Blood Ties

by Jane A. Adams

  ‘Eddy’s place?’ Alec asked.

  ‘If you like.’ Blezzard eased himself carefully into the passenger seat of Alec’s car.

  ‘Bad back?’ Alec asked.

  ‘I played squash last night with my son-in-law. Big mistake. I’ll be paying for it for days.’

  Son-in-law, Alec thought. He didn’t put Blezzard at much more than ten years his senior and he wasn’t even at the having children bit yet, never mind son-in-laws. ‘Grandchildren?’ he asked.

  ‘First one due in March. We started early. Lis and I met at school. You and Naomi . . .?’

  ‘Don’t have kids, met on the job, finally got married a year ago. We’ve talked about it, but I don’t know. I think we’re both a bit unsure.’

  Blezzard nodded, but said nothing. Blood ties, Alec thought, they were so important to so many people and yet neither he nor Naomi ever felt the binding strength of them that so many seemed to. He loved his parents, but they had never been close, in the sense that they’d want to play squash. The thought of it filled Alec with amusement. His father just wouldn’t have seen the point of the game, never mind playing it with his son.

  Should he and Naomi actually get around to having children, he couldn’t imagine his parents being doting grandparents either. Naomi’s were pretty good at it but lived far enough away that they were hands-off most of the time. Naomi’s sister Sam and her family had become important to Alec, and he enjoyed the company of the two boys very much, but apart from that, their closest relationships seemed to be with friends and not family, with people who had come into their lives by mutual choice rather than genetic accident.

  ‘Penny for them,’ Blezzard joked.

  ‘Oh, life, the universe . . . Right, let’s see what’s happening at Eddy’s. That door isn’t shut.’

  He pulled up in front of the porch and Blezzard leaned forward to look.

  ‘You’re right,’ he said. He got out and led the way inside, pushing the door open and standing stock still just inside the hall.

  ‘Someone wasn’t a happy bunny.’ He took out his mobile and called for backup and the CSI. ‘Question is, what were they looking for? Or didn’t they care?’

  ‘Both,’ Alec said flatly. He headed for the stairs.

  ‘Hey, leave it to CSI, we don’t know what . . .’ He sighed, followed Alec up the stairs.

  Alec headed straight for Karen’s room. The door was open and Alec didn’t bother to cross the threshold. The mess downstairs had been bad enough; broken furniture, torn curtains, cushions with their insides ripped out and spilled on the floor, but that was petty and amateur compared to the considered and thorough effort of destruction that had taken place here.

  Everything in Karen’s room had been ruined. Alec recognized tiny fragments of soft toy and dressing gown and flowered bedcover. Someone had taken a knife to the lot in a rage of stabbing and ripping and slashing. Dust motes from the strata that had fallen so softly for so many years now hung in the air, illuminated by weak sunlight that was now uninterrupted by the yellowed nets.

  ‘What was this?’

  ‘Karen’s room. He closed it up and left it as it was when she died. Everything was just as she left it.’

  ‘Well, not now, it’s not. You think Gavin Symonds did this?’

  ‘I do. I also think he killed Brian Rawlins.’

  ‘Something of a stretch, isn’t it? We don’t know the two of them had even met.’

  ‘No,’ Alec admitted. ‘We don’t. Yet.’

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  Gavin wasn’t sure what to do. He wasn’t sure of anything much any more, only that he was tired and desperate and wanted to find a way out of the mess he was in.

  Above all, he was angry. At himself, at Brian, at Susan and Eddy and, oddly, most of all at his father. All his troubles had started that night when his father had driven the car that had caused the accident that had killed Karen Thame and her friends, and that had ruined everything because that had led to Eddy Thame coming after his father and ruining everything all over again. And Gavin could do nothing.

  It was all wrong. All wrong and Gavin wasn’t making it any less wrong. But what could he do?

  He hadn’t meant to kill Eddy; or had he? Gavin couldn’t really tell any more. Had he meant to kill Brian? Frankly, he didn’t know that either and he didn’t care any more. He just wanted a bit of peace.

  ‘You think this is what Gavin Symonds might have been looking for, then?’ Blezzard asked as he studied the maps and the coins Alec had found in the little tin box.

