The Future of Our House: Criminal Conversation, #5

By Laura Lyndhurst

THE CONVERSATION CONTINUES…YET NOBODY WANTS TO TALK

Time has moved on, and Katie has taken to spending most of her time on the Greek island of her ancestors. Miles—while passing every possible moment there with her—has branched out into the world of motor racing, his fledgling team poised for success, with Greg and Josh behind the wheels and negotiating the twists and turns of their high-speed lifestyle, both on the track and off.

In Miles's absence, his business interests continue to flourish in the capable hands of Alec, ice-cold in both her work and her attitude towards her would-be suitor, Siegfried Markham—heir to the family law firm Markham, Markham and Manners, which provides steadfast support to Alec.

Love and business vie for attention, in both fast and slow time—with unwelcome attention being paid to both families, without their knowledge. Crime and law make uneasy bedfellows, and tensions abound as all parties seek to come out on top—but there's only so much space up there.

 

212 pages approx.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Laura Lyndhurst
• Release date: Jun 8, 2023
• ISBN: 9798224296255

Laura Lyndhurst

Laura Lyndhurst was born and grew up in North London, England, before marrying and travelling with her husband in the course of his career. When settled back in the UK she became a mature student and gained Bachelor's and Master's degrees in English and Literature before training and working as a teacher. She started writing in the last few years in the peace and quiet of rural Lincolnshire, and published her debut novel, Fairytales Don't Come True, in May 2020. This book forms the first of a trilogy, Criminal Conversation, of which the second is Degenerate, Regenerate and All That We Are Heir To the third. Innocent, Guilty, the first of another trilogy, continues the story told in these three books and leads on to The Future of Our House, which is followed by Uphill, Downhill, Over, Out as the sixth and final book to end the series. Laura also developed a taste for psychological suspense, which led to the writing and publication of You Know What You Did, to which What Else Did You Do? is the sequel. Laura has also published four small books of poems, October Poems, Thanksgiving Poems and Prose Pieces, Poet-Pourri and Social Climbing and Other Poems.

Book preview

The Future of Our House

Criminal Conversation, Volume 5

Laura Lyndhurst

Published by Laura Lyndhurst, 2023.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

THE FUTURE OF OUR HOUSE

First edition. June 8, 2023.

Copyright © 2023 Laura Lyndhurst.

ISBN: 979-8224296255

Written by Laura Lyndhurst.

'Like madness is the glory of this life'

Timon of Athens, I, ii

William Shakespeare

1: SON

‘Fuckin’ ‘ell, mate, that was some lap you just put in. You ‘ad wings out there.’

Josh Middleton’s tone expressed his awe.

Greg winced inwardly at his team-mate’s choice of vocabulary. Outwardly he grinned, bracing his arms to lift himself out of the cockpit.

‘Red Bull hasn’t got a monopoly on them, you know.’

He heaved himself upwards, then swung his feet over the side of the car to have them land at the exact same time, neat, side by side. He didn’t even have to think about the effort needed to make that happen, it was an automatic movement by now. It wasn’t an issue when he was in the car, the custom-tailored pedals took the differing lengths of his legs into account, but it was an irritation to have the limp caused by them on show when he got out.

At first he’d tried driving in his tailor-made boots, but the extra thickness required on the sole of the left one went against the principle of the normally-thin rubber soles which allowed feedback through the pedals. The car pedals had been personalised instead, and now Greg wore an unmade-up boot on his left foot, giving him the best drive possible—which was the point of motor racing, of course.

It meant his abnormality was obvious when he was out of the car though, and Greg’s mood was apt to change when he moved from one sphere to the other. Now, as he removed his helmet and moved away from the car, he felt the familiar slight roll to his gait that came with walking without his adapted footwear. The smile left his face, to be replaced by the habitual slightly-worried frown.

It hadn’t always been this way. Greg’s legs had been fine when he was born, but over time it had become apparent that one leg was growing faster than the other—or one was growing more slowly. Whichever way you looked at it, an inequality was apparent, and consultations with distinguished doctors—specialists in their field—had followed, with more than one operation by eminent surgeons becoming a regular feature of young Greg’s life.

