A Season For Everything by Matthew Fairman (ready player one ebook TXT) 📕

The ringing of the doorbell made him jump. He could see an outline of two bodies, standing before the stained glass window. Then came the ra tat a tat tat of the little metal handle against the letterbox. He could hear the two people talking clearly amongst themselves. A young man and a woman.

‘I told you it was nothing’

‘Well what if she’s hurt and she can’t hear us, shout through the letterbox.’

‘Ok,Ok.’

Beaton grabbed Mrs Gream’s legs and hauled her around and across the floor into the living room. The letterbox squeaked as the metal flap was pushed up and open.

‘Mrs Gream, it’s Paul from next door. We heard a noise. Are you alright?’

The flap went down again.

‘Can you see inside?’

‘No, there’s all that black hairy stuff in the way of the letterbox.’

‘Here, move let me have a look.’ The letterbox squeaked open again. ‘Hello, Gillian, can you hear me. Its Anna from number nineteen. Hello ooo’

Beaton peered around the edge of the architrave tentatively, into the hallway. He could see four fingers poking through the black bristles of the draught excluder in the letterbox.

‘I can’t see her and I can see right through to the kitchen.’

‘Let’s go, we’ll call in the morning.’

‘But what if she’s upstairs.’

‘You said it sounded like someone falling downstairs, why would she be upstairs.’

‘I’ll ring just once more.’

There was a long shrill burst from the doorbell and then it went quiet. The voices continued until they were punctuated by the slam of a front door closing on the adjoining building.

‘Mrs Gream, Mrs Gream. What am I going to do with you?’ He dragged her by the feet back into the hall way and down the three small steps that led into the kitchen. He made sure to pull her slowly from step to step to lessen the noise, wump, wump, wump. He winced with each bang of the head, aware that the neighbours next door might be listening. He left her face down on the greasy linoleum and went upstairs to the bedroom. He tidied up, putting his belt back on and made up the bed as best he could. He returned the needles to the knitting bag. In the back of a closet he found a suitcase, the type with little wheels and an extendable handle. He opened it and proceeded to fill it with a jumble of clothes from the dresser. He also threw in the stone tortoise and brought it downstairs. There was still the problem of what to do about the window that had been smashed. He emptied the dustbin into the kitchen sink. He picked out the larger items and put the, back into the dustbin. He sifted through the rubbish in the sink until all that was left were the shards of glass he had swept away from the day before. He took the old ladies coat, scarf and gloves from the closet and and threw them in the suitcase with the stone tortoise and the rest of the clothes. In a draw in the kitchen he found her purse and keys which he stuffed into his pocket. In the living room he put on the television and went to sleep. He did not dream.

Saturday 24th

Christmas Eve

Beaton awoke around two am in the morning with the TV still talking at him. He went out into the kitchen and stepped over the body of Mrs Gream. Beaton took the little bunch of keys from his pocket and unlocked the back door. He crept out into the garden. There were no lights on in any of the houses only the small flashing fairy lights strung around a few of the neighbouring windows. He struggled to remove the padlock from the back gate. Disengaging the rusty lock from the hook made so much noise that he had taken a break before dragging open the back gate on it’s sagging hinges. As far as he could tell, no one had heard him. Yet. he made sure there was a clear path from the back door out into the alleyway behind the houses. He pulled open the garage, leaving a gap about knee height. It would be too noisy to force the thing any further. Grabbing Mrs Gream by the ankles he pulled her out into the garden and through the gate leaving her just in front of the Garage entrance. He scuttled under the door like a crab and reaching through the gap he heaved the old lady into the darkness. He dumped her onto the pallet and covered her body with the bed sheet. By morning his tracks would be covered up by the drifts of snow but he made sure to scuff at the drag marks and disturb any obvious signs that he had been there. He couldn’t leave her in the garage, that was certain but until he had dealt with the first body there was little he could do about the second.

Back inside Mrs Gream house, he filled his duffle bag with food from the cupboards. In the living room he found an unopened bottle of 15 year old Ruby Port. A single relic in an otherwise empty drinks cabinet. He removed the glass form the sink and scattered it about the kitchen floor in front of the back door. He locked the door from the outside with the small bunch of keys Searching the garden he found a large stone about the size of his fist. He through it through the empty hole in the window. It clattered to the floor and rolled underneath the table. He left the traveling case and the duffle bag out in the alleyway and locked the gate from the inside. He climbed back over into his garden and out through his back gate into the alley picking up the two bags he made his way back towards the quarry.

