Silent - A Tragedy

Two Years Ago, Gavin

After that?  Pretty blurred, really. Tragic, like a dying swan.  All that beauty gone. Jace invited me back to his for a drink and a grill up, but I made a decision: get a train and return home early, enough of Philippa. Dawn went to fetch Paul, and Paul drove Dawn, Jace and me back to Lyme House to collect my stuff.  Then on to the train station.

We didn't say much on the way to the station.  Such an intensity of emotion, Jace and Dawn seemed upset by my departure, even though we hardly knew each other.  

At the station, Dawn hugged me, close to tears. Paul gave me a nervous handshake.  Jace looked like he couldn't work out whether to throw a friendly punch or hug me. Eventually, he said: 'Text.'

And then, they were gone.
      
I never saw Dawn or Paul again.

***
My brother Kieran was waiting for me when my train pulled in at London Euston at around seven o'clock.  He'd brought his work van and was in a foul mood. On the way home through the final stages of Friday rush hour traffic, he questioned me about what had happened to justify an early return, but I didn't tell him much, apart from it had involved scoring with a gorgeous looking girl who'd then messed me around. Kieran seemed to sense more to it and we spent the remainder of the journey travelling in moody silence, Kieran pretty fed up about having to drive through London streets on a hot August evening.  

We arrived home shortly before eight thirty, and after telling my parents I didn't want to talk about Lyme House, I went straight up to my bedroom.  Meanwhile, I could hear Mum and Dad and Kieran arguing about me downstairs.  So typical.

I crashed out wearing my clothes still and drifted in and out of sleep, eventually sinking into a deep long one. I don't know how long I slept for. It seemed to go on for ages. At some point, a shape appeared in front of me. Two shapes, looming, peering down.

Dad and Kieran.

I bolted up in bed with a shout.

'Come on, son,' Dad said. 'You've got to come down. The police are here.'

Five o'clock in the afternoon, Saturday afternoon.  Exactly a week earlier, Philippa and I had hung around in the entrance hallway at Lyme House, waiting to see Agnes Harlesden who'd just returned from abroad.

***
Downstairs, a couple of officers were waiting.

'Gavin?'

'Yes.'

'We need to ask you some questions.'

***
Another fire. Part of Lyme House had burnt to the ground during the night.

Philippa and Aidan were dead.

And so were Dawn and Paul.

And Agnes Harlesden.
      
All dead, all gone.