Thrown (17 page)

He just seems wet and cold and tired. Despite his condition, it’s so good to see him again.

I don’t want to leave him so instead of going up to bed, I get a blanket for myself and sit on the rug in front of the fire, leaning against the easy chair. Stoker sleeps peacefully, his breathing deep and slow, his body still.

Watching him makes me sleepy myself and I feel my eyes drooping shut. I let myself fall asleep.

All thoughts of the razor upstairs are gone.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Torn

Amy

I wake up the next morning to find Stoker sitting on the sofa watching me. He’s still naked and he has the blankets wrapped around him.

‘How are you feeling?’ I ask.

He runs a hand through his hair. ‘Not bad considering.’

‘Considering what?’ It feels good to be talking to him again.

‘Considering I took a dive into the sea last night.’

‘Stoker, why? I don’t understand.’

‘I’m not so sure I understand myself. I don’t know what came over me. I went to the place where the accident happened. I looked over the cliff to where I was thrown into the sea and I remember thinking that I changed when I came crawling out of the water that day. I changed for the worst. I wanted to change back, to become who I used to be again. It was stupid and I paid the price.’

‘You can’t turn back time, Stoker.’

‘I know. If I could do that, I would have been more open and honest with you from the beginning. Then you wouldn’t get mad at me and take my paintings off the wall.’

‘What? What do you mean? I hung the painting you gave me in the kitchen. It’s still there.’

He points at the wall behind the sofa. ‘No, I mean the two paintings that were hanging there.’

I look at the wall blankly.

He says, ‘A watercolor of the lighthouse at Pendeen and a colored pencil sketch of the beach at Porthcurno.’

I shake my head. I don’t know what he’s talking about. He sees my confusion and says, ‘OK, look…there was nothing going on between Beth and me. Not in the way you think anyway. The paintings that were hanging there on the wall and the one in the bookshop were bought and paid for. I sold them to her. She loved my work and said I would be successful some day. Your aunt was my patron. She bought me some materials and she bought my work and she said she was going to fund me to take an art course at a college in Manchester. I was going to pay her back of course and I was working extra shifts at the garage to get some money together but I don’t get paid much. As far as my dad is concerned, he provides the roof over my head and I don’t need much else.’

My mind is working on the puzzle, remembering Aunt B’s words.

Look for what doesn’t fit. Mr Tibbles in the cattery didn’t fit. These missing paintings don’t fit. The cat fits my suicide theory. The paintings don’t. What do the paintings mean? Theft? Why would anyone steal the work of an unknown artist? No, there are much more valuable pieces of art hanging on the walls of Promise House. So if it’s not theft, then why would Aunt B remove the paintings herself?

My mind starts piecing it together slowly. Maybe the fact that Mr Tibbles was in a cattery in Penzance doesn’t mean what I thought it meant…that Aunt B was planning to take her own life. Maybe he was in a cattery for the most likely reason of all; his owner was going away. And he was in Penzance because if she was going somewhere via Penzance and returning via Penzance, picking him up there on the way back would be easy. She wouldn’t be going out of her way because she would be driving by there anyway.

I get up and go get the car keys. Stoker says, ‘Hey, wait for me. Where are you going?’

‘You should stay here, you aren’t wearing any clothes,’ I remind him.

‘I’m not going anywhere. Back in a minute.’ I slip my shoes on because even though it isn’t raining anymore, the ground is wet I go out to the Volvo, get in and turn in the ignition but don’t start the car. I press the button the the dash that activates the GPS and scroll through the history of locations Aunt B has put into the navigation system. The top address tells me everything I need to know.

College of the Arts, Manchester.

So Aunt B was going to the college in Manchester. She made arrangements for her cat, taking him to Meow Meow the day before she left so she could collect him as she drove south from Manchester on he return. She must have planned to go other places while she was up north because the GPS has other addresses around that area programmed into it.

And that explains the paintings. She was taking them to the college as examples of Stoker’s work. I take the keys and go around to the trunk and open it. Empty. Damn.

I go back and open the glove compartment. She must have been taking some paperwork with her. Also empty.

Still a little confused, I go back inside to find a fully-dressed Stoker coming out to meet me. ‘What’s going on?’ he asks.