It was frustrating for him, given what an active youngster he was, always on the move, never still, albeit with an increasingly loping gait, as he’d heard one insensitive doctor call it. There’d been some discussion about what to name him, this active boy, and Gregory it had been, after not too much discussion. It derived from Greece, as indeed did his people, the Dukakis du Cain family, the Greek word grigora relating to speed, and there was nothing young Greg was, if he wasn’t fast.

He’d loved racing-driver video games from early on in life. Taken by his father Miles to an arcade at a fairground or some such, he’d been fascinated by what he’d seen of the older children playing on them. He’d clamoured to be allowed to play himself, and once ensconced at the machine he’d been unable to tear himself away, even when his sister Alec—Alectrona, to give her the full name which had been bestowed on her—had told him calmly that she and Daddy were going for candy floss. It had been necessary for his father to pick Greg up bodily and carry him away from the booth—but a lifelong love affair had been born.

Being indulgent parents, Miles and Katie had given in to the relentless pressure applied by young Greg thereafter, and his first video game was purchased, growing fast into a collection to rival any on the planet. Other parents might have worried that their son wasn’t getting the fresh air and outdoor activity required by a growing child—but on the contrary, Greg loved to be out and about playing, running, jumping, climbing trees, and between that and his racing console he had little time for anything else.

Something had to give, however, and in Greg’s case it was his school studies. He didn’t care. He had very little aptitude for books and reading and all that went with it, preferring by far the more active and practical matters available to him—usually those which required Greg to get his hands dirty. He left school at last with just about the basic requirements in the three Rs, and never picked up a pen or a book if he could manage without. His parents had been worried, and had little Greg subjected to all sorts of tests, which didn’t pick up any diagnosable issues, dyslexia or whatever. They’d just had to accept that their son was wired for hands-on tasks, like driving cars and tinkering with their engines, and had little if any interest in written matters.

It bothered him, looking back now, at how his parents had jumped on any little thing which appeared to them out of the ordinary, using it as an excuse to get both Greg and Alec tested for abnormalities—because his twin sister had come in for her share of the irritating tests too, on account of her excessive quietness. She rarely spoke unless spoken to, hiding away upstairs in her attic room with her head in a book, or surfing the internet, and not for the latest make-up or schoolgirl craze either. Greg had gone up to her one day—there being torrential rain outside which kept him inside and bored, even with his usual video games—to see if Alec could provide him with something interesting.

‘What y’doing?’

He looked over her shoulder as she sat with her laptop on her desk, expecting to see the latest boy band or something similar.

‘Don’t do that, please.’

She shrugged away from his touch, yet gave him a faint smile as she did so, to take the sting out of her words. Alec had a bond with her brother—even though they were about as non-identical as twins could get—and could never be really nasty to him, even when he irritated her, as he was doing now.

‘Sorry.’

He moved backwards, yet still peered at the screen, which was all words dotted with a couple of pictures here and there.

‘What’s that?’

‘Historical information. It wouldn’t interest you.’

It didn’t, and as Alec calmly carried on reading whatever it was that seemed to fascinate her so much, showing no interest in breaking off and giving Greg the attention he craved, he left her to it and went back downstairs.

Great-Aunt Celia was visiting, and in the kitchen baking, which she always did when she came to stay. There might be cake, which would be good, and the old lady might well provide the entertainment which Greg needed. She fascinated him, prone as she was on occasions—wandering a little in her mind these days, and forgetting that she was speaking to a child—to reminisce about her long-distant past and the things she’d gotten up to back then. The first time it happened his mother had arrived in the kitchen not long after her aunt had begun, and hurriedly started speaking about something else.

Nevertheless, Greg had heard enough to be mystified, and even had recourse to the computer to find out more about some of the words she’d used. Thereafter he lived in hope of gleaning more of such mysteries, and hung around his great-aunt whenever she paid them a visit—but with no luck. He could tell his mother didn’t like her aunt’s reminiscences, but she never censured Celia. She just made sure she was always present when the aunt visited, tightening her lips in that way she had and changing the subject—if it became necessary, which it usually did—in a way that she hoped her son—and daughter, if Alec was also present—wouldn’t notice. Greg did though, and was sorry he could no longer hear about those fascinating things.

