Storm Child (Dangerous Friends Book 3)

by Jennifer Young

  I put off phoning home for as long as I could. Once Marcus had dealt with the locksmith and returned to leave me a spare set of keys, I dragged him down to the supermarket. As I was a vegetarian and he an unreconstructed carnivore, I made him spend longer than he deemed necessary assessing the merits of different sorts of sweet pepper, without letting him get anywhere near the meat aisle. I spun it out by insisting on another coffee, this time standing up at the Waitrose coffee bar, then as a last resort I invited him back to help me unpack the shopping.

  ‘You’ll ring and tell them tonight,’ he insisted, as we shared a delicious, lingering goodbye on my front doorstep.

  ‘Yes. Of course.’ I stole another kiss from him, seizing the excuse to put off the moment of doom yet further.

  ‘Such a lovely young man,’ said Alice, my elderly neighbour, arriving back from her Tuesday bridge marathon at a most inopportune time and scaring Marcus off back home with her close attentions and unnecessary chat. ‘You’re so lucky to have him, Bronte. He reminds me very much of my Frank when we first met.’

  Alice had a picture of her late husband as a young man on her mantlepiece. His long face, stiff moustache, and receding hairline, bore no resemblance to Marcus’s modern, blue-eyed good looks, but I supposed the suggestion signified her approval. Whatever my parents might say when they found out about him, it was reassuring to know that there were still some people in the world who didn’t think law and order was a thoroughly disreputable profession. ‘He does his best.’

  She may actually have been his biggest fan. ‘I can’t tell you how reassuring it was to know there was someone like him living locally when all that G8 nonsense was going on last summer. You don’t see the police on the beat any more, even with the headquarters just over the road. But I always know that if I need anyone, he’s there to help. And he was so good to you when you had all those terrible problems, and you got knocked off your bike that time—’

  A shiver, unbidden and unwelcome, rippled through me, even in the spring sunshine. Marcus had only put himself to all that effort to get me out of difficulties which were of his making. That was what would put us both to the test when my parents encountered the inconvenient truth that I was in love with a plain clothes officer. They loved a blame game, and here was one they would be desperate to play. The more I thought about it, the more I dreaded their response, and all I’d done by delaying was to make it worse.

  ‘Bronte?’ Alice was looking at me with concern.

  ‘Sorry, Alice. I just remembered something I have to do.’ I dared put it off no longer. ‘I’d better go. I need to make a phone call.’

  ‘Aren’t you at work? I thought it was this week you were starting your new job.’

  ‘No, I started last week, but Marcus and I were away for the weekend and got caught up in the snow. We only just got back.’ I suppressed a sigh. That wasn’t an auspicious start to what I hoped would be a satisfying career.

  ‘What is the new job, then?’ Determined to keep me talking, Alice planted her walking stick firmly on the path and leaned on it with intent.

  ‘It’s a refugee charity.’ I backed towards the door.

  ‘Oh.’ Alice’s hazy right-wing views were sometimes at odds with her inherent goodness. Charity, for her, began at home. Better not to tell her quite how radical this charity was. ‘It’s always good to help people.’

  ‘Yes. I suppose I’d better go in and get ready for work now. I’ll have to go in early tomorrow to catch up.’ It was with relief that I escaped her chat. Alice, though good-natured and well-intentioned, wasn’t always easy conversation.

  But of course, in fleeing one difficult situation, I’d only placed myself in another. I stood for a moment in the hallway, my phone in my hand, thinking of Marcus. I hated letting him go, wished I could surrender my soul to him. I was incomplete without his good nature, his sound good sense and his understanding, but I didn’t dare love him. And I knew how my family would react when they found out.

  But he was right. I had to come clean. It was the only way to stop torturing myself with his mistakes and mine, to free myself from the constant act of emotional self-harm that came from picking over the past.

  Half past four. I daren’t leave it any later, because if I did my dad would be back from work and I’d calculated that my best chance — possibly my only one — of winning him over was to have a quiet word with my mother first. Nevertheless, I hesitated a moment longer. In that earlier chaotic past, I’d been a radical activist, verging on an anarchist and in my journey away from it, I’d been exposed to fear, violence, and death, but nothing had ever scared me as much as the prospect of confessing all to my mother.

