A Long Way Back (Unfinished Business #2) - Barbara Elsborg Page 0,131

a way to make her happy again, and an opportunity for revenge.”

Ink didn’t realise he had tears running down his cheeks until Tay wiped them away with his thumb.

“How did Dad not realise it wasn’t you?”

“Eagan was the same age as me, same build, same hair and eye colour.” He huffed. “No fillings. He smashed Eagan’s teeth after, when he… Eagan was wearing my clothes. Bela’s red bead was in the pocket of my shorts. Then he… He said he just hit Eagan over and over. He cried when he told me. But he said Eagan was already dead, so it was to destroy enough of his face that Dad wouldn’t question whether it was me. Uncle Felan sobbed. He said he’d no choice. He’d lost his son and he wasn’t going to lose his wife.”

Tay gasped. “Oh my God. How could he do that?”

“Because if he was to get what he wanted, he had to,” Ru said. “A son for his crazy wife who would neither go to jail, nor to a psychiatric hospital. And a way to hurt our father. I had to call them màthair and athair, mother and father. It made life easier to go along with what they wanted.”

“He framed me.” Ink clenched his fists and Tay wrapped a hand around his.

“When he told me, I was horrified. Why not take both sons from his brother? How much he must have hated our father. Uncle Felan went to see Dad to offer to look for me. Brother helping brother at a time of tragedy. He took the opportunity to steal a pair of your jeans and T-shirt and put my blood on them.”

“Shit. So Wes had nothing to do it? Why the fuck did he get involved?”

“He was probably trying to get you into trouble and got trapped by his lies,” Tay said.

“He might have stumbled across the body before the police found it and decided it was a chance to wreck your life.” Ru took a deep breath. “I had no idea you’d been charged with my murder, found guilty and sent to prison. I… But even if they’d told me, I had no way to tell anyone else. My life was…different, controlled. When they worried less about me just walking off into nowhere with Bela, I helped on the farm. They bred horses.”

Bela tipped back her head and cawed.

“Sometimes Uncle Felan went off for a week or so and he always had money when he came back. He was the one who did all the shopping. I don’t think anyone knew I existed. In the early days, I tried to run away, but one of them always found me and brought me back. If visitors came, I was gagged, and tied up in the barn. They threatened to kill Bela if I made a sound. But visitors were rare. Just one who came every month or so who owned the closest farm. Malone. I was allowed to meet him. But never left alone with him.”

“How did you find out everyone was still alive?” Ink asked.

“Two months ago, Uncle Felan had an accident on his quad bike and broke his leg. He wouldn’t go to hospital. I think he knew that if he called an ambulance, I’d tell them they were pretending I was their son. Auntie Nessa splinted his leg, but he grew sicker and sicker and he told me all of it then, about you being in prison. I think he wanted it off his conscience, wanted me to forgive him. He said We gave you a good life.” Ru huffed.

“He wanted me to look after Aunt Nessa, to promise him that I would. I lied. I convinced the ambulance to take her too, which wasn’t difficult. I’d messed around with her medication and she was…off her head. I wanted to go home, back to England, but I had no passport. The one I’d arrived on had long expired.

“I had our uncle’s phone, but no way to use it. I collected all the money I could find, several thousand pounds, because they didn’t believe in banks, along with Eagan’s birth certificate, and bills—though they weren’t in my name, I hoped they’d be enough—packed a bag, made sure the horses were okay, and drove in the direction that Malone had always come from until I reached a farm. I’d never driven before, but I worked out what to do.

“I told him my aunt and uncle were in hospital. I gave him five hundred