A Lesser Evil - Lesley Pearse [193]
‘Did you see his face when he said they buried the body just before Christmas?’ Wallis asked incredulously. ‘He was so bloody gleeful that it snowed at New Year and it stayed around for weeks. He thought he was talking to men that had the same sick mentality as him!’
Roper shuddered. He felt he needed a bath in disinfectant to make sure none of Alfie’s sickness had transferred to him. ‘I’m not so sure I can feel proud of myself,’ he admitted. ‘I only got all that filth by lying to him. Now we’ve got to do the same to Molly. But I don’t suppose she’ll be such a pushover.’
‘Were they both as evil as that when they met, or did they make each other that way?’ Wallis mused aloud as they walked to the car.
‘I don’t even want to think about that one.’ Roper half smiled. ‘If I did I might feel tempted to collect up all their children and grandchildren and kill them off to make sure the Muckle genes don’t spread any further.’
Chapter twenty-one
‘Your mum’s watching us from the kitchen window,’ Dan warned Fifi as she turned in her seat to kiss him.
It was a Sunday afternoon in mid-November and they were down the garden sitting by the summer house in a patch of sunshine. It had been raining incessantly for the last two weeks, but as today was dry and sunny, after lunch Fifi and Dan had volunteered to rake up the fallen leaves that lay like a thick orange and yellow carpet on the lawn. But halfway through the job they’d got bored and sat down for a rest.
‘Let her watch,’ Fifi murmured. ‘I don’t care.’
Dan returned the kiss, wishing he could whisk her indoors and go to bed for the rest of the afternoon. But he knew Clara would see that as a step too far.
‘If only we had a place of our own,’ he murmured, still holding her tightly. ‘Shall I find us another flat to rent?’
‘I don’t think I can trust you with that job again,’ Fifi joked.
They both laughed because here in the safety and seclusion of the Browns’ garden, the recent events in London seemed just a bad dream.
Dan had found himself a job during their first week back in Bristol. It was with a local building company who did repairs and renovations as well as building new houses. Dan really liked it as he did a great deal more than just bricklaying. This week he’d been installing a bathroom, doing the plumbing and tiling, and on Monday he was starting on building a garage. His wages were almost as high as in London and the firm had so much work coming in they were turning some jobs away.
Fifi was doing temporary secretarial work for an agency at the moment while she kept her eyes open for a permanent job. She was fully recovered in every way now, eating like a horse, sleeping like a baby without any nightmares, and very happy to be back in the safety and comfort of her family home. It was Dan who suffered the nightmares and paranoia.
He liked living here. It was good to come home from work to a hot meal, and Clara was a fantastic cook. He got on well with Robin, Peter and Patty; Harry had become the father he’d never known. Even Clara with her strict mealtimes, the way she never trusted him to take his work boots off in the porch, or even wash his hands before meals, had become very dear to him. But it felt as though he wasn’t really providing for his wife, and he still felt very guilty that he had taken Fifi to a place where she was exposed to so much danger.
They had a row after they arrived in Bristol because Fifi wanted to write to her old friends in Dale Street. Dan said it was dangerous for anyone to know where they were. She argued that if any of Trueman’s men were intent on finding them, it wouldn’t take much effort to do so anyway. She also said Frank, Stan and Nora Diamond all had enough troubles in their own lives without divulging their address to anyone else, and they’d be upset if they were just abandoned as if they’d meant nothing.
She was right, Dan knew that, but the image