Page 65 of Vengeance is Mine

Dawn couldn’t take her eyes off the house her father had lived in. White-suited forensic officers had arrived not long after the first attending officer on the scene. She had watched them suit up from the back of the car.

The police officer next to her spoke in faux soothing tones. ‘I’m so sorry for your loss. Were you close? Try not to think of how you saw him just now; remember the good times.’

Dawn tuned her out. She wished she’d just shut up and leave her with her thoughts.

A car pulled up, and a man stepped out whom she vaguely recognised. She watched as he took a coat from the back seat and put it on. It looked too big for him, hanging from his shoulders as if from a coat hanger in a wardrobe. He looked up at the house. Dawn followed his gaze but had no idea what he was looking at. He shivered as a gust of cold wind seemed to chill him. He pulled the coat tightly around him and headed for the front door. He flashed his ID to a uniformed officer freezing to death on the doorstep before signing something and stepping inside.

Terry Braithwaite. Dawn remembered him from when she’d visited Stephanie’s parents’ house. He’d warned her to stay away from them. It was obvious he had hated her father and didn’t agree with him being released. Surely he wasn’t going to be involved in the investigation of his murder?

A white van turned the corner too quickly and screeched to a halt to avoid crashing into a forensics van. Dawn looked up and saw her mother had arrived.

‘That’s my mum. Can you let me out, please?’ Dawn asked the officer.

Dawn rapped on the window to get her mother’s attention. Rita saw her and ran over to the car, pulling open the door.

‘Oh, Mum,’ was all Dawn could say, before the tears started to fall again.

Rita lifted her daughter out of the car and pulled her into a tight embrace.

‘Oh, sweetheart, I’m so sorry. What happened?’ she asked the police officer.

‘We don’t know yet. It’s possible he disturbed a burglar.’

‘Mum, you should have seen him,’ Dawn said, pulling herself out of her mother’s embrace. She wiped her eyes. ‘He’d been beaten. He looked a mess. And there was a knife…’ she said, before the rest of her words were lost to tears.

‘Can I take her home?’

‘I think DI Braithwaite will want to have a word with her first. He’ll be leading the investigation. She’ll need to give a statement.’

‘Will you stay with me, Mum?’

‘Of course I will.’ Rita held her daughter once more and looked back at the house.

It was an alien sight for Rita. She had only ever seen a crime scene on television dramas and had often wondered what they were really like. Seeing white-suited people milling in and out, she realised how spot-on the dramas were. She held her daughter tighter and closed her eyes. She had known something like this was going to happen. She had known Dawn meeting her father was going to end in tears, and she’d be left to pick up the pieces.

Bloody Dominic, she thought. Why couldn’t he have simply died in prison and saved us all this heartache?

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Anthony Griffiths wrapped himself up against the cold. He was wearing a thick sweater, a heavy coat and his usual matching hat, scarf and gloves set he’d had for years. His socks were thick, and his walking boots were heavy. He locked the front door of his bungalow behind him, checking it was secure several times, before he tentatively made his way along the uneven pavement of Langdale Crescent, treading carefully to avoid patches of frost and ice.

He made his way slowly. His breathing was laboured as the cold breeze cut into his exposed face. His cheeks were red, his bulbous nose shining. He dragged his feet over the cracked concrete, his eyes firmly fixed straight ahead. He knew his destination.

Anthony hated cemeteries. He hated to see the fallen gravestones, whether it was at the hands of youths who thought destroying a person’s final resting place was a good source of entertainment, or just destruction caused by the harshness of the North-East weather.

As he passed them, he couldn’t help but steal a glance. Some were beautiful – black granite with gold lettering, ornate stonework, some even had pictures of the deceased. He offered a sympathetic smile when he read the dates of birth and death. It brought a lump to his throat when he saw graves for people younger than he was now.

He arrived at Carole’s grave and slowly cracked his back as he bent down to replace the wilted flowers with a fresh bunch. He licked the corner of a tissue from his pocket and wiped away the bird shit on top of the marble.

‘Happy birthday, love,’ he said to his wife. ‘I won’t say your age out loud. I know how sensitive you always were about that. I’ve decided to bake you a cake this year. I don’t have your flair, but I’m going to try and knock up a Victoria sponge. I’ve got a Mary Berry recipe.’

Anthony always felt self-conscious talking to his dead wife, as if someone might be listening and sniggering at him for talking to a slab of marble. He looked to his left. Further along the row, a young woman tidied up a grave, talking to whoever lay there. He couldn’t hear what she said, just the mumbled utterances caught on the breeze.

‘Dawn said she’ll pop over later, and we’ll have a bit of a tea. She often asks about you, what you were like and if you’d get on. I think you would have done. She’s a bonny lass, Carole. I often think what would have happened if you’d… well, if we’d have let Rita be a part of our lives, and we’d known Dawn from the beginning. You’d still be here now, I think.’

He looked back at his wife’s grave through blurred eyes as his tears began to fall. ‘I…’ He couldn’t say what he wanted to say. The words stuck in his throat. He stayed silent, staring at the gravestone, his eyes watering as the cold stung them.

Anthony always struggled for things to say when he visited his wife. Alone at home, he’d look at her photograph on the mantel, and he’d not be able to shut up as he reminisced about the good times, the old days, how much he missed her, how much he still loved her. But actually coming to see her here at Blaydon Cemetery, his mind went blank.

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