Storm Child (Dangerous Friends Book 3)

by Jennifer Young

  She looked up. The woman was about the same age as her mother would have been, anxious yet removed enough from the situation to be capable.

  ‘Thank you. I’m fine.’ And then, because she had no strength left to be subtle, Celina just asked what she wanted to know. ‘Who are you?’

  ‘My name’s Lidia. I live down in the town. The police asked me to come along and translate for them. But don’t worry. All that matters is that you aren’t hurt. You aren’t in trouble.’

  Did the woman think if she said it often enough, it would come true? Celina coughed again, dashed tears away. Her skin burned. ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘We’re going to take you to hospital and make sure. Then you can talk to us. In your own time.’

  In your own time. The woman had put into words what Celina herself was trying to articulate. ‘I need a moment to myself.’

  She shook off the woman’s attentions, just as she’d shaken off Cas’s. What now? Was it false kindness? Should she take the last, hopeless chance, and run? But she knew it was too late, and that Fate had caught up with her. Whatever happened to her now was out of her hands.

  She walked as far away from the building as she could, until her way was blocked by a dry-stone wall. Down in the grey valley, a swirl of cloud blew along the horizon, rays of spring sun chasing after it. Sighing, she sat on the damp grass and drew her knees up to her chest, clasping her hands around them as if to make herself as small and insignificant as she could. Thus enclosed, like a caterpillar spun into its cocoon, she pressed her stinging face against her thighs and breathed in the fumes of arson.

  The shouting carried on around her, and she listened to it with curiosity. There was lots of shouting, some of it in Polish with Lidia’s voice translating rapidly. The strangest sound of all was Roch, laughing.

  She lifted her head at that, and became aware that someone was crouched beside her, not touching, but casting a long shadow over her. ‘Krystian?’

  He smiled at her, an open smile, infectious in its freedom. ‘Look. They’re going to be kind to us.’

  ‘Of course they are. I know it now.’ And she looked into his warm, brown eyes, and smiled.

  *

  In the end, the humiliation was worst. With hindsight, Cas could see that it was always going to end like that. Gilly would thank her lucky stars and tell everyone about her narrow escape. He’d be the talk of the town, and there would be laughter or disgust where he was accustomed to admiration. How things changed. At least in prison, he’d be spared that.

  He looked across at Celina, sitting on the ground, saw Krystian creep out of the shadow of the woods to sit next to her, then watched as she looked up and smiled.

  Cas had begun to realise that he cared for her, had thought that she cared for him. After all, she’d turned her back on the chance to escape to come back with him. But he saw now that he was all she knew, and that was all that he’d meant to her.

  Nick Riley, avoiding his eye and talking above his head to someone else, clasped the deathly cold of the handcuffs on his wrists. As he did so, Cas was glad of one thing. He was glad he’d saved her life.

  Chapter 37

  ‘I’m taking Bronte away.’ Marcus’s patience, stretched thin at the best of times, didn’t quite snap under Nick Riley’s hostile questioning, but it was close.

  The scene in Cas Janosik’s farmyard resembled the set of a disaster movie. The bunkhouse, roofless now, still blazed, though the worst of the fire’s power was spent. In the distance, more blue lights heralded either the fire brigade or an ambulance. Cas and his mate, handcuffed, each slumped in the back of a separate police car, while Celina, with three ragged strangers beside her, sat on the ground by the woods and waited. One of the men had his arm around her and she, in the stillness of shock, rested her blonde head on his shoulder. When she saw Marcus looking at her, she raised a weak smile of gratitude and looked across at Bronte, who stood a little distant, staring down the valley towards Pitlochry.

  ‘No.’ Riley, to his credit, was running a tight operation now that things had come to a head. Perhaps his strengths were on the front line, rather than in detection. ‘I need you here. It seems to me this might be a mess partly of your making. You can do something to help clear it up.’

  Marcus suppressed a sigh, shaking his head in a vain attempt to get the smell of smoke from his nostrils. Riley’s insults didn’t bother him, particularly now that tragedy had been averted and the criminals caught. ‘Bronte needs me more. I’m taking her away. She’s had enough.’

