The Hands

by Andrea Speed, A. B. Gayle, Jessie Blackwood, J. J Levesque, Katisha Moreish

  Haven Falls #184 - Quincy, Eat Your Heart Out!

  Lyle Ashley Tate, Carter ‘Gil’ Gillespie, Miles Sutherland

  with references to Flynn Archer and Aiden Parker

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  Gil travelled light. Everything he owned had fitted into the car with ease. Lyle could relate to that. His own inclination for home-making had long ago fallen prey to his forced lifestyle of moonlight flits until he had almost nothing to take with him. “We better get the door open first and then we can walk this stuff straight into your room for you.” Lyle advised.

  Lyle hadn’t visited Miles’s home before. He didn’t know the doctor really and doubted he’d ever have been invited over on his own accord. He wasn’t sure how welcome he’d be based on being Gil’s fuck buddy, either. Lyle suspected his own bed would see more of Gil than the one he was going to be renting here. That was a shame, because this one looked very comfy, especially with Gil flopped on it.

  “You look edible.” Lyle told Gil, his eyes raking over the man’s lithe body hungrily.

  “I do? You’re insatiable.” Gil laughed softly.

  “Yes, I am, so best we get you out of the bedroom before I pounce on you again.” Lyle had lightened up considerably now they’d settled on what their relationship entailed. Gil liked this version of his lover. He was tempted to let him pounce, but then realised that Miles would probably be home shortly.

  “Will you help me unpack?” Although startled by the request, one he himself would never have made, Lyle liked the idea of seeing what things Gil considered precious enough to have brought with him from the UK. He agreed, getting out his pocket knife to open the various cartons. They got stuck in with gusto, chatting as they worked.

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  Lyle had proven really helpful and seemed to know instinctively where to place his various belongings for convenience’s sake. When they unpacked his photos, he’d asked about Gil’s family. It occurred to Gil then that Lyle didn’t have any pictures in his place; not a one. Another piece to add to the jigsaw.

  There were dogs barking somewhere nearby. Gil walked to the window and looked out. “Miles has left Roofie in the garden. Looks like he’s picked another up too.” Seeing two animals in the garden had been a surprise, but Gil guessed Miles was happy to acquire strays, himself included.

  “Should we let them in?”

  “I guess if they are outside, it’s where Miles wanted them to stay. They’re not making too much of a din, just playing. We can always drag them in if a neighbour comes round to complain.”

  “Do you like dogs?” Lyle did, but he hadn’t had any pets since he first came to the States. He and Richard had talked about getting something, but they’d talked about having children too, and that hadn’t come to pass either.

  “I don’t mind them. Roofie’s a rough diamond, scruffy looking but not such a bad dog when you get to know him.” Like someone else I could mention, Gil thought. He opened the window so that the room could get some air, it obviously hadn’t seen occupancy for a while. “Let me give you the grand tour now?”

  “Won’t Miles mind? I would.” Best to make that clear to Gil. He’s welcome in my home, but not to go rooting around, Lyle thought. He was a private person to start with and his prevailing personal circumstances had simply taught him to be more so.

  Gil didn’t miss the veiled hint. “I can respect privacy you know,” he replied, sounding a little aggrieved that Lyle should suggest otherwise. “We’ll leave his room alone. It’s not like I’m just renting a bedroom; this is supposed to be my home too now.” Gil was already loping off to show Lyle around as he spoke.

  Lyle nudged away the pang of jealousy that statement evoked. Neither of them was anywhere near ready to share living space, so this move was sensible. Gil wanted a bigger space to inhabit and Miles wanted a lodger, it was a convenient arrangement for each of them.

  This was a large house to British eyes: five bedrooms, obviously intended to accommodate a family rather than a single man. Miles did indeed have plenty of space for a lodger. It was a pretty house from the outside too: white clapboard, low profile, a grey slate roof and a nice porch with a deck out front. It had personality. Lyle liked it.

  The interior was sparsely furnished. It became obvious why when Gil showed Lyle the bedroom where Miles had stuffed all the unwanted furnishings. Apparently he liked space to swing his cats, so some of the furniture that had come with the place had been put into storage here. He imagined Miles’ own room would contain nothing but a bed and wardrobe.

