Luke Adams Boxset 1

by Dawson, H A

  Once, a while ago, Patrick spread rumours about the poor quality of the produce on the farm, causing a massive drop in business. He stole from their property. He slaughtered some of the livestock. He ruined crops. Of course, he was too clever to be caught and they were all forced to suffer in silence.

  Janet had tried to repair their tattered relationship, feeling justifiably guilty for the suffering she had caused to Gerry and Ann. Her attempts were futile. The mere sound of her voice, the mere glance at her clothes, caused Patrick’s skin to crawl. He had one aim in life and that was to cause her pain.

  Patrick denied he was out to punish her, never more so than when Karen was around. Smiles replaced the hatred, and a tender understanding voice replaced a harsh and cruel tone. She was the perfect niece. He was the perfect uncle. They understood each other like no other.

  Still clutching the drugs, Janet knew she had to take action and sauntered upstairs, visited the bathroom and peered into Fiona’s bedroom.

  ‘I’m off out for a while,’ Janet said.

  Fiona jolted, fear written into her eyes. ‘What, now?’

  ‘Yes, don’t worry darling, I’ll be back soon.’

  Her eyes darted to the corridor at Janet’s rear. ‘Where’s Dad?’

  ‘Downstairs, why?’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’

  ‘I’m sorry but I have to do this alone. I won’t be long.’

  Fiona scurried past Janet and rushed to the bathroom. The door slammed.

  ‘I’ll be back soon,’ she called, ignoring her daughter’s strange behaviour.

  She rushed downstairs, informed Roy she was going to see her brother, and hurried out of the house, allowing no time for explanations or second thoughts. She had to confront him and win Karen back. She had to protect her from the possible dangers she may be about to face.

  The walk was soothing. It was a starry night with a near-full moon, and there was a gentle breeze. She stepped along the path, enjoying the rhythmical sound of her footsteps, and immersed herself in the swooping antics of the bats. It was a wonderful sensation, and she wished she had time to sit alone in the darkness and absorb the serenity. It was what she needed, something to calm.

  She made a fist and banged on Patrick’s door. After a few seconds, a light flickered on and Janice emerged.

  ‘I need to see Patrick.’

  ‘He’s not here, he’s out drinking.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not his keeper!’

  Janet stormed along the road, heading to the nearest public house a few streets away. Up ahead, in a darkened alley was a crowd of raucous men, and Janet hesitated. She was considering whether to progress when a woman’s squealing voice forced her decision. Karen’s voice was recognisable.

  Elbowing her way to a vantage point, ignoring the disapproving comments, she confirmed her worst fears. Karen was performing her own, very public, striptease, and was standing in a short skirt and with her blouse open. Swiftly, and to the pleasure of the wolf-whistling men with hanging jaws and loose tongues, she removed her top. Her bra was lacy, and her curves and nipples danced. Hands reached out and cries of encouragement filled the air. Then Karen locked eyes with a man in the crowd and asked if she should remove her skirt. The cheer was deafening.

  Janet could not believe what she was seeing, and could not move, horrified that her daughter, her flesh and blood, would do such a thing. The men continued to enjoy her now near-naked body, yet for some reason, they all held a respectable distance. Karen twisted and turned, jiggled and bent over, tantalizing and encouraging.

  The moment Karen caught sight of Janet, the action stopped and both stared in disbelief. Within seconds, Karen donned her clothes, avoiding Janet’s stony gaze, and glanced into the crowd. She was looking at one individual, a man who was hurrying along the street. His gait was familiar. It was Patrick.

  Janet was speechless. Her own brother had been encouraging such a disgraceful act. She grabbed Karen’s arm.

  Karen yanked it free. ‘Get off me!’

  ‘What the hell do you think you were doing?’

  ‘What’s it look like?’

  ‘Patrick condones this?’

  ‘So?’

  ‘Don’t you have any self-respect?’

  ‘It’s just a bit of fun.’

