Flesh and Blood Read Online Free PDF Page B

up. Anything to break the monotony, even if it meant spending the afternoon watching washing go round at the launderette. “Sure,” he said. “What is it?”
    “You can go out to Crooked Elms with Vince and check on the house,” she said. “It’s been standing empty all this time: you just need to check everything’s okay, collect the post – that kind of thing. Vince knows what to do.” She held up a piece of paper. “There’s a list here. A few things Gramps has asked for.”
    She glanced at Tina and Kirsty, still engrossed in their game. In a quieter voice, she continued, “Gramps seemed quite pleased when I suggested you go along – he and Vince don’t get on at all well.”
    “They hate each other,” said Tina, making them both jump. “Gramps calls Vince ‘the Beast’.”
    ~
    The Beast was working on his car in the street outside the house. He was wearing black jeans and tee-shirt, with a pair of wraparound sunglasses pushed up on his head. He looked up after a few seconds, when he became aware that Matt was watching him.
    “I...” said Matt, hesitating. “When are you going out to Crooked Elms? Mum wants me to tag along, if that’s okay.” He waved the slip of paper. “She gave me a list.”
    Vince rolled his eyes, then spat in the gutter. “Which do you reckon it is?” he said. “Either they don’t trust me, or they want you out of the way. Both, I reckon.” He sniffed loudly, then bent under the bonnet once again.
    “Soon as I get these plugs back in,” he added.
    A few minutes later, he straightened, wiping his hands down his jeans. “All right, then?” he said, dropping the bonnet and heading round to the driver’s side. Matt hauled open the near-side door and climbed in.
    They drove in silence, until they were dropping down the hill towards the roundabout on the edge of town. “What’s on your list, then?” asked Vince. “They never give me lists.”
    “Nothing much,” said Matt. “Some clothes, a couple of books, their old photo albums.”
    Vince snorted. “I could have got all that for him weeks ago. All he had to do was ask!”
    “Maybe it’s Mum,” said Matt, although he knew that the list was his grandfather’s. “Maybe it’s her idea.”
    Vince said nothing as he swung the car around the roundabout. The main road would have taken them on to Colchester; the small road he took would bring them to Crooked Elms in two or three miles.
    “Why don’t you and Gramps get on?” asked Matt, cautiously. In truth, nobody in the family seemed to get on with Vince, but it was Gramps in particular who would have nothing to do with him.
    Vince smiled, raising his dark eyebrows. “He never did like me,” he said. “Not since I first came into this weird family.”
    Matt wondered at his strange choice of phrase, but not for long.
    “I’m the outsider,” Vince continued. “There’s no Wareden blood in me . See, I was adopted when I was little. Carol and Mike thought they couldn’t have children, so they settled for me instead. It often works like that: you can’t have children so you adopt, then suddenly it frees something up and you can have kids. Turns out you weren’t firing blanks at all, it’s just psychological. So they had the ugly sisters and suddenly they wished they’d never bothered with Vince.”
    “But...” Matt didn’t know what he had been going to say, so he shut up. It seemed obvious now that Vince had explained that he was adopted: he just didn’t look like part of this family. Matt’s parents had never mentioned it, but then they never really talked about this side of the family at all.
    “The old boy doesn’t trust me,”Vince went on. “He can’t fathom me, and since the business with the old girl... He really hates having to live under the same roof. When he was at Crooked Elms he could pretend I’d never happened, but he can’t any more.” Then he smiled, and added, “And he really hates me having those .” He pointed at a bunch