by Jane Renshaw
He stood up and stuck out his hand. ‘Adrian. Adrian Cottingham.’
Reluctantly, she took it. He had long thin fingers that folded themselves around hers. ‘Karen DeCicco,’ she muttered, and yanked her hand back.
‘Delighted to meet you. Sorry if I’m intruding.’ He had a way of looking at her like he thought she was funny, but not in a mean way. In the way you might look at an adorable dog that had done something cute. His accent was south of Scotland, she thought, and middle-class. Edinburgh? The Borders?
‘Do you have –’ permission to be here, she had been going to say. But what if he was one of Hector’s dodgy friends? He looked as if he might be. He would laugh at her all the more if she went all officious and accused him of trespassing.
He put up his hands. ‘Okay, you got me. I was on the decking out there taking a look at the place and then I saw the key in the wall. You folks really need a better hiding place. Sorry about the biccies.’ He pushed a hand into the pocket of his jeans and brought out a ten pound note. ‘For a replacement packet.’
She couldn’t help smiling. ‘No, it’s okay.’
He kept holding out the note, like you would when trying to get an animal to take a treat.
‘Do you live locally?’ she said, pulling off her gloves.
‘No.’
Her heart sank a little.
He made himself comfortable in the chair again, tossing a log onto the fire.
‘It’s more efficient if you close the stove door,’ she said. And a lot less messy.
‘Right, sorry.’ He pushed the door shut with his toes. ‘Actually I don’t live far. I was at a job just up the road and thought I’d have a bit of an explore.’
She should tell him to go. Or no – she should wait till his attention was off her and run. He could be anyone. He could be a psychopath. He could be –
He could be a psychopath who killed Chimp! Was that possible? Could he be a psychopath who hung around the pond looking for random victims?
She was staring at him.
He was grinning, like the adorable dog was doing something extra-cute.
She said, ‘Sorry, I just have to –’
And then she was running, out the door, feet pounding on the wood of the verandah, then she was half-falling down the steps and running along the path and straining her ears to try and hear if he was coming after her.
Where the path jinked round a big beech tree she looked round.
He wasn’t there. He wasn’t coming after her.
She stopped. What was she like? Seriously? Why would a murderer looking for victims break into the boathouse and sit there eating her chocolate digestives? She took a breath, and slowly walked back the way she had come.
He was standing in the doorway, mug in one hand and her gloves in the other, looking out at the pond. ‘You okay? Sorry if I spooked you. I do sometimes have that effect on people. You forgot your gloves.’
‘I’m sorry, it wasn’t... It wasn’t you... It’s just, a man died here like three months ago and – He drowned in the pond. No one knows what happened. He went missing and then when I was here with my friends we went swimming and I – I – I –’ She couldn’t breathe. She was gulping but it felt like no air was going into her lungs.
Next thing, she was sitting in the blue chair and he was pushing her head down to her knees. ‘Slowly, slowly,’ he was murmuring in her ear. ‘Big big breath in... And out...’ He was holding her hand. Her left hand.
It felt lovely.
She took a huge breath. Puffed it out.
‘I’m sorry.’ She raised her head and looked at him. Looked into those amazing leopard eyes.
He smiled.
‘What is your job?’ she got out. ‘You said you were doing a job locally?’
‘Nothing exciting. I was delivering hay. I’m a farmer. Well, I say farmer – I’m part of an eco-farm set-up at a place called Moss of Kinty, about eight miles from here.’
‘On the Aucharblet Estate? I think... I think I’ve maybe heard of it.’ She flushed. Anna’s friend’s dad was a tenant farmer on the Aucharblet Estate, and she had told them once about this so-called eco-farm, Moss of Kinty, that all the locals thought was a big joke because they were apparently clueless about how to run a farm, but Karen had thought at the time that it sounded interesting. ‘You’re trying to, like, farm organically and sustainably?’
‘Trying to.’ He released her hand. ‘Okay now?’
She nodded. She wanted him to keep holding her hand.
‘I think you were having a panic attack.’
