This is my very first draft of a story i'm working on. I'm putting it on here for feedback. Let me know.


The Widow


Eliot Masterson pressed his thin finger against the smooth doorbell. The sound rang through the property, bouncing off walls to reach even the darkest of corners. It was the middle of December, and the sharp winds were causing Eliot to dance a little on the spot. He clutched a folder to his chest, fighting the urge to let his teeth chatter. His breath rose up from his mouth and dissipated.

He heard movement from inside. He didn’t like this part of his job; especially when he didn’t know the party involved. He could see through the grimy frosted glass panel in the door a shape glide towards him. There were several clicks as the latches were released and the door opened a crack. Eliot was being watched by an eager green eye.

‘Who are you? What do you want?’ The voice was delicate but sharp.

‘Mrs Patricia Beacham? My name is Eliot Masterson. I work for the local council.’ He held his identification badge towards the crack in the door. He saw her eye glance at it and then back at him. ‘I’m here to talk to you about your husband, Mr Jeremy Beacham.’ She nodded quickly and closed the door. Eliot heard the final latch unbolt and the door creaked open.

Patricia Beacham was around five foot six and the bags below her eyes made her look much older than she actually was. Eliot knew all her details; he had skimmed over them a few days previous. Despite her tired face, he smiled pleasantly at him and ushered him inside. Eliot crossed the threshold and looked around him. The walls were bare, except for a few empty photograph frames.

‘Go in to the living room, Mr Masterson, would you care for a drink? I’m afraid I only have tea or coffee to offer you.’ She looked apologetic, as though she were running a cafe.

‘I’ll be fine with tea. Milk, two sugars?’ Eliot asked. She hobbled away towards the kitchen while Eliot turned and entered the living room. The old sofa coughed out dust when he sat down and he sneezed. Eliot had always suffered from an overly sensitive nose. He knew that he would need to pat down his trousers when he left.
For a second he thought that he had gotten the wrong house. According to his notes, Jeremy Beacham had been a highly successful businessman who had pulled in quite a fortune over the years. That was seven years ago now of course, but still, surely their home would be more lavishly furnished than this? Eliot observed the peeling flowered wallpaper and the frayed carpet sporting several odd stains. Mrs Beacham didn’t look too smart either, but then again, he couldn’t blame her, given the circumstances.

A few minutes later, Mrs Beacham returned carrying a small tray with two cups of tea. As Eliot took his, he noticed that they were dirty. He didn’t want to offend however and took a quick sip before placing it down on the coffee table. That is possibly the weakest tea I have ever drank, thought Eliot as he opened his folder.

‘Now, Mrs Beacham,’ Eliot began.

‘Patricia, please,’ she smiled at him, sipping her own tea.

‘Patricia,’ said Eliot, smiling and taking out a wad of papers. ‘Of course, I’m sure you know why I’m here. I assume it’s safe to say you’ve heard no word?’

‘Nothing,’ said Mrs Beacham, ‘I will tell you something Mr Masterson, I gave up hope a long time ago.’

‘Eliot, please,’ he thought it was the least he could do, in the situation. ‘It has been seven years. Of course, I am new to this case so I cannot begin to pretend to know everything about your husband’s disappearance.’

‘I can tell you if you like,’ she said, taking a bigger gulp of her tea. ‘I assumed you would have all the notes with you, but I don’t mind relaying the details to you.’

It was odd, thought Eliot, how easily she is speaking to him now. He imagined that she would be close to tears at all times. But then again, he supposed that grief affects everyone differently.

He had glanced over the details of the case, but he didn’t know too much. The police had dealt with all that. He was here to do the hard part- deliver the news that she must have been expecting.

‘Only talk about it if you’re comfortable Mrs Bea- I mean, Patricia.’ He wanted to get on with the job and get out of there but he felt that he needed to comfort her, even if he hadn’t dealt the horrid blow yet.

‘Well as you may or may not know, my husband was very rich. In fact he was among the richest people in the country.’ Eliot nodded. She carried on: ‘Well, we met before he made his fortune. I was the poor daughter of a lower class farmer and he was the son of the local butcher. We were made for each other.’

Eliot could see the genuine happiness in her eyes as she was talking. Eliot thought of his own, failing relationship and felt a pang of jealousy of what these two must have once had.

‘We courted, as people did back then, and eventually married. A small wedding, although he could have afforded a larger ceremony if he wanted too.’ Her face twisted slightly as though she were remembering a spider she had once squashed on the bottom of her shoe. Eliot didn’t know much about this woman- in fact he knew nothing of her- but he had started to assume that Patricia Beacham could have been high maintenance when she wanted to be, given the chance.

‘So what happened?’ Eliot asked and gratefully finished his tea. He hoped that she would not offer him another. ‘You must have been very close.’

‘We were, once.’ She stood and walked over to the mantelpiece and looked at herself in the mirror, as though contemplating her own existence. ‘As the love of his business grew, we grew apart. They say a Yin must have a Yang. It seemed that my husband couldn’t have both. Or maybe he wouldn’t.’ She added the last sentence with the severity of a snake’s bite.

