The Scribbler by Iain Maitland (life changing books txt) 📕

Carrie said, as she put down the half-drunk glass of water. “I suddenly felt faint.” She paused and then added, “I’m just going to call my colleague to come and collect me. He’s waiting for me with the dog. Down your driveway.” She reached slowly, painfully slowly, into her pocket and took out her phone, then stopped, the phone in her hands, as she heard a sudden noise and saw the door into the main part of the farmhouse being pushed open.

Carrie half-smiled automatically at the old woman who was standing there, thin as a stick, and looking confused, as if she had fallen asleep and woken up in a panic, not knowing where she was. Carrie felt, suddenly, as though all the pieces of the jigsaw were falling into place. The Scribbler. His mad brother. The old lady they were looking to put into a care home. The Kings Court care home. Where The Scribbler had stumbled into Edwin Lodge. And gone back later to kill him. Everything Gayther had guessed at was correct. Give or take. More or less. As he would say.

Carrie watched as the old woman used a stick to move slowly, painfully, across the room, towards her and the two brothers. Carrie wondered what babbling, dementia-driven nonsense was about to be said as the woman moved close to her, closer than was necessary. Carrie thought the old woman was about to take her arm for support, to stop herself falling over.

The old woman raised her stick and brought it crashing down on the phone in Carrie’s hands. Carrie recoiled in pain.

“I’ve been sitting upstairs watching her. She’s been snooping round like a thief … looking at the van … taking photographs. She’s trouble.”

She turned to the two brothers, standing there looking shocked. “Exodus 22: ‘If a thief is struck so that he dies, there shall be no bloodguilt’ … deal with her.”

* * *

As Carrie struggled up from her chair, the smart brother stepped forward instinctively and hit her across her face with the back of his hand. She tumbled backwards, hitting her head on the floor.

Dazed, she tried to sit up, but the smart brother was upon her, banging her head against the floor, one, two, three times, until she was still.

The smart brother stood there breathing heavily, wiping his mouth with his hand. The slow brother held his hands to his open mouth, stunned by the sudden, unexpected savagery. The old woman stepped forward and put her heel on the mobile phone, crushing it into the floor.

“Is she on her own?” asked the old woman looking at the smart brother. “Did she say?”

He looked across at her, wide-eyed, as if shocked into silence by what she had said and how he had reacted without thinking. Fear and panic and Mother’s orders had made him do it.

“Listen to me. Is she on her own?” the old woman repeated. “Be quick.” She gestured the smart brother towards the body. “Check her pockets, take her keys … and the gun … Sonky, give it to him … go and check she’s alone. Move her car into the outhouse for now and lock the doors. Give me time to think.”

The smart brother, almost in slow motion, turned to the slow brother, holding out his hands for the keys. “Hurry,” he said finally, as the slow brother struggled endlessly to get the gun out of his pocket. “Hurry.”

The smart brother turned to the old woman as he was about to leave.

“What shall I do, Mother …?” he asked, sounding like a lost little boy, “… if there’s someone else in the car? She said she was with a man and a dog.”

“Do what you have to do … God permits the taking of a life if one’s own is in danger … go, go now.”

“But Mother …” said the slow brother, suddenly finding his voice. He paused, looking down at Carrie on the floor. “We do not do bad things. She is a lady. We do not hurt ladies.”

“Don’t do bad things?” the old woman laughed sourly. She looked at him through watery eyes. “I know everything that happens here, Sonky. Everything.” She raised her voice, crackling with fear and anger. “I sit at my bedroom window and I see it all. All of it, do you hear? You bringing everything back here to my home.”

She raised herself up with her stick as the two brothers stood there watching and listening to her in shame-faced silence. “You did all of this. The two of you. You brought this trouble to our door.” She gestured towards the lifeless body of Carrie laying by their feet. “Now you deal with it.”

“The Lord’s curse is on the house of the wicked …” she sobbed suddenly, angrily. “He blesses the dwelling of the righteous … This is my home. My home, do you hear me? I was born here and I live here and I want to die here in my own bed … you’ll not put me into a home … or worse.”

She paused, her voice seeming calmer now, but still urgent. “We must do what we have to do. Chopsy, go and find her car and do whatever you need to. We have to hope she’s on her own.”

She stood silently for a second or two, in the utter horror of the moment.

“Sonky,” she gestured towards Carrie’s body, “take her and put her in one of the barns … the barn up … nearest to the fields … do what you have to do if she’s still breathing … take a shovel from the outhouse with you. Chopsy, you go and help him when you’re done.”

“And you, Mother, what will you do?” the smart brother asked as he moved to open the door.

The slow brother stood still, looking from the smart brother to the old woman almost reproachfully. Then he spoke, calmly and with certainty. “Mother will think, and she will tell us what to do for the best. For