Dead End
Page 28
‘Dirty fuckers, your ma and pa.’
Zac swallowed. He didn’t want to know what Dominic was talking about. He hadn’t seen him for at least six months, and his childhood playmate had been told to stay away from Wasdale. Zac had no idea why Dominic had turned out to be such an arsehole, but he felt sorry for Linda.
‘You don’t know anything about my parents.’
‘Oh, I do. But mine are even more interesting. Notice the resemblance?’ Dominic turned sideways, puffed his chest out and mimicked Zac’s grandfather. ‘Linda! Fetch me my pipe!’ he cackled as he waltzed around.
Zac felt nervous. He didn’t know where the conversation was going, and he wanted to get out of the house. Dominic was no longer a boy and could inflict much more damage than merely holding him underwater, like he did when Zac was three years old. Zac looked at him. He was pathetic, possibly mentally ill. He looked like a tramp and had bruises on his hands and his head. The earl would have looked after him had he not been such a brat, but that was none of Zac’s business.
‘We’re not related.’
‘Zac. The earl was my dad – did Linda never tell you? They fucked on this table.’
Dominic patted the old oak surface. He was enjoying his moment, but Zac didn’t want to hear any of it. He went to grab his coat to leave, but Dominic barred the doorway.
‘I’m here to take what’s mine.’
‘You’re crazy.’
‘I know.’ Dominic laughed heartily again.
Zac’s mind spun. Dominic was talking like a lunatic, but he knew how it felt to miss a father figure, and it could easily turn you paranoid. The bluster was no doubt as a result of feeling abandoned. They had much in common, though he didn’t want to admit it.
‘Lad, what you doing here?’
Dominic spun around. Brian filled the doorway that led to the hall. Zac threw him a look and wondered where he’d been.
‘Ah, fuck off, big man. Haven’t you got errands to run for my mother? I was just explaining to Zac that this house now belongs to me and he needs to fuck off. As do you. I have no need for lackeys.’
Brian stepped forward and stood between the two young men. Dominic laughed again. He clearly wasn’t scared of the gardener who gutted deer and heaved weights in his shed. Zac was puzzled and yet fascinated by the exchange and wondered what Brian would do next. He looked between the two.
‘I was just telling him that his parents were dirty fuckers. That whore Trinity and her pervert brother, Oliver.’
Brian looked at Zac, who widened his eyes but could think of nothing to do or say; he was rooted to the spot and inanimate.
‘Now, lad, you’re a liar and a nuisance, and you need to be getting on or I’m calling the police,’ Brian cautioned.
‘Oh for fuck’s sake, Brian. Do me a favour. Why would you want the police around here when we all know that you strung up old Xavier?’
Zac stared at Brian.
‘Lad, he’s lying. Don’t listen. Go through into the hall and I’ll be out shortly, after I’ve got rid of this little wet weekend.’ Brian rolled up his sleeves and Zac slipped through into the hallway. Remembering that he’d left his mobile phone in his jacket, he went into the drawing room and walked to the green phone, so unused and alien to him. He lifted the receiver and dialled Kelly’s number. His memory for numbers was as good as his ability to predict which direction a trout would swim if cornered amongst the reeds.
Brian had mentioned the police. Whatever he was doing, he wouldn’t want them anywhere near here unless he thought there was going to be trouble, and Zac didn’t trust Dominic one bit. He waited as the number rang and went to answerphone. He dialled again, his fingers unused to the round plastic dial that he’d watched his grandfather use, mesmerised by the procedure. It took an age.
Kelly answered and he stumbled over his words.
She told him to repeat himself, but slower, and he tried to do what she wanted. This time she understood and told him to get out of the house. She added that she’d found Linda and she was all right.
Zac was puzzled but decided to do as Kelly had told him. As he opened the heavy front door, he heard a shout and a series of bangs, as if bodies were slamming into furniture. But another sound overrode the commotion and grew louder, and it came from the lane.
Police sirens.
Zac watched the patrol cars as they entered the driveway and a dozen officers surrounded him and held him back. They entered the house by the kitchen door and Zac listened as Dominic ranted profanities and stood his ground. Finally he was brought out in cuffs and Zac overheard the charges read against him, growing numb as the officer announced the final charge – the murder of Xavier Fitzgerald.
Chapter 64
Kelly looked at Zac.
He’d taken her out in his fishing boat, and it was something she wasn’t used to. The boat was unsteady and she sat in the middle, not daring to move lest she be thrown out. The day was a beauty, and Zac cast his line again and again. Johnny had ridiculed her, referring to the day out as a date. She’d stuck two fingers up at him and he’d kissed her as she started the car.
