In Denial Read online

  In Denial

  by

  Nigel Lampard

  ISBN 1479275697

  EAN 978-1479275694

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

  'In Denial' is published by Taylor Street Publishing LLC, who can be contacted at:

  http://www.taylorstreetbooks.com

  http://ninwriters.ning.com

  'In Denial' is the copyright of the author, Nigel Lampard, 2012. All rights are reserved.

  All characters are fictional, and any resemblance to anyone living or dead is accidental.

  Chapter One

  Approaching Luss from the south, Adam Harrison pulled off the main road near the entrance to a golf course and parked his car by the stone wall which bordered the edge of the loch. Where he stopped wasn’t really a car park or a lay-by; it seemed to be an old disused road, although whatever it might be, or might once have been, was irrelevant. The nearest car to his was well over fifty yards away, so knowing he would be alone, he got out and lifted his foot onto the low wall.

  The water in the loch was as smooth as glass but ripples still lapped against the stones at the water’s edge. Although the light was fading he could just make out the far shore. That’s where it would happen - once he plucked up sufficient courage. He’d had the wherewithal to get this far but to complete what he came to do would take courage - real courage.

  His eyes focused on the islands a couple of hundred yards away in the middle of the loch. He prayed there would be something, anything, which might give him a modicum of encouragement so he could believe he had a future on his own. What he had planned was so final, but unless he came up with a realistic and achievable alternative, he was going to have little choice but to go ahead with what he intended doing.

  Whether deep down in his very soul he really wanted there to be a future was a different matter. If he did want there to be hope, why had he come this far? His gut feeling told him he had already crossed the Rubicon. Physically he was still alive, but inside his heart had died with them. He had prayed a lot although he wasn’t sure what for; nobody else would understand because he did not understand. She would have wanted him to look to the future rather than living in the past, regardless of how recent the past might be. She would have wanted him to have the hope and the strength to carry on. At the moment he did not have that strength.

  If living is dependent on the existence of a catalyst and that catalyst is removed, the dependence still remains. Take a fish out of water and it will survive temporarily but its dependence on water, its catalyst for survival will guarantee its death unless quickly given back to the source of its life.

  That is how he felt. They had been his catalyst; they had been his reason for living and they had been removed - permanently.

  Initially he had lacked the courage but not the conviction: he now hoped the two would become as one, and soon.

  It had not been necessary to mutilate them.

  * * *

  When he left home to drive to London late on the Sunday evening, they had all stood at the front door and waved him goodbye. He hugged each of them as he always hugged them. He kissed Lucinda on the lips, and the children on their foreheads and cheeks.

  He opened the back door of his Lexus, threw his laptop onto the leather seat and slid behind the steering wheel. After opening the front window, he waved, blew kisses and waved again until they were no longer in view. It was the same Sunday evening routine as always, the same kisses, the same waves, the same ‘See you on Friday’, and ‘I love you,’ mouthed silently by Lucinda as he strained for a last look, a last glimpse of the other half of him, the half he was leaving behind. The half he would miss so much until Friday.

  Then Friday came.

  He pressed the remote just as he had five days ago after last seeing them. The garage door clunked open and he drove the Lexus into the space next to Lucinda’s Seat Ibiza. The slight whirring as the door opened usually brought Lucinda or one of the children to the front door to welcome him.

  On this particular Friday it did not.

  He shrugged and smiled as he approached the front door. Lucinda would be in the kitchen getting the meal ready, the radio or the TV turned up perhaps a little louder than normal. Charlotte would be listening to a CD she’d bought at some stage during the week, and Timothy would be playing Championship Manager on his computer. No doubt York City would be beating Manchester United four-one in the last game of the season to win the Premier Division and Timothy Harrison would be declared top manager of the 2003/2004 season.

  He smiled as he slotted his laptop in next to the antique hat-stand in the hall. It fitted quite neatly into the space between the hat-stand and the hall table, and he hoped that maybe this would be the first weekend for a very long time that it would stay right there, not to be picked again until Monday morning.

  Chance would be a fine thing.

  It was only when he straightened up that he realised there wasn’t a sound. And why was the hall table light already on? It wouldn’t be dark for another hour or so.

  ‘Hi, I’m home,’ he shouted.

  Silence.

  ‘You can stop the fun and games, I’m …’

  He could not smell the evening meal. He was spot on time. It was Friday, just after seven, the traffic hadn’t been bad: the meal would be on the table in forty-five minutes, give or take thirty seconds …

  ‘Okay, you lot you can …’

  They must be out.

  They didn’t normally go out before, or even after, he got home on a Friday.

  All right, every now and then he and Lucinda would pop down to the Horse and Hounds after dinner but it wasn’t a matter of routine. So where were they? He checked the kitchen. There was nothing on the stove. There were mugs in the drainer but nothing else. They were playing a joke.

