In Denial Read online

  Adam was none too happy with the fact that he was being talked to and about, but even unhappier with the way the conversation - if that’s what it was - was going. He didn’t need to be analysed, and especially by some hotelier he didn’t know from Adam - or should that be Eve? It was all too late for analysis.

  But even with the need to be left alone, the need for isolation, the need for escapism, Adam could not be rude. And for some reason he wanted Doris to remind him of his mother, not necessarily to look at … Doris had such a caring attitude; she spoke softly and used her hands and there was sincerity in her eyes. If he could remember his mother, which he could not, he would have wanted her to have been like that.

  ‘No, Doris, what did Sid say to you?’

  ‘Sid isn’t one for sussing out people quickly, in fact Sid doesn’t do anything very quickly, but he’s a good barman. I can leave him on his own when I need to.’ Doris rested her elbows on the table and leaned forward, as if about to share a secret. ‘He described you as being distant and he wasn’t just referring to the fact that you are a Sassenach.’ Doris began to smile but then appeared to think better of it. ‘He said you were in the bar asking for a room but you could just as easily have been phoning.’

  ‘And what did he mean by that?’ Adam asked, slightly amused.

  ‘He said that you were here but on the other hand you weren’t.’

  ‘I’m sure he had his reasons.’

  ‘I’m sure he did and so have I.’

  ‘And they are?’

  ‘I don’t know what you are, Mr Harrison, and I don’t know who you are. All I know is what you’ve told me. You’ve come here from Ashbourne in Derbyshire in England, you’re on your own, it’s the middle of the week and you’re miles from anywhere where you could be doing business.’ She waited for a couple of seconds. ‘The man I mentioned who came here about five years ago was here for a reason, and, unless I’m very much mistaken, you’re here for a similar reason.’

  ‘And that is?’

  ‘He was here either to escape or forget or both.’

  ‘You’re very astute, Doris, but I really just want to be left alone.’

  ‘I’m sure you do and I’ll respect that wish in a moment. Call me a busybody if you want but all I’ll say is, Mr Harrison, that nothing, absolutely nothing can be as bad as perhaps it appears. There is always something or somebody out there for you.’

  ‘I’m sure there is, Doris, so normally I’d agree with you, but for me personally there is no something and no somebody.’

  ‘There has to be a something or a somebody. If there isn’t, what’s the point of going on?’

  ‘As I said, Doris, you are very, very astute.’

  ‘Astute I might be, but shrewdness and common sense don’t always go together.’

  Adam smiled and began to get up. ‘And now, Doris, I really must go to bed.’

  ‘Yes, of course, Mr Harrison.’ Doris picked up the plate. ‘I didn’t mean to pry, I …’

  ‘You didn’t pry and I appreciate your concern, I’m just very tired. That could account for Sid thinking I was distant.’ He was trying to make light of what he’d been told, but one way or the other it did not really matter.

  ‘How long did you say you’d be staying?’ Doris moved towards the door.

  ‘Two, maybe three nights, if that’s all right?’

  ‘You can stay as long as you like. If I’m right then the longer the better. Don’t get much call for rooms this time of year.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘And will you be eating here in the evenings? I’ve got a nice bit of venison in the freezer if you like game.’

  Adam nodded. ‘That would be more than acceptable.’

  Doris opened the door.‘ And will you be here for breakfast?’

  ‘Tomorrow, yes. In here, is it?’

  ‘Yes, well it is while the restaurant and bar are being sorted.’ She went through the door. ‘Nice bit of smoked haddock in the freezer as well. Bit of haddock and a poached egg or two for breakfast?’

  ‘That would be great, thank you.’

  * * *

  Adam went over to the window in his room and drew back the curtains. He expected to see the blackness he’d seen before but the sky had cleared. Over the roof tops between the hotel and the loch he could see the water shimmering in the moonlight, and across the loch he picked out a couple of dancing lights on the far hillside. He hoped it would be a nice day tomorrow. He hoped the sun would be shining, the birds singing - and maybe a slight breeze blowing from the south.

  Regardless, if the courage he needed was there he didn’t doubt he would be doing the right thing. In fact there had never been a choice because from the moment he saw Lucinda’s, Charlotte’s and Timothy’s bodies his destiny was sealed.

  If tomorrow was to be the day, he wanted it to be a good day to die.

  There was so much senseless killing in the world, so much needless pain. But for people whose quality of life was so poor due to illness or disability and who had decided they could take no more, he believed they had the right to end their own lives. Their lives were theirs to take if that was what they really wanted. When he read about such people going to Dignitas in Switzerland, he applauded their bravery and solemnity. When those who assisted in the final journey to Zurich were threatened with prosecution, he had wanted to ask what right such organisations had to interfere: it was the individual’s right to decide. But Dignitas would have rejected him. There was no physical or mental degenerative illness, he was of sound mind and as healthy as the next man.

  But he had decided there was no reason to go on.

  He had absolutely nothing to live for.

