Josephine Cox 3-Book Collection 1: Midnight, Blood Brothers, Songbird. Josephine Cox

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ traffic, his mind went back to when he was a child. Strangers had tried before and failed to rid him of the nightmares. ‘They couldn’t help me then,’ he thought, ‘so how can they help me now, when I’m thirty?’ Leaving Leighton Buzzard behind, he swung onto the A5 and headed for Bletchley.

      Somewhere in the back of his mind, he slowly began to agree that Molly was right. It was only a matter of time before their relationship was damaged beyond repair, and he didn’t want that to happen.

      By the time he’d arrived at work and parked the car, the idea was growing on him. Making his way down to the showrooms, he felt more confident with every stride. ‘I suppose I could make an appointment,’ he thought, ‘and like Molly said, I don’t need to stay if I feel uncomfortable about it.’

      Pushing open the heavy glass doors, he bade a cheery good morning to his colleagues. ‘Is the boss in?’ he asked the pretty blonde at reception.

      Flicking out a handkerchief, the girl, called Jan, discreetly blew her nose. ‘Sorry, Jack, but, Old Branagan called in to say he was heading straight for Bedford.’

      ‘Dammit!’ Jack was disappointed. ‘I’ve got someone interested in trading his car against our demonstrator. I just need to run the costing by him.’

      He gave it a moment’s thought. ‘That’s okay. The customer isn’t due until late morning – plenty of time for me to phone the boss on his mobile. All I need is a quick conversation. I’ve got all the figures, except for the price tag on the demonstrator.’

      Placing his folder on the counter, Jack gave her an easy smile. ‘Branagan’s a crafty devil, though! He’s known all week that we’ve got the schedules to work through.’

      Jan giggled. ‘You’ll have to sort out the schedules yourself then, won’t you?’ She winked cheekily.

      Jack winked back. ‘Ah! But if I do the deal on the demonstrator, it’ll be me who gets the commission.’

      Enjoying the banter, Jan asked casually, ‘Have you thought about that offer?’

      ‘What offer?’

      ‘You know.’ She tutted. ‘I thought Branagan had already mentioned it – about you running the new showrooms they’re setting up in Lancashire. That’s your neck of the woods, isn’t it?’

      ‘Oh, yes! I mean no, I haven’t really thought about it, and no, I haven’t actually been offered it yet either.’

      ‘Yes, you have. I heard him telling you about it only the other day. He asked if you had a hankering to go back north. I heard him say it.’

      ‘Yes, but he didn’t offer me the job.’

      ‘In a roundabout way he did.’

      Jack smiled, ‘Ah, but asking questions in a roundabout way doesn’t get answers, does it? Besides, what with the recession biting, who knows if they’ll be going through with it? Soon, none of us will be able to afford to buy cars. We’ll be back to our pushbikes, or Shank’s pony.’ He chuckled.

      ‘So, if you were asked,’ Jan persisted, ‘you’d say yes, would you?’ She hoped not, because Jack was the only really friendly bloke there. All the others treated her like part of the furniture. Car showrooms were truly a man’s world, and didn’t she know it.

      Jack gave it a moment’s thought. His answer was a resounding ‘Nope!’

      ‘Why not?’

      ‘Because I’ve been there, done that.’ He smiled. ‘So, is the inquisition over now, little Miss Nosy?’

      ‘Don’t you miss the north?’

      ‘Sometimes.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose.’

      ‘What about family and friends – wouldn’t you like to get back amongst them?’

      ‘I was an only child and my father died when I was sixteen,’ Jack answered. ‘My mother soon remarried and moved to America with her new husband. I heard later that she’d taken on three teenage children, a house the size of Buckingham Palace, and money coming out of their ears.’ He gave a wry little smile. ‘I never heard from her again. But it didn’t matter, because even before she left she never had any time for me. I think she saw me as a waste of space.’

      ‘Aw, that’s awful!’ The young woman could not imagine life without her own, doting parents.

      ‘Truth is, I never missed her after she was gone. I’d been left to my own devices for years. So, when Dad died and Mother took off, I sorted myself out, just like I’d always done.’

      When she had abandoned him, his mother left him an address, but she must have moved quickly on, because when he wrote to that address, the letter came back, stamped Return to Sender. He was not surprised. In the end, he set about making his own way in the world.

      It had not been easy – and there’d been no chance of taking up the place he’d been offered at Manchester University, which he’d regretted for a long time – but he was proud of what he’d achieved.

      When he relayed all this to the girl, she tutted. ‘So, your mother turned her back on you. Well, it’s her loss, not yours.’ She quickly regretted her curt, throwaway remark. ‘Oh look, Jack . . . one day she’ll turn up on your doorstep, you’ll see.’

      Jack used to think the same, but it had been too long and now he had no desire to ever see her again. ‘I wouldn’t hold your breath,’ he replied with a shrug.

      ‘What about friends?’ she prompted. ‘You must have made some of those?’

      ‘Well yes, there were school-friends, of course, but we lived too far apart to become lifelong buddies. We went to school, then we left and got on with our lives.’

      ‘And neighbours? Did you not make friends with some of the neighbours’ kids?’ She could see he was impatient to be off, but did not want to let him go just yet.

      Jack’s mind went back along the years. ‘There were no boys of my age living in the street,’ he recalled. ‘I knew all the neighbours though, because after my father passed on, my mother carried on working for a while. She did shifts on reception at the Kings Hotel, and it seems I was bandied about like a little parcel . . . or so Eileen told me.’

      ‘Who’s “Eileen”?’ Jealousy sharpened her voice. ‘An old girlfriend?’

      Jack laughed at that. ‘Hardly.’ It was all coming back now. ‘Eileen was Libby’s mother.’

      ‘So who’s Libby?’

      ‘My friend. When my mother went out to work, Eileen would sometimes look after me, and she’d bring Libby round with her. She’d read us stories, do puzzles with us and have lots of fun, and sometimes she’d take us to the park.’ He remembered it all so vividly. ‘Eileen Harrow was more of a mother to me than my own mother,’ he said in a low voice.

      ‘What about when you were older, though?’ Jan wanted to know. ‘Did you have friends at secondary school?’

      Jack shook his head. ‘Not what you might call real friends,’ he said. ‘Truth is, apart СКАЧАТЬ