Black valley farm, p.1
Black Valley Farm, page 1
Black Valley Farm
Cover
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Part One
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Part Two
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Canelo Crime
About the Author
Also by Sheila Bugler
Copyright
Cover
Table of Contents
Start of Content
To my Suzie Lou. This one’s for you, darling!
Prologue
The wind whipped in from the North Sea, rippling across the mud-coloured hills and whining into the car as Rosemary opened the door. Peter had parked at the entrance to the farm, in front of the wooden gate that was held in place by a chain and padlock. As Rosemary unhooked the lock with one of the keys the estate agent had given her, the chain fell to the ground and the gate swung open. Behind her, she could hear the others getting out of the car and she willed them to stay quiet, not to ruin this special moment by saying something stupid.
She walked through the open gate towards the house. It was an ugly building, but she hadn’t bought it for its kerb appeal. For what she had planned, this squat grey farmhouse situated on the side of a hill overlooking a remote valley in the Lincolnshire countryside, was perfect. It would need work, of course, but that wasn’t going to be a problem. Thanks to her parents, she was a wealthy woman. All those years being a dutiful daughter, never once stepping out of line, had been worth it in the end.
It was nine years ago today since Mummy and Daddy died. A tragic accident, the inquest concluded at the time. Although in truth, her parents’ deaths had been neither tragic nor an accident.
‘It’s going to cost you to get this place the way you want it.’
Peter’s voice was an assault on the silent beauty all around her. She hated him then, more than any other time since she’d known him. If she could have found another way to do this, one that didn’t involve him or any other man, she would have done it. But for now, unfortunately, he was necessary.
Ignoring him, Rosemary walked closer to the house until she was able to read the wooden sign over the door: Black Valley Farm. This was it, finally. All these years of planning and here she was, standing outside her new home. The place where she would finally be able to have the children she so desperately craved. Here, in this remote farmhouse, she was going to fix what her father had broken.
Already, she could picture it a year from now. Transformed from this desolate, deserted farmhouse to something utterly different. The thriving heart of her new family, a self-sufficient community of women and children living their lives untouched and untarnished by the conflicting demands of modern society. With Rosemary as their adored leader, the matriarch of this special place.
‘Open the door, would you?’ Peter said. ‘This wind is freezing my nuts off.’
She swung around to face him, pleased when she saw the flash of fear behind his eyes.
‘Go back to the car.’ She looked at the women standing behind him, each one with blonde hair, blue eyes and fair skin. They were good-looking, she wouldn’t have chosen them otherwise, although not one of them could have held a candle to her own startling beauty. ‘You three come with me.’
The women looked relieved and Rosemary was glad she’d allowed them this moment. These broken women were vital to her plans. It was important to keep them happy, even if most of the time she’d rather kick them than pretend she cared about them.
Inside, it was exactly as she’d remembered. A wide hallway, far bigger than the outside of the house would have led you to believe, with three doors leading off it. The air smelled musty and when Rosemary breathed in, she imagined she could taste the motes of dust dancing around her in the dim light.
Beside her, one of the women started to speak. Rosemary held her index finger up to silence her. This wasn’t a time for mindless chit-chat or endless questions about how they were going to get everything ready in time, or how many people could live here comfortably or blah, blah, blah. The effort it took to deal with people was exhausting. If Rosemary could have done this any other way – without involving tiresome people who utterly lacked her vision – she would have done.
But she couldn’t think about that now. If she did, she would start to remember the reason she needed them. And now was not the time to think about Daddy and those nights when he came into her bedroom, or all the things that happened after that.
Today was about the future. Her future. Rosemary Fry, the woman on the brink of her very own Utopia. Her eyes filled with tears and her chest felt as if it might burst from the rush of joy bubbling up inside her.
‘Come on.’ She gestured for them to follow her back outside. ‘Here’s where we’ll build the church. We’ll extend the house, of course, and build a separate annex at the side for me and Peter. See that shed? That will be a classroom because the children will need an education.’
She kept talking, faster and faster, her vision for the future pouring out of her. And when she’d finished, and she was out of breath from speaking, she threw her hands in the air and looked at each woman in turn, taking a moment to gaze into every pair of blue eyes before moving onto the next.
‘It’s going to be perfect,’ she said.
