Jade stopped, gulping back a violent bout of nausea as she followed his gaze down to the ground. Bloody hell. They’d eaten half her face.
‘Oh my God!’ Dylan!’ Jade looked away from the woman, genuinely horrified. She was going to step carefully amongst those carnivorous little fuckers in future. ‘What the hell have you done?’
‘Nothing!’ Dylan widened his eyes in obvious terror. ‘She was upset,’ he blurted defensively. ‘We had a row, yesterday morning. She wanted me to phone Uncle Bob and ask him for a job, but I didn’t want to work on a building site. I told her I wanted to stay here, on the farm. Uncle Bob doesn’t like me and Eric is always taking the mickey. I don’t want to work in Birmingham. I told her and she got all upset. She wasn’t talking to me and I—’
‘Dylan, stop.’ Jade moved closer, clutching his shoulders with both hands. He was blinking rapidly, close to hyperventilating or wetting himself. ‘Slow down. Who’s Eric?’
‘Me cousin. He’s always winding me up.’ Dylan dragged an arm under his nose and glanced embarrassedly down.
Gosh, I wonder why. Supressing a sigh, Jade arranged her face into suitably annoyed. ‘He’s obviously an idiot,’ she supplied what he needed to hear, whilst bracing herself to bend down and examine the woman at closer quarters.
‘She’s gone, Dylan.’ Hoisting herself quickly to her feet, she looked at him, oozing sympathy.
‘Dead?’ Dylan squeaked.
Yes, idiot, dead. Jade nodded solemnly. She looked dead enough, but, having found the faintest of pulses at the base of her neck, Jade suspected she wasn’t yet, quite. So, what did she do with her now? Finishing the job would be the kind thing to do, but she could hardly do that with Dylan looking on. The pigs would probably chomp their way through the rest of her eventually. But that would take time and they could hardly leave her here meanwhile.
‘It’s my fault.’ Dylan gulped hard.
Jade gritted her teeth. If he said that one more time, in that wimpish tone, he’d be joining his mum as the bloody pigs’ lunch. ‘Dylan, it’s not,’ she stated firmly. ‘But… it is possible they might blame you.’
Holding his gaze, Jade tried not to notice his Adam’s apple bobbing grotesquely in his throat. ‘She probably passed out or had a heart attack or something. Did she mention she’d been having pains in her chest?’
Dylan’s face drained of what little colour he had. ‘After Dad died,’ he said, his voice now a croaked whisper. ‘She said her heart was hurting.’
‘Well, there you go then. It wasn’t your fault. It might even have been brought on by Mark Cain sniffing around again.’
‘Cain?’ asked Dylan, his thickset brow furrowing. And then a spark of fury glinted in his eyes. Good, Jade thought. That’s what she needed – Dylan angry, not cowering and bawling like a baby. Ready to do whatever it took. She had a plan, and it involved Mark being ‘seen’ to be driving around certain areas. If Dylan pulled it off, she’d succeed in tarnishing Mark’s ‘white knight’ image in Melissa’s eyes. She had to get that bloody woman off the scene before it was poor Mark who ended up on medication.
‘With all the stress she’s been through, worrying about why he’s snooping around could easily have caused her to have a heart attack. Bastard. He might even come back,’ she said, forcing the point home.
‘Oh shit.’ Dylan looked fearfully past her, as if expecting Mark to arrive any moment, blue lights flashing.
‘We have to move her.’ Jade nodded determinedly.
‘But…’ Dylan looked uncertain. ‘Shouldn’t we call an ambulance or something?’
‘She’s dead, Dylan,’ Jade reiterated. Or she soon would be, judging by how much blood she’d lost. ‘And we don’t have much time. He might come back,’ she reminded him. ‘We can’t just leave her here for him to find, can we? Even if he doesn’t blame you, he’s bound to set you up, especially if he has an inkling about us, and he must have. Why else does he keep coming here?’
Glancing back at his mum, Dylan thought about it. He was going to go for it. Jade could almost hear the cogs creaking. ‘And we have to move Daisy, too. Today. We’ll take her in the car and put your poor mum in the barn where she’ll be nice and safe until we can bury her properly. How does that sound?’
Dylan still didn’t look a hundred per cent certain, but he seemed placated by the bury her properly bit.
‘Don’t worry.’ Jade pressed a kiss to his cheek, though with Dylan’s sweat glands in overdrive and that faceless old hag staring up at her, she actually felt like vomiting. ‘I’ll help you, I promise.’
By which she meant she would offer moral support. Jade had no intention of getting her hands dirty. She was meeting the delightful DS Cummings tonight. And, as much as the thought of being anywhere near him made her skin crawl, she intended to look her provocatively enticing best.
* * *
‘We have to go, Dylan,’ Jade said gently an hour or so later, watching him sobbing in earnest, chest heaving and huge round shoulders shaking as he looked down at his poor soon-to-be-deceased mother.
Realising he’d be there for the foreseeable future if she didn’t hurry him up, Jade stifled a despairing sigh and attempted to comfort him. Placing a hand on his arm, she rubbed it gently, sending goose pimples up her own – and not in a good way. ‘Come on, my love,’ she coaxed, encouraging him away. ‘We need to move Daisy. Your mum’s at rest now.’
‘Do you think she’s happy?’ Dylan looked at her beseechingly.
Delirious, I should think. Jade really had to work at keeping her face straight. ‘Of course she is. She’s with your dad now, isn’t she? Her heart won’t be hurting any more, Dylan. She won’t be in pain.’
Appeased, Dylan nodded slowly. ‘Bye, Mum,’ he said gruffly, running a hand under his nose and finally turning away. Thank God, Jade thought, taking his hand as they walked back towards the cottage. They needed to get a move on if they were going to get this done while Mark was collecting Poppy from school. Melissa shouldn’t be a problem. She’d dosed her up with enough drugs to knock out a horse.
Forty-Three
MELISSA
Mel was lying down when Mark finally came into the bedroom. She didn’t want to be. She’d tried so hard to get up, to get dressed. But with the room spinning around her, she’d made it halfway to the bathroom before giving up and crawling back to bed.
‘Mark?’ Mel struggled to sit up. She was desperately trying to piece the events of the last few weeks together, trying to work out how in God’s name she ended up here, but everything was fragmented, disjointed. She couldn’t seem to separate dream from reality any more, memories slipping away from her like wisps of smoke on the air.
Easing her legs over the edge of the bed, Mel summoned up what little energy she had and heaved herself to her feet. Taking a step, she stumbled, and her heart, already heavy with guilt and confusion, plummeted like a lead weight in her chest. Mark didn’t move to help her, as he would have done a short time ago. His face white, his expression inscrutable, he stayed where he was by the door, watching. Waiting? For her to fall? Mel swallowed hard.
‘Here,’ he said, walking across the room after a second, during which time Mel had sunk heavily back down on the bed. ‘If you need it so badly, take it.’
Stopping in front of her, he lifted his hand and tossed a bottle onto the duvet.
Vodka? Mel glanced at it, bewildered. ‘I don’t…’ She drew her gaze back to his. ‘We don’t drink vodka.’
‘Apparently one of us does,’ Mark said, scanning her eyes, his own dark, thunderously dark, and… accusing?
She blinked at him, stupefied for a second, before the disturbing realisation dawned. ‘You think it’s mine?’ she asked, incredulous.
‘It was in the cupboard under the sink. I sure as hell didn’t put it there,’ Mark said coolly. ‘So, tell me, Mel, who else might have?’