  What if I didn’t? Marcus was patient, but he had his pride. He wouldn't wait forever while I spun my life in parallel paths, never touching. If I didn’t do it, I’d lose him — and that would destroy me. He meant more to me than I dared admit, and I already had too much forgiveness to seek.

  I held the phone in my hand for a few moments longer, then dialled. Listened to the tone and the click as my mother answered. ‘Bronte. What a pleasant surprise.’

  ‘Mum, hi.’ I caught my breath. ‘Sorry I never called you over the weekend. I was away walking up in the hills with a friend, and there was no signal.’

  Away with a friend. I’d fallen at the first hurdle. It wasn’t even as if I hadn’t been rehearsing the words all afternoon, come up with the perfect, bland, overdone script. There’s someone I want you to meet. Someone special. You won’t approve, but give him a chance, for my sake.

  ‘Never mind,’ said Mum, for once taking my words at their precise face value. ‘I think Eilidh mentioned you were away. Did you have a good time?’

  ‘We didn’t get much walking done. We got caught up in all that snow.’ No, I wouldn’t explain the details of our adventure. If I did, it would become a stick to beat me with, another reason why my relationship with Marcus wasn’t right for me. They’d blame him for getting me mixed up in it, though it was the one calamity to befall me in the past couple of years that hadn’t, to some degree, been his fault.

  I took a long, deep breath. Everything that was bad in my life seemed to have something to do with Marcus. And I should expect my parents to hold him responsible, because deep down, I blamed him for it myself. We couldn’t change that, so we’d have to manage it.

  ‘We even had snow down here,’ my mum carried on, blithely ignorant of my inner turmoil, over-riding my uncharacteristic silence.

  The suburbs of Glasgow rarely saw snow. ‘Was it fun?’ I asked, my voice fainter as what was left of my courage fled.

  ‘The boys made a real mess,’ she said, crisp as ever, ‘trying to get snowballs in through the kitchen window. But they cleaned it up. They need to remember they aren’t kids any more.’

  I could do with remembering that myself. Gathering my courage, I broke into the flow of domestic trivia. ‘There’s another reason why I’m calling.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Yes. I can’t come across for Sunday lunch at the weekend, either. I’ve got something on, and I’m really busy. Because we got stuck. There was a problem with the car, so we didn’t get back until this afternoon. I’ve missed two days at work and I really need to catch up, if I want to make a good impression.’

  ‘That’s a pity.’ She set great store by the family Sunday lunch, but I was the one who was most often the truant, so she could hardly have been that surprised. ‘When will you pop over again? It feels as though we haven’t seen you for ages.’

  I’d get a warm welcome when I did. That was the price I’d have to pay for keeping too many secrets. ‘I don’t know. I don’t suppose you want to come over to Edinburgh on Saturday, do you? We could go up and have afternoon tea at the Balmoral, or something.’ Which wasn’t at all what I’d meant to say. ‘It would be my treat.’

  Another pause, while she thought it through, picking apart what my real meaning could possibly be. ‘That would be lovely. Perhaps we could see i
f Eilidh’s over in Edinburgh, too. Then she could come along.’

  My inquisitive older sister was definitely not part of the plan. She knew me too well, was someone else I loved dearly but didn’t trust. ‘I thought it would be nice if it was just the two of us.’

  ‘Oh.’ She never did seem quite to grasp the relationship between her daughters — fierce loyalty at one level, and cut-throat competition at another. In her world, sisters were ready-made best friends. She only had brothers. ‘That would be lovely. Any particular reason?’

  ‘It’s just that it’s been such a long time since we had a proper chat. And I’m dying to tell you all about the new job. You know Dad wouldn’t really be interested.’

  ‘Your father is not a fan of radical politics,’ she observed crisply. ‘Of course I’ll come over. I’ll get the half one train, and meet you at the station about quarter past two. How does that sound?’

  ‘Perfect. I’ll see you then.’

  I stood looking out of the window for a moment or two while I got my breath back, and then I called Marcus. ‘I sort of did the deed.’

