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

station now to sort it all out,’ said Kirsty. They were? ‘How would you like to spend the day with the Millers?’

‘Okay,’ said Phoebe uncertainly.

‘I’ll give Mrs Miller a call while you get ready. Go and brush your teeth.’

When Phoebe had disappeared off upstairs, Kirsty said, ‘We can stitch Dad up for this. All we need to do is take this footage to the police. Get Max to open up. With Dad’s record–’

‘Whoa! Kirsty! We can’t do that! I can’t believe you’re suggesting… I know he’s – I know he can be difficult, but he’s your dad! You love him! I know you do.’

What the hell? Bram knew there was nothing as formidable as a mother protecting her child, but throwing David to the wolves… Did Kirsty really want to do that?

‘This is all Dad’s fault, and he should be the one who pays the price, not us and the kids.’

‘Okay, so he grappled with Finn and whacked him, but Finn walked away.’ He lowered his voice. ‘We’re kidding ourselves if we’re trying to find a version of events in which David killed him. I did it. I did it, Kirsty. Not David.’

‘Well, even if that’s true, he’s the reason you were out there in the first place. We were worried about what he’d get Max into on that stupid patrol, so you went after them. And he’s been in your head, hasn’t he, on and on at you to “man up”? So when you encountered Finn–’

Bram shook his head, and went on shaking it. ‘The only person to blame for this is me.’

‘No!’ Kirsty almost shouted at him. ‘You have to stop thinking like that! It’s Dad. It’s always been Dad, at the bottom of every bad thing that happens in our lives!’

Whoa. ‘Isn’t that… isn’t that going a bit far?’

‘I’m going to call Carrie Miller and ask if they can take Phoebe. If not, I suppose we’ll have to leave her with Mum and Dad. Then we can talk about it.’

The Miller girls were super-excited, as their mum put it, to have Phoebe spend the whole day with them. Fortunately, their driveway wasn’t directly opposite Linda and David’s house, so Bram was hopeful they wouldn’t have been spotted dropping her off. They declined Carrie Miller’s offer of coffee and cake and headed out of Grantown on the A95 towards Aviemore.

‘You want to know the reason I hardly ever came back here, when we were at uni?’ Kirsty said after she’d negotiated the roundabout.

Bram felt a shiver go up his spine. ‘Because of what happened to Owen. And – well, you were trying to be strong, weren’t you? Trying to make out to your family that you were fine, having a great time?’

‘No.’ She looked in the mirror, indicated, and pulled over into a lay-by. Then she turned to look at him. ‘It was because of Dad. It’s always been because of Dad, Bram.’

Kirsty knew she shouldn’t sleep. She needed to get home. It was past two o’clock and she needed to get back to her bedroom window under the cover of darkness. But it was so cosy, lying here with Owen. In the daytime she didn’t really like being in his bedsit – it was horribly grotty and he was such a slob – but in the dark she could forget about the dirty sink and the piles of boxes and the festering plates and mugs and the discarded clothes and the overflowing laundry bag that stank of man.

She was tucked into the crook of his arm, which meant more man smells, but she liked the smell of his sweat when it was fresh. Pheromones, she guessed. Designed to bring males and females together to propagate.

Not that any propagation would be happening. They were careful.

That was one of the many good things about going out with an older man. He was experienced. He wasn’t going to make stupid mistakes and let her get pregnant.

She closed her eyes, drifting down into a dream in which she had a miniature baby Owen on her lap and was trying desperately to interest it in a Mars Bar.

Then the door banged open, and light exploded from the bare bulb that dangled from the ceiling, and there were men everywhere.

‘Get him,’ barked one of them.

‘Dad!’

‘Get your clothes on and get home, Kirsty,’ Dad growled.

‘No!’ She grabbed at Fraser’s arm as he hauled Owen, naked, out of the bed. ‘What are you doing? Leave him alone!’

There weren’t men everywhere, there were only two of them, Dad and Fraser, but they seemed to fill the room.

‘She’s fifteen!’ Dad roared into Owen’s face, and Owen, still half asleep, cowered away but Fraser had a hold of him, he was wrenching Owen’s arm up behind his back and Owen was howling in pain.

‘Oh, no, no,’ Kirsty sobbed. ‘Don’t hurt him! Please, Dad, please!’

‘We’re not going to hurt him. Just teach him a well-earned lesson.’ Dad looked away from her. ‘Put on some clothes, for God’s sake, Kirsty!’

As if that was important!

And now they each had one of Owen’s arms, marching him across the room to the door. She ran at them, naked, like a mad woman, clutching at their clothes, at their hands, and then she put her arms around Owen’s waist and tried to pull him away from them, screaming at them, but still they hauled him towards the door.

She jumped on Fraser’s back.

She tugged at his hair.

But Fraser shook her off as if she weighed nothing and she landed on her back on the floor, all the breath knocked out of her, and she couldn’t get a breath, all she could do was double up on the floor trying to heave air into her collapsed lungs.

When she could stand, they were gone.

She pulled on her jeans and sweatshirt and trainers and ran out of the room after them, ran down the stairs and out into the night, and she could see them, thank God, their van was parked across the street and they were bundling