Hands

Hands

A Story by Georgina V Solly
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A single gesture can have several interpretations.

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HANDS

 

From above, the view below was that of a rich blue sea with crisp white waves as they hit the shoreline. The sand was varying shades of yellow and brown. The beach was long and spread out for kilometres and kilometres till it arrived at high black rocks which obscured the continuation of the beach on the other side. It was of no importance, the beach that was visible from the helicopter was what mattered at that moment. The men looking down at the beach were not there for pleasure, but for work. Their object of interest was lying supine, fully clothed, near the shoreline, his hands were open, palms upward, as if asking for mercy. The morning was not yet started but enough people had managed to gather round the corpse.

 

The helicopter landed and they all got out and walked over to the body and its curious onlookers.

“Who’s in charge here?” asked Detective Inspector Ian Hardy.

“No one is,” replied a heavy built man in his fifties, “I’m David French, better known as Frenchie. I was with my wife, Hester, walking our dogs when we came upon the body and those people were over there. At first we all thought he had fainted, but then we saw he was so still it beggared belief that he could be alive.

Hardy said, “Thank you, Frenchie.”

Hardy walked over to the other people and began asking them questions about the time, and how long they had been on the beach when they had seen the corpse. Nobody could tell him anything of importance, only that it had been there when they had arrived.

Hardy went to the body and looked at it closely. The forensics would be on the scene soon and they would give him more information. The rest of the group was made up of two women and a man. The women were Letty and Dina, the man was Dina’s husband Cyrus.

“What time did you all arrive here?” Hardy asked the middle aged trio.

The three exchanged looks, and then Cyrus answered for all of them, “We came together, we usually do as we are neighbours. The body was lying face up. At first when we were still at a fair distance from it, we all thought the person was asleep. It was only when we got nearer that we realised he was dead,” concluded Cyrus.

“Did any of you see anyone leaving the area?” Hardy asked again.

“Nobody at all. Then that couple you were talking to previously, came and looked down at the corpse, too,” added Dina.

 

The ambulance and the forensics had arrived at the site and were busy doing the preliminary work. When the on-site examination had been done, permission was given for the body to be bagged. The few onlookers were told to go home.

The beach was empty in a short time and as the helicopter upped its way, the corpse was being driven to the mortuary, and the onlookers were getting into their cars.

 

Letty said goodbye to Dina and Cyrus and went home. They were neighbours but not intimate friends. Letty left her car in the driveway and went indoors and straight to the bathroom where she sprayed her hands with antibacterial hand wash. The dead man’s hands raised upwards had upset her. It had repulsed her. What had he been doing on the beach so early in the morning, and most important of all, why were his hands raised? Letty stood scrubbing at her hands till they were red raw. She had a fetish, she knew, but that day with those hands raised in such a manner had made her want to wash those dead hands, too. Letty went down and prepared coffee and toast for herself. That done she sat at the kitchen table and felt unclean all over. What was a dead body doing on the beach in broad daylight when it should have been in bed or at least indoors? In Letty’s obsessively clean world, the dead man had contaminated what for her was a pleasant place to walk. The coffee and toast finished, she went upstairs and removed all her clothes, which she threw into the dirty clothes bin, and had a good hot shower. Dressed again in clean clothes, Letty went downstairs into her living-room and switched on the television to see the news. There wasn’t much to tell as the autopsy hadn’t been done yet, so Letty put on a jacket and left in her car for another place where she could get uncontaminated air.

 

In the house next door to Letty’s, Cyrus was searching all the television channels and the radio for more information about the body on the beach. Dina was standing at the kitchen window watching Letty’s car go out of sight. Dina’s hands were shaking and she was making strong efforts to stop the involuntary movement. She knew she was what is called a nervy woman. Whenever anything of strong emotion occurred, Dina’s hands began to tremble. Being as careful as possible, she made a pot of coffee. Feeling totally out of control, she called, “Cyrus, I’ve put the coffee on. Do you think you could come and serve it, please. I’m going to change my shoes.”

Cyrus knew, and read all the signals that Dina usually sent out, and left the living-room for the kitchen. He had accepted Dina’s nerves a long way back in the marriage. Now it all formed part of their situation. It was something that he had accepted and understood for many years, and for them was not a subject of conversation. Cyrus poured out the coffee into a pot, and took a tray with cups, saucers, sugar, milk, and biscuits into the living-room. At this point Dina returned and the elderly couple sat and drank. There was no news about the body on the beach other than what they already knew. Dina said, “Cyrus can we go out, please. I don’t feel like staying indoors. Letty’s already gone out.”

Cyrus stared at his wife’s agitated hands, and said, “Yes, of course we can. Is there anywhere you particularly want to visit?”

Dina sat with her hands underneath her sweater in an effort to quieten them, and said, “I’d like to go to the lookout point in the park. It’s a nice day and there’s nothing for us to do here.”

Cyrus, always willing to please, understood that for Dina to be indoors would make her nerves worse, and replied, “That’s fine by me. I’ll send a message on the mobile in case the children ring, and we’ll be off.”

Cyrus put a hand under Dina’s elbow and helped her into the car. A good thing, he thought, that one of us has steady nerves, or I can’t imagine what would happen to us. He had often tried to picture Dina driving a car with her shakiness, but had never managed to see it.

