The Consultant - NaNoWriMo2021

Chapter 1

Hi, this is my entry for NaNoWriMo2021 and I hope you enjoy it. It is the first in what will be a series  featuring Fin Dunbar as the protagonist so let me know what you think of her.

Warning: There are references to sex, drugs, violence and death but nothing too explicit so if you have doubts, please choose something else.

I really hope you enjoy it, and please leave me a comment and check out my other books if you do. Cheers - David.

Prologue

Just occasionally, I dream about my dead brother. He's lying there on the street, reaching out to me, begging for help. But I just watch; casually observing, waiting patiently for him to fall silent. My therapist says this is suppressed guilt, but if you ask me, it's just messed up.

Chapter 1

There were hundreds of people at the church; so many in fact, that even the police were there; Christ, imagine the police doing crowd control at a fucking funeral! He was twenty three when he died, which is weird because I guess that makes me the oldest now; older than my dead older brother.

Mostly I avoided them; they were mainly interested in comforting my parents, and more importantly, being seen to comfort my parents. It was like because their eldest child had been killed, they were suddenly cool, and everyone jostled for proximity. Even complete strangers would walk up and grasp my father's arm, or kiss my mother, despite having never met her before. No one was very interested in a teenage girl whose body language screamed 'leave me alone'. Everyone was sombre and uber serious; dressed in black but uncomfortable at finding themselves at a funeral for someone so young and compensating by pretending that they had been best friends with my brother. He certainly had a diverse friendship group if this lot were anything to go by... Earlier, when I was still oblivious to Alex' imminent demise, I had been studying predators in biology, and I guess it stuck in my mind because the pews of mourners sat nudging each other and nodding at my parents, reminded me of a committee of vultures; torn between staring at their next meal, and frantically looking around to check for competitors.

My aunt and uncle found me standing in the shadows near the font, watching the parish priest theatrically throw a white sheet over it in the vain hope that my parents wouldn't see it and be reminded of Alex being baptised there as a baby. I mean why would they be reminded of their that, whilst attending their son's funeral in the same church.

'Finley, you poor dear. How are you doing? I'm so sorry for your loss.' My aunt was tall, elegantly dressed in what I thought was probably a designer outfit, and sporting a chic black fascinator that enhanced her red lipstick and high cheekbones. Why she was married to my uncle, a short man with a beer belly who occasionally let out a sneaky fart when he thought no-one was watching, was completely beyond me. 'Alex was such a lovely boy, so clever, so popular, and such a hit with the ladies. It's a terrible thing for a boy like that to be taken so young.'

Taken. Such an odd way to describe death. Who took him? God? His killer? He never even met his killer and as far as I could tell, the killer, whoever they were, (the police had completely failed to catch anyone), was utterly indifferent to the fact that Alex was dead so I don't think you could call that being taken. Plus, he was a confirmed atheist, which my mother disapproved of. He would quote passages from Richard Dawkins at her and she would refute the science with an admonishment that faithless people are an insult to God. Maybe that was it, he had been faithless and so God had taken him, but it seemed quite perverse to choose someone who didn't have faith and then prove them wrong by killing them.

But it was true, Alex had been incredibly popular. Unlike me, school for him had been a doddle and despite getting a first, he had barely broken a sweat at university, preferring to channel his efforts elsewhere. He had just started his doctorate at Oxford, he played rugby and cricket and was a blue in both, and he had a different girl with him whenever he came home. He seemed to specialise in the high maintenance girls; ones that always touched their hair and spent hours deciding what to wear. Of course he ignored me, his mousy baby sister, and because he was him, and I am only me, my parents adored him, but I fucking loathed him.

The first time it happened, I was standing by the grave and the priest was intoning whatever priests intone at burials. My parents were standing next to me; my mother crying and my father stoic as ever. As the priest finished mumbling and the bearers took the slack to lower the coffin, my father had put his arm around me and hugged me. I had frozen; completely unable to move. My head had pounded like an violent storm had erupted inside me; it felt like it would consume me if I didn't expel it. I pulled back violently from my father as if he had electrocuted me, and crashed straight into my uncle. My uncle had sworn volubly in response to me stamping on his foot, but I had just screamed. I don't remember how long I screamed for but when I stopped, I was sweating underneath the black woollen dress that my mother had bought especially for the funeral. I had turned and run through the crowd trying to get as far as I could from people, but before I ran, I had shouted at my father.

'You will never fucking touch me again. No one will.'

I don't know why I said it, I just know that I could not bear to have any physical contact at all, not by anyone. Something inside me had snapped when Alex was murdered and just the thought of physical contact sent me into a blind panic. Unfortunately, my poor timing and regrettable choice of words meant that after a few minutes of incredibly awkward silence broken only by sporadic tutting and the odd whisper, the funeral service came to an abrupt end. Mourners had dissipated, casting suspicious glances at my father, and later, when no one except an ancient, and presumably starving ex-neighbour turned up at the house for the wake, he consumed an entire bottle of whiskey as the full impact of what had happened sank in. In truth, my father has never touched me inappropriately, and I had not in any way meant to suggest that he had, but what I was feeling inside had come out wrong. Unfortunately, that did not save him from spending the following weeks and months paying for it with endless interviews with the police, social services, and a myriad of other well meaning, but utterly destructive government agencies. The only person he never discussed it with was me, but he never tried to hug me again either.