Flesh and Blood Read online

  Rabid scraps of memory flashed in front of her eyes every time she blinked.

  She’d stabbed him so many times.

  Long after he had died, she had plunged the knife into his flesh over and over until every inch of her skin was drenched in his fluid.

  Ronnie seemed to sense her despair and let out a long sigh. If they told the truth, he knew that it would be Minnie who risked getting in trouble more than him.

  He’d hit the sicko trying to rape his girlfriend over the head and killed him with a freak head injury.

  Minnie had turned the other guy into a human pin cushion until he was barely even recognisable.

  Without a word, Ronnie knew what needed to be done.

  He stood up, took out a match, dragged it across the side of the box, and tossed it into the car. As an orange flame caught on one of the dead man’s clothes, he grabbed Minnie’s hand and gritted his teeth.

  “We need to move. Now.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  2019

  Since she’d been old enough to even contemplate the possibility, Sienna had been torn at the prospect of having children. On the one hand, whenever they came across a family with an adorable little baby, it was like a persistent tug on her ovaries.

  But everyone knew how much of an upheaval it was to have children.

  Did Sienna really want to sacrifice her freedom? Her money? Her career? She’d never been able to decide.

  However, sitting there with Francesca’s beady little eyes on her in the eerie quiet of the RV, Sienna was convinced that she had finally made her mind up.

  It felt uncharacteristically cold. Gooseflesh broke out up and down Sienna’s arms, and so she pulled her cardigan tighter around her and drummed her fingers on the table, chewing her lip as she glanced awkwardly around at her own home.

  “So… do you go on many trips with your family?” Sienna forced herself to ask. As much as it pained her, she met Francesca’s eye, which seemed to cling to her with their icy blue irises.

  “Oh, we never stay in one place,” Francesca said with a smile that gave Sienna a distinctly unpleasant feeling in her chest. It unnerved her how the child had gone so quickly from having a full-blown tantrum over something as trivial as a toy to appearing so abruptly calm and collected.

  Sienna swallowed. It occurred to her that if Francesca’s family moved about a lot, perhaps they were one of those traveller types. Not that Sienna had anything against them, it was just she’d heard some less than desirable things about certain gypsy families. About violence, arson, theft… Sienna cut herself off inside her head and mentally scolded herself for being such a bigot. So what if the strange girls belonged to a traveller family? Even if they were a little rough around the edges, they were hardly going to stir trouble towards the charming young couple who had saved their stranded daughters. On the contrary, perhaps the whole fiasco would turn out to be a blessing in disguise, with her new Romany contacts turning out to be extremely useful allies. No one would screw with a traveller family. At least, Sienna and Jared wouldn’t.

  Out of awkwardness, Sienna stood up and began to pace, then stopped herself. She didn’t want this weird little kid to think that she was somehow intimidated by her. Her brain whirred as she struggled to think of something else to say… but her efforts were in vain as she found her mind go entirely blank at the prospect of striking up more conversation with the child.

  A sudden, unpleasant noise broke into her cloud of thoughts. Her head snapped towards the door of the RV, where the outer door handle had started to rattle. Like a sharpened spike, dread punctured the bottom of her lungs, and her breath came to a stop. After just a few seconds, she realised that she was frozen rigid, and Francesca was staring at her as though she were a crazy person. Her cheeks burned red with embarrassment. What the hell was she doing?

  “They’re back,” giggled Sienna nervously, rubbing the back of her neck as she walked towards the door.

  “Funny that your old man doesn’t use his key, isn’t it?”

  The child’s words were like tiny shocks of electricity attacking her spine. Sienna stopped and turned back to frown at her. She felt an immense irritation that bordered on hatred for the strange little bitch. Autistic or not, Sienna was losing her patience with the child. Fast.

  “What?” she demanded impatiently, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

  Francesca said nothing and simply shrugged.

  “Maybe he left it,” reasoned Sienna, more to herself than to the girl. But still, she paused. She briefly contemplated the tools and materials around the motor home and debated what she would do in the event of a carnivorous marsh monster lunging through the doorway the moment she opened it.

