Minnie laughed, “bet you wish you’d gotten yours one now, though, eh?”
“Just stop this!” Ross raised his voice over them, training his eyes first on Paul, then on Minnie. “Seriously, this is getting us nowhere. Stella is going to phone Flo and get the kids to come home. It’s going to be fine. Minnie says Flo goes out and plays alone all the time, so obviously, she just didn’t realise it would be a big issue.”
Paul opened his mouth to make another indignant retort, but he was silenced by the ring of the phone that Stella had put on loudspeaker and was holding up in the air, balanced on her palm.
The phone rang out for a few moments, which felt like a few hundred eternities as they listened intently, breathing frozen as they waited for the line to connect. Just as Minnie was sure the call would go to voice mail, there was the voice of a young girl that broke the intense atmosphere.
“Hello?”
Minnie heaved a sigh of relief, privately delighted at the sound of her youngest daughter’s voice. “Hello, darling. It’s Mummy. Where’ve you got to, my sweet?”
“Is Annie with you?” demanded Paul, his voice hostile, undifferentiating between child and adult.
“Of course she is; we’re best friends now,” replied Flo, her voice as sickly sweet as warm treacle. “Annie, it’s your dad; sounds like he’s worried…”
“I’m here, Dad.”
Paul let out a loud, animal-sounding cry that was pregnant with a hundred different emotions. He even collapsed to his knees, causing Zach and Lloyd to raise their eyebrows at one another and stifle a laugh.
“Annie, honey, we were worried about you,” said Ross sternly, “you didn’t even tell us you were going out. And you know you don’t go anywhere by yourself.”
“Sorry, Daddy,” Annie replied in a muffled voice; the tone of a naughty child caught in the act.
Ross sighed and patted Paul’s head. “It’s okay. We’re just glad you’re safe. Where are you?”
“In the woods,” chimed in Flo. Minnie could hear the grin in her voice, and it made something in her gut wrench.
“Oakwood?”
“That’s the one.”
“Right, stay where you are. I’m coming to get you now,” said Ross grimly. He leaned over the sideboard, searching for the keys to the old motor home. His face folded into a deep frown of confusion as he scanned the mass of metal for the familiar Spice Girls key ring.
“Paul, where are the keys?”
“I left them on the sideboard.”
“Well, they’re not there now…”
Julie tutted and shook her head, scooping up her own car keys and dumping them into Ross’s palm. “For goodness sake, just take mine. This is no time for arguments. Go and bring those little girls back now.”
Ross obeyed, leaving behind the rest of the group, feeling the uncomfortable tension that had been brewing between them all earlier, resuming with a vengeance. He sucked in a lung full of fresh air as he exited the house and slammed the front door behind him, then briskly walked down the drive to the neat garage beside the house.
But before he could get to the car, Ross did a double-take as he passed the motor home.
His heart thumped loudly in his chest as he glimpsed three crudely drawn initials scratched into the surface of the coloured metal that somehow seemed to glisten in the shiny, drizzly day.
Had they been there from earlier? Maybe they’d missed them in the rain and the excitement of finding his long-lost sister.
Or maybe they were new, etched onto their camper van as some dark predator watched his little girl and niece wandering off alone together in the big, open, wide world.
RIP.
Chapter Fifty-five
Spring, 2001
Before all of the bad things began happening, Minnie had not realised just how intense and just how disturbing something as simple as a knock on the door could truly be. Alas, she was quickly beginning to realise that, when you are guilty of crimes, a lot of things suddenly become absolutely terrifying.
Going to the supermarket… a phone ringing… the sound of sirens… her baby boy showing any sign of illness… because Minnie knew that she would never be able to take him into a hospital. Not without there being lots and lots of questions. Questions that would unravel all of their hard, emotionally taxing work and land them in exactly the place they were struggling to keep out of.
Needless to say, when there was a loud, hard rap at the front door one cold January morning, Minnie felt as though her soul had slipped from her body and out of her arse. Ronnie was out, trying to reconnect with the dodgy contacts that had landed them in the shit in the first place. Apparently, the shit that went down with Steve was a one-off, a freak accident. And it was not as though the two had any choice. After all, it was their only hope at earning more money- no legitimate job would employ Ronnie with no documents.
Alone and afraid, Minnie froze into place, baby Zach continuing to suck hungrily from his bottle as she became rigid on her place on the sofa.
Had the police finally tracked Ronnie down? Was she wanted for Steve’s murder? Or was it some kind of welfare check on their Polish landlord that would potentially unearth everything?
Like a ninja of sorts, Minnie tucked the baby into her chest and crept down onto the floor so that she was lying flat. The knocking continued. The sudden loud noise, in combination with the change of position, seemed to upset the baby, who immediately began to scream at a rate louder than Minnie had previously known possible from his tiny lungs.
Whilst she scrambled about with the bottle, attempting to force the teat back into her son’s mouth, the knocking became louder and more insistent. As if trying to join in, Zach’s cries also just became louder and more
