by Jessie Keane
Then a dusty dark-blue flatbed truck came shrieking around the corner of the lane, roaring like its exhaust pipe was nothing but a memory, shattering the silence. It screeched to a halt outside the Cleaver house. Bubba Pole emerged from behind the wheel, and three men hopped down from the back of the flatbed.
‘How do, Jeb?’ asked Bubba cheerily, coming around the front of the truck.
Jeb went still. He lowered the axe. The three men came closer to him. They were each holding a baseball bat.
‘My friend, you got lost, yeah?’ Bubba said to Connor. Then he turned and spoke to Jeb. ‘This is a mate of mine, he was looking for my place, we saw the silly fucker miss the turn and shoot past. Sorry to disturb, Jeb.’
Jeb Cleaver said nothing. He eyed the three men with the bats, idly swinging the axe as he did so.
‘Let’s go then,’ said Bubba, the smile slipping from his face as he addressed Connor: ‘Come along, let’s sink some ales.’
Connor somehow got his feet moving. His heart was thwacking away against his ribs like he’d just run a mile. He passed close by Jeb, thinking, He’s going to swing that fucking axe and take my arm off. The blade glinted wickedly, the steel honed to a slick sharpness. Connor somehow walked back to the Porsche and got in. He saw Bubba climb into the pickup, and then the three men hopped aboard and the engine revved. Connor started the Porsche, reversed in the Cleavers’ muddy drive, and shot back to Bubba’s place, and safety.
‘What the fuck you doing?’ asked Bubba as they sat in his trailer half an hour later.
Connor was silent. He’d drained a whisky and he felt steadier now. He couldn’t believe what had just happened. That mad bastard had meant to kill him.
‘Fucking good job young Archie saw your Porsche go past the drive,’ said Bubba. ‘He do like a nice car, that boy, and he ain’t forgotten yours. Came straight in and told me you passed by.’
‘He was going to use that fucking axe on me,’ said Connor.
‘Nah, he was just teasing with ya,’ said Bubba. ‘The Cleaver boys always did have a strange sense of humour.’
‘No, he meant it.’ Connor had seen the blood lust in Jeb’s eyes.
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Christ knows.’ Connor was shaken. He was a tough nut, but an axe attack wasn’t something you just shrugged off.
‘Look, you got out – by the skin of your teeth, but you got out. No harm done. So leave it, Connor. Stay away from them; they’re bad news. Curiosity killed the cat, remember? And if you ain’t careful, next time it will kill you.’
141
Mad Dog Cunningham came by to see Connor one lunchtime, when Connor was grabbing a sandwich at his flat. Out of the window, Connor could see rain falling in a steady downpour from leaden skies. He thought that he was lucky to be alive, after his visit to the pig farm. He kept turning it over and over in his mind. Jeb had mentioned Shauna, as if he was looking forward to exacting some sort of revenge on her – like, for instance, chopping her son into neat bite-sized chunks. So Connor decided that he was going to call in on Mum and ask her some more hard questions. Not that he was looking forward to it. He guessed he wouldn’t like the answers, even if he managed to get any.
Then the bell rang and he opened the door. There was Mad Dog, his pinball eyes swivelling with excitement.
‘Know the Milo skirt you asked me to track down?’
A picture of Claire Milo sprang into Connor’s mind. So did one of Suki, her daughter. Blonde hair. Long legs. That mouth . . . shit, she was hot as hell, that girl. And strictly off-limits. ‘Yeah.’
‘Well, you ain’t gonna believe this . . .’
Shaking with rage, Connor paid Mad Dog and then left him outside the flat. He got in the Porsche and drove through the rain to where Mad Dog had said. Then he parked the car, went in through the lych gate and strode over to Josh’s grave. It gave him a chill, coming back here. The AstroTurf covering the newly dug plot was gone and in its place the soil piled up on the grave was a raw dirty orange. All the floral tributes had been removed. No headstone yet, of course. You had to let the ground settle before you did that. Once it did, Dad’s monument would be installed, and it would be as costly, as magnificent, as any of the other gypsy family ones here.
On her knees to one side of the grave was Claire Milo’s daughter, Suki.