  ‘Anything could happen. You could get raped.’

  ‘I haven’t yet.’

  ‘You’ve done this before?’

  She scowled and hurried away, disappearing into the darkness and leaving Janet motionless and bewildered and without the energy to make the chase. She decided she had been too soft and given her too much freedom, and it was time to take firm action. One way or another, she would win this battle. No daughter of hers was going to spend her life as a cheap little whore. It was degrading and humiliating and she would use whatever means necessary to achieve her aim. She felt a key inside her pocket and devised a plan to keep her under control. She may have lost the battle, but the war was far from over.

  Chapter 22

  Keeping her back to Luke and Imogen, and her gaze away from the awkward glances, Leanne turned on the tap to little more than a trickle and filled a glass with refreshing liquid. Biding her time, she searched for composure. Her world had been shattered, Janet’s lies and the absent account of the facts burning her soul.

  She aimed her anger at Janet, yet it was pointless. She could never steam off, never listen to excuses, and would have to live with what had happened forever. She wondered if it was a trust issue. Maybe Janet feared Leanne’s response or maybe she thought it would open old wounds. Yet, it wasn’t her place to keep so many family secrets. Leanne was family too; they shared a common past.

  Imogen’s gentle tones interrupted Leanne’s simmering anger. ‘I’m sorry. It must be difficult to take in, but we felt as though we had to tell you everything.’

  She leaned into the unit. ‘Yes, of course. I don’t want you keeping things from me.’

  ‘It could have just been a phase Karen was going through. I’m sure a lot of teenagers act the same way.’

  Karen’s behaviour disappointed, but that was not news. She knew the rumours and had already heard about her mother’s occupation from Queenie. It was not as if she had been saintly during her younger years so she was in no place to judge.

  ‘Karen was probably misunderstood,’ Imogen continued. ‘And it does seem like their relationship had broken down.’

  ‘It was Gran’s fault. She was the adult.’

  ‘I can understand you feel angry, but-’

  ‘I’m more than angry, I’m furious. It’s made me even more determined to find my mother and get her side of the story. Gran had no right to do this to me, none at all.’

  ‘The decision may not have been hers.’

  Leanne’s nostrils flared. ‘You shouldn’t defend her. She may have disrespected Karen’s life choice, and that’s fine, but she shouldn’t have made decisions on my behalf. I should not have been dragged into their arguments.’

  She displayed sympathy.

  ‘I thought I knew her . . .’ she stopped speaking, shook her head and averted her gaze.

  ‘I’m sorry. It must be hard. We will do our best to find out what happened.’

  It may be better to know the truth in the end, but at that moment, her feelings comprised of regret. Why had she started something that was going to end in distress? Her wisdom seemed as though it had been lacking.

  She slumped onto a chair. ‘I’ve always had a high opinion of Gran. I thought of her as strong, understanding, caring and compassionate. We had a special bond that grew with every year. She was everything to me. A mother, a best friend . . .’ her chest heaved ‘. . . none of it was true. I didn’t know her at all.’

  ‘You’re wrong. Janet was still all those things. There could be a good reason for her actions. And even if it turns out that she hadn’t, it doesn’t change how she felt about you. She still loved you and may have thought she was p
rotecting you.’

  ‘Her logic was twisted.’

  Imogen sympathetically locked eyes. ‘Try not to think badly of her.’

  Leanne’s tears bubbled. This woman was a stranger, yet she was offering her more understanding than she had received in weeks. Fighting for poise and tranquillity, she kept her eyes averted and her fist to her chin, and breathed slow steady breaths.

  ‘Janet could have been a little jealous of the relationship Karen had with Patrick,’ she said.

  ‘Karen and Patrick did seem to have a connection.’

  ‘Yes, and not only would Janet have seen how different Karen was with him, the opposite would have been true as well. Janet and Patrick obviously had a lot of unresolved issues.’