 

Back at the police mortuary, the forensics were busy with the unidentified corpse. The dead man’s hands with the palms facing upwards was a rare thing to see. The face upwards position of the body suggested that he hadn’t fallen asleep but might have been attacked or slipped up somehow. They had a bit of an enigma on their hands.

Upstairs in the restaurant Ian Hardy and his sergeant, Gary Druny, were enjoying a second breakfast, the first one having been disturbed by the call informing them about the body on the beach. Hardy watched as his sergeant flicked some spilt salt over his shoulder. Druny rubbed his hands together to get rid of the remaining salt and began his full English breakfast.

“You always do that, don’t you?” Hardy asked Druny.

“You mean flick spilt salt over my shoulder? Yes, I do. Does it annoy you?” replied Druny.

“No, it’s just that I didn’t think that anyone did those things anymore, that’s all,” concluded Hardy.

“I believe in playing safe. After all you never know when all those old superstitions might come true.”

“Seeing you with the salt on your hands reminded me of our discovery this morning. I wonder what he was doing with his hands in that upward position as if he were begging for mercy.”

“Or he was praying. Either way he’s dead and we have to find out when, and why on the beach. You don’t think that any of the folk we met might be involved, do you?”

“I wouldn’t have thought so. Did you see that woman’s hands shaking and the other one, her friend, pulling at her gloves? They are both too nervy to be able to carry out any kind of strong physical activity,” Hardy said in reply to his sergeant.

“But, Sir, what about the other couple, Frenchie and his wife Hester?” Druny returned to the attack.

“We have to get them all here, or visit their homes some time today. I think we’ll find more about them than they were willing to tell us on the beach. But I don’t really think that any of them would be capable of doing anybody in,” Hardy said to Druny. “We still don’t know how he died,” Hardy wound up.

“Sir, do your hands ever shake or tremble?” Druny asked cheekily.

Hardy stared at Druny and said, “Don’t tempt the hand that feeds you.”

Druny laughed at his boss’s humour, and the two men drank back the last of their tea, and made off to their office.

 

Hester French opened the door to Detective Inspector Hardy and Detective Sergeant Druny immediately on hearing the bell. She led the two detectives into the lounge and invited them to tea or coffee. Frenchie was on the telephone, he entered the lounge when Hester called him. “Now gentlemen, what can we do for you?”

Hardy was staring at Hester’s long red talons. He shuddered at the thought of them clawing his back. Avoiding Frenchie’s wife for a moment, he paid attention only to the husband. “Can you tell me what you actually saw when you came across the body of the man on the beach this morning.”

“Haven’t we already told you about how we came upon those people and the dead body when we were out walking our dogs. I don’t think there’s anything else to say. Do you, Hester?”

Hester was about to answer, when Hardy interrupted her, “Where are your dogs?”

“They’re in the garden. Would you like to see them?” Hester asked.

“Yes, I would, if you don’t mind,” Hardy said.

Frenchie opened the lounge windows and called, “Rufus, Rusty,” and two fox terriers ran across the lawn.

“Why the names? Neither of them is red or rusty in colour,” commented Druny.

“That’s just the point. It’s to stop anyone from stealing them,” said Frenchie.

The two detectives exchanged glances.

Hester was still wondering what she would say to Hardy when the latter remembered he had been questioning her.

He stared at her well cared for hands and the talons. “Mrs. French, have you got anything to add to your husband’s statement?”

“No, I haven’t. But I did think it rather odd that he had his hands turned upwards, that’s all.”

“Madam, have you been a beautician?” asked Druny, also fascinated by the nails.

“No, I haven’t. Why do you ask?”

“Your hands are very well cared for,” Druny replied.

“Once, a long time ago, on a trip to Rome in a souvenir shop, the young male shop assistant stared at my hands and said, “The first thing a man looks at on a girl is her hands. At that time I was a young and nervous girl and bit my nails, so from then on I have kept my hands impeccable.” Hester smiled at them. She was used to other people’s remarks about her red talons.

The detectives left Frenchie’s home and got into their car.

 

That night on local television the information was that the dead man found on the beach had died from a heart attack.

 

In a small flat, just half an hour away from the beach, another middle-aged couple was sitting down to dinner and the television was switched on, the sound turned down. The grey-haired husband said to his wife, “Are you going to continue with this palm reading lark, or not?”

His wife, a small white-haired lady said, as she wheeled in a trolley of delicious smelling food from the kitchen, “I don’t see why not. After all, it allows us a standard of living that your pension doesn’t even get near. Just to be on the safe side, I’ll stick to the crystal ball and the tarot cards for the time being.

“I bet they haven’t even worked out yet why his hands were in that position. Poor Bernie, good job we managed to get him out of here quick. What a shame he had to die right here. I’ll miss him. He was a good customer,” the palm reader said, as she heaped food onto their plates.

© 2014 Georgina V Solly


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Added on December 29, 2013
Last Updated on January 8, 2014
Tags: obsessions, mystery, inexplicable

Author

Georgina V Solly
Georgina V Solly

Valencia, Spain



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First of all, I write to entertain myself and hope people who read my stories are also entertained. I do appreciate your loyalty very much. more..

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