Blood Ties (13 page)

Gavin felt he was owed. Had Edward Thame given one moment's thought to the family he was destroying? Gavin's dad had kept the whole thing secret all this time. His mum reckoned it was because if the truth had come out about the persecution and the blackmail – not that Gavin was absolutely sure there had been any blackmail, but it stood to reason, didn't it? – that the police would have had to look again, and the longer he kept quiet about it the more guilty he looked. Just like his dad, Gavin thought. He handled everything wrong, though it hadn't always been like that. Gavin could remember a time when his father got things right. Dead right, spot-on right.

But this Eddy person, would he listen to reason? No. Did he want to hear that Gavin's father had been cleared? No. Did he want to hear how Gavin's dad had killed himself, was he interested in that? No, like hell he was.

Gavin took a deep breath. He'd been about to go back to the cottage when he'd seen the car pull up and the women get out, and so he'd moved a bit further up the road and walked back, watched them as they'd got out and gone inside. They'd not even looked his way.

Everyone he spoke to reckoned this old man had money. That he'd found something valuable when he went out with his detector. But then there'd been all the rumours about the old man leaving money and the house and that he had no family. This Susan woman would be the beneficiary.

The rest had been a no-brainer. Find the late Eddy Thame some family. Nephew was good, trying to mend a family rift. Gavin didn't know if he'd be able to challenge any kind of will, but he did know women, especially women like this Susan Rawlins; women could be guilted out of anything if you knew how to strike their conscience. And Gavin knew how to do that. A lifetime of living with a manipulative mother and a weakened father had taught him a lot about human nature. He'd get something back of what he was owed, and Edward Thame owed him a childhood, a youth, a life without all the baggage his father had packed for him and all the resentment a disappointed mother had added to the burden.

He watched the house for a while longer. Satisfied now that the women would be some time inside he drove away, intending to return later. And then again and again. As often as it took until he had everything he needed to enable him to pull off the transformation into Gavin Thame, long-lost nephew looking for belated reconciliation.

‘What did you think you were playing at?' Alec demanded when he and Sergeant Dean arrived at The Lamb.

‘We weren't “playing at” anything. I wondered what else might be missing, that's all. It's pretty obvious Eddy was trying to hide something. Big question is what, and from who, so get off your high horse and listen.'

Alec exchanged a frustrated look with Sergeant Dean, or he tried to. Dean just looked amused.

They had gathered in the small office Susan used for dealing with the paperwork at The Lamb. Sounds from the kitchen and the post-lunchtime customers drifted through to them. Susan had provided tea and coffee and one of the bar staff had just brought in a fresh pot and set it on the heat pad in the corner.

Susan and Naomi both looked pale, Alec thought. Both upset, as though the experience at Eddy's house had in some way frightened the two women rather than just puzzling them. He knew that Naomi wasn't easily scared, and he didn't think Susan was either, and that bothered him most of all.

‘So, these photographs,' Dean said. ‘Can you describe them?'

Susan shrugged. ‘There was one of his wife and one of his daughter, Karen, both in the kitchen on the overmantel. They were in little silver frames; an art deco style one, and Karen's in a frame embossed with little flowers.'

‘Valuable?' Dean said hopefully.

Susan's look was withering. ‘The most valuable thing Eddy owned was his metal detector. You can pick up frames like that for bugger all.'

‘OK, and the others?'

‘A group photo on the living-room bookcase. Eddy, his wife and Karen. Karen must have been about thirteen because it was before Martha took ill. She died when Karen was fifteen. Cancer,' she added, saving Dean the bother of asking. ‘I don't know who the woman in the other picture was; Eddy never said and I didn't ask. He said once it was just some relative and he kept it out because he liked the frame. I asked why he didn't just take the picture out and reuse the frame, but he just shrugged. All I know is that it was an elderly lady with a lot of very white hair. It was a pretty frame, though. Lacquer work, do they call it? Black and shiny with little gold flowers and butterflies. Now that one, I'd say, would have cost a bit,' she said, looking at Sergeant Dean.

