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

‘Yes, I’ve seen the crime reports. We’ll be looking into that possibility, of course, but as you say, hopefully this is just a case of a young man who’s maybe had a bit too much to drink and not made it home.’

Bram had nodded. ‘Yes, well, I hope you find him soon.’

‘Mum, are you okay?’ Phoebe said now in a small voice.

‘I’m fine, darling.’ Kirsty smiled at her. ‘Just didn’t get much sleep last night.’

‘Are you okay, Max?’ Phoebe persisted. ‘Are you worried about Finn?’

‘Yeah,’ was all Max said in response. He was still in the boxers and T-shirt he wore in bed. He was staring off, a punch-drunk expression on his face.

When they’d all eaten and Bram was clearing up the breakfast things, there was another ring at the door.

It was the male PC. ‘Wondering about your shed. You looked in there?’

‘Yes, he’s definitely not in the shed,’ said Bram. ‘I was working in there this morning, before I heard from Sylvia that he was missing. But come and take a look if you want.’

As Bram strode across the grass towards the shed, the two cops at his side, he felt weirdly unconcerned, weirdly calm. It was almost as if he wanted them to find the blood. To discover what had happened. To take it all out of his hands.

He didn’t even pretend to have mislaid the key. He took it from his pocket and inserted it into the padlock. Pushed open the door.

Paint fumes assaulted them.

‘Phew.’ The female cop smiled at him. ‘Looks like there’s been a riot in a paint factory in here!’

Bram smiled. ‘Yeah, I’m not the handiest of DIYers, it has to be said. Knocked over the tin of paint while I was–’ While he was what? What had he been painting?

‘Aye, paint’s a bugger,’ said her colleague. ‘At least it was in the shed and not all over the new carpets, eh? Been there, done that.’

‘Feel free to look around.’

‘Nah, you’re all right.’ And as Bram closed and locked the door: ‘Thanks very much, Mr Hendriksen. We’d better get off to the next place on the list.’

Bram could hardly look at David. He’d thought he didn’t have any energy left for any more emotion, but the hatred that surged to the surface whenever he looked at the man threatened to overwhelm him afresh. If David hadn’t put such pressure on Bram to step up, would this ever have happened?

And David, he was sure, suspected something. He’d seemed on edge ever since he’d got here, alerted by Max to Finn’s disappearance. They’d all been out there helping to search the woods, apart from Kirsty who’d stayed in the house with Phoebe. After they’d had something to eat they would have to go back out again, Bram supposed. But at least he hadn’t had to speak to Andrew again. A police constable had issued them with hi-vis tabards and told them which part of the wood to search. And then everyone had spread out, so Bram didn’t have to interact with anyone.

Nothing had been found, of course. Apart from a couple of dead badgers.

Now David was prowling around the kitchen, then sitting down with the rest of them, then getting up to resume his prowling. Fraser was slumped at the table nursing a cup of coffee. Could Kirsty and Bram’s drawn faces, their traumatised expressions be explained by the late night, from David’s point of view? And the worry, maybe, about the intruder? And now Finn’s disappearance? Or had David worked out that there was something else going on?

‘There was talk amongst some of the searchers,’ said David finally. ‘Speculation that the lad might have encountered the joker who’s been messing with you. PC said they were following that up as a line of enquiry.’

Phoebe, thank goodness, was up in her room, but Max was sitting next to Fraser, poking at the salad on his plate. His head snapped up.

‘It’s possible, I suppose,’ said Kirsty numbly.

Max looked like he was going to cry.

‘I’m sure he’ll be found safe and sound,’ Bram said briskly.

‘We should get back out there,’ said Fraser, but with no enthusiasm.

Kirsty got up abruptly from the table, widening her eyes at Bram to telegraph that she needed to talk to him. Up in their bedroom, she went to the wall of glass in the gable and stood looking out at the wood, where someone in a yellow tabard was walking slowly along the edge of the trees. ‘I’m going to get some bits of shopping. I’ll dispose of the cameras in a bin at the supermarket.’ She turned away from the view. ‘Does Scott know about the cameras? Does anyone else, apart from us, and Mum and Dad and Fraser?’

‘Well, we had notices up saying we had CCTV, but that could have been a bluff. No. I don’t think anyone else knows we actually put cameras up – not unless David or Fraser or Linda mentioned them to Scott or something.’

‘What if Mum or Dad or Fraser asks about them?’ She rubbed her face. Picked at the dry skin at the side of her mouth.

‘We can say they were stolen,’ Bram suggested. ‘We didn’t let on because we didn’t want Phoebe to worry that we didn’t have cameras covering the house.’

A door banged downstairs, and a woman shouted: ‘Where are they?’

And then a man: ‘Sylvia!’ That was Andrew Taylor.

Footsteps pounded on the stairs and then the bedroom door was flung open and a mad woman was launching herself at them, grabbing Bram, shaking him, her eyes wild. He barely recognised Sylvia Taylor.

‘Where is he? What have you done to him?’

She knew? But how?

‘Sylvia!’ Andrew came into the room and took hold of his wife from behind, trying to pull her off Bram, who stood, passive in her grip, gaping at her. She had tied her hair back in a scrunchie but half of it had straggled free, and her face was bloated and puffy from crying. ‘Sorry, she’s – not exactly