FLINDER'S FIELD (a murder mystery and psychological thriller) (21 page)

He nodded. ‘
I gotta go, but look, don’t worry, I’m not going to tell anyone about you being here.’

‘How do I know that?’

‘I guess you don’t, Amy – if that’s your real name – but I mean it.’ He regarded her slender figure. ‘I can bring you some food, if you like?’

‘Why would you want to do that? You don’t know me.’

‘I dunno. Maybe I’m just big-hearted.’

‘If you’re after any other favours in return for all this big-heartedness then don’t
bother. I might be homeless, but I ain’t that kind of girl.’ Her lips tightened, making her even more appealing to George.

‘
I may be many things, but I’m not that kind of man, either. I’ll bring you something tonight.’

‘I might not be here then.’

‘Entirely up to you. I’ll be bringing some food anyway. Guess I’ll just have to have a picnic all by myself.’

‘Whatever,’ she replied.

He spun on his heel to leave. Then turned back to her. ‘Is Amy your real name?’

She paused before nodding. ‘Is George yours?’

He said yes.

‘Never mind,’ she said, giving a dark little smirk, ‘we all have our crosses to bear.’

George made up a flask of coffee and a few sandwiches.

‘What are you doing?’ said Amelia, standing in the doorway to the kitchen.

‘What does it look like?’

‘You’re making up a flask – and are those sandwiches?’

‘So what?’ He slammed the lid on a plastic box.

‘At half past nine at night? What’s going on?’

He packed the flask and box of sandw
iches into a backpack, passing her a smouldering glower as he went to the door. ‘Are you going to let me get by, or what?’

She faced him with her arms folded tight across her chest. ‘The least you could do is say you’re sorry to mother.’

‘Why? What have I got to be sorry for?’

‘
You know damn well what.’

He pushed her aside. ‘Quit bugging me, Amelia.’

‘Are you still seeing a doctor?’ she angled her head meaningfully.

George’s eyes narrowed. ‘That was ages ago and you know it.’

‘I take it that’s a no, then? Medication?’

‘Screw you, Amelia. I don’t need to answer to you.’

‘We’re all worried about you, George. We have been since you were a kid. Have you forgotten how mother used to take you to the doctors, trying to find out…’ She trailed off into silence.

‘Trying to find out if I was loony? Is that what you’re trying to say?’ He felt his neck begin to flush hot, sweat beginning to bead on his back.

‘You heard voices, talked to yourself. Talked to Cameron all the time…’

‘I was
a bloody lonely kid!’ he said. ‘That’s all there was to it!’ A droplet of sweat coursed down his spine. ‘Do you know what it’s like, being a kid and being thought of as mad by your own parents? Of course not. Daddy’s little princess could do no wrong. Still can’t.’

‘I sometimes wonder whether you mix up those horrible stories you write with real life. I
even think you believe you’re a detective, just like one of those made-up heroes of yours. Except this is real life, George, not a novel.’

‘I do happen to know the difference.’

‘So why do you insist on doing strange things all the time? All this shooting off for hours on end to God knows where, making outlandish and absurd accusations, making sandwiches and a flask of coffee at night, even.’ Her eyes softened. ‘Look, George, in spite of what you think, and in spite of what I said to you, I am worried about you. We all are.’

He studied her unblinking eyes intensely. ‘Like hell you do. Get out of my way, Amelia.’

She closed the door. ‘Wait…’ she said.

‘I’ve gotta go somewhere.’

She ran a hand through her hair, took in a deep, open-mouthed breath. ‘Look, there is more to all this. Stuff about mum and dad you don’t know…’

‘So why don’t you enlighten
me?’

‘Because…’

‘Because?’

‘You want to know the truth about that Sylvia Tredwin woman? That harlot?’ Her eyes were suddenly twin cold spheres of marble.

‘She was no harlot. That’s all gossip.’

‘Really?’ she said. ‘Well maybe you’d like to believe that, build her up into something she isn’t
, like a virginal Madonna. Pretty little Sylvia Tredwin. Harmless little Sylvia. Well I know better, George. She thought nothing of breaking up families. She was about to break ours up.’

He blinked, his lips mouthing wor
ds he didn’t say. ‘What do you mean?’