  One of the bedrooms was obviously intended for a child. It had nursery wallpaper featuring Pooh Bear and Tigger. The bed had been removed and replaced with the trappings of a home office. This room made Lyle feel a little sad, for a variety of reasons. He hoped Gil wouldn’t choose for them to spend much of their time together in here.

  There was a nice big family bathroom, as well as en suite facilities in some of the bedrooms. Lyle’s thoughts drifted to shagging in the shower for a minute or two before they returned back downstairs.

  The lounge was what you might expect of a Bachelor pad—big television, nice sound system, over-soft sofas and nondescript art on the walls. Various photographs cluttered the ledge over the fireplace, pictures of Miles and some other guy in a range of settings. Seemingly Miles had been long term with someone until fairly recently.

  Lyle couldn’t help but notice how poor the security was in the house. Yes, there were locks and an alarm, and the lot was fenced, but no cameras and no safe room. The thought made him realise how paranoid he had grown since entering witness protection. His own home here in Haven Falls was fit for the President to spend the weekend, security-wise at least.

  Gil left the kitchen ‘til last in their tour because Miles had seemed precious about it. They deserved a cuppa though, having unpacked all his boxes in record time. He checked there was milk and was surprised to see that Miles had apparently shopped with him in mind; there were the makings of an evening meal in the fridge already, though he suspected the rations might not have been intended to stretch to three diners. He was also not going to go there, considering Miles’ territorial feelings about the culinary side of things, not unless invited anyway.

  The kitchen was beautiful. It was what Lyle would have described as ‘staged’; everything spoke of the fact that someone, presumably Miles, ‘performed’ in here. Apparently, though, the artist had been forced to cut and run this morning, There was a half-drunk cup of cold coffee and an empty cereal bowl on the breakfast bar. Beside the dirty crockery rested a journal, its pages left open, and a number of bits of paper with notes scribbled over them.

  Perching on a stool at the breakfast table, Lyle couldn’t help but glance at the journal. It was against his rules to invade other peoples’ privacy really, but Miles was a mystery to him so far, and he liked to know who he was dealing with. The more information he could give Agent Tyler about Miles Sutherland the more additional information she would come back to him with. He knew that from experience with her. She liked him to make her job easy.

  “What have you got there?” Gil asked, seeing the journal Lyle was looking at. He peered over Lyle’s shoulder. “That’s not Miles’ writing, I’d recognise his scrawl. Typical doctor, it’s illegible half the time.”

  “So what’s it doing here? Do you think it might have belonged to his...ex-?” Lyle nodded towards the photos on the fridge door.

  Gil shook his head. “Darren? No idea. Don’t know Miles well enough to know that. That’s odd though, it’s in Latin...”

  “Maybe the ex- was a doctor too?”

  “What’s the numbers though? Reference numbers?” Gil glanced at the pieces of paper scattered around. “Miles has been making notes. This is his handwriting.” Gil read out, “Cremation urns? Weight? Difference? Ask Lyle?”

  Miles had intended to ask him about this stuff? Lyle felt himself being drawn in. Crypto
graphy was his forte, had been before he went underground anyway. Hell, it was his facility with code breaking that had gotten him the negative attention that had put him into the witness protection scheme to start with. Did Miles know that? If he did, then how? He sensed this was going to bring him trouble, but Lyle’s intellect was starved for challenges and this was perfect food for it. He ran his gaze across the numerals, letting their pattern sink in, his old skills rampaging to the forefront.

  “What do the Latin bits say? Can you translate them?”

  “Verus pondus,” Gil read. “Well, pondus, that’s probably ‘weight’, and verus...real, true. Real weight? True weight?”

  The numbers were beginning to sort themselves out inside Lyle’s brain. There was indeed a pattern to them. What were they saying though?

  “Specto pondus...sounds like something out of Harry Potter...expected weight? Not sure. Specto can mean ‘watch’ as well. Watched weight...that doesn’t sound right. I should call mum, she’s the Latin scholar in our family. What I know, I learned from her.”

  Gil’s Mum knew more Latin than he did? That was intriguing. The paramedic hadn’t said much about his people previously.