  Grow up; she told herself crossly before taking a breath and continuing purposefully towards the door. She placed her hand on the handle, only to find that her palm was unpleasantly clammy. Pursing her lips, the young woman pushed down with a trembling wrist and then sharply pulled the door towards her, as if ripping a plaster off of a scraped knee, half expecting to be immediately run down by a snarling, foul-breathed beast on the doorstep.

  Sienna looked out into the night and froze as a blast of unbearably cold air rushed in and cascaded over her like a crashing wave of ice. She blinked, momentarily too stunned by the temperature for her eyes to properly comprehend the dark, hooded figure that stood at the foot of the steps.

  “Get in,” a low, gruff voice rumbled as the mysterious man ascended the first step.

  She blinked and remained still. Her lip lowered as if to speak, but no words came out.

  “I said, get in!” repeated the stranger, who came forward again, this time plunging a shiny metal blade through the frosty atmosphere so that the point teased the air in front of her. Sienna scrambled backwards, her heart pounding in her eardrums like a death drum as the intruder came towards her, letting himself into the RV. Protectively, she clutched her arms over her chest, her pyjamas and bare feet making her feel naked and vulnerable. A solitary tear squeezed from the corner of her eye and trickled bitterly down her cheek.

  Once inside, the hooded man shook his headgear free, revealing a rugged face and familiarly piercing blue eyes that seemed to reflect a cold, unfeeling soul. He grunted at Sienna in acknowledgement, still holding out the knife, then glanced across at Francesca.

  “Flo, can you sort this out? Me and your mother can’t make head or tail of it,” he grunted, delving into one of his pockets and tossing what appeared to be one of the latest iPhones across the room. Francesca, or Flo, caught it with the ease of someone much older and much more sophisticated than the child she initially masqueraded as. Sienna’s mouth and eyes widened in horror as it dawned on her that Francesca and this intruder knew each other. Which meant… she gasped involuntarily, smacking a hand to her mouth. “W-w-what is this?” her voice quivered.

  The man turned back to her and narrowed his gaze, running his tongue along his lower lip as if he was sizing her up. He ignored her question.

  “Go and sit over there,” he ordered her, jabbing the knife towards the fabric sofa that ran along with one of the walls. “Now,” he added, for good measure.

  Sienna obeyed, her knees wobbling with dread as she forced one foot in front of the other and collapsed onto the seat. Nervously her pupils flitted from the man to the child, a million thoughts racing through her mind at what felt like the speed of light.

  “Don’t try anything funny,” he warned Sienna before taking a step back to glance out of the open door of the motor home, into the unforgiving blackness. “Fucking hurry up,” he shouted to somebody outside, the harshness of his voice making Sienna flinch.

  Moments later, the sound of mud squelching filled the otherwise silent motor home, followed by the creak of the outer stairs. The man stepped aside to make way for two younger boys, both of whom appeared to be in their late teens. Hanging between them, supported by their broad shoulders, was a pitiful, unconscious figure, whose face was coated almost entirely in
mud. Tufts of mattered hair stood up around its lifeless face whilst the lower body and feet lulled and dragged along the ground, leaving a vile trail of muck behind.

  “Jared…” Sienna moaned in horror as the contours of his stained face ignited a flicker of recognition in her mind. Immediately she rose to her feet and went to him, suddenly unafraid of the knife and the strangers. “Oh my god…” she cried, snatching up his lolling face in her hands, “Jared…” she shook him, her vision blurring with tears.

  “I said, sit the fuck down!” roared the man, roughly pushing her backwards so that she fell, banging the back of her head hard on the seat of the couch. “Zach! Lloyd! Get him on there,” he grumbled to the young men behind him, gesturing towards where Sienna had just been sitting.

  “Camera is ready,” Flo announced, positioning the phone on the dining table in front of her so that it was focused on the sofa.

  Zach and Lloyd, like a pair of obedient henchmen, heaved Jared across the floor and dumped him on the seat like a heavy sack of rubbish. His body was awkward, and the boys had to struggle to bend his form into shape so that he was sitting down. When they let go of him, his head sagged, too weak to sit upright, like an old, decrepit rag doll.

