Whisper (Skins Book 2) Read online

  I shook my head. Even if I could bring myself to do it, the police had already decided that my word was bollocks enough to ignore. If they got their hands on my father, that was one thing, but I’d heard through the grapevine that he’d gone to ground—Dicky too. Which meant that while the coppers had someone already fessing up, they wouldn’t much care about hearsay.

  Emma whistled and then called to Shadow in a sweet tone I rarely heard from her. The bastard ambled over like a motherfucking Labrador, and the defeat only added to the weight in my chest. I passed her Shadow’s head collar and slid off the fence. “I’m going to find Jonah. If I’m not back by morning, I’ve probably killed him.”

  I’d spent more of my life than I cared to remember searching for my father, but I searched for him now with a new urgency. His bedsit was dark and silent, and I came up blank at his usual haunts, but where on any other night I might’ve given up and gone home, tonight I pressed on and drove northwards, out of town towards Bodmin.

  Jonah had taught me to gallop on the moors—to loosen the reins and set a horse free the way you couldn’t in a fenced-off field. Over the years, I’d come to prefer beach riding or hacking through the woods, but I remembered the little shacks Jonah had sheltered us in when the weather had caught us out. There was one in particular that had been his favourite. Off the beaten hikers’ path, it was perfect for an old drunk to hole up in.

  Not so perfect for finding your way to it in the dark, but despite my many flaws, my sense of direction was pretty hot, and my father and grandpa both had taught me to recognise landmarks that were unlikely to change much as the years rolled by—ancient trees and the shape of the hills. With the help of the moonlight, I was set.

  The shack I had in mind was a mile away from the road. I ditched the van at a tourist spot and set off on foot. Twenty minutes later, I saw the shack in the distance. No lights, but as I got closer, I smelled my father’s cherry tobacco, and relief warred with dread in the pit of my stomach. Somehow, I knew that by morning, nothing would ever be the same.

  I came up on the shack like a ninja and burst through the door. My father was huddled in a sleeping bag on the floor, a neat cluster of empty beer cans and an open bottle of vodka beside him. He looked up at me and his eyes held little surprise.

  He’d been expecting me.

  Harry

  So this was what it was like to be arrested. Rhys had often described his wayward younger years to me, but I reckoned that London police stations were nothing like the rural shithole I found myself in now.

  For starters, the place was deserted. Aside from me, two plain-clothes officers, and desk sergeant, there were no other souls to be seen. I had no idea what had happened to the dozen officers who’d converged on the farm.

  And no one seemed likely to tell me when I was the one answering the questions.

  “Tell me again,” the male officer said. “What are you doing on Whisper Farm?”

  “Working,” I said. “I rented a room through Airbnb. The receipt is on my phone. I already gave you the passcode.”

  I’d done that as a distraction, remembering a conversation I’d overheard Rhys and his friends having years ago when getting picked up by the police had been their regular weekend party trick. “Give them everything they don’t need. Keep ’em busy while you get your story straight.”

  The useless data on my phone had kept the CID officers occupied for a couple of hours, but I’d yet to figure out the second part—the explanation for the first real gun I’d ever laid eyes on, and just why I’d felt the need to claim it was mine.

  Yeah, that’s right, because it had been clear from the start that the detectives knew full well that I was lying through my teeth.

  “Why are you protecting Jonah Carter?” And I had no answer for them, because it wasn’t Jonah Carter I was trying to protect—it was the rest of them. Even without whatever was between Joe and me, I couldn’t live with the fear I’d witnessed in Emma and Sal when the police had thrown Joe to the ground.

  “Not my boy.”

  “Not again. We can’t lose him.”

  I hadn’t known about the gun at the time. From what Emma had said up to that point, I’d imagined a haul of fake number plates or some knocked-off designer gear. If I’d seen the shotgun beforehand, would I have done anything different? Pondering it was a welcome distraction from my fate if the detectives began to take me seriously, but I wasn’t any closer to an answer to that either.

