Chapter 23
twenty-three
Some of Logan’s Britishism tickle me. Particularly now that I’m on this little island that spawned his odd way of speaking. One particular phrase, “does my napper in,” rings in my ears over and over for the next two days.
De Leon announced a “down day” when he slid into the room a few minutes after Cynnie hung up.
I didn’t object. I thought I’d use the time to strategize with Logan and make a soft approach to Fred.
This is a high-stakes interview. Possibly the only shot we’ll get at an eyewitness. I need to get the guy on Logan’s side.
But holing up with De Leon is literal hell.
He crashes and sleeps for more than eighteen hours, which says everything I need to know about his psycho overwatch schedule.
He’s worn himself out. And either his guts still haven’t recovered from that fucking Balti, or he’s eaten something since that disagreed with him, because he farts continually while he sleeps.
It’s more regular than my metronome app.
Instead of tick-tick-tick it’s pfft-pfft-pfft. And it stinks like rotten eggs.
Even worse, one day stretches into two. He vetoes my plans to go running, or even for a brisk walk around the b-and-b’s garden.
He lets me out for breakfast, so Miz Skirmish doesn’t have to bring our food to our room, but the rest of the time it’s delivery, and the Meat Lover’s pizza does not do anything to improve De Leon’s digestion.
I’m so restless by the afternoon of the second day that I find myself doing push-ups on the floor between our beds while on a video call with my bumble. She, of course, finds my display endlessly amusing and puts on music for a “Tikker challenge” that she records, giggling wildly.
Despite the seclusion doing my napper in, I come off the call with her grinning.
De Leon, who woke up when I started the call and put his headphones in, sits up in bed.
“That,” he says, pointing at me. “That’s what I want.”
I glance down at my damp T-shirt. “Tough. This is a vintage Ghost Rider shirt. Get your own.”
He pops his earbuds out. “Not your shirt, what you got outta that call with your girl. Go look at yourself in the mirror, you arse. You’re grinning so wide it looks like the top of your head’s about to hinge off and all you did was talk with her. About nothing. You didn’t even dirty talk—”
“Because I figured you were listening,” I grumble.
“Whatever. I want that—”
“Joy,” I concede, remembering a similar conversation I had with Logan, not so many weeks ago. “You want the joy a little gives her daddy. That’s . . . the right thing to want.”
“Cost you a lot to admit that, didn’t it?”
I grimace at him as I push off the floor and head to the bathroom to take my third shower of the day.
Fortunately, before I break a world-record for push-ups, or soften enough towards De Leon to actually like the fucker, he opens the prison door.
I go for a run first—and am only slightly nettled when De Leon keeps pace with me—then hop an Uber to the village where Miranda’s ex-boyfriend, Fred Evans, lives.
As we’re driving, we pass a familiar address. Although I’ve been circling through the villages around Miranda’s old family home, I haven’t been to see it yet. The Uber driver, while not as friendly as the Sikh, is happy to make a stop and let me wander around for five minutes.
The house is big, even by the standards of some of the country-houses in these parts.
Much bigger than a family of four would need, with two big wings off the central Georgian block.
It’s separated from its neighbours by a long drive and gardens so big on either side that I can’t see the neighbour to the right at all, the house hidden behind a tall stand of cypress trees.
The house is also empty. The doors and windows are boarded up. The white paint on the porch is peeling and a broken, slate roof tile cracks underfoot as I walk up the path from the circular drive to the house.
I don’t believe in ghosts—except the ones in the machine—but even I would think twice about buying a house where a little boy drowned. That is the recipe for a haunting.
I circle around the house. More boarded windows and doors, more peeling paint.
Where someone’s still mowing the front, the back’s been left to run riot.
The thistle’s waist-high, rustling evilly in the morning breeze, daring me to try to push through its weaponry.
Instead, I follow a crushed shell path, half-buried in rotted leaves, that wanders around between spreading oaks and through a random archway draped with dead vines, to a sunken pool.
It's empty now, half-filled with leaves and small branches. Even when it was full, it wouldn’t have been more than four feet deep. Just deep enough to draw ducks.
And a small boy.
I look back at the house. It’s partially obscured by two of the trees and the silly, ornamental archway. Not easy for people in the house to see the pond.
Her parents should have netted the pool. With a curious little boy in the house, they were negligent not to.