  ‘We’ve all had enough. Some of us have a job to do. At the very least, I’ll need a statement from you, and I can’t take that until I’ve made sure these people are all right.’

  ‘I’ll come back and give you your statement. I’m sure Bronte will, too. But it’ll wait. Maybe it’s best if we just get out from under your feet.’ He turned his back, walked over to Bronte, and offered her what he hoped was a light-hearted smile. ‘Come on, Comrade O’Hara. I’m getting you away from here. You’ve done enough, and you could probably use a cup of coffee.’

  ‘Oh, but—’ She nodded towards Riley. ‘He says he needs you.’

  ‘Yes. To make up the numbers. There’s nothing constructive either of us can do, so let’s go.’

  ‘Will Celina be all right?’ She dabbed at her eyes with a tissue.

  ‘Yes. He’ll have them all with the social services before you know it. They’ll be better looked after than they have been for the last few months, that’s for sure.’

  Without saying anything, she turned her back on him and walked over to the little group sitting on the floor. Celina, looking up when she approached, reached up a hand to take Bronte’s, her smile one of genuine warmth. For a second, they paused, and then Bronte turned away and walked to the car. ‘If you really can’t do anything to help, let’s go. It’s half past four. I can’t believe that’s all it is. But if we want to get a cup of coffee, we’ll need to step on it.’

  ‘I’ll be in touch,’ he said over his shoulder to Riley, ignoring the scowl of dismissal that met him, and slid into the driver’s seat.

  Halfway down the track to the farm, they pulled over to let two fire engines and an ambulance pass. ‘They really will be all right?’ she asked.

  ‘I think so.’ Marcus engaged first gear and pulled off again, respecting her silence until they came into Pitlochry and parked on the main street. ‘Are you hurt?’

  ‘I don’t think so. We didn’t even breathe in that much smoke. And anyway, hurt is all relative, isn’t it?’

  ‘It may or may not be. It matters to me that you’re all right.’

  She held out a hand mechanically, showing the beginnings of a blister. ‘I must have done that on the way out. But I daresay I’ll survive.’

  ‘I’ve got a first aid kit in the boot.’

  ‘Oh God. Now it’s Nurse Fleming, is it? I suppose I’m lucky to have you.’ But the laugh was short-lived, and when he got back into the car with the first aid kit, she’d stopped smiling and was staring out along the street.

  ‘That’ll do,’ he said, once he’d finished binding the burn with a dry dressing. ‘Next thing is food. We’ll get something here. What can I get you? You should probably eat something.’

  ‘I probably should.’ She got out of the car and stood in uncertainty on the pavement. ‘I haven’t had any lunch. This afternoon seems mad.’

  Leading her into the nearest café, he bought her a tired sandwich left over from lunch, as the place limped towards its Saturday afternoon closing time. ‘Here. And a coffee.’

  ‘You’re very kind.’

  He recognised, in her formality, her standard reaction to trauma. Bronte’s resilience was one of the most extraordinary things about her, but she achieved it in her own way. She would withdraw from him, from everybody, until she’d come to terms with what had happened. His powerlessness to help her frustrated him, but experience had taught him there was only one thing that would help — time.

/>   ‘It won’t be any consolation, but you did a good thing.’

  ‘You think so?’ She didn’t look at him, but cut the sandwich in half. Grated cheese spilled out onto the plate.

  ‘Yes. I do.’ He’d come too close to losing her. Her wrists were already swelling into bruises, like manacles, the result of his frantic attempts to haul her upwards. If he’d failed, he’d have had to slip back down into the inferno, rather than live without her or face the consequences of her loss.

  ‘It wasn’t me. It was Jan who tried to break the cycle, and Celina who did it. She was the one who tried to break away. I can’t bear to think of how anyone can treat people like that.’ She rubbed at her eyes and left a blackened smudge of soot beneath them, as if her mascara had run. ‘I must look a fright. You do.’

  ‘Neither of us looks great.’ A smell of burning wood hung about them, too, so that the people at the next table were shaking their heads and sniffing the air, trying to identify it. ‘It’s an ugly world we live in. But we do what we can.’

  ‘It’s cruel. I can’t believe we live in a country where people treat others like that. I thought we were civilised.’

