Free Silent Witness (A Dylan Scott Mystery) by Shirley Wells Page A

impossible task.
    She wore the plain long-sleeved blue dress that she seemed to be wearing every time Jamie saw her. Looking at her now, her face pale, her hair pulled back in a severe style, a stranger wouldn’t know how she loved to laugh. Jamie couldn’t remember the last time he’d heard that laugh, but that was because, these days, he only saw her with his father.
    He loved his mother, despite her funny ways, and longed to make her laugh. Sadly, that was out of the question.
    The sun was shining today, but it never reached this room at the back of the Victorian terraced house.
    They’d always eaten their meals in this room. The table could accommodate eight easily, but no friends came. Years ago, it had been just the four of them. These days, his parents had it to themselves except on the rare occasions Jamie knew he could put off visiting no longer.
    The only thing that had changed was the number of photographs. The dresser was now filled with pictures of Pete, the son the good Lord had seen fit to take to His side. Or, as Jamie thought of it, the poor bugger who’d been blown to pieces in Afghanistan.
    There were pictures showing him swamped by a school uniform that he’d eventually grown into and looking dashing in his army uniform. Jamie couldn’t bear to look at them. Pete, the favourite son, was smiling in every one.
    “You’re still keeping busy at work then?”
    Jamie swallowed a piece of beef. “I am, Father, yes. It’s very rewarding.”
    “That’s good,” his mother said. “And you managed to get to church before coming here?”
    “Of course.” He hadn’t been inside a church since he’d left home, but it was easier to lie. He’d learned that long ago. “This is delicious, Mum. You’ve excelled yourself.”
    She smiled with almost childlike delight. “It’s such a pleasure to cook for my boy. I only wish Peter—”
    She broke off. Jamie sucked in a breath. They knew what was coming.
    “How can you wish such a thing, you ungrateful woman?” Victor Tinsley demanded. “Our son was chosen, Margaret. We’re the lucky ones.”
    “Oh, yes.” Now she was flustered. “Yes, of course I know that. Sometimes, I just wish that Peter could be here, just for a few minutes.”
    Jamie watched his father nod. He wasn’t happy, but he wasn’t going to make a scene. Not today. Not on Easter Sunday.
    “So long as you’re not questioning God’s will,” he murmured, spearing a roast potato.
    “Of course not.”
    Silence descended once more. All Jamie could hear was the occasional chink of cutlery on plates and the angry thump of his heart.
    He wanted to shout and scream at his father until he saw sense. Which side was God actually on? Of all the senseless killings in Afghanistan, who was to say that God was on the side of the British or the Americans? God hadn’t chosen Pete. Even the young Afghan who’d planted the roadside bomb that killed Pete and one of his colleagues hadn’t chosen him.
    Everything in this house, from the weather to blasted wars, was God’s will.
    Jamie had been six when he’d first seen his father hit his mother. That had been God’s will too. It wasn’t his father behaving like the bully he was. Oh, no. It was God who wanted this tall, strong man to raise his hand and knock his wife to the floor.
    Pete had understood Jamie’s anger, but he’d never shared it. He’d been the special son, though, so he’d had more freedom and, therefore, more opportunities to make friends. People had laughed at their parents, and Pete, always the joker outside these four walls, had laughed with them. Jamie had simply cringed with a mix of anger, embarrassment and humiliation.
    He’d spent years wishing his father dead. He looked at him now and imagined him clutching his chest, exactly as people did in films, before falling headfirst into his beef and gravy. Better still, he imagined him having a stroke, of being paralysed and being taught to eat again in an anonymous nursing