  ‘Well, I think he hoped there was more to it. The way I read it is that Eddy wanted Kevin to see all this, to share in it, but for some reason he kept quiet about it.’

  ‘Maybe Eddy knew someone else was after this. Did Gavin threaten him? The way I understand it is that Gavin didn’t know anything much about any of this until yesterday evening.’

  Alec nodded, realizing he was right. Eddy hadn’t hidden the books in Kevin’s bag because he was afraid someone – Gavin – was after them. That couldn’t be the case because no one had been after them. No, maybe Eddy’s habit of semi secrecy was the only reason. Maybe . . . ‘Maybe he had just wanted to surprise a friend? Kevin would have found the notebooks, would have understood what they were all about and the two of them would have gone chasing after the rest. I think we were wrong. There was nothing sinister; it was just Eddy being Eddy. Bloody obtuse.’

  ‘Does that fit with what we know about him?’

  ‘It fits. After the first time I spoke to him, Susan told me that in some ways he was sharp as a tack, in other ways he was a bit touched. No, she put it differently, but that’s what she meant. Nothing we found out about Eddy contradicts that. DI Bradford said he disintegrated, just fell apart after Karen’s death and never really recovered. Bradford seems to think that persecuting Gavin’s father gave Eddy back his purpose in life. It focussed him. Gavin seems to have been driven by the same motivation; he focussed on Eddy.’

  ‘They’d both lost people they loved.’ Blezzard picked up the coins and examined then thoughtfully. The locket, too, came under scrutiny. ‘Anything inside?’

  ‘No. I suppose there might have been at some time. Eddy wrote about the Kirkwoods in his book. He’d found a load of original documents, letters and such, so he was able to find out a bit about what happened to them. Catherine got away, but she had to leave a lot of her treasure behind. Eddy was convinced there was more than this and I think he was probably right. I also think it’s long gone by now.’

  Blezzard dropped the locket back into the box. ‘So,’ he said. ‘What next? I suppose we go next door to talk to Susan Rawlins again. Dean is tracking down Gavin Symonds’ mother, so seeing her will be the next move, and I’m hoping we’ll have a positive ID on the body in the car. What we have to do is think what Gavin Symonds’ next move will be. Will he go home? Does he have anywhere to be, anyone to miss him?’

  ‘No,’ Alec said firmly. ‘If he had, then what his father did or didn’t do would have faded in importance. The hurt would have been diluted.’

  ‘It wasn’t for Eddy,’ Blezzard argued. ‘From what I’ve seen, a lot of people cared about Eddy, but the obsession with James Symonds didn’t diminish, did it?’

  ‘Because Eddy only gave a little bit of himself to any one person. No one had it all, not after Martha and Karen. You’d need to talk to an awful lot of people to get a complete picture of Eddy Thame.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Late that afternoon and much to Alec’s surprise, he was driving north again, and with Blezzard in the passenger seat. Naomi had once again been left behind and Alec could see that she was far from pleased, but once Blezzard had suggested Alec go with him to see Gavin’s mother, both he and Naomi knew there was no way he could refuse.

  ‘And this is the man who talked about leaving the force,’ Naomi said acidly.

  ‘Well, that was the way I felt. Actually, it’s still the way I feel, but we’re in the middle of this now. I can�
��t just walk away.’

  ‘Of course not.’ Naomi sighed. ‘Look, go, I’ll be OK, just don’t be too long and you owe me dinner somewhere other than The Lamb tonight.’

  ‘Anything you say.’

  Blezzard had talked to the local officers and had got a little background on the Symonds family, which he shared with Alec on the way. ‘Father was well known. Banned twice, lost his licence again three months before he got back in the car and killed himself. Gavin has a record. Petty theft and he got into a few fights. Nothing serious though, and the last incident on file is back when he was twenty-two. He moved away after that, probably came back for the funeral.’

  ‘Do we know where he moved to?’

  ‘As yet, no. Hopefully the mother will fill in the details.’

  ‘Do we know anything about her?’

  ‘She has no record, that’s all I can say.’

  A red-brick house on the outskirts of Bristol proved to be the home of Gavin Symonds’ mother and her new partner. The house was small, modern, identical to the others in the row and fronted by a patch of grass.

