Afraid (36 page)

‘All clear?’ the driver, Eric, asked when he’d reversed the van through the gates and onto the drive.

‘Yeah, the car’s not here, and the dog’s inside,’ his son John told him as he hopped into the passenger seat. ‘Best hurry, though,’ he cautioned, glancing nervously around for approaching vehicles. ‘There’s a shed round the back with a load of boxes in it. You start loading up while I check it out.’

Eric nodded and reversed on up the path towards the house. They had meant to come back a lot sooner than this, but a short prison stint after being caught with a van full of stolen cable had forced them to put their plans on hold. Eager now to get his hands on the potential gold mine of scrap metal he’d seen the last time they were here, Eric parked up and jumped out, then opened the van’s back doors to start chucking stuff in while his son ran over to the shed.

John gave the shed door a couple of kicks after finding that it was locked, but quickly realised that wasn’t going to do the trick when he saw that it opened outwards instead of inwards. Running back to the van, he grabbed the crowbar from under his dad’s seat and then ran back to jemmy his way in.

A foul stench smacked him in the face when at last the door opened, and he grimaced as he batted his way through the cobwebs that were laced at eye level across the frame. As his vision adjusted to the dimness inside the shed, he noticed the black carcasses of a load of flies littering the floor and guessed that something must have died in here. Most probably a stray cat, he thought; or a rabbit, or a badger, or something like that. Whatever it was, it smelled disgusting, and he couldn’t wait to check out the boxes and get the hell out of there.

A load of rusted old lawnmowers and other gardening equipment was standing in the far right corner of the shed. John gave these the once-over and made a mental note to have his dad take a look at them when they were done, because they might fetch a couple of quid – if they had any room left in the van.

The first of the boxes that were stacked in the left-hand corner yielded nothing but old, musty-smelling clothes, so he pushed them aside and started on the boxes that were sitting behind them. It quickly became apparent that these were all empty, and he was pissed-off to think that he’d wasted all that time breaking in here for nothing. About to go and help his dad, he hesitated when he realised that the buzzing sound he’d been hearing since he came into the shed was coming from the old chest freezer that most of the empty boxes had been stacked on top of. Curious to know if the house owner was keeping roadkill in there, and that was where the smell was coming from, he raised the lid gingerly to take a peek.

Eric was struggling to heave an old motorbike chassis into the back of the van when he heard John cry out. He dropped the bike, hopped out of the van, and rushed through the grass – colliding with John who was running hell for leather the other way.

‘What the hell’s up with you?’ he asked when he saw the look of horror on his son’s face.

‘There’s a fuckin’ body in there,’ John spluttered, pointing back at the shed. ‘Let’s get out of here!’

‘Don’t talk daft,’ Eric scoffed, sure that John must have imagined whatever he thought he’d seen. ‘It’s that film you had on last night. I told you not to watch it on your own.’

‘It’s not the fucking film,’ John squeaked. ‘It’s a body – I saw it. Go and have a look if you don’t believe me!’

A bemused smirk on his lips, Eric pushed his son aside and walked round to the shed. ‘I can’t see no bodies,’ he called, after standing in the doorway for a moment and squinting at the assorted junk.

‘It’s in the freezer at the back,’ John told him, keeping his distance.

Muttering ‘Chicken-livered idiot’ under his breath, Eric made his way over to the freezer and raised the lid.

At first, he didn’t realise what he was looking at. But when he leaned over to take a closer look and saw a pair of eyes staring back up at him through the thick layer of ice, a sharp pain tore through his chest.

‘Holy fucking shit!’ he gasped, taking a stumbling step back. ‘John!
JOHN
!’

‘I’m not coming back in there,’ John called from the doorway. ‘Let’s just sack it off. Come on, Dad, this is heavy shit.’

‘I think I’m having a heart attack,’ Eric moaned, clutching at his chest as he staggered back outside. ‘You’ll have to drive.’

John put an arm around his dad’s waist and helped him back to the van. Then, mindless of the still-open back doors, and the things his dad had thrown inside falling back out as he drove, he gunned the van back onto the road, the wheel in one hand, his mobile phone in the other.

‘Police!’ he yelped when his call was answered. ‘I’ve just found a dead body.’

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ the old man hissed, trying to snatch the phone away from him.

Swerving wildly onto the other side of the road as he switched the phone to his other hand, John told the operator what he’d seen and where to find it. Then, disconnecting the call, he opened his window and tossed the phone into the field they were passing.