  ‘I’m afraid it goes on all the time.’

  ‘You’re going to tell me that’s why you’re in the police. Well, it’s why I’m working for Planet People. Locking people up after the event isn’t any use. You have to stop it happening. And that way, you don’t end up with people dying, like Jan.’

  ‘I can’t deny that we failed him.’ Unable to resist testing the strength of their relationship, Marcus placed his hand over hers. ‘All of us. Anyway, it’s over. I’m taking you away.’

  As he’d feared, she shook it off. ‘Nobody’s taking me anywhere. I’ll go where I want, and I’ll go there by myself.’

  ‘I meant I’d drive you home.’

  ‘I’ll walk to the station. You can go back up and see what your pal Nick wants you to do.’

  He looked at his watch. ‘You’ll have ages to wait for a train.’

  ‘If I hurry, I can get one at half five. Anyway, I don’t want to go to Edinburgh. I’ll go to Glasgow. I don’t want to be on my own tonight.’

  And, by implication, she didn’t want to be with him. ‘Then I’ll take you to Glasgow. It’s no bother. I’ve got nothing else to do.’ And if it was the only way he’d get to spend time with her that evening, it was good enough. ‘Whenever you’re ready.’

  She was silent for the entire journey, sitting with her hands folded in her lap, staring out of the window. Knowing better than to try and make conversation, he turned on the radio and let the football results engage his attention. It was almost impossible to believe that only a few hours had passed since he’d dropped her off at Waverley Station.

  ‘Drop me here,’ she directed, as he turned the car into the street where her parents lived. ‘Better not park outside. They’d see you. I don’t suppose it’s the right time to try and explain that you’ve saved my life yet again. Somehow, I don’t think they’d see it like that.’

  ‘I don’t know if I see it like that, either. I don’t think I can take much credit for it.’

  ‘It’s far too hard to explain anything to them. They have closed minds.’ She unclipped her seatbelt, but she didn’t open the car door. ‘I’m really sorry. I know you tried to stop me going up there. But I was worried about Celina, and what would happen to her.’

  ‘We don’t know what would have happened if you hadn’t. They might have managed to take them somewhere else.’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll get the full story from Nick eventually.’

  ‘If I ask him often enough, I daresay I will.’

  She picked up her handbag from the footwell and rummaged through it, though she didn’t take anything from it. ‘I’m very sorry, Marcus. I’m not an easy person to love.’

  ‘I don’t find it hard.’

  She shook her head at him, leaned over and kissed him, very briefly, on the cheek. ‘Goodbye.’

  ‘Are you sure you don’t want me to come in and explain?’

  ‘It wouldn’t be a good idea. I must start telling them things. I’m a big girl, now.’

  If she’d told them things earlier, rather than struggling to keep secrets, they wouldn’t be in the position they were in. ‘When will we see each other again?’

  She opened the door, but still made no real attempt to get out. ‘You know what I’m like.’

  ‘It’s easier if you talk. If you’d let me—’

  ‘I need some time to myself. I always do.’

  He sighed. ‘Fine. I won’t call you. Unless you want me to let you know if I hear anything from Nick.’

  He’d thought the prospect of information might tempt her, but it didn’t. ‘I’ll be in touch when I’m ready.’

  ‘Fair enough. But I expect to see you on Wednesday.’

  ‘Wednesday?’ She turned a blank face to him.

  ‘We have a date. It’s my birthday.’

  ‘Oh God. So we do. Are you really going to hold me to that?’

  A fractional pause. ‘Yes. I think I am.’

  She moved then, getting out of the car and coming round to the driver’s side to speak through the window from a safe distance. ‘Then I’ll see you on Wednesday. I might be over it by then.’ And she turned and walked briskly down the street.

  Chapter 38

  Turning my key in the door, I was greeted by the sounds of a full house. Life does that to you. I’d have given a lot for a quiet half an hour — even ten minutes — alone with Mum and Dad, but the house fizzed with the rumbling laughter of my brothers and Eilidh’s outraged squeal of irritation.

  ‘Who’s that?’ My mum, the one with the sharpest ears and the most acute sensitivity for the whereabouts of her children, stamped on my hopes of sneaking in unseen.

