Heather Farm (2 page)

Not
expecting any kind of sense from newcomers, Constable Penrose
turned towards Mr Hansson. “So you know who this is?”

“
Think so. I grew up nearby.” Hansson pointed to the south.
“When I was a child, some people called Weston lived here. The man
went missing. Vamoosed one night.”

Again,
Constable Penrose told us to stay away from the yard. The pump and
its surroundings had been cordoned off with red and white
scene-of-crime tape. It looked oddly inappropriate among all the
brown and green shades.

Thomas
brewed some coffee, and we tried to wash away more than the sand
and dust. He didn't look at me when he asked, “do you still want to
stay here?”

“
I don't know. I just want him to be gone.”

“
I'm sorry if I've been stupid. I just didn't expect it to be
like this.” In a sweeping movement, he indicated the whole scenario
around us.

“
I know. Neither did I. But do you mind if we take a look at
the outhouse to the north? The constable didn't warn us off the
outhouses, did he?”

VI

Someone
had done his or her best to keep prying visitors out of the old
shed. The gate had not just been locked, it was secured with an
impressive chain and what was probably the largest padlock one
could get.

Thomas
found a crowbar and equipped me with a bolt cutter. Without
speaking, we attacked the gate, trying to find its weakest points.
I remembered how the rather phoney realtor had assured us there was
nothing of interest in any of the outbuildings. She was a tiny
woman in high heels, a city person who couldn't hide the fact that
all she wanted was our signature so she could get away from the
crawling spiders and earwigs.

“
What the...” Thomas glared through the dark opening without
even noticing that the gate had grazed my shin.

In spite
of the dust and the cobwebs there was no doubt that we had found
the car. One of those huge, old classic things from the
fifties.

“
There's his car. You'd better not touch it.”

“
Why not?” Thomas was itching to get a closer look at this old
beauty. He bent over it, trying to look through several decades of
filmy dirt.

“
Just don't.” I took his hand and dragged him away. “You can
tell the police we have found it, and when they've finished with
it, I'm sure you can look at it just as much as you like. If you
still want to.”

VII

We went
back to town for a few days after that, staying with my parents. We
just told them we wanted to leave the police to it, but my mother
scrutinized my pale face and the dark shadows under my
eyes.

The
constable told us about the large pool of blood on the front seat
and the empty brandy bottle. He was disarmingly honest when he
assured us they were doing what they could to solve the mystery,
but he wouldn't put his bets on it. Not after sixty
years.

“
What do we do now? We could try to put it up for sale, but it
won't be easy.” Thomas stroked my chin with the tips of his
fingers. He had stopped tickling me weeks ago.

“
Let's go and see the son,” I suggested.

“
The son?”

“
The little...” I began, but then I remembered that it had
happened long before I was born. “The son who sold us the
house.”

Sven
Weston didn't live far away, and there was no doubt that he
recognized our faces from the local newspapers. “So there you
are.”

“
We don't want to intrude or anything, we just want to know
what happened,” Thomas began.

“
You don't want to intrude?” He laughed humourlessly and
turned around, not caring whether we followed him or
not.

“
My father died. Apparently.”

“
Apparently. But of course you can tell us more than that. He
beat your mother, didn't he? And perhaps also you and your sister?”
I knew this was the only chance we'd get. If we came back, he
wouldn't open the door.

“
I can't see that's any of your business.”

“
But
I
can.
We live in the house. Your home!” I wasn't prepared to let him off
the hook, not after all the nightmares he and his family had caused
me.

“
Okay. So he hit us, and one night my mother got enough. She
hit him back, probably a bit harder than she'd planned. I've
already told the police, and no doubt it will be in the papers
soon.”

“
Your mother killed him? With the brandy bottle?” Thomas did
his best to help me get to the bottom of the case.

“
Oh, yeah. And I don't know what she did to him afterwards.
She sent us to bed, and the next day she bought the chain and that
padlock.” Weston waved us out of his house, probably regretting he
had ever let us in.

“
And your mother?” I tried.

“
She went about her business, didn't she? Took care of us and
survived as best she could like she'd always done.”

“
Why didn't you sell the house until now?”

“
She couldn't do that, could she? When she grew too old to
live there, we tried to rent it out, but no one ever stayed there
for more than a couple of months. And then she died last
year.”

VIII

Constable
Penrose came back to tell us what they had found out. It had taken
some time, but they were reasonably sure it was Mrs Weston's
fingerprints they had lifted off the brandy bottle. The forensic
evidence was shaky, but after the son had come forward with his
explanation, they had decided to close the case.

I nodded
even though the constable had left out a couple of things.
Afterwards I talked Thomas into going with me to the
cemetery.

“
I just want to see her burial plot.” I had gathered a large
bouquet of wild roses for her, convinced that my old woman would
love them more than any hothouse flower.

“
Can't we forget about all this?” Thomas implored me. “We'll
move away if you want to, as long as we can just leave this behind
us.”

“
Yes, I think so. I'm just going to leave these flowers for
her, and then we can go home.”

I knelt
down in front of the fairly anonymous headstone, feeling a bit
nauseous. Was this all Sven had granted her, or had she told him
she wanted it to be as simple as this?

“
He lied, you know.”

“
Who? Sven Weston?”

“
Yes. It wasn't his mother at all. I think it's true that she
hit her husband with the brandy bottle, and that's why she left it
there for the police to find. But it must have been Sven who killed
his father. He stabbed him, I imagine, as there was so much blood
in the car. The police won't find
his
weapon, though. Besides, it all
happened so long ago.”

I removed
some weeds from the tiny plot and tried to arrange the white roses
to their best advantage.

“
So your ghost has been haunting you with a story that was
just a pack of lies?” Thomas laughed, but his anxiety was almost
palpable.

“
She edited some bits of it because she wanted to protect her
son. Very human, don't you think? She feared the police would find
her husband one day, and that´s why she left the bottle there, full
of her own fingerprints. That's that. Now let 's go home.”
Satisfied with my arrangement, I let Thomas help me up. It was
probably time to tell him why I had become so queasy
lately.

The
police had removed the old bones, and a garage had towed the car
away. Thomas had been torn between my wishes and a boyish dream of
tinkering with the old vehicle, but I had told him he would be far
too busy restoring our home for years.

“
Before you know it, we will need that nursery.” I left the
cemetery, knowing that the old woman would never visit me again.
She just hadn't wanted more children to grow up at Heather Farm
with
him
around.

§§§§§

About the author
:

Dorte
Hummelshøj Jakobsen was born in Denmark in 1961. After many years
of teaching, she has plunged into a career as a professional writer
of crime fiction.

One of
her stories appeared in “Discount Noir”, a collection of flash
fiction stories, in 2010 (editors Steve Weddle & Patricia
Abbott).

In 2011
she published two collections of flash fiction stories, "Candied
Crime" and "Liquorice Twists", plus her popular cosy novel, "The
Cosy Knave".