A Kiss in the Snow - Rosie Green Page 0,63

out of the landing window and seeing the dark figure in the back garden, attacking the frozen ground with a spade. She’d been trying to dig another hole for the bags of rubbish. And now I’m realising that Maud hadn’t made up the ‘grave-shaped’ plot of dug-over earth in Reenie’s back garden…

Reenie sighs. ‘The rubbish started taking over the kitchen. I washed the tins out and bagged them up, but I couldn’t use the bin because people would know I was still living in the cottage. And I couldn’t face well-meaning villagers knocking on the door to make sure I was all right.’ She grimaces. ‘It was the meat from the freezer that caused the real problems. The left-overs. I had to do something with them, which is why I thought of burying them in the garden.’

I gaze at her, my heart aching for this woman, who’s had to face so much fear and horror in her life. ‘You’ve really been through the mill, haven’t you?’

She sighs and folds her arms, gripping them tightly. ‘At first, after Maggie made it clear she never wanted to see me again, I was so down and depressed, I barely got out of bed. I was haunted by the fact that Harvey was a vicious brute and all I’d done by standing up to him was to make things worse. I was terrified he would take his anger at me out on Maggie and Becca. Frank did that all the time.’ She stares into the distance, her hand on her stomach, as if even the thought of her brutal ex-husband made her feel sick with fear. ‘He’d come home, raging about something his boss had said to him, and it would be me who took the brunt of it. Either with a torrent of abuse spat in my face or a black eye. Thank God he never touched Maggie.’ She gives a grim smile. ‘I got quite proficient with a make-up brush and concealer.’

‘It must have seemed like deja vu when you faced up to Harvey’s rage that day,’ I murmur.

She nods. ‘That bastard triggered all the old feelings and memories of being stuck in hell with my ex. Frank made me feel I was worthless and that I’d never survive without him. He brainwashed me into thinking I could never leave him.’ She swallows hard. ‘It was only when he broke three of my ribs, punching me against the wall, that I finally confessed everything to a nurse at the hospital, and she persuaded me enough was enough. She was lovely, that nurse. Cathy was her name. I always meant to go back and thank her for what she did. She probably saved my life.’

Listening to Reenie’s grim tale, I feel sick myself at the thought of the misery and fear she must have suffered at the hands of that vicious bully. It’s no wonder that when she challenged her daughter’s abuser, her action triggered all the stuff from her past that she wanted to forget. After the confrontation, which must have taken quite some guts, she’d obviously sunk into a bottomless black hole and couldn’t climb out. Abandoned by Maggie and not able to see her beloved granddaughter, she must have been desperate…

‘Maud almost found me out,’ says Reenie, remembering.

‘Did she?’

She snorts. ‘The silly old bat came around to the cottage with a friend one day, a couple of weeks after I’d gone to ground, and she started trying to peer in the windows and wondering aloud if I really had gone to my sister’s in Portsmouth or was there something more sinister afoot.’

‘She does like her gossip,’ I murmur.

‘Yeah, and if she can’t find any, she makes it up.’

We exchange a rueful smile.

‘I could hear Maud’s every word. She’s not exactly softly-spoken. When she saw the newly-dug earth in the back garden, she told her friend it proved that I’d murdered Frank and buried his body in the garden!’ She shakes her head. ‘Can you believe it? I knew she’d spread that ridiculous story through the village and it made me mad.’

‘I don’t blame you.’

Her face breaks into a mischievous smile. ‘I got my own back, though. I used to go out at night, when no-one was about, just to feel the air on my face, and sometimes I’d play tricks on Maud. How did she like the message I daubed on her wall, that she’d left the oven on?’

I stare at her. ‘That was you?’

She nods.

‘Did you take the wreath