Not that I feel any sympathy for Miranda. At all. But they should have.
After taking several pictures and a short video, I walk back up to where the Uber’s waiting.
“Find what you were looking for, mate?” The driver asks me.
“Yeah. Thanks.” I put my head back against the headrest and tap a hefty tip for the driver into the app.
Then I flip my phone over to a different app and tap out
I love you.
Before I think about it too hard, I hit send.
The reply comes as we’re pulling up in front of a small, concrete pillbox of a house.
Logan: I love you, too, Max. You’re my brother. Whatever you’re seeing, whatever you’re doing there, I’m with you, mate.
I clear my throat, thank the driver, and climb out to find my brother and best friend an eyewitness who will help him get custody of his daughter.
I haven’t met too many truly broken people in my life. I’ve probably been lucky that way. The last one was Uncle Max, in those final, terrible days, before he asked me to give him release from the disease that was killing him far too slowly.
Fred Evans reminds me very much of Uncle Max.
His blue eyes are rheumy and without any spark when he opens the plastic, front door.
I’ve learned a little about British architecture while I’ve been in England and I know what I’m looking at now is what’s called “Council housing,” state-sponsored housing given to people who can’t support themselves.
I immediately see why Fred Evans needs Council housing as he listens to my introduction, shakes my proffered hand, and shuffles aside to let me into the house.
There’s very little still tethering this man’s spirit to this world.
When I ask him if I can video-record our interview, he nods listlessly.
After I set up my phone on the plastic dining table in the corner of his clean but soulless kitchen, I ask him again and make sure I get his verbal agreement on camera.
I want this interview to be admissible; I’m more than a little worried that Fred Evans won’t still be around if Logan’s claim goes to trial.
I’m up-front with Fred, telling him that I’m interviewing him on Logan’s behalf, as part of a custody application against Miranda Porter.
Fred shows no interest, nodding when I let the pauses stretch.
In the morning light through the windows, his skin has a gray, flaky grain to it that reminds me of a B-movie zombie.
I ask him if he’d like a glass of water or a cup of tea before we get started.
He shakes his head, not offering me anything in return, which is a novelty.
He’s the first person in this entire country who hasn’t offered me “a cuppa.”
“Fred, do you remember the day Miranda’s brother died?” I ask.
A frown flits across his forehead but fades into apathy. “Yeah.”
“Can you tell me about that day?”
He shrugs, his shoulders rawboned under a gray T-shirt with Mickey Mouse on the front that’s clean but so old the fabric’s worn through at the collar and seams. “There was a party. I think it was for Pete’s sixteenth.”
“Pete?”
“Pete Clarke. He was part of the group back then.”
I make a note of the name before getting him back on track. “Where did the party take place?”
“At the Porters. They had the biggest house and her parents were always out.”
“Were they out that day?”
He nods.
“Was it just Miranda and Nicholas at home?”
Fred shakes his head. “Their housekeeper was there at the beginning. Janice, I think her name was. Jane. Something like that. She set up some food and a cake.”
“Did the housekeeper leave at some point?”
“Yeah, I don’t remember when.”
“Did she put out any alcohol with the food and cake?”
“No, one of our mates brought that later.”
It was a shot in the dark, but I know what I was like at sixteen. If I’d been invited to parties.
“How many people came to the party?”
He shrugs, the points of his shoulders moving under the thin fabric of his shirt.
It’s hard to see the young man he was as he slumps in his chair.
The ashy skin slumping loose from his bones, the dead eyes, thinning brown hair—there’s nothing attractive left.
But once this man caught Miranda Porter’s eye.
“Mebbe a dozen,” he says. “Before the food ran out, it got busy, then thinned out.”
“What did you do after the food ran out?”
“Same as we were doing before. Dancing, talking, playing games.”
“What kind of games?”
“Seven minutes in heaven. Spin the bottle. Quarters.”
Sex and drinking. Same as every teenage party.
“Did you go off with Miranda at any point?”
He nods.
“Did you and Miranda have sex during the party?”
His eyes spark, but the spark fades and he nods.
“Where?”
“Upstairs in her bedroom.”
“Did you go back to the party afterward?”
He shakes his head. “She got up to go to the bathroom or something. That’s when she found Nicky.”
“She found Nicky in the pond at the back?”