  ‘It’s me. I just thought I’d pop back.’ I took off my coat and nipped into the downstairs cloakroom. I should have tidied myself up in the café in Pitlochry, or at least looked in a mirror in the car, but I’d been unable to think of anything that wasn’t either human cruelty or Marcus’s and my narrow escape.

  It wasn't too late. I pulled a comb from my bag and dragged it through my hair, rinsed my face, and managed at least to get the worst of the mess off my face. After that, I tugged the sleeves of my cardigan down so that they covered the bruises on my wrists which would condemn Marcus once more in my parents’ eyes. I had no choice but to face the music.

  In the worst possible way, my family was almost complete. Only my eldest sister, Cat, was missing. Eilidh stood in her wedding dress in the middle of the room, while Mum flitted round her with a box of pins, tugging here and there at the froth of cream lace. Dad sat with the newspaper on his lap, watching the show with an expression of amusement, and Liam and Finlay kept up a running commentary from the other side of the room.

  ‘Doll.’ Liam was so full of his own wit that he laughed before the punchline. ‘You look like a vanilla latte with curry powder on top.’

  ‘Shut up.’ Eilidh ran a self-conscious hand through her auburn hair, pivoting slowly in the middle of the room. ‘Well, well. Bronte O’Hara. This is an unexpected pleasure.’

  ‘Bella. I’m so glad you’re here.’ Mum folded away at the neckline of Eilidh’s dress, and stuck in a pin. ‘You can try your dress, too. Eilidh, stand up straight. I don’t want you complaining that it isn’t a perfect fit, and once I’ve made these changes I’m not making any more.’

  ‘What brings you back, then? Thought you’d have been out gadding with that cool sergeant of yours.’ Deliberately provoking, Eilidh cast a look round the room, disappointed at the stony silence.

  ‘I just thought I’d come back for the evening. I thought you might be pleased to see me. It’s okay, isn’t it? This is still my home.’ Damn. Did I sound too defensive?

  ‘Of course it is.’ Dad treated me to one of his hard stares.

  I ignored him. ‘Mum, have you got a few minutes for a chat?’

  ‘Yes, of
course.’ She put the box of pins down and jumped up. ‘Come through to the kitchen.’

  ‘Oh, I see!’ Eilidh twirled in her dress, and the look she gave me was exactly the same as Dad’s. ‘The cool sergeant not so cool after all? Has he dumped you? Don’t say we didn't warn you.’

  ‘Eilidh.’ My mother’s voice cracked like a whip. ‘That’s enough.’

  I turned on her. ‘No, Eilidh. Marcus and I have not split up. I’m sorry if that ruins your evening.’

  ‘There’s obviously something not right. Look at you. You’ve been crying.’

  ‘No, I haven’t.’ They were all staring at me, with differing degrees of interest and concern. Of those, Dad’s chilling silence concerned me most.

  ‘Yes, you have. Your eyes are red.’

  ‘Yes, because there was a fire. That girl,’ I said to Dad. ‘We found out who she was.’

  He must have told them about our conversation from the morning, because they all fell silent. My ten minutes alone with Mum became an impossibility, and once again the issue rested between Dad and myself. ‘And?’

  I stared at him. Sometimes honesty could be too complicated, with the chorus of my family ready for angry and grievance at the slightest opportunity. ‘She was trying to ask me for help.’

  ‘You?’

  ‘Yes.’ Simplification isn’t lying, I persuaded myself in justification, as I poured out an abbreviated version of my incredible tale.

  Dad listened in silence throughout. He didn’t need to make a contribution while the rest of them were more than making up for it with their exclamation and interjections, but I knew he’d have something to say. And when he did, he wouldn’t hold back.

  ‘So, what you’re saying,’ he remarked, once I’d ground to a halt and everybody else, respectfully silent, turned to him for his response, ‘is that, once again, this man has involved you in something he had no right to involve you in. And once again he’s put you in a position where you were at serious risk.’

  ‘We’ll sort him out for you, Bron.’ Liam, always the one who talked bigger than he acted, piped up in the background. ‘Just say the word. Me and Fin will get over there and teach him a lesson.’