“Will you look at that!” Louise exclaimed. “The kids are giving him money!”
Izzy dragged her gaze back from the dog to see several teenagers clustered about Ardknocken’s most notorious inhabitant. Neil Dunn, easily spotted by his bright red head, was holding out what looked like a large amount of cash. The ends of the notes waved around in the breeze. A moment later, Neil stuffed them back in his pocket, and Brody walked on toward the steps leading to the street.
Louise tutted disapproval. “And that on the day he dares to advertise for someone to work up at the house!”
Izzy dragged her gaze away from the ex-con. “Did he?”
“Housekeeper-stroke-cleaner,” Louise confirmed, clearly reading from memory. “That woman, Chrissy something, put it up in the post office window. I expect Mrs. Campbell will have it down by now.”
Izzy’s heart began to beat faster. Work was not easy to come by in Ardknocken. “I wonder what the hours are?”
“Flexible,” Louise said, still watching Brody as he walked along the road toward them. The dog trotted along beside him without a lead, giving only cursory sniffs to lampposts encountered en route.
“You know, I might apply,” Izzy said, trying the idea out.
Louise’s head jerked around. “Really?”
“Well, as long as I can fit the hours around Jack’s school day. Worth asking.”
“Oh no, Izzy, I wouldn’t be happy about you up there with him. With them.”
Izzy lifted her eyebrows, half-amused and half-irritated. “What are you, my mother?”
She’d never seen him this close-up before. A big man, he walked like some wild animal, she thought, all watchful, controlled strength, and not ungraceful for his size. He was also younger than she’d imagined. Rumour said he’d served ten years, but she doubted he was much more than thirty years old. And he wasn’t bad-looking either. He was lean without appearing malnourished, his well-defined cheekbones sharp, his mouth firm and unsmiling. And although his cool yet surprisingly intense eyes constantly scanned the road ahead and on either side, he managed not to look furtive, just slightly…dangerous.
Perhaps it was something to do with the scar just under his left cheek. It looked like a knife-fight injury. Gangland stuff. She shivered.
Brody disappeared into the off-licence next door. The dog sat down to wait, its ears flat, its posture mournful.
Izzy considered the prospect of working for Brody. He wouldn’t be about much, would he? It was a big house. And what danger could she possibly be in when half the village, if not the whole, would know she was working there as soon as she was offered the job? If she was offered the job.
On the other hand, criminals were not really the people she most wanted to be around. What if one of them knew Ray?
It wouldn’t matter. There was nothing to connect Izzy Ross with Raymond Kemp.
She stood up with determination. “I’ll just go and ask him about the hours.”
“Izzy, no, wait!” And since Louise bounced up to follow her, she had to summon Jack too, and so the three of them were huddled outside the tea shop door when Brody emerged from the off-licence carrying an armful of beer, the dog now jumping about him with delight.
Although he didn’t actually glance at them, she was sure his cold gaze had somehow taken them in and spat them out again. He really did look like someone who’d kill without a second thought. Even his name sounded vicious: Brody. Glenn Brody, top Glasgow ned. Was she insane asking someone like this for work?
Well, it was either that or get back on the radar. She had Jack to think about, and she needed money to tide her over the freelance dry spell. Right now, Brody’s big house of convicts seemed the lesser of two evils. She’d spoken once to the girl, Chrissy, who seemed to live up there, and she seemed okay—friendly and kind of funny.
And the man had already passed her.
“Excuse me, Mr. Brody?” she blurted before she changed her mind. Beside her, Louise made a noise like a strangled cat.
Almost to her surprise, he actually paused in midstride and turned. His gaze swept over her and locked on her face. His lips—which were rather nice lips, she noticed with surprise, not so thin and cruel as they first seemed—parted slightly, although he said nothing. He seemed genuinely astonished that anyone had dared accost him.
Izzy lifted her chin for courage. “About the job. I was wondering—”
A faint frown contracted his brow. She could have sworn his breath hitched. “What job?” Still, his gaze never left her face.
