Snatched (39 page)

Pleased with himself for controlling it, he went back inside. He wished he could tell his mum when she got back, because she’d be really proud of him. But he couldn’t speak, so he’d just have to content himself with knowing that he’d done it, and keep the victory to himself.

Hearing shuffling sounds on the ceiling, which told him that the old man was still upstairs, Connor wandered over to the window. Easing the dirty net back at one corner, he gazed out at the garden in astonishment. Their garden back at home had been just about big enough to swing a bat around in, but this one was vast. And there were no fences dividing it from someone else’s, there were just rows of gnarly old trees, and a field of grossly overgrown grass, with a mess of brambles joining everything together like an enormous spider’s web. And towards the rear, which seemed to be miles away, there was a partially visible roof of something that Connor presumed was some kind of shed or outhouse.

Jumping when he saw a movement in the bushes to the left of the window, he peered at it intently. There seemed to be something furry moving slowly in there between the roots, but he couldn’t quite make out what it was.

Catching sight of a bobtail a few seconds later, he almost cried out with delight. He’d only ever seen rabbits on TV or in books before, and had never seen a real live one, and he was excited, because it was so much more exotic than a cat or a dog.

Watching it now as it snuffled through the undergrowth, Connor felt like his heart was going to burst right out of his chest when it hopped out into a clearer spot. It was so beautiful, its fur all brown and soft-looking, with little speckles of pure white every now and then.

Tapping softly on the window to get its attention, he held his breath when it stopped moving and seemed to look straight at him. Its eyes were huge and dark, just like his; and its nose was tiny and sweet and twitchy.

Wishing he could go out and touch it, just to see if it was as soft as it looked, Connor sighed when it went about its business and disappeared from view.

He looked out for a few more minutes, hoping that it would come back out. But it didn’t, so he went back to the couch and tried to watch the film, which was at a loud point now; lots of cowboys and Indians chasing each other round on horses.

Yawning, he rested his head on the cushion.

‘Look what Dave’s got for you,’ Sue said, her voice chirpier than it had been for a long time as she opened the living room door a short time later. Seeing Connor lying fast asleep on the couch, she rushed in and patted the cushion beneath him. Breathing a sigh of relief when she found that it was dry, she smiled when Dave popped his head around the door.

‘Flat out,’ she whispered.

‘Must be all the excitement,’ he said quietly, jerking his head at her to come back out. ‘Leave him, he’ll be all right.’

‘I was thinking to wake him up,’ Sue said, glancing back worriedly as she followed Dave into the kitchen. She didn’t know how long Connor had been asleep already, and didn’t want to risk leaving him too much longer because he definitely would wet himself at some point. He always did when he was sleeping.

‘In a bit,’ Dave said, pulling her into his arms and kissing her.

‘I want to show him what you got,’ she gasped when he finally released her. ‘Please, Dave. I can’t wait to see his little face when he sees it. And there’s plenty of time for all this later, when he’s in bed.’

‘Go on, then,’ Dave relented, giving her an indulgent smile. ‘But don’t forget what you just said, ’cos I won’t.’

Blushing when she felt the tingle between her legs, because it was happening every time she kissed him now, Sue grabbed his hand and pulled him back into the living room.

Kneeling down beside the couch, she gave Connor a gentle shake, saying, ‘Wake up, Con . . . look what Dave’s bought for you.’

Opening his eyes, Connor looked up groggily into hers. Then, jumping when he saw Dave standing behind her, he swallowed loudly. Had he wet himself ? Was he in trouble?

‘All right, little fella,’ Dave said, squatting down beside Sue now and taking the small box from her hand. ‘We thought you might need this to keep you amused while you’re staying here.’

Peering down at the box when Dave handed it to him, Connor’s eyes widened. He couldn’t believe it. He’d wanted a Nintendo DS for
ages
, but his mum hadn’t been able to afford one.

‘What do you say?’ Sue prompted.

Gazing mutely up at Dave, Connor blinked exaggeratedly.

‘Hey, did you see that?’ Dave laughed. ‘He just said thanks with his eyes.’