  Since he and Lucinda had married fourteen years earlier, everything he did was for her, and then when Charlotte and Timothy were born, for them also. He didn’t, he couldn’t, just go to work for the sake of it. What was the point? Doris was right: If there wasn’t something, if there wasn’t somebody, what was the point? There was no point, no point at all. But she was wrong to believe there always was a something or a somebody.

  He would not be doing it because of some spiritual belief that they would be waiting for him on the other side. He hoped, but he wasn’t that naïve. He was flesh and blood as they had been flesh and blood.

  Not knowing what, if anything, awaited him, did not take away the fact that he still wanted it to be a nice day. He wanted to relish the beauty of the countryside, the loch, the sunshine and the serenity each could bring: something over which Man had no control although Man was doing his best to destroy both the countryside and the atmosphere, Man’s own catalyst.

  There were still parts that Man had not touched.

  This is what Adam would look for and once found he would be happy to end it all. No more heartache, no more grieving, no more loneliness; it would all be gone forever as they were now gone.

  After closing the curtains he slowly got undressed and went to the bathroom for a shower. He had maintained all of his routines. He had not allowed his hatred for the society that had taken his family away from him to affect his own standards. He still did not blame the man who had drawn the blade of the knife across his family’s throats. Whoever this man was he was a product of the society that allowed such monsters to become part of modern day expectations. There was no deterrent any more. To murder, to abuse, to rape, to disable, to mutilate, and to inflict pain seemed to be a right: people who could do these things were not frightened of being caught any more. Such attitudes were part of a broken society, a society that once had the capability to protect itself but a society that had now failed itself in every way.

  Letting the jets of hot water bite into his skin, he smiled ruefully as he thought of Doris’s offer to serve him venison the following evening. Would she understand if he did not appear for dinner? Would she go to his room and knock on the door? How long would it be before she became suspicious?

  None of it would matter.

  Whether he was found the sa
me day, the day after, the following week or month, it didn’t matter. He would be just as dead. He would be a source of gossip for a week or two maybe, but then something else would happen and he would be forgotten.

  That’s the way he wanted it.

  The towel was soft and smelt of lavender.

  Lucinda would have liked that, Adam thought. Lavender was one of her favourite scents. In fact she would have liked everything about the room and especially the bathroom. She always said that the state of somebody’s bathroom told you so much about the person.

  She had wanted to come to Loch Lomond and bring the children.

  That’s why he had come.

  He would see it through their eyes as well as his own. As he looked they would be with him. They had always been with him. Even after they were no more, they were with him. They were still with him.

  He wasn’t afraid of death; he would welcome it. He had been like a zombie for the five weeks since that fateful Friday evening. The initial surge of the investigation, the funerals, the commiserations, the apologies, the understanding, the empathy, the sympathy - everyone had meant well but he doubted whether he, Lucinda, Timothy or Charlotte were still very much in other people’s thoughts - if at all.

  Too much time had passed.

  The shock the news of their deaths brought was immediate, not only for those who knew them but also for readers of the local and national newspapers. Their entire lives as well as the gruesome details of their murders were graphically reported in a few column inches.

  One piece of detail none of the newspaper reports could explain in just a few sentences was the fact that Lucinda’s biological parents were Adam’s adoptive-parents. When he was five years old, his biological parents were killed in an air crash, and because of the very close friendship they had with Lucinda’s mother and father, they adopted him. He had very distant memories of his own mother and father but such memories tended to be generated by photographs. His in-laws were therefore his mother and father, which was not an easy fact to report.

  It was evident from the first time he saw his adoptive mother and father after the murders that they blamed him: in some ways this was just as hard to take as losing his family.

  They had not said this in so many words but they didn’t have to. After the funerals there had been nothing, not even a phone call. So Adam grouped Christina and Joseph in with the others. No doubt when they heard of his death they would tell their friends they’d always had their suspicions. They wouldn’t actually accuse their son-in-law - their son - of murder but the inference would be there.

  And what about work?

  What would they say?

  ‘Take as long as you need,’ Charles had told him. ‘Don’t want to see you back until it’s all sorted and you’re ready to come back.’

  Until what is all sorted?

  Three deaths would eventually be placed in the drawer for obsolete files, would they? Okay, mourning over, time to move on, back to work, back to earning your sixty-five thousand a year plus bonus and not forgetting the company Lexus - Adam didn’t think so. Charles appeared surprised when Adam rang him after the funerals to say that in all probability he would not be returning to Jeeves, Prendaghast and Oliver (Accountants) of Pall Mall who cheated the rich as well as the taxpayer.

  ‘What do you mean you won’t be returning, old boy?’ Charles Oliver always called Adam ‘old boy’; he called everyone 'old boy', even those who were twenty years his junior. He had been overheard calling some of the female members of staff ‘old boy’ as well.

  ‘It means, Charles, that I wish to resign. I’m giving you my one month’s notice and as I’m owed quite a lot of holiday, you won’t see me again other than when I return the car.’

  ‘The Lexus? No, no, old boy, hang on to it until you’ve given this more thought.’

  That’s why the Lexus rather than some cheap hired car, was now parked outside The Colcorran Arms. As material things went he had to admit it was a beautiful car. The children had loved the leather seats, Lucinda the climate control, and Adam the sheer unadulterated luxury of everything about it.