Connor paused a few steps away, thinking he was going to kill her, coming here to his father’s last resting place. Shauna had been furious in the solicitor’s, and he felt that same fury now, felt that the woman shouldn’t be here, that he was going to obliterate her and her mother, strike her memory from the world so he could forget all this shit, all this bollocks about his dad being a player. Then maybe he could remember Dad as he should be remembered; as Josh Flynn the devoted Romany family man – and not as a cheating son-of-a-bitch adulterer.
Suki Milo wasn’t wearing the heels today. Same black suit, but no heels. Practical flats.
As he drew nearer he could hear her crying, loudly. Her head was in her hands. Her shoulders were shaking.
Oh yeah? Well, I’m going to give you something to cry about.
Connor moved in. She hadn’t even heard him coming. Didn’t have a clue. He could strike her dead, and she’d never know.
‘What the fuck are you playing at, coming here?’ he said.
Her head whipped round, blonde hair flying limply in the cold breeze. Her hands dropped to her side. Her face was wet, her eyes red. She swallowed hard, then said: ‘I didn’t . . . I mean, I couldn’t . . .’
The fury grabbed Connor, red rage descending. He took her arm roughly, hauled her to her feet. She staggered and gave a cry of pain as his fingers dug into her flesh. Her knees were muddy. Her face was pale and shocked.
‘I said, what the fuck are you doing? You’re not welcome here.’
She was still crying, shedding huge helpless tears.
‘Shut the fuck up with the crying, OK?’ he demanded, shaking her.
‘You don’t understand,’ she managed to choke out. ‘He was almost like a father to me, he really was . . .’
‘Don’t you fucking dare say that. He was nothing to do with you. He wasn’t yours, or your mother’s. He belonged to his family and he belongs to us still.’
‘He loved my mother,’ she said.
‘No he didn’t. He knobbed her, you stupid cow, that’s all.’
‘No . . .’ She started crying harder.
‘Oh, for fuck’s . . .’ Connor stared at her in exasperation. He was still holding on to her arm, and his grip was crushing. Well, good. He hoped he’d hurt her. Cow deserved it. Now he let her go with a contemptuous flick of the fingers but she just kept right on crying and sank back down on to her knees beside Josh’s grave.
‘I never had a father, but Josh was as good as one to me,’ she gasped out. ‘He was a lovely man. It’s just tragic.’
‘Get up,’ said Connor.
She didn’t get up.
‘I said, get up, bitch,’ he said, and yanked her back to her feet again. She stumbled, fell against him, clutched at his jacket to keep her balance.
‘If my mother found you here, she’d tear you to bits,’ said Connor.
She was crying again. But there was a glint of defiance in her eyes when she looked up at him.
‘You and your bully-boy family, you might have frightened my mother in the past, but you aren’t going to frighten me, OK?’
Then she was off again. Crying and crying and crying.
Connor stood there, breathing hard. Suddenly the rage drained out of him. For the first time in his life he was undecided as to what to do next. He had never hurt a woman, wouldn’t dream of it; and Josh had always told him to take care, because Connor was big and he knew the damage sheer size could do. And now the fucking rain was coming down harder, drenching both of them.
‘Shit,’ he said with feeling.
Suki just stood there and cried.
He grabbed her arm again. She winced but said no
thing.
‘Come on, let’s get in the fucking car,’ said Connor, and led her away, out of the lych gate and over to the Porsche.
What the hell am I doing? he wondered.
But he opened the passenger door and pushed Suki Milo into the seat and shut the door after her. Then he went round to the driver’s side and got in, out of the pouring rain.
142
The rain was coming down even harder now, battering the roof of the car. And still she was crying.
‘Shit,’ muttered Connor again, and he lunged for the glove compartment.
She cringed away from him and howled louder.
‘Oh for fuck’s . . .’ He popped open the compartment and snatched out a packet of tissues. He tossed them in her lap. ‘I was just getting these out. That’s all. I’m not going to hurt you. Even if you are asking for it.’
