Until The Last Page

Chapter Four

CHAPTER FOUR

THE CAR SKIDDED A LITTLE as he swung it into the wide gravel drive at Sunnyside. There was a police squad car out front, amongst others. The sight of it made his heart disco-dance around his ribcage once more.

                   He introduced himself at the front desk, and was ushered very quickly down a corridor towards the residential section of the building where his grandmammy had lived for the last ten years.

                   Once there, he was confronted with a devastating scene.

                   There was a uniformed officer guarding the doorway. He allowed Alex to duck under the yellow police tape and enter Aisling Cleary’s room. Mercifully, the bed was empty and had been stripped of most of the bedclothes. The bottom sheet remained and it looked clean and crisp, which gave Alex a second of reassurance. He assumed that she had died in bed; if so, then it looked like it had been peaceful enough. A bearded man in a creased suit stood next to it and was taking notes, but he didn’t look overly concerned.

                   However, it was the other side of the room that gave cause for alarm. The patio doors near the seating area had been smashed. Not just the glass broken, as if from a thrown rock, but absolutely shattered into smithereens. Shards littered the floor from the patio door frame to the doorway he’d just walked through. Alex crunched one underfoot as he took a tentative step forward. The reinforced plastic of the patio doors themselves had been snapped and bent inwards, as if something of considerable size, with considerable force, had barged its way into the room through a locked entrance. A man in a white jumpsuit was inspecting the ragged edges of the carnage. Had Alex seen a vehicle being towed away from this scene, he would not be surprised: such was the extent of the mess. It looked like someone had tried to park their car in Grandmammy Aisling’s room.

                   Of course, the burning question was: what did that have to do with his mother and his son?

                   The man in the creased suit walked over, his hand outstretched. Alex took it and shook it. ‘You must be Alex Holliday? I’m Detective Sergeant Benedict Fields. Sorry for your loss.’

                   ‘That’s okay. What’s happened here, detective?’

                   ‘That’s what we’re trying to work out.’ He brushed at his moustache with his finger and thumb. ‘This is pretty much the scene as it was found. The only difference is I asked for your grandmother to be taken away before you arrived.’

                   ‘Thank you,’ Alex said instinctively, but then wasn’t sure if that was what he was supposed to say. ‘Did she die... peacefully?’

                   ‘I’m no expert, but I’d say so. The coroner will tell us more, but by the position of her body and the relaxed expression on her face, it looks as if she passed before this craziness happened.’ He nodded to the patio doors. ‘Had she witnessed this I don’t think she’d have looked so... content.’

                   ‘So she wasn’t in distress, or died of shock?’

                   ‘Like I said, no expert, but I doubt it. I imagine your grandmother just slipped away.’

                   Alex felt some relief. Part of him had dreaded the news that somehow either his son or his mother had unwittingly caused Aisling harm and brought about her downfall. That didn’t seem to be the case. However, it did just lead to more questions.