In His Wildest Dreams

by Marie Treanor

  “How did you meet him?”

  “Well, that’s what should have been my clue,” she said ruefully. “I worked for the BBC in Glasgow at the time, mainly on news stories. We were doing a piece on one of Ray’s Scottish-based companies, and I was determined to shine by digging out something no one else had. There was no hint of impropriety in this company. On the contrary, it had been good for Scotland and was taking on more workers. A feel-good story, which was rare at the time. I asked a lot of questions. And then I was invited to a party at my boss’s house, and Ray was there.

  “He was charming, seemed not to take himself too seriously. I liked that. He offered me an interview, and I got the personal angle I’d been looking for. Everyone was thrilled with my work. Not least Ray, who’d managed to distract me from the one questionable detail about his company—how he’d acquired it. It was a trail that led to extortion and even murder, but I never got anything like that far.

  “I was suddenly in demand, was encouraged to apply for a job in London, and got it. I got a personal call of congratulation from Raymond Kemp and an invitation to dinner. You can imagine the rest. I married him six months later, by which time I’d left my job.”

  “Why?”

  “Good question. Because I was stupid and gullible, and he was persuasive and reasonable and more than rich enough to keep us both in a style I’d never even aspired to. I got that such a low-paid job was both a waste of time for me and an embarrassment for him. Plus some talk of a conflict of interests that made sense at the time without making him seem remotely crooked.”

  “Were you happy?”

  She shook her head, keeping her attention now on Jack, who was balancing stones on his stick branches like decorations on a Christmas tree.

  “No, but I didn’t realize it at first. Although he was away a lot, I had all my old friends and colleagues to keep in touch with, and of course we went to dinner parties together, theatre, opera, all the best London had to offer. That’s where I really met Fiona Marr. She’d just moved south, and we met her at a dinner party. I think that was my first tingle of unease. Ray singled her out a bit, deliberately making a contact, a friend, and it reminded me of how he’d been with me when we first met. Not that I think he slept with her.”

  “Then he was faithful to you?”

  “Probably not, but I don’t really know. Sex and love, his own loyalty, aren’t really important to Ray. The funny thing is, I began to suspect he was having an affair. All those evenings when we weren’t out together, he was always out alone. And so I followed him one night… Not because I loved him,” she added quickly. “I already knew it was over. I think I just wanted a reason to walk, to break my vows.

  “Anyhow, I followed him into a rather sleazy part of town, a house that looked almost derelict. It seemed a bizarre place for Ray to be at all, never mind to screw his bit on the side, so I looked through the window. There was a chink in the curtain.”

  Her breath shuddered. “They had a man tied to a chair, and two other men were beating the shit out of him while Ray lounged in an armchair in his expensive cashmere overcoat, drinking whisky and watching as if it was a show on the telly.”

  Glenn reached over and threaded his fingers through hers. His knuckles were scarred. She wondered, again, if he’d ever taken part in that kind of a beating, wondered if she’d be able to live with the answer.

  “From both sides,” he said evenly, just as if she’d spoken aloud. “You get desensitized, dehumanized, forget you can think for yourself. It’s not an excuse, but it’s a reason when you’re seventeen.”

  And he lived every day with what he’d done. He’d gone to prison, and he was still atoning, because he couldn’t change the past, only the present and the future. But he had taken responsibility.

  Her fingers twisted, curled convulsively around his. “Ray wasn’t seventeen, and trust me, he was thinking,” she said harshly. “He liked the responsibility. I got that right away. He told me later, he didn’t normally attend such roughhouses, only when it was necessary to impose his authority. So this scenario, this brutality I saw, was planned. Manipulation.”

  “What did you do?”

  “What could I do against three men, one of whom was my husband? I ran and I called the cops—apparently all they found was some blood in an empty house. When Ray came home, I confronted him. I asked for a divorce.”

  Glenn didn’t speak. Jack was dancing around his tree like some small, crazed pagan, while Screw ran rings around them both.