There was a pause, where she thought for one terrible moment one of them was going to disagree with her. Then, suddenly, they were all smiling and telling Rosemary how wonderful it was and how they couldn’t wait to move in. As they continued speaking, their voices got higher until they sounded more like birds than people. They were saying and doing all the right things but there was something about that pause that worried Rosemary. These women had been carefully chosen. She had put time and effort into her relationship with each of them, ensuring they perfectly understood what she wanted to achieve here in this special place. In every single conversation, she had felt that the women understood her vision and shared it. She realised now this might not be true for all of them. And she wondered, for the first time, what they talked about when she wasn’t with them.
She would have to be more careful in future, do everything she could to ensure total obedience. There would be rules, lots of them, and she’d make it crystal clear what happened to anyone who broke those rules.
She had told the women – these second-rate imitations – that the farm was going to be a place they could be safe. It wasn’t a lie, because they would be safe. As long as they did exactly what they were told.
Part One
Chapter 1
The boy moves so fast I almost miss him. A flash of colour out of the corner of my eye, no more than that. His trousers are blue, and that’s what catches my attention. They’re the same colour as the bus he’s running out in front of.
Suddenly, I’m running too. The world races past in a blur of sounds and images. People’s faces; a man shouting; the blare of car horns. Above it all, louder than anything else, a woman is screaming.
I’m on the road now, my eyes focused on the boy as I swerve through the traffic that clogs this stretch of Sheffield during the morning rush hour. Then I have him, my hands wrapping around his waist as I scoop him off the ground. He’s heavy. I stumble beneath his weight and almost fall, but somehow manage not to.
The air is hot from the heat of the bus, and stinks with the sickly smell of diesel. The screaming is louder now. I don’t know if it’s coming from me, or the boy or neither of us. He’s a dead weight that tugs on my lower back as I throw both of us forward towards the pavement. We hit the ground, so hard my teeth clatter together.
The honking of a horn rips through the air, too loud and too close. We’re going to die. I squeeze my eyes shut, waiti
There’s a moment when everything is still and silent. Then the pain kicks in, sharp and shooting in my elbows and knees. A buzzing sound in my right ear and, when I try to sit up, a drum starts pounding behind my eyes. Tharum, tharum, tharum.
I look around for the boy, but he’s gone. A man is leaning over me, his face too close to mine. He’s speaking but I can’t understand what he’s saying. A gobble-gobble of words that get lost beneath the thumping drumbeat. The man is holding my arm and trying to pull me up but I shake him off. The boy. Where’s the boy? I thought I’d saved him. I remember how he felt in my arms, but maybe I only imagined it. I swing my head around, looking back to the road, half-expecting to see him squashed beneath the blue bus that’s blocking out the sunshine.
But the boy’s not there, either. Then I see him, and the relief is warm and it fills every part of my aching body. A woman is holding him, tears rolling down her face as she says ‘thank you, thank you’ over and over again.
There are more people now crowding around me. It’s all too much. The push of the crowd, the dark shadow of the bus, the stink of burning rubber, the voices and the pain and the shivery shaking that runs through my body like a waterfall.
‘You were amazing,’ the man says, as I haul myself off the ground. ‘You saved his life, do you realise that?’
I try to step back, away from him, but there are people behind me too. Before I can stop him, the man has taken hold of my arm again and is guiding me through the throng of bodies. I want to tell him to let me go, but I don’t know how to do it without seeming rude. Besides, he’s actually trying to help me and I need someone to get me away from all these people.
He takes me to the café that has tables outside on the pavement. I’ve never been here before, but I walk past it most days. It has cakes in the window that look amazing – pink and white and blue and there’s one that’s shaped like a princess castle – but it looks way too expensive for someone like me. A woman wearing a white apron pulls out a chair and gestures for me to sit down. The man disappears inside the café, comes back a few minutes later with a white mug.
‘Sweet, milky tea.’ He puts the mug on the table in front of me. ‘Good for shock.’
I try to say thank you, but my mouth isn’t working properly. When I lift the mug to sip the tea, my hand is shaking so badly I have to put it back down again. The man sits down and stares at me. I wish he’d go away.
‘What’s your name?’ he asks.
‘Clare.’
I lift the mug again and, this time, manage to get it as far as my mouth. The tea is good. Not too hot, and very sweet. After a few more sips, the shaking isn’t so bad and I’m starting to warm up a little.
‘Good to meet you, Clare. I’m Howard Jenkins, journalist with the Sheffield Herald. If it’s okay with you, I’d like to ask you a few questions. I’ve already got some footage of you in action. This will make an incredible story for our readers. How do you feel about becoming a local celebrity?’
I slam the mug down, so hard the tea sloshes out.
‘I don’t want you writing about me.’
‘Hang on,’ he says, as I push my chair back and stand up. ‘No need to be shy, Clare. You’ve done something incredibly brave. People ought to know about it.’
