The Valley 39

Sophie turned her head to study her friend for a moment. ‘I woke up in the night,’ she said. ‘Must have been around one, needing a pee, so I got up, and went to check on you while I headed to the bathroom. You weren’t in bed, and you weren’t anywhere in the house, I checked. And just when I was heading back to bed, worried obviously, I heard a car head up the road.’ ‘You Can’t have looked very hard,’ Jack remarked. ‘I was in the back garden.’ ‘What the hell were you doing out there? It must have been freezing.’ ‘It wasn’t too bad,’ Jack said with a shrug. ‘A little brisk, but nothing more than that. I was sitting on my rusty old bench, contemplating everything that’s happened since I moved here; trying to decide what I’m going to do.’ ‘And?’ ‘.’ A ghost of a smile touched Jack’s lips. ’I decided that moving here is just about the worst thing I’ve ever done; few people have made any effort to get to know me, I Haven’t been any more productive with my writing than I would’ve been if I’d stayed in Suid Draai, and the first chance they got, just about everyone who lives here decided I’m a rapist and a murderer. ‘I can understand them wanting to believe it’s me, a stranger, rather than someone they’ve known for most, if not all, their lives, but that doesn’t make me feel any better about it. Worst of all, being here makes it tough for me to see Joanne, and I miss her.’ Sophie didn’t need to be told that last, she knew just how much Jack missed his daughter, she also knew why he had moved away - to escape the situation with his ex-wife, where she had made it almost impossible for him to see his daughter. She didn’t agree with Jack’s decision to move away, she thought he should have stayed and fought, but she could understand it. ‘So, what are you going to do?’ ‘What can I do? I’m stuck,’ Jack said unhappily. ’Between paying for the house and the cars, and my other bills, and the child support Cathy convinced the judge to set, I’m only just making ends meet. Moving here took what savings I had, it’s going to be a while before I’ve got any space cash I can do anything with, especially with the royalty cheques only coming in every quarter.’ His frustration was plain to see. ’I’d move back to Suid Draai if I could, but it’s going to take at least a year to come up with the money to do that, assuming I can find a buyer for the house, which is doubtful after everything that’s happened here. I definitely won’t be able to find a quick buyer, not one who’s willing to pay the full value of the house, and without that I’m stuck here.’ ‘Why don’t we sit down with a nice, big breakfast when we get back and see if we can’t figure out a way to get you back to Suid Draai quicker than that,’ Sophie said, reaching out to give Jack a reassuring pat on the arm. “If it comes to the worst, you can always borrow my spare room’ Tara climbed the stairs slowly, carrying a pile of washing she had just taken from the dryer and folded. The washing had been there since Sunday but she hadn’t given it a thought, she was only doing anything with it now because her brother wanted her to empty the laundry bins and put the washing on before she headed off to school. School was the last place she wanted to go, she couldn’t keep her mind on the things she wanted to do, let alone the things she didn’t, but Kerwin was insistent, and while their dad was away he was in charge. When she reached the top of the stairs she crossed to the door of her sister’s bedroom, or rather the doorway since there was no longer a door, and stopped. A voice in her mind, which sounded a lot like her father’s, told her she was being silly, but she couldn’t bring herself to enter the room where her sister had been attacked, just the thought of doing so made her shiver uncomfortably. Standing in the doorway, she threw the pile of laundry. It landed untidily on the bed, at least most of it did, two pairs of socks went astray, they fell off the bed and rolled under the bed. Tara swore, and immediately regretted doing so, if her father had been there to hear, he would have threatened her with his belt. She hesitated in the doorway, undecided about what to do; she was tempted to turn away and forget all about the socks, after all it was going to be a while before her sister was back and in need of her clothes, but her father’s voice in her mind kept her from doing so, he would never approve of her not tidying up a mess she had made. It took her a few moments, but finally she did what her father would have wanted, she entered the room and got on her hands and knees so she could retrieve the socks. She found the socks easily enough, though it was a bit of a stretch to get the second pair, but that was not all she found. Dropping the socks onto the bed, Tara sat and stared curiously at the pinkish bluish cellphone she had discovered; it wasn’t her sister’s, she knew that, Amy’s phone was on the bedside cabinet, which left her wondering whose it was and how it came to be under her sister’s bed. She pressed the power button on the top of the phone and watched the screen while she waited for it to turn on. ‘What are you doing in here?’ Tara’s head whipped around. “Nothing,’ she said quickly, flushing under her brother’s gaze. ’ I brought Amy’s clothes in and some of the socks fell under the bed.’ ‘So what are you doing sitting on it, and what’s that in your hand?’ Kerwin went cold when he saw the pink of the object in his sister’s hand through her fingers and realised what it was she was holding. ‘Where did you get that?’ he wanted to know. Tara looked down at her hand. ’I found it, it was under the bed. It’s not Amy’s.’ Automatically, she pressed the power button again. ‘Give it to me,’ Kerwin held out his hand expectantly. If it hadn’t been for the harsh way in which he spoke, Tara probably would have given her brother the phone, It wasn’t just his tone that stopped her; for a brief moment, the phone turned on and she saw who it belonged to before the almost completely dead battery cut out again. ’This is Lynne’s phone,’ she said in a surprise - filled voice. ’How did it get here? We should call the police; tell them we’ve found it.’ Kerwin ignored that suggestion. ’Give it to me. I’ll deal with it.’ He stepped closer to his sister, his hand outstretched. ’I said give me the phone.’ When Tara continued to hold onto the phone he lunged for her. Tara was not The brightest kid in her class, let alone her year, but nor was she a dummy, far from it. When Kerwin lunged for the phone in her hand a connection was made in her brain, a connection between Amy being attacked, her finding Lynne’s phone under Amy’s bed, and Jack Wild, who was suspected of the attacks, being released by the police. ‘It was you!’ Tara couldn’t keep the horror she felt from her voice, though it did freeze her in place momentarily, Only when she felt her brother’s fingers on her hand as he sought to pry the phone from her grasp did she react physically, Snatching her hand away from Kerwin’s, she reached the other side quicker than she expected and fell to the floor before she could stop herself. Quickly, she got to her feet so she could dart for the doorway. ‘Why are you doing this?’ Tara sobbed when Kerwin interposed himself between her and the door, forcing her to halt abruptly and hurriedly jump back out of reach. ‘You’re just like all the rest,’ Kerwin told his little sister in a voice that was so harsh it was almost unrecognisable, ’A nosey, whiney, ignorant, little Bitch, who won’t do what she’s told. Give me the phone, that’s all you had to do, that’s all Amy had to do as well, if she’d done that I wouldn’t have had to hurt her. I didn’t even realise Lynne dropped it in my car till Amy found it, which she wouldn’t have done if she hadn’t been a nosey bitch.’ As he talked, he advanced on his sister, a crazed look on his face that made her think him a stranger rather than the brother she had known all her life. It Didn’t seem possible that she could have known him for so long without seeing this side of him. Fearful, she backed away from him, her eyes darting left and right as she tried to figure out a way to escape; she couldn’t come up with any possibilities while he was between her and the door, and she almost threw the phone she held at him as a distraction so she could slip past and out the door. Some instinct told her she needed to keep hold of it, however, to show the police. Tara’s retreat came to a halt when her legs hit Amy’s bed and she tumbled backwards onto it, sprawling in an inelegant fashion. Before she could recover, Kerwin was on her. Kerwin leapt onto the bed to stop his sister getting away and reached quickly for the hand that held the phone which had caused him so many of his problems. Tara held onto it with a strength and a tenacity he wouldn’t have expected of her, it forced him to use both hands to try and pry her fingers away from the phone, which prevented him defending himself as she struck at him again and again with her free fist and strove to push him off and away………