  Izzy drew her lower lip between her teeth and released it. Forcing herself, she dropped her gaze from Jack to Glenn’s face. “He just smiled at me, went to the bedroom door and called in Mike, his assistant. Mike had his own room in our house, was Ray’s right hand man in all things. He’d always been polite to me, friendly. I liked him. I regarded him as a friend. Ray just said to him, ‘Hit her.’ And he did, with the same expression he might have handed me a cup of tea. One open-handed on the face, hard enough that he had to stop me falling, followed by a fist in the stomach.”

  “Fuck,” Glenn said. He dropped the fishing rod altogether, and threw his other arm around her, holding her tight while he stroked her hair. “Fuck.”

  “It was meant to cow me. That’s how he’d cowed his first wife, who suffered such depression that she killed herself. He told me that among many other things, including exactly what he’d do to Jack if I ever stepped out of line again, while I curled on the bedroom floor retching and so dazed with pain I could barely understand him.”

  She clutched Glenn’s shoulders with both hands, unable to stop now she’d finally told someone. “It wasn’t so much the physical pain I couldn’t bear. It was that my husband had done it, humiliated me by ordering his minion, my friend, to hit me. I had to be nothing.”

  “You were never nothing,” he muttered into her hair.

  “No,” she agreed. “I was all Jack had. So I took him with me when I left on my normal shopping trip the next day, and we never went back.” She swallowed. “I also took the hard drive from Ray’s computer. As leverage.”

  “He was stupid enough to leave evidence on his personal computer?”

  “I doubt it, but the fact that I’d thought it worth taking might have inspired a few investigations he didn’t need. Official or otherwise. I still had media connections. As we bolted, I carried on my interrupted research into his Scottish business and how he’d acquired it. And I sent that to my old colleagues. They were too wary of legal action to use it all, but at least veiled doubts about his squeaky-clean reputation were cast. He’s no chance now of branching into politics as he’d once hoped. That was my shot across his bow, his one warning of what I could and would do if he came near me or Jack. And then I hid up here.”

  Her fingers tightened on his shoulders. Now, when at last there was nothing to cry about, her tears mingled with the rain on his coat. “Where I finally feel safe.”

  Without releasing her, he pulled back to look into her face, his own frowning and serious. “That’s why you were so wary of us, of me. Because I come from that world.”

  “You got out of that world. But yes. Until I discovered you’re not like him at all. None of you are.”

  “None of us ever were. We were always the idiots who’d take the fall. Kemp’s the guy who walks away, because he never actually does anything.” His mouth opened as if he’d say more, then closed again. He touched his forehead to hers. “I’m not making excuses, Izzy. God knows I’m no angel, but I’ve never in my life hit a woman. Or threatened a child—at least not since I stopped being one myself.”

  She took his face between her hands. Just looking at him made her ache, but in a strange, good way she’d never felt before. His words, his presence soothed the horror of what she’d been reliving and confirmed what she already believed. If she hadn’t, neither she nor Jack would be here. He would never hurt them.

&nb
sp; “I know that,” she said.

  “Hey, why are you hugging Mum?” Jack demanded, running across to them.

  Glenn loosened his hold but didn’t release her entirely. “Because I like her.”

  “Me too.” Jack grinned and hurled himself at Izzy, who fell on her back laughing as she hugged him back.

  “Jack, you’ve got a bite,” Glenn exclaimed, and Jack scrambled up in great excitement.

  With Glenn’s help, Jack caught a smallish trout. Glenn himself caught another, after which they called it a day and walked back to the house. It was still quiet while most of the guys recovered from their Friday-night bender in Fort William, and Jim wasn’t in his usual place in the kitchen. So, after Jack changed out of his wet clothes into a sweater of Glenn’s that came down to his ankles—much to Jack’s amusement—Izzy hung up the damp things to dry in the warm kitchen, while Glenn gutted the fish. Not his favourite job. But the most mundane and even unpleasant tasks seemed to take on a rosy glow in the company of Izzy and Jack. They had a sense of simple fun that had baffled him at first, and now, it seemed, he was included in it. He knew he smiled more; he knew he wanted to.

