No Place Like Home Jane Renshaw (best books to read for beginners TXT) 📖

it had gouged out channels and trenches. What if they got stuck and had to call a garage? How would they explain… And then when Finn’s body was found, which was bound to happen eventually, the garage would have a record of recovering their car from the same forest –

But they got over the brow of the hill and down the other side, and then they were onto a much better track, and out of the trees into a clear-felled area, and then, oh thank God, onto a tarmacked public road.

They had done it.

22

One, two, three days and nothing. It was like waiting for a storm to break, and the kids were picking up on the tension. Max was spending almost all day in his room, and when Bram or Kirsty went in to check on him, he was usually in bed, either asleep or staring at the ceiling. Phoebe, in contrast, was hyper, bouncing around the house giggling manically one minute and in floods of tears the next over something as minor as creases in her skirt. She seemed to have got it into her head that the Taylors were going to come over and start shouting again about Bram killing Finn, and maybe try to hurt the Hendriksens.

‘They’re both very sensitive,’ Kirsty said in bed on the third night, after they’d finally persuaded Phoebe back to her own room. ‘Yes, they’re upset about the Taylors, but I think, subconsciously, they know it’s more than that. They know that something’s far wrong.’

And Phoebe seemed to be getting worse. The next day, she was so clingy with Kirsty and Bram that one of them had to be in the same room as her at all times, although they drew the line at the bathroom. In desperation, Kirsty went into Grantown to pick up Linda and Bertie as distractions. As soon as Bertie appeared, Phoebe insisted on fixing the petcam to him ‘in case the Taylors come for revenge’.

Oh God. Phoebe’s imagination was often more of a curse than a blessing. ‘That’s not going to happen, kleintje. They’ve no reason to come for “revenge” against us.’

‘But they think you killed Finn!’

‘They’ll soon realise they’re wrong about that,’ said Kirsty firmly.

Linda suggested that Phoebe help her make lunch.

‘With Dad too?’ Phoebe said at once.

As they cut up potatoes and carrots and onions for soup, Phoebe seemed to recover some of her bounce. ‘Tell the story about how you and Grandad met,’ she begged Linda.

Linda smiled. ‘How many times have you heard that story, Phoebe?’

Phoebe grinned. ‘Not enough times!’

Linda paused in her chopping of a carrot. Bram always marvelled at how proficient she was in the kitchen, without being able to see what she was doing. He had asked her once how she pictured things, and she’d explained that she formed a sort of three-dimensional map in her mind, only it was a map with no colour, not even black and white or light and dark, as she had no way of picturing those. He couldn’t get his head round that.

‘I was sixteen at the time,’ she was saying now. ‘Grandad and his family had just moved in next door to us.’

‘On Capercaillie Drive!’ Phoebe interjected. Phoebe loved the name of that street, and they often took a walk along it past Grannie and Grandad’s old houses, ugly council semis covered in greyish-brown rough-cast cement.

‘Yes. Grandad was always friendly, saying hello and chatting–’

‘And he helped you clear up leaves on your driveway!’

‘He did. Several times. I worshipped him from afar, but he was an alpha male. I never thought he’d be interested in me romantically. He was captain of the school rugby team and heavily into sports of all kinds. I wasn’t at his school, of course – I was away at the Royal Blind School in Edinburgh during term time, so I didn’t know him very well at first.’

‘Then one day…’

‘I think you could tell this story better than me, Phoebe,’ smiled Linda, finding another carrot with her fingertips. ‘One day, I had gone to the shops, using my white stick – I didn’t have a dog then, but I knew the route, although I had to concentrate hard. On the way back, some teenagers thought it would be funny to spin me round and let me go, so I had no idea which way to go to get home. They were all grabbing me and spinning me, and I’d dropped my stick and the bag with the shopping in it, and I was crying, of course, but then there was shouting and suddenly the spinning stopped and the other kids were yelling and I could hear some of them running, and sounds of fighting. I was staggering around, trying to feel for the edge of the pavement with my feet in case I walked out into the road – or was I on the road? I couldn’t tell. And then I felt someone pull me against their chest, and heard Grandad’s voice saying, “It’s okay, Linda. It’s okay.” He had his arms around me. He was so solid. So reassuringly solid.’ Linda’s face glowed with the memory. Usually at this point in the story Bram teared up, but all he could feel now was disgust. What had David done to those kids? Linda, being blind, couldn’t know exactly how badly he’d hurt them. ‘And he didn’t let go my hand all the way home,’ she finished with a smile.

Phoebe was jumping up and down in delight. ‘Grandad kicked their arses!’

And here was where Bram would usually step in and say there was always a better way to solve a problem than violence, and Grandad should just have told the teenagers to stop and explained how wrong their actions were, but the words stuck in his throat, and it was left to Linda to say, ‘Well, yes, and he really shouldn’t have,’ but without any conviction.

‘He should! He should!’ Phoebe objected, and burst into tears.

It was four days after they’d left