Michael leaned back in his chair and folded his arms, remaining tight-lipped. He stared at her until she relented.
‘You’re not going to stop until I give in, are you?’
He gave a slight shake of his head.
She sighed, then said, ‘It’s nothing, not really.’ She blew out her breath slowly. He sat forward again and she mirrored his position. Her lips parted but no words escaped them. Her hands began to shake a little, and she laced her fingers together, hoping he wouldn’t notice.
‘You know, there was a time,’ he began, making her look at him square in the face, ‘when I would’ve dismissed the idea that anything could faze you.’ Before she could stop him, he reached out and clasped her hand across the table. ‘You’re clearly going through something right now that’s got nothing to do with the investigation.’
She looked away. She pulled at her hand, but he refused to release it. ‘Let go of me.’
He shook his head. ‘Sorry, I can’t do that.’ He smiled and squeezed her hand gently.
Feeling the spark of energy and desire she once yearned for stirring within her now, Claire’s eyes hardened. ‘What about you, then? The other day?’
Michael frowned.
‘When you walked out on me at Wainwright’s funeral? Where did that come from?’
This time he relaxed the grip on her hand a little. He silently weighed up the pros and cons of revealing parts of himself, emotions he’d rather have kept hidden, with finding out what was going on behind the mask Claire liked to hide behind.
‘I go, you go,’ he said.
Claire shrugged, and a deep crease appeared on her forehead. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘I tell you things, and then you tell me things, what’s going on in here,’ he said, tapping her head lightly with his finger. ‘It’s like a win-win situation.’
Claire waited for him to start laughing, confirming that this was a joke, but when he held her gaze, she scoffed and managed to pull her hand from his this time.
‘This is childish.’
Light seemed to dance in his eyes. ‘Childish maybe…I prefer the term playful. I always thought you liked that side of me.’ He leaned forward again. ‘Some say it’s positively charming.’
The faintest of smiles pulled at Claire’s lips. She tried hard to bury it.
‘I’ll go first,’ he said. ‘I walked out on you the other day because I find it hard to be around you. Sometimes I look for an excuse to be anywhere but in your company.’
Claire paused, swallowed hard. ‘At least you’re honest,’ was all she managed.
He laughed. ‘You misunderstand me.’
‘Oh, I think you’ve been more than clear.’
‘Not clear enough, obviously.’ He paused, and took a sip of his drink. ‘I can’t handle being around you sometimes, because I’m unsure of what my feelings are for you. I keep trying to distance myself because I think it’s for the best.’
‘What’s best for you, you mean?’
‘What’s best for us both.’
‘And that’s why you walked out on me? You tried to get me to open up about things, my personal life,’ she said, frowning in disbelief. ‘That hardly seemed like you wanted to run away from me.’
He nodded. ‘Yeah, I know. I told you, I feel…conflicted. I think you know what that feels like more than anyone.’
The brick wall Claire had been trying to build up began to come down, slowly, one brick at a time.
‘You remember after we found Wainwright’s body, when I rushed off when we were back at the station?’
He nodded.
Claire lowered her eyes, stared at the table. ‘I went to see someone and it didn’t…’ She trailed off, rested her head in both her hands, elbows propped up on the table, supporting her. ‘…It didn’t go so well.’
Michael edged closer. ‘Who did you see? What’s this all about?’
Claire looked at him, holding his stare. She relived that afternoon.
‘It’s my father,’ she said.
Gladstone Court – The afternoon after Wainwright’s murder
Claire stood in front of the door to the flat and steeled herself inside.
She pushed her spare key into the lock…
Almost immediately the door swung open, making Claire stumble forward.
‘What time do you call this, girl? I’ve left countless messages. I nearly called the station!’
Cursing under her breath, Claire wrenched the key from the lock and pushed her sunglasses up on her head.
She stared at the gnarled fingers that clasped a walking stick in a tight fist. Her eyes took in the figure in front of her, tall and thin, but slightly stooped, with stiff joints. Then she stared back into pale blue eyes, not too dissimilar to her own.
