Read Online The Crooked House by Christobel Kent - Free Book Online Page A

dismay in his voice chiding her for her cold heart – but she had given him a warning look. Esme could tell that her mother imagined the two of them huddled over illicit booze, outcasts on the mud, her husband turning into the old hobgoblin’s apprentice, talking to himself and holding his trousers up with string. If only.
    What had they talked about? When she’d been there Bray had shown little interest in Esme, mostly talked to her father about the boat, listing races and classes and owners, the wood used in the hull and the decking, oak and spruce, maple from the Balkans. Charts and lists and numbers, he was happy as a kid reciting them. He’d been married once, long ago; she’d heard her father tell her mother that too and Alison could remember even now the sceptical sound her mother had made in reply.
    Had she been right? Her mother hadn’t always been cold-hearted, perhaps wasn’t even then, perhaps she had just had to toughen up. When she’d come home from hospital with the twins she’d been a mess but overflowing with joy, in a grubby dressing gown all day, crying one minute, grabbing Esme the next, wrapping her arms around her. A sweet smell on her, milk and sleeplessness and sweat, nappies and bloodstained pads all over the place. Joe disgusted and laughing, too much mess, too much chaos, too much joy. It had to end.
    There was a clatter of laughter from the surfer-boys’ table that turned the old man’s head and she saw Paul finally, almostregretfully, slide from the stool where he’d settled, and lift the drinks from the bar. The dishevelled woman was waggling her empty glass at Ron but at the same time turned to follow Paul’s progress, and on instinct Alison shifted, out of her line of sight. Paul lowered the glasses.
    That night, she thought, a small shock. That cool June night when her world ended. The last person who saw him, who saw my dad off at the back door of the pub, was that old man. Stephen Bray.
    ‘Well,’ Paul said. ‘Talk about the Ancient Mariner.’
    She laughed shortly. ‘You were nice to him.’ To her relief Paul lowered himself into the seat opposite her, shielding her from the room. ‘Local colour?’
    ‘He hadn’t heard about the wedding,’ said Paul, sipping his murky pint with a grimace. ‘I wondered, you know. It might have been the social event of the decade, I thought.’ Pushed the pint away a little. ‘I should have got something to eat.’
    ‘I’m not hungry,’ said Alison, and lifted her own glass. The ice, if there had been any, had melted, the warmish liquid thin and watery.
    ‘Oh, yes,’ said Paul, quizzical at the memory. ‘All that lunch.’
    ‘Just a bit tired,’ she said, lifting her hand to her mouth, making herself yawn. ‘What was he talking about?’ She took her hand away. ‘The ancient mariner.’
    ‘He said you were a pretty girl,’ said Paul, lifting the glass to his lips and giving her a quick sideways glance.
    ‘And?’ She frowned.
    Paul sighed, setting the glass down. ‘God,’ he said. ‘You forget. I suppose living here it’s impossible to get away from it.’ He shrugged, and his face was grim.
    ‘From what?’ She knew what.
    ‘In a bigger place maybe it would be different.’ He frowned down at the scratched table then raised his head to look at her, sheepish. ‘There was a murder here. A … multiple murder.’He tilted his head. ‘In cities I suppose these things have less impact, they must happen all the time,’ he mused, distant. He came back into focus. ‘You’d be too young to remember it.’
    She just shook her head, not trusting herself to speak.
    ‘He hasn’t forgotten,’ he said, half turning to nod in the direction of the bar. ‘I suppose it leaves its mark on a community.’ A pause. ‘Some guy,’ he said then. ‘The old salt knew him, as a matter of fact, or so he was saying. Killed his whole family, out in some isolated farmhouse, then tried to kill himself.’
    Not a farmhouse, she said,