Be all of that as it may, neither Greg nor Alec was found to have any of the disabilities which their parents seemed to be on the lookout for. Greg was loud and practical in his interests, Alec quiet and bookish in hers—that was just how it was with them. Greg’s uneven leg-lengths appeared to be the only problem, and that had been dealt with as far as it could be.

Now, although he needed to focus on giving feedback to the crew—and his racing partner Josh—of how the car had handled out on the track, he found his thoughts fixed on his sister. This was insanity. The Formula One season was about to begin, with the recently-founded Team du Cain about to race for its second season. Greg Dukakis du Cain—son of the owner, Miles Dukakis du Cain—and Josh Middleton, protégé of that same owner, were the up-and-coming ones-to-watch on the track. They’d put in coruscating performances in their debut season last year, not winning the championship for themselves or for the team, but making the podium enough times for the smart money to show a more-than-passing interest in them.

The first day of testing had gone well, and team hopes were high, so focus on his racing was paramount. Greg did his best to concentrate—not his finest feature—on the matter in hand, rather than on the important case which Alec was even now conducting, and for which he wished her the right result. Racing won out, although Greg listened with ill-disguised impatience to the input of the mechanics and Josh.

They weren’t unduly bothered. Greg was a natural, and he’d been nailing it on every successive practice lap he’d driven. He was a bit of a grumpy bugger when out of the car anyway and, this being Bahrain, it was twenty-two degrees centigrade, even in February. Everybody was a bit more irritable—not to mention nervous—with expectations of how well they’d do in their second season. Greg would keep on killing it, they felt, as would the equally-gifted Josh. It maintained the tension of competition between the two, with each worried about how he was going to keep up with his gifted partner. It could only be good for all concerned—they hoped.

2: DAUGHTER

From a seat in the public gallery, Siegfried Markham—universally known as Sig—admired the manner in which the counsel for the prosecution comported herself. Alectrona Dukakis du Cain—Alec to her friends, family and her own considerable irritation—at present worked for the CPS, but always seemed a part of his grandfather’s firm, Markham, Markham and Manners, at which she’d received a major portion of her legal training. Her calm composure as she’d questioned the defendant—a cocksure, swaggering, guilty-as-sin bully—had been admirable, in the face of his bluster, which couldn’t help but come through the serious and respectful façade which his counsel had schooled him—with not much success—to use.

Accused of sexually-assaulting his ex-partner, Ronald Sykes was pleading Not Guilty, with a show of righteous indignation which didn’t fool any of the legal personnel present—they’d seen much of the same before. The jury was wavering, however. It contained more men than Sig personally would have liked, and even the women looked less sure than was desirable. Civilians, he thought, unwilling to put away an innocent party. If they had even the slightest doubt they’d let the bastard off, rather than sending him down to where he belonged.

The alleged victim, Samantha Yates, owned a face and body which were well-known to the nation, in all their naked voluptuousness. Sig himself, as a schoolboy, had been guilty on more than one occasion of lingering over a centrefold of Sam in all her glory, the glossy mag grasped in one hand and a recently-come-into-its-own part of his anatomy in the other. He tried hard to consign the memory to the back of his mind while concentrating on the older Sam who sat in the witness box.

She looked a little different now, he discerned, past her prime and retired from the nude modelling at which she’d made her fortune. Still looking good though, groomed to within an inch of her life—with the help of Ms Botox and her cosmetic chums probably—and dressed in a gown which hugged her figure while concealing those areas of which the ageing process must have got the better. She looked nervous—which was only to be expected—but had held her nerve as the counsel for the defence tried to discredit her story. Now it was Alec’s turn, and as Sam’s own counsel she wasn’t sparing her much either.

‘Forgive my indelicacy in asking again, but we need to be sure on this point. The defendant—Mr Sykes—has testified to the nature of his previous—intimate relations—with you, and the manner in which these often proceeded. Is that correct?’

‘Yes.’

Sam looked tense, and Sig wasn’t surprised. She’d accused her ex-partner of beating and raping her, after turning up drunk at her home and demanding money, which hadn’t been forthcoming.

‘The defendant—forgive me once more—testifies that your previous sexual relations benefitted from some degree of—shall we say, violence?’

‘Yes.’