  ‘Oh — only sort of?’ he said, with wariness in his tone. ‘How did it go?’

  ‘I lost my nerve.’ I shook my head, disgusted with myself. ‘But I won’t give up. I really won’t give up. I’m meeting my mum for afternoon tea on Saturday, and I promise — this time, I really do promise — that I’ll tell her everything.’

  Chapter 10

  ‘So, you’ve turned up at last? I was expecting you back on Monday.’

  Swinging around in his chair to face his boss, Marcus was quick to recognise a joke. Detective Superintendent Nerissa Doherty had a voice that could crackle with exasperation one moment and poke gentle fun another. He got on well with her, though many of his colleagues didn’t, but they all agreed on one thing — she was a ruthlessly effective police officer, if a controversial one, and she always delivered.

  ‘I was due back. It didn’t work out that way.’

  From the doorway, she treated him to her coolest, most appraising stare. ‘For a terrible moment, when I came in to see how you were on Monday, I thought you may have decided not to come back.’

  Nerissa forgot nothing, not a conversation or a hint, not the slightest thing that could ever prove useful to her or to anyone else. Before he’d been hurt, he’d thought about leaving the police. ‘Oh, that. No. You don’t get rid of me that easily.’

  ‘Bronte doesn’t mind you doing the job then?’ Nerissa’s success was based on knowing, or guessing, everything.

  ‘She hates it.’ He’d never told Nerissa his reasons for considering resigning, and now it was clear that he’d had no need. ‘But she realises that it’s important to me. And now she’s got a job with some mad-eyed radical charity that’s determined to stir up controversy at all costs, and I hate that. So, neither of us can realistically complain about the other. It’s as you were.’

  Nerissa let that part of the conversation slide, with the slightest shake of her head. ‘The important thing is that you’re back in harness. I was a little concerned when you didn’t show up. Are you sure you’re well?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ he said dryly. ‘I’ve just had four months off work. Why wouldn’t I be raring to go?’

  Nerissa shrugged. ‘Injuries like yours — less serious than yours — have made many an officer reconsider their future in the force. I’m sure you’re tired of people telling you, but it won’t do any harm to repeat it. Just take it easy for a little bit.’

  ‘They tell me I’m as fit as a flea.’

  ‘I’m sure you are. But there are psychological effects of staring down the barrel of a gun. Don’t think I don’t know that. I’ve done it. It’s just that when it happened to me they never pulled the trigger. So, I don’t want you thinking you’ve got anything to prove. You don’t.’

  Nerissa never wasted words, never played around before coming to the point. Sometimes Marcus thought Bronte, who instinctively disliked her, could learn a little from her in that respect. ‘Okay. Point taken.’

  ‘Good.’ Her duty of care discharged, she relaxed. ‘So, what’s this latest little adventure you and that young woman of yours managed to get tangled up in?’

  ‘A car accident. We came off the road.’ Marcus summarised it to his boss, as he had done to his colleagues when he’d phoned in about his absence, but it rang as hollow in his head the second time as it had done the first.

  ‘The trouble with you, Marcus, is that every time I hear someone talking about you I immediately assume that somebody, somewhere, is up to no good.’ Severe in every respect, Nerissa shook her head at him. ‘But at least that wasn’t the case this time. A straightforward accident.’ Her phone pinged with a notification, and she looked down at it with a scowl.

  Marcus tapped his forefinger on the desk. The niggling doubt in his mind wouldn’t go away, and now here was Nerissa, unwittingly prodding away at it. On impulse, he made his mind up. He would confide. ‘No. I don’t believe it was.’

  Her attention had switched from him to the phone, but at this she snapped back to him. ‘I’ve heard the story already. You swerved to avoid a deer and came off the road. Is that it?’

  ‘That’s the start of it.’

  Interest piqued, she thrust the phone back into her picket, its message unanswered, and lifted a quizzical eyebrow. ‘Go on.’

  ‘When we came off the road, we discovered someone else out in the storm — some poor kid not equipped for the conditions, in a bad way. And then another car came along, and two men took that person off in the car with them. Leaving us behind.’

  ‘In the blizzard?’

