Storm Child (Dangerous Friends Book 3)

by Jennifer Young

  He’d hoped they wouldn’t be there, that they’d have managed to get themselves out and back to wherever they came from with no damage done, but his hopes had been dashed by the sight of a car rolling up and decanting the two of them at the door. Then the lights from the windows, lit against the returning cloud, had prevented him from getting close. And just as he’d been about to clear off with a sigh of relief and go back to scratch his head over his accounts — as if that made any difference — the woman appeared, out alone only just ahead of the dusk as if she hadn’t learned a lesson the night before. She might have been taunting him with her vulnerability, and Dougie, if he’d been there, would have been shouting with excitement at the opportunity.

  Cas was always more circumspect. He didn’t know where the man was. Best to do nothing, just in case, even if there was something he could have done. He pulled the car in on the brow of the hill where he could get a clear view of the cottage and the girl, and pulled out his phone. He didn’t want to call anyone — least of all Dougie — but in the unlikely event that someone came past, he didn’t want to attract too much attention to himself by sitting doing nothing.

  He balanced the phone on the palm of his hand, ready to hold it to his ear if he needed to, and kept watching. She set off in a hurry, with what looked like a sense of real purpose, but once she’d strode to the end of the track she did no more than turn and amble back, as if she’d completed some kind of challenge.

  When she was halfway back, the cottage door opened and the man came out. At this, she changed pace, quickening her step as if she was drawn to him, and he did the same until they fell into step side-by-side. You could see they were in love, even though they never touched. It was the way they stayed close, looking at one another rather than the path, or the hills, or — thank God — in his direction. For all his bitterness and the raw scars of recent romantic failure, Cas retained the last of his youth’s sentimentality, and he couldn’t stop a smile. Jesus, he couldn’t harm a pair of innocents like that, not even on Dougie’s thoughtlessly brutal say-so. He wasn’t that sort of man.

  To kill time, while he waited for the couple to get back in to the cottage and decided what he should do, he turned his phone on. Doing nothing was not an option when you had to account for it to someone as needlessly violent as Dougie. He flicked back through the older of his photos. He’d deleted most of the pictures of Gilly, with or without himself, soon after she’d left, but one or two of them still lurked behind a stack of others.

  He flipped the screen across with his thumb, in annoyance. Time moved on, but he was surprised how quickly the last year had passed. He didn’t miss her and it hadn’t taken him long to replace her, but the humiliation of the few weeks when the buzz of gossip had focussed around him still irritated. So, Gilly Janosik’s gone back to her mum, he’d overheard someone saying in the café one day. And Cas always seems such a nice guy. I wonder what he did?

  Nothing, that was the answer. Or, as Gilly might have said, not enough. She was the one who’d had ambitions, in the end, wanting him to move and expand the business and become something more than he was. She’d had no patience with his contentment, and that was what had finally driven them apart. And she’d been the one to turn nasty when it got to the lawyers.

  In a sudden fit of bad temper, he deleted those last few photos, not sure how they’d even lasted so long now they never spoke. The picture of her on the top of Ben Vrackie; the one of her bottle-feeding a calf; the selfie of them at some dinner or other, he in his kilt and she in a long frock…all disappeared in unseemly haste. Delete. Delete. Delete. That was another bit of his life with Gilly done with.

  Love would go sour for the couple in the cottage in the end, because it always did. Age brings experience, and familiarity, and cynicism, and a whole lot of other things, none of them welcome. He pulled down the driver’s mirror and looked at himself, wondering. Did he look like a bad man? Did he look like a man who genuinely didn’t want to do bad things, but sometimes found that the good things he tried to do turned out wrong, as if there was a tiny barb in his soul that caught at the good and turned it bad? For a moment, he regretted deleting that final photo. Did he look like a man that a woman like Gilly wouldn’t want to be seen about with, wouldn’t want to stay with? He didn’t think he did. He thought he was better than that.

  Sometimes he thought he thought too much.

