Matt Hilton: Blood and Ashes

‘I think you’ll find that he does.’

‘No, he doesn’t. I’ve asked you to look after my family and even he won’t be able to do anything about that.’

‘He’s their father, Don. He has every right in the world to tell me to sling my hook.’

Don snorted. ‘Adrian has no say where Beth or Ryan is concerned. He was married to my daughter, yes, but he isn’t the kids’ biological father. They’re my blood, not his.’

I was surprised by this announcement but didn’t let it show. If the truth were known, I’d already suspected that the children weren’t Adrian’s. Brook and Adrian were dark-haired, with green and brown eyes respectively. In the photographs dotting the living room of Don’s house, both kids were blond with the palest blue eyes I’d ever seen. There were often anomalies in birth, but the difference was a bit too dramatic to be explained by ancient DNA reasserting itself.

Then there were the dates.

Beth and Ryan’s births both pre-dated their parents’ wedding. Not unusual in this day and age, but enough to have placed doubt about parentage in my mind.

‘Who is their dad?’

Don shook his head, unprepared or unwilling to answer.

‘It may be important, Don.’

‘You think that this has something to do with him; a waste-of-time drunkard who left her with two small babies when the going got too tough for him? No, Hunter, you can forget that line of thinking. I’m telling you: this is all Hicks’ doing.’

Up ahead the school bus was a yellow stain in the steamy haze rising from the road. Then it was gone and I realised that we were approaching the intersection where the mountain road joined the main highway.

‘Take a left,’ Don said.

Don had already informed me that Adrian and the children lived in a house in its own walled enclosure, but had been a little vague on its location, saying that he’d direct me when we were on the road. So it was a distance from the city of Hertford where the school bus was heading to? Good and bad. Cities made things difficult if I had to respond in kind to violence: the cops were too close by and that severely hindered my options. But out in the wilds a house was exposed and difficult to defend. It was beginning to look like I was going to have to call in back-up.

No, not yet, I decided, I still didn’t know what I was up against. For all I knew I was just being sucked into Don’s fantasy. It wasn’t a nice thought, but perhaps it would be better if the two men I’d killed turned out to be nothing but local low-lifes who’d made the mistake of confronting me.

Something in me, though, also hoped that wasn’t the case.

If he chose, Vince Everett could be a real charmer. Sometimes he put his raffish good looks to the test, giving the ladies the flick of his pompadour and the curl of a lip. Other times he just shot them a glance from his baby blues. In fact in his late twenties, he appeared much younger, and he could rely on his teen-idol face and chirpy demeanour to disarm even the most cynical. Usually he would use this approach to inveigle his way past a person’s defences, but he had the sense that this time a more stealthy approach was in order. Don Griffiths was on edge and it stood to reason that his obsession with Carswell Hicks’ imminent return might also have rubbed off on his daughter Millie.

Past experience told him that going in through the front door was never a good idea. Not when the potential for witnesses was too great. The back door would most likely be locked, but he’d find a window off the latch or some other form of ingress soon enough.

Don’s vehicles, a Lexus and a chunky Merc SUV, were parked on the driveway but that wasn’t surprising. The door to the carport was wide open, and there were kids’ bikes and other toys taking up the area inside, relegating their grandfather’s vehicles to the whim of the elements. The kids’ belongings cost a fraction of what it would take to purchase a tyre for the Lexus, but wasn’t that the way of those that loved their brats?

Vince glanced back and saw Sonya perching on the lip of the wishing well. She had her legs crossed, one ankle hooked under the other. She was waving her cell as if it was a microphone and she was conducting an interview with the invisible man. She caught him looking and flashed him a grin: loving playing the game.

Vince glanced at the front windows. He couldn’t detect any movement. He then walked directly into the carport, negotiating his way around a spillage of Star Wars action figures. He had to step over a multicoloured tricycle. One of the kids had tried to make the bike even more colourful with juvenile slashes of a wax crayon. The child had outgrown the bike, but it still took precedence over Don’s super-expensive vehicles. Good sign, Vince decided. It showed how much he doted on his grandchildren.

Vince didn’t get that. When he was a brat, his lot was to be seen and not heard. Usually his parents didn’t even want to see him and reminded him with a well-placed kick in the ass. He couldn’t understand why Don felt such an attachment to Beth and Ryan, but decided that the psychology of it didn’t matter. He loved them and that was good. That love could be used to control him.

He laid his ear to the back door. Beyond it he guessed he’d find a utility area or kitchen and wondered if the woman had gravitated to either since the men had left the house. They were always his mother’s designated areas, but maybe not every woman’s domain in these more liberated days.

He couldn’t hear anything from inside. He tried the handle and was gratified to find his suspicion borne out. The door opened easily on well-oiled hinges. Apparently Don had been keeping busy in his retirement.

He found a large kitchen that doubled as a dining area. There was a cooking range, a work surface and a large breakfast bar along one wall with stools beneath. The kids probably ate snacks there, he surmised, while the adults dined at another table further inside the house. The sink held a trio of unwashed mugs, but otherwise the room was pristine and felt a little deserted. The only thing that told him the kitchen had been used recently was the faint fishy scent of tuna spooned on to a saucer on the floor. The saucer had been licked clean but little flakes of fish lay scattered around it.

The information supplied to him had revealed that the Griffithses didn’t own any pets. Dogs in a home always made a stealthy approach difficult and he’d checked that some hound wasn’t going to give him away. A cat was no concern though: they were self-centred critters that couldn’t give a hoot about the comings and goings of humanity.

He walked towards the door to the hall. He paused there, glancing round the frame into the dimly lit space towards the front door where the weak daylight struggled to push through the patterned glass. He paused to check his cell phone. He had it on silent, but pressed buttons to check it would vibrate if Sonya called to warn him that someone was coming. Happy, he dipped the phone in his shirt pocket, making certain it was secure as he’d need it pretty soon. Then he spooled out the guitar string, wrapping the weighted ends round his fists so that there was approximately a foot and a half of wire dangling between them. With a flick of his wrists he snapped the string tight, smiling at the thrum that went up his forearms.

He heard murmuring from a room to his left. The woman speaking on a telephone?

Typical, he thought. It would mean waiting until she hung up otherwise the person on the other end of the line would be alerted to his presence. If it was Don or the other guy that might not bode well for him getting everything done before they came racing back.

Better that he remain silent in the hall, wait until she was finished and then go introduce himself. Except he couldn’t contain himself and took a quick peek around the door frame. Millie wasn’t on the phone; she had her back to him, arms folded loosely as she stared out of a window. Vince followed her gaze and saw that she was looking across the green towards where Sonya sat on the well. Millie was muttering distractedly to herself and he was worried that maybe she’d made Sonya. Any second now she could call for reinforcements, spoiling his plan.