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

‘Let’s just start without him,’ Kirsty said. ‘He’ll be back when he’s hungry, which won’t be long, knowing him.’

About an hour after they’d finished eating, when they were gathered round the TV, Kirsty’s phone buzzed.

‘Hi, Mum.’ Her eyes widened as she listened. ‘Right. Okay. Well, tell him we’re not happy that he didn’t tell us where he was going.’

She mouthed, ‘Max is with them’ at Bram.

‘How… Oh, no, you mean he hitch-hiked? Can I speak to him?’ A long pause. Phoebe was gazing at Kirsty with that virtuous look she assumed whenever Max was in trouble. ‘Max. Are you okay?… What?… What? Don’t you dare speak to me like – Max. Max!’ She shook her head grimly at Bram.

Bram held out his hand for the phone. But when he put it to his ear and said, ‘Max?’, it was David’s voice that replied.

‘Bram. Listen, he’s fine. He just wants to stay with us for a while.’

‘To stay with you?’

Kirsty telegraphed to him frantically.

‘I don’t think that’s a good idea, David. Can you put Max on?’

‘He’s not wanting to talk to you, Bram.’ A sigh. ‘Hold on.’ Sounds of footsteps and a door opening and closing. ‘Right. Truth is, Bram, we’ve got a problem. We need to talk. Man to man.’

‘What sort of problem?’

‘I’ll come over – or no. Let’s meet up somewhere. I would suggest the Inverluie Hotel bar, but I know it’s not your favourite place in the world. How about Anagach? You know Anagach Wood, just outside the town?’

‘Uh, yes, where you take Bertie?’

‘That’s the place. See you in the car park at the end of Forest Road in half an hour? At the start of the woodland walks? We can go for a ramble, have a bit of a chat.’

‘Yes, okay then.’

He ended the call and told Kirsty what David had said.

‘What does he mean by “a problem”?’ Kirsty frowned.

‘No idea.’

Phoebe sighed. ‘Max is really going off the rails. Is he on drugs?’

Kirsty and Bram gaped at each other.

‘What makes you say that?’ said Kirsty weakly.

Phoebe shrugged. ‘When teenagers go all weird, they’re usually on drugs.’

What on earth had she been watching? As she skipped off to the kitchen, Kirsty urged, ‘Go, Bram. Find out what’s going on with Max and make him come back with you. Don’t leave him with Dad. What if he decides he wants to stay with Mum and Dad permanently?’

‘That’s not going to happen.’ Bram put a confidence into his voice he didn’t feel.

Just what was going on with Max?

27

David appeared from the trees as Bram parked the Discovery in the tiny car park at the end of the tarmacked road, where the Speyside Way footpath met the woodland walks through Anagach Wood. Good – he hadn’t brought Bertie. This was going to be traumatic enough without having to keep track of the dog. There was only one other vehicle, but it wasn’t David’s Subaru – presumably he had come on foot.

‘Where’s Max?’ Bram asked as he pulled on his walking boots.

‘Back at the house.’ David was jigging from one foot to the other impatiently. ‘Let’s go, Bram.’

‘Okay, okay.’ Bram quickly tied his laces and they set off along the wide, well-maintained path into the wood. Despite all the rain, it wasn’t too muddy, at this point anyway. ‘Which walk shall we do?’

‘The one that goes to Mid Anagach.’ It wasn’t a suggestion.

Bram wasn’t sure where that was, but he nodded. ‘David, do we have to do this? Can’t we just go back to the house and talk with Max?’

David didn’t respond, just marched off under the overhanging boughs of the trees.

Bram trotted after him.

For a while they walked in silence. It was a beautiful, wild place, the air heavy with pine resin. The sky had cleared and the sun was low in the sky, casting a warm evening glow over the tops of the trees. Soon they had left the deciduous trees behind and were in the pinewood proper, the path meandering through the heathery undergrowth, the massive old pine trees towering above them seeming to shelter the smaller ones, their offspring, that grew naturally, self-seeded, all around. Great for wildlife. If Max had been here he would have been on the look-out for capercaillie, the big turkey-like bird that was the largest member of the grouse family and critically endangered in the UK, although this was one of its strongholds.

Or would he?

He’d probably just have shambled along with his head down.

‘David,’ Bram said at last. ‘Are we going to talk or not?’

‘Oh, we’re going to talk, all right.’

David marched on ahead, as if he was alone, never looking back to check that Bram was still following. Embarrassingly, Bram was soon puffing. David set quite a pace. Bram made an effort to catch up, and, where the path widened as it came out into a heathery clearing, he came alongside David.

‘What’s this “problem” with Max?’

David shook his head, his mouth a thin line. Then he suddenly stopped, rounding on Bram and getting right in his face. ‘I hope you’re proud of yourself. You’ve really messed that boy up.’

Bram stepped back. ‘What do you mean?’

For a moment David just stared into Bram’s eyes, his chest visibly rising and falling. Then his face contorted in a sneer, and he marched on ahead, leaving Bram to trot after him. God almighty. What on earth did he mean by that? In what way was Max ‘messed up’? Was he talking about the whole Finn trauma, the police interrogation? But how could David know that Bram had anything to do with Finn’s death? No, he must be talking about something else.

They’d been walking in silence for about quarter of an hour when David suddenly struck off the main path onto a much smaller, muddier one – was it in fact a proper path, or just a deer track? – and Bram’s boots slipped around on the slick surface.

‘Uh, aren’t we supposed to stick to the paths so as not to disturb the capercaillies?’

‘This is