  Izzy’s harrowing tale of her marriage and its melodramatic end only emphasized her quiet strength in his eyes. She hadn’t grown up as he had with violence and even murder never much more than a hairsbreadth away, so her discovery had been all the more shattering for her. And yet she’d got herself and Jack out of there and even done what she could to stop Kemp while managing to keep Jack safe.

  And she was bringing up a bright and extremely lively kid in a way Glenn barely recognized. She played with him, verbally and otherwise, laughed with him, reined him in and disciplined him when necessary, although generally a warning seemed to be enough. And Glenn seemed to be growing into their grid.

  This was how families were meant to be. Like Izzy and Jack, and Lewis and Neil Dunn.

  While Izzy fried the fish, Glenn buttered some bread and found some salad, his head still wrestling with the differences between his upbringing and Jack’s. He’d never really imagined having kids of his own, but somewhere he’d known that if he ever did, he’d bring them up in a house without fear.

  Izzy, he knew, took the all the fear on herself so that her son didn’t have to. Glenn would take it for both of them if he could. The urge to protect them was suddenly so fierce, it caught at his breath.

  “Fish is ready,” Izzy said, and he forced himself to relax. He realized he was staring at the old kitchen fireplace. He’d never paid much attention to it before. They never lit the fire, because the chimney was damaged inside. That and the surrounding stone wall were part of the original pre-Victorian house, protected on the outside by a newer wall, but it wasn’t the age of the place he recognized. It was his vision that he’d almost discounted, because it hadn’t included Izzy, of the hand that wasn’t his, placing a package inside a hole in a stone wall. The glow of a nearby fire had illuminated the translucent hand.

  “Glenn?” Izzy said uncertainly. “Are you…dreaming?”

  And he turned, shaking his head. “No, not this time. Come on, let’s eat fish. You too,” he added as Chrissy wandered in looking for lunch.

  “What, two fish between four of us?” Chrissy said with a grin.

  “You have to taste them,” Jack insisted. “I caught that one.”

  “Well, in that case, you’ve talked me into it.”

  When Glenn got back from the village, he went up to his room and switched on his computer.

  He’d walked down with Izzy and Jack, using the fact that he needed supplies from the shop as an excuse. With Screw—or Rover, to which the dog now also answered—jumping around them, they might have looked like a slightly eccentric family. Glenn rather liked the idea, but he didn’t let it go to his head. He was well aware what it looked like to the village—an ex-con taking advantage of a vulnerable single mother, a stranger in the village without her own family to support her.

  And she’d no one but him to look out for her.

  So he sat down at the computer and searched up an image of Raymond Kemp. Finding a head-and-shoulders publicity shot, he magnified it and gazed at the screen. A Glasgow comedian had once described this kind of appearance as having that smug look of someone who’d never been punched in the face. Glenn had renounced violence, but his itching fist had already clenched in preparation.

  Handsome, confident, firm chin, serious, thoughtful eyes, neatly styled short, dark hair. Respectable, distinguished, not too old and not too young, the kind of financier you’d trust to make you money and not swindle you. If you were daft enough. Only his cool eyes—and his thin lips, relaxed as they were, gave any hint of cruelty in his nature, and even that wasn’t obvious except in a slight downward quirk Glenn recognized because his father had had it too.

  Of course, his father had never had Kemp’s brains or education. Which made Kemp several times more dangerous than the vicious old bastard who’d knocked Glenn into the wall three times a week. He hadn’t appreciated it much at the time, but he’d become grateful since for the quick reflexes he’d cultivated then.

  Unease twisted through Glenn. Not because he hadn’t always understood what he was facing in Kemp, but because he’d never seen him before. This was not the man who’d forced his arm across Izzy’s neck in Glenn’s dream.

  Not surprising, maybe. Kemp never got his hands dirty. He even got his minion to beat Izzy up while he watched. Glenn’s fist tightened on the table. If Kemp had stood there now, all the parole officers and cops in the world wouldn’t have prevented Glenn knocking his teeth down his throat.

  Well, there were other ways of dealing with Kemp. It was finding whoever he’d send that would be the hard part.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Even as a kid, Glenn had developed a sixth sense for danger that had nothing to do with dreams or second sight. He’d needed this instinct to avoid rival gangs, to say nothing of his father in one of his frequent rages; and later to spot trouble before it inevitably arrived in prison.

