A Season For Everything - Matthew Fairman (pocket ebook reader .TXT) 📗

to fraternising yet. Ryan was a good guy, he was understanding to the situation that Mike now found himself in. Besides there was plenty of paperwork that Mike needed to catch up on. That was how Hollis found Mike when she entered the pub. He was sitting at the bar, scratching his head over the accounts, chewing on a pencil nub. Kaiser was dutifully curled around up at the foot of Mikes barstool, he appeared asleep but at a closer glance his squinting eye was keeping watch.

‘What’ll it be’ asked Ryan

‘I’ll have a half of six X please’ Mike looked up, he hadn’t recognised the woman’s voice, he nodded at Hollis when she caught his eye, then he went back to studying the papers. She watched the brown liquid foam into the glass and settle.

‘That’ll be one sixty please.’ Hollis placed her shoulder bag on the counter and took the money from her purse and placed it on the counter. She stole a look around the pub and took a sip from the glass.

‘Do you mind if I park myself here?’ Hollis indicated to the bar stool next to her.

‘Suit yourself’ replied Mike.

‘As long as I’m not disturbing you’

‘No,no I wasn’t getting anything done here anyway. I should just bite the bullet and get an accountant to look at all this stuff.’ Mike put down the pencil and put the papers inside a ring binder which he stashed beneath the bar. He turned to Ryan

‘You want to take a fag break, it’s fine.’

‘Yeah sure.’ Ryan grabbed a coat from a closet behind the counter and went outside to smoke a cigarette.

‘This is your pub then?, I always wanted to run a little country pub.’

‘Well don’t, ever. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s not true.’

‘There must be something good about it.’

‘Well I’ll let you know when I find out.’

‘OK, OK I promise not to ever buy my dream pub’ Mike let out a small chuckle.

‘Well all I can say is if you like working day and night for almost zero profit then open up a pub.’ Hollis smiled and took a mouthful of beer.

‘So what do you do thats so bad you’re thinking of changing your career?’

Hollis set her glass down. Her face looked suddenly serious.

‘I’m a police officer.’ Mike straightened himself up, his face turned grey, the muscles in his jaw tightened.

‘Look, it’s not what you think?’ explained Hollis.

‘Then what is it I should be thinking?’ Ryan had finished is cigarette and came back through the door. ‘Could you check the barrels Ryan, I think the Landlord needs changing.’ ‘Oh I just changed em about...’ ‘Just go check it.’ Ryan looked from Hollis back to Mike, ‘Err, Yeah, sure. Of course. No worries.’

 

Mike pressed his finger into the counter as if pointing to something beneath the bar. ‘Look, I spoke to somebody yesterday at the station and I told them everything, everything I know about where Emma might or might not be. You think that its not enough that I have to deal with her disappearing. Your treating me like I’m a suspect. You come up here without introducing yourself, sniffing about.’

‘Look, OK I admit. I know about your wife going missing but I’m in no way here to check up on you. I’m not even on duty.’

‘Is that supposed to make me feel better.’

‘I came up here...’ Hollis paused, she looked into her glass and then drained it. ‘I’m not sure exactly why I came up here but if I can help find your wife then I don’t see how it could be a bad thing. I’m sorry you’re right. I shouldn’t have come here.’ She stood up, taking her bag.

‘Wait, wait, sit down, sit down a minute.’ Hollis turned and stood by the door facing Mike.

‘You know something, don’t you?’

‘No, but I want to. It was up there at the big quarry pit wasn’t it. Your boy Jonathan?’ An uncomfortable silence followed. ‘Look, you don’t have to tell me anything it’s really none of my...’ It was as if the great man had suddenly imploded. He sank down on his bar stool. He picked up a beer matt and held in both hands between thumb and forefinger, staring at it as though it was of interest to him.

‘She found him. She cut him down. I didn’t even see him. Not until the funeral but thats not the same. I had a choice. He was a great kid, I don’t know why he would have done what they say he did.’ Hollis came back to the bar and sat down again.

‘You don’t think he did.’

‘Who knows, Emma was adamant he couldn’t have. I don’t know. You never know what is really going on in a persons head do you? even in your own family. I would like to think that it was an accident but I can’t see how it could have been. I just can’t get her to leave it alone she won’t put it to rest. She blames herself and she hates me for wanting to get as far away from this place as possible.’ Leaning on the bar, Hollis dipped her head so she could speak eye to eye with Mike’s hunched figure.

‘I can understand that, wanting to leave. I think it’s very brave of you to have stayed. I couldn’t have.’

‘Ahh What the hell, it wasn’t bravery, I didn’t have a choice. I couldn’t leave Emma here. That was the least that I owed her and Jonathan. The least I could do was to stay.’ Mike lifted his head up to meet Hollis’s eyes.

‘Did you go up there, to the quarry?’

‘Yes, I did. It’s an unnerving place. I can’t say that I like the place much.’

‘I haven’t been up to that Quarry since Jonathan died and I don’t plan to. Emma sometimes takes Kaiser up there.’

