‘My rent, for starters,’ Alan Ford replied, flicking Val an uninterested look when she stepped out from behind Jeff and made her way to her car on the other side of the road. ‘Then you out of my house.’
‘Do one.’ Jeff went to close the door, but hesitated when the man pulled an official-looking sheet of paper out of his pocket.
‘Court order for eviction,’ Ford declared, triumphantly thrusting it under his nose. ‘I warned you what’d happen if you and that wife of yours caused any more trouble, so now you’ve got forty-eight hours to get your shit out – or my lads will be moving it for you.’
Jeff felt his body go hot and cold with fury, and when he spotted Val taking her time to get into her car he almost lost it. ‘You still here, you nosy bitch? Aren’t you supposed to be fixing the damage you’ve done and finding my daughter?’
Val climbed behind the wheel without replying. Jeff glared at her when she started the engine and drove away.
‘More trouble?’ Ford sneered, shaking his head. ‘Just can’t help yourself, can you, Benson?’
‘Go fuck yourself!’ Jeff spat. ‘And you can fuck that, an’ all,’ he added, snatching the paper out of Ford’s hand and tearing it in half. He flung both pieces back at the man, and then slammed the door in his face.
‘Forty-eight hours,’ Ford called through the letter box. ‘I still want the two months’ rent you owe me, and I’ll be billing you for the cost of whatever damage you’ve done while you’ve been here!’
Behind the door, Jeff slid down to the floor and pressed his hands over his ears.
7
It was gone six p.m. before Skye received the text she’d been waiting for. After leaving the house that morning, she had gone to the local park and found herself a hiding place in a thick clump of bushes, far away from the play area where mothers and their children had been coming and going all day. The sky was a stormy shade of grey by now, and the temperature had plummeted, so she was almost crying as she pulled the phone from her pocket with frozen hands.
Where are you? the message read.
In the park, she replied.
Can you meet me at side of Brookes Bar station in half hour?
Yeah. But how will I know you?
Don’t worry, I’ll find you xxx
A little miffed that she’d been left waiting for so long, but also relieved that her ordeal was almost over, Skye slipped the phone back into her pocket and fought her way out of the bushes. The station was a fair distance away, but she’d have walked to London and back if it meant having somewhere warm and safe to sleep – even if it was only on the floor beneath her new friend’s bed.
The station entrance was situated midway down a dead-end sloping path off a busy main road. A solitary street lamp at the road’s end provided the only light, and the further Skye walked down the path when she got there fifteen minutes later the darker it became. Glad of the cover, she quickly found a hiding place behind a skip from where she had a clear view of the entrance but couldn’t be seen by the station staff or passengers.
An hour later she was still there. Sure that she hadn’t missed Jade, because everybody who’d come out of the station so far had been much older than them, she began to wonder if her friend had changed her mind – or had ever intended to come in the first place.
Unwilling to accept that Jade would do something like that, Skye tucked her chin down inside the collar of her jacket and watched as the latest batch of commuters streamed out from the entrance and hurried up the path. She envied them because they were all heading for the warmth and comfort of home, and she wished that she could do the same. But she no longer had a home, thanks to her stupid mum.
As she scanned the now-deserted area she jumped when a guard suddenly pulled a metal shutter down over the entrance, plunging her into almost total darkness. Stiff and sore, she stood up and tugged the phone out of her pocket, intending to text Jade and ask where she was. But her hands were so cold that she lost her grip, and she cried out in despair when it slipped from her fingers and smashed onto a rock at her feet before bouncing out onto the path. Rushing out from her hiding place, she snatched it up off the floor and was devastated to see that the screen had shattered.
‘No!’ she cried, frantically pressing the buttons to no avail. ‘Why are you doing this to me?’
A bright light suddenly sliced through the darkness from the road’s end, and Skye breathed in sharply when she glanced up and saw a car coming slowly towards her. Scared that it might be the police, she darted back behind the skip and watched as it drove past. It turned around at the end of the path and came back, and she thought that it would continue back on up to the road. But when it stopped just a few feet away, and she saw the driver staring at her through his open window, the hairs rose on the back of her neck.
