Forgotten Graves: Whitby's Forgotten Victims Book 4, page 37
The warmth of Christmas dinner settled in Frank’s belly, accompanied by the soft padding of Rylan’s paws across the carpet. His eyes drifted closed, his body sinking deeper into the armchair.
He dreamt of his walk with Evelyn in Pannett Gardens the day before, her laughter carrying on the crisp winter air, the way her eyes had crinkled at the corners when she smiled.
Then he stirred and blinked against the soft glow of Christmas tree lights. Gerry and Tom sat cross-legged by the coffee table, a spread of playing cards between them. Rylan dozed at their feet, one ear cocked in Frank’s direction.
‘Bloody hell… sorry…’ Frank sat up and stretched out. ‘How long was I out?’
‘Almost an hour,’ Tom said, laying down a card with deliberate precision. ‘You were snoring like a freight train.’
Gerry’s brow furrowed as she studied her cards.
Tom laughed. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Just a moment,’ she said.
Tom looked at Frank and winked. ‘She’s retracing her steps, seeing how she lost.’
She put the cards down. ‘Okay… I see where I went wrong now.’
‘She means I won,’ Tom translated with a grin.
Frank watched them packing away the cards, struck by how naturally they moved around each other now. All that anxiety over lists and rules seemed far away.
‘You slept through the king’s speech,’ Gerry said.
Frank clicked his fingers. ‘Darn. Another yearly run-through of the problems it’s up to us to solve.’
‘It was positive – about how well things are going,’ Gerry said.
‘Eh? That’s even worse. A fairy tale. The truth is one thing, being lied to is another.’
‘A few messages came through on your phone while you were asleep,’ Tom said. ‘I didn’t want to wake you.’
He checked his phone. Messages from Evelyn.
Dinner turned into a hostage situation – grandkids refused to leave the table until they got thirds. Janet’s threatening to serve sprouts for pudding.
Don’t you dare tell Janet I’m drinking sherry – she thinks this is herbal tea.
He chuckled to himself.
‘Evelyn or Henrietta?’ Tom asked with exaggerated innocence.
Frank fixed him with a stern look. ‘Listen here, you cheeky sod. I’m sixty-five years old. Do you have me pegged for some kind of geriatric Casanova?’
‘Well…’ Tom drew the word out with a grin.
‘Bloody hell, man! I spent most of my life barely managing one relationship,’ Frank continued, ‘and now you think I’m part of a harem?’
‘That’s not what he meant,’ Gerry interjected, her tone matter of fact. ‘Tom is merely observing that both Evelyn and Henrietta appear to have developed a romantic interest in you, despite your persistent self-deprecation regarding your age and appearance.’
Frank regarded her – he knew it wasn’t sarcasm, just her usual blunt accuracy. ‘Enough now… I’m grateful for the dinner, but no more references to me as some kind of fancy dandy across town.’ He patted his stomach. ‘I mean, look at that… if I post a picture of myself online, I’m not getting any. What do you call ’em? Hits? Am I?’
‘Don’t be down on yourself, Frank,’ Gerry said. ‘Your weight has come down, and you’re male, single and heterosexual. Both Evelyn and Henrietta are both single women of compatible age and social status. These attractions make sense. Statistically.’
Tom had to turn away, shoulders shaking with suppressed laughter.
‘Right,’ Frank declared, ‘that’s enough of that. How about I catch up on that king’s speech instead? Might as well end the day with a proper fairy tale.’
Gerry reached for the remote, but before she could find the recording, Frank’s phone buzzed again. This time it wasn’t a message – it was an alert from his brand new video doorbell he’d only fitted yesterday.
He sat up straight in his chair, heart pounding.
It was that scrote. At his door!
He pressed a button to activate the audio feed—only to be informed that his cheaper model didn’t have one.
Bollocks!
‘Frank?’ Gerry’s voice seemed to come from very far away. ‘What’s wrong?’
He held up a hand for silence, eyes fixed on the screen. The figure was wearing gloves – no prints then. But something about the way they moved… The way they reached for the door…
Then he saw it—a key. His key. Maddie’s. ‘I have to go,’ he said, already moving toward the door. His mind raced ahead – if he took the back streets, avoided the town centre…
‘Frank, wait—’ Gerry started.
‘I’ll call you,’ he promised, though his thoughts were already at home, calculating times and distances.
The drive passed in a blur of salted roads and Christmas lights. His heart pounded against his ribs as he rewatched the feed on his phone at traffic lights – the figure entering his house, moving with the familiarity of someone who knew the layout.
He barely felt the cold as he rushed up his drive. Inside, the house was silent, but the air felt different somehow. Disturbed.
‘Who’s here?’ he called out, moving from room to room with increasing desperation.
Nothing.
He’d gone.
He spotted something on the kitchen counter. A folded piece of paper.
His hands shook as he opened it:
For 10k, I’ll tell you where she is.
A phone number followed.
He punched in the digits, grip white-knuckled on the phone.
‘Yeah?’ A young, male voice.
‘If you’ve hurt her, you piece of shit, I’ll tear your fucking throat out—’
‘She’s fine.’ The voice was maddeningly calm.
