Patchwork People (Patchwork People series Book 2) by D.B. Martin

Author:D.B. Martin [Martin, D.B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: mystery
Publisher: I.M. Books
Published: 2014-09-30T00:00:00+00:00

12: Charity

At the time I’d been terrified, and the angle in the drawing was oblique, but there was no doubt in my mind that the door in the half of the picture Danny had given Emm could be the one to the cellar at the children’s home where I’d first encountered the thing that scared me most. What had obscured the memory – apart from fear – was perception. I’d approached and entered the door terrified. Danny – if he’d been drawing it from life – had drawn it as it was. To me it had been huge, sinister and dark. Danny portrayed it as dilapidated and with the air of the forgotten that abandoned buildings have.

‘Where is it?’

‘I think it’s the children’s home I was in.’

‘It looks pretty run down, but then I suppose it would be now.’

‘I think it was pretty run down even then. This is the cellar door.’ I pictured the back of the building as it had been, with the black iron fire escape stairs dangling from the brickwork like strangler vine, and we the imprisoned, inside and choked by it. The brickwork had been crumbling in places and you could chip your initials into it if you were diligent enough – or wanted to. Win had. Win had always needed to make his mark on things – and people. I realised then that Emm was watching me carefully.

‘You had a rough time of it there?’

‘Pretty much.’

‘Do you want to talk about it?’

‘Not really. That would make it still real. I’ve left it so far behind me sometimes I think I can even imagine it didn’t happen – until now.’

‘The picture has brought it all back?’

‘No, it has been steadily gaining on me since before Margaret died – if I’d but known it. Danny has merely brought it into the open.’

‘Because of the family connection?’

‘Oddly, no. Because of the similarity to what happened to Win.’

‘Win? Now you’ve lost me.’

‘We were in the home together. It was complicated – and brutish. If I think about it now we were both victims, but in different ways. He got sent down whereas I’ve lived my sentence out in open prison. I’m not sure which one of us did worst out of it. I thought I was the winner, but I’ve been changing my view on that recently.’ She still looked mystified. ‘He’s never told you?’

‘No.’

‘Or Binnie?’

‘She won’t talk about then. I was so little, I can barely even remember our mum or dad, let alone you. Jill and I were fostered. Not quite the same as real parents, but they were kind. We still stay in touch although they’re both in a nursing home now.’

‘You were antagonistic when we met.’

‘I know. I’m sorry. It was a bad day, and I kept thinking about what happened with Jonno. As soon as Win told us you’d been in touch my hackles were up. Not so much with you, but with him. You simply got mauled by association.’

‘You really hate him?’

‘Hate is too strong a word.

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