  The police called a timeout on the interview and I was led to the front desk to make a phone call. Lacking any better ideas, I called Rhys, but he didn’t answer. So I called the farm.

  Sal answered. “Joe’s not here,” she said before I could ask. “He’s out looking for his father. I’m so sorry, Harry. We’ll fix this, I promise.”

  I glanced around, mindful of the desk sergeant, and turned my back on him. “That’s okay. I’m sure it will work itself out.”

  “If it doesn’t, Joe will step up.”

  “I don’t want him to step up.”

  “I know, sweet boy, but if you think he’s going to let you do time for his father’s mistakes, then you don’t know him at all.”

  I closed my eyes to the hopeless gravity of it. My heart knew that the police weren’t going to charge me for possession of a firearm. Joe’s panic when I’d claimed responsibility for the gun had highlighted me as bait, and the detective who’d brought me in had been shrewd enough to see it. I knew they wouldn’t charge me, and the detective knew it, but Joe didn’t. And he couldn’t deliver his father, he’d put himself in the frame, and I was getting the impression that the younger Carter scalp would do if Jonah couldn’t be found. “Listen, Sal. They can hold me for twenty-four hours without charging. Tell Joe to do what he can with that time. Right now, that’s all we can do.”

  There wasn’t much else to say. If Sal knew that I’d put myself forward as a distraction, I couldn’t tell, and I hung up with mixed emotions. One day I’d understand the instant bond I’d had for this family, but today wasn’t that day.

  I was towed to a holding cell and given the worst sandwich in the world and a bottle of water. The CID detectives informed me that they’d be back for me later, but when an hour stretched to two, and then three, I began to wonder if something had happened.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Joe

  The eerie peace of the moors was shattered by my father hitting the side of my van. He took the impact and rolled with it, letting momentum correct his equilibrium before he turned his bland gaze on me.

  “Do you think throwing me around is going to change anything, son?”

  “Does it matter what I think?” I spat. “If you gave a fuck about me, we wouldn’t be out here.”

  “That’s not true.” Jonah straightened his grubby clothes. “If I didn’t care, I’d still be on the farm. I wouldn’t have let your grandfather sign it over to you, and life would be very different.”

  He was right about that, but I wasn’t in the mood for his philosophical old man act. “I don’t care about life being different. I just want you to own your mistakes and stop fucking me over.”

  “It’s not you in the police cell, Joe. It’s your . . . friend.”

  The pause threw petrol on the fire in me. I lunged at Jonah again and grasped his collar, propelling him around the van’s bonnet to the passenger side.

  I wrenched the door open. “Get in.”

  For reasons only he understood, my father obeyed.

  I shut the door and got in the other side, locking us in. The van rumbled to life, and I peeled out of the car park. “I’m taking you down the nick.”

  “What for?”

  “What do you think? To cough to that bloody gun.”

  “What do you think will happen then?”

  I hadn’t given that much thought. The child in me imagined that Jonah would be whisked away, Harry set free, and that would be the end of it. But life didn’t work like that, particularly if you were a Cart
er. Simple things turned complicated in the blink of an eye. People got hurt, let down, and fucked over. And somehow my father always carried on. Always moving forward, but nothing ever changed. “I don’t care what happens to you.”

  Jonah was silent, staring listlessly out of the window. My heart burned for a real reaction from him, but I knew it wouldn’t come, and I wanted to throttle him for making me feel this way—angry, guilty, and so fucking alone.

  We hit the A30. I found some cigarettes in the van door and lit up, exhaling the sweet smoke I’d barely missed until now. “Where did you even get it?”

  “It was in Dicky’s caravan.”

  “The one you owed him money for?”

  Jonah shot me a sideways look. “You think I haven’t paid for that?”

  “You told me you didn’t. And that you smashed it up on this fucking road. Don’t start telling me now that it was all a big misunderstanding—and don’t look at me like that. I can’t figure this shit out if you talk in code.”