‘Afternoon, Dad,’ she said, her voice flat, as she stepped inside.
Claire gave a cursory glance around her surroundings. There were unopened letters addressed to a Peter Winters, on the table in the small dark hallway. Judging by the franked mark across the envelopes, they were from Haverbridge Hospital, and New Temple Housing, the warden-controlled complex based in Scotland. Soon to be Peter’s new home.
Claire stared at the envelopes, and ran her hand across them, before picking them up. ‘Did you want me to check these for you?’
He snatched them from her hand. ‘I can open my own letters. I’ve been fending for myself all bloody morning anyway.’
‘Hilary not been yet?’ she said, turning to Peter as he slammed the door behind him.
‘Have you even bothered to listen to the messages I sent you?’ he said, as he ushered her towards the small living room.
‘I pay all this money and they don’t even turn up on time,’ he muttered, easing himself into his favourite tatty armchair. His face winced, pain shooting through his joints.
Peter had suffered with rheumatoid arthritis for some years now, the disease gradually getting worse over the years, but accelerating in the last few months. Claire’s parents had been divorced nine years now, after a very turbulent marriage. During this time Claire had been the only one to keep in touch with her father, since he’d pushed away everyone else in the family with his bad temper and stubbornness.
Peter eyed his daughter with some disdain, as if his condition were somehow all her fault. ‘You’re late.’
‘I can’t just drop everything and run whenever you call me, Dad, you know that. I’ve just come from a pretty nasty crime scene.’
Peter dismissed her words with a wave of his hand. ‘I’ve not been able to have a bath yet.’
‘That’s what Hilary’s here for. To help you.’
‘But she’s not here, is she? You can run me a bath,’ he said, using his stick to manoeuvre out of the chair again, with some difficulty. Claire went to steady him, but he batted her arm away with his free hand. ‘I can do it!’
Claire took a deep breath, held it in a moment, and then let it out slowly. She cast her eye around the room. ‘Have you eaten yet?’
‘Not hungry.’
‘You have to eat.’
‘Says who?’ he snapped, pale eyes now staring at her, silently daring her to argue the point. ‘I’m barely sixty, I’m not completely senile yet. I know when to eat if I choose to.’
Claire folded her arms across her chest, and chewed on the inside of her lip.
‘You can help me bath,’ he said.
‘I can give Hilary a ring, see where she is.’
‘No,’ he said, raising his walking stick at her, stabbing the air in her direction. ‘You’ll do for now.’ He looked her up and down. ‘You should have more time for your old man, instead of always gallivanting around, like it’ll make a difference.’
Claire’s eyes narrowed. ‘I’m a police officer, it’s not a regular nine-to-five—’
‘Don’t I know it!’ he bristled, and began to slowly make his way towards the door, heading off towards the bathroom. ‘Sixty years of age, and reduced to begging
my daughter to help me wash…bloody degrading.’
Claire watched him until he was out of sight. ‘Degrading for me too,’ she said to herself.
***
Twenty minutes later Claire helped ease her father into the bath. ‘I’ll speak to the council about having another rail fitted in here,’ she said, as he waved her away from him, ‘just until you move.’
‘Fuck the council, bunch of sadists,’ he said when she turned her back as he began to wash himself. ‘They don’t care what happens to me, so long as the end result is freeing up the housing stock.’
‘Ever the pessimist, aren’t you, Dad.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like—’
‘To be you?’ she said, bending to pick up discarded dirty clothes from the floor. ‘I can see what it’s like.’ She began loading the clothes into the basket beside her.
‘You know what your problem is,’ he began, the malice clear in his voice, ‘you’re just like your mother…’
Claire’s body stiffened. She counted to ten inwardly. ‘I’ll put a wash on for you before I leave.’
‘Fucking bitch. If anyone deserves to be crippled with pain and knotted joints, it’s her.’
Claire spun around. ‘I’ve told you before, don’t talk about Mum like that.’