  Leanne pressed her hand to her stomach, suppressing a growing nodule of unease. ‘She was a snob. She would often say there was no excuse for a poor presentation and insisted that cleanliness came down to hard work rather than money. I think Gerry and Ann must have instilled those values into her.’

  ‘They could have already been there.’

  ‘I’m not so sure. I think it started after her evacuation.’

  ‘Life would have been different in the countryside compared to London. It was bound to have some kind of an effect.’

  ‘No, but Patrick never changed.’

  ‘His circumstances could have been different to hers,’ Imogen said, ‘I’m not saying the Coombs’ didn’t influence Janet, it’s just the extent of it that I’m unsure of. Even if Janet had managed to return to London there could still have been friction. She had grown up during her time away, and had experiences that far outweighed her childhood expectations.’

  Her expression tightened. The Coombs must have continuously influenced Janet. She struggled to label them as innocent bystanders and imagined Janet having a far more harmonious relationship with her family had she returned to London.

  A thought struck her. ‘Do you think the Coombs’ played a part in making sure Janet never returned home?’

  ‘Janet was their daughter they could never have. Imagine if you’re looking after a child for four years, and then circumstance forces you to give them up, possibly never to see them again. It would be hard, especially since they had had no children of their own.’

  ‘I think they hid the letters addressed to Janet.’

  ‘Yes, we wondered that too. That’s something we’ll never know.’

  Leanne leaned back into the chair and looked to the scratches and marks on the table. ‘It was a horrible thing to do. No wonder they tolerated so much from Patrick. They must have known it was as a result of their bitter and twisted action.’

  ‘We don’t know anything for certain.’

  ‘I do, I can feel it.’

  ‘Then it seems that Janet may have been as much of a victim as anyone.’

  Leanne frowned. ‘I would love Gran to be innocent, but she’s not is she? Despite what the Coombs’ did, Gran still played her part. She was too strict with Karen and she lied to me over and over again. I’ll never be able to ask her why.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘But you don’t understand. She never mentioned Fiona to me, either. Not once.’

  Imogen’s mouth loosened, her face expressing disbelief.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ Luke interjected. ‘We found out about her a few days ago. I assumed you knew.’

  ‘Is she . . . is she still alive?’

  He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. She died in her twenties. She was in a mental institute and had an accident. They tried to save her, but it was too late.’

  Leanne steadied her words. ‘Why was she there?’

  ‘She had suffered brain damage. We couldn’t find out the cause. There’s not a lot of documentation around.’

  ‘How long had she been there?’

  ‘Not long . . . a few months.’

  Exasperated, she ran her fingers through her hair. ‘I remember being at the hospital with Gran and Granddad. We must have been visiting Fiona. I had assumed it was for Mum.’

  ‘They had a difficult few years, that’s for sure. Losing one daughter would be bad enough, but two . . .’

  ‘You’d think that losing Fiona would have made them make more of an effort with Karen.’

  ‘Let’s wait and hold judgement,’ Luke said and glimpsed at the time.

  Wordlessly, she folded her arms.

  ‘I’ll just check I haven’t missed anything.’

  Simmering, she mulled over the life Janet had had with her daughters. It was as though she was discovering a different person, someone whom she had never encountered. How could she keep something as important as the loss of her two daughters to herself? If she had been in such a position, she would have been talking about them all the time, forever grieving.

  Her gaze drifted to Luke. He was fumbling in his bag for something, causing her to see a reference book on the paranormal. It triggered memories of curious conversations surrounding such an issue, that she had shared with her grandfather. Whilst she didn’t believe there was any relevance to the search for her mother, it was an intriguing consideration and worth pursuing.

  ‘You do paranormal cases too, don’t you?’ Leanne asked.

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘I think Gran’s parents’ were involved in something. She was dead set against all talk of the paranormal.’

  He gave Imogen a swift glance.

  ‘You’re right,’ Imogen said, ‘they were ousted from the area for witchcraft. It wasn’t anything illegal it just offended a few people.’