She and Zac had become friends. Well, if not friends, something of a pairing; a bit like a big sister and a younger brother, spending time doing nothing. She felt calm when she was with him and they’d struck up an unlikely bond, spending time at the lake or finding hidden landscapes for him to paint, as she watched. Zac was a welcome visitor in her life when she needed something to keep her here. For their own separate reasons, both of them had wanted to leave this place. Neither wanted to know any more about how they came to be where they were. They didn’t discuss it again after the time Zac had asked her if it was true that his father was his uncle.
‘I think that’s a story made up by Dominic to hurt you,’ she’d said. ‘He was jealous of what you had and he didn’t.’
She’d confirmed that his grandfather was indeed Dominic’s father, but after talking it through with Johnny, she had decided that the rest was unimportant. It was a decision she didn’t take lightly, and she’d have to live with it, but for now, she was sure she’d done the right thing.
Zac took the news like he took everything else; like his grandfather had taught him: with dignity. The old man would have been proud. Zac carried the Fitzgerald legacy, and he was a survivor. Like any good big sister, Kelly didn’t burden him with the problem of her own paternity. That was for her to mull over in her own time. Similarly, Nikki need never know, but it did release her in some way from the guilt that kept her imprisoned. Now, if she didn’t want to see her sister, she no longer felt anguish, resentment or compulsion. If Wendy ever tried to argue the point, Kelly only needed to look at her and her mother backed down.
As for Ted, she hadn’t decided what to do.
As far as she was aware, he still didn’t know. Johnny said she should take him out on a date too, and she’d punched him playfully in the stomach.
‘How’s Brian?’ Zac asked her. The boat wobbled and Kelly held her breath; she was far more comfortable under the water than on top of it. Zac laughed. ‘Sorry, I’ll keep her straight.’
‘He’s improving.’ Dominic had brought a Victorian stewing pan down so hard on Brian’s head that he’d been concussed. He was lucky it wasn’t worse. At least he had landed a few punches before that. The police had arrived in time to split the two up, and overpower Dominic before arresting him for the murder of Freya Hamilton and the kidnap of Sophie Daker and Hannah Lawson. One day they might have a case for the murder of Abi Clarence, but for now, her bones lay stored in a freezer in a lab in Carlisle. No one wanted them.
‘Do you think Grandpa suffered, Kelly?’ he asked.
‘The coroner reckons that he was probably smothered in his bed, and then taken to the study,’ she said.
‘Why didn’t I hear anything?’ he asked.
‘Because you didn’t expect Dominic to be creeping around your house. You trusted everyone, Zac. You weren’t looking for noises. He’d be
en in there plenty of times when you weren’t about, just to test how easily it could be done.’
She’d already explained how hard it would be to prove that Dominic Cairns had murdered Xavier. A jury would have to decide. They had a strong circumstantial case but no smoking gun. But he was going to do time anyway.
‘Will I have to look at him in court?’ Zac asked.
‘That’s up to you. There are screens available if you can’t stomach it,’ she said.
‘No, I want to look at him.’ Again, Zac had caught her by surprise. She smiled. He’d be all right.
‘Here,’ he said. He tidied his line, pulled his rod in, and collapsed it into four pieces. He got the urn out of its bag and they sat together looking at the water. Eventually he opened the urn and the wind took a few grains. He tipped the rest over the side of the boat and watched as the gritty sand floated away and sank. The lake had been a part of his family for generations; now it had a new job – to look after his grandfather.
On their way back, they needed no words. Zac got as close to the shore as he could, and Kelly jumped out and helped him pull the boat in and anchor her up. She was glad to be on dry land again. They gathered their things and walked back to Wasdale Hall, barefoot, past the stone fountain where her parents had first met.
Her phone pinged and she opened a text. It was from Sophie Daker. She showed Zac. Sophie had taken a selfie of herself and Hannah sitting on a hospital bed. They were smiling. Bandaged and not yet healed, but smiling. Kelly put the phone back in her bag.
‘You did that. You saved them,’ Zac said.
She put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed it. Maybe she did belong here after all.
‘Rachel Lynch is a fascinatingly great crime writer.’ Romantic, Rebels and Reviews
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Detective Kelly Porter Series
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Dead End
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First published in the United Kingdom in 2018 by Canelo
Canelo Digital Publishing Limited
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Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU
United Kingdom
Copyright © Rachel Lynch, 2018
The moral right of Rachel Lynch to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 9781788630214
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
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