Peter Robinson: Blood At The Root

Steven Fox stood in the doorway as Banks and Susan started poking around the spotless corners. The dresser drawers were full of underclothes and casual wear – jeans, sweatshirts, T-shirts. By the side of the bed lay a set of weights. Banks could just about lift them, but he didn’t fancy doing fifty bench presses.

In the wardrobe, he found Jason’s football strip, a couple of very conservative suits, both navy blue, and some white dress shirts and sober ties. And that was it. So much for any clues about Jason Fox’s life and friends.

Back downstairs, Mrs. Fox was pacing the living room, gnawing at her knuckles. Banks could tell she was no longer able to keep at bay the terrible realization that something bad might have happened to her son. After all, Jason hadn’t come home, his car was still in the garage, and now the police were in her house. A part of Banks hoped, for her sake, that the victim wasn’t Jason. But there was only one way to find that out for certain.

Frank Hepplethwaite reached for his inhaler, aimed it at the back of his throat and let off a blast of nitro. Within seconds the pain in his chest began to abate, along with that suffocating sense of panic that always came with it.

Frank sat completely still in his favorite armchair, the one that Edna had been constantly nagging him to get rid of. True, the seat cushion was worn, and it bulged like a hernia through the support slats underneath; and true, the frayed upholstery had long since lost whatever pattern it might have had and faded to a sort of dull brown with a worn, greasy spot where he had rested the back of his head year after year. But he had never found anywhere else quite so comfortable to sit and read in all his seventy-six years – and though he was seventy-six, his eyes were as good as they’d ever been. Well, almost, if he put his reading glasses on. Better than his teeth and his heart, at any rate.

When he felt steady enough again, he rested his palms on the threadbare patches of fabric and pushed himself up, slowly, to standing position. Five foot ten in his stockinged feet, and he still weighed no more than ten stone.

Face it, though, Frank, he told himself as he wrapped his scarf around his neck and reached for his tweed jacket on the hook behind the door, you won’t be able to go on like this by yourself much longer. Even now, Mrs. Weston came in once or twice a week to tidy up and make his meals. And his daughter Josie came over from Eastvale to do his washing and to vacuum.

He could still manage the little domestic tasks, like boiling an egg, washing what few dishes he used, and remaking his bed in the morning – but he couldn’t change the sheets, and any sort of elaborate meal was well beyond him. Not that he lacked the ability – he had been a passable cook in his time – he merely lacked the stamina. And for how much longer would he be able to manage even the little necessities? How long would it be before a simple visit to the toilet was beyond him, a bowel movement too much of a strain on his heart?

Best not think about that, he told himself, sensing the abyss that awaited him. Beyond this point be monsters. At least Edna had gone first, bless her soul, and while he missed her every minute he continued to live, at least he wouldn’t have to worry about her coping after he’d gone.

Frank went into the hall and paused at the front door. He rarely got any letters these days, so he was surprised to see one lying on the carpet. It must have arrived yesterday, Saturday. He hadn’t been out since Friday, hadn’t even had cause to go into the hall, so it was no wonder he hadn’t noticed it. Bending carefully, knees creaking, he picked it up and slipped it in his inside pocket. It could wait. It wasn’t a bill. At least, it didn’t look official; it didn’t have one of those windows.

He opened the door, sniffed the air and smiled. Well, well, another taste of summer, with just a hint of peat smoke from the village. What strange weather the dale had been having these past few years. Global warming, the papers said, damage to the ozone layer, greenhouse effect. Whatever all that was. Bloody grand, anyway.

He decided to be devil-may-care today and took off his scarf, then he walked down the road toward the green, pausing by the whitewashed facade of the Swainsdale Heifer to watch out for traffic hurtling across the blind corner, the way it did despite the warning signs. Then he walked on the broad cobbled area in front of the gift shop, the small Barclay’s Bank branch and the estate agent’s office, past the King’s Head to the third pub in the village, the Black Bull.

It would have to be the bloody farthest pub from his house, he always grumbled to himself, but the Black Bull had been his local for over forty years, and he was damned if he was going to change it now, even if the walk did sometimes put him out of breath. And even if the new landlord didn’t seem to give a toss for anyone but tourists with plenty of readies to flash around.

Frank had seen a dozen landlords come and go. He was all right in his way, was old Jacob – a London Jew born of one of the few families lucky enough to escape to England from Germany just before the war – and he had his living to make, but he was a tight old skinflint. A drink or two on the house now and then would make an old man’s pension go a lot farther. The last landlord had understood that. Not Jacob. He was as close with his brass as old Len Metcalfe had been over ten years back.

Frank pushed the heavy door, which creaked as it opened, and walked across the worn stone flagging to the bar. “Double Bell ’s, please,” he said.

“Hello, there, Frank,” said Jacob. “How are you today?”

Frank touched his chest. “Just a twinge or two, Jacob,” he said. “Just a twinge. Other than that I’m right as rain.”

He took his drink and wandered over to his usual small table to the left of the bar, where he could see down the corridor to the machines and the billiard table on the raised area at the far end. As usual, he said hello to Mike and Ken, who were sitting on stools at the bar agonizing over a crossword puzzle, and to that poncy southern windbag, Clive, who was sitting a stool or two down from them puffing on his bloody pipe and pontificating about sheep breeding, as if he knew a bloody thing about it. A few of the other tables were occupied by tourists, some of them kitted out for a day’s walking or climbing. It was Sunday, after all. And a fine one, at that.

Frank took a sip of Bell’s, winced at the sharpness and hoped the burning he felt as it went down was just the whiskey, not the final heart attack. Then he remembered the letter he had put in his pocket. He put on his reading glasses, reached his hand in and slipped it out.

The address was handwritten, and there was no indication of who had sent it. He didn’t recognize the writing, but then he hardly ever saw handwriting these days. Everything you got was typed or done on computers. He couldn’t make out the postmark clearly, either, but it looked like Brighouse, or maybe Bradford. It could even be Brighton or Bristol, for all he knew. Posted on Thursday.

Carefully, he tore the envelope open and slid out the single sheet of paper. It had type on both sides, in columns, and a large bold heading across the top. At first he thought it was a flyer for a jumble sale or something, but as he read, he realized how wrong he was.

Confused at first, then angry, he read the printed words. Long before he had finished, tears came to his eyes. He told himself they were Scotch tears, just the burning of the whiskey, but he knew they weren’t. He also knew who had sent him the flyer. And why.

Some of the more modern mortuaries were equipped with video cameras and monitor screens to make it easier for relatives to identify accident or murder victims from a comfortable distance. Not in Eastvale, though. There, the attendant still slid the body out of the refrigerated unit and slipped back the sheet from the face.