Chapter 3: In Search of Yesterday

Carefully I took aim. But which one was I going to shoot first. Him or her? I decided she would watch her stud die before her eyes. How long did I stand there ready to fire? I don't really know, but just as my finger went back to the safety catch again, I was suddenly aware of movement off to my right.

"For Christ sake, Dave, please don't do this!" a hushed voice whispered, "The girls need you!"

I turned and saw Abigail's Mike standing on the balcony to my room.

"Please put that gun down. The girls want their father and our children are going to need a grandfather."

It may sound silly to say but he was wasting his breath. I had already discovered that for all my planning I had forgotten one thing. I wasn't a killer! Angry as I had been, I couldn't stand there and shoot two people in cold blood. Even if I did despise them.

I lowered the gun flicking the safety back on as I did so then climbed back over the balustrade and jumped the gap back to the balcony on which Mike was standing. I didn't worry about the drop this time, if I fell I hoped I would kill myself. Mike took my arm and led me back into room 203.

"Thank god, Dave, we only realised what you were planning to do this evening. We were just expecting you were going to file for a divorce or something. But when Abbie found the gun was missing, Christ, you gave us a shock."

"How the hell did Abbie know I had a gun?"

"She's been watching you closely since you found out about this."

I looked at Mike. "You! Those e-mails?"

"Not me, Dave. Abbie and Ashley, I just arranged the computer access for them. You know my cousin works in your firm. The girls told us what to say. They've known about it for years; but how could they tell you? They loved you too much. They didn't want him as their father. It was only when your brother started shooting his mouth off and I overheard him in a pub, they decided it was time for you to know."

"It was hard for them, you know, they love both of you and when they were young they didn't know what to do. As they got older they thought you would blame them for not telling you sooner. That left them in a quandary. How would you react towards them when you found out they had always known."

I was in a daze as he lead me out of the room and down to my car. Then he called Abbie and told her we would be at the house soon.

Abbie and Ashley were in crying mode when we got to there. They told me they had known something had been going on since they were children. They said that as they got older Bob would not visit the house so much when I wasn't around. But they had overheard strange arguments between their mother and Uncle Bob when they were small. When I wasn't around Uncle Bob would talk to their mother as if she was a scivvy and order her around.

Abbie had overheard a big argument they had, in which uncle Bob had told their mother she was going to meet him on the third Wednesday of every month or else; as it was the anniversary or something. As they got older they realised that the or else meant I would find out about the meetings at the hotel.

I couldn't make it out. From what they were saying it appeared Maggie had been going to the hotel under duress. But what could Bob be holding over her. What did he have on her that would put the kind of fear in her that would make her have sex with him every month?

Could Maggie believe that the girls or at least one of them weren't mine? If she did that could only mean one thing. She and Bob had had an affair that started all this off. I only wished that I had been able to hear what they said to each other in that Hotel room. But it was no matter Maggie had to have done something bad to start the ball rolling. Forgiveness was not in the cards here.

I looked at my watch. I had an hour or so before Maggie would get home. Telling the girls I was going to try and get out of the house before their mother returned I began to pack my stuff. Ashley, Mike and Abigail helped me pack and asked me whether I was going to stay with them.

I told them I was going away somewhere to reflect on what my next move was going to be. I knew of a religious retreat down near Newton Abbott in Devon. A friend of mine had been there a few times to get his head together after his wife passed away unexpectedly. It's a weird place completely cut off from the outside world, no phones or post. When you wish to go there you have to go and knock on the door.

Mike insisted that I leave the gun safely locked away in my safe where I always stored it. It would be safe in there, as I was the only one who had the combination.

My car loaded, I drove away, the girls and Mike remained to inform Maggie that it was over. I would really have liked to be a fly on the wall when Maggie got home that night.

I think I drove a little on the fast side. For simplicity I went down the M4 and M5 arriving at the retreat at two in the morning. The place was in darkness so I reclined my seat and got my head down in the car.

