The Knapthorne Conspiracy by Malcolm Ballard (best english novels for beginners txt) 📕

difficult, living by yourself in the middle of nowhere.” He was concentrating on getting the cigarette to his lips with a shaking hand when she spoke and didn’t reply until he had succeeded in the task.

“What business is that of yours?” He was searching his pockets, presumably for matches or a lighter. “Is that what the daughter of Patrick Foxton came here to say? Speak your mind or go, it’s all the same to me.” His sharpness pricked her into action as her hackles began to rise.

“What gave you the right to kill Patrick? Who gave you permission to take his life?” Her tone was angry, accusing. Exactly what she had wanted to avoid but he had goaded her into it. Seemingly unaffected by her outburst Frank Allsop took his time lighting the cigarette having found the lighter down the side of his chair. Sucking the smoke down, greedily, he savoured the effect before answering.

“You know nothing about it, lassie. What right do you have to judge, tell me that, eh?” Without looking at her he gave a short derisive laugh, a defamatory sound dismissing her accusations and mocking her all at once.

“And what would I need to know about it?" Bella’s voice was rising with her anger. “Murder’s murder, whatever I may know or not. You’ve taken another man’s life and escaped punishment for it, where’s the justice in that?” He turned to look at her then his eyes like rivets pinning her to the spot. It was a look born out of years of suffering, the blackness of depression, the mental anguish and the loss of a daughter he’d wanted to love but hadn’t known how. What did this bright young thing, untouched by the savagery of life, know about justice?

“You know nothing, I’m telling ye!” The violence in his words shocked her, bringing the colour to her cheeks, and she suddenly felt afraid of this sickly old man, a man who had once taken another’s life. It had the effect of draining her own anger, the words reverberating around the room and in her head. If you don’t know anything her inner voice said with a little exasperation as if it were obvious, then find out. Ask him! Frank Allsop had slumped back in his chair, feeding off his own memories. Recollections conjured up by this girl who had walked out of his past. He made a sad figure in that depressing room, his slight frame silhouetted against the meagre light from the windows, the angular face in profile and his head wreathed in tobacco smoke. It was an image she would carry with her for a long, long time.

“Tell me about it, then, Frank,” she said calmly. “Tell me how it happened. Tell me about Patrick and what made you do it.” It was almost as though she were in the room talking to herself. Physically the old man was there with her but his memories had taken him back thirty years and more and he was reliving the pain. Reliving the anger and frustration of an unhappy, depressed husband and father all those years ago and he was about to give vent to feelings and emotions he’d never aired before. Yet a calmness had suddenly descended on him. Somehow he had known this was going to happen. Felt it for a long time now. Months maybe longer. Like he had been waiting around for something like this before relinquishing his ever-weakening grip on life. It was his chance to make a clean breast of things and ease his conscience after so many years of torment. Bella sensed what was happening and tried to make herself comfortable on the bulging, lumpy sofa while she waited. Smoke spiralled up from Frank’s cigarette, two thirds of it gone, as it rested in the ashtray, where he’d placed it. Without thinking he took out another from the silver case.

"Meeting Doris, my wife, was the best thing that ever happened to me," he began. "I came down from Scotland to take up a position on the Estate and I wondered what I'd got mysel' into. I was like a fish outta water and not at all welcomed by the folk here." Bella's expression didn't change but she fully understood his meaning. "She changed all that, did Doris. A no-nonsense lassie who put the local boys in their place. Those first years of our marriage were the happiest of my life. We had our wee bairn Mary..." he broke off suddenly, beset by a hacking cough that filled the little room with its intensity and sucked the energy from the old man who was left wheezing and struggling for breath. His eyes narrowed and he looked suddenly grim.

"That all changed when I had ma accident." He wasn't looking at Bella as he spoke. His focus was on the past and he could picture it as clearly now as when it happened. "I tumbled off a roof, hit my head bad. At first I was fine but as time went by I started getting moody and bad-tempered. Not all the time, ye ken. It would come on of a sudden like a change in the weather..." he paused to bring the cigarette to his lips and Bella wanted to urge him on, wondering why he was telling her all this. Then he looked her in the eye through a haze of tobacco smoke. "I reckon you're thinking what's this to do with your father? Well I'm coming tae that." She felt a quickening of her pulse.

"Doris knew I'd always wanted a boy. Persuaded me we should try for another bairn to bring me around. Eventually she fell pregnant but it was a girl, Gina, the loveliest wee thing but it didn't change anything. Now we had two girls,” Frank continued, “bonny they were, too, but I felt no love for them. Doris found it in her heart to put up with me but it was hard on the