Her nerves were obvious. Sykes’s counsel had constructed a good defence, and Sig could see that the jury was still vacillating. Surely this woman, who’d had no qualms in displaying her naked body to the eyes of the world countless times, and who hadn’t denied the somewhat kinky details of her sex life with her ex-partner, couldn’t make a charge of rape stick. Sig could see it in their eyes.

‘Such violence beginning, shall we be clear, with you parading—excuse me—your very obvious charms before him, in the skimpiest of clothing?’

‘Yes.’

Sam licked her lips, but not in a lascivious way, far from it—and why wouldn’t she be nervous?

‘And the defendant has testified that on the occasion under scrutiny you once more brandished your charms before him, instigating one more such encounter?’

‘No.’

She might be nervous, but she was sticking to her story.

‘That is not correct.’

She might have said more, but Alectrona Dukakis du Cain ignored her and continued.

‘We need to be clear about this. Your Honour, if I may?’

She addressed the bench, who gave permission for her to proceed. Sykes’s counsel made as though to object, but thought better of it. Tom Ferguson had done a good job, but as a close friend Sig knew he’d found representing this piece of so-called-human garbage on legs repellent in the extreme.

‘Would you mind standing please, Ms Yates? And coming out here, where you can be clearly seen by all.’

Sam did so, moving out from behind the witness box but staying up on the platform on which it sat, as though on a catwalk, Sig thought, and absolutely visible to everybody present.

‘Mr Sykes—with your Honour’s permission to address the defendant?’

Again permission was given, and Alec faced Sykes, who looked across at the witness, his alleged victim, with a face which tried to be impassive but couldn’t help a hint of arrogant confidence.

‘You recognise the witness as Ms Yates, your former partner? And with whom you claim you had consensual sexual relations on the evening in question?’

‘That’s her.’

Alec moved up onto the platform beside her client.

‘And this is the body that you claim she flaunted before you, triggering a similar sexual encounter to those which you had enjoyed together in the past?’

‘Well, she hasn’t got another one that I know of.’

You think you’re so clever, you bastard, thought Sig. Well, just maybe you’ve got another think coming, although I don’t know what.

Before he could dwell on what that might be, Alec showed him, and everybody else present. She turned to Sam and, with a swift move, her hand grasped the neckline of dress worn by the witness. With a hard tug, outwards and downwards, Alec ripped the garment from the woman’s body, leaving her almost entirely naked—aside from a brief garment protecting her groin area—before the gaze of everybody present.

There was a collective gasp—in which even His Honour joined—and then silence, with horror, pity and fear thick throughout the atmosphere. Gone was the former glory of that body, the stretch marks of childbirth clear, along with some sagging skin of encroaching age and a number of still-visible-but-fading bruises and scars. Most of all, though, the collective gaze was upon the woman’s bosom, or lack thereof. Gone were the twin globes of the former model’s glory days, their place taken by flatness, and the unmistakable scars of a double mastectomy. Alec’s voice rang out.

‘Strange that you failed to notice the obvious absence of the forty-two-D breasts which you claimed Ms Yates—what was it? Ah yes, waggled at you before you raped her. Could you explain this failure to the court please, Mr Sykes?’

There was another silence, then the courtroom erupted into chaos, shouting, cheering, the banging of the gavel as His Honour tried—and failed—to restore order.

3: DRIVING FORCE

Testing finished for the day, and the mechanics tasked with ironing out the few hitches which had become apparent, Greg relaxed in his hotel suite with a beer—alcohol-free—and brooded over his problems and his family.

He loved his parents, and his sister, no question. When as a child he’d been housebound, recovering from the latest round of surgery, he’d come to love them even more. It had been a trying time for the whole family, in particular his mother, who seemed to take personal responsibility for her son’s disability. When Greg was old enough to understand and consider such things, his mother's concerns seemed crazy. How could she be to blame? Any defective genes—or whatever—had been passed down to her, or to his father, for that matter, although the latter never took on about the issue in quite the same way as his wife. Rather he played the part of calm logic, shushing Katie and calming her, talking her round and into a mood of acceptance rather than illogical self-blame.