‘Are you Skye?’ the man called out to her. ‘I’m Jade’s brother Tom. She got held up and asked me to come and get you.’
When Skye didn’t move after a few seconds, he held a mobile phone out through the window, saying: ‘You can ring her if you don’t believe me.’
Skye bit her lip. She wasn’t stupid – she knew better than to get into a car with a stranger. But he had known her name, and that she was supposed to be meeting Jade. And she doubted he’d be offering to let her use his phone if he wasn’t telling the truth.
‘Sorry if I scared you,’ Tom said when she walked over to the car and climbed in beside him. ‘Jade didn’t give me a description, so I wasn’t sure who I was supposed to be looking for. Have you been waiting long?’
‘Not really,’ Skye mumbled, finding it difficult to speak because her lips were so numb. ‘About an hour.’
‘Sorry about that,’ Tom apologised, setting off when she’d buckled her seat belt. ‘Jade said she sent you a text to let you know I’d be coming instead of her, but you didn’t answer.’
‘I dropped my phone,’ Skye told him, her cheeks smarting as the warm air from the heater vents thawed them.
‘Ah, right.’ Tom nodded and fixed his gaze on the busy road, looking for a gap in the traffic.
Skye cast a hooded glance at him from the corner of her eye when he drove on. QTPye – Jade – had never mentioned him, but they’d usually been too busy talking about their parents to have got around to the subject of brothers and sisters. Tom looked like he was in his twenties, which was a bit of a gap considering that Jade was the same age as Skye; and he wasn’t particularly good-looking, from what she could see in this light. His nose was a bit big, his Adam’s apple was sticking out quite far over the collar of his shirt, and he had curly hair, which she’d never really liked on boys. It surprised her that his hair looked quite fair, because she’d imagined Jade as being dark-haired for some reason – although she wasn’t sure why, considering that she had never seen a picture of her.
‘Oh, by the way, there’s been a change of plan,’ Tom suddenly said. ‘I don’t know how much Jade’s told you, but our folks are going through a bit of a rough patch and they’ve been arguing all day, so she thought it’d be best if you waited at my place until she can come for you.’
Skye was embarrassed to have nearly been caught staring at him, but she also felt guilty for putting him and his sister out when they had troubles of their own to deal with, so she said, ‘You don’t have to do that. You can drop me off here; I’ll walk back.’
‘No chance.’ Tom smiled. ‘Jade’s dying to meet you, and she’d kill me if I let you slip away. Anyway, it’s nice to have a bit of company when I’m driving, so relax; we’ll soon be there.’
Skye settled back in her seat and gazed out of the window as they crawled along in the heavy traffic. The combination of the heat and the soft classical music that was drifting out from the speakers made her feel sleepy and she began to drift off. But she jolted awake when Tom picked up speed again, and she gazed out of the window to see that they were heading into a more rural area.
The further they went, the more spaced out the houses and street la
mps became. By the time Tom left the road they had been travelling along and turned in through a set of broken gates, she hadn’t seen a single sign of life in a full ten minutes.
The silhouetted shapes of trees and bushes lined the long, bumpy driveway, and Skye squinted through the windscreen when a house came into view up ahead.
‘Is that yours?’
‘It’s my cousin’s place,’ Tom told her. ‘He’s in the army, so I look after it when he’s stationed overseas. It’s falling to bits, but it’s quiet, so it suits me.’
Skye gazed at the house as they drew near and saw that he hadn’t been lying about the state of it. Even in the darkness, she could see that the roof was badly bowed, and the porch over the front door was listing to one side, while the wonky window frames looked like they were in danger of falling apart at any second.
Tom came around to Skye’s side when he’d parked at the back of the house, and offered his hand to help her out. She was about to take it, but shrank back at the sound of muffled barking.
‘Is that a dog?’
‘Yeah, but it’s okay,’ Tom assured her. ‘Come on, let’s get inside. It’s freezing out here.’
