Free Death Trip by Lee Weeks Page A

even if they could, it would make no difference, it would not bring him back. You should stop thinking about these things, son, and move on. Put them behind you.’
    ‘I won’t give up the search for Dad’s killer, Mum, I can’t do that. I live with the image of his death cemented in my brain. But I realise now that I hardly even knew him. Now it turns out that he had secrets that affect us all and they might explain his death. I need to know them. I have a right to know them—everything, good and bad.’
    Mann paused for a minute. He knew he was on tricky ground. If he pushed his mother too hard he would never get her to cooperate. She was better at building walls than any construction worker. She had turned her attention out towards the balcony where a bird had come to feed from the bird table. ‘Mum, I know it’s hard for you but it’s too late to undo what’s done. I don’t know about you but I would rather not sit around and wait for that to unfold. I’m not too keen on surprises.’ He saw her shoulders rise and fall and he knew she was trying hard to be calm. ‘There was a time, not so long ago, that you wanted to talk about things. You mentioned that your relationship, your marriage wasn’t so good.’
    ‘That was before all this came up.’ She snapped back. ‘I don’t see why she had to contact us. The children are nothing to do with us.’ There was no anger in her voice, just exasperation and sadness. Mann could seeshe was upset. She started fiddling with the hem of her beige Marks and Spencer’s cardigan that he had bought her last Christmas.
    ‘You had no idea that he had someone else?’
    She shook her head.
    ‘You want to know my secrets? Then I will tell you…I was unlucky in love.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I picked the wrong man.’
    She got up and went to watch the bird feeding on the crumbs she had left on the bird table.
    ‘I was pretty. I was wealthy. I was educated. I had grown up with an idea of marrying well. When I was nineteen I got engaged to someone but he jilted me. He never loved me. He broke my heart. He took my father for a lot of money. There was a lot of shame also because I was pregnant. I lost the child. But it was still a huge disgrace and my parents sent me to Hong Kong to stay with a cousin out here to recover.’ She gave a quiet, cynical laugh. ‘They had no idea how the colonials lived out here or what kind of girl my cousin was. They thought she had a decent job out here; in reality, she hardly worked. She spent most of her time partying. She was racy for that time. She smoked, she drank. She was part of the “in set”. I experienced a new type of people and I was introduced to your father. He seemed so quiet and respectful. We courted. I had known him for two months when he proposed and I accepted. I hardly knew him. I certainly did not know what life I would have here. I did not belong to Eleanor’s party set. I was married to a Chinese. It was not right for either of us, not in those days of snobbery andracism; even in Hong Kong both sides kept their distance. It was an insult to be mixed race. I had no idea that my life would be so lonely. When you were born I was so happy, I didn’t care what anyone thought any more. But, so soon, it came to be time to send you to school and your father insisted you went to England.’ Molly sighed heavily. ‘But a part of me died. I felt as if I’d lost you forever. I wanted to go back with you, to England, but Deming wouldn’t allow it. My place was with my husband. My heart broke to let you go. My life was intolerable without you in it. Oh, he was kind enough to me but I was just a trophy wife to him. I had settled for respect, thinking it would become love but it never did. It must have been the same for him. That’s why he looked for love elsewhere, I suppose.’
    ‘What about you? Did you ever love anyone else?’
    For a moment she turned back and looked fleetingly at him.
    ‘A friendship, nothing