  ‘Yes. They said they’d send help, which you’d imagine meant dialling 999 as soon as they got a signal. They didn’t.’

  Nerissa had seen a lot in her years in the force, but he’d surprised her. Her expression registered astonishment. ‘Have you seriously stopped to think about what you’re suggesting?’

  He pushed his chair back and stood up. Outside, the sun shone, but the near-fatal sting of blown snow still haunted him. Earlier, when he’d turned the confused events of the weekend over in his mind, he’d failed to convince himself of their innocence. Now, in Nerissa’s challenging presence, malice seemed the obvious, the only explanation. ‘Yes. I’m suggesting that two complete strangers left Bronte and me to freeze to death in a blizzard.’

  ‘That’s a very serious allegation.’ She, too, stood up, confronting him.

  ‘Yes. I know.’

  ‘You can’t make that kind of accusation without substantiating it. It sounds to me as if you’re pinning your conclusion on a series of coincidences.’

  ‘That’s exactly what I thought, to begin with. But the more I think of it, the more it makes sense.’

  She stared at him in uncharacteristic perplexity, before seeking refuge in some kind of corroborative evidence. ‘Does Bronte agree with you?’

  ‘I haven’t said anything. I didn’t want to worry her. But now it’s pretty obvious to me. There were no coincidences.’

  ‘None?’ she asked him, but there was doubt in her voice. Like Marcus himself, Nerissa was sceptical of too convenient a coincidence.

  ‘One. I’ll allow you one. But I’ll come to that one later.’

  ‘If there’s one,’ she decided, reviewing the limited version of events available to her, ‘it has to be the first one. The deer.’

  ‘No. The kid we found was trying to get up to the road. He must have heard us coming, or seen the lights. He tried to get up to the road to flag us down. The weather had driven the deer down to low levels.’ In their afternoon’s walk, he and Bronte had seen plenty of deer, watching them with suspicion and taking off at any unexpected movement. ‘Maybe he called out, or moved suddenly. Whatever happened, he startled them. That’s why they came onto the road so suddenly when they did.’

  He had her full attention. The neat interlocking of apparently distinct facts appealed to her orderly mind, everything related by caus
e and effect. She ran her fingers through her short red hair. ‘Go on. The car coming along. That’s the only coincidence.’

  ‘I don’t believe so. Whoever he was, and whatever he was doing there, I think they were looking for him.’

  ‘Impossible,’ she said, but he could see she was beginning to believe him.

  ‘Not at all. They were surprised to see us, but they didn’t seem remotely surprised to see him. They never asked who he was. They never asked if he was with us. They took him, and they put him in the car. They could have taken us with them. But no. They drove off and they said they’d send help. And they didn’t.’

  ‘Even if they had,’ she said, half to herself, ‘your chances of survival weren’t good.’

  ‘No. That’s the only coincidence — that when Bronte managed to get me to the cottage, there was someone there who knew what to do.’ His lips curled up in a smile, the way they always did when he thought of Bronte, her actions betraying the love for him which she refused to confess.

  ‘You have the luck of the devil,’ she said, almost admiringly. ‘You really do. It’s a plausible story to me, Marcus, when you put it like that. But you have no evidence.’

  ‘No,’ he said, with regret, ‘none.’

  She thought for a moment. ‘Leave it with me. I think I’ll go and see if I can get hold of one of my colleagues in Perth. Pop in to my office in ten minutes or so.’ She whisked out of the room.

  He sat for a while, picking through his emails, and it took him all his self-discipline not to turn up back at her office before the ten minutes were up. Now that he’d come out with his theory, now that Nerissa, whose judgment he respected, appeared to credit it, he was impatient to pursue it. And to find the answer: why?

  She was on the phone when he tapped at the door, and waved him in, gesturing him to take a seat, which he declined. ‘Yes, I’m aware of that.’ She rolled her pale hazel eyes in obvious frustration. ‘Sergeant Fleming is one of my best officers. I don’t have any doubts about what happened. I’m trying to get to the bottom of why. No…well, thank you for what you’ve been able to find out. I’d be grateful if you could let me know if you hear anything else.’ She dropped the phone down in its cradle with a scowl.