  “That’s bone, I’m sure, although what that one is...?” Gil frowned. “And that one, what’s Bratva for god’s sakes? I really should call mum.” He reached for his mobile and flipped it open, pressing speed dial. There was a pause of about ten seconds while he waited, then an audible scream as the recipient picked up. Gil held the phone away from his ear and blushed. “Mum,” he mouthed and put the phone back to his ear.

  Lyle had to fight hard to resist the chuckle that was building in his chest. Gil calling home to ask his mum about Latin was just too cute to deal with.

  “Yes, Mum, it’s me....yes, I’m fine....” Gil replied patiently, “no, I’m okay.... Mum!” This last was an admonishing growl, then “How are you and Dad?” There was a pause. “That’s great...” It was obvious Gil was trying to get a word in edge-ways and Lyle could hear the excited non-stop chatter at the other end. Eventually, though, Gil got through to ask her help. “You’re the Latin Scholar, not me. It’s...er....pub quiz,” he said. “Yes, they do have them over here.” Gil grimaced at the lie. “Well, our pub does. Okay.” He motioned Lyle to hand the book over, read the words out, then awaited the reply. “Bone and ash? And was I right about the others....? Great. Thanks mum. There’s another one, but it doesn’t look like Latin. What is it? It sounds European...Bratva....” His face fell and he stammered “Th-thanks, Mum, you’re wonderful. No, that’s fine, that was all...and to find out if you’re okay. Yes...bye then.” he turned away and there were audible kissing sounds before he rang off. Gil turned back looking slightly embarrassed. “She’s my mum, okay?” he challenged.

  Lyle didn’t reply, he was too busy choking on the fact that he hadn’t spoken to his own Mum for over ten years. “She confirmed I was right about the first ones. The first one I didn’t know was ash. Bone and ash. She didn’t know what Bratva was off the top of her head, she said she’ll call if she finds out. So, what now?”

  Lyle took the journal back off Gil and returned to studying the numerical elements. Further on in the text, they changed. The last few entries were alphanumerical—a mixture of letters and numbers—with some other differently formatted numerical entries alongside.

  “That one looks like a number plate...”

  “I think they’re all number plates, with times associated with them, I think. Then another number, either 1, 2 or 3. People?”

  “Like train-spotting maybe?” Gil placed a cup of tea on the counter in front of Lyle. “You know, the number plate, the time you saw it and the number of occupants?”

  “Seems likely. These times are all outside normal business hours, assuming they’ve not been encrypted. This is quite weird.” Lyle was regretting his curiosity, as he had known he would. There was a mystery here and for some reason Miles thought he could help with it. But why? Where had this journal come from? What did it mean? How did it all relate to himself? He had a feeling the answers would not be good for his health.

  A dog in the back yard started whining followed by rustling at the back door, minutes passed before Lyle heard footsteps and the sound of a key turning in the front door. How did dogs always know when their master was coming home? Miles must have been at the end of the street when the dog first heard him.

  Miles rubbed the back of his neck as he walked inside. The day had been busy with a few cases that worried him. Not the least being a man being admitted with signs of sexual abuse, a badly bleeding rectum and signs of torture. He’d been told it was one of the town’s teachers and at first he’d feared it was Flynn’s friend, but he’d never seen this man before.

  Roofie’s normal yaps of greeting sounded different and the sound of voices warned Miles he wasn’t alone. Gil must have already moved in. He should have spotted the signs. A couple of photos propped up amongst his on the sideboard. Gil’s parents? A pair of shoes near the front door. Miles rubbed his neck again. In some ways it was good not coming home to an empty house, but in other ways having someone here felt strange.

  The sight of Lyle, perched on one of the stools in the kitchen made his stomach sink as he and Gil looked up with what almost looked like an identical expression of guilt on their faces. Then he saw the notebook open on the kitchen bench in front of the assistant mortician.