Peter gave a mock laugh. ‘There you go, defending the great bitch.’
‘Dad… I’ve warned you. You need to stop.’
‘Or what? You’ll leave me to fend for myself? You do that enough already,’ he said, pointing at her, before letting his hand fall back down into the water with a splash. ‘Ignorant, wilful thing, you are. You never got that from me, girl. That’s your mother’s disease. It’s in you through and through.’
Claire threw the rest of the dirty clothes to the floor in anger, and slammed both hands on the edge of the bath, making Peter jump. She leaned in close to his face, eyes wide.
‘Mum has her faults, but it was you who ruined your own life.’
Peter’s mouth opened indignantly. ‘Now you listen—’
‘No, you listen,’ she interrupted. ‘I’ve spent the last few years helping you where I can, when I could’ve easily walked away, after how you treated Mum, after how you treated me.’
Peter jabbed his thumb hard repeatedly against his chest. ‘I gave you a roof over your head, girl, and what do I have to show for it? Disrespect. Reduced to having my own daughter help me bath and shooting your mouth off with it.’
Claire’s eyes narrowed. She leaned in closer. ‘Fend for yourself. You move in a few weeks, so you’d better start getting used to having no one but strangers to scream at.’ She looked him over with contempt. ‘I’m done.’
She pushed herself away from the bath.
Peter paused, shocked at first, then his face hardened once again as she headed out the bathroom.
‘You make me sick, like your mother, you never knew when to keep your mouth shut!’ he shouted after her.
Claire went into the living room, fighting back the tears that pricked at her eyes. Peter was still hurling insults. She could hear the sound of him thrashing in the bath, water spilling onto the floor as he tried helplessly to get out of the bath.
‘You fucking bitch!’ he screamed, just as Claire headed back into the hallway. She stopped dead in her tracks.
Hilary, her father’s carer, was standing by the front door, key in hand retrieved from the security box mounted outside on the wall.
Her mouth was open a little, clearly unsure of what she’d just walked into.
‘I’m…sorry I’m late,’ she said, closing the front door behind her. ‘I did try to call. We’re severely understaffed today.’
Claire swallowed hard, her mouth dry, and she lowered her sunglasses back onto her face to hide her eyes.
‘He’s in the bath. He’s not eaten, says he doesn’t want to.’ She paused, then tried to move past Hilary. ‘Let him starve for all I care.’
Hilary grabbed her upper arm. ‘What on earth’s happened? You look like you need to sit down.’
Claire tried to toughen up. She would not, could not, cry in front of her. ‘I’m fine.’
Hilary tightened her grip a little. ‘Come and sit down in the living room, I’ll sort your dad out, then we can talk.’
‘I don’t have time for this. I already dropped everything and came here when I shouldn’t have done.’
Claire shook her arm free.
‘You need to take time for you.’ Hilary stared at her with sympathy. ‘It doesn’t help to bottle things up.’
Claire pushed her hand on the front door until it slammed shut, and leaned in closer to Hilary, who was a good three inches shorter than her.
‘Has she finally arrived?’ they heard Peter shout from the bathroom.
‘Won’t be a moment, Mr Winters,’ Hilary called out, her eyes never leaving Claire’s. They heard him mutter some profanity in response. Hilary smiled with a kindness Claire wasn’t used to. ‘We don’t have to talk here, we can go for a coffee. You look like you need someone who will listen to you.’
‘What I need,’ Claire said, ‘is the next few weeks to go quickly, so I can move on with my life.’
‘You’re angry, and that’s understandable, but don’t you think—’
‘Don’t try to tell me what to think. He’s moving soon. Any paperwork will be copied to me. It can’t come soon enough. I’ve done all I can.’
‘Think what it’s like for him.’
Claire’s jaw set firm, her patience with this woman waning. ‘I have been thinking about what it’s been like most of my adult life.’ She jabbed a finger in the direction of the bathroom. ‘Believe me, he is not the injured party here.’