  Sienna remained crouched on the ground, staring in horror around at her surroundings. Two more people filed into the RV and finally shut the door, severing the stream of icy air that poured into the space. One of them she recognised as Samantha, and the other was a woman in her mid-thirties who looked just like her. It was obvious that they were mother and daughter.

  “Someone needs to wash his face at least,” the woman pointed out as she closed the door behind her, as casually as if she already owned the place. “And for fuck’s sake, get her up from the floor.”

  Sienna realised she was referring to her when one of the teenage boys roughly grabbed her under the arms and hauled her to her feet. Pain seared in her armpits, the clammy grip of his fingers seeming to scorch her skin. Madly, she began to thrash, desperate to be free.

  “GET OFF ME!” she wailed frantically as he shoved her down onto the seat beside her poor husband.

  “Wash his face,” the boy ordered, a smirk pulling at the corner of his lips. He was enjoying it, it was obvious. “Take your shirt off; you can use that,” he added, his chuckle wretched and perverted.

  Suddenly, the mother of the family was behind him, slapping the back of his head hard. “Lloyd, what the hell do you think you’re doing?” her features were contorted with anger, her eyes glittering.

  “You said to get her to clean him up,” Lloyd mumbled weakly, rubbing the back of his head. He staggered backwards, winded from the strike, clearly not about to argue with the woman.

  “With her shirt?” she barked furiously, “what are you, an animal?”

  “Mum, calm down,” the other boy said, gently touching her arm. Her face instantly relaxed.

  “Right, okay,” the woman took a deep breath, “you’re right, Zach. This isn’t the time for getting stressed. The sooner we get this sorted, the sooner we can turn in and get a decent night’s sleep.”

  Wide-eyed, Sienna crossed her arms over her knees and tried to curl herself up as small as possible, as if she could somehow make herself disappear. Somehow, it felt as though she were the imposter. There she was, on edge, perched on the seat, watching this strange, dysfunctional family altercation unfold. More tears slid down her cheeks as she dared turn to her husband. She caught his eyelid flicker and sighed a breath of relief that he was not dead, even though he was so painfully, eerily still.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Summer, 1999

  “And so you say this all happened shortly before 10 pm last night?”

  The officer questioning her frowned as he glanced down at his notes. Under the table, Minnie felt her mother squeeze her hand, a gesture that would normally automatically fill her with a sense of comfort.

  Not today.

  Today, under the harsh glare of the interview room lights, Minnie was filled with an awful void that not even her mother’s unconditional love could fill. Perhaps, if her mother knew the truth, her reassurance would be more of a comfort. But the fact was that Julie Walter only knew half the story. She knew her daughter had been attacked in the worst way possible and that her boyfriend had been mugged. She knew that the teenagers had suffered a horrific, traumatic ordeal but had been lucky enough to survive.

  What Julie Walter didn’t know was that her daughter had stabbed one of the perpetrators to death. She had no idea that her daughter’s boyfriend had dragged both of the dead degenerates to the car and set them alight to try and cover the evidence.

  “I’m sorry, are we done here now?” Julie asked, her voice cold. Her face was bare, void of her usual makeup, the only stains on her face, the sad tear marks that streaked her cheeks. “We’ve been here all day. My daughter has been through a lot. She’d told you all she knows.”

  DC Jones glanced up at Julie, opened his mouth, and then paused as if he were debating whether or not to say something. But Julie, when her children were concerned, was a hard woman. She was furious that her teenage daughter was being subject to what bordered on an interrogation after suffering such violence.

  “Spit it out, will you?” she snapped.

  Minnie flinched to hear her mother talk so brusquely to a police officer but remained quiet.

  “Mrs. Walter. We recently found the missing car.”

  Shit. Minnie felt every fibre of her being tense up until she couldn’t breathe. Of course, she knew they’d find it. It would be impossible not to find, but she was hoping it was a matter that could be discussed when she was safely tucked up in her bed, removed from the discussion.

