Free FLINDER'S FIELD (a murder mystery and psychological thriller) by D. M. Mitchell Page A

said Adam.
    ‘Not at all?’ he asked, surprised.
    ‘Not even wine gums.’
    ‘Oh,’ said George. ‘Still, they have lemonade…’ he said hopefully.
    ‘I think that would be good,’ said Adam after giving it some thought. ‘I haven’t been out since getting here, what with getting the garden centre up and running taking all my time. Yes, I think I’d like that very much. It’ll do me good to see an old friend,’ he said.
    Delighted, Georg e gave him the details and rose from his seat just as a customer came through the shop door. ‘You’ve got business,’ said George.
    Adam reached out a hand to shake again. ‘Thanks, George,’ he said. ‘For everything.’
    George was perplexed by what he said, but shook his hand warmly.
    He drove the beat-up old car to his mother’s house and parked outside. He considered going inside, but couldn’t face the two women, so he locked up the car and strolled down the street.
    ‘Where are you going?’ floated a voice from the house. He turned. It was his sister standing on the doorstep.
    ‘I need to take a walk,’ he said. ‘What’s it to you? Get off my back, will you?’
    ‘Mum asked you to sort out dad’s things.’
    ‘There’s plenty of time for that. I only arrived yesterday.’
    ‘The funeral’s the day after tomorrow…’
    He frowned. ‘So what’s that supposed to mean? I know when the funeral is.’
    ‘You coul d at least stay here and help your mother. It doesn’t look good, you hardly showing any feeling whatsoever, treating this like some kind of a holiday. What will people think?’
    ‘How’d you know what I feel?’ he said. ‘Anyhow, what do I care what people think?’ He shoved his hands in his pockets and began to tramp away, his spirits deflated. ‘What’s all the fuss over a load of junk? It’s not going anywhere.’ He heard the door slam a little too hard.
    He didn’t know where he was headed. Anywhere to get away from the house. He found himself headed up the steep path that led to the wooded hills above Petheram. The sun beat down on him, hotly berating him. He really ought to go back and show his face. He couldn’t keep out of the way indefinitely.
    Before he knew it he was standing by the stile that led into Flinder’s Field. He liked to think it had been his subconscious that had led him here, but he knew where he’d been heading. George Lee leant on the old wooden fence, stared across the field, a rim of dark trees in the distance marking its farthest edge. It had never been any good for growing things in, the shade of the trees always defying the successful planting of arable, and the trees could not be touched as they were now on managed Forestry Commission land. It now supported sheep and provided winter silage for cattle.
    He clambered over the stile, as he’d done as a kid, except nowadays it was a little harder on the knees. How fast the body starts to decay, he thought, tru dging over the cropped grass towards the field’s centre. Why’d they call it Flinder’s Field, he thought? He never thought to question it before.
    High above him he heard a beautiful, chiming musical score penned and performed by a lone skylark, and saw the tiny black sickle shapes of swallows swooping in a spotless blue sky in their hunt for flying insects. The smell of dry earth, of sweet, drying grass and the faint aromatic scent of the fir trees wafting over from the woods swamped his senses and brought back more unwanted memories of childhood.
    Without warning, taking him by surprise, George Lee broke down and cried.
     

9
 
An Angry Voice
     
    ‘One day,’ George Lee’s father had told him breathlessly, in a moment of morbid indulgence that followed the thrashing of his young son for getting his trousers dirtied in the local brook, ‘you will have to carry my coffin on your shoulders. It’s the lot of all sons.’
    Why he’d said that George never knew. It seemed to have no relevance at the time, no bearing on the fact that