Brutal Read online

  BRUTAL

  Mandasue Heller

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  PART ONE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  PART TWO

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  PART THREE

  42

  43

  44

  45

  Epilogue

  For my beautiful mum, Jean Heller.

  Always in my heart xxx

  Acknowledgements

  All my love, as ever, to Win, Michael, Andrew, Azzura, Marissa, Lariah, Antonio, Ava, Amber, Martin, Jade, Reece, Kyro, Diaz, Auntie Doreen, Pete, Lorna, Cliff, Chris, Glen, Nats, Amari, Aziah, Dan, Toni, Rayne, Joseph, Mavis, Val, Jas, Donna, Julie, Brian, Ian – and the rest of mine and Win’s families, past and present. Love also to Liz, Norman, Paul, Betty, Ronnie, Kimberley, Katy, John, Jayne, Laney, Shirley Levi, Jonathan L, Colin, Amanda, Jac, Brian, Rick, Chris, Judith, Dr Sue and all my old friends from Hulme – too many to mention by name, but you know who you are. Thanks, as always, to Sheila, Wayne, Alex, Jez and all at Pan Macmillan. Also Carolyn C, Anne O’Brien, Nick and Cat. And, lastly, eternal gratitude to my loyal readers and supportive FB friends. You guys rock!

  Prologue

  ‘What are you going to do?’ the man asked, staring in horror at the wispy hair sticking out of the top of the rolled-up quilt the two men had carried into the room.

  ‘Shut it!’ the smaller of the pair hissed, dropping his end of the bundle and shoving him forcefully down onto a chair. Then, turning to his mate, who was carefully setting down his end, he said, ‘Quit fucking about and go fetch the chainsaw. The pigs are waiting to be fed.’

  The seated man’s face drained of blood when he realized what was about to happen, and his heart was pounding so hard he thought he might faint.

  ‘Please don’t do this,’ he croaked. ‘It’s barbaric.’

  ‘I thought I told you to shut it,’ the smaller one roared, kicking him and the chair over.

  ‘Pack it in!’ the other man snapped. ‘We haven’t got time for this. If you’re gonna do it, get on with it!’

  Flashing him a dirty look, the small one pushed past him and made his way outside.

  ‘Please don’t let him do it,’ the man begged as he hauled himself up off the floor. ‘You’re not like him, and I know you don’t agree with any of this. But it’s not too late to start over. I’ve got money; I can help you. You just need to—’

  ‘Oi, dickhead, don’t be telling him what he needs to do,’ the smaller one sneered, walking back in at that exact moment and kicking the door shut behind him. ‘He’ll do as he’s told – same as you. Now, quit snivelling like a little bitch, and start this fucker up.’

  He shoved the rusted chainsaw he was carrying into the man’s hands.

  ‘You’ll be doing the honours,’ he said, grinning nastily. ‘And no funny business, or the grunts’ll be getting double rations tonight.’

  PART ONE

  1

  Jo Cooper waved the last of the guests off from the porch of her parents’ farmhouse. Once the car’s tail-lights had faded into the distance, she gazed at the bleak landscape on the other side of the lane. A low-lying mist lent a sinister atmosphere to the moorlands, and she shivered as she remembered the terror she had always felt whenever she’d had to walk home after dusk when she was younger; convinced that the twisted trees with their leafless, claw-like branches were going to come to life and drag her off the path.

  The front door creaked open behind her, and Jo smiled as her father came out to join her. At sixty, Frank Peters was still a handsome man, but the dim bulb above their heads highlighted the silver strands in his once jet-black hair and deepened the shadows framing his kind grey eyes.

  ‘You look tired,’ she said, slipping her arm through his.

  ‘I am,’ he admitted. ‘It’s been a long day.’

  ‘Nice, though.’

  ‘Aye, it was,’ Frank agreed, gazing out into the gloom. ‘Looks like summer’s coming to an early end.’

  ‘You’re not kidding, it’s absolutely freezing,’ said Jo. ‘Let’s go back in and have a brew, eh?’