‘Yeah. I get them sometimes. I was – I found the body. I found Chimp’s body, when I was swimming in there, and – now I’ve got PTSD.’
‘Oh wow. I’m sorry.’ He got to his feet. ‘Look, can I take you home or something? Or call someone for you?’ He took a phone from his pocket.
‘No. Thanks. I – I work at the House. The House of Pitfourie. I’m kind of a cleaner there.’
‘Kind of?’
‘Yeah, I’m crap. But it’s just my gap year. Next year I’m going to uni to do Veterinary Science.’
He made an ooh face. ‘Fantastic! I wanted to be a vet when I was a kid, but I wasn’t clever enough.’ He put away the phone and turned to the table that had the kettle on it. ‘Can I get you a cup of tea? The British solution to every problem?’
‘Oh – thanks, yes. There’s UHT milk there... Can I have a splash of that in it?’ She pulled the blanket from the back of the chair and hugged it round herself. ‘Neither am I. Clever enough to be a vet. I’m getting tutoring to try to pass maths.’ She opened the door of the stove and poked the log away from the glass so it wouldn’t soot up. ‘The eco-farm sounds great. Do you have animals?’
‘Just a few.’ He was dunking a teabag in a mug. ‘Goats, sheep, pigs, hens, cows, ducks, geese, a rescue donkey called Meredith... About a million cats. And some pretty weird and wonderful humans. All very much free range.’
She smiled. He was so funny! ‘That sounds fantastic. But you shouldn’t keep a donkey on her own.’ She accepted the hot mug. ‘Thank you.’
He sat down in the red chair, grinning to himself. ‘You’re quite weird and wonderful yourself, Karen DeCicco. Is that Italian?’
‘Yeah, my dad’s Italian. But the donkey – they’re herd animals, so Meredith should be with other donkeys or at least horses or ponies.’
‘She seems to think she’s a goat. But okay. To be honest we’re a load of amateurs. It’s a bit trial and error. We’re unhealthily reliant on Google.’
‘Oh.’
‘You obviously know a bit about animals –’ And he stopped.
‘Well, a bit.’ She took a sip of too-hot tea. ‘Maybe I could come and have a look and, like, see if there’s anything majorly bad you’re doing?’
He had looked at her, and it was such a cliché but it was like electricity sparked between them, and she didn’t want to look away, she wanted to look into those beautiful leopard eyes forever.
‘Would you really want to expose yourself to our level of crazy?’
She had laughed. ‘I think I’m already infected.’ And blushed all over her face as she realised that could be taken two ways. ‘I mean, everyone says I’m completely mental. What’s your farm called again?’
He must have thought she was a mental case all right, turning up at Moss of Kinty the very next day. But she’d known that if she didn’t go immediately, she’d lose her nerve.
She always felt a bit sick when she thought about what would have happened if she hadn’t gone to Moss of Kinty, if she’d just plodded on, living at home, doing her cleaning job, thinking wistfully now and then about that sexy man she’d once met, but not having the courage to do anything about it.
If she hadn’t taken a chance.
She didn’t used to believe in anything as soppy as love at first sight, but that was what it had been. Two weeks after that visit to Moss of Kinty, Ade had asked her to move in with him and her whole life had
changed. Karen hadn’t told Mum and Bill about Ade, of course – she’d just said she’d met these people living on an eco-farm and they’d invited her to join them.
That hadn’t gone down too well.
She’d done a bit of divide and conquer, tackling Mum on her own first and picking her moment, when she’d just raked a whole lot of leaves off the lawn and Mum was saying what a good job she’d done. But it had soon become clear that there was no good moment for that conversation.
‘An eco-farm?’ Mum had gaped at her. ‘What’s an eco-farm?’
‘A farm run along ecologically friendly lines. They’re organic and follow wildlife-friendly practices.’
‘Well that’s very commendable, but couldn’t you just get a job there or something, rather than living with these people? Are they a sort of commune?’
‘I guess. A modern version of one.’
‘Oh, Karen!’ Like Karen had done some pretty bad things, but this was the worst.
