But Not Forgotten – A Gripping Murder Mystery
A serialised novel
“I think I’m your sister. Our father is missing.”
After receiving a call from the sister he didn’t know existed, private investigator Barty Symonds travels to a village in the beautiful New Forest to find the father who abandoned him years ago.
Then someone dies, and all eyes in the tight-knit community turn to the newcomer, the outsider, and Barty finds himself not only in the role of investigator…
But prime suspect.
17
Their drinks had arrived, and Florence had lapsed into thoughtful silence.
Coming out of it, she said, “Do you think it’s weird that I phoned you?”
Barty gave this some thought, which was apparently a mistake.
“That’s a yes.”
“It’s not,” he said. “I was thinking about it.”
“If it were a no, you wouldn’t have to think about it.”
“You’re very sure of yourself for a child. Also wrong. I could’ve answered right away if I was sure it was weird. Ditto if I was sure it wasn’t. Truth is, I’m not sure if it’s weird or not.”
He paused again, then: “I’m glad you did, though.”
Florence smiled, dropping her eyes to the table. “Me too.”
“Why did you? I know Dad gave you my number, and he has a picture of me?”
“He did, yeah. He gave me that, too.”
“How long ago?”
It seemed bizarre to Barty that Florence might have known of his existence years before he knew of hers. And why was his father happy to tell his daughter she had a brother, but it took his disappearance to bring them together? Why had Vincent never got in touch with his son?
“Not long,” said Florence. “Five months?”
“Why then?”
Florence gave this some thought. After a time, she said, “Dad runs his own business.”
“Okay…”
“As long as I can remember, he’s gone away once a year to this eCommerce conference thing in London. That’s not important. He would always go early one morning and come back late a few days later. I’d be in bed when he returned, but awake. I’d know he was coming and would want to see him. I’d hear him come through the door, hear him talking to Mum. Five minutes later, he’d come upstairs, come into my room, his hands behind his back. Every time, his hands behind his back.”
“He bought you a present?”
Florence nodded.
“Like a mouse mat from the convention?” Barty suggested. “Maybe a leaflet on better email marketing campaigns?”
Florence laughed. “More likely a cuddly toy when I was young. A book as I got a bit older. He’d give me the present, give me a cuddle, tuck me in, and – sorry.”
Smiling, Barty said, “You don’t have to feel guilty for talking about your Dad simply because he happened to walk out on me before you were born. I don’t hold you accountable for that.”
There was a straw in Florence’s lemonade, not in Barty’s. As he watched her clasp the straw and drink through it, he wondered if he’d been deprived because he was an adult or because he was a man.
“I’m sorry he left you,” Florence whispered. “I can’t believe he did that.”
Given Barty was abandoned at fifteen, he’d actually got three more years of their father than Florence. Not that it was the right time to mention this.
“Count your blessings he did,” he said. “You’d not have been born otherwise.”
“There is that,” said Florence. She smiled, but it was a world-weary, grown-up smile. The kind of smile that made it difficult to imagine her as an excited child, sitting up waiting for her father, squealing with delight as he handed her a cuddly toy. Squeezing the toy, squeezing her dad. And if that was tough to imagine, it was impossible to picture his father as the man on the other end of those cuddles. Had he ever hugged his son? Not to Barty’s memory. Certainly, there had been no gifts outside of his birthday and Christmas. Even those had been chosen, paid for, and wrapped by his mother. Only generosity of spirit had her adding her husband’s name to the gift tags.
What was the difference? Was it Barty? Did his father struggle to connect with a son, for example, finding it much easier with a daughter? Or was it Vincent? Had he changed?
Wanting to move on from these plaguing thoughts, afraid they would inspire those jealous shoots to sprout anew, Barty pushed the conversation forward.
“These business trips and gifts, they’re linked to my photo and phone number?”
Florence nodded. “After Mum died, Dad seemed to lose interest in everything except his work. When the conference came around, he said he could give it a miss, but I told him to go. Harriet looked after me. The night he came home, he came to my room as usual. He had his hands behind his back. Only this time, the gift was something different.”
“The photograph?”
Another nod. “He sat on the bed and showed me the picture. Told me he had a son, I had a brother. Bartholomew.”
Barty winced. “Please don’t say that name.”
A smile. “Sorry.”
“What did Dad tell you about me?”
Looking guilty, Florence said, “Not much. Not why he’d left or why he’d never mentioned you before. He wouldn’t even say if Mum had known about you.”
“My guess is no.”
“Same. He did tell me a bit about you.”
“I’m surprised he could remember.”
There was more bitterness in this sentence than Barty had intended or was happy with. But it was too late to take it back.
“He said we were alike,” said Florence. “Sweet, kind, intelligent. We both knew our own mind.”
There was nothing Barty could say to this. He was lost in the ridiculousness of the thought that his father might ever have called him ‘sweet.’ Surely, they were not talking about the same man.
Florence moved on. “He said since Mum had died, he’d been thinking a lot about how terrible things can happen at any time. How he couldn’t rely on living to a ripe old age. He’d sorted his will but said he was thinking about you more than ever. Thinking about us. He thought we’d get on like a house on fire, and that’s without anticipating our King connection.”
Being perceptive and intelligent, Florence had read Barty’s troubled expression and used the Stephen King reference to lighten the mood. It didn’t work. What it did was make him realise he was being selfish, becoming wrapped up in his emotions. This was not about him.
“This was five months ago?” he asked.
“Yes. He gave me the photo and the phone number, told me about you, and said I should call if anything ever happened to him so we could get to know one another.”
That was a particularly curious statement.
“He wanted us to know one another… but only if he wasn’t around anymore?”
“I know it’s weird. I asked about that, but he wouldn’t explain. Just made me promise to consider calling if he… well, you know.”
Barty could have asked how Vincent got his number. Could have pushed on why he would want his daughter to meet his son having pretended for fifteen years that his son did not exist. There was no point. Florence didn’t know the answers, and it might upset her. That was the last thing he wanted to do.
“To circle back to the original question,” said Barty. “I’d say, given you were calling because your dad wanted you to know your brother, it’s not weird.”
“That is why,” said Florence, revealing in how she spoke and looked at the table that it was not why. At least not entirely.
“There was another reason?” he asked. His tone was gentle, but she flinched. “You don’t have to tell me.”
Florence forced herself to look up.
“He said he regretted the kind of dad he’d been to you. He wished he could have been better.”
Something in Barty’s stomach clenched.
“Yeah,” he said. “Him and me both.”
“He also said he was proud of the man you’d grown into. A man who helped people. He said… he said you were a private detective.”
“That’s right,” said Barty, his voice sounding distant. How had his father known all this? How had he kept tabs on Barty? And why – why – did he never attempt to speak with his son?
Lost in these thoughts, it took Barty longer than it should have to realise the significance of what Florence was saying.
“Dad told you I help people,” he said. “That I’m a private detective. That’s why you called.”
The slightest of nods greeted this comment. It was almost ashamed.
Foreboding and regret already creeping in, Barty said, “You don’t just want to get to know me. You want me to find him.”
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