  “I don’t understand why you always think you have to figure anything out, son. You know how the gun got into the stables, and you knew where to find me, so why are we here taking the long way to the inevitable while your friend takes the heat?”

  I was twenty-eight years old and I had no idea why every moment with my father had to be so complicated. So I said the one thing I was sure of. “Harry’s not my friend.”

  More silence. Ants crept over my skin. My sexuality was fluid enough that I’d never felt the need to come out to Jonah. The rare hookups that turned into something more had all come before I’d returned to live on the farm, and he’d been gone by the time that had happened.

  Jonah lit a pipe and cleared his throat. “I met Harry when you were away. I liked him.”

  “Is that supposed to matter?”

  “Just making conversation.”

  “Why did you take Dicky’s gun?”

  A cloud of cherry tobacco smoke drifted across my face, fuelled by Jonah’s heavy sigh. “Because he was going to shoot a horse with it.”

  He said it so matter-of-factly that I thought I’d misheard him. “One of our horses?”

  “He wouldn’t waste a bullet on our old nags, son. It was one of Buddy Pierce’s thoroughbreds.”

  “Why?”

  “Same reason he came after your mother, I’d imagine. Business.”

  I snorted. “Dicky McGee ain’t no businessman, Dad. He’s a fucking helmet.”

  “That’s neither here nor there to me. I just did what had to be done.”

  I took my foot off the accelerator. The van slowed as I tried to piece together Jonah’s latest version of events. “How does this tie in to the buggered-up caravan?”

  Jonah sighed. “It doesn’t, really. Least not on purpose. Dicky had stashed the gun in the caravan one night after we’d been on the whisky at the Legion, but he’d forgotten about it, see, ’cause his boy was home from the Navy. Then he sold me the van before he remembered.”

  “And you totalled it on purpose? So he’d think the gun was destroyed?”

  “Aye, lad. I buried it under my mattress for a while, but then he caught on that I’d pinched it and came looking. Course he couldn’t say what he was after to anyone that asked, but I knew.”

  “Why did you bring it to the farm?”

  “Because I knew it’d be the last place he’d think I’d stashed it. He’d come after me all right, but he wouldn’t think me daft enough to hide it so close to home.”

  “The farm isn’t your home.”

  I lit another cigarette. After so long without smoking, doubling up burned my lungs, but I welcomed the distraction. Tales like these were why I hated Jonah. I wanted to shake the shit out of him and call him a cunt, but he’d saved a horse, and that was the reason I’d been put on this earth. “You had no business being on the farm while I was gone.”

  “Your sister asked me to.”

  “Well she shouldn’t have.”

  “She needed me.”

  “Dex would’ve helped her.”

  “He did. But the lad’s got his own stables to run.”

  Dex also had the money to pay for help, and I knew he’d never have let the weak ponies suffer, but what about Shadow? Jonah had worked with him for the best part of a week and coached Emma on how to handle him better. The difference in him was startling.

  I hated Jonah for that too.

  We drove in silence until we got into town. When the police station came into view, I slowed to a crawl and then swung into a deserted car park. “You have to hand yourself in.”

  “And say what?”

  “That the gun is yours.”

  “It’s not mine.”

  “It’s not Harry’s either!” My shout rang out and I punched the dashboard. “Jesus, Dad. Will you just do as I need you to for once in my fucking life?”

  I expected more argument, more guilt tripping, and perhaps even a trace of Jonah’s rare temper. But it didn’t happen. My father merely nodded, got out of the van, and walked away.

  Harry

  It was still dark when they let me out, but dawn wasn’t far off. I collected my phone from the desk sergeant and accepted a caution for wasting police time, and then I drifted out of the station to meet the drizzly early morning.

  Joe was waiting for me with the van. He saw me coming and met me in the middle of the road. There was so much to say, but I didn’t know where to start. So I put my arms around him and held him close, inhaling the earthy scent that had grounded me from day one.

