Storm Child (Dangerous Friends Book 3)

by Jennifer Young

  ‘That couple.’ Dougie lowered his voice and modulated its tone. Normally he didn’t give a damn about what people said of him. Cas suspected he even liked the way they approached him with delicacy, in awe of his famously explosive temper, but here, at last, it seemed there was something he didn’t dare flaunt too obviously in public.

  ‘They’ve left.’ Cas’s relief had been palpable when he’d picked up that piece of gossip in the café, and realised what he’d been spared.

  ‘Aye, and there goes our chance of stopping them talking.’

  Defending his better nature against necessity, Cas reviewed his actions in leaving the couple alone in their cottage, and cleared himself without question. ‘They haven’t reported it. It’ll blow over.’

  ‘We don’t know that they haven’t.’

  ‘We’d surely have heard by now. And supposing they have? The police won’t be able to trace us. And if they do, we just act all innocent and claim that we did. Some civilian in the control room will get the blame.’

  ‘You’ve forgotten our passenger.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  Dougie’s face broke into a sly grin. ‘You’re not so stupid after all. That’s the line we’ll take if anyone comes after us. Rambling, the two of them. Didn’t know what was happening.’

  Someone else came into the café, surfing the wave of a spring breeze, and took the table next to them. Forced into confidentiality, Dougie leaned more closely over to Cas’s personal space. ‘And you don’t need to worry about that kid. I’ve got him under control.

  ‘Glad to hear it.’

  Uncomfortable with his conscience, Cas fidgeted further, looking at Dougie in hate and fear. An unworkable fantasy flitted through his mind — that he could sell the café, pay Dougie off, and disappear, never need to hear or see anything of him again. But Gilly part-owned the place, and there wasn’t a chance of making enough money to pay off his debt.

  He ran a finger round the collar of his shirt, as if by so doing he could make it easier to breathe. ‘Let’s just carry on as normal, then. Glad I didn’t have to do anything difficult. All’s well that ends well.’

  ‘Cas.’ Dougie barely breathed the words, but his eyes were as cold and hard as the rocks on which the town was built. ‘Are you fucking simple? If they report it, we’re done. Because if they have, and if they do manage to trace it back to us, we can’t explain how we came to leave them behind unless we had someone with us. So, it isn’t well, and it hasn’t ended.’

  The man at the next table coughed, startling them both, but when Cas looked across he saw that the man was paying them no attention, flicking across a message on his phone. Just a cough, then. It was nerves that were getting to him.

  ‘I don’t know what more we can do.’

  ‘I need to know who they are, and we have to find them.’

  ‘They were visitors. They won’t be back.’

  ‘They might. That cottage is owned by some guy from Edinburgh. I don’t remember his name, but I know his mother. It wasn’t him.’

  ‘So, he rents it out. They won’t be back.’

  ‘He lets his friends use it. He doesn’t rent it. But the thing that fascinates me most — the thing that worries me most — do you know what that is?’

  For a moment, Cas tried to put himself in Dougie Henderson’s vile, narrow mindset, and failed. ‘No idea.’ He was pretty sure that all the things that worried Cas himself — respect, self-worth, and a clear conscience among them — never troubled the man sitting opposite him. ‘No.’

  ‘The owner’s a policeman.’

  ‘I’ll deny it. Supposing they do come back to us. Supposing they come and talk to us. I’ll say I was out on that road, on my way home. But I didn’t see anyone. Not in that blizzard.’ Cas set his lips in a thin line, because lying to the police really was as far as he was prepared to go. ‘It won’t come to that. The guy from the police wasn’t there.’

  ‘You think? Maybe his friends are policemen. Is that what you really want, Cas? The police sniffing around? Think what that’ll do to your reputation. So, between us, we need to make sure that doesn’t happen.’

  Chapter 13

  Bronte was late. Loitering on the bridge over the Water of Leith that was their usual meeting place, Marcus tried, without success, to curb his enthusiasm for her company. Born out of trauma and deceit, interrupted by his injuries and convalescence, their relationship had finally emerged, fully-fledged, into the spring sunshine. Yet that eternal doubt about her commitment underpinned every meeting, every thought he had of her.