‘Random thieves don't just take photographs,' Naomi said. ‘No matter how attractive the frame might be. They take televisions and electrical equipment.'

‘Eddy didn't have a lot of that kind of stuff,' Susan mused. ‘Even his computer was one someone had given him 'cos their kids reckoned it was useless.'

‘What did he use his computer for?' Alec wanted to know.

‘Recording his finds, doing his research, I think.'

‘But the computer wasn't touched?'

‘Well, it wasn't taken,' Susan confirmed.

‘Which is not quite the same thing,' Alec agreed. ‘Susan, is Eddy likely to have password protected the computer?'

She laughed. ‘I wouldn't have thought so. Where was the need?'

‘And the photo albums you think are missing?' Sergeant Dean's tone revealed that he was less than interested. Or convinced. ‘Are you sure he couldn't have just lent them to someone?'

‘Why would he, and what about the other pictures? The albums were just family photos and friends. Nothing important.' She sighed. ‘I don't know about the wedding album, I never looked through that one. I think Eddy found it painful. He really loved his wife and child. It broke him into little pieces when he lost first one and then the other in the space of a couple of years.'

‘I can imagine.' Sergeant Dean got up and prepared to leave. Naomi could hear in his voice that he thought they were all just creating problems for the sake of it.

‘You think this is all cut and dried, don't you?' she said.

‘I'm sorry?'

‘You think Kevin and Eddy argued over something, that Kevin gave him a shove and Eddy fell and all the rest is just an attempt to get Kevin off the hook by making it sound more sinister. You think we're making this up.'

‘Making it up? No. But I think you might all be mistaken, and as to me thinking it's all cut and dried, as you say, isn't that what you're thinking too, only from the other direction? Kevin
can't
be guilty of anything because you've all decided he's not, so you're all looking for reasons to blame someone else. Some mysterious someone that goes around stealing photographs!' He laughed. ‘Look,' he continued as Susan began to protest, ‘I don't for one minute think the lad meant to do any harm, but yes, I think they argued. Maybe they found something they didn't want to share or hand over to the authorities.'

He laughed harshly. ‘For all I know, Eddy found his treasure. But yes, I think the lad pushed him. I'm
more
than prepared to think he didn't mean to do the old man harm, but these things happen and the best thing you can do is accept it, deal with it, move on. Sorry if that sounds harsh, but there it is.'

‘You knew Eddy well, didn't you?' Naomi guessed. Sergeant Dean's tone was not the one an officer would normally have adopted. The usual response to her question would have been a soft pedalled, ‘No, of course I don't think anything of the sort'. Naomi herself had responded to such accusations many times from distraught family members. His response had been vehement and felt very personal.

‘Yes, I knew Eddy, knew them both as it happens. They were older than us by a good bit and they'd had Karen late on in the marriage, but our kids were friends with Karen, one was in the same year, and we all got along well. I saw what he went through when Karen was killed and I thanked God my Gracie had been poorly and hadn't gone with her that weekend because it could have been her funeral we had to go to as well as Karen's. Eddy was a good man, a strong, determined man, and we watched as he all but died from the sheer grief of it all.'

‘Your daughter should have been in the car?'

Sergeant Dean sat back down and Susan murmured something about fetching more coffee. Naomi heard her cross the room and bring back the coffee pot.

‘Karen, Gracie, Sara Coles and Jill Wellesley had been good friends all the way through school. Jill's dad got a job that meant they had to move away and the girls were all heartbroken, talking on the phone most nights and seeing one another every chance they could. That weekend, they were all going out together and were staying at Jill's house for the weekend. Then Gracie took ill and couldn't go. Next we know, they're all gone. Karen and Jill and Oliver and Sara. And Oliver's mum and dad going through it the worst because all the other parents blamed him. He was driving that night.'

‘And the cause of the accident is unknown, isn't it?'

