A Season For Everything by Matthew Fairman (e reader txt) 📖

the money from his wallet his fingers moved stiffly like uncoordinated chopsticks. He took a newspaper from a rack by the door and sat down in a booth by a radiator. He drank some of the bandy, it tasted good, the fire growing in his belly. He stuffed his left hand between the radiator and the old the peeling stiff folds of the anaglypta wallpaper. It began to burn but it felt good, he swapped hands. He pretended to read the paper, taking tiny sips from his glass to make it last. It was not long until he had fallen asleep. When he woke. it was getting dark outside, he checked his watch and wound it. It was a quarter past four. He had not been asleep for long. There were a few people in the pub. He recognised the man who had spoken to him in the toilets. He was sitting alone at the bar drinking. The young barmen was preparing the fire in the grate for the evening, twisting and knotting sheets of newspaper and stacking them in the grate like a wigwam. Two old ladies occupied the booth in front, they gossiped greedily over their tall glasses of ruby port, engrossed. Beaton got up and went to the gents. He sat in the cubicle but he was constipated and couldn’t go. He spooled off about half the roll of toilet paper and put it in his pocket for later. He ran his hands under the hot tap and stared at himself in the mirror. He hardly recognised himself. He looked like a castaway. His face was gaunt and rawboned, his eyes were ringed and bruised looking. The long bristles on his face made him look slightly crazed. He took off his hat and threw water on his face. He tried his best to straighten himself out before leaving. He took his empty glass to the bar, the barman stopped what he was doing and served him another, returning afterwards to finish the fire. The man drinking at the bar said

‘Hello’.

‘Hello.’ ‘We met the other night, right? Your drink went al over your lap.’

‘Yeah that’s right’ The man stuck his hand out, Beaton shook it.

‘I’m Finn, everyone knows Finn.’

‘Im, Be, Ben, umm, Benjamin.’ He didn’t really mean to lie it just happened that way and once it was done that was it.

‘I hope I didn’t run you off that night, you just kind of left in such a hurry. I can be a right gob shite when I’ve had a few too many.’

‘No, no you were fine, I remembered I had to be somewhere.’

Beaton got up and went to his booth but the man just followed him as if invited, talking all the while.

‘Sometimes you just got to say Finn, shut the fuck up.’ Beaton said the words in his head as Finn set his beer down on the table.

‘Not that that will do you much good.’ He laughed.

Beaton stared at him, hadn’t heard the last comment he didn’t understand at what point the conversation had become funny. Finn checked his laughter coughed a little nervously. ‘Yeah, uhum, well thats just the way I am I guess.’

There was a pause that Finn attempted to fill the air with conversation. He was clearly used to talking for two people.

‘So, you just moved up this way then, I’ve lived in the village most my life. Not born here mind you.’ Finn wittered away like this at length about nothing and everything facing the same way as Beaton, looking out across the pub floor. Finn noticed that Beaton was staring at the great Alsatian dog who was standing beneath the hatch that led behind the bar. Desperate to seize on any subject that might hold the interest of his newly found confidant Finn whistled loudly in the air . He thrust his arm in the direction of the dog and rubbed his thumb and fingers together making a sort of tutting’ noise with his tongue on the roof of his mouth.

‘Kaiser, here boy, c’mere Kaiser Boy’.

The dog sniffed the ground at its feet sheepishly and skulked over to the two men sitting at the table. Finn then started talking to the dog.

‘Aww whose a soppy old boy eh. You miss your mummy don’t ya. Don’t worry, she’ll be back. Daddy’s gone to find her.’

Finn rubbed the dog beneath the chin, the dog sat there looking indifferent.

‘He’s been moping around these last two days.’

Finn brought his voice down to an audible whisper. He seemed to be in his element a master of gossip and intrigue about to serve up a nice juicy bit gossip fresh off the press. Finn would have been in better company if he had been sitting with the two old ladies in the next booth.

‘The thing is you see, she’s run off.’

‘What’ replied Beaton.’

‘She’s run off, the landlords wife. Missing two days now. Said she was going out to the shops. Never came back. I’m not surprised neither, Mike hardly even passes the time of day with her. Now there’s a strange relationship.’

Beaton stared at the dog. He was thinking of the body of the woman in the cave. ‘Mike’s gone into Town to file a missing persons report, no note, nothing, the only thing she took was her purse.’

‘You mean his gone to the police, now?’

‘Well yeah, he’s worried sick. Thinks she’s gone and done something stupid , well you know what I mean. With her being depressed and all. Losing her son that way.’

Beaton drained his glass. His head was pounding. He cradled it in his hands, tried to squeeze it to force himself to think clearly. Finn was saying something to him but he wasn’t listening. He sat with his chin resting on the table top, both his hands folded atop of his head. He stared at the finger of flame flicker around the paper as the fire took. What was he going to do. The police wold come, they would come with dogs. They would search the quarry. They would find the body. Beaton lifted his gaze from fireplace and rested it on the large rusting bucksaw that hung from the chimney piece. It was then he realised what he had to do.

