Unspoken: A story of secrets, love and revenge T. Belshaw (good books to read for beginners txt) 📖

left of Frank, if anything, would go under the hardcore that had been dumped into the cowshed foundations. The builders wouldn’t be back until the snow had cleared so I had plenty of time.

We returned to the kitchen and sat at the table munching on chunks of pork pie, left over from the party. The irony was not lost on us.

Chapter 84

Jess

At ten o’clock, Jess let the book drop from her hands. She looked across to where her great grandmother lay sleeping, then stared up at the ceiling, shocked to her core by what she had just read. Her mind was reeling. Alice had told her at the start that she had held a dark secret for all of eighty years but she never for a moment considered how dark that secret was. Her darling, sweet, great gran, was a murderess. There was no other way of looking at it. Alice and Amy had conspired to take a man’s life, could there ever be a justification for that? She went over the events in her mind and then read it all again to make sure she hadn’t missed any little detail that might have swung the jury in favour of the defence if they had been taken to court for the crime.

There was definite mitigation, but would they have been able to prove for certain that Frank intended to kill them. He was about to rape Amy, that was certain, but just as his anger had dissipated after the bank holiday attack on Alice herself, would he have just walked away this time too.

One thing was for sure. Alice had lived a long life whereas Frank’s had been cut drastically short.

Frank was a detestable rapist, a bully and a woman-hater. That was indisputable fact. But did he deserve to die for it? She needed to think hard about that.

Jess sat up until three in the morning trying to work out what she would have done in the circumstances. She fell asleep at four, still undecided. When she woke, the sun was high and Gwen was shouting up the stairs to tell her the doctor was about to leave.

She got out of bed slowly, and still feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders, she went down to see what the doctor had to say about the health of her murdering relative but he had gone by the time she arrived in the kitchen. Gwen was drying pots at the sink.

‘He’s had to rush; someone has collapsed outside the railway station.’

‘What did he say about Nana?’ Jess asked.

‘He said, keep on with the antibiotics until the course is finished. He didn’t have a chance to examine her.’

Jess checked her watch, cursed and ran for the shower. She dressed quickly, grabbed her bag, and shouting ‘Bye Nana’ rushed out to her car.

Jess cursed as she drove towards the town. Why hadn’t Gwen woken her when the doctor arrived? In fact, why hadn’t she woken her at least an hour before the doctor arrived? She headed towards the Tesco Direct, driving at least ten miles an hour over the speed limit. She slammed on her brakes and hit the horn hard, as a woman with a pushchair, hurried across the road right in front of her. A film of sweat covered her brow, she wiped it with the back of her hand, and waved sorry to the furious woman, who had reached the safety of the opposite kerb. Breathing deeply, she took her foot off the brake, eased onto her accelerator and took her foot off the clutch.

She arrived in town at eleven fifty-nine, and parked her car in the Uni car park. She was risking a clamping, but time was pressing. She didn’t want to miss Ewan, or find that she was a mere five minutes away from the best interview she had ever done, when it was time for him to leave. She looked around in case there was a warden lurking, but saw no one. As she pressed the button on her key fob to lock her car, she noticed Calvin’s BMW parked up a few bays away. Thinking he must have called in to beg for his job back, or ask for money owed, she hurried around the side of the building onto the High Street.

The café was only a few yards further on, and she rushed past the front of the Uni block, pushed open the door of the café and breathed a sigh of relief as she saw Ewan standing at the counter, about to order coffee. They were the only customers, so they had the choice of tables. Ewen bought the coffee and pointed to a little private nook that couldn’t be seen from the main area of the café. Jess sat down opposite him and still out of breath from the rushed journey, she pulled her laptop out of her bag and set it up on the table along with her recording device.

Chapter 85

Calvin

Calvin slept poorly and woke up in a foul temper as the memory of his perceived humiliation came back to haunt him. How dare that slag take him for a fool?

He showered and carefully shaved, not allowing his seething anger to transmit to the razor. He chose his clothes as carefully as he had shaved, wanting to look his best when he told the wanton bitch what he thought of her. He had rehearsed the scene in his mind, over and over again. He would be the man of integrity, she would be the craven, sullied creature, begging his forgiveness, claiming the Venetian manager was her uncle, or was gay… Yeah, right, like that scruffy, druggy bastard he bumped into at the foot of her stairs, was really her ex. She was on the game, part time at least. He was sure of it now.

At eleven forty-five he left the flat, climbed into his car and drove slowly into town, rehearsing her moment of humiliation, one final