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

lad’s a natural,’ enthused David, reaching back between the front seats to slap Max’s arm. ‘That wee toe-rag can dish it out but he can’t take it, eh? I’ve a feeling we’ve seen the last of your boogie man, folks.’

‘I’ve never hit anyone before.’ Max grinned, as if wondering what he’d been doing with his life.

‘And you never will again,’ Bram said, trying to make his voice stern as he started the engine. ‘Violence is never the answer. Is it? Max?’

‘I guess not,’ came the cheerful response.

The ‘executive bungalow’ that David and Linda called home was on a leafy street on the edge of Grantown, with views to the hills across the Millers’ garden opposite. Grantown-on-Spey was an early example of a planned town, dating from the mid-1700s, as Bram had discovered when he’d first come here with Kirsty all those years ago, although in the south of England it would have been considered a village. It definitely had the feel of a town, though, with a spacious square and lots of shops and big churches, and some very grand houses. A town in miniature. Its setting was glorious, on the edge of the Cairngorm Mountains, and the stone houses with their walled gardens and orchards in the older parts of town were perfect.

David had lived all his life surrounded by this beauty, by wonderful, gracious Victorian architecture, and decided that his dream house was an ugly bungalow faced with orange and yellow stone cladding. There was no front garden, just a huge expanse of tarmac sweeping to the door.

Horrendous. But each to his own.

As they pulled in through gateposts topped by concrete horse’s heads, David said, ‘The women don’t need to know about this.’

‘Ah, now, David – I’m not comfortable keeping secrets from Kirsty.’

‘Just think for a minute, Bram, about how she’s going to react.’

Bram thought for all of five seconds. ‘All right.’

‘Okay, so we need to get our story straight. Max got tipsy and fell over. Whacked his face on the back of a chair.’

‘Nice one,’ from Max.

‘We’ll get grief for that in itself, but it’s a whole lot better than the alternative.’ David slapped Bram’s shoulder. ‘Great night, lads, great night. Thanks for the lift.’

Max moved into the passenger seat for the journey home, eager to give Bram an account of how the fight started. ‘Finn was hell-bent on getting a rise out of me.’

‘That doesn’t mean you had to oblige him. Probably best to give him a wide berth in future. Just because we live next door to the Taylors doesn’t mean we have to socialise with them.’

‘Fine by me.’

As they pulled off the public road onto the track, Max took out his phone and used the camera function to check his face. ‘Oh good grief, look at my eye! Is it possible to get a black eye from falling onto the back of a chair?’

‘Well, I’m guessing your grandad should know.’

‘I guess he should!’

Bram negotiated the bend in the track and then eased over the little bridge.

The track seemed to leap up under the front wheels, as if they’d hit a speed bump, and then there was an almighty crash and he felt himself jolted forward, the seat belt tightening across his chest, and then flung back, his head bouncing off the headrest.

What the…?

And then his whole body was tipping back.

He yelled something, and with his left hand grabbed for Max instinctively.

What the hell was happening?

The car crashed backwards and kept on going, as if the road under them had disappeared, as if they were falling back into nothing. He slammed his right foot on the brake pedal, repeatedly, uselessly, as if that could stop this happening. As if that could stop them falling.

‘Daaad!’ Max shouted.

15

‘It was like some mad fairground ride!’ Max enthused, sitting at the table grinning up at Bram as Amy dabbed antiseptic onto the cut on his face. ‘One minute we’re tootling along and the next – bam! We’re up in the air!’

‘You’re certainly having a real run of bad luck,’ said Amy, getting up from the table to wash her hands in the water Kirsty had boiled. She was glamorous as ever in a navy silk shirt and white Capris. ‘Although I guess you could say it was good luck that neither of you was badly hurt. You’re going to have quite a black eye, though, Max.’

Bram and Max had decided to pass off Max’s injuries as having occurred during the accident. Their story was that he’d hit his face on the dashboard.

‘We can check the scene of the accident tomorrow in daylight,’ said Scott, handing his wife a towel. ‘But I doubt there’s foul play involved.’

‘I suppose that bridge must be at least a hundred years old,’ said Bram. ‘And the Discovery is a big heavy vehicle.’

Part of the bridge had collapsed, taking the back of the Discovery with it, but as it was just a little bridge across a stream, the drop had only been four feet or so. Max hadn’t been able to open his door as the Discovery had listed slightly onto that side, but he had scrambled across to the driver’s door and they’d both got out that way.

They were slightly bruised from their seat belts, but otherwise unharmed.

Bram’s first thought had been that whoever was terrorising them had done this, but he realised now that that was unlikely. Kirsty’s panicked phone call to Scott and Amy had been unnecessary, and he felt bad about dragging them out this late at night. They’d had to park on the other side of the bridge and ford the stream, although Amy had made light of this, saying she’d felt like a kid again, getting a piggy-back ride on Scott’s back.

Kirsty was banging about the kitchen putting away the contents of the dishwasher, not saying much, but Bram knew what she was thinking. Why hadn’t he checked that bridge? In their division of labour as a couple, anything home-related was Bram’s remit.

‘Your seat belt must have worked,’