  He flipped the mirror up again with a sigh. Contemplating what was left of his good looks — he’d left forty behind him, though not that long ago — wouldn’t get him anywhere, and it certainly wouldn’t keep Dougie off his back. He turned his attention back to the couple who, hand-in-hand now, were almost at the cottage, and his conscience stung him like an angry wasp, disturbed too early from its hibernation. The man had his phone to his ear, but he was laughing — not the reaction of a man reporting a suspicious bystander to the police.

  Left to himself, Cas would have started up the engine and driven away. He hadn’t the courage to do it, though it was the easy, the right, the only thing to do. You don’t want to get on the wrong side of Dougie Henderson, people used to say whenever his business partner was mentioned. And he didn’t.

  He sat there for a while longer, watching the cottage. It was six o’clock in early April, and there were a good two hours to sunset, even though the light was fading under the challenge of the mounting cloud. The couple, surely tired of the outdoors, turned on the lights and drew the curtains. That gave him his chance. Getting out of the car, he closed the door as quietly as he could, even though there was no chance of them hearing it at that distance, and approached the cottage over the damp moorland that surrounded it, circling it like a shark. Dougie hadn’t offered any suggestions about how he should stop the two of them talking about what they’d seen, and he wasn’t about to commit a crime that was too easily solved.

  He paused with his hand in his pockets. Accidents happen, and fire was the obvious solution, but if he were to commit arson with any success, he’d have to wait until they were asleep. Or there was snow. They were bound to have the heating on, and all he had to do was stuff the ventilating pipe full of snow, let them suffocate, a silent killer. If he came back later that night, at least they might die happy in one another’s arms. But creeping about in the darkness, even in so remote an area, increased his chances of discovery, and the pipe looked out of his reach, though he didn’t approach it to try.

  And anyway — he thought of this get-out clause with relief — he was a good man, and killing people isn’t an easy thing for a good man to do. If Dougie wanted the job done, he could do it himself.

  Chapter 7

  ‘This do?’ Alex, following Bronte’s directions, pulled up on a yellow line outside her flat in Edinburgh’s Stockbridge.

  ‘Perfect. Thanks for helping us out.’

  ‘I’m just glad of the opportunity to go somewhere interesting.’ Asha twisted around in the passenger seat to look at them, and laughed. ‘He doesn’t usually agree to come shopping.’

  ‘I never said anything about shopping.’ Alex tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. ‘Sure I can’t drop you off somewhere, Marcus?’

  ‘This’ll do fine. I’m just round the corner. I don’t have my keys, so I’ll wait at Bronte’s for the locksmith.’ His keys must still be in the pocket of his jacket, and God knew where that was. He frowned at the thought. A motorbike spluttered past; a bird dived in surprise into an urban hedge; a chilly breeze, a faint echo of the storm, rippled Bronte’s short brown curls. Life, so nearly stolen away, leapt into vivid focus all around them.

  ‘Do you need a hand with those bags? Ash’ll help you. It’ll save her a trip to the gym.’

  ‘We’ll manage.’ Bronte heaved her own bag out of the boot, waving aside Marcus’s attempts to help her. ‘I’m on the ground floor. And thanks again. You really are lifesavers.’

  ‘We’re only glad we could help. If there’s anything else we can do, let us know.’

  Standing on
the pavement, Marcus fought a running battle with his deeply suspicious nature, and lost. One day he’d be able to take things on face value, without looking for the worst possible outcome, but if that day ever came, the worst possible outcome would occur and he’d be unprepared for it. ‘There is one thing, now I think about it.’

  ‘Sure. Fire away.’

  He turned back to the car, confronting Alex and Asha’s matching quizzical expressions. ‘I don’t remember much about Saturday evening.’ Three days before seemed like a lifetime. Out in the blizzard, illusion and delusion had fused in his barely-functioning brain. In time, even the memories he had of the occasion would fade.

  ‘I wouldn’t worry about that.’ Asha shook her head at him. ‘It’s perfectly normal.’

  ‘Marcus hates not knowing everything.’ Bronte dug him in the ribs, but she was smiling.

  ‘That’s right. I do. Would you mind writing down what happened when we came to the cottage? What we said.’