  “I see you’ve made yourself at home.” Shit. He couldn’t have sounded more unwelcoming if he tried. Miles dropped his briefcase and advanced into the room with his hand held out. “Sorry, that came out a bit rough. Hard day at the office.” He snorted and shook Gil’s hand. “Welcome aboard, mate. You’ll just have to put up with me being like this for a while. Normally I have a few beers to wind down after work, but seeing I’m trying to cut down on the grog I’ll have to wait for the ginger beer to kick in.” He smirked at his own joke.

  Gil grinned as he shook Miles’ hand. “Thanks ‘mate’,” he tried a bad impression of an Aussie accent and his grin broadened. “Lyle helped me move in. Lyle, this is my new housemate, Miles. Um...we were...you left the journal out....? Sorry, didn’t mean to pry.”

  A flash of something hit Miles at the contact with Gil’s hand, but he wasn’t sure what. “No. It’s good.” He turned to Lyle, was about to repeat the gesture, but in the end let his hand drop casually to his side. He wasn’t quite ready to go there yet.

  Miles extracted a couple of bottles from the refrigerator and held them up. “What about you, Gil, Lyle. Want to join me?” He swallowed. There, it had been an effort but he could do nice if he really tried.

  Both men shook their heads. Miles returned the bottles to the refrigerator and wiped his hands down his trousers. Probably the condensation on the bottles, not nerves. He nodded at Lyle. “Hi Lyle. Glad you’re here. I wasn’t sure how to approach you.”

  “Hello, Miles, nice to see you again. Sorry if I’m intruding, Gil needed me.” Lyle was a bit taken aback when the doctor didn’t shake his hand as he had done with Gil. Being caught reading the journal was bad, but he didn’t need to be that stony with him did he? “Approach me for what?”

  “I need help.” There. That wasn’t too hard to say. Was it, Miles?

  “Help? With this?” Gil frowned, curiosity warring with caution.

  “Yes, it’s a diary belonging to your predecessor.” Miles handed to diary to Lyle. “, Stan Riley’s disappeared, and I fear he may have been killed.”

  “Riley? You think he’s dead?” Lyle was sure now this was not a good thing for him to be getting messed up with.

  “Over this, you mean? Or is this just part of it?” Gil asked.

  “That’s the problem. We’re not sure.” Miles noticed the look of confusion on their faces. “It’s a long story and in a way goes back to finding the dismembered hands and meeting Flynn Archer.” The look of slight repulsion at Flynn’s name was amusing. Seemed he was the only person here who appreciated the guy’s wacko sense of hu
mor. “Flynn is scared of your boss, Henry Vale. He thinks he’s behind the hands.” Miles wondered for a second whether he should reveal that they belonged to Flynn’s father. No, Flynn seemed to want his identity kept secret. “He also thinks he might have killed Stan Riley. That’s his diary. Flynn found it when we went to the house one night to check up on Stan, found him missing and his house trashed. The thieves, killers whoever had been there, missed this. Flynn thinks it might contain vital information. Whether it was what led to Stan’s disappearance remains to be seen, but it was hidden in a way that suggests it does.”

  “I ended up calling my mum about the Latin.” Gil felt a little embarrassed at that revelation but swallowed it and added “I know some, but I wanted confirmation. So far we have bone, ash, expected weight and real weight...” Gil paused, thinking. “We think some of these are vehicle number plates...”

  “Number plates and times, maybe times the vehicles were seen.” Lyle explained further.

  “Like train-spotting,” Gil offered. “But this word, Bratva, it’s not Latin. We don’t know yet what it is.”

  Lyle suddenly realised the doctor’s Latin would be enough to know most of this already. What were he and Flynn really into? He didn’t feel inclined to trust either one of them any more than he trusted Vale.

  Miles smiled wryly at the sight of the two now eagerly perusing the journal. “You look like a couple of bloodhounds on the trail. Before you get too involved, I should stress that Flynn thinks Vale is dangerous, very dangerous. A psychopathic killer. I didn’t have enough time to do more than jot down a few things on the pad this morning before I had to leave for work.”

  “Yeah, well, anything that little creep comes out with I’d take with a pinch of salt.” Lyle was derogatory after Flynn’s outburst at the Steele. “Look, thanks for the invite to stay, but I need to get going.” Lyle’s agile brain was thinking through the codes on the pages as he spoke. The lure of the puzzle was proving hard to resist.