Hollis wanted to make a few more inquiries before she gave up on trying to find Beaton. Her supervisor suggested that in this case it might be easier to wait for him to show up on his own terms.

‘Considering no actual crime has been committed Hollis, it would make more sense to focus on actual crimes of which there are no shortage of’. Hollis tried and failed to suggest that there might be a link between the missing man and the woman.

I just can’t believe that this man is running for nothing, Sarge.

‘Look Hollis, just because two people happen to go missing at the same time it doesn’t mean that they have to be related, however unusual it might seem. We’ve looked into it and there is no evidence to suggest that the two people knew anything about the other. If or when it does look like there is a link, which I seriously doubt, then we will continue to treat themas separate incidents. Now, I’ve passed your concerns on to the DI and they are more than capable of assessing the likelihood of any link. This is not the first time that I have had to tell you to leave the detective work to the detectives.’

‘I understand sir, it’s just that....’

‘Just nothing Hollis. I mean it thats the end of it. Do you understand me?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Hollis couldn’t seem to help herself. During her break she mad further enquiries. All she could think about was Mike sitting up there waiting for someone to find his wife. Having already lost his son she couldn’t imagine what he was going through. She tried calling Beaton’s mother again. Once again she was left listening to the dial tone. Whatever there was to find out about Beaton Earnest she was not going to discover from his mother. She went back to looking through the little red address book that she had taken from the house. Maybe there was something that she had missed the first time. She cam across a Doctor Charles Brant. It was a desperate hunch but she dialled the number anyway. The telephone rang for a few minutes before a recorded messages clicked on over the line.

‘Welcome to the Willow Park Wellness Centre. You have reached the department of clinical psychology. Please note that appointments cannot be made in advance over the telephone. If you have a referral from your GP...’

Hollis hung up the phone. It wasn’t exactly a useful piece of information but it was certainly interesting. She went back to the book again and trawled through the names. She went back to looking through all the number for his wife Marie. She tried them again but none of them worked. She worked through the little book and had reached the last page when a name caught her eye. It was three letters. They had been almost carved into the inside cover, it appeared that the pen that had been used to write it had been running out of ink. Three capital letters. R E E. ‘It could be an abbreviation for a company’ though Hollis. ‘Ree, ree, ree’ she said it over and over until she suddenly had an idea. She took up the phone to her ear and dialled. It was answered promptly by a young girl.

‘Hello, is your mum home’ Hollis heard the young girls feet padding away across the room and calling out to wherever her mother might be. There was a some clattering or shifting of chairs and footsteps then talking.

‘Who is it? I’ve told you about answering the phone’ Then the voice came over loud and clear in the earpiece.

‘Hello’ Hollis took a deep breath. ‘Hello, is that Marie speaking?’ There was a short pause then the voice came back, it was hesitant, guarded.

‘Yes, who’s calling?’ ‘Is this Marie Earnest speaking?’

There was an even longer pause this time, the woman’s voice changed in tone, it became sharper, severe.

‘Nobody calls me by that name anymore. Look, you’ve got three seconds to explain who you are before I call the police’

‘This is the police Marie, My name is PC Hollis Bergan, I’m calling from Rilksham County Police department. I’m calling about your husband Beaton, Beaton Earnest, I’m sorry if this is upsetting but I just have a few questions I would like to ask.’ There was the silence again then a muffled hand over the receiver.

‘Go play in your room Sarah, Mummy’s talking business.’ There was a short exchange of words but the child had evidently conceded as Marie came back onto the line.

‘OK quickly, but I need to let you know now that I have not had a thing to do with Beaton for about six years now so whatever he has done. I know nothing about it and I want nothing to do with it’

‘That’s fine, that’s fine. I promise. I just want to ask a few quick questions and that will be the end of it. Marie, Beaton is missing.’

‘Missing?’

‘He hasn’t been home and I believe he is in hiding. I don’t know from who or why but I need to know if there is anything in Beaton’s past that might help me to understand where or why he has gone.’

‘Like I said, I haven’t had any contact with him for...’

‘Why did you leave him Marie?’

‘I, I was pregnant and I...’ Her words trailed off and were lost

‘The child wasn’t Beaton’s?’ ‘

No, no, you misunderstand it was Beaton’s, I mean she is Beaton’s but that was the reason I left.’

‘You left because Beaton was the father?

‘I didn’t want him to, to influence my daughter.’

‘Was Beaton violent, did he hurt you at all?’

‘No.., yes. Look, I can’t explain fully and you’ll probably think I’m crazy but you don’t know Beaton. What he can be like. He never so much as raised his voice to me but he could still be cruel. He could say and do things that