Page 54 of Final Betrayal

Now it was up to Rose Fitzpatrick to play her part and deliver the second piece of the message.

And then the serious business could begin.

He’d forgotten to get the milk. But she was already asleep when he returned home, so he went straight to his room. He needed a shower, but the exertions of the last few hours had drained his energy. He stripped naked and lay on the hard mattress.

He hadn’t bothered to draw the curtains. The lights from the road shone in on the walls, and he stared at a myriad of cobwebs clinging to the light bulb in the ceiling. Just like him, clinging on to reality.

Her deep green eyes were everywhere. Her sharp nose and inquisitive lips. And the eyes. They were what he remembered most clearly. How she’d peered at him from the witness box while she stood there telling her lies. She knew they were lies, because he knew the truth.

His fingers cramped from the cold and his toes were freezing. The Raynaud syndrome was back. It was too cold to get back out of bed to fetch socks. Pulling the thin blanket up to his neck, he thought of her again. Lottie Parker. And her coven of witches who had conspired against him.

Lying awake, he tried to think up new ways to make them pay for the ten years of his life that were lost for ever.

The shower was too hot, but Tony stood under it, scrubbing and scrubbing until his skin was almost raw. When he was sure he was clean, he stepped out and wrapped a towel around his waist, letting the air cool his throbbing flesh.

He missed her. On nights like this, he craved the sheen of her flesh against his. The aroma of their lovemaking. The taste of her body. The loving look in her eyes. No. Stop. She never had a loving look in her eyes. Derision and disgust. That was all he ever witnessed in the blackness. And now it made him shiver and his skin shrivel.

Eventually he dried himself, switched off the shower and the light, and padded flat-footed and naked to bed.

Bernie had left hours ago, but Rose still sat in the same position.

What was she going to do? She had to tell Lottie. But how?

She bit down on her already shredded nails and shook her head. In all her seventy-odd years, with everything that had happened to her, she had never experienced the anguish and terror that she now felt.

She could not tell Lottie what Bernie had said. But at the same time, she had to protect her daughter and her grandchildren.

She sat and pulled at her nails until the sky slowly began to light up the kitchen once again.

TWENTY-EIGHT

The sky on Wednesday morning was more beautiful than Lottie had seen it all week. Though it was dawn, a few golden rays broke through the trees where birds perched. Tiny flies flitted in the half-light. But she could not shed the unease sitting between her shoulder blades.

She picked up the bag holding the seeds she’d gathered from her doorstep last night. Must be about fifty of them, she thought. Did the number mean something? Or was it an indiscriminate figure, meant only to confuse her as she tried to decipher the significance? It was enough to know that her half-sister had been that close to her home, to her children and grandson. She’d left her calling card.

The warmth and comfort of her new home was suddenly distilled into darkness as a shudder of trepidation crawled up her vertebrae. Stop. No way was she letting that woman ruin her new-found happiness. Ghosts had plagued her life for long enough. She was not returning to that monstrous dungeon of despair and uncertainty.

‘Damn you, Bernie,’ she said.

‘What?’

Lottie swung around. ‘Katie! Oh my God, you scared the life out of me.’

‘Sorry, Mam.’ Katie opened the cupboard and extracted a box of cereal.

‘What has you up this early? I didn’t hear Louis wake.’

Katie sat at the table and shoved a handful of cornflakes into her mouth. ‘It’s not Louis.’

‘Don’t talk with your mouth full, and what’s wrong with getting a bowl and spoon?’

Pushing the cereal box across the table, Katie clenched her hands and lowered her chin to her chest without reply.

Dragging out a chair, Lottie sat in front of her eldest child and wrapped her hands around Katie’s. ‘What is it? You can tell me.’

‘It’s okay. It’s nothing.’

‘You’re not pregnant, are you?’ The possibility caused Lottie’s heart to lurch in her chest. No way could she handle that scenario.

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