The Weir Legacy (Working title)

Thirty-five years ago: The Man with the Golden Hair

5th September 1985

Terry Matthew Griffiths died today. He was my father.

Inside our house in North Hayling, on the opposite side of the courtyard to where my father was wrapping up a successful finance deal on his boat business, my Mum was giving me tea. It had been my first day of primary school. I was still wearing my new grey blazer, red tie and grey shorts. Our neighbour's daughter from three doors down, Sarah Maxwell, had taken me to school. She was nine. I was five. I thought she was beautiful and I stayed close to her and her school friends all the way there and all the way home again. Mum was fussing all over me, asking how things had gone, what was Mr Lewin like and did I enjoy myself? Mr Lewin was the school's headteacher and lived in our village. We were having tea early. Marmite on toast, appley scones and cream, and a fresh warm cake Mum had only taken out of the oven a short time before I came in. The cake was my father's favourite and we loved eating it together. We always did, except for today.

I ran to the window and yelled at my father to come in. I was home. The office light was on, and I saw him wave a hand. He wouldn't be long. What I didn't understand all those years ago was that my father was damn good at what he did. I knew he liked working with wood. He taught me loads of good stuff when I was only four. I never understood much of it. I was always wanting to play but he built those beautiful boats. The back of our yard led onto one of the myriads of inlets that formed the Chichester Waters, the very large tidal lagoon that divided the naval fortress at Portsmouth Harbour from the cathedral city of Chichester. North Hayling sat midway between what would go on to become the Hayling Island leisure resort and Sinah Warren. When I was a kid it was a beautiful island home. It was also a second home to many city dwellers who were never there. It was their second home, with golf courses and caravan pitches where I could run and play and never see a tourist.

It had been a long day and a long couple of months. There had been some interest from big businesses who wanted to work with my father and FortunaMarine had won. Now the future of his self-made business was secure. FortunaMarine had bought thirty-five percent of my father's future and wanted a say in the designs of his marine classic redesign business. The day to day running was to be his alone. Over the last few days he and his finance broker, Karl Manners, had settled sales and forecast growth targets. The bulk of the money he'd received from the investment company, he'd put into an investment fund for his me, payable when I turned forty-five. By then my father reckoned I would have made a few mistakes, learnt from them, and put my life back on an even keel. In the meantime, he would do all he could to make sure that his young family got the best he could afford. It had been no surprise that Fortuna had been looking for a boatyard in the area to trial their concept boats. My father's business was opening up and bright prospects waited on the horizon.

Nobody heard the big wooden gate open or close. Three men silently crossed the courtyard's broken brick floor, their loping gait taking them swiftly to the office where my father sat with his back to the wall and the desk lamp on. Only their eyes showed through the balaclavas that covered most of their faces.

I'd finished my tea but my father hadn't joined us. Mum said he was working on something big but this was my first day apart from him. I wanted to tell him everything great that happened to me that day. My mother told me not to go but I went anyway. The office was a mess. Every drawer had been pulled open, every box had been emptied over the floor. My father sat there, his body slumped over the desk. Try as I might, I couldn't wake him up. I'd had my tea, now he was supposed to join us. It was then that I saw the blood and the big red stain on his chest. I knew that he had hurt himself so I turned to run back to my mother to tell her I couldn't wake him up but that man stopped me, grabbed my head and pulled me into his face. The eyes were horrible, bloodshot and wide. When he removed his balaclava I saw the blonde mullet linger over his shoulder, the little tattoo of a monkey below the right ear lobe.

Up close in the glow of the desk lamp, his hair looked like gold. His rasping voice chilled me to the bone.

"Your father has something I want but he doesn't want to share with me. He's paid for his mistakes and I will find want I want. Remember me, boy. Remember my face because when your darkest dreams are brightest, know that I will be waiting for you."

He raised a heavy pistol in front of me. That had a long gunmetal blue extension on its front. "Don't come looking for me. Otherwise, I will kill your Mum and you will be left all alone, and you won't like that."

The gun didn't faze me. I'd seen guns in films. The air rifle my father used to kill the rats stood in a cupboard behind the door. I looked into the man's eyes because my father told me never to back down in fear. I saw every line, every crevice in his face. If he intended malice to flow into me then he got what he wished for. I was never going to forget his face until the day he died. He had one more act before he left the office.

"Come here, boy."

He grabbed my tie and pulled me forcefully to my feet.

"Look how peaceful your father looks. Now look again."

The man with the golden hair grabbed my face and forced me to look at my father. When the hole appeared in my father's forehead it looked sort of normal like it should be there, but it wasn't. Golden Hair turned and walked out of the room as the two other men he was with came across to me and removed their masks. The leader scolded them and the masks were pulled down over their faces again, but not before I saw who they were. I now had three faces etched in my head, forever.

It could only have been five minutes between the men leaving and my mum's arrival. She told me to step back but I couldn't. I'd seen the blood, the big red stain on his chest and the hole in his forehead.

My mother screamed at me. "Run Adam. Run and get the police and an ambulance."

My mother never screamed at me, but now she kept screaming until I ran for all I was worth. I knew how to dial 999 and I ran. When I got back Mum was holding my father in her arms and crying. I didn't know why. He was only asleep. I ran to Mum and held on tight to comfort her but she wouldn't stop crying. I had never seen her like this before. Then the ambulance and the police arrived. My father was put on a big stretcher on wheels and taken away in the ambulance. Two policemen took me and Mum to Portsmouth Royal Infirmary where my father was announced dead on arrival. When the police came they separated me from my Mum while they asked her lots of questions. I didn't know what to do. I didn't know what they had done with my father, and the stupid policewoman told me nothing. So I said nothing either.

Karl Manners sold the boat business to FortunaMarine for a lot less than it was worth but it gave Mum some money to get by. I learned a valuable lesson that day. People were only there to get what they could from you and then they left you. Over the years that followed I never made any real friends, never brought schoolmates home. I did exactly what was asked of me and no more. When the money from the sale of the boat business ran out I didn't know what we'd do but then Mum married Edward Rennik and my life changed for the better.

Edward was the senior catering officer on the island's air station, RAF Oakland. He had thin blue and black stripes around the ends of his sleeves and on his shoulders, with a thicker line between them. When he married Mum we had a big house on the mainland and I had the biggest playground I could ever want. Edward had been married before but he was divorced from his old wife who had since married someone else. He was a lot older than Mum and he had two daughters who also lived with their Mum and new Dad. I didn't care. Edward was now my Dad, and a great Dad he was too. I called Edward, Ted, because that was what Mum called him. I separated the two men into Father and Dad. My father had brought me into this world and taught me the best he could until he died. My Dad took over from my father when I needed him most. Ted never brought his daughters home to us. It was his way of telling me that Mum and I were his family now. His ex-wife had married someone else before Ted married Mum. His daughters had another Dad now and there was no reason I should ever meet his daughters.

It took me a long time to comprehend what had happened to my father and that he had died that night in his office, and when I did understand, I was none the wiser. Over time the horrible events of that night withered into the darkest recesses of my subconscious. They were gone but not forgotten. Golden Hair never crept into my waking, and neither did his words.

"Remember me, boy. Remember my face, because when your darkest dreams come true, I will be waiting for you."