Restless Dead (Harry Grimm Book 5) by David Gatward (english reading book TXT) 📗

around, what with his leg aching a little from the accident. He’d been checked over and there was, quite amazingly, nothing really wrong with him, except for some bruising and lacerations. Strong old ox, he was.

‘Do you fancy a cup of tea?’ Ruth asked. ‘There’s some of that chai stuff you like.’

‘No, I’m good, thanks,’ her dad replied, but he still didn’t look up to face her. ‘How’s Anthony?’

‘Oh, he’s fine,’ Ruth said, forcing a smile onto her face to make her answer to the question about her son more convincing.

‘He’s a lovely lad, you know,’ James said. ‘A gentle soul I think.’

A bit too gentle, Ruth thought, but knowing that this was not the time to talk about her son, about the bullying, and how she knew that at some point, the school would be asking questions about all the supposed headaches, the absences. But what was she supposed to do? She couldn’t exactly force him to go in, could she? And neither would she. And with what had just happened, well, if Anthony needed time at home, then so be it. She had her dad to deal with as well as her own grief, so everything else would have to take a back seat.

With her legs and backside numb from sitting so long on a hard chair, and the shock of what had happened to her mother still as raw as it was surreal and impossible to take in or accept, Ruth pushed herself to her feet, her muscles aching so much it was almost as though the grief had penetrated every part of her body, squeezed her dad’s hands, then walked over to fill the kettle from the sink. Looking through a window, she rested her eyes, weary from tears, on the garden, which stretched out from the back of the house. Woods sat to the right, hiding behind them the stepped falls of Cotter Force. Beyond that, lay the ancient valley of Cotterdale, the slopes of Black Hill Moss rising in a sleepy incline to the sky, with Great Shunner Fell hidden far off and behind, a resting giant of a hill.

Ruth, broken inside in so many ways now, felt a tug of the wildness just beyond the glass and wondered what it would be like to just walk off into it, drenched in her overwhelming sadness. Would the raging torrent of loss be swept away by the deepness of what was out there, the moorlands and becks and the skeletal remains of mines? Or would even that breath-taking wilderness be unable to drown out the wrenching screams inside her head, her heart calling out for her mum to come back, to come home, to tell her it was all just a mistake, a misunderstanding, that it was all okay now?

As the kettle came to a boil, a cry raced up out of her and Ruth jolted forwards, her hands thumping down on the granite worktop her mum had been so happy to have installed, along with the kitchen, barely two years ago now. She raised a hand to her mouth as if it would ever be enough to hold back the anguish that, right there and then, Ruth simply didn’t see that there would ever be an escape from. Because how could there be? Her mum was gone and she would never see her again, hear her voice, her laugh, ask her advice, or answer when she called her name. It was as though she had found herself at the bottom of a waterfall, and the weight and the cold of the grief was crashing down into her from above, taking away her breath, drowning her.

‘Ruthy . . .’

Ruth wiped her eyes, dug deep to find the shredded remnants of her brave face, and turned to face her dad.

‘I can’t live without her,’ James said. ‘I can’t. I don’t know how. And I . . . I don’t want to, Ruthy.’

‘None of us do, Dad!’ Ruth snapped back, her words curdled by her cry. ‘I’m . . . I’m sorry, Dad. I didn’t mean . . .’

Ruth had nothing to say that would make her old dad feel any better, nothing to give, no well deep enough inside her from which to draw. But what he had just said, well, that was frightening. She picked up the card left by the police officer.

‘There’s help,’ she said. ‘Professional help. Remember? I’ll give this number a call later, okay? Might be good for all of us, perhaps.’

‘Let’s just see,’ James said. ‘And don’t worry, I’m not saying I’m going to do anything stupid, I promise. You know that, don’t you?’

Ruth forced a smile. ‘Promise me that you won’t.’

‘I promise,’ James said. ‘Really, I do.’

Ruth heard the words but wasn’t sure that she could see enough conviction in her father’s eyes. She would have to keep an eye on him, definitely give the police a call later, just in case. Though part of her wondered if she would ever be done with looking after him. Even with Mum around, that was what she’d done, wasn’t it? It was why she was still there. And sometimes it was a little too much. It wasn’t even that he needed caring for, just that it was the way things had always been. But then dark thoughts swirled, dragging her into a mean place of cold, where she was free of his demands, even though they really weren’t that onerous, and like a stab from a jagged spear, the harshest of thoughts tore through her mind, that this would be easier to deal with if it had been Dad, not Mum.

Pushing the terrible thoughts down as deep as she dared, Ruth held up a mug and asked, ‘You sure you don’t want one?’

‘Go on, then,’ James said.

Ruth made two large mugs of tea, half wishing that if she left them to brew for long enough, she would never have to face the reality of what had happened outside of the simple act