AllFreeNovel
Share Us
He’d been around increasingly often for the past year or two, and I’d long considered him for a sneaky benefits on the side sort of deal, but he’d shown no signs of being interested when I’d subtly tested the waters. He probably had a tonne of girls throwing themselves at him.
‘Just me. Sorry to interrupt, but your dad wants you at dinner tonight.’
Maeve shifted next to me as I remained steadfastly secured under the duvet, barely daring to breathe in case it drew attention to me. ‘No worries, Esther’s just going for a shower and then we’ll be right down.’
As the door shut, I pulled the blankets back and took a breath, finished stifling myself for now.
‘Damn, I did not need him to be in my room when it’s like this.’ Cold coffees and uneaten plates of food littered the bedside tables and the room was dark, dank, and musty. Not at all how I usually kept the place, well the maid did, but I’d banished her since I’d gone into despair.
‘Still hoping for a bit of rough, hmm?’ Maeve laughed as she pulled the duvet fully off of me and tossed it to the floor before shoving me out of the bed.
‘He’d make a fine last supper, that’s for sure. Why’s he here?’
‘I think he’s here to make sure you don’t go missing before the wedding. It’s set for next week.’
My mouth dried out as I stared at Maeve. One week? No, it couldn’t be that quick.
Tears pricked anew as Maeve came around the bed and wrapped her arms about my shoulders, soothing my hair as I gave into the sobs. ‘You’ll be okay. We’ll fix it even if you have to go old school and start poisoning his food.’
Like a zombie, I let her get me into the shower, my brain having gone into protective mode.
I needed a way out.
Fast.
TWO
ALEC
It was none of my business.
None of my damn business.
So why couldn’t I get the state that Esther was in out of my head? Usually she was smiley, and feisty, but since Malcolm had announced her engagement to Harold, it was like it had drained the life right out of her. Who could blame her? I’d been around the McGowan’s long enough to see how he’d terrorised them. Murders happened far more often than expected in the Scottish crime scene, but it was rare for it to be amongst the elite. Far more often it was the people down the tiers in the organisations who got bunked off. People like me.
Pulling my car into my driveway, I waved as Gladys, my elderly next-door neighbour, opened her door and shuffled out. As sad as it was, she was the only person I had outside of the crime scene who cared about me. I didn’t have grannies or grandpas, parents or siblings. No aunts, uncles, or cousins. Just me. Bar my work, Gladys was the only person who would notice if I disappeared.
It was a sad state of affairs.
‘Hello,’ she said as I closed my car, locking the doors with the key fob. ‘Could you help me a minute?’
She was as alone as I. Long widowed and with her only son dying young and child-free. I liked to tell myself I was just being helpful, but whenever she invited me in, her warmth filled that gaping chasm in me for a little while. She wasn’t my granny, but it felt like she was while I was with her. The tiny snippet of what normality could be was something I held dear.
‘No problem, Gladys, what’s giving you jip today?’ I followed her into her house, the mirror image of mine in layout, but a million miles away in decor. Her home was busy, clean and tidy, but stuffed to the gunnels with brick-a-brac. Photos from her younger years filled the walls, faded with time. Happy smiley faces of her family life. Happier times. A pang in my chest reminded me how I lacked any images from my childhood. If any existed, they weren’t in my possession. When the system shifted you from house to house with a bin bag of meagre belongings, photos weren’t the priority. Her son’s face beamed out from behind the glass. If any photos of me existed, I doubted they would look in any way happy. The closest I’d ever come to happiness was when I finally bought my home, in this leafy little corner of Glasgow, miles from work and the criminal underbelly that stretched through the city.
My commute was horrendous, but I hadn’t wanted a townhouse or city centre flat like most bachelors. No, I bought a family home in a suburb, surrounded by the elderly and young families. I’d dreamed of filling the house with a family of my very own. Instead, it remained as lonely as the rest of my life, my windows a daily reminder that families were for others. Happy children riding bikes up and down the pavement, parents scooping them up and kissing away grazed knees. Each one another arrow to my soul. The closest I got was the occasional one-night stand where I indulged in physical closeness, but was yet to find someone that could break through the emotional wall.
Gladys fixed me with a soft smile as I looked at her pictures, her fingers trembling as she reached up and stroked her son’s smiling face.
‘Come, I made biscuits.’
Sweat started forming as soon as I entered her kitchen. It was always a balmy temperature. She said it helped her aches. I’d hate to see her heating bill. ‘Shall I put on the tea?’
I’d already flicked the kettle to boil. Asking was a mere formality. The routine was always the same: loose tea from the clipper attached to the side of the cupboard, the overly large maroon teapot that must have made a million cups of tea over the years. Milk in the striped jug, never from the plastic bottle. Sugar in lumps, never loose.
‘What did you need helping with today?’ I asked as we waited for the tea to steep.
‘The light in the sitting room has gone. I needed help to get the step stool out of the shed so I can change it.’