‘The coroner said it was most likely something ran out into the road. A fox or a deer. That Oliver tried to avoid it and he rolled the car and hit the tree.'

‘The car rolled? So, how fast was he going?'

She sensed Dean shaking his head. ‘No skid marks from Oliver's car. He didn't try to brake, so they figure maybe he swerved hard, hit mud. The road was in a state; rain and muck left from the local farms. We know the car rolled, and one theory is that he had a blowout, tried to correct his line but didn't have the skill. It's a brute of a bend. The truth is no one knows. We just know that four kids were dead by the end of the night. And it could have been five.'

By the time Sergeant Dean had left, Naomi felt drained and yet stretched taut from too much caffeine. She didn't know if she wanted to go to sleep or go for a long walk. Somewhere along the line they opted for the latter and they drove out to the coast to a little village they had found earlier in the week. Kilve was famed for its fossil beach, but today they walked the cliff path, oddly grateful that the exertion of the slow climb and the breath-taking cold and wet wind blowing off the estuary saved them from the need to talk. The drive there had been almost in silence, Alec and Naomi both sinking into their own thoughts and, though they had walked hand in hand for the first part of the cliff path, Naomi wasn't sad when Alec left her to Napoleon's guidance and strode on ahead. She felt oddly proud that he was able to trust her – and the big black dog, of course – even in such a potentially risky spot.

Finally, the breath buffeted out of her lungs and her ears burning from the November cold, Naomi halted and turned her face towards the sea and fully into the wind, hoping that the chill gale would somehow blow the angry thoughts away. At her feet, Napoleon sat and then snuffled unhappily. He was very much an all-weather dog, but he wasn't at all keen on the strong, salt-laden wind.

‘Hey,' Alec said. He took her hand.

‘Hey. Do
you
think Kevin pushed him?'

‘No, not really. Dean sowed the seeds of doubt though, just for a while.'

‘But if Kevin didn't do it, then who? Alec, is it possible someone else was there that night? There already, I mean, when Kevin arrived, and that Eddy didn't want them to meet for some reason?'

‘Anything's possible. It's the timing that's so difficult; that, and Eddy's habits. Kevin left, something happened, and Eddy died before he had time to wash the mugs and put everything away. How long does it take to clear up two mugs and a teapot? And yet, from what Susan told us, from what we saw of Eddy, he'd have done that straight away.'

‘So, we assume he intended to, that he only went up to use the bathroom. That he was on his way back down when . . .'

‘When someone pushed him down the stairs. Someone who was either in the house when Kevin arrived or who had arrived in between Kevin entering and Kevin leaving. So why did neither of them hear anything?' He paused. ‘Right. Come on.'

‘Come on where?'

‘Well, first to Eddy's house, and then back to see how Kevin's getting along in Blezzard's tender care.'

‘But won't the CSI be at Eddy's place? Besides, we don't have a key.'

‘I don't need a key, just to see from the outside.' He took her arm and Napoleon huffed to his feet, grateful to be moving again, though he was still obviously grumbling at the fact they'd brought him up to this wet and windy spot in the first place.

‘It's getting dark already,' Alec said.

‘Can you see OK or are we both relying on Napoleon?'

‘It's not quite that dark yet. Naomi, you know what we've been talking about?'

‘You leaving the force, us settling down and having kids and a market garden.'

‘I don't remember the market garden. Did I miss something? Well, yes, that.'

‘Yes.'

‘Well, let's just do it. I'll write my resignation letter tonight and then we don't even have to go back, except to put the house on the market and say goodbye to people and—'

‘And you're moving too fast. You promised, remember.
After
the holiday, not in the middle of it, and, besides, if you're intent on getting away from the nasty things people do to one another, just have a think, Alec Friedman. This isn't something that happened at work, it's a thing that happened when you were trying to run away from work, so writing your resignation letter isn't going to insulate you from the fact that you're like that woman in that
Murder She Wrote
thing.'