  They were hiding.

  It had happened before.

  They had decided to have a takeaway and were now hiding. Somewhere Charlotte, and possibly Timothy, would be giggling. Lucinda was reluctantly playing along, wishing that Adam would find them quickly so that she could hug and kiss him hello.

  Adam found his wife first.

  She was lying on the floor in the living room, her slight frame wedged between the sofa and his chair.

  ‘Lucinda, I …’ What on earth was she doing in her dressing gown? She never wore her dressing gown at just after seven on a Friday evening. He moved closer. The pool of blood on the carpet was almost black. ‘Lucinda?’ He knelt down. ‘Lucinda, what …?’ Her face was away from him. ‘Lucinda?’

  He moved her, then wished he hadn’t.

  The twist of her lips seemed to want to tell him so much, to tell him what had happened.

  The gaping slit across her delicate throat would haunt him forever.

  This could not be his Lucinda; he was dreaming, he was having a nightmare. He shook his head but the horror would not go away. ‘Lucinda,’ he mumbled again.

  He was numb.

  Transfixed.

  He simply could not move.

  There wasn’t a cell in his brain that would take on board what he was looking at. It was not real. It simply was not happening. Disbelief forced him to put his fingers on her cheek. It was cold. Her skin felt like a piece of pork taken from the fridge before being cooked. This was not his Lucinda. This can not be his Lucinda. Lucinda was the woman he loved, the woman he would die for. Lucinda was the mother of their two children.

  Children?

  Where were the children?

  Adam didn’t have far to look before total realisati
on began to dawn.

  His brain cells started to tell him he was witnessing a scene that even the most vivid of imaginations, the most horrific of horror stories, could not conjure up. Even the most sadistic fantasies would not be able to assemble the ingredients for such misery.

  His Lucinda was dead.

  His Charlotte was dead.

  His Timothy was dead.

  The family he had hugged, kissed, waved and blown further kisses to, and thought about for most of the week, was no more. At some point between the previous evening when he last spoke to Lucinda, and now, his world had been totally and utterly obliterated.

  His family no longer existed.

  As he took each step downstairs towards the phone in the hall the realisation of what he was about to tell the police could not have been more rational.

  ‘The family that waved me goodbye on Sunday is no more.’

  Could he put it any other way?

  ‘Yes, officer, my wife and children have been murdered.’

  Why was he being so judicious?

  ‘I am dead as they are dead,’ would have been the truth.

  * * *

  The image of her staring dead eyes would never leave him. Lucinda, her throat slashed almost from ear to ear, would not have had time to scream a warning. If she’d had time to shout, her warning might have saved Charlotte and Timothy, but then again it might not. Who knows? Speculation was pointless. One murder had been committed so what difference did two more make?

  They looked at peace.

  They looked as though pain had eluded them. As Lucinda’s blood was spread over the carpet in the living room, so Charlotte’s and Timothy’s covered the duvets and sheets. They would not have felt any pain; he was sure none of them had felt any pain. He prayed that none of them had felt any pain.

  By contacting the police within minutes of the discovery, Adam made a mistake. He needed time to spend with them; he needed to say his goodbyes.

  It was almost as though by calling the police, his family, his blood, would spring back to life, but of course they did not. They were now no more than the shells that once had contained personalities, opinions, emotions, love, hate, pain, and … and happiness.

  They were all gone.

  He would never watch Lucinda again, the love he felt for her almost bursting out of his chest as he marvelled at what she did to him. He would never stop loving her. He would never watch Charlotte or Timothy doing the wonderful things children did. He would never stop loving them either, but they were also no more. It was all gone.

  Would he ever begin to understand it was not just obliteration, it was annihilation.

  Why? When would he start asking the question, why?

  He could not go back into the living room.

  He could not be in the same room, but he wanted to be with her.

  He was being selfish.

  It would still be her hand he would be holding. He could hold her hand until the police arrived. But then Charlotte and Timothy would be alone. They all ought to be here; they needed to be together. As they were together in life, they should be together in death.

  But he could not move them.

  If he moved them he would be disturbing evidence, and if he did that the chances of catching whoever … who was it? Who could have taken his family, his life from him? What sort of monster, what sort of psychopath could murder such lovely people? He didn’t even bother looking to see if anything had been stolen. What did it matter if everything had been stolen? What had been stolen were the three most loved people in his life. Without them nothing else mattered. Without them what happened to him did not matter. There was no present, there was no future; there was only a past.

  He had to see her once more.

  He could not stay where he was, she would be lonely.

  Adam went back into the living room, knelt down by his wife’s body, picked up her hand and held it against his cheek.

  ‘Goodbye,’ he whispered.

  He wanted to say so much more.

  He wanted to tell her how much he loved her once more. He had told her he loved her three times a day, every day for the last week … every day? He had last spoken to her the previous evening. As he crawled into bed he had rung her to say goodnight. It must have been after eleven o’clock.

