The Family Lie Read online

  That did get a response, a slight twitch of the eyes he was so fond of narrowing. ‘Prescott,’ said the policeman in those deep tones of his. Then he surprised Mitch by saying: ‘Apples.’

  Could it be … No, surely not! But it was. Now that Mitch cast his mind back to sitting in here, he thought about the copper who’d nabbed him in the first place. The one who’d brought him back here and rung for his father to come and pick him up. Almost twenty years had passed, but yes – the same beard, just shot through with grey back then instead of snow white. The same judgemental eyes. Good God, this man had a memory! But then Mitch had to wonder how many criminals passed through here on a daily basis anyway. Just had the single cell in the back that he was aware of, and he only knew that because his father had threatened him with it after the scrumping affair. ‘I’ve a good mind to let them stick you in there to cool off, lad! You need to be punished!’ Over apples. Bloody apples! It had lodged in this guy’s mind, obviously. Though according to his aunty and uncle there was a veritable crime wave happening at the moment, with regards to robberies at any rate.

  Mitch gave a nervous laugh, then wished he hadn’t. This guy didn’t possess anything approaching a sense of humour, would not find his antics as a boy funny, and the subject he himself was here about was definitely no laughing matter. ‘Yeah, I-I’m sorry about that. It never happened again, if that’s any help?’ Apparently not. ‘Turned into a fine, upstanding citizen, as it happens.’ He thought about adding that it was all down to him, then decided it was overkill. Again, poor choice of words. ‘Actually, I’m a copper myself.’

  Those eyes were narrowing again. ‘That a fact?’ said the old man in his strung-out drawl. In the absence of any kind of inflection, it was hard to tell whether it was a statement or somehow this guy knew that wasn’t the case anymore. That Mitch was so fine and upstanding, he’d been drummed out of the constabulary. For insubordination, no less. No, that wasn’t correct – Mitch had quit. Before they’d had a chance to drum him out for insubordination.

  He figured it was best to just nod, since he couldn’t be sure this bloke wasn’t a human lie-detector.

  ‘You’ll be here about your father, I suppose?’ the sergeant said next, though it took him about a week to get it out. If he was sympathetic to Mitch’s plight, or sorry for his loss, he didn’t show it. This might as well have been a robot talking to him, there had been more emotion from the cat.

  ‘I am, yes, sergeant …’

  He waited for the man’s name. Waited a while before he got it. ‘Wilkinson.’ Another wait as the sergeant shook his head and offered: ‘A nasty business.’

  ‘Yes,’ Mitch agreed. ‘I wasn’t told much about what exactly happened when they phoned me up. I’ve found out a little more since, but I was wondering, I mean, could you shed a little light on things for me?’

  ‘A little light?’ repeated the man, who sounded like he hadn’t understood the question.

  ‘Yeah,’ Mitch continued. ‘You know, the hows and wherefores. What exactly happened to him, all that.’

  ‘He died,’ the sergeant said, as if it would explain everything.

  Mitch rubbed his forehead, could feel the paracetamol wearing off – the effects of the hangover returning with a vengeance. ‘Yes, yes I know that. I mean, how he died. The fire.’

  The sergeant nodded now. ‘He died … because of the fire.’

  God, thought Mitch. It was like pulling teeth. ‘No, I know that. I just … The people who found him, campers weren’t they? Did they have anything to say? I’m assuming they were interviewed? Are they still around?’

  Wilkinson shook his head. ‘Sent them on their way.’

  Right, of course he had. Perfect. ‘And …’ Mitch nodded, waiting for more. The sergeant was frowning, obviously waiting for Mitch to carry on with his sentence first. ‘And what did they say in their statements?’

  ‘Oh, I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘But I just told you … Look, I’m a policeman myself. Even if I wasn’t, I’ve got every right to know what—’ This was getting him nowhere, so Mitch changed tack. ‘The body then. Where’s the body right now? Still at the hospital?’

  ‘In the morgue,’ Wilkinson answered eventually, giving a single nod.

