No Going Back by Casey Kelleher (bill gates books recommendations TXT) 📕

thought about going to the police, he would have killed Lucy too. Or worse still, he would have taken her eventually too. Staked his claim on her as her biological father. I wouldn’t have been able to fight that. To fight him. Then look where she would have ended up. In that life. Doing those things. He would have forced her to, because that’s all he cared about. He didn’t care about you and he certainly had no interest in Lucy. But you wouldn’t listen to me, Jennifer. You always thought you knew better.’

Her watery eyes were boring into her with a stubborn anger that Lucy had never felt directed at her before. Only it wasn’t aimed at her this time either. Not really.

‘He used you. For the money. That’s all you ever were to him. A form of income. Oh, you may have foolishly loved him, but he didn’t care about you. Not one bit. And Lucy coming along was a hinderance to him. It meant you couldn’t work as much. That she was your focus instead of earning money for him.’ Winnie shook her head sadly. ‘And when he found out about the baby… Oh, well, he couldn’t force you to get rid of it, could he? Though Christ knows he tried. And I guess he didn’t have to in the end. Because he did the job himself, didn’t he? Killing you both.’

‘He was her pimp? This Kevin or Bodge or whatever he called himself?’ The words coming from Lucy’s mouth in a mere whisper as she tried to make sense of what her nan was saying.

Could it really be true?

She’d spent her life not knowing who her real father was, and her nan was always vague and edgy if Lucy ever broached the subject. Was this why? Because all this time she was keeping the truth away from Lucy. Shielding her from it.

She felt sick then. Only when Winnie didn’t answer her question, Lucy grew frustrated. She wanted answers. She demanded answers.

‘Nan? Was he her pimp?’

Why was she only just learning all of this now? That her mother had secrets. That her nan had always known the truth, or at least had her suspicions.

‘Nan! I need you to tell me what you remember, please? I need to know the truth.’

‘Lucy?’ Winnie said, shaking her head slowly, as if realising for the first time today that this woman sitting in front of her was her granddaughter, and not Jennifer at all. As though all of her jumbled memories of the past merged in union with the present day. She stared around the room now, as if she’d just been transported there without her knowledge. As if she had no idea how she’d got there.

‘Oh, Lucy. What’s happening to me?’

Her hands shook, her voice trembled. The pain of her daughter’s death hit her with its full force once again, as she realised that Jennifer wasn’t really here and mixed with the fear of being so out of control. Of not being able to know or trust her own mind.

‘Poor, poor Jennifer. She didn’t deserve what happened to her.’ Winnie started to cry.

‘It’s okay, Nan,’ Lucy said, crying then too, reaching over and placing her hand on top of her nan’s to offer the woman some comfort. Knowing that she had pushed her too far.

‘I think that’s enough for today,’ Nurse Hamilton said softly, seeing her patient so visibly distressed. Knowing how, like all of the residents here at Treetops, Winnie’s emotions could cycle the highest of highs and the lowest of lows so quickly that it would leave her physically exhausted. ‘I’m going to take Winnie back to her room, so she can get some rest.’

Lucy nodded.

‘Come on, Winnie. Let’s get you showered and tucked up in bed. I’ll bring you a fresh cup of tea. Would you like that?’

‘Oh, yes.’ Winnie smiled, stepping around the teapot that was still lying on the carpet from where she’d thrown her chair at the table. ‘Did some eejit drop the last one?’

‘Something like that, Winnie.’ Nurse Hamilton laughed as she led the woman from the room. ‘Something like that!’

26

Pacing up and down the cold, wet floors of the derelict house that he was currently staying in, Jay-Jay’s head was pounding. He should have been out spending the money from the job the Boland brothers had sent him to do; instead, he was having to cower away here. In this run-down cesspit that, for now, was home.

The only good thing about the place was that there was no electric, and the handful of down-and-outs that he shared the place with weren’t the type of people with access to the TV or internet anyway. So, there’d be no way of them finding out that he was a wanted man.

They were all like him. The forgotten dregs of society that, somehow, along the way had managed to slip through the cracks and end up here. Jay-Jay hadn’t even bothered to enquire what their names were. Because he had no interest in getting to know any of them. A couple of heavy drug users, and an alcoholic. Wasters. The type of people who would sell Jay-Jay out for a packet of fags and a cheap bottle of cider, if they realised that he was worth anything right now. Which of course, he was. There was a manhunt on, and Jay-Jay was top of the wanted list. Fuck!

He sank down on to the piss-stained mattress that he’d been using as a bed. The pain behind his eyes from the stress of his predicament was building intently. He didn’t know what to do. How to get out of this mess. Because if the police caught up with him, they’d send him back to prison, and Jay-Jay wasn’t sure he could take another stint inside.

He wasn’t cut out for being held captive in a tiny cell, caged like an animal. There was something so degrading and demoralising about being locked up, away from the rest of society. And