Inheritance

by Ellen Kefferty

  It was too late.

  She had stood and reached over. She punched him in the side of the head. He again lifted his injured hand, this time to defend himself.

  The tanker slammed into the central barrier. He pushed back once more with his right hand, and the tanker careered into the middle of the carriageway. He reached out with his left, desperately trying to grab her.

  She grasped his hand and pulled him toward her. The tanker smashed into the outer barrier. The barrier held. The jolt threw Edith up and into the dashboard. Hugh rocked to one side then, on the return, cracked his head into the driver side window.

  The tanker screeched to a halt. The trailer lay across both lanes, blocking the road from the centre to the outer edge. The cab stuck forward at a ninety degree angle. The cab and trailer had jack-knifed.

  Edith found herself once more in the footwell, the engine throbbing through the floor. Hugh saw and lunged toward her. She scrabbled backward to the passenger door and only narrowly dodged his fist. She lamely connected a kick to his belly, which made him pull back for a bare second.

  He leant forward again.

  She reached over her shoulder, fingertips searching for the door handle. His fist met her face just as she pulled the door release. She fell backward through the door and plunged onto the roadway.

  The cold road leached the heat from her skin. The beat of the helicopter jostled with sirens, filling the air with manic activity. She turned her face upward to the helicopter, willing it to land. She leant on her side, ready to stand.

  Hugh’s footsteps approached.

  Before she could look she received a kick to her flank which knocked her onto her back. His foot raised ready to stomp on her abdomen. She rolled to the right moments before it slammed down.

  He stepped toward her again and again she tried to roll away. The barrier blocked her: she was at the edge of the road. She tried to sit up on her elbows.

  Too slow.

  Hugh kicked her once more. The pain shot through her body.

  There was no escape now.

  He stood over the supine Edith. He watched her struggling to shuffle away with her heels and elbows against the tarmac. He smiled. He held out his hands in a small semicircle.

  “This was always my favourite way.”

  The night before with Gervase plunged her mind into terror. The choking, the suffering. The inability to breathe.

  No. She wouldn’t let it happen again.

  As Hugh leant down she raised a foot and dug it into his belly. She grabbed his wrists and yanked him forward, unbalancing his stance. With all her strength she pushed her foot up.

  He rose off the ground and for an instant all his weight was upon Edith’s foot.

  Then her foot shifted, unable to bear that weight. He tumbled sideward, toward the barrier. He slid over the top. Down the other side.

  Her hands still grasped around his wrists, she was jerked from the floor and slammed into the barrier. She braced her legs and scrabbled with her feet for some kind of foothold to stop herself being dragged over.

  Hugh hung in mid-air. Edith pulled back counterbalancing his weight, unwilling to let go of his wrists.

  “Let me go, bitch! You owe me nothing.”

  “I owe you justice.” She stared over the barrier and into his eyes. Her arms and legs straining with every moment.

  “Justice! You don’t know half the things I’ve done.”

  There was a second of silence. Then the question came to her.

  “Did you kill Gregory?”

  “What? Oh, Gregory! Ha, ha, no. I didn’t kill him, it was an accident.” A grin sparked across his face. “But I enjoyed watching him drown.”

  Her grip loosened. His wrists slipped from her hands.

  For a moment Hugh was suspended in the air, held by nothing but time. He seemed to grow imperceptibly smaller. Then, with a crunch, he hit the ground.

  He lay there. Still. Unmoving.

  Never to move again.

  After

  Warm wind blew in on gusts, rippling the sea with dappled sunlight. Bushes on the cliff top rustled softly, bathing the terrace in their perfume and unspoken whispers. Terracotta tiles beneath Edith’s feet radiated the sun’s earlier warmth, compensating for the waning day.

  Before her lay the remnants of dinner, ravaged by eager hands and mouths. She sat back in her chair, sated, unable and unwilling to eat more.

  “Can’t fit any more?” Samuel smiled.

  “No, sorry.”

  “You should have left room for dessert.” Andrius leant forward with his elbows on the table.

  “There’s always room for dessert. That goes in a different stomach, don’t you know?”

  Sarah laughed off to Edith’s right. “It’s true.” She stood up and pushed back her chair. “Let me fetch dessert. We can’t just talk about it. One of us actually has to make it happen.” Sarah stacked a few empty plates, vainly trying to clear the table.

  “Oh, let me help.” Andrius haphazardly stacked the rest.

  Samuel kept seated and drank his wine. Edith thought for a moment too long about helping. It was already so far done that she merely passed Andrius a couple of glasses.

  Sarah and Andrius, their hands full, carried the tableware through wide terrace doors and into the villa. Samuel took another sip and stared at Edith. The wind played with his hair, lifting and dropping a lock. After a moment he spoke.

  “What did the police say?”

  She bent her head to one side and rested it on her hand. She smiled, relaxed.

  “They questioned me. They thought I was a bystander hero, that’s all. I had gotten a bit too excited and found myself in deep trouble. They said I was lucky to survive and I should not do anything so stupid ever again.”

  “Did they not find out about Gervase?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know if they’ve even made the link, and I’m not about to tell them. Nothing will come of it.”

  “Why not?”

  “His house burnt down the following day. Everything was destroyed.”

  He cleared his throat. “Who?”

  She shrugged, unwilling to share her best guess. Sunny and her father must have had plenty of favours to call in. People who made problems disappear. Being kept in the dark had been Edith’s protection, she understood that now, from a world of things she wouldn’t understand. It was prudent to treat Samuel likewise.

  “I don’t know who set fire to his house. I guess that there are more members out there. They just wanted to destroy as much evidence of their group as possible.”

  He gazed out to sea, lost in a moment’s thought.

  “Do you think they’re still a threat?”

  “I doubt it. They’ve been exposed now. Even if they continue they won’t be doing anything openly for a long time. The state is onto them. They’ll go to ground just to survive. Gervase was their leader.”

  She sipped her wine and waited for his response. His eyes were fixed on the sea, unwilling to meet hers. He said nothing.

  “Besides, your family was never the main target. The group was focussed on the royal family. It might be a long time before they have the resources to do anything, especially so unimportant.”

  “Unimportant.” He closed his eyes.

  “Sorry.” She shifted uneasily in her seat.

  “No,” he turned to her, “I understand what you mean. It’s just that, well, it’s not unimportant to me.”

  “Of course.”

  “I lost my brother. I’ll never get over that. He was everything to me.”

  She set her glass on the table and shifted forward in her seat. The amber light of evening caught in her eyes.

  “If it is any consolation, before Hugh died, I asked him about your brother.”

  “Yes? You did?” Samuel’s eyes and mouth widened.

  “Your brother didn’t drown. It was no accident. Hugh killed him.”

  erty, Inheritance