‘I’ve left school, Mum! You can’t stop me leaving home if I want!’
But Bill had insisted on checking Moss of Kinty out. For her parents’ visit, Ade and Gwennie had decided that Ade shouldn’t be there and only the most ‘normal’ people would be on show: Gwennie, Baz, Rainbow and Jagdeep. And it had worked, or kind of. Bill and Mum had liked Gwennie in particular, but they’d still tried to persuade Karen against the whole Kinty thing. She’d really had to fight her corner.
But it had been so worth it.
◆◆◆
She left the toilet brushes steeping in the Dirty Sink and got her Uggs and her puffer coat from the boot room by the back door and took them through to the kitchen. She laid her coat on top of the Aga and opened the door of the bottom oven to put the Uggs inside. Then she remembered she’d left the phone in there. She pulled out the baking tray with all the bits of phone on it and then shoved in her Uggs.
The phone bits should be dried out by now.
She’d taken it apart and removed the battery and sim card so that any moisture that had made its way inside the workings could evaporate in the gentle heat of the warming oven.
She’d found the phone, a little basic Mickey Mouse one like her Grandma had, inside a manky old plastic bag amongst a load of stinking rubbish that she’d cleared from the ditch behind the bins at the end of the track that led to Moss of Kinty. The bins were always getting blown over and the rubbish ended up all over the place, but she didn’t think anyone at Kinty would be so environmentally irresponsible as to send to landfill a perfectly good carrier bag – well, it would have been perfectly good when it was thrown out – and a mobile phone which should be recycled.
Probably some idiot who’d got a ‘disposable’ pay-as-you-go to use on holiday had just chucked it out of their car in the general direction of some bins. Karen was hoping that it would still be in working order. She didn’t have her own phone any more because she could use Ade’s whenever she wanted, and one couple having two phones was just over-the-top consumerism. The way it worked at Kinty was that everyone tried to limit their consumption of the planet’s resources as much as possible and share things, which made so much sense.
She hadn’t told Ade, or anyone else at Kinty, that she’d found this phone. She should, though. Probably she’d tell Ade soon. Now, even.
She set the baking tray on top of the Aga and waited for her Uggs and her coat to warm up.
Five minutes later she was scooting across the courtyard. Two of the goons – Mick and Chris – were messing about in one of the garages and one of them called out, ‘Skiving again, Karen?’ and she gave him the finger, and then she ran through the door in the wall and along the path to the pond. There was smoke coming from the boathouse chimney, which meant he’d lit the stove. This was risky, because someone might see it and come and investigate, but that just added to the thrill.
She pushed open the boathouse door and there was Ade in the blue chair, grinning at her, showing his crooked tooth.
He made a sinister face, his left eye almost closed. ‘Whaddaya got for me? Whaddaya got?’ Like he was a cross between Fagan and one of the dodgier dragons on Dragons’ Den.
She giggled, and reached into her leggings pocket. ‘I think it’s maybe quite valuable?’
She put the little silver camel into his hand. It had an old blue velvet pin cushion for its humps and wasn’t cute – it had a horrible sneery face – but it was desirable because it was rare, according to a website she’d found last night on antique silver animal pin cushions. She got just fifteen minutes a day on the communal laptop, but she used them wisely.
‘And this is all?’
‘There was a pig and a chick in the drawer too. In a cabinet in the Chinese Room. But I’m thinking I shouldn’t take too many things at once from one place or someone might notice?’
He pulled her onto his lap. ‘Well, okay, I can just about see the logic! But don’t you think things repeatedly going missing from the same place might be a bit more noticeable than the whole lot going at once?’
‘Uh, I –’
‘If the whole lot went, it would just be assumed that someone had moved them.’
Of course it would. She was such an idiot.
He gave her a squeeze. ‘It’s okay, don’t stress. No harm done. You can just go back and get the chick and the pig, can’t you? And whatever else looks promising.’
‘I’m kind of trying to just take things I can get in my pockets. If I had to use a bag, they might get suspicious.’