  ‘What did they do?’

  ‘I managed to get hold of a parish article,’ she said. ‘People accused them of spying. They knew things they shouldn’t have.’

  She swirled around the dregs of tea in her mug. ‘Like what?’

  ‘Private conversations. Molly, Betty’s mother once approached a family with a sick child and offered herbal drugs. At the time, no one else knew about the illness, only the immediate family. It frightened people.’

  ‘How did Molly know?’

  ‘She said she had psychic powers. No other explanation was offered.’

  ‘Do you think Janet had powers?’ Luke asked.

  Leanne turned to face him. ‘I don’t know. She hated anything paranormal . . . had a real aversion to it.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘She always stopped me talking about it, no matter what I said. In fact, Granddad and I used to joke that steam came out of her ears and she’d turn purple whenever it was mentioned.’

  ‘So it was an intense hatred?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Was it normal for her to have such strong opinions?’

  ‘Oh yes. But . . . but I think there’s more to it.’ Her eyes flitted. ‘I think she had powers too.’

  ‘What kind of powers?’

  Leanne shook her head. ‘I don’t know. Premonitions maybe. I think she saw something to do with Karen, something that caused their parting.’

  ‘Go on.’

  She plucked at the skin around her neck. ‘We’d been talking about being a parent and how it was not always possible to protect your children from unknown dangers, and I made a glib remark. I suggested I tried using psychic powers, like developing telepathy, to monitor Tyler. It didn’t go down too well. The piercing stare she gave Granddad after he made an encouraging remark, made me extremely uncomfortable. He flushed and shot out of the room . . . almost panic-stricken. Nothing more was said.’

  ‘Did you ever find out what had happened?’ Luke asked.

  ‘No. I assumed it was to do with Karen.’ Leanne hesitated. ‘But of course I never knew about Fiona. Anyway, Granddad continued to joke with me, but always out of earshot of Janet. I never dared ask questions. She could be a very scary woman when she wanted to be.’

  ‘You say he was flushed and panic-stricken. Any ideas why he reacted like that?’

  Uneasy, she wrapped her arms around her middle. ‘I don’t like to thi
nk badly of him. He was always wonderful to me.’

  He waited for her to continue.

  ‘I used to think it was something to do with Karen, but . . . but it seems unlikely. I think he’d been seeing another woman. I prefer not to think about it to be honest.’

  ‘I can understand that,’ he said. ‘Do you have any abilities?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Sometimes I get a sense about things. For example, when I arrived in the house I went into a bedroom and felt a very deep sense of loneliness. I assumed it was memories from my childhood, but I felt as though I missed other members of my family, brothers and sisters. I wondered . . .’ pausing, she fidgeted with the skin around her neck. ‘Could I have been sensing Janet’s loneliness, as a little girl?’

  ‘It’s possible. Some people can touch things and get a sense of its history. Have you felt anything else?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so. I would love to be psychic. I’ve even tried meditating to develop it. Does that sound silly?’

  ‘No of course not. It takes a lot of practise developing the right state of mind.’

  ‘Do you think it actually works?’

  ‘Yes, I do. Psychics acquire information using Extrasensory perception, or ESP as it’s often known, rather than normal senses. I’ve heard it described as a strong sixth sense. There’s a lot of people, especially women, who claim to have that ability, even just in a mild form, so I think it makes sense that it could be developed with practise.’

  ‘Is it dangerous?’

  ‘If you’re careful about what you do, there’s nothing to fear. Your interpretations are what matters. You must not take everything you see as the absolute truth. Images can be deceiving . . . as can snippets of conversations.’

  ‘Could it help the case?’

  He rotated the pen between his fingers. ‘It might do. Do you fancy having a go?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It terrified Janet.’

  He nodded and started to gather his notes into his bag.

  ‘Are powers inherited?’

  ‘I have no idea.’ He stood up and glanced at Imogen. ‘I’m sorry, but we must go, it’s getting late.’