Dig Two Graves by James Harper (important books to read .txt) 📗

You know the family better than I do. You think Merritt will show his face, welcome Aunty Bella back from the dead?’

Leon shook his head, no idea. Then he volunteered some information.

‘I never liked that guy. It’s got nothing to do with him being a snooty rich kid or anything like that. I liked his old man, before he killed himself. But it was like the genes jumped a generation. Merritt’s more like his grandfather than his father.’

‘From what I’ve heard that’s not a good thing.’

Leon snorted, then glanced in the side mirror before pulling out to pass an old pickup.

‘It is if all you’re interested in is making money. Bloodwell and Merritt have got that in common. It’s why Bloodwell likes him so much. If you ask me, he likes him better than he ever did his son. I think he was secretly pleased when he killed himself. Meant he didn’t have to feel bad about treating him like shit any longer.’

‘That’s a harsh thing to say about a man.’

Leon took his eyes off the road, gave Evan an uncompromising stare.

‘Doesn’t mean it’s any less true.’

Leon stopped talking as they got nearer to the airport and he had to concentrate on the traffic more. That suited Evan just fine. The longer he talked to anyone in or connected to the family, the more he got overloaded with information. And the more the suspicions multiplied. Was Leon telling him in a roundabout way that he thought Gerald Bloodwell had been involved in his own son’s death and not Bella like the fake cop had insinuated.

Getting on the plane he felt like asking the stewardess if they had any opening windows. Nothing short of an icy five-hundred-miles-per-hour wind at thirty thousand feet was going to blow his mind clear.

It took another three days before he got the call from Leon that marked the end of the saga.

‘I thought you’d want to know that Mr Carlson died in his sleep in the early hours of this morning.’

Evan wasn’t surprised. It happens all the time. You’ve got somebody on death’s door and they hang on and hang on somehow until one of their children, or whoever it is they want to see before they die, comes home. And then when they do, they let go, accept the inevitable. It doesn’t take long after that. It’s as if they’re happy to go.

‘Sorry to hear that. I know you’d been with him a long time.’

‘Thank you.’

Evan said a few more sympathetic words, then cut to the chase.

‘Did Merritt turn up at all?’

‘Yeah, he was there.’ His voice was very different than the last time they’d discussed Merritt in the car on the way to the airport. ‘Maybe I was wrong about the guy. He was more cut up about it than anyone. I got the impression he didn’t ever want the old man to die. Forget about trying to get rid of his aunt in order to inherit his money.’

He didn’t know what to think. Suddenly Merritt was one of the good guys. Leon was still talking.

‘Arabella says sorry she didn’t say goodbye. She’ll call you in a couple days to say thank you properly when she’s gotten herself together.’

He would’ve liked to ask Leon to tell her he’d look forward to it. But that would be a lie. The prospect filled him with dread. Guillory had gotten back to him the previous day. Bella’s friend Liz had no further use for the car that had contributed to her death. He hoped Bella didn’t ask him for the details of what they’d done to her to make her give up her friend, hoped he had the strength to tell her no if she did. He didn’t suppose she’d be thanking him properly by the end of that conversation, not unless it was to thank him for the guilt she’d be carrying with her for the rest of her life.

He ended the call more confused and dejected than ever. None of it mattered anyway. It wasn’t his problem any more.

Fate had a good long laugh at that.

10

Evan didn’t recognize the number when he got the call two days later. He felt sick as he answered it. He’d run through the conversation in his mind a thousand times over the past days. He’d heard Bella’s voice in his head, all the different emotions running riot inside her. Full of excitement at the life ahead of her, tinged with sadness over her father’s death but tempered by the relief that she’d made it home before he died—and the gushing gratitude that he’d made it happen. And then he heard the silence, heavy and accusing, as he told her about Liz. Then the sound of a dial tone in his ear or, worse, a polite request that he never bother her again, the cold loathing in her voice chilling his bones.

Except it wasn’t Bella, it was a man’s voice. And not Leon this time.

‘Mr Buckley? My name is Merritt Bloodwell. You might have heard of me . . .’

The name stole the words out of Evan’s mouth. He felt like saying, yes, he’d heard of him, never expected to hear from him. Then Merritt did it to him again.

‘I’d like to hire you.’

He pulled himself together, managed a coherent response.

‘Okay.’

That was all the encouragement Merritt needed.

‘As you know, my grandfather, Thomas Carlson, died recently. We used to be very close although not quite so much in the last few years.’

Probably because you went and worked for his nemesis, Gerald Bloodwell, Evan thought and didn’t say.

‘Despite that, I wanted something personal of his to remember him by, something with sentimental value. So I’ve been going through his possessions. And I found my parents’ wedding album.’

He paused as if he expected Evan to let out a gasp of surprise or even horror. Evan felt neither emotion, but he was intrigued as to where the conversation was going.

‘You sound as if that’s unusual. Why wouldn’t he have pictures of