“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".
Heather Farm Page 2