  Mitch nodded back, gestured with his free hand. Nothing. Okay, fine, if he needed it spelling out: ‘Do you think I can see it?’

  Wilkinson thought about this, before asking, ‘Why?’

  Because I’m having a barbecue this weekend and I’m looking for cooking suggestions, why do you think? ‘Has he been formally identified?’

  ‘There …’ Wilkinson began, then thought about his next words carefully. He thought about all of his words carefully. ‘He wasn’t in a good way.’

  No? Really? He’d been on fire and not in a good way, imagine that? Didn’t he want a tan or something?

  ‘They used dental records,’ Wilkinson said finally.

  That would make sense. He would have been a complete mess after all that, it had probably taken a while to even work out who he was. ‘I’d like to see him,’ Mitch stated sombrely and in a tone he hoped conveyed the message that he wasn’t about to take no for an answer.

  Wilkinson’s eyes narrowed again, then opened wide. ‘You want to see him?’

  I thought that was what I just said! ‘Yeah. I want to see him. Please.’ He added that in case it was his lack of manners standing in the way.

  Sergeant Wilkinson nodded one final time. ‘All right then, lad,’ he said in that peculiar way he had of speaking. ‘If that’s what you really want.’ Mitch thought about chipping in – let’s face it, he had bags of time to do so – saying that yes, absolutely that’s what he wanted (even though it was really the last thing in the world he actually did want), but in the end didn’t need to.

  ‘Then I suppose I’d better take you myself,’ the old man completed.

  Chapter 8

  If he wasn’t careful, he’d develop a problem.

  Mitch had promised himself he wasn’t going to have a drink tonight; for one thing most of the brandy was gone, and for another the hangover that morning had been vicious. He needed to keep a clear head at the moment; needed to be sharp, at his best.

  There were some officers on the force who swore by it, of course. Took the edge off, they said. But he wasn’t on the force anymore. Hadn’t succumbed when he’d been working the job, just the odd celebratory one or few after a big case (the rounds were usually on the senior officers then, so it seemed rude not to). Lucy’s disapproval was enough to make sure it didn’t become a habit at home, no matter what he’d seen or encountered that day.

  Lucy was miles away at the moment, however.

  Speaking to her via video messaging didn’t really count. He’d done that back at the hospital again, when he’d come out from seeing his father – finally called her up. Had needed to see her, hear her … hear someone familiar’s voice. Thought it might be enough to carry him through.

  Mitch had ended up hiding how he felt once more, though, didn’t want to lay all this on her. And so the conversation had been more than a little stilted, awkward. Sticking to the basics.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘I’m doing okay, Lucy. You know? As well as can be expected.’ Whatever that meant.

  ‘Uh-huh.’

  He certainly hadn’t gone into the details of what he’d seen after he arrived at the small hospital a short distance from Green Acres village. He’d been driven there by Sergeant Wilkinson – as fast as he talked. But he’d been grateful to the man for taking him, for coming with him, and by the time all this was over the guy was actually quite growing on Mitch. His heart was in the right place, at least, which was more than you could say for people like Staton.

  ‘Through there, lad,’ he’d pointed as they entered the tiny facility, but Mitch recalled where everything was from the old days. The days when his Aunty Helen had her surgery here, before she retired. ‘I’ll give you some privacy.’


  The lone, middle-aged receptionist with straight brown hair, who’d been reading a battered paperback when he got to the desk – possibly the woman who’d phoned him up – pointed him in the direction of the morgue: one of only a handful of rooms they had here. He’d have been able to find it himself simply by trying each door, would’ve taken minutes.

  He was glad there was someone around when he entered: a doctor who introduced himself as Larson, standing up from his position sitting at a side desk and shaking Mitch’s hand. Larson had one of those smug faces and grins that you really wanted to just slap, looking at Mitch over his thin-rimmed spectacles, but was actually all right. He spoke quicker than Wilkinson, which was something, and actually turned out to be the most helpful person Mitch had encountered since returning.

  ‘Ah yes, the Prescott incident.’ That’s what he’d called it, an ‘incident’, not case. ‘Nasty business,’ the doctor told him, echoing his uncle’s and Wilkinson’s words.