“Housekeeper-stroke-cleaner,” she said with a hint of dryness. “As advertised in the post office. I was wondering about the hours. If they’d fit with school times.”
“Bugger.” His frown deepened. “Chrissy. You need to speak to Chrissy. She must have put up the ad.”
Of all the reactions she could have got by confronting Glenn Brody in the street, she’d never expected to fluster him. With apparent effort, he dragged his gaze from her face at last, delving into his rain-jacket pocket and emerging with a pen.
“Write down your number. I’ll get Chrissy to phone you. If she still lives,” he added, almost under his breath.
Louise let out an incoherent squeak at that, which, for some reason no doubt to do with nerves, made Izzy laugh—a short, breathless sound that she tried to swallow back down. She made a noise like a hiccup instead.
“I don’t have anything to write on,” Izzy said hastily. “Louise, do you…?”
“Write it on my hand,” Brody said.
Izzy shrugged, took the pen from him and without thinking, released the struggling Jack to wrap the fingers of her free hand around Brody’s and hold it steady. Too late, she realized the peculiar intimacy. Like being at a club after too many drinks and writing your number down for a bloke you fancied, when you both knew he’d never call. She tried to concentrate on inscribing her name and number while keeping half an eye on Jack, who’d crouched down to look Brody’s dog in the eye. But even in the cold of the autumn afternoon, the large hand in hers was too warm and intriguing, the palm hard and calloused from physical work. His fingers were unexpectedly long and slim, almost elegant—apart from the ugly scars crisscrossing his knuckles like the ghosts of a thousand old fights.
Her stomach tightened. Worse, she wasn’t even sure it was all distaste, or even curiosity. As she wrote her number along the side of his hand, she could feel his eyes on her, steady, watchful.
“Can I see, can I see?” Jack demanded gleefully, springing back to his feet. The dog jumped backward, wagging its tail. “Is it a funny picture?”
Brody’s breath hissed out. It might have been a laugh. “Funnier than you might think,” he said incomprehensibly, and as Izzy let him go, he actually dropped his hand to show her handiwork to Jack.
Seeing that violent fist so close to her son’s face, Izzy tensed.
But Jack only wrinkled his nose, casting Izzy a glance of displeasure. “I’m not allowed to draw on my hands,” he complained.
“Doesn’t stop you, though, does it?” Izzy retorted, and Jack grinned up at her and then at Brody, as though sharing the joke between them.
Again Brody surprised her by the twitch of his lips into what might have been a smile. Certainly, it lightened his face and his eyes, allowing a glimpse of humour and an echo of something like long-buried fun, especially when one hooded eyelid closed in a definite conspiratorial wink.
Jack giggled. Brody lifted his gaze back to Izzy. Again that unblinking stare before he turned away with a nod and kept walking, the beer still secure under one arm.
“He likes you,” Louise said, low-voiced. She didn’t sound happy about it.
“Don’t be daft,” Izzy scoffed, grabbing Jack’s hand before he could run after his new friend. “I expect I’m just the first person in the village to speak to him voluntarily!”
“Ha. He couldn’t take his eyes off you.”
“Yes, well, there didn’t seem to be much joy in them,” Izzy said uncomfortably. “He clearly had no idea Chrissy had advertised the job, and he wasn’t happy about it. I expect it’ll fall through.”
“Well that’s the other thing,” Louise said, frowning as they all three turned and pointed their feet in the other direction. “Who is this Chrissy? I thought she was the housekeeper, so why is she looking for another one?”
“Maybe she’s his girlfriend. Or his wife. Or she’s leaving.”
“Well, if she disappears,” Louise said darkly, “you are not taking that job!”
Glenn was halfway up the hill to Ardknocken House before he realized he didn’t even know her name. He’d been struggling with his brain and his libido, trying to make sense of the fact that the girl in his vision actually lived here. Had he subconsciously seen her before and conjured up a sexual fantasy out of her?
