No Place Like Home by Jane Renshaw (the best electronic book reader .TXT) 📗

with the police. Linda had called earlier to say that Phoebe was in quite a state and was desperate to come home. And Max also wanted to come back. It had surprised Bram to hear that Phoebe wanted to come home. Despite all their reassurances that it was just naughty boys and the police would sort them out, he’d assumed she’d be glad to be far away from the ‘psychopath’ – but Phoebe had never really settled at David and Linda’s in the two months they’d spent there, always wanting to know ‘When will our house be ready?’

Of course she wanted to come home, but was it safe?

Bram could only lift his shoulders, helplessly.

He didn’t know.

He didn’t know what to do.

‘Okay,’ said Kirsty briskly, standing up. ‘I’ll ask Scott what he thinks.’

Bram trailed her back down the stairs and outside and round the house to where the others were still standing. He watched Kirsty walk up to them. He watched her speak to Scott, saw Scott’s slight smile as he turned to her. His hand, momentarily, going to touch her back.

David was listening to their conversation, nodding along to what Scott was saying, looking from Scott to Kirsty and back. David obviously had a lot of respect for Scott. His dream scenario would probably be Bram high-tailing it back to Islington, Scott leaving his wife and getting together with Kirsty. He’d be a great stepfather for Phoebe and, particularly, Max. A great role model for the lad.

The thought that flashed across Bram’s mind was so outrageous, so awful, that he dismissed it immediately: that it was David. That David had shot at him in the wood, that David had left the heart in the risotto pan. David had a key, after all, to the house. Bram was positive he’d locked the front door.

But David would never have hurt Bertie. He adored that dog.

Maybe he hadn’t. Maybe it was just kids who’d shot the crows, who’d accidentally shot Bertie. And David had used what had happened to his own ends, to escalate it, to terrorise Bram into leaving. Even Kirsty as a single parent would presumably be preferable to Kirsty lumbered with Bram.

No. David would never terrorise his beloved grandkids. Never.

Bram crossed the gravel to join them. David had stopped nodding along, he noted, and was standing with his feet apart, Henry VIII style.

‘Scott thinks it’s okay for the kids to come back,’ said Kirsty.

‘I’ve arranged for a patrol car to come by every few hours through the night,’ said Scott. ‘Not that I think you’re in any actual physical danger. This has bored wee yobs written all over it.’

‘How can you be sure they’re harmless?’ Bram objected. ‘They broke into the house!’

‘The door was unlocked. If they’d intended to actually hurt you, they had a golden opportunity, which they didn’t take. I’m not saying they’re harmless, Bram. Of course I’m not. Intimidation like this is harm in itself. When we get them, they’ll be charged with harassment, don’t you worry. The courts will slap a restraining order on them.’

David shook his head. ‘Bram’s right.’ Everyone looked at him, as if they thought they’d misheard. David grimaced, almost apologetically, but he went on: ‘What use is a patrol car calling by a few times in a night? Will they be detaching their arses from the car seats at all? How do they expect to catch the toe-rags by driving up and down the track a few times?’

‘It’s more the deterrent value. When they see there’s a police presence, they’re not likely to come anywhere near the place. The patrol car will call by here, and also Benlervie.’

‘Have you let the Taylors know what’s happened?’

Scott nodded, as two of the techie guys came down the verandah steps, one carrying a box that presumably contained their kit.

‘Okay folks, all done,’ one of them said.

‘So we can use the kitchen?’ said Kirsty.

‘Yeah, go ahead.’

‘Let’s have a cup of tea. And I don’t know about you, Bram, but I’m starving.’

They hadn’t been able to access the kitchen since it happened. Scott – who thought of bloody everything – had appeared bright and early this morning with a thermos of coffee and a couple of vegetarian pasties. But that was hours ago.

In the kitchen, the blackened pan was sitting on the worktop. Presumably they’d taken away the heart and the burnt rice. Before he filled the kettle, Bram put the pan in the sink and skooshed Fairy Liquid into it. Not that he wanted to use that pan ever again. But maybe he could donate it to a charity shop.

He turned on the hot tap and water gushed through the mixer into the pan. Then he got the kettle, shut off the hot tap and turned on the cold one.

Nothing happened.

The mixer tap just shuddered.

The techs must have shut off the water for some reason. Bram opened the cupboard under the sink and found the stopcock. He tried to turn it anticlockwise, but it wouldn’t budge. It was already turned on.

Oh, great. This was all they needed.

‘Got a problem here, guys. There’s no water.’

Sylvia was practically wringing her hands, standing in the kitchen frowning at the taps as if she could will the water back. ‘I’m so sorry. After everything else that’s happened…’

‘We’ve never had a dry spell like this, in all the years we’ve been here,’ Andrew added defensively, arms crossed above his belly. ‘Seems the spring just isn’t adequate for two households in the summer. A summer like this, anyway. Climate change, I suppose…’

Woodside’s water supply was shared with Benlervie’s. It came from a spring, apparently, that filled an underground tank on Benlervie’s ground. But the spring, Andrew had informed them, had dried to a trickle.

‘It couldn’t have been sabotaged, could it?’ asked Bram.

Andrew looked at him blankly. ‘Sabotaged?’

Scott shook his head. ‘How would someone go about sabotaging a spring?’

Bram could only shrug.

‘I’m afraid we’re going to have to ask you to make other arrangements,’ Andrew went on. ‘There was a clause, you’ll remember,