In Denial

ISBN
             
1479275697

EAN
             
978-1479275694

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

'In Denial' is published by Taylor Street Publishing LLC, who can be contacted at:

http://www.taylorstreetbooks.com

http://ninwriters.ning.com

'In Denial' is the copyright of the author, Nigel Lampard, 2012. All rights are reserved.

All characters are fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is accidental.

Dedicating this novel to three particular people is inadequate praise for their unbridled enthusiasm, support and encouragement, because without them my first and second novels would not have been published, and certainly not this, my third.

So to Sheena Wilcox and my sons Simon and Andrew, I would like to say a very big and heartfelt thank you. Without you nothing would have happened other than me putting yet another unedited manuscript under your noses.

Sheena, Simon and Andrew, thank you.

Approaching Luss from the south, Adam Harrison pulled off the main road near the entrance to a golf course and parked his car by the stone wall which bordered the edge of the loch. Where he stopped wasn’t really a car park or a lay-by; it seemed to be an old disused road, although whatever it might be, or might once have been, was irrelevant. The nearest car to his was well over fifty yards away, so knowing he would be alone, he got out and lifted his foot onto the low wall.

The water in the loch was as smooth as glass but ripples still lapped against the stones at the water’s edge. Although the light was fading he could just make out the far shore. That’s where it would happen - once he plucked up sufficient courage. He’d had the wherewithal to get this far but to complete what he came to do would take courage - real courage.

His eyes focused on the islands a couple of hundred yards away in the middle of the loch. He prayed there would be something, anything, which might give him a modicum of encouragement so he could believe he had a future on his own. What he had planned was so final, but unless he came up with a realistic and achievable alternative, he was going to have little choice but to go ahead with what he intended doing.

Whether deep down in his very soul he really wanted there to be a future was a different matter. If he did want there to be hope, why had he come this far? His gut feeling told him he had already crossed the Rubicon. Physically he was still alive, but inside his heart had died with them. He had prayed a lot although he wasn’t sure what for; nobody else would understand because he did not understand. She would have wanted him to look to the future rather than living in the past, regardless of how recent the past might be. She would have wanted him to have the hope and the strength to carry on. At the moment he did not have that strength.

If living is dependent on the existence of a catalyst and that catalyst is removed, the dependence still remains. Take a fish out of water and it will survive temporarily but its dependence on water, its catalyst for survival will guarantee its death unless quickly given back to the source of its life.

That is how he felt. They had been his catalyst; they had been his reason for living and they had been removed - permanently.

Initially he had lacked the courage but not the conviction: he now hoped the two would become as one, and soon.

It had not been necessary to mutilate them.

*  *  *

When he left home to drive to London late on the Sunday evening, they had all stood at the front door and waved him goodbye. He hugged each of them as he always hugged them. He kissed Lucinda on the lips, and the children on their foreheads and cheeks.

He opened the back door of his Lexus, threw his laptop onto the leather seat and slid behind the steering wheel. After opening the front window, he waved, blew kisses and waved again until they were no longer in view. It was the same Sunday evening routine as always, the same kisses, the same waves, the same ‘See you on Friday’, and ‘I love you,’ mouthed silently by Lucinda as he strained for a last look, a last glimpse of the other half of him, the half he was leaving behind. The half he would miss so much until Friday.

Then Friday came.

He pressed the remote just as he had five days ago after last seeing them. The garage door clunked open and he drove the Lexus into the space next to Lucinda’s
Seat Ibiza
. The slight whirring as the door opened usually brought Lucinda or one of the children to the front door to welcome him.

On this particular Friday it did not.

He shrugged and smiled as he approached the front door. Lucinda would be in the kitchen getting the meal ready, the radio or the TV turned up perhaps a little louder than normal. Charlotte would be listening to a CD she’d bought at some stage during the week, and Timothy would be playing Championship Manager on his computer. No doubt York City would be beating Manchester United four-one in the last game of the season to win the Premier Division and Timothy Harrison would be declared top manager of the 2003/2004 season.

He smiled as he slotted his laptop in next to the antique hat-stand in the hall. It fitted quite neatly into the space between the hat-stand and the hall table, and he hoped that maybe this would be the first weekend for a very long time that it would stay right there, not to be picked again until Monday morning.

Chance would be a fine thing.

It was only when he straightened up that he realised there wasn’t a sound. And why was the hall table light already on? It wouldn’t be dark for another hour or so.

‘
Hi, I’m home,’ he shouted.

Silence.

