James looked back into the dark opening of the church. The girls had followed and looked abandoned in the church doorway, so Yvonne moved around the silent pillar of Doris and made for them. Dad started talking about a funeral cortege up to the cemetery, but James would let everyone else deal with that. All he wanted was to find out who had done this to Tony.

James’s return ticket was in his bag in the hire car, underneath yesterday’s jeans, which had left muddy streaks across the paperwork. He brushed it off and read that his flight was due to depart Wishaw at four-thirty that afternoon. It was coming up to midday.

Dad was waving his arms, organising everyone into cars, but there was some doubt about whether the minister would be driving himself or getting a lift.

The length of time it took for a disparate family to get itself organised was all the time James needed. He pocketed the ticket and drove off in the other direction, taking the long way back to the crossroads past the water towers.

Only three hours left in town, and:-

I might have alerted a killer’s family that I know something.

If I stick with the retired cop in the family, I’ll be safe, right?

How the fuck do you stop someone being buried once their funeral has happened?

Ten 1985

TEN
1985

James sat on the verandah at his grandparents’ old place, watching the road for signs of a search party coming after him. Fighting his way out of Tony’s car had left him very unsettled. It might have only been round one of a family effort to make him stay at his father’s place for the night, and he was determined to avoid that at all costs.

Half an hour ago, Tony had returned along the lane and glided the old car back into Deloraine. James had ducked out of sight until he was sure his cousin was inside. The afternoon wore on while he fantasised that his beloved grandmother would open the door of her old homestead to him and he’d spend the night in one of her spare rooms, tucked-up within the linen she lovingly washed and ironed. Instead, the lonely figure who eventually cut along the track up the barren hillock was his mother, the old kelpie at her heels.

Every step of her lazy gait was painfully slow, as though she was trying to buy time.

‘Walk to the end of the road with me?’ she called over the wild roses.

By then, the lengthening shadows had made him lonely enough to push through the gate onto the road. They strode in silence, flicking away flies and keeping an eye on the dog in the roadside grass, above which its tail periodically showed.

‘Can’t wait to go home,’ she said. ‘What say we head off the day after the wedding?’