The Lizard boy.

Mr Crest had owned one of the shabbiest, most scruffy-looking static caravans that had ever sat in the little world of Ocean Gates Caravan Park. He was a tall man, with jet black hair and a crooked nose. He had had the battered little shell for years, and was now known to have taken a permanent residence there. There had once been a time when he had visited the little place every weekend with his wife. They had been a happy couple. She had always worn the prettiest dresses, and her large eyes were glittering blue orbs.

However, one weekend he appeared, and his wife was nowhere to be seen. That was the day that Mr Crest’s face had become sullen, and his eyes had sunk deep into their sockets. Weeks and weeks after that, nobody saw his wife, and people began to assume she had passed away.

He led a quiet life after that. Apart from some occasions in which he had played music awfully loudly, and he had had to be told to keep the noise down; he kept to himself, and didn’t leave his caravan other than to have his breakfast at the Ocean Gates café, or to post a letter. I thought he had been quite a nice man; not at all capable of what he had been recently accused.
It was only yesterday that I had witnessed the scene of the body being carried from Mr Crest’s battered old caravan. It was Mr Lizard. The old, pot-bellied, red-haired, red-face little man who owned Ocean Gates.
Mr Lizard had never married, and with no children, he was completely alone. Who was now the rightful owner of Ocean Gates Caravan Park, you may ask? The police had set some private detectives to find someone who could take his place. If not, they would have to sell the land.

I had been going to my parent’s caravan every weekend since I was a young boy. The place offered me an escape from the horrors of reality, and instead gave me a sunny atmosphere, fresh, salty air and a wonderful view of the sea. But although Ocean Gates had always been my blissful retreat, the death of Mr Lizard had awoken something in me.

His body had been found lying in the centre of the sitting-room of Mr Crest’s static caravan. Surrounded by the dull, brown moth-eaten sofa which surrounded the walls; and the petite wooden dining table with its three matching chairs. A puncture wound went right through his heart, and a large slash down his left cheek. Mr Crest had apparently been standing over him, holding a tiny silver kitchen knife. It was said that Crest had been playing his music rather loudly again, and old Mr Lizard had only gone over there to kindly tell him to lower the volume.

He had been arrested of course, for murder. But he hadn’t done it. I was certain. My clue, my only clue to prove this, was that the knife gash on the side of Mr Lizards face was on the left. Only a left-handed person could have done it. Mr Crest was right-handed. Mr Crest hadn’t killed Mr Lizard. And I was going to prove it.

And so there I stood, in the empty living room of Mr Crest’s old caravan. The dried blood stains still on the grey carpet, everything else still intact. I had obtained the keys from Mr Lizard’s old office (no one ever went in there anymore) and let myself in.

I didn’t exactly know what I was looking for, but I had hardly been in there for ten minutes when I found it.
A shrill, screeching howl filled my ears. It came from the room which I knew to be Mr Crest’s bedroom. I ran inside, not even thinking. Nothing. Just an empty room. Mattress, wardrobe and all. But then it occurred a second time, and I realised that the interior of the caravan didn’t match the exterior. It was far too small inside for it to fit the outside. And then I pieced together the mysterious wail and the too-small interior and pushed open the wardrobe door.

Inside, sat Mrs Crest. Her skin was yellow, her dark hair matted and thick with dirt. She wore nothing more than a bed sheet and as soon as she spotted me began to screech again. Mr Crest had been keeping his wife locked up in here all this time. Had it been she who had killed Mr Lizard? Had she escaped from her tiny prison and slaughtered him? Had Mr Crest taken the blame for her madness? What had made her become so mentally disturbed?

Just when I thought I had found the answer to Lizard’s death, something extraordinary happened. A young boy, around the age of six, jumped out from behind the door holding a knife. She had a son. The mad woman had a son. But from his rosy-red cheeks, and his bright red hair, I knew instantly that Mr Crest wasn’t the father.

And so, from that little boy’s harsh, protecting glare; his mother’s mad eyes; the secret room. I knew. Of course it hadn’t been Mrs Crest, I always knew she had been right-handed from when she would write stories in the café.

Mrs Crest had had an affair. This had resulted in a pregnancy, which Mr Crest had already known was not something he had caused. He had become angry, terribly angry, and hurt, threatened and sent his wife mad because she had hurt him so much. He then had no other choice to lock her in a secret room. And the wailing? That was the purpose of the loud music.

Now the child had grown up with his mentally insane mother, and he and Mr Crest had done everything they could to keep her hidden. This also meant keeping the existence of the boy concealed.
Mr Lizard had come into Mr Crest’s caravan to find a mad woman, escaped from her room. Who had killed him? The boy, of course. The only one who cared about his mother that much; the only one who would be willing to kill to stop her being sent to a madhouse.

Why had Mr Crest taken the blame? After all the time he had spent with the child, though he wasn’t his own, he had grown to love him. He couldn’t see anything bad happen to him.

And who inherited the Ocean Gates? The little boy, with Lizard’s red hair, and his mother’s blue eyes.

R