‘Are you OK, you look kind of funny’

‘Yeah, i’m fine now, i’m fine, i’m fine. It’s just this cold, it get’s right into you.’

 

At 2:00pm, on a Thursday afternoon, Michael Powell drove into town to report his wife missing. He took with him to the police station a recent photograph of his wife, Emma. He had not seen these last two days. A young male police officer took him to an interview room and offered him a cup of tea which he refused asking for water instead. The officer asked him questions and took notes.

‘So when exactly did you last see you wife Mr Powell?’

It was the day before yesterday, in the morning. Around about nine ish. She went to post some christmas cards.’

‘Why did you wait so long before you reported her missing?’ Mike leaned on the table and rubbed his eyes and sighed.

‘I thought she might have been at her sisters.’

‘But she said she was going to post some christmas cards.’, the police officer had stopped writing and was tapping the end of the biro on the pad, looking at Mike with a dead pan expression on his face.

‘Is there anything we should know about your relationship with your wife, any problems. A reason for her to want to leave.’

‘Look I came here to report my wife missing, not to be interrogated.’

‘Calm down Mr Powell, the more we know the easier it will be to locate your wife. Things between yourself and your wife are good then?.

Mike rubbed at his temples with his thumbs in a slow circular motion.

’We have our ups and downs, you know how it is, we fight sometimes’

‘Is your wife taking any medication at the moment, anything that might effect her moods?’

‘No, no, nothing like that.’ Mike paused.

It was the hesitation of a man who is considering to disclose something. It was a pause that PC Lusie had witnessed many times before.

‘Mr Powell, if there is something you know that might help us find your wife then you need to let us know.’ The big man gave out a big sigh. The sound of pent up tension exiting through the nostrils.

‘She gets depressed, she sometimes goes off on these walks when she gets depressed.’

‘Has she ever harmed herself, any indication that she might..,’

‘No, no, nothing like that. It’s because of our son. He died. He killed himself. She never got over it.’

Michael Powell sat with his palms cupped in his lap, head hung.

‘Im sorry to hear that Mr Powell, It must be a huge strain on both of you. As far as you are aware there is no one that would want to do any harm to either you or your wife.

‘No, no, theres nobody like that. We run the Quarryman’s arms up on the hill. We get the regular crowd. Everyone knows everyone, you now how it is.

‘We’ll get a police officer to come up and have a look around. They’ll want to take some DNA sample’

‘DNA?’

‘Don’t worry, it’s purely procedure, it doesn’t mean a thing. In the meantime just try and keep positive and go about your day as best you can. I know it’s hard. Let us know if anything comes up and I mean anything, big or small. I’ll be contacting all the appropriate outside agencies and charities that deal with missing peoples. We have contact and access to national and international databases so be rest assured that we will be doing everything that can be done to find your wife. I know it’s small comfort but it’s still early days.’

 

Later the same day, Hollis Bergan looked through the interview notes over a cup of coffee.

‘Did you check out what happened to the son.’

‘Yeah, really sad case. Boy was fifteen years old. Hung himself in a tree up at the quarry. No witnesses, just the dog.’ Hollis rested her chin on her chest her neck felt tight. She was thinking about the boy hanging there.

‘The mum found him, cut him down herself’. Hollis was talking but not to Steve she was staring at the table thinking of her own two boys.

‘How sad, and imagine living up there by the quarry all this time after.’ She snapped out of it and looked at Steve. Her voice switched from being meditative to purposeful

‘I’m going to up there tomorrow, have a nose around.’

‘I thought it was your day off.’

‘Yeah, So. I like a nice stroll in the woods and a pint in a real local pub.’

‘I know it won’t do me any good to say it but that sounds like the dumbest idea you’ve had to date. I wish you wouldn’t tell me when your going to do something stupid. I don’t want to be involved.’

‘You going to squeal on me.’

‘I never heard anything about this. We didn’t have this conversation and I don’t want to be reminded of it when the Sarge hauls your arse into his office.’

‘I won’t, I won’t. Don’t you worry.’ Steve shook his head in disbelief.

‘You are unbelievable Hollis, you really are.’

‘Thank you Steve.’

‘I mean, you really don’t learn do you.’

‘I have a hunch about this, Steve. I reckon that Beaton guy is the reason why she’s run away.’

‘Why, why does everything have to be linked. People go missing all over the country every single day. It doesn’t mean they are related. You can’t go running off every time you have one of your hunches. Your not a D.I your a constable.’

‘Jeez, calm down, forget I ever mentioned it. I’m just going up there for a stroll about in the woods. Nothing more.’ Steve hovered at by her table for a while, the silence indicating their mutual agreement that the topic was now well and truly closed.

 

It was dark outside when Beaton made his way back home. It was a