Page 87 of Convict's Game
We passed through the pretty town buzzing with shops, and I parked up outside her first set of relatives’ place, a big detached house with views across the valley, and with two nice cars outside, a silver Mercedes and a dark-blue BMW.
I whistled. “They’re doing well for themselves.”
Mila shielded her eyes to regard the house, stiffened her shoulders, and went to the door. She didn’t ask me to waitoutside, which worked for me as I didn’t want her out of my sight.
We were ushered inside by a fifty-something man with greying hair. In the kitchen, his wife received us, her mouth pinched. On the other side of the room, a man about my age played a videogame on a big-screen TV, a girl under his arm. The mother asked him to put on headphones, but he tossed the controller, gave us a dirty look, and the two vanished upstairs.
They were the Marchant-Smythes, Mila had told me. Philip and Phylis. Freaking weird.
The husband and wife tag-teamed in persuading Mila they were hard up with the money no longer coming in from Marchant Haulage. Mila had only introduced me by my real first name and nothing more, and I peered around the place, not minding my own business.
Nice TV, everything clean. On the relatives’ countertop were packets of food from a high-end supermarket, presumably left out by the son making himself and his girl a snack. It summoned the image of a home I’d once lived in, black mould growing in the corners of the rooms, the cupboards empty of food and my stomach twisted with hunger. Like fuck were these people in real financial trouble.
Mila listened and reassured, but she cut them off after fifteen minutes and stood. “Like I said, I’m doing all I can. After the will reading, I’ll have more answers.”
The woman gripped the arms of her chair. “Your grandfather promised security. He died. And now we’re all paying the price. You don’t understand the stress me and Philip are under. Our worries for Presley. He’s our priority, and your grandfather left us high and dry.”
Mila’s mouth popped open.
“Show some respect,” I said for her as she didn’t seem able.
The woman pouted. “Or you could respect our suffering.”
Mila muttered another platitude then turned and left. Outside, she flung herself into the car.
I gunned the engine. “I take it none of them have jobs? Four adults in that huge house. The heating on in every room and their overgrown kid playing a subscription video game. They aren’t suffering. They’re just greedy and used to their slice of the pie being handed to them.”
If she agreed with me, she didn’t say.
I drove us on to the next, an elderly couple who needed carers so had reason to worry about their cashflow, but the last visit was more of the same. A family in a smart house with zero signs of true poverty. Mila’s expression got stonier the more they griped.
We set tracks for home.
“Maybe they were just the loudest people, rather than the neediest,” she murmured, half to herself.
This time, I didn’t give an opinion.
At the outskirts of Deadwater, she spoke. “Can we take a diversion? It isn’t far.”
I followed her directions to a country lane, gated driveways announcing a series of what had to be very large, very private properties.
“The next on the right,” she told me.
I pulled over at a pair of white stone gateposts. For a moment, Mila just stared at them then climbed from the car. At the intercom, she pressed a button.
Nothing happened.
Then she tapped in the code. The light turned red, the gates unmoving. She tried her phone next. No answer.
My heart ached at the slump in her shoulders.
“Your grandparents’ place,” I guessed.
Through the gates, I glimpsed a huge modern mansion down a tree-lined drive. Holy fuck, but these people were rich. If Ithought the relatives lived in luxury, this took the biscuit, the cake, and the whole damn bakery.
The spiked fence protecting the property went deep into the woods, so I guessed security was high. Sure enough, cameras watched us from corners. If her grandmother was here, she didn’t want to see anyone.
Without another word, Mila sighed and returned to the car.