Thrilled that Connor was making such an effort to communicate with Dave, Sue gave him a big kiss.

Pleased with himself, because he’d just realised that his mum was desperate for him to stay on Dave’s good side, which in turn meant that he would be staying on hers, Connor smiled back at her. And then he smiled at Dave – although it was harder to keep the smile in his eyes now, because there was something so scary in Dave’s.

Repulsed by the sight of Terry’s little mini-me gurning at him, Dave said, ‘Right, well, you show him how to play his game while I have a word with my dad. Then we’ll give him his dinner and head off when you’re ready.’

Hearing this, the smile slid off Connor’s face and he peered worriedly up at his mum when Dave left the room. Seeing the fear in his eyes, Sue said, ‘Don’t worry, we’re not going to be out for long. Dave’s just taking me to the local for a couple of drinks to celebrate us moving in. You won’t be on your own, because he’s asking his dad to watch you. And you were all right with him when we went shopping, so you’ll be fine. Anyway,’ she added, tapping the box he was still clutching, ‘You’ve got this now, so you can just stay in your room and play with it. You don’t even have to see his dad if you don’t want to.’

Sighing resignedly, Connor gazed down at the box. He supposed he’d have to get used to her going out now that they were living with Dave, because that was what adults liked to do. And like she’d said, at least he’d have the DS to keep him occupied, so it wasn’t like he was going to be bored.

Giving him one of the cuddles that felt so nice to him because they had been so few and far between lately, Sue laid her face softly on his hair, murmuring, ‘I know it’s not perfect, sweetheart, but at least we’ve got a roof over our heads until we get our own house. And we will get one, I promise. But until we do, I need you to be a good boy and do as Dave says. Just one thing . . .’ she went on, really whispering now, ‘When you see Daddy, you can’t tell him where we are, or he’ll get upset. And we don’t want to upset him, do we? So we’ll have to pretend that we’re still at Julie’s. Okay?’

Too warm in her arms to worry much about what she was asking of him, Connor nodded. He didn’t like lying to his dad, but it wasn’t really a lie if he didn’t say the actual words. And, anyway, if it made his mum happy, then Dave might be nice to him, too.

Taking a bath while Sue fed Connor and got him ready for bed, Dave scowled every time his flesh touched the enamel. He hated baths and would usually go to the gym and take a shower there, because the thought of sitting in a hot soup of dead skin cells and bacteria from his arse disgusted him. And he didn’t even want to think about what remnants of his
father
might be clinging to his body when he got out.

He couldn’t wait to rip the bath out and shove in a high-tech walk-in shower. But he refused to spend any money on the place while his dad was still alive, because he wouldn’t put it past the fucker to let him do it up and then sell it out from under his nose and piss off to some high-security retirement home where Dave wouldn’t be able to get at him.

It would be simpler just to kill him, and the thought had crossed Dave’s mind on more than one occasion. But he knew he’d never be able to do it. Not with his mother looking down on him. And she was, because he could feel those eyes of hers boring into him whenever he spoke harshly to the old man; hear her disapproving voice telling him to behave. And she was the one woman he’d ever obeyed in his life, so he couldn’t shake off the habit of a lifetime just because she was dead.

Still, his dad couldn’t last too much longer, judging by how decrepit the old fart was looking lately. And Dave could wait, because there were more important things on the agenda right now.

Like getting Sue’s knickers off.

She made him laugh. He’d managed to wangle a few kisses out of her, but every time he tried to touch her she jumped, like she was a fucking virgin or something. Like he didn’t already know that she’d left the kid on his own and gone out shagging some bloke the night of the fire –
and
stayed out all weekend. And bad as Carole was, even
she
wouldn’t do something like that. Which made it all the more laughable that Sue was acting so concerned about going out for a drink with him tonight and leaving the kid with his dad.

But if he had to play the game her way and act like he respected her pretend worries, then he would. Because, one way or another, those knickers were coming off tonight – and one more knife would be slicing into Terry Day’s back.