  “And?” demanded Julie expectantly. “Surely that’s a good thing? Have you caught the culprits?”

  “Mrs. Walter, one of the culprits, is dead.”

  At that, a loud, involuntary gasp escaped from Minnie’s lips, which caused both her mother and the officer to stare at her questioningly. Quickly, the young girl jammed her lips tightly together and stared down into her lap, then fidgeted awkwardly as it occurred to her how guilty she must look.

  “Minerva?” the detective cocked his head and arched an eyebrow.

  “I… well… what? How?” she stumbled over her words, her mouth trembling as her brain scrabbled frantically over itself. Blood flooded to the surface of her skin, its heat scorching her.

  One of the culprits was dead.

  Which meant that one of them was alive.

  Detective Jones leaned back in his seat and contemplated the red-faced teenager sitting across from him. “One suspect… the deceased… was in the passenger seat. The car appeared to have been set alight, so he had been burned to death and also appeared to have suffered inhalation injuries.”

  “What has this got to do with my daughter?” Julie demanded. “The idiots blew the car up. Good riddance.”

  “Minerva?” the detective asked again, staring intently at her. “Anything you want to share at this point?”

  Julie stood up and grabbed tightly onto Minnie’s harm, dragging her upwards. It hurt. “That’s it,” she said, “I won’t have this. She’s not saying anything else without a lawyer.”

  “Mrs. Walter…”

  “And don’t you dare think I won’t be reporting you for misconduct,” snarled Julie furiously, “this is a disgrace. I’ll be going to the papers as well. Interrogating an innocent victim! An innocent victim who is a MINOR no less, who was SEXUALLY ASSAULTED!”

  With that, Julie Walter stormed out of the room, dragging her daughter behind her. Neither said a word until they were out of the station and back in the car, where they both sat, motionless, for a few tense moments in the car park. It was another gloriously sunny day, a pleasantly breezy afternoon that would have been perfect for a picnic or a day at the beach.

  Suddenly, Julie turned and grabbed on to Minnie’s hand tightly. She stared intently into her child’s eyes with a strange sense of urgency
that made Minnie so uncomfortable that she had to look away.

  “Minnie,” Julie whispered, even though they could see nobody else in the car park. “There’s… there’s nothing you’re not telling me, is there?”

  The teenager breathed out and debated coming clean. After all, perhaps if her mother knew the truth, she’d be able to help. She’d always been able to solve every problem up until that point in Minnie’s life. What would be so different about this? As soon as her mouth opened, it was like a set of gates were opened, and out poured Minnie’s conscience in one big, hot slippery rush. With every sentence, tears slipped from the corners of her eyes and slid down her cheeks, and she gripped tighter and tighter onto her mother’s fingers, like a helpless infant desperate for comfort.

  Chapter Sixteen

  2019

  Sienna felt useless as the hours passed, like a defenceless pawn, irrelevant and forgotten about at the edge of the chessboard, as the other players went about their business.

  Pale blue light began to stream in through the shutters as Minnie, the mother of the family, gently used a cloth to clean Jared up, who was still only semi-conscious. Behind her, the four children, Zach, Samantha (whose real name was Stella), Lloyd, and Flo, sat around the dining table, chomping tortilla chips that they’d helped themselves to out of the cupboard. The father, Ronnie, had disappeared into the driver’s section of the RV, occasionally shouting out comments regarding the functions of the vehicle.

  It was all so grossly twisted how the six of them appeared to play house; the mother cleaning; father assessing the navigation; the children chattering merrily as they stuffed their faces with snacks. If she wasn’t so terrified, Sienna might have laughed at how sickeningly bizarre it all was.

  Minnie finally breathed a sigh of satisfaction and dropped the dirty rag into the brown plastic bowl of soapy water at her feet.

  Sienna chanced a sideways look at her husband. There were still faint brown stains on his face, and his hair was matted and filthy, sticking up in grotesque spikes. His coat had been removed, his clothing underneath remarkably clean over his awkwardly lopsided body. His eyes were opened, just about, and his lips quivered as if he wanted to speak but could not muster the energy.