Chapter 51
‘You’re not going to Rydal Caves on your own. Ted, tell her.’
Ted was lying on the sofa in Kelly’s lounge and Johnny fetched him some paracetamol.
He refused anything stronger, saying it didn’t help the healing process.
The body was designed to heal itself, he told them.
He was a stubborn old mule, and Johnny knew where Kelly got it from.
It was one o’clock in the afternoon and Kelly had surprised them by walking through the front door and telling them her plan.
‘It’ll be heaving with tourists,’ Kelly said in her defence.
She glared at him as if to ask how dare he talk over her as if she was some pathetic female in need of male assistance. Johnny knew the look, but he didn’t care. They weren’t together anymore. His actions now had different consequences and one of them wasn’t being kicked out of her bed.
He stood his ground, and he could see she was livid. She went to speak but then glanced at her father and walked out of the room.
Johnny shrugged and Ted raised his eyebrows.
‘You’re going against your own instructions you gave your team,’ he said.
‘This is different,’ she shouted back.
‘I agree with you,’ Ted said to Johnny, ‘but it is her job, and you know she’ll go anyway.’
‘But she should at least take someone else. I’d go, but what about you?’
‘I have Millie looking after me,’ Ted said.
‘It’s not good enough; I can’t let any of you be here alone.’
Millie came back downstairs after putting Lizzie down for a nap and looked worried.
‘I’ve got somebody changing all the locks this afternoon,’ Johnny told her. ‘You can go home, if you like,’ he said.
‘No, that’s not what I was thinking. I don’t want to leave Lizzie here. What about I take her to my house?’
Johnny tried to think of a way he could tell Millie that wasn’t a good idea without letting on that her home was just as much in danger because of her mother’s job.
Kate had been spared last night, but that might not be the case tonight.
Kelly had assured them that squad cars would be patrolling their respective addresses all day, but she couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t be called away in an emergency.
They were on their own until the coppers had something to investigate; in other words, until somebody got seriously hurt.
Ted didn’t count because he wasn’t filing a complaint.
He was set in his ways and couldn’t be moved on it.
It wasn’t the first time he’d been in harm’s way because of his job, and he reckoned it wouldn’t be the last. But he could see that Kelly was riled.
‘I’ll get a squad car here,’ she said, and left the room. ‘And Millie, you go home, take some time off,’ she said over her shoulder. Millie got her keys and smiled at them. The day was a corker and the thought of having a day off was a nice surprise.
‘Stay local and in a group,’ Johnny told her.
‘Yes, boss,’ Millie said. She said goodbye and left.
Johnny stared at Ted.
‘She’s so bloody pig-headed,’ Johnny said.
‘That’s what you love about her,’ Ted told him.
Johnny smiled and nodded, giving up. He’d tried blackmail, emotional manipulation, and good old brutal truths, but Kelly saw through it all. Only the notion of Lizzie’s safety being compromised made her stop to think about her own actions.
She walked back into the room.
‘You’re right,’ she said.
Ted and Johnny stared at her.
‘I’ve got a couple of uniforms coming over here. My guess is they won’t hit the same address twice. They’ve done what they set out to do, which was letting me know they’re watching. Next time will be somewhere or someone different.’
Johnny folded his arms. He had no need to say anything else. All he cared about was her and Lizzie’s safety and sometimes her sense of justice blinded her own self-preservation. He was happy she’d seen sense.
‘I’ll take Fin,’ she said.
Instantly, Johnny’s stomach dropped, and he felt powerless to respond.
He’d told her she shouldn’t go alone, and now she’d hamstrung him.
He knew Fin was the bloke she’d been involved with after they’d split because he’d got it out of Emma one night at the pub, months ago, just before he left for Scotland.
It wasn’t nasty; he simply wanted to know if anybody else was involved in Kelly’s decision to dump him.
It didn’t distract from the fact that losing her was entirely his own fault, but for some morbidly masochistic reason, he wanted to know if she was safe.
‘Fin?’
‘Do you want him here looking after Lizzie or there looking after me?’ Kelly asked.
‘Excuse me, I am more than capable of looking after my own granddaughter,’ Ted said defiantly.
They looked at him and he sat up.
‘Look,’ Kelly said. ‘This is getting out of hand. I’m going to meet somebody who may or may not have something to tell me. Nobody else knows.’
‘Or it could be a trap,’ Johnny said.
‘You’re paranoid because of last night.’
‘And you’re not!’
‘Come on, you two, you both want the same thing, which is for Lizzie to be safe, and with a couple of strapping lads in uniform, or lasses, obviously, I will be absolutely fine here and so will Lizzie.’
Johnny and Kelly looked at each other.
‘It is broad daylight,’ Johnny said. ‘But I’m not leaving until the uniforms get here.’
The doorbell rang and Kelly went to answer it.
She’d already had a text on her phone telling her that a squad car was on its way, and she peered out of the window to confirm it.
She recognised them and opened the door.
Two coppers nodded at her and Kelly introduced them to Ted and Johnny, then showed them into the lounge.
Then she went over instructions. One of the coppers asked if she could take a look at the layout of the house and Kelly showed her around.
Meanwhile, Johnny gathered some things for his outing to Rydal Caves.
He didn’t have the time or inclination to analyse if his decision to leave with Kelly was because of his ego or his sense of loyalty to her, but one thing was for sure, the opportunity to spend some time with her and be useful in her life, even if it didn’t last long, was something he knew he wanted more than anything else.
Thoughts of meeting up with an old military contact were forgotten.