And Dave was confident that it would happen, because Sue’s resolve was melting faster than an ice cube in the kettle. She was already grateful to him for giving her and Connor somewhere to stay – although her face when she’d copped her first look at the place had been a picture. But she was too polite to complain, so she would do her damnedest to make the best of it in order not to offend him. And gratitude was a pretty potent tool for sanding off the last stubborn traces of resistance.

He almost felt sorry for the poor cow. Now that she’d committed herself to the idea of being his girlfriend, she really thought she’d be getting the same in return. But she was on a hiding to nothing if she thought it was ever going to develop into a love kind of thing. He would happily shag her brains out, but that was as far as it was ever going to go. Carole was the closest he’d ever come to loving any woman, and that was only because she was like a female version of him. But if
she
wasn’t enough to really hook his heart, a nice girl like Sue stood no chance.

All Sue was to Dave was a means to an end: a tool of revenge to be used against her husband – soon to be ex, if Dave had anything to do with it, because he’d even go as far as marrying her, if it twisted the knife that bit more.

Whatever it took, he would make the bastard pay for putting his dirty hands on Leanne. And shacking up with her and getting her to fall out with Dave over him had just compounded the crime. And now the silly cow thought she
loved
him, which made Dave’s blood boil. But he wasn’t stupid enough to kill Terry over it, because there was no way he was spending the rest of his life behind bars for the cunt. He’d come pretty close a few times, though, and had only just managed to stop himself from going too far.

But beating him up hadn’t been enough to get Terry to leave Leanne. And getting the lads at his works to hassle him in the hopes of making him quit his job, leaving him too skint to keep Leanne in the manner to which she’d been accustomed and send her running back to Daddy Big Bucks, hadn’t worked either. So Dave had done some serious thinking, and come up with the plan to hit Terry where it really hurt – by taking
his
precious daughter, to let him know how it felt to lose someone you love with your whole heart and soul.

Unfortunately, Dave hadn’t really thought through what he would do with Nicky once he’d snatched her. He’d been coked up at the time and had vaguely imagined that he would just stick her in the shed for a bit, then let her go when Terry had agreed to stay out of Leanne’s life. But then it had all got a bit messy with the fire and the police getting involved, so he’d been forced to keep her. But he’d have to let her go eventually.

Either that, or kill her. And the longer this went on, the more likely it seemed that he might have to do the latter.

Dave knew that Nicky wouldn’t tell anybody where she’d been or who she’d been with if he let her go, because she was absolutely terrified of him. But he couldn’t risk letting the police get at her, because if they started doing tests on her there would be enough traces of Dave on her for them to nail him to the wall.

Snatching her had definitely been one of his less intelligent moves, and he wished he’d thought of getting off with Sue before he’d gone ahead and done it, because setting himself up as Daddy to Terry’s kids made so much more sense from a long-term revenge point of view. But he’d done it now, so he had no choice but to see it through. And it was good that they all thought Nicky had started the fire and run away, because they’d stop looking for her before too long. So when her corpse turned up a few months down the line, a few hundred miles away from Manchester, under a chunk of concrete at the bottom of a river, there wouldn’t be anything useable left on her body to link her to Dave – if they even recognised her by that time.

So, yes, everything was still working out okay. Now all he needed to do was get into Sue’s knickers and cement his place in her life, then he could sit back and watch Terry implode. And he
would
, because there was no way he’d accept another man taking over his role in his kids’ lives. And the more he kicked off about it, the more Leanne would get suspicious that he was actually jealous about Sue. And before too long it would all be over. Leanne would come home, and Terry would be left with nothing.

Dave couldn’t wait!

Sue was just taking Connor up to bed when Dave came out of the bathroom. Blushing when she saw that he was wearing nothing but a small towel looped around his waist, she dipped her gaze, trying not to notice the broadness of his chest, or the muscular tone of his stomach. It had been a long time since she’d seen a man in such good condition, because the few she’d got anywhere near the undressing stage with over the last year had all been the weedy types she’d met at the clubs. But Dave was built like Terry, and that was what she’d always considered a
real
man should look like.