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Just a quick report this time, Émilie. There are things I
need to discuss with Jo but I’d better give you a quick précis of the morning’s
events. I suppose I should have expected it, but it’s not something you enjoy.
No one wants to have to lie to a grieving parent about the whereabouts of their
dead son’s face.
So, as I’m sure you remember, the last report I sent to you
was largely concerned with the fact that somebody broke into my house and left
a teenaged boy’s face on a plate in my kitchen as a little present. You’ll also
remember that I burnt the face. This might have been a little rash, I agree,
but I’m sure that you’ll agree that nobody wants a dead face hanging around
their home, no matter how immaculately removed it may be.
Anyway, I woke up early this morning. Well, early for me and
to my surprise I was first one up. I suppose that Jo might not have slept well
after what she saw. I made my bitter sludgy coffee and I waited for my
housemate to come down so I could get on with the business of questioning her. Arguably
the timing was bad but I didn’t want to give her too long to create a
convincing lie. There was just something about the way she reacted, or her lack
of reaction, that had unsettled me, that made me think she knew more than she
was letting on. So I sat and I drank my titanically strong coffee and I thought
about the best way to go about this. I had settled on my old favourite bluntness
when the doorbell rang.
Now, Émilie, I’m not exaggerating when I say that this was unusual,
to say the bloody least. People keep away from me. I make sure of it. I tell
them what I am so they’ll walk on the other side of the road. So when the
doorbell rang the morning after our little home invasion I was somewhat
perturbed, which is not a state I enjoy. I pulled my dressing gown around me to
make sure that none of my bits were showing, stomped over to the front door and
flung it open.
Standing on my front porch was a straight-backed,
well-dressed man with closely-cropped dark hair, just on the wrong side of
middle age, and about two feet taller than me. So bloody tall that I was forced
to crane my neck to properly glare at him. As our eyes met I felt my desire to
ruin his morning dissipate. It was obvious that he hadn’t just had his morning
ruined. I knew who this was. As he cleared his throat I looked past him to the
street and saw an only-slightly shorter blonde woman waiting by a black people
carrier, clutching a handkerchief and trying not to look back at me. I turned
my attention back to my visitor as he began to speak.
“I know that you’re...I know what you say you are.” He
paused and broke eye contact, his head turning on his giant’s shoulders to look
past me. I realised that Jo had repeated her trick from last night and appeared
behind me without my noticing. It’s impressive but it’s irritating. “I’m sorry,”
he said, “I didn’t realise you had…” He broke off again, evidently unsure of
exactly who Jo was.
“This is Jo, my niece,” I lied through a neighbourly smile. “Don’t
worry about her, she knows. What can I do for you?”
He nodded at Jo and turned back to face me. Whatever he knew,
he didn’t seem very scared of me.
“I’m sorry, Ms Belmont, but I need to know. I need to know
if you had anything to do with what happened.”
Now, yes, this was an obvious opening but I wasn’t about to
admit to anything straight away.
“I’m sorry, what are we talking about?” I asked.
He kept that eye contact, staring straight at me and there
wasn’t just sadness in those eyes. There was anger too.
“My son,” he said, confirming what I already knew. “I need
to know what happened to him. Did you have anything to do with it?”
I had a choice at this point. I could have told him the
truth. I could have told him that, while I didn’t have anything to do with it,
I was slightly aware of the situation and I had disposed of some important
evidence. That there was a plate in my dishwasher that was waiting to be rinsed
clean of his son’s DNA. So, obviously, I lied.
“No…” I said, and left it at that. He clasped his hands
together and held them a few inches away from my chest as he started to sob.
“They took…when they found him, his face…” Listen, I’m not
completely fucking heartless, of course I wanted to jump in and tell him that I
knew, and that I was sorry. But I’d made my bed and he had to finish his
thought on his own. And to the man’s credit, he clearly had the guts to go with
that freakishly huge body. He straightened up, got his weeping under control
and started to speak slowly but clearly. “My boy had no face when they found
him. It had been…removed.”
Jo gave a little “sympathy” sound that I tried to replicate.
I think mine sounded more like disgust but, in fairness, both were appropriate.
“I’m sorry to come around like this but you told us what you
were and I just thought…I know it’s none of your business, but if you had any
idea who could have done this, or if you could…”
He tailed off again and started looking hopeful. I knew that
I had to make something clear to him.
“Jo, go inside.” There was a moment’s pause as I could feel
her eyes burning into the back of my head before I heard her stomp off indoors.
“Excuse me, Mr…”
The man held out a long arm. “Charles Kitson. That’s my wife
Anna down by the car. My boy’s name is…”
“I’m sorry; Mr Kitson, but I can’t help you. I understand
what you’re asking of me and why you’re asking it, but I can’t.”
He looked at me with those big blue eyes sticking out of his
big head and it was obvious that he didn’t understand. “I don’t understand,” he
said. “You come here, you tell us you’re a…you said you were a goddam witch, Ms
Belmont. We’ve all left you alone, just like you asked. Are we just supposed to
let you keep living here while this sort of thing happens? You say you’ve had nothing
to do with it, why should I believe you when you won’t lift a finger to help
me?”
I let him get all this out of his system. It’s very
important to allow people to vent. When he looked like he was coming to the end
of his rant I raised my hands.
“I can’t expect you to understand, Mr Kitson. I can only tell
you that there is a balance and I cannot interfere at this time. Now please,
take your wife and go home. Please don’t make me make you leave.”
With that, I stepped back inside and closed my front door. I
waited until I heard him leave and the car pull away. When I got back to the
kitchen, Jo was waiting for me.
“He asked you to help, didn’t he?” she asked. I nodded. “And
you said no?” I picked up my mug of coffee and went back to bed.
It’s later now and I’m going to have to explain myself to
her. But why? Didn’t you tell her about the way we do things? We don’t involve
people. We don’t work for anybody. She’s going to accuse me of being heartless
but it’s not that at all. It’s just the way we do things. I’ll talk to her. But
I’ve got the strangest feeling it’s only going to make things worse.
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I hope you're enjoying this series, please let me know what you think. I enjoy writing Eliza and I'm looking forward to writing the next few instalments. Go on, have a song.
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