Kerry Barnes - The Hunted - A gripping crime thriller that will have you hooked

‘A tart?’

She pursed her thin lips together. ‘Yeah, Mikey, a real slapper. Sorry to say it, mate, and her being my gal an’ all, but, well, she is what she is. There ain’t no changing her.’

Mike pondered for a moment. ‘Gilly, I told Jackie to take Ricky on the next plane to our villa in Spain. I’ve got a bit of business to attend to, and I wanted them away, so no harm could come to them, and she knew that. D’ya think she would have ignored me, even knowing how serious it was?’

Gilly scratched her forehead and shook her head. ‘I wouldn’t think so, Mikey, ’cos she’d do anything to save her own skin. Yeah, I believe she would’ve gone to Spain.’

She could see Mike visibly shrink, his great big lintel-like shoulders now slumped.

‘She never went to Spain.’

Gilly put her hands to her mouth. ‘Jesus, this business. It wouldn’t lead to our little Ricky getting hurt, now, would it?’

Mike looked at the worry that suddenly cast a pall on Gilly’s face. Her eyes were alive with fear.

‘No, Gilly, ’course not.’ He didn’t really believe his own words, despite trying to put her mind at rest.

He took one more look around the tired kitchen. ‘It’s late, Gilly, so I’ll be off. Call me, if you can think of anywhere she may have gone, just in case she decided to find a place of her own instead of jumping on a plane to Spain.’

She struggled to stand up. For the first time, Mike had a very clear picture of his mother-in-law and not the crap that Jackie had been telling him. ‘Are you really in a lotta pain, Gilly?’

She gave a sad smile, showing her missing tooth. ‘Yeah, but old age gets to us all.’

The sad thing about it all was that Gilly wasn’t old at all. She was a woman in her early fifties who could have passed for seventy.

‘Once all this business is sorted out, I’ll come back and organize a bit of help. I’ll get you a new kitchen and freshen this place up. I’ll pay for a cleaner as well. I can’t have Ricky’s granny living like this.’

Her bony fingers clutched his arm. ‘You’re a good lad, Mikey. Ya muvver must be proud. It’s just a shame I can’t say the same about Jackie. But for me little grandson, I can, and I will. He’s a chip off the ol’ block, a mini you, if ya don’t mind me saying.’

He quickly pecked her on the cheek and was gone.

Jackie woke up feeling groggy. A bottle of vodka and a line of charlie had kept her up until the small hours. Now she lay with the sun streaming in through the window of the tidy little house close to Ely, Cambridgeshire. She didn’t move her banging head but looked up at the small ceiling chandelier and smiled. As her hands slid across the warm empty space beside her, the smell of bacon tantalizing her taste buds, she closed her eyes. This was it: a new life. It was a future plan, but, considering the circumstances, it was now or never.

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