Claire paused, trying to make sure that the next words out of her mouth were carried by a voice that didn’t crack.
‘I have my own life to live…I’ve been living in his for far too long.’
‘You make it sound like after the move, you’ll never see him again.’ Hilary’s eyes looked sad then.
‘I’ve done all I can for him.’
Hilary placed her hand gently on Claire’s forearm. ‘But he doesn’t have anybody else.’
Claire snatched her arm away. ‘That’s because he’s spent most of his life pushing everyone away. I’m thirty-seven years old, I shouldn’t be still picking up the pieces after all this time…after my parents’ failed marriage.’
Claire turned and opened the front door again. She paused on the threshold as Peter shouted at Hilary again, something crude.
Claire turned to look at Hilary’s face. Her skin was sallow and lines ran in deep furrows across her forehead, making her appear older than her forty-eight years. Claire looked at her dyed blonde hair.
‘The sight of a woman with blonde hair angers him,’ Claire said, sadness in her voice. Hilary frowned, deepening the creases in her skin. ‘It reminds him of his own mother, of Mum…and me.’
After Claire had told Michael about her father, his illness, the move to Scotland, and some painful scattered memories of what it was like to live with two highly volatile parents, she felt like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
She winced inwardly at the thought of almost finding it therapeutic.
‘Brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, daddy issues, doesn’t it?’ he said. When Claire didn’t raise a smile to match his, he let his face fall. ‘Sorry. I’m not trying to trivialise anything.’
‘Don’t repeat any of this to anyone.’
‘Obviously. I wouldn’t do that. My past isn’t so sunny either.’ She looked at him, curious. He smiled, reading her mind. ‘That can wait for another day,’ he said. ‘Too heavy for a lunchtime conversation.’
***
When they’d cleared their plates and ordered another drink each, Michael leaned in closer.
‘I’ve been thinking lately, about the Charity Ball coming up.’ He watched her straighten in her seat. ‘Completely off topic and you can say no, and I’ll understand.
I guess it could end up pretty uncomfortable, but I was wondering if you wanted to go…with me?’
He watched her carefully as her face changed. He would even have sworn to anyone that he’d caught her smiling.
‘I haven’t given it much thought,’ she lied. ‘I don’t think it’d be a great idea.’
‘Why not?’
Claire looked at him. ‘I can’t believe you even have to ask.’
He shook his head and reached for her hands, holding them tight. ‘It’s not what you think. Perhaps you shouldn’t read too much into it.’ He looked at her from beneath his eyelashes, his head lowered. ‘Don’t flatter yourself, as you may put it.’
Claire looked at him and couldn’t help but smile inside. Outside, however, she remained calm and unfazed, removing her hands from his.
CHAPTER 32
Mark Jenkins sat away from everyone else in church that evening. Although this was a midweek gathering, the pews were over half-full, almost double the usual. Jenkins sat gazing at the spot where he imagined Wainwright had died and bit his lips, holding back tears.
He nodded occasionally when someone greeted him in passing but offered no encouragement to polite conversation. This in itself drew some disapproving looks from those who never missed a gathering, be it routine or social in nature.
Jenkins didn’t care.
He mimed his way through a few hymns and shut off his mind when the sermon dragged on. In all his years of dedicating his life to God, he’d never felt as he did now; despondent and his faith waning.
How could anyone murder a man of the true faith? How could God allow this to happen?
He waited until he was the last remaining person sitting amongst the pews after the service before he went over to light a candle for those in need of prayer.
He watched as the flame on a large candle lit the small wooden splint he was holding. He lit a smaller candle placed the furthest away from him and sighed.
In his thoughts, he prayed for Father Wainwright, but through the mirage of images circling inside his head, he saw past Wainwright’s face and saw a haze of red cloud his thoughts.
He drew in a sharp breath and closed his eyes tight.
For All Our Sins: A gripping thriller with a killer twist (DCI Claire Winters, Book 1) Page 15
