Death at Rainbow Cottage by Jo Allen (novel24 TXT) 📕

make the intervention, and I’m sure as hell not going to risk lighting the blue touch paper by having him burst out of the cake as a surprise guest.’

She struggled not to smile. David Satterthwaite had always had a theatrical touch, his sense of the big occasion not leavened by diplomacy, so that his extravagant gestures often missed the mark. ‘That’s just the kind of thing he’d do. You’d better not suggest it to him.’

‘I’d better not suggest anything to him. But you might be right, because somehow he knows about the party even though I’ve been careful not to mention it.’

In the end, the complicated and counterbalancing stubbornness of David and his younger son were beyond Becca’s powers to move — and probably beyond Jude’s, too. ‘It was just a thought.’ She hesitated. ‘Will you bring your girlfriend?’

‘Ashleigh? Yes, I think so. She’s invited. Or rather, I’m invited with a plus one.’

‘Fabulous. Adam will be there, of course.’

There was a moment of stillness, in which they both contemplated the malign influence that Adam Fleetwood had had on Mikey’s young life. ‘He’s turned over a new leaf, you know, Jude.’

‘So I believe.’

‘I thought you were a supporter of rehabilitation.’ It had taken longer than usual for her irritation with him to kick in but his blanket acceptance that the law was always right did the job. This was why they’d split. She couldn’t risk him knowing her too well and proving unforgiving of her faults.

‘Absolutely.’

‘He’s working for a drugs charity, now. Helping people to learn from his mistakes.’

‘All credit to him.’ He stepped over the threshold and out onto the path. ‘I’ll see you later. I’m heading off back home to catch up on some sleep.’

‘Goodbye.’ Becca shut the door before he’d even turned, and stood there listening until the bass notes of the Mercedes had died away up the dale towards Penrith. She was already regretting mentioning Adam, but you couldn’t avoid facts. Jude had replaced her and she had replaced him, if only temporarily. She wasn’t so simple that she didn’t understand her new boyfriend’s driving passion was a slow-burning determination for revenge on the old. Adam was using her, in his own way, in an attempt to make Jude jealous, but how could that work when her ex had moved on to someone else?

Chapter 14

‘Mikey. Hi, pal.’ Even as he spoke, Jude recognised the false jolliness in his voice, knew that he’d struck the wrong note.

‘Hey, bro.’ At the other end of the line, Mikey’s voice rang with suspicion. Usually they communicated by texts which didn’t need to be answered and the bulk of which came from Jude, or via their mother, so the fact that Mikey had picked up the call at all had to be counted as progress. ‘Still alive then, with some crazed maniac at large in town? Why haven’t you hauled him in yet?’

‘I’m doing my best.’ Wandering from the well-lit kitchen into the darkness of his living room, Jude stared out into the street. ‘And in my few spare moments I thought I’d give you a call. See how you’re getting on.’

‘Oh, right. So you’re handing out a bit of pastoral care to satisfy your conscience?’

When he wasn’t busy being angry, Mikey had a more than reasonable grasp of the subtleties of human nature. Jude grinned. ‘I hadn’t heard from you for a while. I bumped into Becca this afternoon, and she mentioned your party. So I thought I’d phone and check if there was anything you want me to do for it.’

‘Just turn up,’ said Mikey, after a fractional hesitation that suggested he’d bitten back a smart remark.

‘I can manage that.’

On the other side of the street Natalie Blackwell ran past, head down against the blustery rain, running with determination, as if in a race to save her life. Claud must be working late again, and she’d be pounding her way around the town running away from God knew what. It was the second time she’d passed the window that evening. ‘Are you inviting Dad?’

‘No.’ This time there was no hesitation. Mikey’s refusal had been out of his mouth almost before Jude had finished asking the question. ‘He won’t come if I do. I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of letting me down again.’

‘I thought it would be nice if—’

‘If he rolled up at my party when he’s been out of my life since I was a kid? Yeah, Jude. That would be great. Just great. Brilliant idea. Wish I’d thought of it.’

‘He didn’t want to be out of your life.’ When their father’s mid-life crisis had proved to be permanent and caused emotional carnage all around him, Mikey had been unable to forgive. David’s attempts to make amends had been routinely rebuffed, except for the occasions when Mikey had taken pleasure in arranging to meet him and then not turning up, though he always cashed the cheques that came to him on birthdays and Christmas.

‘Then he shouldn’t have gone. And it isn’t fair to Mum. Because he sure as hell wanted to be out of her life.’

Their mother, who had been an innocent party in the break-up as far as it was possible to separate the issues and allocate blame, was the obstacle to Jude’s argument, though at heart he thought she’d reached the state of bliss where she genuinely didn’t care. ‘You’re only twenty-one once. Invite him.’

‘He wouldn’t come.’ In Jude’s imagination, Mikey narrowed his lips and set his expression to an exact and unwitting copy of their father’s.

‘He won’t come if you don’t invite him.’

‘And if I don’t invite him he won’t have the chance to turn me down. So it’s all good.’

It had always been an argument that was lost before it was begun. Jude let it slide. ‘Will I see you before the