‘You’ve kidnapped my daughter, you little scrote. How do you think this ends?’
‘I haven’t kidnapped Maddie. I just know where she is. And how much you want to see her.’
Frank’s free hand clenched into a fist. ‘Where is she?’
‘Money first.’
‘Money? You won’t be able to spend it – I’ll be pulling you apart piece by—’
‘Ten k. I’ll send the bank details. It’s not unrealistic. Man your age, healthy savings, retirement plan…’
‘You seem to know a lot about me.’ Frank forced his voice level, professional instincts kicking in despite the rage and fear coursing through him. ‘Who is this?’
‘Maddie and I were close once.’
The thought repulsed him. ‘How do I know you won’t just take the money and run?’
‘You don’t. But I won’t.’
‘What guarantee do I have that you even know where she is?’
‘I’ll send you two images. Then I’m binning this phone.’
The line went dead. Seconds later, two photos arrived.
The first nearly brought Frank to his knees. Maddie, in profile, opening a door. Her hair was longer than he remembered, but that tilt of her chin – pure Mary. His girl. Alive.
The second showed a battered wheelie bin behind what looked like an abandoned house. An address followed, then another message:
House is empty. Withdraw 2k a day from the 26th. Drop the money in the bin at 3 p.m. on the 31st. You have my word. The line was already dead when he tried calling back.
Frank sank onto the sofa, his whole body trembling. He looked up at Mary’s photograph.
‘I know what you’d say, love,’ he whispered. ‘That I should call it in.’ He scrubbed a hand over his face. ‘But I know how that sometimes goes… Look, if there’s even a chance… what’s 10k?’
His phone rang – Gerry again. He let it go to voicemail, knowing she’d be worried but unable to form words right now.
Less than a week until he delivered, and he might see his daughter again.
Or until he realised that he’d made the worst mistake of his life by agreeing to it!
He reached for the TV remote with unsteady hands, needing noise, distraction, anything to fill the silence.
The king’s speech.
A fairy tale.
God, did he need his own right now.
Three Months Later…
Christie’s world had collapsed again. Her hands trembled so violently that she couldn’t fit the key into her parents’ front door. ‘Right-handed.’
Detective Moss’s words.
‘Right-handed.’
It had become a mantra, pounding through her head.
Right-handed… right-handed…
Frozen in time with her heartbeat, erratic for the last hour. She’d forgiven him. Believed him.
And now, with those words—right-handed—another deception was dissolving her like acid. When she finally managed the door, the house felt hollow, and most of it was dark. Some light spilled from the kitchen.
She found her father preparing tea, squeezing the teabag against the side of the mug with his right hand. That fucking right hand. ‘Christie, flower?’ His voice carried a familiar note of paternal concern that now made her stomach turn.
Had every moment of concern been an act?
His worry, his love – all part of the performance?
‘What’s wrong?’ He asked.
Unable to bear the sight of what might be another mask, and not knowing what to say, she fled back into the darkness of the hallway, and then took the stairs where Georgina Prince had died, two at a time, until she reached her parents’ bedroom.
Caroline sat enthroned in her favourite chair by the window, winter light catching her silver hair like a halo. Her nightgown, though pristine, hung on her frame like a shroud. Since the arrest, she’d faded fast. It was hard not to think of a photograph left for too long in the sunlight. Caroline had come home to die. The case would never go to trial.
‘Mum?’ Christie’s voice cracked.
Caroline’s gaze drifted toward her without recognition, those once-sharp eyes now clouded like frosted glass.
Christie stared at her mother’s left hand, searching for some sign of weakness that might validate the lie she’d told less than an hour ago to Moss. But like everything else in this house, even truth refused to cooperate. Her left hand wasn’t curled up like a claw, and difficult to use.
Just like her father, and the governors, and Georgina Prince’s parents, she’d joined the realm of the deceitful.
‘She’s been talking about school all morning,’ Stephen said from behind her. ‘She was back in the past for a short time. I think I heard genuine happiness in her voice—’
Christie whirled to face her father in the door, rage turning her voice to ice. ‘Don’t.’
‘I don’t understand?’ He came forward and his hand touched her shoulder. She jerked away as if burned.
‘This constant performance! I don’t know what’s true any more!’
‘This makes no sense, flower…’ His familiar endearment now felt like a knife twisting in her heart.
She led him to another room, away from her mother, before turning on him. ‘A detective DC Moss called. About Georgina’s death.’
She clocked the stiffening of his spine.
‘Her murder,’ Christie said. Now, it was her turn to twist the knife.
He flinched. ‘Why?’
‘He was tidying up the paperwork for filing away. Since it will not go to trial, it needed closing. Something made him curious.’
Right-handed… Right-handed…
She grabbed her skull. Those words. Moss’s words. She just couldn’t get them out of her fucking head.
She felt his hand on her arm. ‘Flower?’
The way he said it, like none of it had ever happened. ‘Get your fucking hands off me!’
He complied, but she heard him take a deep breath.
‘Right to left… Right to left…’ she said, holding up her right hand. ‘Face on, the hammer struck Georgina’s left temple. So, according to the pathologist, it was more likely the blow came from the right hand of the assailant.’