‘She said no.’ It’s the woman with the boy. She’s still holding onto him, like she’s afraid to let him go in case he runs out in front of another bus.
‘She doesn’t have a choice,’ Howard tells her. ‘The story will run whether she likes it or not.’
‘You can’t do that,’ the woman says. ‘It’s not right.’
Howard Jenkins starts saying something, but I don’t wait to hear what it is. I’m already walking away as fast as I can without running because I don’t want anyone to notice me. I hate Howard Jenkins and men like him: men who pretend to be kind but they’re only being nice because they want something from you.
I’m almost at the end of the street when someone touches my shoulder. I swing around, expecting to see Howard Jenkins. But it’s the woman. The boy is beside her, holding her hand, and they both have red faces and are breathing heavily.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I couldn’t let you go without thanking you properly. You saved Freddie’s life. If there’s anything I can ever do for you, please just let me know.’ She opens her red handbag and pulls out a white card that she shoves into my hand. ‘My business card.’
When I see what’s written on the card, my stomach twists into a tight knot.
‘You’re a policewoman?’
‘A detective,’ she says. ‘I’ve tried my best to scare off the journalist, but I’m not sure what good it will do. I’m truly sorry if it causes you any problems.’
I can’t work out if she’s being sincere, or if she’s chased after me for another reason. There’s a voice inside my head, screaming at me to run. But I don’t do that because I have to act as if everything is okay. I can’t let her know that a police detective is the very last person I want to be talking to, now or ever.
‘I also wanted to check you’re okay,’ she says.
Her name, on the card, is Helen Robins. Detective Inspector.
‘Why wouldn’t I be?’
‘The way you reacted when that journalist said he was going to write about you. It made me wonder if you’re trying to hide from someone.’
‘I have to go.’
She reaches out, as if she’s going to try to stop me.
‘Leave me alone.’ It comes out angry and aggressive, but it does the trick because she steps back, as if she’s scared I might hurt her. Good. I want her to believe I’m dangerous.
This time, when I walk away, she doesn’t try to follow me. And I let myself believe, for a moment, that this might be the end of it.
Chapter 2
Leo Bailey speaks fast and walks faster. Up ahead, he can see the hotel. When he goes inside, he’ll have to end the phone call and start making tedious small talk with the people he’s come here to network with. Which means he needs to slow down his walking and speed up his talking. The person on the other end of the line is his right-hand man, Harry, who has been with Leo since the beginning. Harry knows more about Leo than most people. Although Harry’s knowledge of his boss is limited to the edited bits of Leo’s life he’s been willing to share.
‘Gotta go, Harry,’ he says as he joins the groups of men and women surging towards the hotel, all of them here for a monotonous networking event for entrepreneurs in the food and drinks industry. ‘I’ll call you when this is over.’
There are few things Leo hates more than networking events. Most of the time he avoids them altogether. But today he’s made an exception, because according to Harry, Joe Luciano will be here today. Joe runs a chain of upmarket gastropubs that Leo’s keen to invest in. If he can grab ten minutes with Joe to set up an initial meeting, it will be worth the effort of showing up.
Inside the hotel, he doesn’t need signs to tell him where to go. The hubbub of conversation, punctured by bursts of laughter, is enough to guide him towards the event. As he walks towards the noise, his resolve falters. He’d forgotten quite how awful these sorts of things are. He can’t stand any of it – the pointless small talk, and the egos and the air thick with the stink of overpriced perfume and cologne. But he’s here now, so he’ll just have to get on with it.
He’s at the entrance to the large ballroom, where his fellow entrepreneurs are gathered, when he sees her. Their eyes connect and he freezes. Someone bumps into him from behind. Bodies jostle against him and people mutter as they swerve past him. He ignores them all, as he stares at her face across the crowd. The world stops. Despite all the people, it feels as if there’s no one except the two of them.
As the initial rush of panic and fear subsides, he realises that it’s not her. It can’t be. Yet somehow, it is. He’d know that face anywhere. The eyes, blue and piercing, staring at him; the hint of a smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
There’s a man with her, someone vaguely familiar from a business lunch Leo attended last summer. Leo can’t remember his name and it might not be important, anyway. Right now, the only thing that matters is getting away from here.
He swings around and starts running, elbowing his way past men in suits and women wearing shoes that click-clack against the hotel’s marble floor. All thoughts of finding Joe Luciano have left him. A man shouts at him to watch where he’s going. A woman bares her teeth through blood red lips.
