‘What’s up with you, honey?’ Jill asked Terry while they sat in the kitchen over breakfast. He’d been quiet the last few days, not himself. He’d changed somehow. That worried her, set her on edge. Their lovely little daughter, five-year-old Belle, was zooming up and down the hallway in the toy pedal car she had nearly outgrown now, blonde hair flying, making honking noises, giving them grinning flashes as she zipped past the open door.
Jill watched her daughter with proud exasperation. Belle was a spectacular child in every way. Super-bright and pretty. Milly, who had quickly become Belle’s little playmate, was running right there alongside her, laughing and yelling encouragement. Milly – and this was surprising, given that she had come from the loins of Charlie Stone – was a sweet little thing, much quieter than Belle, no trouble at all. Jill watched as Belle screeched to a halt and let Milly clamber into the driver’s seat; then she pushed her little friend along to pick up speed.
Terry took a sip of coffee. ‘Nothing’s wrong,’ he said to his wife.
‘Look, Daddy, look!’ shouted Belle as both girls went shooting past their eyeline once again.
‘That’s great, darlin’,’ said Terry absently to his daughter.
Jill looked at him, her big handsome husband. So solid, so dependable. Their rise through poverty to comfort to luxury had been almost too fast for any proper adjustment to be made. For quite a while she had felt that Terry was growing uneasy. Well, damn it. She was too. She was still a poor kid at heart, just like Terry was. They had risen on the tail of Charlie Stone’s bright comet, shooting heavenwards in his wake. It made Jill nervous.
For a long while, she’d been ignoring the hidden business that Charlie Stone had dragged them all into. But when Terry had started talking about security measures – passwords, codes for hide and codes for run – her nerves had turned to real fear. She knew that under the cover of importing parts and manufacturing furniture for big retailers, Charlie Stone was feeding a nation’s appetite for drugs and making a fat profit doing it. But now they were in the thick of it all, she found it worrying. Shocking. And she’d had another shock, a terrible one, that she had never even told Terry about.
She couldn’t tell him.
God, what had they all come to?
They were profiting from a sick, horrible trade that caused misery and poverty and death. She doubted she’d ever get used to it. Come what may, she was determined that Belle was never, ever going to know about it, never going to be touched by it. Never. And Terry agreed with that. Their innocent daughter would stay that way: innocent. Untouched by all this filth. She knew that Nula and Charlie felt the same way about Milly. The girls would be kept out of it all; they would be protected.
‘What’s up with you?’ Jill asked him. ‘Come on, babes, talk to me.’
Terry’s eyes flickered upward and met his wife’s enquiring gaze.
‘It’s nothing,’ he said.
‘Well it’s something. You’re not right.’
‘Nula,’ he said with a shrug. ‘She came on to me when I was in the garage. It’s been playing on my mind.’
Jill’s mouth dropped open. ‘She did what?’
‘It isn’t the first time. You know when Charlie was over in Morocco on business with Beezer? He left me there in charge of the big house. That was the first time.’
Jill remembered, all too well. They’d had a row about it. Jill was here on her own in the gatehouse, but Queen Nula up there in that fucking mansion needed Terry close up and personal to protect her.
Don’t I need protecting too? Jill had raged at him.
She knew she did. Why couldn’t Terry see that? Why had he never seen it, and left her exposed to danger?
Now, this. Didn’t that bitch up there have enough? She had the better house, she didn’t have this older place, nice as it was, with a fucking loft still full of bats. She had Charlie Stone, who said to Terry jump and Terry just asked how high. That irritated Jill to death.
‘And . . . what did she say? The first time?’ she asked, shocked.
‘She said we could sleep together that night, and it’d be never mentioned again. No strings, no nothing. Charlie would never know. You would never know. And this time? She was a bit more direct.’
Jill was stunned. Bloody Nula, making a move on her husband. The sheer fucking nerve of the woman. God curse those bloody Stones, they wanted it all.
‘It was nothing. I’m only telling you now because I didn’t want you hearing about it from anyone else. From Nula herself, maybe, claiming that something happened when it didn’t.’
Jill picked up her mug and drained it. She rose, walked over to the dishwasher, put the mug inside, then she stayed at the sink and stood there, leaning both hands on it.
‘And didn’t it?’ she said faintly. Once, Nula had been a plain, unattractive girl, but she’d had the work done to turn her into a good-looking woman. Jill knew that Nula had always hated her and Jill had always sensed the reason why. It was because of Terry. Jill had him; Nula didn’t. And now the bitch had come right out with it. She wanted Terry for herself.
Those fucking Stones.
‘What?’ Terry stood up, came over to the sink and wrapped his arms around his wife’s waist from behind, pressing the whole length of his body against the back of hers.
‘Did nothing happen, Terry? Really?’ said Jill in a choked voice. Knowing what she knew about the Stones and their sexual habits, she was ready to take a hammer blow when he told her the truth, confessed that he’d done it with that loose-living cow.
‘No! Come on. Why d’you think I’m telling you this? I didn’t have to, did I, you daft mare. I wanted you to hear it from me. Nothing happened. Nothing ever could. You’re my wife.’ He planted a kiss on her neck. ‘I’ve never wanted anyone else. You know that.’
Jill leaned back against Terry’s hard body. She loved him so much. But Nula worried her. Nula had influence with Charlie. And Charlie frightened Jill, very much.