Stephen took another deep breath. ‘I’m not sure what that even means…’
‘Mum is left-handed.’
Stephen nodded. ‘All sorts of factors influence that, surely… How quickly did she grab the weapon? Maybe the angle when she turned…’
‘Maybe… That’s why it was easier to lie for you… Dad.’
He took a step back, wide eyed, guffawing. ‘What is it you’re saying?’
‘I’m saying that it was you who hit Georgina with a hammer, not Mum.’
He snorted. ‘Ridiculous.’ He shook his head and stared at Christie angrily. ‘Did the detective suggest that?’
‘No… he was querying it. And like I said, I lied for you.’
‘Okay… let’s knock this off now. You haven’t lied for anyone.’
‘I’ve… lied… for you…’
‘Flower, I—’
Christie narrowed her eyes. ‘Fuck you, Dad. Don’t you ever call me that again.’
He paled and took another step back.
‘I said that because of Mum’s condition, she’d been experiencing weakness in her left side. She’d been struggling to hold things. Dropping them. It went some way to explaining why she may have opted to use her right in the heat of the moment.’
The silence stretched between them like a tightrope between cliff edges.
‘Let’s hope they don’t check against her medical records, eh?’ she finally said. ‘Or we’re both fucked.’
He gulped and turned slightly, lowering his head.
He thought for a while, then looked up, fixed her with a stare, and said, ‘You shouldn’t have lied, Christie, but it’s okay now, I’m sure it will be fine. But whatever you think—’
‘Bollocks.’ Christie spat the word. ‘Just stop!’ She put her hands over her ears. ‘I don’t believe anything you say any more.’
He reached out and she evaded his hand.
She circled around him, looking up at the person she’d adored above everyone. The person she’d mirrored her life on.
She could see it in his eyes now. The realisation that he’d lost her. That he was about to lose Caroline. And her brother, well, her brother was never there. Gallivanting off around the world.
Can you sense the loneliness that awaits you, Dad?
She fought back the feelings of pity rising within her. She fought them back with another hard truth. ‘You watched your wife, my mother, being led away in a nightgown?’
He snapped his head to one side, and a tear rolled down his cheek. ‘What choice did I have? She’d have died alone – without me.’
‘She’d have had me, Milo…’
‘Not having me would have destroyed her all the more.’
‘Instead, you’ve ruined her reputation – the woman you love. Supposedly. Forever more, those people who looked up to her as a teacher will think she was a killer.’
‘They will understand. Rationalise it, because she was sick…’
She pointed. ‘No Dad, you’re the one who’s sick.’
She turned and marched away, down the stairs.
He, of course, chased her. ‘Well, if you want it so much… if you believe so adamantly in justice, then phone them… tell them the truth.’
At the bottom of the steps, she turned. ‘No… it’s too late… I want you to live with what you’ve done to Mum, to me… and, when I tell him, Milo—’
‘Flower…’ There were tears in his eyes now.
‘My mother will die believing she murdered someone… you cold bastard.’
‘She doesn’t. She won’t. Her memory… it’s—’
‘Convenient, for you.’
She turned and took the door handle. ‘One more thing…’ She looked back… ‘Georgina Prince. Was that true as well? Did you abuse her?’
‘No,’ he snapped.
‘Did you abuse any of them?’
‘How could you ask me that?’
‘Did you?’
He flinched and looked away. ‘Of course not.’
Was that a delay? A suggestion that he was also guilty of that?
‘I will call ahead when I visit, so you can be out, Stephen. After the funeral, I never want to see you again.’
And then Christie left, dissolving into darkness beneath the weight of two generations of lies – her father's, and now her own.
The Funeral
Stephen’s living room buzzed with former colleagues from Riverside, their voices a low murmur of shared memories.
He moved between them, catching fragments of conversations.
They shared stories – Caroline’s fierce dedication to mathematics, her protective instincts toward struggling students, the way her infectious laugh could silence a staff room mid-argument.
He appreciated the gentle murmur of shared memories – echoes of who she was before the illness stripped her dignity.
Nobody had mentioned Georgina. Caroline was being remembered as she deserved to be remembered: brilliant, dedicated, loved.
Christie and Milo had performed their roles perfectly at the funeral, flanking him in the front pew like dutiful children should. The illusion of a family united in grief.
Later, she’d hissed to him in private, ‘See how well I fake it? See how well I lie? You must be so proud, Dad.’
Milo hadn’t bothered with words at all. He didn’t seek out any explanations, content to ignore him. Now Stephen’s children stood together near the buffet table, untouched plates in their hands. Their grief was no longer an act but something raw, something real – grief for their mother, for their lost innocence, for the father they had thought they knew.
The house would go on the market tomorrow. A bungalow would suffice for his remaining years, and his children’s accounts would swell with money. A final gift from a father who had genuinely loved them, regardless of what they believed.
Stephen glanced around the room again, noting the faces of those who’d admired him all these years. His reputation had been everything – the cost of maintaining it beyond calculation. In the end, it had cost him his children’s love.
He hoped that one day, perhaps when he was gone, they’d find it in their hearts to forgive him.
