The Magpies A Psychological Thriller - By Mark Edwards Page 0,80

and stress were bad for the baby. That was common sense.

That had all changed in Gretna. As soon as she saw that grave she knew she had been kidding herself. And when they got home and found that word written on the computer screen – proving that someone had been in the flat – that was the last straw.

She wanted to leave the flat. Because now, not only did she feel stressed in there, she felt unsafe as well. Her own flat was the gingerbread house in her dream. Her subconscious had been warning her for months, telling her to get out. In retrospect, she had thought there was something not right about Lucy the first time she met her. Something about Lucy had made her bristle, although she hadn’t admitted it at the time. Kirsty thought Lucy was dangerous – more so than Chris – and she didn’t want her child anywhere near her.

It was no place to bring up a child – in an atmosphere like that. Children needed space, somewhere to run and play. They couldn’t spend their lives on tiptoe. All that ‘children should be seen and not heard’ crap had gone out of the window years ago. And it wasn’t just that. If anyone she had ever met was capable of violence – including violence against children – it was Lucy. She wouldn’t say this to anyone, because they would think she was mad, but living above Lucy felt like living next door to a child molester.

Her mind was made up on the train home from Scotland. They were going to have to move.

But Jamie refused to even think about leaving the flat. ‘If we do,’ he said, ‘we’ll be giving in to them. It’s what they want. We can’t quit.’ Or, ‘Once they get used to us living here they’ll probably stop harassing us.’ Or, ‘We can’t afford to move anywhere else.’

Well, that last excuse was bullshit. They could sell the flat and get a similar one somewhere else. Or they could sell the flat and buy a house outside London. They could find new jobs, make new friends. It wouldn’t be that difficult. That part of Jamie’s argument was easy to shoot down.

She knew Jamie didn’t really believe that the Newtons would get bored or accustomed to them and leave them alone. She had once tried to persuade herself of that, but now she knew she had been foolish, naive. And Jamie knew as well as her that things would only get worse.

So that left the real reason he didn’t want to move. Typical male shit. He didn’t want to be seen to give in, to quit, to wave the flag of surrender. As if leaving would make him less macho somehow. At first she had actually agreed with this point of view. She didn’t believe in being pushed around. She didn’t want to give Lucy and Chris the satisfaction of knowing they had won. But now things were different. They had the baby to think about. Kirsty had seen an image of death, heard the portentous caw of the crow.

They were going to move out. And if Jamie didn’t want to go with her she would go alone.

Twenty-one

On his way home from posting the letter, Jamie saw Paul – just Paul’s head at first, then neck, shoulders, torso – coming up the steps from Chris and Lucy’s flat.

Jamie stopped in his tracks. He blinked hard, not quite believing what he was seeing. He felt like a husband who had just found his wife in bed with another man. Shocked. Betrayed.

He hurried up the path. Paul turned and saw him, a smile spreading across his face.

Jamie marched right up to him. ‘What the hell are you doing?’

‘What?’

‘Where have you been?’

‘I was just coming to see you.’

‘But you’ve been down there. You’ve been to see Lucy and Chris!’ As he spoke, he realised how indignant he sounded – how hurt. Well, good. Let Paul know how he felt. He was sick and tired of bottling everything up.

‘Jamie, you’re acting like a dick. I’ve just been to see Chris to talk about what happened at karting track.’

Jamie’s eyes widened. ‘And now you’re going to go to the police?’

‘What are you talking about, Jamie? Why the hell would I be going to the police?’

‘Because – because Chris tried to kill you. He put you in that coma.’

Paul laughed. ‘Oh Jamie, you should hear yourself. It was an accident. I can see that, and I was the