Suki hitched in a breath, looked down at the tissues, swiped at her eyes. With trembling fingers she started picking at the cellophane, but she was shaking so hard with the cold that she couldn’t get the pack open.
‘For God’s sake!’ Connor snatched it off her, opened it, tossed out a couple of tissues.
‘Thanks,’ she mumbled, dabbing at her face.
Connor flicked the rain out of his hair, rubbed a hand over his face. Wondered what the fuck to do now. He stopped moving when he realized she was staring at him.
‘What?’ he asked.
‘Nothing.’ She gulped, wiped her eyes again.
‘No, come on. What?’
‘You look a bit like him.’ Her eyes filled with tears again. ‘You look like Josh.’
‘I said shut up with the crying, didn’t I?’
Her accent came as a surprise. American, and with a real southern twang to it. Yet this was Claire Milo’s daughter, and Claire was English. How did that work? And he was nothing like Dad, not really. No way would he have tolerated Mum’s mouthy dominating bullshit for so long.
‘I’m sorry.’ She sniffed, wiped her nose. ‘I know how it must seem, to you. That my mother’s some sort of awful scarlet woman . . .’
‘You mean she’s not?’ Connor demanded through gritted teeth. ‘My dad was married, with kids. You think that was the right thing she did, go with him when she knew that?’
She heaved a sigh. ‘Look. They were together before . . . then they split up. Once they met again in New York, it was a done deal.’
‘Dad was married,’ said Connor.
‘Yeah. To a woman he didn’t love. That he’d never loved.’ Suki was shivering now. ‘It’s cold,’ she moaned, clutching herself.
‘Oh, for fuck’s . . .’ Connor switched on the engine, flicked on the heater.
‘Thanks,’ she said faintly.
The roar of the heater filled the car. The rain hammered on the roof.
‘He was so unhappy with her. With your mother,’ she said.
‘Don’t you fucking dare,’ said Connor, although he knew it was true.
Suki was staring at his face with those big baby-blues. ‘Don’t you know what happened? Didn’t he ever tell you?’
‘Tell me what?’
‘That your mom drove mine out of town.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘It means she scared her to death, left her with no choice but to run away.’
‘How? Your mother don’t seem the type to frighten that easy.’
‘Maybe she isn’t so much now. But then? She was just a girl and she was terrified. Your mother had some bad friends. Scary ones.’
‘Such as . . . ?’ What a load of bullcrap this was.
‘The Cleaver family. Do you know them?’
Oh fuck. Into Connor’s mind flashed an image of Jeb Cleaver, coming at him with the axe raised, a crazed glint in his eye.
‘You want to know what your sainted mother did to mine? Really?’ said Suki.
‘Yeah, I do. I won’t believe it, but tell me anyway.’
‘First they killed her pet dog, Blue, and threw his body into a tomb in front of the altar of a little disused church near the camp where she and Josh grew up. Then two of the boys from the Cleaver clan raped her, right there in the church. And me? I was the product of that rape. One of them was my father, and I don’t even know which one. She gave me away as soon as I was born. Couldn’t stand to look at me. When I first met up with her again – not so long ago – you know what? She couldn’t even bear to be near me. And no wonder.’
Connor turned toward her, actually looked at her. What the fuck was she saying? Big pitiful blue eyes, a face soaked in misery. Pale blonde hair, wet and trailing down over her coat, which was too thin for this sort of weather. Knees all muddy from kneeling in the wet dirt by the grave. Long bare legs almost blue with cold. She looked a fucking mess. And – shit – she also looked sexy as hell. He’d thought it in the solicitor’s office and he thought it again now. Damn, she was hot.
And now she was spinning this tall tale, and expecting him to believe it. His mother, instigating a rape? In tight with the Cleavers? Then a thought occurred to him. A bad one, because he was finding her so fucking beautiful he could barely take his eyes off her.
‘Hold on. You’re sure about that? You couldn’t be anything to do with my dad?’
Suki shook her head. ‘What, you think I could be his child? I wish. I really do. But no. Mom was a virgin when she broke off her wedding to Josh all that time ago.’ She sighed. ‘He was great. I—’
‘Look, shut up, will you?’ he cut in, irritated with her, and irritated by the fact that he’d just felt a very male reaction to a woman when for one horrific moment he’d wondered if she could be his half-sister.