  He returned my desperate embrace, his lean shoulders trembling. It wasn’t the first time I’d seen him cry, but it didn’t hurt any less. I tightened my grip on him but didn’t speak. What could I say? That I was sorry the police hadn’t believed me and given him more time? That I understood more than I wanted to how hard it was when your father let you down so badly?

  “What happened?” I whispered. “Did you find your dad?”

  Joe nodded against my shoulder, then pulled back, swiping at his bloodshot eyes. “Yeah. Can we go somewhere and talk about it? If I stare at the nick much longer, I’m going to burn it down.”

  Tired but wired, I readily agreed and took Joe’s keys from him, following his directions out of town to a nearby village that, even in the darkness, wouldn’t have been out of place in the south of France. “This place is so pretty,” I said.

  Joe smiled wistfully. “It is now the tourists are starting to fuck off. Crantock is my spiritual home. I love it here.”

  We drove through the village and out the other side. The air became salty and clean, and even my city boy senses could tell we were by the sea.

  Joe guided me to a deserted car park. “Go right to the top by the railing. I’ll tell you when to stop so we don’t go over.”

  The newfound madman in me trusted him entirely. I pulled the van to a stop at the end of the world and parked at the angle Joe instructed.

  “We can look out the back too,” he said.

  “Come again?”

  “I’ll show you.”

  I’d never seen the back of Joe’s van. Far from the workman’s van it appeared from the outside, in the back, it was, apparently, a home from home. “Wow. You could live in here.”

  Joe tugged at the double seat, laying it flat to reveal a bed. “I did, once upon a time.”

  “What happened?”

  “The tragic obvious. My dad was fucking up the farm, so I had to go home and live with Grandpa. After that, I lost the time and the passion to do anything else.”

  I’d heard fragments of this story before, but not enough to picture Joe living out of his converted campervan. The heartbreak in his eyes when he’d mentioned selling the van if the farm’s finances got worse, now made sense.

  We spread an old duvet over the bed, and Joe brewed instant coffee on his tiny gas stove, while I looked on, fascinated.

  “Got no milk,” he said. “But there’s sugar in one of these boxes.”

  “I’m
good with it black.”

  “Sound.” Joe passed me a metal mug of coffee and we lounged on the bed with the van’s tailgate open, watching the sun rise over Crantock Beach.

  It was breathtaking. The sky was a cloudless blue, the sand pristinely white. Without the chilly breeze, it could’ve been the Bahamas. I sighed and carded my fingers absently through Joe’s messy hair. The night had been surreal, but this? It was as near perfection as I’d ever known. I stared at the waves and imagined Joe riding them on a surfboard, his eyes wild, his golden skin contrasting so beautifully against the moody sea. “When did you last go in the water?”

  “To surf?”

  “Yeah.”

  Joe put his chin on my chest, his legs were already tangled with mine. “The day Grandpa died. I came out here late in the evening and surfed until it got dark. He was dead in his bed when I got home.”

  It wasn’t as shocking as it might’ve been a few months ago. I’d always known that I was sleeping in a dead man’s bed, but it had oddly never bothered me until Joe had started sleeping with me. As he’d recovered from his injury, he’d become restless some nights, talking in his sleep, tossing and turning, until I took hold of him and held him against me. “Do you think it might’ve been different if you’d stayed home?”

  “I used to, but I’ve come to realise if I’d been home, I’d have been out in the yard with the horses, so it wouldn’t have changed anything. Besides, he was watching the sun go down over the fields, enjoying the peace and quiet with one of those stupid fucking cats on his lap. It wasn’t a bad way to go.”

  “Some people get the death they deserve.”

  I hadn’t meant it as sinisterly as it came out. Joe raised his head and stared at me, his gaze complex and searching. He touched my face, his fingertips like ghosts on my cheeks. “Tell me?”

  “Tell you what?”

  “About your dad. You said you hated him . . . Why?”

  “Because he didn’t love me.” It wasn’t the answer that I’d parroted over and over as the years had rolled by or even the answer that had played out in my head for my ears alone. But it was the truth. “I thought it was my fault. It took me a long time to realise that it wasn’t.”