At the time though, Greg himself had been the most accepting of the situation, which was much at odds with his usual impatience and rush to be out and doing things. It was as if he knew and accepted that no action he might take could change this pain-in-the-backside accident of birth, and further that he could in fact make it worse if he didn’t grit his teeth and endure with patience the endless medical hoops through which he was obliged to jump.

His twin sister had been his greatest ally throughout Greg’s many ordeals. That wasn’t to say their parents hadn’t been support itself, but Alec—Greg’s personal nickname for her, which everybody else had taken to using—was as calm and patient as Greg was agitated and impatient. She took after her father in that, although even Miles—with a hot temper when pushed to the limit—wasn’t the soul of calm imperturbability that Alec was. She’d sit by her brother, holding his hand, or walk slowly beside him, again his hand in hers, as he practised and regained the use of his bad leg after yet another bout of surgery. Her dark green eyes—rather cold for everybody else, parents included—were warm when they rested on her brother, even when in the throes of some sibling spat. Even then, when in anger over some infringement of one twin into the property or space of the other, Alec exuded a sort of tolerant impatience, an air of I’m-only-doing-this-because-you-need-me-to. Going through the motions of an argument in which she didn’t really believe to humour her brother was the impression she gave, and this ability to play a part out of necessity was to serve her well, in adult life.

Before that happened, though, the final outcome of Greg’s many operations was that he was left with a right leg two inches shorter than the left. Not the perfection for which his parents had hoped, but far better than it had been. Built-up shoes were hand-made for the boy, but he couldn’t wear shoes all the time, so when he moved barefoot around the house, or ran unshod around the grounds—as it was his joy to do—a limp was obvious. It was picked up on by the bullies at school, of course, but they soon discovered that although Greg’s leg was short his arm was long, with a rock-hard fist at the end of it. It didn’t take much time for the cowards to catch on and leave him well alone, especially after he caused lasting damage to the face of a formerly-pretty-boy bully.

Parents were called in, and shock expressed at the state of the other boy’s face. He’d be scarred for life, while Greg sported no more than a few cuts and bruises, along with an air of total unrepentance. The other had started it, he pointed out—backed-up by more than a few witnesses who preferred to keep on the right side of him, and who’d helpfully recorded the proceedings on their phones. One boy—who had a nose for trouble in the making—had even filmed Greg sitting working when he’d been approached and picked on by the other, bigger, boy. He’d been minding his own business, Greg said with truth, going about his daily studies when he’d been attacked, and what did they expect him to do but defend himself? He’d done what was necessary and the other guy only had himself to blame.

His own parents had been great about it, taking Greg to one side when they got home, sitting down beside him and squeezing his hands. His mother had done the talking.

‘Just in case you feel bad about it, Greg—and you shouldn’t, you were provoked and had to defend yourself, and they won’t pick on you again in a hurry, if they know what’s good for them—you ought to know that I did something similar when I was a girl.’

‘You? What?’

He was amazed and incredulous.

‘I was bullied, and I rearranged the other girl’s face. She and her cronies learned to respect me after that.’

Greg couldn’t quite balance the idea of his loving mother roughing up some girl in the way he’d just used to beat his adversary, and his face showed it.

‘I didn’t take her apart the way you did that little sh—so-and-so—, just one good, hard, sudden punch to her mouth did the trick. She was very bruised, and lost a tooth, so needed expensive dental treatment to sort things out. We have a hot temper in this family, your father too, although we don’t show it very often. It’s clear you’ve inherited it, Alec I’m not so sure about. But—’

Greg liked what he’d heard, apart from that ‘But.’

‘We’ve learned to keep it under control, and I think you’re going to have to do the same. Violence is not the answer—although it doesn’t hurt to let the bad guys out there know what they can expect if they cross us, and—’

Here she smiled in a conspiratorial fashion.

‘—when we do let rip, we always leave the other person looking worse.’

That was Greg’s mother, and he’d agreed with what she’d said, loving and respecting her the more for it, if that was even possible.

The other boy’s mother had screamed blue murder, his father had blustered and spoken of legal action—at which point Greg’s father Miles had mentioned, in his very mild but meaningful way, that his legal representatives Markham, Markham and Manners would be in touch. The name Markham alone had the power to instill fear in the bully’s parents—Tristan Markham was still