She was certainly fantasy material. Even in worn if figure-hugging jeans and the inevitable rain jacket, her body clearly went in and out in all the most alluring places, enticing any red-blooded man to seek out more detail. More than that, he liked the way her eyes laughed and that she seemed to get his minor, throwaway jokes, even when her friend was almost calling the police on him. He liked the hidden depths behind her big, brown eyes, depths he knew could swarm with passion when the right man was inside her…
She’s a stranger, pervert, he told himself severely. A stranger, moreover, who wanted to work for him! Bloody Chrissy. He’d only agreed to think about a cleaner, not to conduct sodding interviews. If he wasn’t careful, she’d fill the whole house up with people he didn’t want there—housekeepers, cooks, television crews and assorted other nosy and annoying bastards. His haven would be breached.
Well, he’d breached it himself as soon as he invited Dougie and Charlie to stay. He’d voluntarily invited the other ex-cons too, and Chrissy. And there’d be more in the New Year. He hadn’t bought the house to be a recluse, so there was no point in pretending now. It was just hard to share the space when he felt it slipping from his control. He never intended to let anything about his life slip out of his own control again.
Perhaps that was why the dreams bothered him. He didn’t decide when to have these fantasies. They just came at him and churned him up. What if he dreamed of her when she was actually here, actually in the same room?
He burned just thinking about it. Burying himself in her, losing himself in her, fucking her to release after release…
Arsehole, he castigated himself and almost savagely dragged his hand out of his pocket, shoving it in front of his face. With a name, surely, the fantasy died.
“Izzy,” he read aloud into the wind. No surname, just a nickname and a phone number. “What the hell are you doing in my head?”
What were any of the waking dreams doing in his head? Most of them seemed to mean nothing at all. Occasionally, he did see people he knew, but rarely in any situation that came true—as far as he ever found out. Apart from Tommy, dead in the bath. But then, he’d put Tommy there and cut his dead throat with a razor, just to make sure the cops got that it was a gangland killing.
He walked faster, swinging his arms, trying to blot out the odd, uncomfortable memories of déjà vu that sometimes troubled him. Like when that poor bastard in the next cell had died with a pillow over his face. Or even more trivial things like a library book falling to the floor, the thud echoing in the sudden silence. He’d made no effort to work out why such events had felt so familiar, probably because he’d been afraid he’d remember dreams from long ago.
Maybe, as his mother had seemed to hint, the dreams were of possible futures, most of which never happened. But what if some of them did? What if his dreams of this girl, Izzy, came true?
Oh Jesus, don’t even think about it. It’s never going to happen.
Then why the hell did he dream of her so often? And always making love to her…
Izzy and Jack both had library books to change, so Louise tagged along with them into the High Street. Although they strolled along the opposite side of the road from the pub—known as The Auld Hoose, although the sign above the door said The Red Lion—for some reason, Izzy glanced across just as the doors opened and two strangers walked out.
Izzy’s step faltered, causing Louise to follow her gaze with curiosity. “Who are—wait a minute, that’s her, the TV presenter, Fiona Marr!”
“So it is,” Izzy said, recovering quickly. Neither Fiona nor the man with her had looked their way, and even if they had, the one awful dinner party at which they’d met four years ago was hardly likely to be at the forefront of Fiona Marr’s memory. “Wonder what she’s doing here?”
“Well she’s not staying at the B&B,” Louise said dryly, twisting around as she walked to peer over her shoulder. “They’re getting into a big, posh car… And there they go. Must be on their way somewhere more interesting.”
The trouble was, Ardknocken wasn’t on the way to anywhere more interesting. The main road to Mallaig and Fort William passed five miles from the village. Which was one reason Louise’s family’s bed-and-breakfast didn’t do so well. You had to deliberately seek Ardknocken out and value quiet and solitude, because there was damn all to do except fish and walk. All of this suited Izzy just fine, but it certainly didn’t fit with what she knew of Fiona Marr, an ambitious and clever journalist who’d climbed to increasing fame, and not just because the camera loved her beauty. She was smart and perceptive too.