‘Has your wife ever gone away before?’ ‘She used to go away for a day or two but that was a long time ago, nothing like this, this doesn’t feel right. This doesn’t feel like Emma to me.’ Mike pulled himself upright with what seemed to be a lot of effort.

‘Would you like a top up, on the house.’

‘No, I really should get going. I’ve got to drive. I’m sorry to have...’

‘Don’t worry nothing about it.’

‘I would appreciate it if you didn’t mention it to my colleagues at the station.’

‘As I said, don’t worry. I can see you didn’t mean any harm in it. You might not want to make a habit of that though.’ Hollis smiled. She picked up her bag and went to the door. ‘Try not to worry Mr Powell, I know there just words but we’ll find Emma. I promise that.’ ‘I hope so, I feel sick all the time without her. I just don’t know what to do with myself.’ Hollis drove back to town. ‘I never really did like being in the countryside. I’m more of a city girl at heart.’

 

 

Beaton returned to Mrs Gream’s a little after eight. He had not thought to leave any of the lights on in the house. He let himself in through the back door with the key in his pocket. ‘It’s just me Mrs Gream. Don’t worry, It’s Beaton, your neighbour.’

His voice was light and cheerful. He turned on the hall light and went upstairs. Mrs Gream was hunched over in a kneeling position with her head bent forward to her chest. There was a dark stain on the carpet, the room reeked of the sweet smell of urine.

‘Oh, shit. I’m sorry I was gone so long. The time just ran away from me.’ Beaton sat on the side of the bed a while and then pulled the shaft of the knitting needle from the belt, releasing Mrs Gream’s bound hands from the bed post.

‘OK, well your free to go then.’

He watched the old lady slowly struggle to her feet, stumbling around the bedroom with her head still covered and her hands bound behind her. She moved her feet tentatively towards the hallway light. She was sobbing all the way. Beaton followed her out onto the landing. He brushed past her in the doorway and headed back downstairs.

‘I don’t know about you Mrs Gream but I am famished. Simply starving.’ He took two eggs from the fridge and boiled some water in a pan. He ran the eggs under a hot tap until they were warmed through and placed them gently into the bubbling water carefully using a ladle. He watched the clock on the oven and after two minutes had passed he put the bread into the toaster. Once it had popped up he buttered the toast and cut them into thin strips. He couldn’t find an egg cup so instead he used a small clear drinking glass from the dresser cabinet. With a sharp knife he removed the scalp of the egg. He heavily salted the white flesh before ramming one of the soldier deep into the heart of the egg. A golden yellow rivulet of yolk ran down the side of the glass and pooled on the surface of the saucer.

‘You can’t beat a good egg. CAN YOU MRS GREAM?’ he shouted ‘DID YOU HEAR ME MRS GREAM, I SAID YOU CAN’T BEAT A GOOD EGG.’ He crammed another spoonful into his mouth and chewed. ‘Nope, theres nothing like a nice runny egg.’

When he had finished the eggs, he turned the shells over in the glass and smashed the shells into small little pieces. He had always enjoyed doing that, smashing their skulls in. ‘Are you hungry Mrs Gream? I could make you something. Would you like an egg. I do a very good egg.’

Beaton walked out into the hallway. Mrs Gream was standing at the top of the stairs. She was leaning on the corner of the wall on the top landing. She her shoulder shook as she sobbed, she dangled one of her legs over the drop, feeling and testing the air to see where the next step began.

‘You should be careful there Mrs Gream that looks incredibly dangerous from where I’m standing. One of the biggest killer is falling in the home. How about an omelette. I could do you a cheese omelette. Would you prefer that? I’m really trying here.’ It was then that Beaton remembered that he had gagged the old lady’s mouth and she couldn’t answer even if she had wanted to. As Mrs Gream’s foot touched down on the step below she bent her body slightly forwards to catch the weight of her body. She swayed and being overbalanced with her hands tied tightly behind her she keeled forward like a freshly felled tree. She made no noise as she dropped. Her right shoulder took the initial brunt of the impact but as her upper body absorbed the blow against the steps her head was snapped forward, cracking loudly against a bannister. She rumbled down the staircase turning once over sidewise, then rolling, head of heels, face downwards her chin bumping, bup, bup, bup from step to step. She came to rest at the bottom of the stairs. Her knees on the hall floor with her legs askew. The pillow case had remained in place but it appeared she was staring up towards the place she had only just been standing. She was still, very still.

‘Mrs Gream, Mrs Gream?’

Beaton spoke in a hushed voice as if he were waking her from a long nap. He gently shook her by the shoulder. ‘Mrs Gream.’ He pulled her by the legs, she flopped down the last few steps until she was lying straight along the hallway, her legs towards the front door. He went upstairs and took the soiled sheet from the floor. He came back downstairs and draped it over Mrs Gream. ‘Shit, well you’ve done it again Beaton and you can’t say that you didn’t know that that as going to happen. Letting her walk around with her eyes covered. Well it’s done now, it’s all done for now.’