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

Max shrugged out from under Bram’s arm and strode away towards the house.

26

Bram stood in the rain on the banks of the stream and looked down at the churning water. It had been raining for three days straight, and as soon as you opened the front door or a window you could hear the stream roiling. There was no need to lug pails back and forth any more – the water supply had been miraculously restored. Right after the For Sale notice had appeared at the end of the drive to Benlervie. Their own sign would be joining it soon.

Slowly, he turned and looked at the house.

Woodside. Their dream home.

He hated it now, although he knew that was irrational. The house, this place wasn’t to blame. Bram had lost himself here, but that wasn’t anything to do with Woodside. He was to blame. And, he supposed, David. It’s all Dad’s fault was Kirsty’s constant refrain. He supposed she was right in that it was David’s insidious, malign influence that had precipitated the horrendous chain of events that had led to that boy dying in their shed.

He made himself look at the shed.

He made himself think of Finn, crashing around, falling over, getting up again, trying to get to the window –

And all the time, the head wound Bram – no, David, and then Bram – had inflicted had been bleeding, bleeding away his lifeblood.

Just how hard had David hit him?

The police had questioned Fraser, Kirsty and Bram exhaustively. Small amounts of Finn’s DNA had been found on the air rifle hidden in David’s garage. The post mortem results had shown that Finn had originally been buried in the same type of soil as that around Woodside, soil with traces of weedkiller in it, and the vegetable patch had yielded an exact match. The theory DI Cromer seemed to be pursuing was that Fraser had buried Finn in the veg patch, then changed his mind, dug him back up, and taken Max’s car to dump the body in the forest by the quarry. There were traces of Finn’s DNA, somehow, in the car boot. But the witnesses in the forest hadn’t been able to see who was in the car – it had been too far away.

Bram jumped as something wet nudged at his hand.

Bertie. He hadn’t even noticed him approaching.

And now here was Max, slouching across the grass from the house in just a T-shirt and long shorts. He was going to get soaked, but Bram knew better than to say so.

Max was spending almost all his time in his room now. Overnight, he’d changed from a mature, personable young man into the sulky teenager he’d never been, avoiding his parents’ company and vanishing, when he did venture outside, for hours at a time without explanation. Phoebe was also struggling. She would no longer watch ‘scary’ things on TV, and getting her to sleep in her own room was a nightly challenge. And she had become completely paranoid about the Taylors.

Here she was now, running after Max. ‘You forgot Bertie-cam!’ She dropped to her knees on the wet grass to attach it to Bertie’s collar, then stood, looking past Bram to the wood. ‘Dad, could you come with me back to the house? Grannie’s made flapjacks and she wants to do a taste test. And Max, as soon as Bertie’s done his business, maybe you could come back too?’

‘Right,’ Max sneered, ‘because Oh no, look, there’s Andrew Taylor, swinging an axe! And Cara with a shotgun! And Sylvia with a bazooka!’

‘Max!’ Bram rapped out. ‘That’s not funny!’

‘Yeah, tell me about it!’

Phoebe’s lips trembled.

Bram put his hand on Phoebe’s shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, kleintje,’ he said for the umpteenth time. ‘The Taylors know Grandad didn’t kill Finn.’

Phoebe looked up at him with her big blue eyes. No matter how often they told her that the Taylors had moved out of Benlervie and would never be coming back, Phoebe was convinced that they were going to come for revenge.

‘Yeah, everyone knows that except the stupid police and, it seems, his own stupid granddaughter,’ Max spat, and Phoebe lifted up her head and howled.

After Bram had read Max the riot act, he sulked in his room, refusing to come out for lunch with Linda. When it was time for Linda to leave – Kirsty was running her back into Grantown – Bram knocked on Max’s door and, when there was no response, opened it and went in.

Max was sitting on his bed hunched over his laptop. He didn’t look up.

‘Grannie’s leaving now, Max. Can you come down to say goodbye, please?’

Nothing.

‘Max?’

‘Piss off, Dad.’

Bram blinked. ‘What?’

‘You heard me.’

Who are you and what have you done with my son? Bram had no idea how to communicate with this new Max. ‘Uh.’ What on earth should he say? ‘Well, Max, I don’t imagine Grannie wants to see you if you’re going to behave like this.’

Max finally looked up at him, and Bram’s blood ran cold. Max was staring at him as if… yes, as if he hated him. The silence stretched on.

‘Right. Come down when you’ve cooled off,’ Bram ended up saying, pulling the door shut behind him.

Bram made Max’s favourite dinner of tacos with refried beans and a big salad. He set it out on the table and took off his apron. Phoebe plomped herself down on her chair and put a tomato into her mouth. Kirsty started filling glasses with water.

‘No, I’ll get him,’ she said when Bram made for the stairs.

They tended to use a tag-team approach when it came to disciplining the kids. Not exactly good cop/bad cop – more a case of moving up the reserves to give the battle-weary front-line troops a break.

She was back down in thirty seconds. ‘He’s not in his room.’

A search of the house established that Max wasn’t there. Bram had a quick look around outside – the rain had finally stopped, so it was likely Max had gone for