Eliot felt uncomfortable. He wanted to get on with everything now and leave this woman alone. She scared him slightly, he was unsure of what she could be capable of.

‘So, Patricia, as you know I’m here today to deliver the news that you must have been dreading, or maybe it will be some kind of relief to you now, I don’t know.’

She sat herself back down on her worn armchair and smiled.

‘Anyway, I don’t know if you are familiar with procedures concerning missing persons. I know I’m certainly not!’ He attempted a laugh but stifled it out quickly. No, he thought, stay professional. ‘As it has been seven years since your husband’s disappearance Patricia, I am afraid that we can only assume him to be deceased.’

Mrs Beacham’s eyes didn’t flicker. They stayed fixed on Eliot as though awaiting the real news.

‘That means that from this day forward, Mr Jeremy Beacham is legally deceased. I’m sorry.’

She blinked. It was a long drawn out blink that lasted several seconds. Eliot thought he detected a smile in the way that the corners of her mouth curled slightly. He hoped that she wouldn’t turn hysterical. To his relief she just nodded her head and clapped her hands down on her knees. ‘You know, Eliot, it is a relief you are right.’
Eliot handed her a few forms to fill in, detailing the facts. She signed them and gave them back.

‘I noticed,’ she said, pointing at the forms which Eliot held now in his hands, ‘I noticed that it said something about his assets on one of those forms?’

‘Oh yes,’ said Eliot, ‘now that your husband is legally deceased, his assets are no longer frozen and pass to the next of kin, which I believe is yourself?’

A smile, definitely a smile that time.

‘Can I tell you now about his disappearance? It had the police baffled at the time?’

Eliot glanced at his watch. He had promised Sally, his girlfriend, that he would meet her from work and that they would go out for a meal. A voice seemed to spring into his thoughts from nowhere. Why? Why should I? She doesn’t appreciate anything I give her. Eliot put the folder down next to him.

‘I’d love to.’

‘He had returned from business one day,’ she leant back in her chair, her eyes already seemed more alert and full of life. ‘He was away a lot, you see. He would be away for weeks at a time. Sometimes I imagined him having another family or something in another country.’

‘Did you really think that as a possibility Patricia?’ Eliot asked.

‘Oh yes. Look around you Eliot. What do I have?’

He glanced around, as he had when he had first entered and the sheer bareness hit him more than it had before. There was a mantel, but only one small ornament on it- a small ceramic jug with blue summer pattern. A bookcase in the corner but there were only a handful of old looking books on its shelves. From looking around this room, you would imagine the wealth her husband possessed.

‘I see you live a minimalist lifestyle.’

‘Minimalist? Is that what it’s called these days? He made sure I looked nice so that when I was slung on his shoulder we were presentable. At home it was a different story though.’

Eliot sensed that he was about to discover some disconcerting facts about the private life of Jeremy Beacham.

‘I won’t bore you with the details,’ she continued, waving her hand in the air as though batting away a fly. ‘All I will say is this: My husband never loved me. He was tighter than a submarine’s hatch. I was starting to grow tired of it if I’m honest with you.

‘Anyway, this day, he went away, drove his truck all a good seven miles from here.’ She stood up and walked over to the window. She peered through the curtains as she spoke, as though expecting an unwanted visitor. ‘I thought nothing of it for days, and then came a knock at the door. Oh I told him! I told him that the roads are dangerous in the winter!’

Eliot could imagine; this house was far away from the city, and the roads grew hazardous in the cold months.

‘I knew as soon as they called round. It was as though I sensed it. As soon as I answered the door I said to them “what’s happened to my husband?”

‘His car veered off but no body was found.’ She laughed to herself. ‘They say he must have crawled away but succumb to the weather. It wouldn’t surprise me if he were buried around here somewhere, you know.’

On that note Eliot got to his feet and gave a sharp cough. He picked his folder up and halted by the door.

‘Well, Patricia, I really must be going. Thank you for your co operation. With any luck all matters concerning your late husband’s assets should be sorted within the next few days.’

It was at this moment that an odd thought struck Eliot. Surely not? He studied the calm and eager face of Mrs Beacham. What if it wasn’t grief at all?

‘No problems Eliot. I don’t encounter many people as kind and willing to listen as you, not round here anyway.’ She followed him to the front door. Eliot stepped out into the cold December afternoon. The sun was falling behind a distant peak and the extra chill that the darkness was bringing caught Eliot off guard. He burrowed his head into his coat and started down the gravel path.

They waved each other off. She seems much happier, thought Eliot, as he turned and quickly let himself into his car. He threw the folder onto the passenger seat and fired up the engine, eagerly awaiting the heater’s warm breath. He saw Mrs Beacham close the door. In a few days time, thought Eliot, she will become one of the richest women in the country. The thought returned to him in the car. Now she’ll be able to have whatever she wants and no one will be able to tell her otherwise.

As the car rolled down the path, Eliot thought back to the story he had just been told. Mrs Beacham’s voice drifted into his ears as though part of the air from the heater: It wouldn’t surprise me if he were buried around here somewhere, you know.

Eliot smiled. No, he thought laughing loudly, it wouldn’t surprise me either.