  ‘Housing association,’ Blezzard said. ‘Some kind of shared ownership thing, if I remember right. It was the biggest of its kind locally so it got on to the local news.’ He smiled. ‘That’s why I know.’

  Glancing up and down the street Alec noticed the quiet tidiness of the area. Identical houses, identically mown in front. No sign of kids, but then it was still school time. He guessed the cul-de-sac would be filled with kids playing at the end of the day, but now the sense of desertion and stillness was quite profound. They had called ahead and told Mel Symonds that they were on their way. She had sounded wary but oddly resigned. It was a tone Alec had encountered so often before: oh, no, not more trouble . . .

  She opened the door as they turned towards the house, recognizing them for what they were. Another sign that Alec was familiar with. Blezzard introduced himself and Alec, flashing his ID and taking it as read she would not ask to see Alec’s. She didn’t, which was just as well, he thought. Right now the most official document he had on him was a choice of driving licence or library card.

  ‘Come in,’ she said. ‘Room at the end of the hall. Go in.’

  The hall was narrow, stairs going up, kitchen off to one side. It looked, from Alec’s quick glance, to be clean. Long years of being offered tea in other people’s houses raised awareness of such matters. It was odd to have the kitchen at the front of the house, he thought, imagining the variety of cooking smells that would waft out on to the street at mealtimes.

  The back of the house was given over to a room that ran the full width. Dining table at one end, large telly at the other. Patio doors on to a small square of garden. The floral curtains matched the cushions on the sofa, Alec noticed as he sat down.

  ‘Thank you for seeing us.’

  Two policemen on the sofa, Mel in the chair. A pack of cigarettes lay on the chair arm and she fiddled with them for a moment and then sat forward, with her hands between her knees, and studied both men carefully, as though comparing them to specimens she’d encountered before.

  She was probably in her early fifties, Alec thought, but she looked older and more tired than a woman of that age should do. The bleached blonde hair didn’t help, too harsh for the rather pale skin. He guessed she had been a blonde in her youth. She was thin and her hands were nervous, clasping and unclasping then sliding between her knees as she rocked forward.

  ‘What’s he done,’ she said, her tone flat and almost bored, though Alec knew it was more resignation than disinterest. ‘I knew he’d bring trouble the moment he came back.’

  ‘He’d been living away, Gavin?’

  ‘Yeah. Went six, seven years ago. It’s been just the odd phone call since, the odd birthday card when he remembered. I think he stayed in touch with his dad better, but I was glad to see him go, if I’m honest.’

  ‘You didn’t have a close relationship, then?’

  She laughed. ‘No, he was his daddy’s boy, never mine. And then I went off and lived with Malc and he didn’t forgive me. He said he understood that his dad was difficult. I mean –’ she rolled her eyes – ‘difficult. He hit me. He hit Gavin, but Gavin had this idea in his head that it wasn’t always like that. That his dad changed, and he was forever trying to get back to this time when everything had been all right. Been good.’

  ‘Before the car crash that killed Karen Thame and her friends.’

  Her eyes flickered towards the pack of cigarettes, but she resisted.

  ‘We know your husband caused the accident,’ Blezzard went on. ‘He admitted as much in the suicide note.’

  She nodded, barely. ‘I always thought he did,’ she said. ‘But I didn’t want to know. You get what I mean.’

  ‘Four teenagers died that night,’ Alec said. ‘It’s very likely that at least one of them would have survived if he’d called for help.’

  ‘He was afraid he’d get in trouble.’

  ‘He let them die because he was afraid he’d get in trouble? Oliver Bates, Jill Wellesley. Sara Coles. Karen Thame.’

  ‘I know their bloody names, so don’t start on me.’ The sudden burst of anger was unexpected and intense. ‘I didn’t kill them. I wasn’t driving. I didn’t cover it up.’

  ‘Where did Gavin go to?’ Blezzard changed tack.

  She shrugged. ‘He got into building. Labouring. Birmingham then Leeds, I think. I didn’t take much notice. He wasn’t here, the rest didn’t matter.’

  ‘He was your son. Weren’t you concerned?’