  ‘Sure. It’ll be good brain-training. Damn.’ Alex turned the key in the ignition. ‘Traffic warden. I’d heard they were bad, but I didn’t realise they could be quite that quick off the mark. Yeah, we’ll do that for you. It’ll make a change from Scrabble of an evening. See you again, guys.’ And he pulled the car away from the kerb and slotted it into the traffic.

  Bronte, turning towards her front door, heaved her bag onto her shoulder. ‘Come on in and have some lunch. I’ve got some cheese and crackers, if that’ll do.’

  ‘It’ll do fine.’ He picked up his own bag and followed her up the short path towards her flat.

  ‘You are odd, sometimes. What a strange thing to ask. I can remember everything that happened.’

  ‘But I can’t. And by the time someone asks you about it, you’ll have forgotten. That’s what happens. It’s why we take statements as soon as possible.’

  She rolled her eyes at him. ‘But I’m not giving a statement.’

  No, not right then. But in the future, who knew? ‘Put it down to my suspicious nature.’ Something still troubled him about the encounter in the snow, something beyond the risk and the fear and the eventual absence of pain as they’d approached the threshold of death. But it wasn’t something he wanted to trouble Bronte with — not while it remained an unfounded suspicion, born of a nightmare.

  ‘You’d think I’d be used to you by now.’ She dropped her bag on the doorstep of her main door flat, and dug in her pocket. ‘Thank God I didn’t lose my keys as well, or we’d have been in real trouble.’

  ‘Doesn’t Alice have a set?’

  ‘Yes, but she’s always out at bridge on a Tuesday. All day. Doesn’t get back until about four. I don’t know how she has the stamina, at her age.’ She opened the door. ‘I’ll put the kettle on. When’s the locksmith coming?’

  ‘He’ll call when he’s on his way. I’ll get a new lock fitted.’

  ‘Surely you have a spare set?’

  ‘Yes.’ But you could never be too careful. Marcus had too many enemies to be comfortable with the idea that someone had the keys to his flat. ‘I’ll give you a set for the next time I lose them.’

  ‘Hopefully, you won’t do it again. Sit down. I’ll put the kettle on.’

  Sitting at the table in her bright kitchen, he took pleasure in watching her turn towards the coffee machine as he waited for her to offer him a spare set of keys to her flat in return, but her silence disappointed him. Bronte couldn’t keep herself out of trouble, always rushed towards a drama when everyone else rushed away. She demanded answers, couldn’t resist an appeal for help, believed in the best in everyone with almost gullible simplicity. It had got her into trouble before, and at some point it would surely do so again. Riding to her rescue might not be necessary, but if it was, he’d take comfort from knowing he could get into the flat.

  He knew better than to suggest it. Stop treating me like an elderly relative, she’d say, waving him away.

  That would be an excuse. The real reason was that she didn’t trust him. ‘I won’t stay long. Just for a quick bite to eat. Then I thought I might put my head in at work.’

  She had her back to him, so that he couldn’t see her face, but he didn’t need to. The mention of his work always produced a slight stiffening in her attitude, an irritable shake of her head. She had very good reasons not to have faith in the police. ‘Alex told you to take the rest of the week off.’

  ‘I feel fine.’

  ‘At least give yourself the rest of the bloody day. I was hoping you’d come down to Waitrose with me and help me carry my shopping.’

  He laughed. ‘You put that so politely. How can I refuse?’

  She turned back. She’d managed to get control of her emotions and had fixed a smile on her face as if she thought it was funny. ‘It’s because I care. You put yourself in difficult and dangerous situations, and it isn’t even as if you’re a beat bobby. I’d fear for your life, if you were.’

  It was true. He had the same incapability for standing off from risk that she had. The difference was that he knew what he was doing and was trained for it, that he could sense and evaluate the danger that always caught her unawares.

  She put two mugs of coffee down on the table, and turned to the cupboard for a plastic tub of crackers. ‘I know what you’re like. But really. We’ve barely known each other for a few months—’

  ‘It’ll be nine months next week.’