‘What did you do that for?’ Eric gasped, his face pale and sweaty as the pain in his chest increased.

‘Don’t worry, it was a pay-as-you-go so they won’t be able to trace the call back to me,’ John assured him. ‘But I told you that fella looked like a weirdo when we spoke to him that time, and if you die ’cos of whatever he’s done I’m gonna make sure the fucker goes down for it.’

‘I’m not fucking dying,’ Eric protested.

John cast a sideways glance at his father and thought otherwise. But he kept the thought to himself, and drove on in search of a hospital.

29

‘Please stop it, Bernie,’ Skye moaned, clutching at her aching head when the dog jumped up from his blanket and started barking again. ‘It’s probably just a fox or something. But it can’t get in, and you’re not allowed out, so just give it up –
please
.’

It was an hour since she’d got out of the bath and she felt no better than when she’d gone in. If anything, she felt worse and, as much as she often these days dreaded the sound of his car pulling up outside, she wished desperately that Tom would come home early today, because she was getting seriously scared about these pains.

Slumped over the table with her hands covering her ears to shut out the sound of Bernie’s barking, she didn’t hear the shuffle of feet outside. But when a loud bang came at the door a few seconds later, she almost fell off her chair with shock.

Her mouth bone-dry with terror when another bang shook the floor, she pulled herself up to her feet and gasped with fear when she saw the flashing lights of a police vehicle outside. Immediately sure that Chloe must have grassed her up, she ran towards the larder to try and hide in the cellar. But the back door flew open before she’d taken two steps and she fell to her knees as the kitchen became a blur of uniforms and shouting policemen. Then, curling into a ball when another pain ripped through her belly, she gritted her teeth.

‘What’s your name, love?’ a policeman asked, kneeling beside her.

‘Skye,’ she sobbed. ‘But please don’t arrest me, I didn’t do it, I swear I didn’t.’

‘Okay, calm down,’ the officer said as one of his colleagues dragged Bernie past with a wire loop around his neck and the rest of the cops spread out to search the house. ‘Is anybody else here with you?’

Skye shook her head as the tears streamed down her cheeks. She cried, ‘He’s at work. But it’s not his fault – he didn’t know.’

‘Didn’t know what, love?’

‘That my mum stabbed my dad then blamed me,’ sobbed Skye. ‘I didn’t do it, though,’ she insisted again, giving the officer an imploring look. ‘Honest, I didn’t.’

‘All right, take it easy,’ he said, concerned when he saw a pool of blood spreading out on the floor around her thighs. ‘Let’s just get you looked at, then you can tell us all about it. Okay?’

Skye nodded. Then she screamed when another wave of pain swept over her.

30

Jeff was packing his things into a holdall when a knock came at the door later that evening. He’d tried, he really had, but he just couldn’t take it any more. The B and B was so depressing that it was starting to make him feel ill, and Andrea was doing his head in, pretending that she was still ill when he knew for a fact that she was completely stable because he’d been making sure that she took her tablets.

He knew exactly why she was doing it. She knew his feelings had changed, and she couldn’t bear it that she was losing him. It was sad, and he wished with all his heart that he could feel differently. But there was no use denying it. He just didn’t love her any more, and the longer they stayed together, the longer it would take for Andrea to accept it and let him go.

That was why he had decided to leave. He had no idea where he was going to go from here, but a park bench would be preferable to spending one more night in a bed with a woman he no longer loved. And once he was gone, she would get all the help and support she needed from her case workers to get back on her feet.

It still hurt, though, and his expression must have reflected his pain when he opened the door to find PCs Jones and Dean in the corridor, because they both gave him a concerned look.

‘Is this a bad time?’ Jones asked, flicking a glance over Jeff’s shoulder at the closed bathroom door, from behind which they could hear the sound of Andrea crying.

‘You could say that,’ Jeff said quietly. ‘I’ve just told her I’m leaving, and she’s not taking it too well.’

‘Sorry to hear that, mate,’ Jones murmured, giving him a sympathetic look.

Jeff gave a resigned shrug. ‘It’s not easy, but she’ll be better off without me in the long run. Anyway, what’s up?’ he asked then.

‘I know this is a bad time,’ Dean said apologetically. ‘But we’ve got some news that you’re both going to want to hear.’

31

Skye had been drifting in and out of consciousness for two days before she came round properly, and she felt sick when she began to surface. But the nausea was instantly replaced by fear when she peeled her eyes open and gazed groggily around the unfamiliar room. Sure that she was in prison, a tiny squeak of terror escaped her dry lips.