  ‘So I’m told,’ Mitch couldn’t help saying. ‘I’d like to see him, if I can.’

  Larson’s brow creased, had the same look as Wilkinson back at the station. ‘Are you quite sure? I mean, he is … was your father.’

  ‘That’s why I have to see him,’ Mitch insisted.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Larson escorted him to the quartet of drawers in the chilled metal cabinet where they kept the recently deceased, explaining that Thomas Prescott was the only resident at the moment. ‘There aren’t that many at any given time,’ he went on to explain.

  The inside was even colder when Larson opened up the drawer itself, the exact opposite of the extreme temperature that had killed his dad in the first place. Mitch shivered, regretting having left his jacket behind. The body was covered over with a sheet, just a misshapen lump resting on the drawer which slid out. ‘Now, are you certain about this? It’s not a pretty sight.’

  Mitch nodded emphatically. What was it with these people trying to stop him from seeing his father’s remains?

  Then Larson had pulled back the sheet, and he had to admit they may have had a point. It wasn’t that Mitch hadn’t seen dead bodies before, in fact – contrary to popular belief – PCs actually saw more of those than senior officers, because they were often the first on the scene. He’d seen stabbings, hangings, gangland executions, and, yes, deaths by fire before. It was just that the patchwork of charred blackness, of pinks and reds in front of him, was his dad. Making that mental connection was enough to turn his stomach and force him to look away again.

  Larson had obviously seen this before and was ready with a plastic bowl. ‘I’m okay. I’m all right,’ Mitch assured him. He thought of saying that it wasn’t seeing his parent like this, it was the hangover finally catching up with him, the queasiness from all that brandy. But it would have been a lie – and why did he need to act the tough guy here?

  It. Was. His. Dad.

  Had been. And even though he’d only seen the body for a few moments, every single inch was etched into his memory now: his mind flipping between the disfigured form and those pictures he’d found of his father back home. Re-enforcing that connection.

  Larson had patted him on the back, telling him he understood. ‘Incredibly hard. Very difficult,’ he said.

  ‘I just can’t …’ He looked up at the man, who appeared no less smug than before in spite of his words; it was a good job he was a decent human being. ‘What happened, Doc? I can’t get any answers out of anyone. What does the coroner reckon?’

  ‘Well, I sort of double up as that.’

  ‘Pathologist, then?’

  ‘Again …’

  Mitch sighed. ‘I just need to know what you think.’ When Larson looked uncomfortable, like he shouldn’t even be discussing this with him, Mitch informed him that he was police himself, and whatever he said would go no further. Asked him if he thought it was an accident, given his father’s previous medical condition.

  ‘I don’t really want to say for definite, but … Okay, all right, what I can tell you is it looks like there was some kind of accelerant involved, probably petrol. We’d have to run some tests to confirm that, obviously.’

  ‘And has the go-ahead been given for that?’

  ‘We’re still waiting for the green light,’ he said. ‘You know how it is around here.’

  Mitch knew, but this was his dad for Heaven’s sake! ‘Who’s the SIO on the case?’

  Larson looked at him blankly. ‘I don’t think they’ve … Isn’t Sergeant Wilkinson handling all that?’

  Handling it? Not so’s you’d notice, thought Mitch. ‘But in your professional opinion, this was most likely done to him? It could be murder we’re looking at?’

  Larson shook his head. ‘Now, I didn’t say that.’

  ‘Someone could have lured him out to those woods, poured petrol all over him and—’

  ‘People have been known to do this to themselves, you know. That Buddhist monk from the sixties, if memory serves, the Tunisian fellow from a decade or so ago.’

  Mitch struggled to recall the examples from history Larson was talking about. ‘They were both protests, weren’t they? Catalysts for change or something?’

  ‘Well, yes. Indeed. All right, that fellow outside the White House not so long ago then.’

