Fairwood (a suspense mystery thriller) by Eli Yance Page A

nodded. “It happened as I said, only they didn’t throw the first punch, we -- the others that is -- did. We tried to restrain ‘em but they got the better of us. They escaped, we followed ‘em to their car but ‘e pulled a gun on us. That’s it, God’s truth.”
     
    He had a pleading look in his eyes when he finished, a look that begged to be understood and accepted.
     
    Cawley nodded, he could see the desperation in the bartender’s eyes. He had dealt with enough liars, cheats and criminals to know when someone was lying or when someone was trying to feed him a false series of events. He felt a little better at the explanation, things fit into place.
     
    There was a good chance that the pair had passed through. He was on the right track.
     
     
    7
     
    They awoke in silence, a silence interrupted sporadically by the careful clatter of cutlery from a distant part of the house. Pandora rose first, smiling and stretching after what had been a long and pleasant sleep, the best she’d had in a long time.
     
    She climbed out of bed, dressed in her underwear, and peeled back the curtains to greet a warm and glorious sun. She boiled the kettle in the room and sat on the window seat, her legs pressed up against her chest, her face turned to the heated day. When Dexter woke, more noisily and cumbersome -- he wasn’t a morning person -- the sounds from downstairs had dissipated and were replaced by the smells of freshly cooked breakfast.
     
    “Do you think that’s for us?” he wondered, sniffing the air loudly and feeling a groan of hunger in his stomach. It had been a while since they’d eaten properly, they’d snacked on sweets, crisps and pre-packed sandwiches that tasted more like plastic than the crinkly triangles that encased them, but they hadn’t had a cooked meal for weeks. They’d been too eager, excited and nervous to take advantage of the breakfast offerings on the morning of the robbery, had been too preoccupied since then.
     
    Pandora gave a little shrug and beamed a wide smile that stretched even further across her sun-drenched features when Dexter traipsed his way over to her. He wrapped his arms around her, planted a kiss on her hair -- the scent of sweet shampoo long since faded, replaced by a thin veil of must and smoke. He brushed a strand of hair from her forehead, planted a kiss on her head, her cheek and then her lips. He traced a hand up her leg, from her tight and outstretched calf, over her bended knee and down to her thigh. The tip of his finger heated as it worked its way south.
     
    She stopped his hand before he could go any further. He grumbled, tried to push it further but met with resistance. She pulled away from him, having to tilt her head backwards to maintain a distance from his lustful mouth.
     
    “I need to shower,” she warned. “I stink.”
     
    “I don’t mind.”
     
    “I do,” she affirmed.
     
    He sighed, met her adamant stare and grumbled again, turning away with a resigned shrug.
     
    He had left his clothes hanging over the back of the only chair in the room, a hardback antique that sat before a dated and dusty dresser. He picked them up, began to shuffle his way into them as Pandora stared out the window. The room was at the back of the house and looked out onto the garden, alert and awakened to the bright day. A large wooden deck peeked onto a lush green lawn interspersed with flower beds and vegetable patches and interwoven with a labyrinthine cobbled path that disappeared into a cluster of lush hedges and ferns.
     
    An elderly man appeared on the decking. She watched, staring down at his back and the top of his head, as he stood and stared out onto the field of green. He turned slowly, back towards the house and then stopped after taking a single step. He craned his neck, peered upwards, towards Pandora.
     
    She felt a startled cry trigger her nerves, felt a little creeped out and uncomfortable. She didn’t attempt to hide or to cover herself but