  She shook her head at him. ‘I was trying not to be too clingy. I know exactly how long it is, to the day. And don’t try and change the subject. I haven’t known you very long and I’ve almost lost you. Twice.’ Her bottom lip trembled. ‘Just let the real police do the heavy stuff next time, okay?’

  ‘Saturday wasn’t about my job. That was an accident.’

  ‘But it was typical. If you hadn’t given your jacket to that poor boy—’

  ‘He’d have died.’

  Silence sat between them, the silence of isolation and fear. Bronte put the tub down on the table and turned to the fridge. ‘Maybe he did anyway.’ Her voice shook. ‘But if it wasn’t that, it would have been something else. It’s always something, with you.’

  ‘Then I promise I’ll think twice next time.’

  ‘Try and make sure there isn’t a next time. You don’t have to prove anything to me. Next time something happens that puts someone in danger, I don’t want you to intervene.’

  It was a promise he wouldn’t give her. ‘I’m back at the desk job. Hopefully the situation won’t arise, but I promise that if it does, I won’t take any unnecessary risks.’

  ‘I suppose I’ll have to be satisfied with that.’

  Marcus looked at her, sitting running restless fingers through her curly hair. That was his clearest memory of the night in the snow, the anxious look in her brown eyes. His biggest fear hadn’t been dying, but of leaving her alone.

  That assumed that she cared for him as much as he cared for her. In the storm, what was between them had changed. He wasn’t a man for ultimatums, but he needed to test how much. ‘And in return for that, I want you to do something for me.’

  She sat down at the kitchen table and curled her hands around her mug. Unusually hesitant to press on once he’d made a decision, he mirrored her actions. His own words had caught him by surprise. Fear nagged at him, that he’d spoken too soon, forced the issue too far.

  ‘Go on,’ she said, after a moment. She reached for a cracker, spread a thin layer of butter on it, then hacked off an uncharacteristically rough slab of cheese.

  ‘Have you told your family about me?’

  ‘Oh.’ The cracker snapped under her fingers. ‘That again. You know I haven’t.’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s time you did?’

  ‘Since you ask.’ Not normally a fidget, she put the cracker down again, picked it up, rearranged the crumbling sliver of stilton. ‘I was thinking about that earlier. It would have been a bit awkward if I’d been discovered dead in a blizzard in the arms of a complete stranger, whe
n I’ve never even told them I have a boyfriend. So, yes. It probably is time I mentioned you.’

  On the face of it, that was a quick and easy concession, but her tone, and his knowledge of the way her mind worked, didn’t allow him to believe in it. Most days he would have let it go, but the recent brush with death had invested their relationship with an urgency it hadn’t had before. He was tired of compromise when she was the only one who seemed to gain anything from it. ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I hate the idea that you’re ashamed of me. We love each other.’

  ‘I’ve never said I love you.’ She didn’t meet his eye.

  ‘You won’t admit it, but you know you do. I’m tired of going on the way we are. I won’t go on being your guilty secret.’

  She slammed her hand flat down on the table in frustration, spilling the coffee. ‘So, what are you going to do about it? Turn up on their doorstep and introduce yourself?’

  ‘Would that help?’

  Pushing back her chair with unexpected violence, she reached to the sink for a cloth. ‘Of course it wouldn’t work. My family is embarrassingly traditional. My sisters marry good Catholic boys and my brothers will marry good Catholic girls. It’s expected of us. And you don’t fit the mould.’

  ‘Nor do you. You’re different. You’re the independent one. You’re the one who does what she wants, not the things that other people want her to do. It’s what you are. I love you for it and I bet your family do, too.’

  When she’d mopped up the spilt coffee, she tossed the cloth back into the sink and sat down with a sigh. ‘You tick all the wrong boxes. You’re English, a protestant, and a policeman.’

  ‘I’m Scottish born and bred, but even if I wasn’t it shouldn’t make any difference. Nor should the others.’

  ‘They shouldn’t, but they do. And maybe we’d have a chance if that were all, but it isn’t. You come with a hell of a lot of baggage, and they won’t trust you with me.’