  Mitch had definitely read about that at the time, someone who’d been out of his tree on drugs – K2 laced with PCP, wasn’t it? They’d called him the ‘Zombie’ man, which was why it had stuck in his mind, and they’d never worked out why he’d done it other than he was probably hallucinating. Eyewitnesses had described him as a ‘human torch’, like that guy in the comics. Had that been what his father had looked like, thought Mitch – and again flashes of the man before and after sped through his mind. He’d shaken his head to clear them. ‘You’re saying my dad could have been suffering from hallucinations at the time? That they caused him to do this to himself?’

  ‘I’m saying anything’s possible, Officer Prescott.’ That title sounded weird now, and Mitch couldn’t help wincing just a little, though if Larson noticed it he didn’t say anything. ‘In my line of work you end up saying that more than you’d like to.’

  Anything’s possible.

  He’d thanked the doctor, and they’d exchanged numbers – mobiles and landlines – to keep in touch about what was happening.

  The journey back with Wilkinson, after the talk with Lucy, was just as enlightening as the one there. For every question Mitch asked, the old policeman would think about it forever, then answer slowly without actually answering at all, sounding a lot like that Ent from The Lord of the Rings. The only thing he really managed to get out of him was the exact location where the ‘incident’ had taken place, a spot in the woods between the caves and the lake.

  Until they passed what his uncle had called ‘The Commune’ again, and Mitch spotted a few more of those people in cream smocks dotted about. Started to get that strange shivery feeling again. ‘What’s your take on those guys?’ he’d asked, and Wilkinson had briefly looked up and over. Couldn’t help sneering when he saw them. ‘Not a fan, eh?’

  ‘You want to leave them well enough alone,’ he said in his slow drawl.

  ‘Is that right? Any particular reason?’

  No reply. In fact, he couldn’t get another word out of the man after that.

  When they arrived back and got out, Mitch had thanked him, retrieved his jacket and helmet from inside the station, and headed back off on the bike again. He made for the small shop that served the village, ostensibly to get that cat food for … he realized he hadn’t named the thing, but Cat seemed to suit it somehow. Also, however, with one eye on the fact that night-time would come around all too soon and he was pretty much out of brandy back at the house. Mitch told himself he might fancy some later, that he’d developed a bit of a taste for it (yeah, right, in one day), when the truth was his actions were being fuelled by those images of his dad again.

  Before: the photo from last night.

  During: hum
an torch.

  After: blackened husk.

  Too much, it was; would be too much tonight. Certainly, brandy would help him sleep and he’d need to rest if he was to get to the bottom of all this.

  The shop itself was not much bigger than his dad’s living room, with three aisles you could walk up and down in a couple of strides. On the inside left when you came in were racks of magazines, with newspapers arranged at the foot. He spied the green logo of The Acre straight away; the headline ‘Proposed Housing Development Scheme!’ was in huge writing on the front, a small picture of a new-build house accompanying it. He could well imagine the slant that paper had given the piece, making it sound like invaders coming over the horizon.

  At the back was a glass booth with a hand-painted red sign attached to it proclaiming it was the ‘Post Office’. It more closely resembled one of those fortune-telling machines you might find on Golden Sands pier, but instead of a plastic man with a beard, the booth here was currently unoccupied, its chair empty. Mitch guessed that if you wanted stamps or whatever, you’d have to wait for the teenager who was manning the main counter to put on his other hat and open up the booth. Reading between the lines, the acne-riddled youth was probably the son of whoever owned the place now and they were keeping him occupied during the holidays, while simultaneously saving money by not having to hire someone to man the fort.

  When Mitch had been about his age, the owner had been a fearsome old battle-axe called Mrs Cooper, a widow whose husband had probably passed away from a case of terminal nagging. Had the woman had children herself? He couldn’t remember. But the lad did sort of look like old Coop, so maybe he was a grandson or something? That was how things worked in Green Acres, stuff got handed down through generations and it took a while for them to accept you as one of their own.

  He found the litter and dry cat food with the other pet stuff, tins of dog meat and the like, picked up a few microwave meals for himself, then took them over to the young boy. Mitch craned his neck, perusing the bottles of booze behind the counter, thought about asking what kind of brandy they had then decided he wasn’t that fussy, and just asked for a generic brand.