Presumably the piper had been practicing a for a concern or recital. We didn't ask. The mournful wail of the bagpipes rapidly dispersed wildlife and humankind alike at the time. No peace on the common that day.
"Nowhere," Margaret had said.
"Nowhere that I want to be right now!" I'd agreed, steering us onto the path leading off the common and back to the car.
"No, the piece is called 'Nowhere'," she replies, impatiently. "It's usually a strings arrangement. Unusual for the pipes." I raised my eyebrows in mock tribute but ignored her inclination to linger. We found the tree on the way back because I took a wrong turning on one of the circuitous pathways in my impatience to escape.
So nowhere was here, where the Margaret I'd thought I knew wasn't. And indeed, everywhere was beginning to feel like that now. On an impulse I went in search of the tree, retracing what I could remember of our trajectory off the common that day - a short way from the centre, skirting the scrubby lake overgrown with bulrushes and waving grass. It was on a track seemingly leading nowhere too; Margaret had always liked those best. Apt, in fact - then and now. It took several attempts before I found it again but I didn't mind. There was no piper today, and very few walkers. There was space to think, if only I could force my addled brain to work logically...
The tree was at the end of an overgrown path between thick rows of shrubs... She smiled - that smile she had for when she knew she'd irritated me and found it amusing..."It's amazing, and look, it has a letterbox too. To leave messages for the gods," she paused, "or their handmaidens," The smile twisted a little tighter...
...I'd forgotten the exchange - occurring only weeks before she'd "died" - until now... Dammit! How much else of what she'd said had I misunderstood?
~~~
Patchwork Pieces:
Sometimes Natural Justice is the Only Justice...
By. D. B. Martin
OMG, this is one of the most complicated books, and trilogy, that I've ever read. Readers will be just as confused as the main character, Lawrence Juste. The author gives little to help us through the maze that Juste travels. The ending? well, it could not have been any different, even though it will be a total surprise, I guarantee it! I was tense throughout the entire last book--who can Juste trust? Who can I, the reader, feel confident enough about to know whether to believe any of the individuals that surrounded Lawrence. At the end, I realized I totally believed only Mary, Lawrence's sister, who had been declared insane many years ago... A suspense thriller like no other...
If you have not previously known of this trilogy, I highly advise you read my reviews for Patchwork Man and Patchwork People to become somewhat acquainted with the story. The trilogy follows Kenny, who later changes his name, from his childhood through to the present. Kenny's family was torn into pieces by the courts and Kenny grew up on state care, only to be later taken into the home of a prominent man who lavishly took care of him, for favors...
The money that had been given to Kenny is now being demanded back by family representatives and, Lawrence, who is himself now a man of the courts, is fighting for his life, by going back into his early life to try to figure out and gather information about what has happened.
For quite recently, the wife who he had just buried, had begun to send him messages... A key point to remember is that everything that Lawrence, and you the reader, will learn, will come to you in pieces...His life, by now, has broken into so many pieces that he's not sure patches can ever help... Indeed, trying to get over your spouse's death has just begun when his whole world turns topsy-turvy...
And a young boy is a major reason why... His Social Worker becomes another individual who has unfortunately also gained a piece of his heart and they begin an affair. Soon, however, he begins to doubt her as trustworthy. And, soon, he begins to realize that the boy is probably a member of his family...but how and who is hisparents?!
Appearance had done their job. I was the perfect caricature of the loser - and almost not a lie, because without an emotional rudder, that was exactly what I was becoming. The fling with Kat had been my middle-aged swansong but I'd even failed in that. How did you cultivate love based on lies, or a relationship based on a chasm? Neither of us had been honest enough with each other to bridge the gap, and the claim to Danny that I was invincible had been born out of the work Margaret had so diligently toiled at for me over the years. I was the perfect patchwork, painstakingly pieced together out of her works, social steering and careful grooming. The empty space I'd acknowledged existed in my life when she went wasn't merely because her routines were no longer in place to keep me rigidly in check, it was because she was no longer there to fill it. I'd been blind about that too. I didn't just miss her. I needed her, or someone like her. Without her, My patchworked life would be no more than prayed pieces of threat before long.
~~~
In the midst of the personal crises that were entering Juste's life, including the loss of his car and home through vandalism, there were many legal issues that surrounded him, all of which he was suspected for, or was a "person of interest..." There was the theft of the majority of the money from the law firm of which Lawrence was a member... Then there was the trouble that Kat's, his lover, brother got into and was being used for a bit of blackmail. Then one of Lawrence's sister was murdered, a woman who was supposedly Danny's mother but wasn't... and who Lawrence had been accused of being intimate with to father the boy... Then Win, his older brother, was accused of that murder, so Win needed his brother to act as his solicitor...
In the meantime, his dead wife, now back, was using Danny to send Lawrence messages. and at one point was kidnapped for millions in ransom...
There is no way I'm going to even try to tell you the "story" as it moves forward, but if you pay close attention, you will be able to follow everything, even if you don't pick up any clues about what's happening. At one point, you may even question whether Lawrence is indeed guilty of some of what he's being accused of... But, no matter what, you will easily determine that somebody, or more than one person, is out to ruin Lawrence...and has been doing a wonderful job in totally discrediting him professionally, if not personally (for everybody, that is). Because one person--Danny--believes in him... And, for Lawrence that is enough to make him do what he had to do, to ensure Danny was ultimately safe.
And what we do know is that money is at the root of all that is evil!
"What's mine is yours, as long as what's yours is mine." He winked and threw that the car keys. "And given what you got, that's a lot - but I'll still skin you if she comes back dented," he shuffled off, whisling tunelessly. It sounded like "Money, Money, Money," or an off-key version of it - much like my plan...
~~~
~~~
"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." --1 Corinthians 13:12
~~~
I've said it before and I'll finish with it again...This is a brilliantly plotted trilogy, full of intricate planning that is full of obfuscating activities until only, as the final book is ending, that the main character has begun to understand, even if he doesn't know the full truth yet, that, finally, readers will know it all, even as he learns, and accepts, the total truthful amazing story! Simply fantastic!
GABixlerReviews
I people watch. I always have.
Whatever I’m doing and whoever I’m with, a little part of me is watching and secretly wondering - what did that mean? Why did they do that? What might happen next? It was inevitable I would eventually put all those observations together into stories; but what happened next, and why, is never quite what you expect – as in real life, of course...
Born in leafy Surrey, I moved to the forests and shores of Hampshire as a child and I’m now people-watching amongst the dreaming spires of Oxford and its surrounding countryside. And I still have much, much more to put into words …
Debrah is a B.R. A.G. Medallion honoree for Patchwork Man, the first in her Patchwork People thriller series, and also the 2014 Chair of the Wantage (not just Betjeman) Literary Festival. She is widowed with two daughters and a mud-loving dog - all helpful in keeping her feet on the ground even if her head is in a book.
I'm always pleased to hear from readers. You're who I write for!
Contact me on info@debrahmartin.co.uk. Also writing YA under a different name...
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