For Rye Gavin Gardiner (best book club books for discussion TXT) 📖

back of the articulated lorry. Although being treated for third-degree burns at Millbury Peak Community Hospital, the truck’s driver and passenger were both in a stable condition. A slightly blackened crater on the road was all that was left of the incident, a reminder of the madness gripping the placid town in weeks past. Thomas’s babbling had continued deep into the night following the explosion. This was, his mutterings declared, the end of times. As for Renata, the memory of the blast was putting her even more on edge than usual. Every time that old familiar pain shot through her head she expected her world to erupt in light once again, but it never did. No more trucks, no more explosions.

Now, the following evening, the chaos of sirens and reporters and clattering stretchers was replaced by this far-off chit-chat. Renata set down the fabric scissors beside her needle and thread, planning to resume this tedious repair job on her father’s moth-ravaged trousers later, and looked at the snoring man in the armchair.

She’d set aside Thomas’s outburst from her second night at the house. Not that it hadn’t upset her, but time was limited; find Noah, pass on this damned responsibility to him or his wife or his husband or whoever the hell filled her stranger-brother’s life, and get out – of everywhere.

She didn’t consider herself ‘depressed’, and she didn’t hate life. The thought of suicide had materialised in her mind in much the same way Millbury Peak had emerged in the mist: first an indistinguishable shape in the fog, then total clarity. It was a tactical escape route, she’d told herself. Find her oh-so-busy brother, (Of course, Noah. It was just a small service anyway. Oh, I know, you can’t abandon your commitments. I completely understand.) dump her father, (By the way, here’s Dad.) and get out. Leave the debts, leave the dad, leave the knife-eyes. Leave it all. And every extra day that she hung onto, that coiled hemp snake continued its incessant whisperings:

…it would have held it would have held it would have

Laughter broke up the chattering. She stepped over the unconscious Samson to peer through the grimy window and saw two men sitting by the charred crater. After a quick glance at the snoring skeleton in the armchair, she made for the front door.

Detective O’Connell took a swig, then noticed Renata. He quickly handed Quentin the hipflask. ‘Miss Wakefield, good evening. We’re just—’

‘I was just telling the detective the secret of what the C in my name stands for,’ Quentin interjected. ‘Nothing! Totally random. Just thought it sounded good.’ He nudged Hector. ‘Bet my ex-wife could think of something though, right?’ He held out the hipflask. ‘Evening tipple, Ren?’

She eased the door shut. ‘How’s the investigation coming?’ she asked Hector, unsurprised at his return to drink. People were fickle, disappointing. She knew this.

‘Well this is just a celebratory drink, actually,’ he rumbled, thick fingers pawing an unshaved cheek. ‘A one-off. Today was my last day on the force. I’m officially retired.’ He jerked forward as a grinning Quentin thumped him on the back and passed the scotch.

‘I had no idea. Congratulations, Detective,’ said Renata. ‘Or is it just Mr O’Connell now?’

His smile faded. He cleared his throat. ‘Actually, with your permission, I intend to continue my investigation. You see, I’m afraid I wasn’t so…popular within the force.’

‘They thought the drink got to him,’ Quentin hiccupped.

‘Yes, and they were right.’ He looked at the crater. ‘But they weren’t getting the job done and they were holding me back. I’ll make better progress without them – or the drink.’ He took a long look at the hipflask then passed it to Quentin.

‘Forgive me,’ said Renata, fingering her sleeve, ‘but did you retire just to further this investigation?’

He looked up, the man’s weathered face as solid as a mountain. He sighed. ‘Like I said, your mother deserves justice.’

The fog thickened around the small assembly. The early evening light was soon replaced with the glow of a full moon. The blackened crater stood out before them.

Quentin stretched, then glanced at his watch. ‘Well, Ren, I promised Hector I’d give you folks some alone time to go over the details of what happened yesterday.’ His tone dropped as he looked back at the crater. ‘I better be going.’ He took one last swig before tossing Hector the hipflask. ‘Happy retirement, Detective.’

Renata and Hector’s efforts to slip into the house unnoticed were in vain. Thomas awoke with a gargled demand for his dead wife.

‘Sylvia,’ he barked, saliva swinging from his underbite, ‘I need my pills. Sylvia, my pills.’

‘Sorry, Father. It’s just me,’ said Renata, picking her palm. ‘Hector’s come to visit. He was hoping to ask us some questions about the explosion outside the house yesterday.’

‘Good evening, Thomas. You’re looking well,’ Hector lied.

‘I don’t have time for this,’ the old man spat. ‘Go before the altar where my wife burnt, the same wife whose killer you people are too incompetent to find, and ask your questions to the good Lord.’

Further mutterings snapped from his withered lips, increasingly unintelligible in tone, until his eyelids slowly drooped over their vacant interiors.

‘Sorry, don’t take it personally,’ whispered Renata. ‘We’ll talk in the kitchen.’

They left Thomas’s agonal snoring. Any evening the old man was able to sleep as much as this was a good evening. ‘I know it’s getting late, so I won’t keep you long,’ Hector said, heaving his bulky body into a rickety chair by the larder door. He rubbed his hairless head, then straightened. ‘Could you start by telling me exactly what you saw yesterday?’

‘Well, it was early,’ she began, steam rising from the sink as she gave her hands a hurried wash. ‘I’d just woken up. I heard a rumbling outside my bedroom window and—’

‘Your bedroom,’ he interrupted, ‘the same room you had as a child?