But tales of dog-killing and churches and gang rape? It was all too much to take in. And it was bollocks. He snapped on his seat belt. ‘Where are you staying?’
‘The Royal Garden,’ she sniffed. ‘It’s in Kensington.’
‘I’m going that way, I’ll drive you back,’ he said. ‘Put your seat belt on. And keep away from here in future, you got that? And tell your fucking mother too. She ain’t welcome.’
‘Yeah,’ she said tiredly. ‘I get the message.’
143
Claire was waiting for her when Suki got back to the hotel.
‘I was worried. You’ve been gone so long,’ said Claire, anxiety plain in her eyes.
‘I took a taxi down to Winchester. I went to see Josh’s grave. I wanted to go there, just once, on my own, say my goodbyes. And his son was there. Connor.’
Claire’s eyes widened in alarm. She touched Suki’s arm. ‘Are you all right? He didn’t hurt you?’
‘No. He didn’t. It was raining. We talked in his car.’ Suki thought of Connor, of his barely repressed fury, of his very handsome face that reminded her so much of Josh’s.
‘Suki, please stay away from him. I don’t know what he’s capable of, but I know his mother and, believe me, she’d stop at nothing to do us harm.’
‘I know.’ Suki sat on the couch, drew her mother down beside her. ‘Mom, I told him what happened to you. And his mother’s part in it.’
‘Oh God.’ Claire put a hand to her mouth. ‘You didn’t.’
‘Yeah, I did. I’m sick of them painting you as the villain of the piece. You were the victim, Mom. They hurt you, and it was all her work.’
‘And . . . did he believe you?’
‘I don’t know.’ Suki shook her head tiredly. ‘I don’t think so. But at least now he knows.’
Claire eyed her daughter’s face. She hadn’t told Suki, but she’d been so scared to come back here. Terrified. She feared Shauna, knew what she could do. When she’d got the letter from the solicitor, she’d agonized over it. She was frightened to come back, but she owed it to Josh to be there for the reading of the will. So she’d shown up, done what was expected of her. She hadn’t wanted to. The whole experience had been fraught, bringing back hateful memories.
‘Your dad and your sister still live at the camp, don’t they?’ asked Suki.
‘Maybe,’ said Suki tentatively, ‘you can visit them? See them again? Wouldn’t you like that?’
Claire bit her lip. She would love to see Pally and Trace again, but she was fearful. They must hate her for abandoning them as she had. They knew nothing of Shauna’s threats. It must have seemed to them that she’d just kicked them coldly aside, and she didn’t anticipate a warm welcome. Added to that, she still felt it was safer for them if she didn’t go near. She knew all too well the kind of low lifes Shauna mixed with, and they could be watching Claire’s movements even now.
No. It was safer to let Shauna think that Claire was totally detached from her family. That way, they were protected.
‘I’m not going to see them,’ said Claire.
‘But, Mom . . .’
‘No,’ said Claire, her voice edged with steel this time. ‘Now drop it, will you? Come on.’ She forced a smile. ‘Let’s raid the minibar. You look like you need a drink.’
Suki accepted a measure of whisky from her mother, and Claire poured one more for herself. They sat in silence on the couch, sipping the warming alcohol, Suki thinking about her unknown grandfather and her aunt, wishing so much that she could meet them. Then she thought of Josh’s witch of a wife in the solicitor’s office, the harshness of her voice, the viciousness of her gaze, the way she had come at Claire, shrieking, her nails ready to rake the skin off Claire’s face.
Aysha, Josh’s daughter, had eyed them like they were the worst kind of scum. And Josh’s son, Connor – who looked so like Josh – he had stared at them both like he hated their guts. Suki shuddered at the memory. Somehow, Connor’s reaction had hurt the worst. And yes, maybe she’d found him scary, but she had also found him devastatingly attractive; every nerve in her body had felt sensitized when he was near her.
Probably she had told him more than she ought to. Maybe he would talk to his mother about what she’d said. And if he did . . . what the hell would happen then?
