Darkest Before Dawn Read Online Free PDF Page B

she burst into tears when the Reverend McCally called at Martinwold and gravely asked her and Sam not to attend the funerals of Derek and Liam Lennox.
    ‘I’m so sorry,’ he apologized for the fifth time. ‘Syd Lennox is not thinking straight in his grief. It is at his request that I am here.’ It had not been a request. It had been a command, accompanied by more blaspheming than the elderly minister had heard for many a year, a command instructing him to come to Martinwold and tell the Carafords they were notwelcome at the funerals of his sons and if they appeared at the church the funeral would be cancelled and he would tell the world their son was to blame for the deaths of his two sons. In his own bitter way he was doing that already.
    Rumours were rife in the parish and surrounding villages but the Revd McCally had heard a firsthand account from Mrs Pearson, the mother of Fenella’s friend, Amanda. The two girls had seen Derek snatch the key and drive off at a crazy speed. The elderly minister feared Mr Lennox was on the verge of a mental breakdown, even allowing for his grief at the death of his own son, Derek, and the son he had adopted and given his name. Jane was a good woman who had done her best to fulfil her promises and care for him and his child. She didn’t deserve the misery she was suffering now over the death of her own beloved Liam and it was intensified by her husband banning her from seeing or speaking to her friends and neighbours.
    It was an even worse shock when Sam and Rosemary saw the photograph of the crashed car in one of the newspapers and read the account. It reported that drink and drugs were involved but Rosemary stared in horror at the inference that Billy, the only survivor, was the one to blame.
    ‘Whoever the reporter is he has been careful not to state categorically that Billy is to blame,’ Sam said bitterly, ‘but he has made it as sensational as he can and he doesn’t care about the hurt he is causing, or what this might do to Billy if he reads it.’
    ‘We must hope no one mentions it to him,’ Rosemary said. ‘I doubt if he sees newspapers whilehe is in a room on his own. I believe the story must have come from Syd Lennox.’

    It was inevitable that Liam’s death would have a grave effect on Billy once he was able to take it in. They had been close friends since they started nursery and then primary school. One afternoon he was lying half sleeping, half dreaming as he gazed through the window into the distance. Beyond the hospital grounds he glimpsed the river, winding its way past the trees and the green grass in the park. He and Liam had enjoyed being in the rowing club. He wondered if he would be able to row without his leg. They didn’t have to be competitors. They could do it for fun, just the two of them. Surely he would still be able to swim? Anyway, Liam would help him get in and out of the boat. Good old Liam…. His brain cleared. Reality hit him with cold, hard facts that he had subconsciously thrust away. Liam was dead. He would never see him again. They would never do anything together, never share a joke, never laugh together, never help each other with their schoolwork. Never.
    ‘Oh God!’ he groaned aloud. ‘No,’ he whispered hoarsely, ‘no, not Liam….’ But there was no escaping the truth, which had been buried and blurred by the drugs. He wanted to howl like a baby. He turned his head away to hide the hot stinging tears which flooded his eyes. He wanted to turn on his side, away from the blasted corridor window where everybody could, and did, look in as though he was a goldfish in a bowl. The pain in his chest hurt as he tried to turn and he rubbed his eyes angrily and kept his good arm over his face so that no one would see his unmanlytears. He felt there was a weight in his breast, hard and painful as though all his grief and loss had crystalized into indestructible rock.
    His mother noticed the change in him as soon as she visited but she