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

at the window of his sister’s bedroom, which was glowing yellow. ‘Or the ten o’clock oil, at least.’

Phoebe, never a good sleeper, had been particularly restless in the last week or two. Kirsty knew she was dreading Max’s departure in September as much as she was.

While Max returned to his photograph, Kirsty went over to the table against the wall where Phoebe created her artwork. There was a big pile of completed drawings, and Kirsty smiled as she saw that the top one was an ambitious attempt to capture Grannie and Bertie in motion. Bertie looked like a small cow, and Grannie’s right leg, stretched out in front of her to take a step, was twice as long as her left one. This would bring a smile to Bram’s face. She’d ask Phoebe if she could give it to him next time she visited the prison.

She started to look through the rest of the pile. Phoebe’s medium of choice was usually felt-tips, but she had been experimenting with the vividly coloured oil crayons Mum had bought her. There was one of the cottage, with Mum, Kirsty, Max, Phoebe and Bertie each at a window. Bram would like this one too. Then a stormy scene with a shipwreck and two pirate ships which seemed to be rescuing the casualties. Then a rather scary clown. Then –

Oh God, it was the ‘psychopath’. The same leering face as Phoebe had drawn on her notice, where she’d depicted him shooting at Bertie. This time, his face was framed in a window.

As she flipped to the next picture, she was aware of Max speaking. Of a moth landing on the sleeve of her top. Of a car engine, faintly, somewhere far in the distance, moving away on a descending note.

She muttered something about going to check on Phoebe and snatched up the pile of drawings. She ran back inside, the sheets of paper clutched to her chest, and up the steep little stairs to Phoebe’s bedroom in the eaves. Phoebe was standing by the window in her Snoopy pyjamas, bare feet cold-looking on the wooden floor. Kirsty set the drawings down on top of the chest of drawers and ushered Phoebe back to bed. Then she went to the window and pulled the curtains across it.

‘Phoebe,’ she said, sitting down on the bed. ‘I was looking at your drawings in the garage and – I found this.’

Phoebe took the drawing from her and frowned at it.

It showed the ‘psychopath’ lying on the ground in a pool of blood, his mouth turned down in a sad face. Behind him was a shed, and two figures had each lifted one of his feet and seemed to be dragging him towards it. One of the figures’ hair was shoulder-length and black, the other’s short and brown.

Kirsty and Bram.

Dragging Finn to the shed.

‘What’s this?’ Kirsty got out.

Phoebe bit her lip. ‘It’s – Finn.’

‘And me and Dad?’

A nod.

Kirsty struggled to control her breathing. Struggled to ask, levelly: ‘You saw us?’

‘Yeah. I was woken up by a noise from outside and I went to the window and I saw…’ She looked up at Kirsty, her blue eyes wide. ‘I saw the psychopath. Then I saw Dad fighting him.’

‘Oh, Phoebe!’ Kirsty took her hand.

The small fingers squeezed Kirsty’s. ‘I was so scared that the psychopath was going to kill Dad, but I couldn’t do anything, all I did was stand there and watch. I didn’t even shout for help.’

‘You must have been in shock. That’s what happens – you sort of freeze.’

‘Then Dad went away and the psychopath was lying on the ground. I hoped he was dead.’ Her voice wobbled. ‘Then I saw you and Dad pull him into the shed and then leave again. You shut the shed door but you didn’t lock it. The key had fallen onto the grass – I saw Dad drop it.’ A sob escaped. ‘I was watching the shed and then – and then – his face was there! At the window! And you hadn’t locked the door and he was going to get out!’

‘Oh, Phoebe, darling!’ Kirsty gathered her in her arms and rocked her as she sobbed. ‘It’s all right now. Everything’s all right now.’ The drawings must have been Phoebe’s way of telling them what she’d seen. What she knew.

Phoebe cried for a long time, and then subsided back on the bed. Kirsty got a washcloth to wipe her face, and a towel to dry it. Then she sat by the bed, stroking Phoebe’s hot head and murmuring reassurances.

‘I went outside,’ Phoebe whispered. ‘I got my torch and ran out and found the key on the grass. I was going to padlock the door but I needed to check he was still in there so I very very carefully opened the door and looked in. I shone my torch in the gap in the door and I saw him. The psychopath. He was lying on the boxes next to the window. There was blood on the back of his head. I got Dad’s hammer from the wall of the shed and I hit him. Maybe five times. Where the blood was on his head. Where he was already hurt.’ She reached up to touch the back of her own head to indicate the place. ‘Grandad said you have to hit them where they’re already hurt.’

For a long moment, Kirsty couldn’t speak. Then: ‘When did Grandad tell you that?’ she found herself saying.

‘He didn’t tell me – he told Max, when he was showing him what to do if someone was fighting him. So that’s what I did. I hit him on his head where it was already all blood. His arms and legs were going like this.’ She pushed down the covers and twitched her arms and legs about. ‘Then I hit him two more times, really hard, and he didn’t move any more after that. He was dead then, wasn’t he, Mum?’

Kirsty had a sudden memory of the shed, of