Chapter 43 - Home sweet Home

Image by Annie Spratt from Unsplash

That late in the evening, the streets around High Wycombe were deserted. Occasionally, the headlights of another car penetrated the mist besieging the windscreen with dazzling halos before they diffused once more into the sea of grey that muffled the landscape. The fog, a regular pea souper Sherlock Holmes, the Ripper, or their fellow Victorians would have recognised, was the reason for the delay that had plagued Gary and Jon's return journey.

"How much longer?" Jon drew another sad face into the condensation obscuring the passenger window.

Gary had no time to respond, a monster lorry thundered towards the Mini, a battery of solar flares where there should have been headlights. The urge to jerk the steering wheel into the Neverland on their left was strong, but Gary gritted his teeth and steered on. The lorry roared past, its tail lights a reddish blur in the night, before that too was gone.

"Dad, the exit!"

"Crap on toast!"

He stomped on the brakes, yanked at the wheel and shot off the B-road toward the warren of lanes left unfinished when the builder went bust.

"Almost there," Gary said as they splashed through the potholes.

Jon heaved a sigh.

"Yes, I know you're hungry. So am I. What am I supposed to do if the whole of Rome crowds the security controls? And one would expect any self-respecting airline to sell food on board."

Another bounce slammed Gary's jaw into his top chompers, giving his tongue a narrow miss.

"If you insist on booking El Cheapo Air just to scuttle back home, what do you expect?"

"They thrive on selling overpriced gunk. Captive audience. It's their business model. No idea what went wrong, so don't blame me."

Jon's expression made only too clear he did, but given the defoliated apple tree in their garden swam into view just then, Gary swallowed a response. Instead, he swung the vehicle into its usual space in front of the garage that housed the station wagon Gary would be driving, had his foot operation not required him to go for an automatic.

He turned off the engine of Emma's Mini and opened the door on a world smothered by clammy cotton wool that stank faintly of—what? Chemicals? Exhaust fumes? Tarmac? Nothing natural, for sure. Any little noises they made got sucked up by the overwhelming absence of sound that insulated the houses, each hunkering miserably on its small plot. In silence, Gary and Jon retrieved their rucksacks; in silence, they entered a home as cold as it was clammy and unwelcoming.

"Oh blast, has the heating gone on the blink again?" Fortunately, Gary knew how to repair it. A well-aimed fist on the casing and little lights came on, accompanied by a reassuring electrical hum. It would take a while, though, before the house would warm up, even longer until they had hot water.

"Anything in the fridge?" Gary shouted into the corridor.

"Only mouldy veg," Jon hollered back. "Just checked. We forgot to chuck that."

"Yikes. I'll bin it a minute. Freezer?"

"Na. I took out the last pizza a while ago. You never remember to shop," Jon said, frustration quivering in his voice.

Gary remembered something else that should be there but wasn't. "Where's Gladys?"

"Shite. Her pots are still here. She must be around." Jon stormed into the living room. "Found her," he yelled. "All curled up on the sofa. On top of your cardigan."

What was his cardigan doing on the sofa? Well, it had been there for a good cause and kept the resident feline warm. A few cat hairs didn't matter among friends. Even if that cardigan had been a favourite of his.

He huffed with resignation and the chilly air condensed into vaporous whiteness in front of his face before vanishing again. This place was a disgrace.

"We still have tea bags, right?"

"I need something proper to eat!"

Gary could almost hear the judge bang his gavel. "Parental failure to provide adequate sustenance for child Jonathan Evelyn Sands. The defendant is herewith ordered to relinquish custody."

The name had been contentious. Having been saddled with a unisex "Marian" himself, he would have spared his son the same indignity, had Emma not insisted on upholding the traditions of his oh-so-noble family. Why was beyond him. Unsurprisingly, Jon was embarrassed about his middle name, worse—he was scared stiff his classmates might find out. Perhaps the boys at the posh school would be more forgiving.

Gary shook himself. "We'll get stuff delivered. In the meantime you need to get something warm into your belly, this place is freezing. So, tea it is."

Before dragging his rucksack upstairs, Jon dropped an economic "If you insist. Two burgers, plenty of chips", which Gary interpreted to be his son's dinner requirements. He ordered the same for himself, not much was open at this time of night and to hell with the calories. While watching the kettle boil (slowly, very slowly), he checked his emails.

Something incongruous from Ike about the guy in the hedge using a custom-made aerial. The things that woman kept coming up with. More important than the man in the hedge was that picture with the senior citizens at the statue. Had blasted Jeff—he had not. Here was Jon's mail he had sent out from Ike's hotel room, but no response yet. He suppressed an urge to mail a reminder and another urge to ask Jon whose duty it might have been to clear out the fridge before they left. Instead, he bagged the furry mummies lurking in the veg cabinet, sniffed at the milk, wrinkled his nose at the sour stench and added two open coke cans to the bag while he was at it.

He closed the fridge and took a step backwards. Big mistake. An unearthly howl rang in his ears. "Gladys! I thought you were on the sofa?"