‘It’s all right, sweetheart – I’m here.’

Her heart lurched at the sound of the voice and, when she turned her head in the direction it had come from and saw Jeff sitting in a chair by the window, her eyes flooded with tears.

‘Daddy?’

‘Hello, baby,’ Jeff whispered, his own eyes glistening as he got up and came to sit on the bed beside her and hold her hand. ‘Sshhh,’ he crooned, stroking her hair as she clung to him. ‘It’s all over now. You’re safe.’

‘Where am I?’ she asked. ‘Is this prison?’

‘No, you’re in hospital,’ Jeff told her, holding her close. Then, softly, because he knew it would be a shock, he said, ‘I’m so sorry, love, but you lost the baby.’

‘
What
?’ Skye pulled herself free and gazed up at him in confusion.

‘You lost a lot of blood and went into shock, that’s why you’re here,’ Jeff explained. ‘And it was already dead, so there was nothing they could do. I’m so sorry, love.’

‘But – but Tom said I wasn’t pregnant,’ Skye gasped, gazing down at her stomach in disbelief. ‘I couldn’t have been.’

Jeff’s eyes glinted with anger at the mention of that name. But he gritted his teeth and kept his voice even as he said, ‘There is no Tom, love.’

‘Yes, there is,’ Skye insisted, crying again as the pain of realising that she had just lost the baby she hadn’t known she was carrying settled over her. ‘He loves me, and he would have loved our baby, so
he
should be here, not you. You’re just trying to keep him away because he kept me safe when you and Mum wanted me dead.’

‘Don’t say that,’ Jeff murmured, shocked that she would think such a thing. ‘We’d
never
wish you dead. We love you, and it nearly destroyed us when we thought we’d lost you.’

‘Liar!’ Skye cried, wrenching her hand free. ‘Tom told me everything. You blamed me for stabbing you when you knew it was Mum, and then told everyone I’d been murdered so you could bury me and forget about me.’

‘Sweetheart, that’s just not true,’ Jeff insisted, feeling helpless now because he didn’t know where this was coming from. ‘I don’t know what you’ve been told, but I swear we never blamed you. Is that why you ran away?’ he asked then. ‘Because you thought you were going to get into trouble?’

‘You said it on the news,’ Skye reminded him. ‘You said I’d tried to kill you both, and you wished I’d never been born. Don’t
lie
!’ she screeched when Jeff shook his head. ‘Tom
told
me. And how would he know it was you unless he’d seen you?’

‘His name isn’t Tom, it’s Jamie,’ Jeff told her. ‘And he’s a murderer.’

‘You’re lying.’ Skye glared at him through her tears.

‘No, he’s not, love.’

Skye jerked her head round at the sound of the voice, and shrank back against her pillow when she saw PC Jones standing in the doorway.

Val Dunn stepped into the room behind Jones and, guessing from the look in Skye’s eyes that she had seen the uniform and assumed the worst, said, ‘Don’t be scared – we just need to talk to you.’

‘What’s
she
doing here?’ Skye asked Jeff, her voice little more than a whisper as her fear intensified.

‘We’re here to help,’ Jones told her.

‘No, you’re not,’ Skye whimpered. ‘You’re going to arrest me, aren’t you?’ Then, swallowing loudly when something else occurred to her, she said, ‘Did I really lose the baby, or have you taken it away and given it to
her
’cos you think I’m bad?’

Val placed her hand on Jeff’s shoulder when he opened his mouth to explain, and gave a surreptitious shake of her head. They were aware from some of the things that Skye had said to the first officer she’d spoken with at the house before losing consciousness and being rushed to hospital that Jamie Thornton – or Tom, as Skye had known him – had done a pretty thorough job of grooming her during the time he’d held her. It was going to take time and careful handling to change her romantic view of him and make her accept that she had been his victim and not his consensual lover. They had held a meeting to discuss how best to handle the situation when Skye came round, and it had been agreed that they wouldn’t tell her about the explicit sex videos that Thornton had uploaded onto his website, featuring not only her but also Chloe Lester – whose remarkable likeness to Skye had caused both the police and Jeff to think that she was actually Skye when her body had been found. They had also decided not to tell her just yet about Hayley having passed away, because they thought that it would upset her too much. But they needed her to understand that Jamie Thornton was not who he had claimed to be, in order to persuade her to tell them the truth of what she had endured at his hands.