  As her dad went back into the living room, where her brother, Evan, was lounging on the sofa in front of the open fire, Jo headed into the kitchen to make the drinks. Every surface of the usually orderly room was littered with used paper plates and plastic glasses, and the old oak table was covered with disposable silver trays bearing the remnants of curling sandwiches, half-eaten sausage rolls, and wilted salad from the buffet. Her mum’s apron, still dusty with flour from the last pie she’d baked, was hanging on the back of the door, and a wave of sadness washed over Jo when she realized she would never again taste her mother’s cooking, or share a pot of tea and a gossip with her over this table.

  Determined not to start crying again, because it felt as if that was all she’d been doing for the last few weeks, Jo glanced at the clock hanging above the window. It was almost 9 p.m., and she bit her lip when she realized that she’d forgotten to ring her husband, Sam, to check that he and their five-year-old daughter had got home all right. This was the first night she had ever spent away from Emily and, even though she knew that Sam was more than capable of looking after her, she still felt guilty that she hadn’t been there to tuck her in.

  Teas made, Jo carried them through to the living room. Evan smiled as he took his cup from her.

  ‘I was just saying, I reckon Mum would have been proud of the way Dad handled himself today. He did a belting job, didn’t he?’

  ‘Brilliant,’ Jo said, taking a seat on her mum’s chair and covering a yawn with her hand. Apart from the hour she’d spent perched on the uncomfortable pew in the village church that morning, listening as the boring vicar droned on and on for what had felt like an eternity, this was the first time she’d sat down all day.

  ‘Your mum arranged everything in advance, so I can’t take any credit,’ said Frank. ‘If I’d had my way, she’d have had nothing but the best, but she made me promise I wouldn’t change anything, so my hands were tied.’

  As he spoke, his gaze drifted to a framed photograph on the mantelpiece. It had been taken on his and Maureen’s wedding day, and she’d looked like a beauty queen with her long blond hair in curls, and her sapphire eyes sparkling with the joy of being a new bride. Her physical appearance had changed after moving out here; her smooth skin coarsened by the unforgiving weather of the countryside, her waistline expanded from the hearty meals she’d cooked. That extra weight had dropped off her at an alarming rate in the months following her cancer diagnosis, but her fighting spirit had stayed to the bitter end, and they’d had some blazing rows over her refusal to take the course of chemo she’d been offered. ‘What’s the point?’ she’d argued when Frank had begged her to go for it. ‘We’re all going to die eventually, and I don’t want to waste whatever time I’ve got left being pumped full of poison that’ll make me even sicker than I already am.’

  ‘Are you all right, Dad?’ Jo’s voice pierced Frank’s tho
ughts.

  ‘Just thinking what a stubborn woman your mother was,’ he sighed.

  ‘She certainly knew how to keep you in your place,’ said Evan. ‘And me, come to that. As tiny as she was, I didn’t dare answer back when she told me off. That’s why I was always out in the fields with you.’

  ‘Pity you didn’t keep it up,’ Jo sniped. ‘If he’d had more help since his heart attack, he might not have had to retire so early.’

  Evan’s grin evaporated and he fixed his sister with an accusing glare. ‘I didn’t see you offering to give him a hand.’

  ‘I’ve got Emily to look after,’ she reminded him. ‘And you’re their son, so it was your job. Anyway, you live closer.’

  ‘I’ve already got a job, and a disabled wife.’

  ‘Marie manages just fine while you’re at work, so you could easily have switched to working here instead. And her so-called disability doesn’t stop her from going to bingo, so I don’t see why you have to run round at her beck and call all the time. I’m sure she puts it on to keep you away from your family.’

  ‘Why do you always have to be such a bitch?’ Evan glared at her. ‘It’s all right for you, with your Pilates, and your yoga, and all that other hippie me-me-me shit you’re into. But you don’t see Marie when she’s struggling to breathe, and . . .’