‘
You can stop the fun and games, I’m …’

He could not smell the evening meal. He was spot on time. It was Friday, just after seven, the traffic hadn’t been bad: the meal would be on the table in forty-five minutes, give or take thirty seconds …

‘
Okay, you lot you can …’

They must be out.

They didn’t normally go out before, or even after, he got home on a Friday.

All right, every now and then he and Lucinda would pop down to the Horse and Hounds after dinner but it wasn’t a matter of routine. So where were they? He checked the kitchen. There was nothing on the stove. There were mugs in the drainer but nothing else. They were playing a joke.

They were hiding.

It had happened before.

They had decided to have a takeaway and were now hiding. Somewhere Charlotte, and possibly Timothy, would be giggling. Lucinda was reluctantly playing along, wishing that Adam would find them quickly so that she could hug and kiss him hello.

Adam found his wife first.

She was lying on the floor in the living room, her slight frame wedged between the sofa and his chair.

‘
Lucinda, I …’ What on earth was she doing in her dressing gown? She never wore her dressing gown at just after seven on a Friday evening. He moved closer. The pool of blood on the carpet was almost black. ‘Lucinda?’ He knelt down. ‘Lucinda, what …?’ Her face was away from him. ‘Lucinda?’

He moved her, then wished he hadn’t.

The twist of her lips seemed to want to tell him so much, to tell him what had happened.

The gaping slit across her delicate throat would haunt him forever.

This could not be his Lucinda; he was dreaming, he was having a nightmare. He shook his head but the horror would not go away. ‘Lucinda,’ he mumbled again.

He was numb.

Transfixed.

He simply could not move.

There wasn’t a cell in his brain that would take on board what he was looking at. It was not real. It simply was not happening. Disbelief forced him to put his fingers on her cheek. It was cold. Her skin felt like a piece of pork taken from the fridge before being cooked. This was not his Lucinda. This can not be his Lucinda. Lucinda was the woman he loved, the woman he would die for. Lucinda was the mother of their two children.

Children?

Where were the children?

Adam didn’t have far to look before total realisation began to dawn.

His brain cells started to tell him he was witnessing a scene that even the most vivid of imaginations, the most horrific of horror stories, could not conjure up. Even the most sadistic fantasies would not be able to assemble the ingredients for such misery.

His Lucinda was dead.

His Charlotte was dead.

His Timothy was dead.

The family he had hugged, kissed, waved and blown further kisses to, and thought about for most of the week, was no more. At some point between the previous evening when he last spoke to Lucinda, and now, his world had been totally and utterly obliterated.

His family no longer existed.

As he took each step downstairs towards the phone in the hall the realisation of what he was about to tell the police could not have been more rational.

‘
The family that waved me goodbye on Sunday is no more.’

Could he put it any other way?

‘
Yes, officer, my wife and children have been murdered.’

Why was he being so judicious?

‘
I am dead as they are dead,’ would have been the truth.

*  *  *

The image of her staring dead eyes would never leave him. Lucinda, her throat slashed almost from ear to ear, would not have had time to scream a warning. If she’d had time to shout, her warning might have saved Charlotte and Timothy, but then again it might not. Who knows? Speculation was pointless. One murder had been committed so what difference did two more make?

They looked at peace.

They looked as though pain had eluded them. As Lucinda’s blood was spread over the carpet in the living room, so Charlotte’s and Timothy’s covered the duvets and sheets. They would not have felt any pain; he was sure none of them had felt any pain. He prayed that none of them had felt any pain.

By contacting the police within minutes of the discovery, Adam made a mistake. He needed time to spend with them; he needed to say his goodbyes.

It was almost as though by calling the police, his family, his blood, would spring back to life, but of course they did not. They were now no more than the shells that once had contained personalities, opinions, emotions, love, hate, pain, and … and happiness.

They were all gone.

He would never watch Lucinda again, the love he felt for her almost bursting out of his chest as he marvelled at what she did to him. He would never stop loving her. He would never watch Charlotte or Timothy doing the wonderful things children did. He would never stop loving them either, but they were also no more. It was all gone.

Would he ever begin to understand it was not just obliteration, it was annihilation.

Why? When would he start asking the question, why?

He could not go back into the living room.

He could not be in the same room, but he wanted to be with her.

He was being selfish.

It would still be her hand he would be holding. He could hold her hand until the police arrived. But then Charlotte and Timothy would be alone. They all ought to be here; they needed to be together. As they were together in life, they should be together in death.