‘Did Aunt B mention she was going away?’

‘No, she just told me she needed her car and I had to have it back to her the next morning. She didn’t say she was going away.’

‘Oh my God, her car broke down.’

‘Her exhaust fell off.’

‘And you towed her car to your garage. Macbeth told me he saw it there.’

Stoker nods.

‘But you didn’t take it back to her the next morning because you heard that her body had been found on the beach.’

He looks down sadly. ‘That’s right.’

‘Stoker, I know my aunt and whenever she goes away, she always packs the car the day before so she can set off straight away on the morning of her journey without having to worry about it.’

He shrugs. ‘OK.’

’So why isn’t her luggage in the car? Why aren’t the paintings in there? There must have been some paperwork she had to take with her, if only a letter they sent her.’

He frowns at me as if I’ve gone crazy. ‘Amy, I’m not following you.

What paperwork? And why would my paintings be in her car?’

‘I think she was planning on going to the at college in Manchester. It’s programmed into her GPS. I know her, Stoker, she would have put the paintings, the paperwork and her luggage in the car the day before. The day she took Mr Tibbles to the Meow Meow cattery. Then on the way back to Promise Cove, on the Sea Road, her car broke down.’

A thought enters my mind which chills me to the bone. I don’t want my fear to be confirmed but I have to know. ‘Tell me about what happened when you took her car to your garage.’

‘Nothing out of the ordinary. She rang me on my mobile and I took the Land Rover out there, hooked up the Volvo, dropped your aunt here at the house and took the car to the garage.’

‘But you didn’t fix it right away.’ It isn’t a question. I’m starting to see links and the whole dark story is unfolding in my mind.

‘No, I had to go out on another call to tow a Nova which had a broken steering shaft.’

‘And when you came back later and fixed my aunt’s tailpipe, did you open the trunk?’

He nods. ‘I gave the car a clean inside and out. That includes the boot.’

‘And it was empty,’ I say to myself. I don’t know how I’m going to tell him what I think happened to Aunt B. How will he react? Could I be mistaken?

‘Just a few bits and pieces. Nothing weird. Certainly no paintings or luggage.’

’Stoker, did your father know about Aunt B funding you to go to cart college?’

‘Hell no! He knew nothing about it. I was going to tell him eventually but not until it was definitely going to happen. I told you what he thinks about that stuff.’

‘He killed her, Stoker. He killed my aunt.’

‘What? That’s crazy.’

‘He looked in the car and he found your paintings and the letter from the college. He knew where Aunt B was headed. If he didn’t take the paintings from the car then where are they?’

‘Amy, you don’t know for sure they were there in the first place.’

I point the wall where they used to hang. ‘So where are they?’

He can’t answer that.

‘The last thing I want to do is hurt you, Stoker, but you have to see there’s no other explanation.’

He stares at the wall. ‘I don’t believe it. I can’t. He wouldn’t do something like that. I know him.’

I know he doesn’t want to believe it of his own father but Aunt Beth’s mantra of looking for what doesn’t fit has convinced me. ‘Tell me more about that night…the night Aunt Beth died. Was your father with you all that night?’

He shakes his head. ‘I went out at about ten in the Land Rover. Just for a drive to the secret cove. It was a lovely night and I sat there on the beach for a while. I didn’t know that a little further up the coast…’ He breaks off and exhales a long sigh. ‘Amy, I can’t believe what you’re implying.’

‘I think you may have suspected this yourself, Stoker. I’m saying your father could be a murderer and you’re taking it very well. You aren’t angry about it or shouting or upset.’

He throws his arms up and looks at me with a sadness in his gray eyes.

‘When I heard about Beth, I admit that the thought did cross my mind.

Dad didn’t hate her as a person but he hated that she was encouraging me in a direction he didn’t want me to take. But this…even Dad wouldn’t…I don’t know.’

I touch his arm gently, feeling the tight hard muscles beneath his clothes. I don’t want to hurt him. It’s the last thing I want in the world.

‘There’s something else,’ he says. ‘The day after your aunt died is when I discovered the scratch on the front of the Astra. It wasn’t there the day before. The only explanation is that Dad took the car out that night.’