  They would find the Lexus first.

  He was not going to hide it - what would be the point? It wasn’t because he didn’t want to be found. It was his life; he had decided to take it and once taken it did not matter a jot.

  He would sleep well.

  The bed looked really comfortable.

  He smiled to himself. ‘The condemned man had a good night’s sleep.’

  Condemned?

  As the murderer drew the blade across Lucinda’s throat he had ensured the death of someone else who was at that point one hundred and forty miles away. He had not killed three people that night; he had killed four because, as sure as the earth was round, he would be responsible for Adam’s death too. It wouldn’t be suicide it would be murder by proxy.

  But he didn’t really blame the man.

  As he had told himself on so many occasions, he blamed society.

  The police? Their rush of enthusiasm was followed by disappointment when Adam’s alibis were supported. DC Tilsey was convinced it was a cut-and-dried case - a misplaced and maybe unintentional witticism that was not lost on Adam when it had been stated in front of him - of husband kills wife and kids. DC Tilsey couldn’t hide his disillusionment and disappointment when even he had to admit that Adam could not have been the murderer.

  The pathologist put the times of deaths down to between midnight and three o’clock on the Friday morning. Adam was at a corporate dinner on the Thursday evening and he and two other younger accountants left The Dorchester at just after ten-thirty.

  Adam didn’t want to go on to a nightclub so he went back to his small flat and called Lucinda at eleven before going to sleep. Perhaps the police could have intimated he’d had time to drive to Ashbourne, murder his family and then return to London.

  However, a small incident - which at the time was insignificant - proved such a journey would have been impossible. At just after midnight, Mrs Gladys Moules, a woman in her late sixties who lived in the flat above him, banged on his door in quite a state. Ginger, her old, smelly and moth-eaten neutered Tom was stuck up a tree, the branches of which were a matter of feet from her window. Adam spent over an hour with her attempting to coax the cat back into the flat. Eventually he succeeded and in payment was scratched on his arm. Mrs Moules confirmed his account of events, and he was able to show the police the aftermath of the scratches.

  Once he was taken off the suspect list, the funerals in the past, the house having already been given back to him, the carpet having been replaced in the living room, the bed linen and mattresses disposed of and replaced, he was ready to do something. But so soon after saying goodbye he had no idea what. He had paid off all debts - this amounted to a couple of credit card bills of less than two hundred pounds - and he’d revised his will.

  The will was the most difficult part.

  Lucinda was the sole beneficiary with instructions to give to Charlotte and Timothy what she thought appropriate.

  It had to be changed.

  Lucinda’s parents had paid off the mortgage many years previously. They owned a very successful restaurant business and for them a few hundred thousand pounds were the least they could do for their only daughter - and son.

  The revised will was written, witnessed by a near neighbour who signed without reading anything and then Adam left it on his desk in the study. He didn’t leave a note, as with so many other things there was no point.

  There was still a sole beneficiary but this time it was Mrs Gladys Moules and her cat.

  * * *

  Adam slept well.

  His first thoughts after he woke at just after seven o’clock were rational and welcome because perhaps the day had finally come. He did not feel scared, he did not even feel apprehensive, he was at peace with his world and soon he would be at peace with everyone else’s as well. If it turned out to be the right day, he would not be waking aga
in. This could be the last time he opened his eyes and wished that this day had come a lot sooner.

  He even smiled.

  Nobody would understand, so what was the point of trying to explain. He had gone to sleep confident that all loose ends were taken care of and there was nothing more he could do, especially not for Mrs Gladys Moules.

  He was ready.

  After showering, he packed the small weekend bag he’d brought with him, made sure there was nothing left in the room and then, after putting a hundred and thirty-five pounds in cash in one of the drawers for Doris, he went out to the Lexus and threw the bag in the boot. Peering up at the sky he was delighted to see that it was going to be the clear blue he had hoped for, accompanied by a slight breeze but from the north. It was going to be the beautiful autumnal day he had prayed for in more ways than one. All he had to do now was enjoy the smoked haddock and poached eggs Doris promised him, and then he would willingly head off to find the right place.

  At exactly eight-thirty Doris greeted him with a ‘Morning, Mr Harrison,’ placing a plate in front of him on which there were two large portions of smoked haddock with a bright yellow and white freshly poached egg on each piece of fish.

  ‘This looks wonderful, Doris. Thank you very much.’

  ‘It’s my pleasure. Tea or coffee?’

  ‘Coffee please.’

  ‘And would you like some fruit juice?’

  ‘Please, grapefruit if you have it.’

  ‘I have. It would normally be laid out but the snug is too small.’

  ‘Of course.’ Adam picked up the fish knife and fork.

  A few moments later she came back with the coffee and fruit juice. ‘Saw you putting your bag in the car,’ she commented. ‘Does it mean you’re leaving early?’

  ‘No, no, Doris. This really is good, you know. No, I’m popping back down to Glasgow this morning and my papers are in the bag.’ He did not look at her as he spoke.