I fell asleep much quicker than I thought I would. Maybe it was the relief that I was over the strain of play-acting the loving husband for the last few years.

Someone taping on the window awakened me. I opened my eyes to see some one standing by the car completely covered by a monk's habit, only unusually for England the habit was White. The hood came down so far that I couldn't see the person's face. Coming to my senses, I wound down the window and took the cup that was being held out for me. As I took it I noticed it was a woman's hand holding it.

"Good morning, Brother. Are you in need or are you here to visit someone?"

"Well, I need somewhere to sort myself out. My life is a disaster at the moment."

"Brother John will see you very shortly then. Please drink your coffee; it will help you wake up. Once you are settled you can rest all you wish."

My friend had told me about this Brother John character. He ran this whole place. He wasn't apparently connected to any religious order. And when I was first told about it, I had assumed it was a bit of a rip-off place. But they had been a great help to my friend; even if it was a little on the expensive side.

Another couple of habits opened the great doors. That's all you could call them, as you could not tell if they were male or female. I drove inside and the sister who had welcomed me told me to park my car over by some others. She told me to empty my pockets onto the driver's seat and leave the keys in the ignition. I would need nothing from the outside world while I was here.

She was right. After I was shown to a room, I was issued a habit, some white underwear and a pair of sandals. Having changed I was taken down to a refectory and served breakfast. It was apparent that everyone else had already eaten.

After breakfast I was taken to meet Brother John. He was a very unimpressive man, dressed in the same white habit that everyone seemed to wear there. But he had a mind like no one I had ever met before.

We sat and talked for hours and during that time he somehow managed to get my whole life story out of me... It amazed me he made no notes and the bare room had no recording equipment in it but he appeared to remember everything I ever said to him. All my families' names and all the relevant dates.

On my third or maybe it was the fourth day there, (it's one of those places where time is unimportant) a sister came to tell me I had a visitor. With some trepidation I went down to the visitors room to find Mike waiting for me.

He told me that Maggie had collapsed when they had told her I knew everything. She told them that Robert had been blackmailing her but she had steadfastly refused to tell them anything further. They were speculating the same as I was that Margaret had had an affair with Robert and they thought that it was possible that one of the siblings was his. I remained silent on this; the time would come for me to speak on that one. There was no sense in rocking the boat any further.

Apparently Maggie had been trying to find me. She was shocked when she called my employers to find I had resigned a couple of weeks earlier. She'd also been taken by surprise to find that all my savings had been transferred into a holding account. I had left £10,000 in our account. I had planned that would be used for our funerals... My will gave my solicitor instructions as to what was to happen to the rest of our money. But for the meantime it was out of Maggie's reach.

I had also set the wheels in motion to reclaim a loan from my brother's estate. I had lent him money to buy his flat; His divorce had virtually bankrupted him. I used Mike's cell phone (much against the rules at the retreat) to ask my solicitors to look into a legal way of keeping Bob out of my house. It was mine and in my name; I told them that if Maggie wished to remain living there it was to be without him. Mike told me that as far as they could work out Bob hadn't been near the place or Maggie. One of the girls had been with their mother all the time since I left.

I was at the retreat for three weeks, having private consultations with Brother John almost every day. That's all you could call them; I have never visited a psychiatrist but I got the feeling that's what he had originally been.

At my last meeting with him I found I had made the decision to go back to New Zealand and visit my family over there. I don't remember Brother John suggesting it; he didn't ever appear to suggest anything. But I'm sure he made me believe that I had to got back there and close that chapter in my life.

The following weekend I flew out to New Zealand. My parents were shocked when I walked through the door. It appeared that no one had informed them of what had happened. Yet I knew my brother spoke to them on the phone every week. When I revealed what had been going on, my father nearly had a coronary. Mother went very quiet; I don't think she believed my brother could be that wicked.

The younger of my sisters Yvonne, did not seem surprised in the slightest when she heard about it. Both my sisters had come rushing over the moment they heard I was in town. It was not the enjoyable afternoon that it should have been.