  She was murdered after eleven o’clock.

  As he switched off his phone and picked up his book to read a few pages before sleep took over, Lucinda could have been facing her killer; Charlotte and Timothy could have been facing their killer.

  He had slept whilst they were being murdered.

  While his wife’s throat was being sliced from ear to ear, he had slept.

  While Charlotte’s and Timothy’s throats were being cut from ear to ear, he had still been asleep.

  He had woken on Friday morning, taken a shower, had a shave, and his entire family had been murdered. He never rang Lucinda on a Friday morning as he did first thing on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday mornings. It was a game they played.

  On Fridays they did not speak.

  They were storing up their energy, their news, their everything - for Friday evening.

  * * *

  After turning the car round, Adam drove slowly towards the T-junction with the main road. He turned right.

  Until he looked at the map before leaving the house, he had never heard of Luss.

  He had never been to Loch Lomond before.

  Why was he here?

  It was simple.

  It was a place Lucinda and the children had always wanted to see but they had never been able to find the time.

  Now it was too late.

  Only when it was too late had he found the time.

  He swore when he missed the first turning to the village, but knew from the map there was another turning further along the main road.

  After taking the second turning he saw The Manor of Loch Lomond signposted off to the left.

  If Lucinda had been with him they would have looked no further. He had checked on the Internet for what hotels there were in Luss and The Manor of Loch Lomond was not for him. He wanted something less ostentatious; he wanted peace and quiet, he wanted to be left alone. He drove on towards the rest of the village. The hotel he was looking for wasn’t as grand, nowhere near as grand, but it would suit his purpose.

  The Colcorran Arms was a large white-rendered building to the right of the road running north through and on the edge of Luss. The lack of cars in the hotel car park would normally have made it appear uninviting but not on this occasion; it was exactly what he wanted.

  Adam got out of the car.

  Leaning against the driver’s door he surveyed the building in the gathering gloom.

  It was after all the place where he might have his last supper.

  Chapter Two

  ‘Mr Harrison?’

  He had expected somebody different. He had not expected to answer the door to a grey-suited female with a younger, equally smart but very stern looking man at her shoulder. Beyond them he could see a couple of uniformed policemen standing just inside the front gate. There were two cars in the driveway. The Volvo V70 was white with the blue and yellow check of the Derbyshire Police emblazoned on the sides, and the other car was an unmarked dark blue Audi A4.

  Adam refocused on the female officer who had asked him the question. ‘Yes. You’d better come in.’

  ‘No, sir, do you think you could step outside?’

  ‘Outside? Why?’

  But he did as he was asked. Two other uniformed policemen he hadn’t noticed appeared and stood either side of him. They did not touch him but it was obvious why they were here. ‘What …?’

  ‘Sir, you have reported a very serious crime and it would be best if you do exactly what we say.’

  Adam looked at the female.

  They had not said who they were.

  They had not shown him any form of identity. ‘My wife and children are in there.’

  ‘Yes,
sir. Please stay out here while we go inside.’ The two plain-clothes officers went into the house, pulling on rubber gloves they extracted from their pockets.

  Adam waited in silence.

  His mind was screaming, not with anything particularly intelligible, but it was screaming all the same. It was his family, his house, his garden, his everything, and yet these complete strangers were invading what was his.

  He should be with them.

  He should be by their sides when these strangers saw them.

  Had he really lost them?

  Was he really without those who were part of him. their very presence treasured, their every move, their every breath, their every word … now gone forever?

  How do you see your wife like that and not … not what?

  How was he supposed to feel?

  He could not get his head round what had happened. His children, not yet out of their early teens, their lives so gruesomely taken away from them, from him. His brain refused to compute the enormity of what he had found, the sheer magnitude of what he had seen. The blood, the staring eyes, their innocence and their silence … what the hell was he supposed to do?

  How the hell was he supposed to feel?

  Adam was aware that the female detective, if that’s what she was, was standing just outside the front door. ‘Mr Harrison, I’m terribly sorry but -’

  ‘There’s no need,’ Adam said, wondering how he was actually able to speak, ‘I’ve seen them.’

  ‘I’m still -’

  ‘Don’t, please don’t.’ He shook his head. ‘Look, I don’t know what to call you, you didn’t -’

  ‘No, I didn’t, did I?’ The woman took a small black wallet from her jacket pocket. ‘I’m Detective Sergeant Caroline Brown.’ She showed Adam her ID. ‘I’ve left Detective Constable John Tilsey in the house. Yes, I’m sorry, that was an oversight.’

  Adam stared at the woman. Incongruously he thought how white her teeth were against her black skin, how white her eyes were, with dark brown pupils, how pink her lips were - how normal she looked. ‘What, what happens now?’