‘She was planning on stealing away our father from his wife and child, that’s what she was doing.’

‘That’s absurd. Dad was a good ten years older than her.’

‘That’s the truth, George. I heard
them arguing about it – mum and dad – late one night, in their bedroom. I was aged about twelve at the time, just about to turn thirteen. It was nearly a year after Sylvia Tredwin had been found. She was in hospital at the time, or some place where they tend to people with those kinds of emotional difficulties. Anyhow, I’m still at that age when it’s not nice listening to your parents fighting. A kid still, kind of terrified that they were going to split up.

‘
Sure they tried to keep their voices down, but the walls here are pretty thin. I hated it when they argued, which seemed to be getting more often. So I got out of bed to see what was the matter, went to their door and was about to knock when I heard them talking about Sylvia Tredwin. Mum, at the time was heavily pregnant with you, eight months gone, and I heard her say to dad she didn’t want him to go, didn’t want him to leave her. She was angry with him, but mostly she couldn’t talk because she was in tears. He told her she was being ridiculous, it was her condition that was somehow affecting her. He had no plans to run away with Sylvia. Never had. She was being hysterical, as usual.

‘
But you could hear it in her voice; she knew something had been going on. She told him he’d been seen with her, a couple of times, and he says it’s harmless and not what people think. And then the argument took different routes, like they do, dredging up stuff that had happened years ago. It came round to dad asking her how the hell she’d got pregnant when they both knew how bad it had been for her with me. It came out she said she allowed herself to get pregnant with you, in spite of the doctor’s warning, and all to hold onto him, to give him the son he always wanted. I guess, ultimately, because she thought he’d ignore Sylvia Tredwin and stay with her. Dad blew up like a volcano, accusing her of stupidity, jealousy and possessiveness. I heard him coming to the bedroom door so I scuttled back to my room. I heard him stomp across the landing, mum following him, sobbing like mad. Pleading.

‘That’s when I heard her scream and fall. The sound of something tumbling down the stairs. I dashed to my bedroom door, stood a
t the top of the landing. Mum was in a heap at the bottom of the stairs, dad kneeling down beside her. I was horrified, and for a second dad and me just stared at each other. Then I screamed, and dad told me to look after her, and he ran outside to the phone box – we didn’t have a phone in the house then – and he called for the ambulance. I stayed with mum. Her nightie was covered in blood.

‘They said they held out little
chance for both mum and the baby – you. It had been a near thing before, giving birth to me, but the fall had made things far worse for her this time round. They said the baby at one point had been deprived of oxygen and that it’s brain might have been damaged, but in truth we were more concerned about her. She hung between life and death, and was very ill and weak for a long time afterwards. Things were never the same between mum and dad after that. The closeness had gone. Dad, I guess, always felt guilty about what happened to her, how he’d brought it all on. So he stayed with her. Anyhow, Sylvia Tredwin came back from hospital such a batty mess that it must have put an end to any sordid little affair they’d been having.’

So
that’s all he’d been to his mother, George thought. Nothing more than a tool for her to hold onto her husband. An emotional snare with which to trap him, to keep him from Sylvia Tredwin. And that’s why his father had always hated him. The kid that bound him to a woman that maybe he didn’t love anymore. Amelia had simply absorbed that hatred towards him from her beloved father.

‘Dad would never have even looked at someone like Sylvia,’ he defended weakly. ‘
Despite what he was like with me, he wasn’t that kind of man. It’s a lie. There has to be something more to all this.’

‘You didn’t know Sylvia
like I did, George. I saw her in those days. She was young, leggy, very attractive, wasn’t afraid of showing herself off to the world. Dad was a normal, red-blooded male, flattered by her. It happened. Or something happened between them…’

He shook his head. ‘You love this, don’t you? Sinking more of your venom into me.’

‘I think you needed to know the truth, George. But sometimes the truth hurts.  I know, because it hurts me. Look, you were starved of oxygen at birth. It did something to you, to your head that you can’t control. That’s why Cameron’s inside there. It’s not your fault. None of it is. But can’t you see how crazy you can be at times? Now you know why…’

He barged past her
, opened the door. ‘Fuck you, Amelia. I’m not crazy.’