Skye climbed nervously out of the car and grimaced when her foot sank into something squelchy. She could hardly see anything, but there was an unpleasant smell in the air and she hoped she hadn’t trodden in dog muck. Nose wrinkled in disgust, she tugged her foot free and quickly followed Tom over to the house.
Terrified that the dog might be waiting to pounce, Skye took a cautious step inside when Tom unlocked the door and waved for her to go in ahead of him. But she stumbled back at the sound of yet more barking, and clutched at his arm.
‘It can’t get me, can it?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll protect you,’ Tom assured her as he reached over her shoulder and flicked a switch.
A light flickered on, and Skye saw that they were in a kitchen; every surface of which was littered with empty bottles, cans, and microwave-food cartons, while the sink was crammed with dirty pots and pans. There was a bad smell in the air, and she guessed it was coming from the overflowing bin that was standing beside the grease-splattered cooker.
A skittering sound made her jump, and she was terrified when she turned her head and saw a long-haired Alsatian with a matted coat coming towards her. Tom ordered it to get to bed before it reached her, and she was relieved when the dog immediately turned and slunk over to a filthy blanket in the far corner of the room.
Tom slipped his jacket off, tossed it over the back of a chair, and then opened a cupboard and took out a tin of dog food.
‘Hungry?’ he asked, glancing back over his shoulder at Skye as he peeled back the lid.
Skye caught a whiff of the meat and shook her head.
‘I didn’t mean this.’ He grinned. ‘I picked us up a takeaway when Jade asked me to come and get you. Hope you like sweet-and-sour?’
Embarrassed when her stomach rumbled, Skye folded her arms over it and nodded shyly. Sweet-and-sour was her absolute favourite, but they rarely had the money for takeaways in their house so she couldn’t remember the last time she’d had it.
After feeding the dog and tossing the empty can onto the ledge, Tom wiped his hands on his trousers before taking a couple of takeaway cartons out of the fridge. He peeled the lids off and placed them in the microwave, then frowned when he glanced over at Skye and saw her still standing by the door.
‘I hope you’re not going to stand there all night? You’re making me nervous.’
‘Sorry.’ Skye pulled a chair out from under the table and sat down to watch as Tom moved over to the sink and pulled out two plates from the crockery heaped in it. After giving them a quick rinse under the tap, he wiped them dry with a grubby tea-towel. He took the cartons back out of the microwave when it pinged, and shared out the food.
‘Sorry about the mess,’ he apologised, using his elbow to shove a pile of old newspapers off the table so that he could put Skye’s plate down. ‘I meant to clean up before you got here, but I didn’t have time.’
‘It’s okay,’ Skye murmured. She was sure he’d told her that he’d come straight from work when he picked her up, but she guessed that he must have come back here first.
Tom handed a fork to her, and then sat down and got stuck into his food. After a while, he glanced over at Skye and gave her a questioning look when he noticed the way she was picking at hers.
‘What’s up?’ he asked, his mouth full, his cheeks bulging. ‘Don’t you like it?’
‘I’m not very hungry,’ she lied, reluctant to admit that the mouldy-looking thing that was stuck between the prongs of her fork was putting her off.
‘Don’t worry; he’ll have anything you can’t manage.’
Tom gave a backwards nod in the dog’s direction, and Skye shivered when she saw that it had finished its own food and was now lying with its head on its paws, its dark gaze riveted to her plate.
When dinner was over, Tom reached for her plate and dumped it and his own in the sink.
‘Do you want me to wash up?’ she offered.
‘Nah, it’ll keep,’ he said. ‘Come through here. I’ll get a fire going.’
Skye edged around the table and followed Tom into a small, shabbily furnished living room. It smelled strongly of the dog in there, and the threadbare sofa was coated in its fur. ‘Do you think Jade will be long?’ she asked, perching on the edge of a cushion.
‘I’ll ring her in a minute,’ Tom said, switching on a standard-lamp before kneeling in front of the soot-blackened fireplace. After piling some lumps of coal into the grate and shoving a little pile of kindling under them he lit it, and watched to see that the flame had caught before pushing himself back up to his feet and heading back into the kitchen.