  Frank closed his eyes and rubbed his throbbing temples with his thumbs. His kids had got along OK when they were small, but they’d started fighting like cat and dog as soon as they hit their teens: Evan using crude humour to get a rise out of his sister; Jo lashing out with the razor-sharp tongue she’d inherited from their mother. But they were both nearing their thirties, so they really ought to have grown out of it by now.

  Unable to bear any more of it when their voices rose in volume, Frank slapped his hand down on the arm of his chair.

  ‘Right, pack it in, the pair of you! If you must know, we didn’t want either of you helping out on the farm, because you were both useless at it.’

  Jo guiltily dipped her gaze. She’d been ten and Evan twelve when their father had lost his engineering job and invested his redundancy money in this place. It was only thirty or so miles from their old terraced house in Manchester, but it may as well have been a different planet for how isolated they’d felt. Out of sheer boredom, Evan had half-heartedly helped their dad on the land, but Jo had defiantly resisted their mother’s attempts to teach her how to cook, grow vegetables, or tend to the stinking chickens. As soon as they had been old enough to leave home, they had both hot-footed it back to the land of the living, and only visited for special occasions now, like Christmas, and their parents’ birthdays.

  The fire crackled loudly as the wind howled down the chimney, and the three lapsed into silence and drank their tea. On the verge of falling asleep by the time he’d finished, Evan leaned forward and slammed his empty cup down on the table.

  ‘Oi, spud face.’ He kicked Jo in the ankle. ‘Fancy a fight?’

  ‘Don’t even think about it,’ she warned. ‘I used to want to kill you when you roughed me up. And I mean kill,’ she added ominously. ‘If you’d known how many times I plotted to murder you and bury you under the cowshed, you’d have steered well clear of me.’

  ‘Oh, I knew,’ he chuckled. ‘You wrote about it in your diary – in very gory detail, might I add.’

  Jo’s mouth fell open. ‘You read my diary?’

  ‘Course I did,’ Evan said, without a trace of remorse. ‘It used to give me and my mates a right laugh. I can’t believe you didn’t know.’

  ‘You little shit!’ she squawked, her cheeks flaming at the thought of him and his spotty school friends reading her private thoughts.

  ‘Yep, that’s pretty much what you called me back then, as well,’ said Evan. ‘Little shit, little mong, little dickhead, little cu—’ He paused and gave her a curious look. ‘How come it was always little something, when I was so much bigger than you?’

  ‘How am I supposed to know? I was a child.’

  ‘But you just did it again . . . called me a little shit.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I guess old habits die hard, don’t they?’ Jo sat forward and put her cup down. ‘Right, that’s me done. I’m going to head up to my room and give Sam a quick ring.’

  ‘Why don’t you go home, love?’ Frank suggested when she stood up. ‘There’s no need for you to stay over.’

  ‘I’m not leaving you on your own tonight,’ she insisted. ‘You need company at a time like this.’

  ‘No one needs company when they’re asleep,’ he reasoned. ‘And you can go, as well, Son,’ he added to Evan. ‘You shouldn’t leave Marie by herself overnight; it’s not safe round your way.’

  ‘She’s got the dog to protect her,’ Evan argued. ‘And I’ve already told her I’m staying.’

  ‘Well, now I’m telling you you’re not,’ said Frank, rising stiffly to his feet. ‘Go on . . . get yourselves back to your families.’

  ‘You’re our family, too,’ Jo reminded him, ashamed of herself for already mentally packing the little bag she’d brought over that morning, containing her pyjamas, toothbrush, and make-up bag.

  ‘I know.’ Frank patted her shoulder. ‘But you’ve a long drive ahead of you, and the sooner you get going, the sooner you’ll get home.’

  ‘Only if you’re absolutely sure you’ll be OK?’

  ‘I’m positive.’

  Aware that there was no use arguing once their father had made up his mind, Jo and Evan headed up to their old rooms to collect their things.

  Frank was standing at the foot of the stairs with their coats in his hand when they came back down. Jo took hers and was slipping it on when her mobile started ringing.

  ‘It’s Sam,’ she said, glancing at the screen. ‘Won’t be a sec.’