  His brow creased at the idea. He’d never met anyone who could compartmentalise her life as ruthlessly as Bronte did. When something troubled her, she went to ground, determined to battle through it alone. When there was something she found too difficult to explain, she kept it a secret from those who might challenge her with difficult questions. That had been a part of her character when he first met her, one that was only accentuated by what had happened since. There could be days when he didn’t hear from her, when his calls and texts went unanswered, and there was nothing he could do but wait until she was ready for him.

  In the past, patience had always won her back, but in the longer term her approach was unsustainable. You couldn’t live a full life if you only lived it in parts, unable to reconcile one element to another. He thought she must know that, or else she’d have continued the constant struggle to keep him a secret from her parents and her family, leaving the two parts of her life to strain against one another until, at last, one of them broke.

  She valued him enough to make that change. His spirits soared at the idea, and rose even more when the bus from town lurched to a halt at the bottom of the hill and she jumped off, her eyes already seeking him out. She ran the last few steps, jumped up and flung her arms around his neck. ‘My dear Sherlock Holmes. Is it ridiculous to say I’ve missed you?’

  He kissed her before he answered, cherishing the feel of her in his arms. ‘It’s been a long time since Tuesday afternoon.’

  ‘It does seem a lot longer than just a few days.’ She sighed, casting a shadow of discontent over the perfect evening, and stepped away from him. ‘What shall we do this evening? My feet are killing me. I’ve been in town all day, distributing leaflets.’

  ‘We could go to the pub. Or we could go for a bite to eat.’ He reached for her hand. ‘Or we could go back to my place, or yours.’

  ‘Easy, Tiger.’ Laughing, she twitched her fingers free of his to tap a teasing forefinger on his chest. ‘There’ll be plenty of time for that later. Just now, I want to do something that’s not too much effort.’ She bent down to rub discontented fingers over the back of her heel. ‘These are my comfy shoes, and I’ve still managed to pick up a blister. I can’t remember the last time I was this tired after a day at work.’

  ‘Enjoying it?’ he asked, taking an executive decision and turning up the hill. ‘Why don’t we go for a quick drink? Then we’ll go back to mine and phone for a takeaway.’

  ‘One day you’ll learn to cook.’

  ‘Only when you teach me to cook a nice juicy steak.’

  She laughed and tucked her hand into his. ‘I’ll never change you, will I?’

  ‘Do you really want to?’

  He asked the question, not expecting an answer, but she delivered one anyway, after a moment’s thought. ‘I don’t think so. But neither of us is perfect, after all.’ And she squeezed his fingers as if to signal that it was a joke.

  If it was, it was double-edged. ‘And how was work?’ he repeated, not just to show an interest but to do anything he could to stop her walling off another part of her life.

  She considered. ‘It was good. There are so many wonderful people! All very friendly. And a new boss. He looks like someone’s shabby old uncle, but he’s so charismatic you wouldn’t believe it.’

  ‘Andy Watt?’

  ‘You know him?’

  ‘I saw something about it in the
paper.’ The new chief executive of Planet People, like Bronte herself, had a chequered past in radical politics though the evidence suggested that he — like her — had shaken it off and moved on. If she was aware of Andy’s past, she didn’t need to know how much of it Marcus knew. ‘I probably wouldn’t have taken any notice if it wasn’t for you.’

  ‘He’s a bit overwhelming.’ She frowned. ‘In a good way, of course. It’ll take a while to get used to that kind of energy. I certainly don’t have very much of it left after this week.’’

  They reached the pub and descended the few steps into the basement bar. ‘What’ll you have?’ he offered, letting go of her hand with reluctance. ‘It’s my turn to pay, I think. Sit down and take the weight off your poor old feet.’

  ‘Oh, bless you. Yes, I do feel old.’ She settled herself into a stiff-backed wooden pew, leaving room for him beside her. ‘Old enough for a G&T, in fact.’

  He bought the drinks and took them back to the table. Whatever she’d been thinking in his absence still troubled her; as she wore an expression of faint discontent. ‘Cheers.’ She raised her glass.

  ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Is it obvious? I’m sorry. I’m just not right on top form just now.’

  ‘Anything wrong?’

  ‘Nothing.’ A very quick denial. ‘I haven’t been sleeping very well, that’s all. The stress of starting a new job, I suppose. I’d have expected to sleep like a log, I’ve been working so hard. But then again, you don’t always react to things the way you expect, do you?’

  In the dim, artificial light of the bar, he stole a look at her. Yes, she looked tired. It wasn’t just the dark shadows under her eyes, but the unusual pallor in her normally rosy cheeks. ‘It was a bit of a bad trip, wasn’t it?’

  ‘How did you—?’ she began, then laughed. ‘Yes. I suppose it was only a couple of days ago, and it was pretty traumatic. You seem to have coped better with the whole experience than I did, considering how ill you were.’

  ‘I’ve had no problems sleeping.’ He kept his gaze on her face as she sipped her gin, and then was rewarded by a look, a smile. ‘The opposite. Dreaming of you every night and wishing you were with me.’

  ‘Oh, you.’ She fidgeted a little, as if she was wondering whether or not to confide. ‘It’s a terrible thing, isn’t it, nearly dying? I know that sounds stupid.’

  Nearly dying — something that had happened to him too often — never got easier. ‘I know what you mean.’

  ‘It’s one thing thinking I might have died with you. In a strange way, I wouldn’t have minded that. But I can’t bear the thought that I might have survived. Then I’d have ended up lying awake every night thinking about you, dying. Alone.’

  ‘And yet you still won’t admit—’

  ‘Marcus. Don’t start.’

  Sure that she loved him, he took enough comfort from it to be able to back away from the discussion. ‘There’s no risk of either of us dying alone tonight. Or at all. I’ll look after you.’

  She reached out a hand and touched his, half-laughing, only to twitch it away again. ‘That would be nice. Though, of course, I can look after myself perfectly well. And you, too, if the need arises.’

  ‘As we’ve seen. Let’s hope it never arises again.’

  Still distracted, she turned away to pick at the slice of lemon in her G&T. Tempted beyond endurance, he rested his hand on the back of the wooden bench, and trailed his fingers along the soft skin of her upper arm. ‘Are you sure there’s nothing else bothering you?’

  ‘Have you forgotten? I’m seeing my mum tomorrow. Afternoon tea at the Balmoral. Also known as trial by ordeal.’

  ‘Want me to come along?

  ‘God, no. That would just be the worst of it. She doesn’t like surprises.’ She smiled again. Normally when she was with him, she smiled all the time, so casually that he never noticed it, but tonight the smiles seemed forced.

  His heart ached for her, but he wasn’t going to offer her any chance to step away from something that had to be done, and she was the only one who could do it.

  ‘It’ll be fine.’ He couldn’t resist her, and the change in their relationship meant he no longer felt the need to. Bronte would never allow anyone to control or possess her, but she’d given him the right to expect her, in time, to love him. ‘You won’t regret it.’

  ‘If I thought I would, I wouldn’t do it. But it’ll be a long and bumpy ride, and there will be row after row, over and over the same ground. It isn’t that I don’t want you to meet them. But I want them to like you, and welcome you, the way your family did to me.’

  ‘Is it really that difficult?’

  ‘Sometimes I think you can love someone too much, be too protective. That’s what they’re like. Especially Dad.’

  ‘He doesn’t have much faith in your judgement, then.’

  ‘But he means well. I know you think it’s ridiculous, and maybe it is, but I want you to understand what the problem is. I had a real fight to be allowed to stay away from home when I went to uni. Dad threatened not to support me, but I got myself a job and eventually he gave in.’

  ‘Seriously?’ Marcus’s irritation turned briefly to fury, before subsiding. He couldn’t be angry in her company. ‘Good for you for standing up to him.’

  ‘Sometimes I think that’s what I do wrong. It’s actually not him. It’s me. Cat and Eilidh just play the game, all butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-their-mouths when they’re at home, and doing what they want behind his back, but I can’t do that. I wouldn’t be being true to myself.’