I take his hand in both of mine. ‘Maybe we should call Detective Macbeth.’

He thinks about that for a moment then shakes his head slowly. ‘What we’re saying…it’s all circumstantial. I can’t go to the police without being certain we’re right. If we’re wrong, he’ll never forgive me. I can’t take that chance.’

‘I understand, Stoker. But you need to know that I won’t let this go.

My aunt is dead. I can’t turn my back on her.’

‘I agree. That’s why we’re going go to the garage right now.’

‘What? Why? I don’t think confronting your dad is…’

‘No, we’re going to have a look around the back. That’s where Beth’s car was parked when I went out on the Nova job. If my paintings were in the car as you say then they must be there somewhere.’

‘What about your dad? I don’t think he likes me, Stoker. He won’t want me snooping around his place.’

He reaches out and touches my cheek. I wonder if he knows what his touch does to me. ‘You’ll be with me, Amy. Everything will be fine. I won’t let anything happen to you.’

I nod. I do feel safe with him. He’s strong and manly and protective and being with him makes me feel both complete and secure.

We leave the house and get in the Astra and drive to Stoker Autos.

If what I believe is right then we are about to face a murderer.

*

Stoker drives the car around the back of the garage. It’s like junkyard back here and the broken carcasses of vehicles sit rotting in the sun. We stop among them and get out of the Astra. ‘Beth’s car was parked over there,’ Stoker says pointing to a clear area next to the building. ‘If what you say is correct then he would have hidden the paintings somewhere around here. He couldn’t put them in the garage or the house because I’d see them. They’re quite large. So unless he destroyed them, he would have put them here.’

We search the area, looking in the broken car windows and underneath the rusting hulks for Stoker’s paintings.

As I peer into the cracked rear window of a Honda, I can’t help thinking that these rotten shells were once brand new cars, someone’s pride and joy. Now they are broken and twisted and forgotten. Is this how our lives play out? Sometimes I feel like I’m cracked and twisted like these wrecks but meeting Stoker has helped me heal. I feel so bad that we could uncover something now that will tear his family apart even further.

He walks over to me and I can see by his face that he isn’t happy.

‘I found them,’ he says.

He points to a smashed silver Toyota and I can see the paintings sticking out of the open trunk. A watercolor of a lighthouse and a pencil drawing of a beach. The canvasses are torn, the paintings destroyed.

‘Oh my God, Stoker, I’m so sorry.’

‘There was this too.’ He hands me a piece of paper. It’s a letter from a college in Manchester confirming Aunt Beth’s appointment with them regarding Dean Stoker and telling her to bring the letter and examples of his work with her when she visits. The visit is scheduled for the day after she was killed.

Killed.

Not suicide.

Murder.

Stoker breaks down. He fall to his knees in front of the destroyed paintings and bows his head and cries. I go to him and kneel next to him, placing my hand across his back but not knowing what to say. There’s nothing I can say. So I do the only thing I can for him right now and try to give him my support. No one deserves what he has gone through, his family totally ripped into pieces and scattered to the wind.

‘Dean?’

I freeze when I hear the voice of Max Stoker calling from beyond the cars.

‘Dean, are you there?’ Closer now. He’s coming this way.

I feel Stoker’s muscles tense beneath my touch and he fists his hands tightly as he stands up. ‘Over here,’ he calls out. His voice is full of tension and I’m afraid of what he’s going to do when his father reaches us. There’s the sound of footfalls getting closer then Max Stoker appears and walks toward us. He must know why we’re here. His face looks twisted into a mixture of worry and anger.

‘What have you done?’ Stoker says, taking a step toward his father.

’Stoker, be careful,’ I whisper. I don’t know if he can hear me or not anymore.

Max Stoker looks at his son and says, ‘I was just trying to give you a dose of reality. Chasing these stupid dreams isn’t going to get you anywhere in life.’

‘I don’t mean the paintings. I’m talking about Beth Anderson. This isn’t about the paintings.’

‘Of course it’s about the paintings! How do you think I felt seeing those paintings and reading that letter. First your mother and brother leave me and now you’re planning to abandon me too.’