  She rushed into the kitchen to speak to her husband in private, but she didn’t close the door properly, and Frank and Evan exchanged an awkward glance when her voice carried clearly out to them.

  ‘Hi, I was just leaving. No, I haven’t had a chance yet. I was going to do it in the morning, but he’s told me to go home so it’ll have to wait.’

  There was a pause while she listened to whatever her husband was saying. Then, sighing, she said, ‘OK, I’ll do it now. But he’s not going to like it.’

  ‘Everything all right?’ Frank asked when she came back out into the hall.

  Unable to look him in the eye, Jo shook her head.

  ‘Not really. There’s, um, something I need to tell you.’

  ‘Uh-oh, this sounds personal. Think that’s my cue to leave,’ Evan said, reaching out to open the front door.

  ‘No, stay.’ Jo touched his arm. ‘You both need to hear this.’

  Curious to know what was going on, the men followed her into the living room and sat down. Nervous, because she had no idea how they would react when they heard what she had to say, Jo licked her lips and clasped her hands together in her lap before starting.

  ‘Right, this isn’t going to be easy. And I know it’s a terrible time to tell you, but Sam says I can’t keep putting it off.’

  ‘You two are OK, aren’t you?’ Frank asked. ‘You’re not thinking of splitting up, or anything?’

  ‘God, no!’ she spluttered. ‘It’s got nothing to do with Sam. Well, not in that way, anyway. It’s just . . .’

  ‘Come on, our kid, spit it out,’ Evan said impatiently when she tailed off. ‘You’ve got us thinking all sorts here.’

  Breathing in deeply, Jo said, ‘We’re going to Australia.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ Frank said, wondering why she’d been so worried about telling them. ‘It’ll do you both good to take a break, and Emily will love it.’

  ‘I don’t mean for a holiday,’ Jo said quietly. ‘I mean we’re emigrating.’

  ‘What?’ A deep crease formed between Frank’s eyebrows. ‘When?’

  ‘Two weeks.’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ Evan drew his head back and stared at her in disbelief. ‘And you
’re only telling us now?’

  ‘I’m really sorry, Dad,’ Jo addressed her father guiltily. ‘I wanted to tell you ages ago, but every time I tried, Mum got worse, so I couldn’t.’

  ‘So you thought you’d wait till the day of her funeral instead?’ Evan sneered. ‘Classy, that, Sis. Real classy.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Jo said again, struggling to keep her tears in check. ‘If there’d been any way to tell you sooner, I’d have done it. But there wasn’t.’

  Frank stared at her for several long moments as if he didn’t know what to say. Then, leaning forward when a tear trickled down her cheek, he tugged a tissue out of the box Maureen kept on the hearth and passed it to her.

  ‘Don’t cry, love. You’ve no reason to be upset.’

  ‘Evan’s right, though,’ she sniffled. ‘It’s totally the wrong time to be telling you something like this. But it’s coming up so fast, and I might not have had another chance.’

  Frank sat back and drummed his fingertips on the arm of his chair.

  ‘So . . . Australia, eh? Can’t say I was expecting that.’

  ‘It’s not that long since I found out, so it was a shock for me, as well,’ Jo said, dabbing at her eyes with the tissue. ‘But Sam’s been asked to manage his company’s new branch on the Gold Coast, and it’s twice the salary he’s getting now, so we’d be stupid to turn it down. They’ve leased a house for us, with a really good school close by, and a beach at the end of the road.’

  ‘Whoopty-do,’ Evan said scornfully, staring at her in disgust. ‘He buried Mum today, in case you’ve forgotten, and now you’re going to abandon him?’

  ‘I’m not abandoning him,’ Jo protested, even though she felt she was doing exactly that – and hated herself for it. ‘It’s only for two years, and we can call and email each other all the time. We can even Skype – if you can get your head around it, Dad.’

  ‘I’m sure I’ll manage,’ said Frank.

  ‘Never mind Skype,’ Evan interjected bitterly. ‘It’ll be winter soon, and who’s going to look after him if he gets snowed in or has a fall? Or – God forbid – another heart attack?’