  ‘He was an adult, supposedly. Old enough to make his own way. Oh, don’t you dare judge me. His dad was violent and self-centred and Gavin was the same. I had a second chance at being happy and I took it. I’d done my bit, he couldn’t say I didn’t.’

  ‘And he came back for the funeral?’

  She nodded. ‘I thought I’d better let him know, and I sent a letter to the last address I had, but he’d heard from somewhere else. He turned up at the funeral and I told him no way was he stopping here. He could go to his dad’s place.’

  ‘That was the family home, originally?’

  ‘If you could ever call us a family, yeah. He said he still had a key so I let him get on with it. He can keep the place, for all I care.’

  ‘And that’s when he found out what Eddy Thame had been doing?’

  A shrug this time.

  ‘You didn’t know?’

  ‘I didn’t put it together. Look, I left close on ten years ago. I’ve not kept track of what his dad did since. He was never an easy man; he got worse as time went on. I took my chance, I got out. Then Gavin left. I don’t know what went on with his dad after that.’

  ‘But you’ve not remarried?’

  She shook her head. ‘Once bitten,’ she said. ‘We get on fine. We’re happy, but I know men. They get a ring on your finger and that’s it. They change. While he still thinks I can walk, he keeps trying to make me want to stay. I know men.’

  On that note they left, there being nothing more to say.

  ‘Do you think she knows more about any of this?’ Blezzard asked as they settled back into the car.

  ‘No. If she did she’d have closed her eyes and chosen not to see. So, she can’t tell us where Gavin might be; let’s see what his father’s house can tell us.’

  Symonds senior had kept the family home. Red-brick again and also terraced, but this time Victorian. Uniformed officers awaited their arrival and opened the door without aid of a key.

  ‘He’s not been here in several days, according to neighbours.’

  ‘Any of them talk to him?’

  ‘Only to say good morning, that sort of thing. They said the dad kept himself to himself in recent years. Sullen was the way one described him, which, when you reckon people don’t like speaking ill of the dead, probably tells us something.’

  Blezzard nodded and he and Alec went inside. The house was cold and Alec was reminded of Eddy’s place after just a few da
ys of non-occupancy. It didn’t take long for the chill to set in or the sense of abandonment. Unlike Mrs Symonds’ place, which was neat and tidy to the point of emptiness, this little house was crammed. Newspapers scattered across the coffee table. Abandoned mugs on the floor. Pizza boxes from the local takeaway on the kitchen counters.

  Gavin had been camping here, not actually moving in. Alec wondered what it had looked like before. Glancing at the shelves he noted books and music and films in various formats. An ageing video recorder sat beneath the television, a DVD player resting on top. Cable television, represented by a black plastic box set beneath the video. The books were leftovers from Mel Symonds, he guessed, unless Gavin or his father liked romances and family sagas. He was struck by the same lost-in-time feel that had pervaded Eddy’s house. Another man stuck in a time warp, he thought, but with the difference that Eddy’s had been because he wanted to record the best of times. Symonds’ because, from the appearance of things, he was holding on to the worst.

  Blezzard called to him from the kitchen. It was larger than Alec expected, the house having at some time been extended and the kitchen also knocked through into the coal hole and old outside toilet. There was still a fire grate, and that surprised him. In Eddy’s rural location the use of open fires seemed appropriate, but he’d rarely seen an urban terraced property that had kept its grate, especially not in the kitchen.

  ‘I’m guessing this is what set the cat among the birds,’ Blezzard said, pointing to the stacks of paperwork and the two supermarket bags set on the kitchen table.

  Alec looked, slipping on gloves and sifting through one stack, which turned out to be birthday cards. In each one was written, ‘Another year, another birthday she didn’t get to have.’

  Christmas cards had the same message.

  ‘Presents,’ Blezzard said, inspecting the bags. ‘And letters, newspaper clippings. There’s a form of service from the funerals and obituaries for the four kids.’

  Alec took the papers as Blezzard passed them to him. He noted the one identical to that which he’d found in Karen’s dressing gown pocket and wondered again what made it so unusual that Eddy had been moved to separate it out and keep it from the rest. Skimming the others, he found that it seemed to be the only one that made any mention of a drunk driver being picked up or any real speculation of what may have happened had help been summoned at once. Was that what made it special; added to its potency?