‘Unless it was a bag with ‘loot’ printed on the side, I think you’d be fine! No one’s going to suspect you of nicking stuff – why would they? You’re not getting cold feet, are you?’
‘Nope. Definitely not.’ She put her head on his shoulder and they both looked at the camel, standing now on the palm of his hand. ‘It’s like the best adrenaline rush ever.’ For loads of reasons, she didn’t feel bad about what she was doing. Reason number one was that it was all in a good cause. Reason number two, Hector didn’t even know he had the stuff, it was just mouldering away in attics and in cabinets and drawers, and even if he did, he wouldn’t miss it. Reason number three, they were evening up the wealth inequality that was at the root of most of the problems in society. Reason number four, Hector was probably a criminal himself so it didn’t even count as stealing.
She snuggled into Ade’s woolly jumper.
To be honest, she’d still do it even if she couldn’t justify it. She even felt a bit less anti-Hector now because she totally got it, she totally got why people broke the law. It was such a blast she was surprised everyone didn’t do it.
‘We are bad bad people,’ she said happily.
New Improved Karen had lasted just over two weeks. She’d been nice to everyone. Every time Mum had got at her for something she’d just said, ‘I know – I’m sorry.’ She’d joined Eve’s book group. She’d watched football with Murray and pretended to be impressed by his knowledge. When she’d started work at the House, she’d made loads of notes when Damian was going on about which cloths and mop attachments to use where, and how to hoover, and how to clean everything, and what she should and should not touch, and she’d tried her hardest to do it all to his ridiculous OCD standards and not even questioned whether they contravened employment regulations.
Then one morning she woke up and it was gone.
The nice was gone.
Big relief. Being nice had been like having a second job and it had worn her out. She’d burnt out, she supposed. At breakfast on that first morning of her reversion, she had yelled at Mollie to stop slurping her porridge: ‘It’s totally disgusting and you’re making me feel sick!’
Mollie had smiled.
‘What?’ Karen had yelled.
‘It’s just good to have you back to normal.’
And then she’d met Ade, and known for sure that being nice was not for her.
He was tickling her side. ‘Even bad people have to pay their way, Kaz. What you bring in from your cleani
ng wage doesn’t even cover your food and lodging, you know, let alone bills, council tax... Nobody minds, but I’d just feel better if we were on a bit less of a sticky wicket in terms of our contributions? Not that they’ll throw us out if we don’t pull our weight, but – you know what I’m saying? I had a hard enough time getting everyone to agree to you living with us. She’s too young. She’s going to be too high maintenance...’
She nodded. ‘I’ll get the pig and the chick.’
‘And see what else there is in that cabinet. Good girl.’ He nuzzled into her neck. ‘We are pretty despicable. How does it feel to have been corrupted?’
She snorted. ‘Really good.’ She breathed in his lovely man-smell, and he pushed his cold hands up her top.
She squealed.
Sex, she considered, was overrated – in fact, she wasn’t too keen – but she liked the other stuff. The kissing and cuddling and touching. And Ade was so good about the sex. A lot of nights he didn’t even ask if they could do it.
No one knew she had a boyfriend except Damian and Anna, and they were sworn to secrecy because Ade was Mum and Bill’s worst nightmare: twenty-eight years old and with no proper job as they would see it. If Damian and Anna were all judgemental about him, how much worse were Mum and Bill going to be? Damian had even said, ‘Has he ever hurt you?’ – not because he thought it was a real possibility but as a way of planting a seed of doubt in Karen’s mind, an evil little worm to wriggle into her brain and get her thinking: Would Ade maybe hurt me? Damian was an expert at psychological warfare. And he’d decided he didn’t like Ade, and no amount of evidence that Ade was actually a really nice person was ever going to change his mind.
Obviously Mum and Bill were going to have to find out about Ade sooner or later, but her plan was to wait until next year when she was eighteen and at uni. Hopefully she was going to get into uni, but her maths studying had suffered a bit lately.
She put her fingers on Ade’s cheek, all rough like sandpaper, and then her lips.