Skye looked around when he’d gone. Apart from the sofa she was sitting on, there was one battered armchair in the room, the ancient-looking lamp with its old-lady-style shade, a heavily scarred coffee table, and a bookcase – one shelf of which contained a row of dusty old books, while the rest seemed to be crammed with letters, yellowed newspapers, tobacco tins, and empty beer bottles. There was no TV or hi-fi, and if there was a house phone she couldn’t see it. In fact, the only thing in the room that looked as if it actually belonged in this century was a laptop that was sitting on a small table beside the armchair – and even that looked battered.
Torn from her observations by the sound of Tom’s voice floating through from the kitchen, Skye cocked her head to listen as he hissed, ‘You’re joking! What am I supposed to tell her? She thinks you’re on your way.’
He went quiet for several moments after this. Then, sounding irritated, he said, ‘All right, but you’d best get here first thing. And let me know if it gets any worse.’
Skye looked up when he walked back into the room, and gave him an innocent smile. But it quickly slipped when he said, ‘I’m really sorry about this, but Jade’s not coming. My mum’s kicked the old man out, and now she’s insisting our Jade stays with her in case he comes back and tries any funny business.’
‘Oh, right,’ she said, sitting forward. ‘I’d best go, then.’
‘You don’t have to,’ Tom assured her. ‘It’s not your fault, is it? Anyhow, Jade asked if you could stay the night, and I’ve already said yes.’
‘I don’t mind,’ Skye insisted, feeling awkward for putting him out. ‘You probably want to go to your mum.’
‘Like hell!’ Tom snorted. ‘I had enough of them when I was living there. Anyhow, it’s freezing, and I haven’t got enough petrol to get back to Manchester. It’s up to you if you fancy walking, but I’m not going out again tonight.’
Skye was torn. She desperately didn’t want to outstay her welcome, but she didn’t have a clue where they were, and the thought of trying to find her way home in the pitch dark terrified her.
‘I’ve got a spare room, if that’s what you’re worried about,’ Tom went on persuasively. ‘Jade sleeps there when she stays over, so i
t’s no problem you using it.’
Relieved that she wouldn’t have to go back out into the cold, Skye gave him a grateful smile. ‘Okay, then. Thanks.’ Then, shyly, she said, ‘Can I use the toilet, please?’
‘Course,’ Tom said. ‘Come on, I’ll show you where it is. It’s a bit of a mess, though,’ he warned as he opened another door and went out into a dark, narrow passageway.
‘It’s okay,’ Skye said as she followed him. ‘I’m used to it.’
After leading her up a steep flight of stairs, Tom pushed open a door and pulled a light cord, revealing a manky old bathroom.
‘Feel free if you want to take a bath,’ he said, stepping aside to let Skye enter. ‘It might take a while for the water to get hot, though, ’cos the boiler’s a bit knackered. That’s your room,’ he said then, pointing out a door at the other end of the landing. ‘And I think our Jade might have left some nightclothes last time she was here.’
‘Thanks,’ Skye murmured, going into the bathroom and closing the door.
She’d been desperate for a wee for ages, but when she saw the state of the toilet she wasn’t sure she wanted to sit down on it. Tom had warned her that the room was a mess, but that was an understatement. The floor was littered with soggy newspapers, socks and towels; the old bath and sink unit had deep, ingrained tidemarks, and both sets of taps looked crusted and green; the window-ledge was cram-packed with old bottles of shampoo, razors, and various other junk. As for the toilet, the upturned seat was spattered with urine stains, and there were loads of tiny hairs stuck to the rim and the basin, while the water in the filthy bowl looked dark and murky.
Unable to hold it in any longer, Skye reluctantly unzipped her jeans and hovered over the seat, but almost jumped out of her skin when Tom tapped on the door.
‘I’ve left a towel out here for you,’ he called through the wood. ‘Come down when you’re finished; I’ll make us a drink.’
Afraid Page 8