Yellow eyes blinked at him, as big as an owl's. They told him he not only was a rotten father but would be arrested by the Royal Society for the Protection of Animals if he did not feed this particular feline. Immediately.

Gary took a perverse delight in dumping the rubbish first before he ladled chunky grey gravy into the cat's bowl. A yellow post-it note stuck to the wall, left by their one friendly neighbour. "Only one tin left."

Yet another chore, but then he needed to do a shop run first thing tomorrow morning anyway.

Gary sank onto the kitchen chair, its cheap foam upholstery deflating under his bum with an underhand hiss. The chilly place, empty of food, warmth and anything that could turn it into a home was leeching away the spark of sunshine instilled by the Rome trip. As fraught as it had been and despite the danger they were facing, in Italy he had felt alive again. In the UK he faced rainy days, lawyers, and the spiral of depression called earning a living.

The phone in his pocket buzzed across his thoughts. "Hello? Gary here?"

"You sound as if you suffered from an identity crisis," Lorna said in her mellow voice.

"That might well be the case. Just returned from Rome, two hours delayed because of fog blanketing the British Isles. A jolly case of welcome home."

"Why did you return in the first place?"

"Ah." Never once during his stay at Rome had he told the ladies what was going on. Responded to emails seeking explanations or asking for an okay to go ahead with bookings or payments, yes that he had done. But otherwise? Like a leech, he had taken their generosity for granted and in his mad scramble for Fiumicino not even thought of a gift.

You are pathetic.

He heaved a deep breath. Yet another favour to ask for. "Don't hit me over the head. Things got a wee bit busy. It started off with sabotage and turned serious. A woman has been killed, a young guide who belonged to another tour."

"I read about that in the local news. Serious Study Tours, right?"

"Eh, yes. The police seemed to have kept that one well under wraps. Problem is, it looks as if that girl died because she looked like Ike."

A suppressed gulp. "Hang on, I put you on the loudspeaker. Aline, somebody is after our Ike. Could it be that husband of hers?"

"He's around, but Ike is adamant he's not responsible. To be honest, he strikes me as an opportunist, not a killer. Loud bark, lots of aftershave, but no bite. No, somehow, somewhere she has attracted a nasty enemy. We don't even know what sex that person is. Or how many he or she might be." Gary wondered whether this made any sense.

"I beg your pardon?"

No, it didn't. "There's a posse of ladies involved and well as a mysterious villain. It's all rather baffling. But he's now attacking Ike and to top it all he planted the murder weapon in her room. That's when I decided I needed to get Jon out of there."

"What about Ike?" Was that just the faintest tinge of accusation in Lorna's voice?

"I spoke to Adrian. He recommended hot-footing it to another hotel. We changed taxis and drove around Rome to throw any pursuers off track. Ike thought I was being silly. They didn't have a second room. Otherwise, Brigitte could have stayed with her." And had the ladies not fallen out, she might even have shared. Between Boris and Brigitte, Ike would be safe. Unless she was at the bottom of the whole mess.

Gary swatted at the thought and took a mental note to call her later. "She's on the sixth floor, with double looks. They allow dogs and even have a dog walking space on the patio. So, she doesn't have to roam the streets at night. But with all this going on I couldn't keep Jon around. Too dangerous. Shouldn't have gone in the first place, but things went ballistic so fast." He shared the events of the last two days. Only two? It felt like a lifetime.

"Oops, that doesn't sound good at all. Dangerous doesn't describe it. But now I understand why you came back. You did the right thing, don't blame yourself for things beyond your control. Apropos danger, have you talked to the lawyer yet?"

"No, the appointment is scheduled for next week."

"Should we—"

"No, please Lorna, I owe you so much already for babysitting the company."

"We enjoyed ourselves, didn't we, Aline?" From somewhere in the background sounded a cheerful assent.

Static. Then "I just had a fabulous idea."

Oh dear. That boded ill. Lorna was about to meddle again. Fair enough, he had availed himself of Lorna and Aline's meddling in the past, so he had no excuse to fend her off. "You scare me."

Laughter trilled across the airwaves. "Serves you right for letting us into your life."

If anybody needed proof women could mind-read, here was it.

"How about, if you leave Jon with us? We love him, and he would give us an excuse to some things we wouldn't otherwise." A whoop sounded behind, and Aline came on. "Disneyland here we come!"

Scary was not the right word for them. "You're not serious, are you?"

"We are!" the ladies chorused. "Would have done it anyway, but with a child around it's even more fun. We wanted to suggest it before, to give the two of you two time so sort yourselves out, but you dashed off to Rome so fast we never got a chance," Aline said. He could see them both, Aline in a large patterned tent and Lorna with flour on her nose, chocolate eyes twinkling under her rhinestone glasses as if she were the offspring of Willy Wonka and a rather short-sighted fairy.

Do let me know if you have questions or comments on my novel. Constructive suggestions and feedback are always welcome! And thank you for reading. In doing so, you give my writing a purpose.