The Legacy: Trouble Comes Disguised As Family (Unspoken Book 2) T. Belshaw (management books to read .txt) 📖

Bill, gasping for breath, threw the belt to the side, fell on top of her, pulled her hands from her face and began to use his fists.

Nicola lifted her right hand and dug her nails into his cheek. He screamed in pain and the blows suddenly stopped raining down on her. Instead, she felt two strong hands around her throat.

‘You’ve crossed me for the last time,’ he growled, pressing his thumbs onto her windpipe as his thick fingers applied pressure to her neck.

Nicola gasped for air, her hands on top of his, scratching, trying to pry them away from her throat.

Bill squeezed harder. When Nicola’s eyes flickered and her struggles became weaker, he leaned up slightly and straightened his arms to apply the extra pressure that would finish her off.

Nicola, feeling the blackness coming, stretched out her arms in desperation, her fingers grasping at the carpet. Then her hand came into contact with the iron, and using every last bit of strength she could summon, closed her fingers around the handle and swung it, catching him cleanly on the temple. The pressure on her throat eased and as Nicola smashed the iron onto his head a second time. His body jerked once, then he collapsed on top of her, his lifeless eyes staring into her face.

Chapter 43

Jess, hearing her mother’s screams coming from the front room, eased herself away from the supporting arms of Mrs Kaur, and standing in the doorway, she propped herself up on the doorframe and looked at the carnage in the living room.

The furniture was scattered, dining chairs lying on their backs, at the far side of the room, close to the broken ironing board, lay two, motionless, bloodied figures. As the sound of police sirens got louder, Jess dropped to her knees and crawled across the room.

‘Mum, Mum. Oh God, Mum.’

‘Don’t touch anything,’ commanded a voice from the door.

Jess wasn’t listening, she eased herself across the dirty carpet until she was next to her mother, then she reached out and stroked the blood-soaked fringe of her hair.

‘Miss, please… the paramedics are here, come on, love, let them do their work.’

Jess looked back towards the door as the policeman moved to the side to allow two, green clad paramedics into the room. They hurried to the prone bodies and as one of them eased Jess away from her mother, the other, checked for her father’s pulse.

He looked back to the policeman, shook his head, then placed his fingers on Nicola’s neck to check her carotid artery pulse point.

‘This one is still with us,’ he called and pulling Bill’s lifeless body to the side, he began to work on Nicola.

As a policewoman came into the room, the second paramedic sat Jess on the sofa and held her face in his hands. ‘How are you, miss? Do you need assistance?’

Jess shook her head. ‘It’s just my ankle, I think I sprained it. Please, just see to my mum.’

The paramedic looked to the policewoman and flicked his head towards Jess, then moving back to his colleague, he pulled a pen torch out of his pocket, lifted Nicola’s eyelid and shone the beam into her eye.

The policewoman crouched in front of Jess. ‘I’m Tracey. What’s your name, love?’

‘Jess… Jessica… Griffiths.’

‘All right, Jessica. These men are professionals, they know what they’re doing, let’s just let them get on with their jobs, eh?’

Twenty minutes later, Nicola was loaded onto a stretcher and carried carefully out to the waiting ambulance. Jess tried to get to her feet but the policewoman shook her head.

‘I want to go with my mum,’ said Jess, attempting to squeeze past the officer.

‘In a minute, Jess. They’ll wait for you, don’t worry.’

A few minutes later another paramedic came in pushing a wheelchair. He helped Jess onto the seat, then pushed her outside towards a second ambulance. She struggled to get out of the chair, but gave up when the first ambulance pulled away, its lights flashing, its siren blaring.

‘They need to work on her in the ambulance, love. You’d just be in the way.’

Jess gave in and allowed herself to be pushed into the ambulance. The medic locked the chair down to stop it moving about, then, after a nod from one of the plain clothed policemen attending the incident, he jumped down from the back of the vehicle and walked around to the cab as the detective took his place.

‘Are you all right… Jessica, isn’t it?’

Jess nodded, ‘Just my ankle, is Mum going to be all right?’

‘She’s in good hands,’ replied the policeman, non-committedly.

Jess ran her hand over her brow. ‘Dad went mad, he…’ she paused. ‘He’s dead, isn’t he? He looked dead.’

‘I’m afraid he is, Jessica.’ He sat on the bed next to her wheelchair. ‘What can you tell me about this? You don’t have to go into everything at this stage, we’ll take a full statement at the station, later.’ He pulled out a notebook and a stubby, bookmaker’s pen. ‘How did it all start?’

Jess took him through the incident from the moment she had arrived at the house. ‘I didn’t see them fighting at the end, but I heard the commotion. I was outside with Mrs Kaur from the shop over the road.’

‘So, it was more than just the usual domestic row. Even at the beginning?’

‘Dad’s been putting pressure on me to give him money for a while now. The family fortune was left to me and everyone has been demanding a share. It wasn’t just Dad, they’re all at it.’

‘So, you feel like you’re the piggy in the middle? Was your mum sticking up for you? is that how it started?’

Jess nodded. ‘I’m sick of it. I wish I’d never seen the money.’

‘Let me just jot down some personal details and we’ll get that ankle sorted out for you.’

Five minutes later, the policeman shut his notebook, slipped it back into his pocket and got to his feet.

‘All right, Jessica. I’d like you to come down to the police station in the morning.