searching online phone directories for the telephone numbers of nearby hospitals in Gloucester, Cheltenham, Stroud and the specialist hospital dealing with head injuries and burns, Frenchay in Bristol.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  28th December

  Because of the severity of their injuries, Rupert and Joanne had been taken from the crash site to hospital by Air ambulance.

  Rupert had been put in a controlled coma because of his head injuries which had caused swelling and a small bleed to his brain. In addition to multiple bruising, he also sustained a fractured collar bone, where he had been suspended upside down by his seatbelt. However, after a few days when the brain swelling had reduced he was brought out of the coma.

  ‘Where am I?’ What happened?’

  ‘You were in a crash. Don’t try to talk,’ the nurse instructed.

  ‘Crash…crash! We…we were going home. Where’s Joanne?’ he asked, frantically. ‘Where is she? Is she alright?’

  ‘She’s being cared for in a separate room. You can see her shortly, but first you need to rest. You were badly hurt yourself.’

  ‘No, I’m alright.’ Rupert tried to sit up and immediately passed out from the pain.

  The following day, he eventually convinced the medical team, that he was strong enough to go and see Joanne. Carefully transferring to a wheelchair he was wheeled into the intensive care ward to see her.

  Joanne was lying in bed, unconscious. She was very pale and had a rash of small cuts across her face.

  She was connected by tubes and wires to all manner of medical paraphernalia; drips and drains dangling from assorted stainless steel hangers.

  There were sensors attached all over her body relaying her vital signs to a monitor above her bed. The display showed lots of different coloured wiggly lines that meant nothing to Rupert.

  As they arrived in the room she was being attended to by a Doctor and Nurse.

  ‘Oh my God! Jo,’ he said, devastated. His mind numbed by the shock of seeing her lifeless figure. ‘Is she…is she going to be alright?’

  ‘She’s in a serious, but stable condition. We’ve put her in an induced coma and as you can see she’s on a life support machine,’ the Doctor said. ‘I’m pleased to see you up and about though. I’m Doctor McFady, trauma specialist. How do you feel now?’

  ‘I’m a bit sore, bruised all over. But what about Jo?’

  ‘Joanne appears to have received significant impact injuries. I’m afraid as well as significant head trauma there are crush injuries to her back and pelvis,’ the Consultant explained.

  Rupert manoeuvred his wheelchair to the side of her bed and gently touched her hand, gazing forlornly at Joanne’s unconscious figure.

  ‘I understand she was initially trapped, pinned between the seat and the steering wheel. Is that correct?’ the doctor quizzed.

  ‘I don’t know, I was knocked out. I didn’t know anything about it until I came around in the ward yesterday. What day it is?’

  ‘Well I’m sorry, but you missed Christmas this year. It’s a couple of days after boxing day, it’s December the 28th.’

  ‘God, have I been out that long?’ Rupert asked, trying to comprehend the lost days.

  ‘Your…young lady? Your wife?’

  ‘Girlfriend.’

  ‘Your girlfriend and you are lucky to be alive. The Highways Agency people were first on the scene and pulled you out, just before the whole lot caught fire and exploded. Somebody up there was looking after you.’

  The hairs on Rupert’s neck stood up at the thought that Geoffery could still be looking after him, from beyond the grave. He shook his head to clear the thought.

  ‘You mentioned something about her back. Oh my God. Is she going to be…will she be able to walk?’ Rupert asked, frightened of hearing the prognosis.

  ‘We don’t know at this stage. There is too much swelling in that area to be able to assess the damage properly.’

  ‘Oh God!’

  ‘We aren’t sure about the baby yet either.’

  ‘Baby! What baby?’

  ‘Didn’t you know? She is about four months pregnant.’

  ‘No I didn’t. She hadn’t told me. I knew she’d put on weight but…,’ Rupert continued, completely flummoxed by the news. ‘What happens while she’s in a coma? Will the baby be OK?’

  ‘We’ll monitor the baby as best we can. As you can see she’s connected to a lot of monitors.’ It’s up to her now to fight for herself and the baby. We just have to watch and wait I’m afraid.’

  ‘It’s all my fault,’ Rupert said, welling
up. ‘If I hadn’t stopped, none of this would have happened.’

  ‘Don’t get blaming yourself. From what I gather you just got caught up in somebody else’s accident.’

  ‘Yes but…’

  ‘She needs you to be strong for her now.’

  ‘But she’s the strong one. She’s my ‘rock.’

  ‘Now it’s your turn to be her ‘rock’. She will need your support.’

  ‘How long will she be like this?’

  ‘It’s difficult to tell with head injuries. It’s likely to be some time. We’ll manage her coma and see how it goes.’

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘Not really, unless you’re a religious man and you might like to say a prayer for her and the baby.’

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  28th December

  Rupert had spent an hour at Joanne’s bedside holding her hand, talking gently to her, telling her how much he loved her; when he felt his wheelchair move and assumed a nurse had come to take him back to his ward.

  But the voice from behind him made his heart miss a beat; his worst nightmare had just stepped back into his life.

  ‘Hello Rupert, you survived the crash then?’ Sue said, ‘I bet you’re pleased to see me?’

  Rupert froze, the icy hand of fear clutching his heart.

  Sue had battled through layers of unhelpful NHS bureaucracy but eventually tracked Rupert and Joanne down to Frenchay Hospital.

  ‘Nasty little crash wasn’t it?’

  ‘What are you doing here?’ he struggled to say, his mouth dry with fear.

  ‘I’ve come to visit my sick husband of course,’ she said, with false concern. ‘It was a terrible accident. Unfortunately you’re lucky to be alive.’

  ‘Was it…was it you…that that caused it? he stammered.’

  ‘Oh you flatter me too much,’ she said, feigning false modesty. ‘I can’t take credit for planning that mayhem,’ she said, spinning his wheelchair around to face her and fixing him with a medusa stare.