Jack tugged her arm, dragging her into the library entrance. He was keen to try out his new reading skills on more than picture books.
As usual at this time of the day, the library was quiet. Morag, the librarian, whom Izzy counted as a friend, was sitting back in her wheeled chair, easing back and forward from her desk, where Harry MacConnell leaned in idle chat.
Both faces broke into smiles as Izzy’s little horde burst into the peace.
Morag sat forward to reach over the desk and give Jack a high five. Jack slapped her hand, grinned and dashed off to the children’s section.
“Guess who we’ve just seen?” Louise could hardly wait to impart the news. “Fiona Marr! She came out of the Auld Hoose!”
Morag blinked. “I’m not surprised. I wouldn’t stay in there either unless I’d nowhere else to go.”
“Exactly,” Louise agreed. “So what was she doing there in the first place?”
“Asking directions?” Morag suggested, accepting Izzy’s books and scanning them back in.
“Nope,” Harry said unexpectedly. “They were asking questions about the big house and Glenn Brody. I know because I was there.”
“Oh!” Louise’s eyes began to shine. “A crime feature—‘Ardknocken gets too hot for Glasgow gangster’.”
“You’re wasted in this village,” Morag observed. “You should write headlines for the Herald.”
“No she shouldn’t,” Harry teased. “She makes too many presumptions. They weren’t really interested in Brody’s past. They’re interested in his ghost.”
“God knows why,” Morag said. “He only shares it with every other big house in Scotland. Does no one ever wonder why all our ghosts are Mary, Queen of Scots?”
Izzy smiled. “Restless spirits travel,” she pointed out. “I did hear something about the ghost when I first moved here.”
“Aye, the big house is haunted,” Louise said with relish. “Not so keen on the job now, are you?”
“What job?” Morag and Harry asked together, and were quickly filled in—largely by Louise—on the advertisement and Izzy’s slightly odd conversation with Brody.
Morag nodded thoughtfully.
Harry frowned. “Are things really that bad?”
“Well, I’ve no more contracts lined up until January,” Izzy said. “So, yes, I need to make contingencies.”
Izzy shook her head decisively. “Thanks, Harry, but no. Fort William’s too difficult just now with Jack just at school.”
“Yes, but cleaning, Izzy. And there,” Harry protested. “Definitely the wrong move.”
Irritated by his certainty as well as by his air of authority—as if she couldn’t possibly do this job now he’d spoken against it—Izzy turned away with a shrug. “We’ll see,” she said distantly and wandered off to the bookshelves to find herself some light reading.
“She’s just waiting on the girl, Chrissy, from the big house to phone her,” Louise explained behind her. “She isn’t committed to anything.”
Although if they didn’t all shut up about it, Izzy thought irritably, she might pursue it for spite.
“Chrissy’s okay,” Morag pronounced. “She comes in here sometimes, gets mysteries, romances and books on cooking.”
“Is her other name Brody?” Louise asked.
Morag laughed. “No, it’s Lennox. But he—Brody—comes in sometimes too.”
“Martial arts and slasher thrillers?” Harry suggested.
“Biographies and music,” Morag said apologetically. “And a couple of more literary thrillers. Plus he orders How to books—and I don’t mean How to Murder Your Housekeeper-stroke-Cleaner without the Entire Village Knowing about It.”
Izzy laughed from behind the paperback stand. “What’s he like?” She felt she could ask now Morag had broken the ice of disapproval and her own reluctance to feel remotely interested. But hell, if she was going to work for the guy, she had to be interested.
Morag thought about it. “Unexpected,” she said. “Quiet, polite. Ignores blatant rudeness and whispering. May have a sense of humour—I did catch a flash of amusement in his eyes once, although it wasn’t exactly a smile. But I wouldn’t like to piss him off.”
In His Wildest Dreams Page 2