‘I didn’t say you were crazy,
exactly, just mixed up.’

‘I know exactly what you mean,’ he said.

‘Tell me you don’t talk to Cameron still,’ she called to his back. He didn’t reply.

He was still fuming when he got in his car and gunned the engine.
But by the time he arrived at the Tredwin place and pulled up outside, he’d pushed the brief altercation to the back of his mind. All his sister was doing was what she’d always done, and that was to make him feel inadequate, responsible for everything wrong that ever happened, crazy. He fought her words down like bile.

In its place was a rising excitement at seeing Amy again. He couldn’t explain it, but when he’d been in her company, even for that short amount of time, he had never felt so relaxed, so himself. And, what’s more, Cameron had stayed well out of the way, which made him feel a whole lot better about himself.

But he was also filled with mounting trepidation as he went round to the back door with his backpack containing the flask and box of sandwiches. What if she’d not believed him? Thought he’d immediately ring the police on getting home? What if she’d done a runner? The thought horrified him. He had to see her again.

‘Amy?’ he said, knocking politely at the back door as he slowly pushed it open. There wasn’t a reply and his heart sank. ‘Amy – you there? I brought you some things like I promised.

The candle wasn’t burning. The place was in complete darkness and under a deadening shroud of silence.

‘I’m impressed,’ said Amy, peering round the living room door frame and leaning on the architrave, folding her arms.

He sighed in relief, a little too loudly, he thought. ‘See, I brought you a flask of hot coffee and a few sandwiches.’ He held out the bag like a trophy.

‘What kind of sandwiches?’

‘Cheese,’ he replied. ‘Is that OK?’ He felt as nervous as a kid on a first date.

‘What kind of cheese?’

‘Jesus, you’re picky! Cheddar.’

She nodded her approval, took the bag and went into the living room.
She plonked the bag down, took a candle from a sideboard and placed it on a plate on a dusty coffee table. She lit it.

He was surprised how attractive she was. Her long dark hair framed a face that looked younger than its years, thought George. The candlelight painted dots of brilliance in the whites of her large eyes as she sat down on a sofa and began to take out the flask and box.

George looked about the room. There were still some bits of furniture left in the room, and a bookcase bearing a line of paperbacks. He rose and went over to it, pulled off a mildewed book and looked at its cover. It was an old thing – 1960s, he thought – the title in blood-red lettering,
The Night of the Big Heat
. He remembered the movie. An old science fiction thing from way back when. They’d been here all this time, he thought. Ever since he first came here as a kid.

‘Feel free to borrow one,’ said Amy, snapping open the box of sandwiches and setting about eating one with gusto. ‘Charges may apply if you’re late returning it,’ she said, crumbs dropping from her puffy red lips.

He put the book back on the shelf and pulled up a chair to sit on. He could smell the dust, and the cushions felt damp despite the warm summer weather.

‘Are they OK?’ he asked, watching her.
She nodded. It was obvious she hadn’t eaten properly in a long while, the sandwiches soon disappearing. She poured herself a coffee. ‘I half expected you to have disappeared.’

‘I did consider it. I thought you might shop me to the police,’ she said. ‘I packed what little I have and made a dash for it as soon as you left. But after a while I thought better of it and came back.’

‘What made you change your mind?’

‘You don’t strike me as
being that kind of guy. You sounded OK. And it seems you are.’

It was the first time in ages anyone had had anything good to say about him. He felt himself swell with the compliment. ‘I can get you more food,’ he said.

‘This is fine for now,’ she returned, holding the plastic mug of coffee up in salute.

‘That’s good,’ he said. ‘That’s good.’

‘After a while she said, ‘So you like books?’ She indicated the bookshelves with a quick nod.

‘I write them,’ he said proudly.

‘Really? I’ve never met a real author before. What do you write?’

He lowered his head fractionally in embarrassment. ‘We’re just like normal people,’ he said. ‘Same kinds of worries and things. I write…’ He thought about it. ‘I’m thinking about a change of direction. Something a bit more meaningful.’ He expected Cameron to have something to say about that, but strangely he remained silent, as if he’d left his head entirely. George felt unaccountably relieved. ‘Yes, I’m starting a new chapter in my life, that’s what I’m doing.’