Next day, she went out into the kitchen and there was Jack, sitting calmly at the breakfast table as if nothing was wrong, as if the whole damned world hadn’t gone crazy in the space of one day. They’d been happy here, had fallen into a routine. She had halfway fallen in love, she thought, but maybe he wasn’t capable of that, maybe all he saw in her was easy meat because she was scarred, desperate – and available.
She poured tea from the pot, slopped in milk, sat down opposite him. He watched her.
Then to her surprise he said: ‘I was fifteen when I left home, left here, for the first time.’
Belle frowned at him. ‘Why so early?’
‘My father died when I was twelve. After that, my mother had a string of boyfriends. Some of them were OK. The last one wasn’t. He didn’t want a hairy-arsed resentful teenager mooching about the place and he made that very clear. He beat the crap out of me one day right in front of her, and she didn’t say a word or lift a finger in my defence. Next day, I was gone.’
Belle said nothing. She was afraid that if she did speak, he’d stop. All too clearly she could picture him as a vulnerable boy, his dad dead, his mother mocking his father’s memory with a succession of lovers. One of them beating him, hurting him. It was awful.
‘Maybe she was scared of him?’ suggested Belle.
‘If someone was beating up a child of yours, what would you do?’
‘I’d kill them,’ said Belle without even having to think about it.
‘At sixteen I joined up. Served in Northern Ireland. I was a sniper and then a section commander in the paras. Then I moved into special forces in the Falklands. I left the military and came back here because my mother was ill. Dying.’
Belle thought about that. His fitness. His focus. It explained so much. She was shocked, incredulous.
‘Oh my Christ,’ she said. ‘Special forces? You’re SAS, is that what you’re telling me?’
‘SBS, actually. Special Boat Services. I was the point man. First man in.’
‘Good God.’ She was silent a minute, taking that in. ‘And the scars? The ones on your back?’
‘My mate stepped on an IUD. It blew both his legs off. Killed him. I caught a bit of the blast. Got lucky.’
‘So . . . your mother and you? You were reconciled before she died?’
‘Nah. She was an old whore who more or less ignored me right up to the end,’ said Jack with a rueful grin. ‘But we made some sort of peace, I suppose. What did you do?’
‘What?’
‘For a living. For work.’
Belle let out a breath. ‘Nothing. I told you. Nothing at all. Dad had plenty of cash and I was not encouraged to do anything except paint my nails, get my hair done, ride horses.’
‘So you were – what? – a spoiled little princess?’
‘Yep, that was me. Just waiting for a millionaire to stroll by and snap me up.’ Belle’s smile was ironic. That indulged and cosseted but somehow unsatisfied girl had been another life, another world. Now she was different, inside and out.
‘What did you do with them?’ she asked. ‘With Ludo and Nipper?’
‘Don’t go there. You don’t want to know.’
‘And Trix?’ Belle was really sad about Trix. The dog had been her companion, her friend, through the worst of her pain and misery. She was going to miss her. And it was her fault that Trix had met her end. If Harlan’s goons hadn’t been in pursuit of her, Trix would be alive right now.
‘Same. Don’t ask.’ He stood up. ‘You want some food?’
‘I couldn’t eat it.’
‘So what now?’
‘I don’t know.’ She still felt sick after the shocks she’d had, and disorientated. It was as if Harlan had reached out and touched her, and that made her shudder. Her mind was in turmoil. ‘I’ve brought trouble to your door. I’m sorry.’
Jack shrugged. ‘Today we just keep watch. Be careful. Give ourselves some time to think it all through.’
So they kept watch, and they were careful. The shotgun didn’t go back in the cabinet. But no one came. After a thrown-together meal in the evening, Jack sat and watched TV for a while, and Belle went off to her lonely room – his mother’s room – and tried to sleep.