  When his neck prickled as he walked out of Ardknocken House gates on Monday morning, he paid attention.

  But there were no cars on the quiet road, stationary or travelling, and only his nearest neighbour tottered down the hill with his stick, in front of him. Although the attacks he’d half expected when he’d first got out of prison had never materialized, he’d never truly let his guard down. It was hardwired into him. So it was second nature to scan the street ahead, gauge possible ambush spots from corners or parked cars as he drew closer to the village. He calculated distances and angles in his head with an accuracy a mathematician might have envied.

  Izzy was safe at the house. He’d seen her arrive at 9.30 as usual. But Kemp’s people might well try to eliminate her protection first. Fortunately for Izzy, the house was full of suspicious men who wouldn’t let anyone near her, but he’d no intention of being put out of action.

  By the time he reached the High Street, he’d seen no strangers, let alone men with guns or knuckle-dusters. But there was a lane just before the post office. It was a shortcut down to the beach, so people did loiter there from time to time, gossiping or waiting for their dogs to stop sniffing or crapping.

  Glenn took his left hand out of his pocket. Two. There would be at least two.

  He swerved wide as he reached the opening, just enough to set whoever jumped first off-balance, and then he cannoned forward, knocking him back into the lane, where his elbow took out the second, as he seized the first by the T-shirt and drew back his fist for the first knockout blow.

  He knew that dazed, angry face. It had watched his back once, a lifetime ago in Glasgow, when they’d been jumped by some of Tommy Grant’s thugs. He was known as Spud for reasons lost in time, and nowadays, according to rumour, he worked for Glasgow crime boss Ally Haines.

  “What the fuck, Glenn?” Spud spluttered.

>   Glenn twisted his arm up his back and thudded him against the wall where he could better keep an eye on the second man now stirring on the ground, blood pouring from his nose.

  “Took the words out of my mouth,” Glenn said grimly. “Did you really think I’d got that soft?”

  “Only came for a word, Glenn,” Spud whined, as if repeated use of his name might stop Glenn killing him.

  “The kind of silent word you understand in hospital,” Glenn said dryly, yanking Spud back from the wall and half turning him so he could glare into his face. “Take this one to Ally Haines instead. I’m not coming back to Glasgow. I’m never coming back. And if I see any of you up here again—even on holiday, I’ll bury you.”

  A flash of something very like intelligence briefly lit Spud’s mean little eyes. It looked like disbelief, and not the kind that can’t quite imagine anyone would choose to live out here in the sticks when the proceeds of crime awaited one in the big city. It was almost as if Spud knew he was coming back.

  “Interesting,” Glenn observed, staring at him. “What makes you think I’d come back?”

  “Questions being asked,” Spud said with an attempt to return to bravado. “You got Dougie up here and a whole set of new guys. The cops are suspicious. Plus, some smart-ass lawyer’s saying you didn’t kill Tommy.”

  “I’ve met him. He’s an arse,” Glenn said briefly. “Everybody knows I killed Tommy.” Glenn exerted a bit more pressure and kicked the second man’s arm away from his body as he tried to reach for a weapon. “What else?”

  “Fuck, Glenn, lay off. Rumour is you’re in business with an organization in the south, serious players, that you’re coming home to take over, not just Ally but the whole city.”

  “Where the—” He broke off, his spine tingling all over again.

  Fuck. Fuck and fuck. Ray Kemp. Glenn was damned sure his investigation into Izzy’s ex had remained discreet. But Spud’s “organization in the south” surely had to be Kemp, which meant Kemp had been enquiring about Glenn, and in the process got the wind up Ally Haines. Haines was no doubt afraid of a revived Brody gang reinforced by Kemp. The same rumours would have scared Suzy Grant too. Suzy was the real boss of Tommy’s old gang now, and they were turning respectable, making their businesses legitimate. Mostly. But if Glenn was cleared of Tommy’s murder, then she, as Tommy’s wife with motive and no alibi, was first in the frame.