Tony Whelpton [Whelpton - At Dead of Night

At Dead of Night

TONY WHELPTON

Also by Tony Whelpton

Before the Swallow Dares
The Heat of the Kitchen
Billys War
Theres No Pride in Prejudice

A Change of Mind
High Time

Text Copyright 2019 Tony Whelpton
Cover Design: Rachel Lawston, lawstondesign.com

The author asserts his moral right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, copied, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the copyright holder, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the authors imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

This book is dedicated to

Liz Freeman

who, having heard me tell the story of
something which had really happened to me,
challenged me to turn it into a novel

Chapter One

A re you listening? said the voice.

David Sumner grunted. More a stifled yawn than an answer. The next movement was from his eyes, which he was vainly trying to open, in an attempt to ascertain who was addressing him. At length he succeeded in forcing them open, but could see no one; in fact he was unable to see anything at all, which should have been less surprising than it was, given that it was the middle of the night. He turned his head to the right, and perceived only the faintest glimmer of light filtering through the heavy bedroom curtains; he turned his head to the left, and found that all was black.

Are you listening? the voice asked again.

The true answer, if David had been in any way capable of judging exactly what was true and what was false at that precise moment, would almost certainly have been, No, Im not!, but his brain, deadened by the darkness of the night and the depth of the sleep from which he had just been awakened, allowed him merely to hear, not to listen; and all he was able to hear was the disembodied voice of a person whom he believed to be his own daughter. But in reality he was too confused to make any answer at all; he was just vaguely aware that it was dark, that he had been in a deep sleep, that he had been awoken by the ringing of the telephone, and that his daughter was asking if he was listening.

Are you listening? Susans voice again, this time betraying a degree of impatience.

Yes, he said, still in a state of confusion, his answer being less of a true statement, more of a reflex action in response to Susans commanding tone; he had learned over a period of many years that it was, without exception, always prudent to listen to what a daughter said, because a failure to listen would nearly always catch a father out, whether the daughter was an infant, an adolescent, or, as in the case of Susan, an adult with children of her own. But why on earth was she calling in the middle of the night?

The digital display on the clock-radio beside his bed, adjacent to the telephone, showed that it was 2.15 in the morning. His head was pounding, as was his heart; he had gone to bed early because he was suffering from a heavy cold. The effect of the paracetamol tablets he had taken had already worn off, and the last thing he needed at this time of night was a phone conversation of any kind, no matter who might be at the other end of the line, even a well-loved daughter.

With what seemed to him a more than superhuman effort, he managed to sit up in bed; he saw the time change from 02:15 to 02:16. Once more he directed his glance towards the window on his right, and, even as he watched, the glimmer which he had previously observed suddenly evaporated: it must have come from the neighbours security light, he thought, probably triggered by nothing more than a visiting cat or possibly a fox.

It was only then that it began to dawn on him that in his right hand he was holding the handset of his bedside telephone. He had no more than a faint recollection of hearing the phone ring while he was asleep; he therefore assumed that he must have reached out with his hand on hearing the telephone ring, and removed the handset from its cradle. But how long ago had that happened? He could not have said with any exactitude, but it seemed a long time ago. Whoever his caller was would undoubtedly have rung off by now, he thought, but he strained to raise the handset to his ear none the less. Once more he heard the insistent voice of his daughter Susan: Can you hear me?

Yes, he replied instantly, but the sound of his own voice seemed strangely blurred to his ears, as if he were in an echo chamber.

Are you listening? said the voice again.

Yes, I am listening, he assured the caller.

This is very important, said his daughter again, very slowly, deliberately, even gravely, enunciating each word as if to ensure it would not be missed. I did not call the police. It was your family who called the police.

What? What are you talking about? What do you mean? I dont know what youre talking about

But his daughters voice had disappeared; she had rung off.

A sudden thirst overtook him, so David mechanically took a drink of water from the glass which was always by his bed at night, then glanced in the direction of his wife Margaret, who lay beside him, still in a deep sleep. How on earth had she managed to stay asleep in spite of the ringing of the phone, his speaking, and Susans persistent tone? No, forget the last point, he thought, she wouldnt have been able to hear what Susan said, would she, even if she had been fully awake? At last his brain was slowly beginning to clear, although it was still far from returning to its normal, alert, waking state. He tried to go over and over in his mind what had happened since he had been awakened by the phone, but, no matter how many times he confirmed to himself the details of what had occurred, he was no nearer understanding the significance of what his daughter had said. What could she possibly have meant? I did not call the police, she had said. The meaning of that was clear enough, even if the necessity for saying it was totally unclear. Why might she have needed to call the police? Why should anybody have called the police? But someone clearly had done. It was your family that called the police: the words were still reverberating inside his head. Your family, she had said. Your family. Your family

So who had called the police? If what Susan said was true, the number of people potentially responsible was limited: it could in fact only be one of two people, either his son Eddie, or Eddies brother Matthew, who were Susans step-brothers, for Susan was Davids step-daughter although David often forgot she was not his own child, for she had been in her teens when he had married her mother, and that was over thirty years previously. Nor was it a topic that was ever referred to by any of them, for in whatever permutation one chose, the relationship between David, Margaret, Eddie, Matthew, Susan and Susans husband James too was as stable as any; hence it was very curious, and, the more David thought about it, utterly mystifying, that she should have made such a distinction: I did not call the police. It was your family that called the police. For anybody to suggest that there was a difference between my family and your family would have been to fly in the face of reality.

So what should he do now? Go back to sleep? Not possible. The only certainty of which he was aware was that he was too wide awake now to be able to go back to sleep. He looked again in Margarets direction and saw that she was still in the arms of Morpheus, sleeping the sleep of the just, so there was no possibility of discussing it with her at the moment. He, on the other hand, felt restless, and was aware of a pressing need to reflect deeply on what was going on.