‘I was young.’ Collecting up her baby bag, Jade walked across the barn, sighing wistfully as she joined him. ‘He was helping me out, really.’
‘What?’ Dylan turned to her, his heavy forehead furrowed disapprovingly. ‘By making you have his babies?’
‘Paying me, Dylan. I wouldn’t have had a roof over my head otherwise,’ Jade reminded him. Dylan had offered her his roof, of course, when she’d tearfully confided in him. Thankfully, he’d realised it wouldn’t be at all suitable for all of them, the cottage being so tiny and with basic amenities, and that, in any case, she couldn’t possibly leave without her baby. More importantly, when she did leave, she had to be secure in the knowledge the child’s father wouldn’t try to grab her back.
‘Yeah, well, it’s still taking ad…’ Dylan stopped, his frown deepening as he struggled for the word.
‘Advantage,’ Jade kindly supplied.
‘Yeah, that.’ Dylan nodded piously, puffing up his big barrel chest as he did. ‘It’s just wrong, innit, him being a policeman and all. He should be setting an example. My mum always said that people in positions of authority should be beyond…’
Dylan trailed off, apparently at a loss for what policemen should be beyond.
‘Reproach.’ Mentally rolling her eyes, Jade helped him along. ‘And your mum’s right, Dylan. But I didn’t have anyone else, did I. No mum. No dad. I only had him. You haven’t said anything about the babies, have you?’ she added quickly. ‘To your mum?’
Dylan shook his head adamantly. ‘No, Scout’s honour.’
Jade winced as he actually held up two fingers in a scout salute. ‘Or anyone else?’ she asked, scrutinising him carefully. Dylan’s cheeks flushed like a set of brake lights if he was ever embarrassed or uncomfortable. She’d soon know if he was lying.
‘Haven’t breathed a word,’ he assured her, with another exaggerated shake of his head.
‘Good.’ Jade gave his cheek a pat, her other hand straying to his groin, causing Dylan to suck in a sharp breath. ‘We wouldn’t want anyone to come between us, would we? And they would, you know, if they found out I’d had his babies before I was old enough.’
‘I didn’t say anything, honest.’ Dylan’s voice went up an octave as she gave his testicles a gentle squeeze, giving him an instant hard-on.
‘You’re a rock, Dylan.’ Jade leaned in, panting breathily in his ear. ‘I’m so lucky to have you as a boyfriend.’
Dylan nodded. ‘I like being your boyfriend,’ he said, the flush to his cheeks indicating his awkwardness as his eyes flicked to hers and back. ‘You shouldn’t be living with him, though, Jade. Not if you’re my girlfriend.’
Jade stopped her ministrations in favour of lifting his chin to gaze lovingly at him. Dylan might be pliable, but now he’d discovered what his penis was for apart from pissing, he was showing signs of becoming proprietorial. God forbid his male ego might drive him to do anything unpredictable. ‘It’s only for a while,’ she assured him, blinking kindly. ‘Just until my house is rebuilt. And at least this way I get to see my children.’
Dylan ran a hand under his nose. Still, he looked disgruntled.
Damn. Jade hoped she wasn’t going to have to go the whole hog and give him a blowjob by way of distracting him. It wouldn’t take long but she really needed to be getting back. ‘And then you can move in with me, remember?’ She dangled the prize carrot instead. The prospect of having her next to him in bed every night was enough to make sure he stayed on track.
‘And the kids?’ Dylan said, eyeing her uncertainly.
‘And the kids,’ Jade assured him, smiling her sweetest smile. ‘And your mum can visit as often as she wants. She could even move in with us if she liked.’
Dylan brightened at that. ‘She could cook our dinner.’
‘We’d be one big happy family,’ said Jade, though she was having to force the smile a bit now.
Dylan nodded happily, and then frowned, again. ‘But what about the other one?’ he asked. ‘I’m not sure it’s good for her, being away from you and all.’
‘Oh, she’s fine.’ Jade waved a hand, irked now. Given how unemotional he was when it came to shooting vermin or snapping chickens’ necks, she hadn’t banked on him becoming attached to the girl. ‘She’s much better off staying with you than with me.’
Dylan didn’t look convinced.
‘You know he doesn’t want her, Dylan.’ Jade blinked at him beseechingly. ‘It’s best she stays where she is for a while. Just make sure your mother doesn’t go poking her nose— Shhhh.’ Hearing a car drawing up in the farmyard, Jade cocked an ear.
Perplexed, since drippy Dylan and his depressing-looking mum hardly ever had visitors, she pressed a finger to her lips and tiptoed across the floor to peer through a popped knot in the barn door, and then… Shit!
Twenty-Three
MARK
Mark climbed out of his car, deciding to take a look around before knocking on the farmhouse door. If there was anything they’d missed, he was hardly going to fall over it, but he just couldn’t shake the feeling that Daisy was still alive and being held close to home. She haunted his dreams. But then, the small girl who’d died in the cruellest way possible came to him at night too, her tiny form curled into a ball, clutching her one-eyed Pooh Bear close to her chest, calling out to him. And the smell, before the unbearable screams snatched him back to consciousness: thick, cloying smoke, scorching his lungs, suffocating him.
In dreams of Daisy, it was always the same rural smell. Mark had no idea why the nightmares kept coming, robbing him of what sleep he might get in between Evie waking. It was because he had children, he supposed. Because he lived in fear of something too unbearable to comprehend happening to his baby girls, and that, despite having police resources at his fingertips, he would be powerless to save them.
Shaking himself, Mark looked around. Once a well-kept, thriving dairy farm, the place was now abandoned, the cow house and stables sadly bereft of inhabitants. He decided to start with the smaller of the two barns, frightening scrawny chickens who’d obviously escaped the poultry yard into a flutter of wings and piercing skirls as he walked. Once inside, he wondered why he’d come. Like the rest of the farmyard, it was empty, dusty and derelict. Original beams supported the roof; ropes and chains hung from a crossbeam. Nothing much else inside; nowhere to hide.
The smell though – damp, earthy and pungent, of mildew and soft hay – was so familiar. Mark sighed, despairing of himself. He was supposed to be dealing in facts, not wild flights of the imagination. He was triggering childhood memories, that was all. One in particular, where he’d been selected as one of the school’s deprived kids to go on some pony-trekking holiday. Turns out he hadn’t been much safer away from home. He’d heard him before he saw him, his old man, pissed, ranting incoherently in the small office situated next to the stables – Christ only knew how he’d driven there. He’d come to fetch him back. Mark hadn’t been about to go back though. Even as a kid, he’d known he wouldn’t make it. Not that time. He’d hid instead – spent half his life hiding. Deciding the hayloft was too obvious a place, he’d bolted for the stable block, curling himself into the corner of one of the stalls. The stench of leather and hay and horse manure had been overpowering. He’d been more terrified of his father finding him than the horse’s hooves, which had seemed pretty menacing to a ten-year-old-kid. He’d been lonely, too. The other kids’ cruel taunts had intensified after that. Forget it, he told himself. It was the past, dead and buried.
Consigning it to history, telling himself he needed to stop chasing shadows, Mark turned to walk back across the yard, pained by the sense of isolation the disused property evoked.
Twenty-Four
JADE