Evil for Evil Read Free Page B

of everything from her thirteenth birthday party to the school prom in June. Without her past, among strangers, she could become someone totally, excitingly different – or be utterly overwhelmed and lost. Tonight she was favouring lost.
    The phone rang and was answered before Cat could dry her hands to pick it up. Her voice was flat as she said, ‘I bet you anything that’s Mum, saying she’s held up.’
    ‘Not necessarily, dear,’ Janet said, but without conviction, and a couple of minutes later Bill Fleming appeared.
    He was a big, solidly built man, fresh-complexioned, with fair hair imperceptibly going grey and thinning as his waistline expanded, but his eyes were still as blue as his daughter’s.
    As the women turned questioning looks on him, he pulled a face. ‘Yeah, I’m afraid so. That was Mum.’
    ‘Oh, don’t tell me. She’s delayed. As usual.’
    ‘She’s really upset, Cat,’ Bill defended his wife. ‘She says just to go ahead without her.’
    Cat looked at him sharply. ‘Go ahead without her? You mean she won’t be back for supper?’
    ‘Seems unlikely, apparently. You know how it is, love – she’s no option. It’s just the job.’
    ‘Oh, I know all right! The rotten job – the rotten, rotten job!’ Cat felt humiliating tears springing to her eyes. ‘I’m … I’m just going to do some more packing.’
    She hurried out and up the stairs. Big Ted, her comfort in childhood miseries, still sat on a chair beside her bed; she grabbed him, burying her face in his worn pile, and flung herself down to sob.
     
    The bar, in one of Glasgow’s seedier backstreets, was run-down and unappealing. The paintwork bore the scars of pub brawls and the frosted glass of the dirty windows still had the name of a long-forgotten brewer etched into it. Smoke wafted in from banished drinkers clustered round the open door and its clientele was almost entirely male. It was doing good business this evening and already there were pools of spilt beer on the floor.
    The TV on the wall, ignored except for football, was showing the news, barely audible above the raucous voices. The only personlooking at it even idly was a gaunt young man on his own, ill-shaven and in scruffy clothes that looked as if he might have slept in them. He was taking sips of the cheapest lager on the slate as if seeing how long he could spin it out.
    When the item from Galloway came on he suddenly sat up, stared, then got off his stool and pushed through to the end of the bar where he could hear. He listened with painful attention and when it finished turned to the barman.
    ‘Hey, pal! Got a pen?’
    The barman glanced round, then found one by the till. ‘There you are, mate. OK?’
    ‘Cheers.’
    The young man drained his glass in two gulps, wrote something on the palm of his hand, put the pen back and hurried out.
     
    The sun was going down now, meeting the golden path it had made across the still waters of Wigtown Bay. As the little boat with its outboard motor chugged across on the seaward side of the Isles of Fleet, ripples shivered the reflection into splinters of light, but the glories of the autumn sunset were wasted on its occupants.
    The boy steering was a tow-headed lad of thirteen, his frame bulking up into adolescence already. The glow on his face came only partly from an afternoon of sun and sea; there was also satisfaction at the blue-silver mackerel in the bottom of the boat beside the fishing tackle. Reluctant to see the day end, he throttled back the engine and called to his companion.
    ‘Here, Jamie! How about we check out the cave there? The tide’s right.’
    They were passing near the western shore of Lovatt Island and he was pointing towards a small sea cave, halfway down its length.There was warm light still on the cliff, just, but it was fading fast and the cave mouth looked black and forbidding.
    Jamie, younger, slighter, dark and with a sensitive face, covered his shiver with a look at his watch. ‘Naw,’ he