  He sat back and looked at her, as if for the first time. Frail and tired, yes, but her soul was of solid steel. ‘And then there was Eden.’

  ‘Yes. They liked him, and he let them down by the way he treated me. That’s why they can’t ever trust you.’

  ‘And why you don’t either?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Marcus. I really am. But, yes. I don’t think I’ll ever trust anyone again. So, this won’t be sorted tomorrow. I know it has to be done, but it’s hanging over me. I’m sorry. I know I’m not myself. Can we just talk about something else?’

  He lifted his pint and drank heavily, waiting while he weighed up whether or not to raise a ghost of the blizzard once more, but he knew she’d never forgive him if he kept silence. ‘Okay. As it happens, I do have something to tell you. I had an email from Alex and Asha today.’

  She picked up her glass again, but didn’t drink, choosing instead to swirl the contents around in a vortex of alcohol, ice, and lemon. ‘They were so good to us. I want to forget about what happened, but somehow I can’t. I keep waking up and wondering what happened to that boy and thinking I must have imagined it all. But I know I didn’t.’

  ‘Probably not.’ He shifted a little closer to her, as if by so doing he could ease the memory.

  ‘Probably? You saw him, too.’

  He concentrated on the leaping flames of the fire in the grate, once more running the reel of his memory, once again failing to find it real. ‘I did see him. I think.’

  ‘You weren’t well. Your memory of it will be a bit hazy. Mine isn’t.’ Her lips were set in stern irritation. ‘I can’t believe those men didn’t report us missing. The message must have gone astray.’

  He sighed, resisting the temptation to run her through the questions that Nerissa had thrown at him, about the car and the men and the incapacitated youth, knowing they’d only run up against that same, inconclusive answer. ‘That’s certainly a possibility.’

  ‘I can remember everything about it. I remember it as clearly as day. Except the details, because of the snow and so on. But I know it happened, and you do, too.’

  ‘Have a look.’ Reaching for his phone, he turned it on. A picture of the two of them on the home screen, smiling, always cheered him, but he flicked past it. Opening the email up, he handed her the phone before, irresistibly, resting his hand along the back of the bench for her to lean against.

  ‘This is what you asked them to sen
d you?’ She flicked through it.

  ‘Read it carefully and tell me what you notice.’

  She scanned the email for a moment, before she stopped and laid the phone down. ‘It seems pretty straightforward to me. What they say is exactly what happened. And there’s this bit about the boy, too. Just as I told them.’

  ‘Look again. See what it says about me.’

  She scanned the email again. ‘I don’t want to think about that. I don’t understand all the technical medical stuff, but I think I get the gist of it. You passed out just as we got to the door. When you came round again, you were confused. We know that, too. I don’t see why that’s significant. Unless you want to remind me—’

  Remind her of how nearly she’d lost him? ‘No. But it’s very significant. Think of Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles. Think of the dog that didn’t bark.’

  ‘What on earth are you talking about?’

  He took back the phone, closed it down, and placed it on the table. ‘I mentioned it to Nerissa and she phoned the police in Perth. They won’t follow it up.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous!’

  ‘Not from their point of view. Read the email again. There’s no evidence, apart from your account. I said nothing to them about it.’

  ‘Yes, because you were unconscious.’

  ‘But I said nothing. Assuming your story is true—’ He held up a hand to still her protests. ‘I believe it is, but it should have been corroborated by either a report to the police that we were out there, or by someone appearing in hospital with advanced hypothermia. Neither of those things happened.’

  ‘But I know what I saw!’

  Yet again, Marcus tried and failed to capture the details of that night, to pin down some fact or feature that could be proved or disproved. ‘The duty inspector suggested that you might have been hallucinating.’

  ‘But you saw it, too!’

  ‘But I might not have done. I said nothing about it when were there. I wasn’t compos mentis at any point described in that email, and you were pretty confused, too. By the sound of it.’ He tightened his arm around her. ‘According to Alex and Asha, you were in the early stages of hypothermia yourself. The inspector points out that you could easily have been confused and that as I was all over the place, I may have heard what you were saying and picked it up as fact.’