The Girl in the Rug by K Leitch Read Free Book Online Page B

the devastated young boy.
    ‘We was neva here was we fella…your sister has gone away to
stay wiv some relatives you follow? You cross me on this boy and I will come
back when you’re not expecting me and I will cut your mum’s eyes out…so you
just say what I’ve told you to say…and we’ll say no more about it.’ And with
that the two men disappeared out into the night…taking the rug and Andy’s
little sister with them.
    The flat was silent apart from Andy’s sobs and Kathy’s
groans…Lucy had gone forever in a flash, one minute she’d been there and then
she’d gone. How was he ever going to live now…it was just him and Mum. Mum who
was groaning and moaning on the floor, her back to him…who had thrown off his
tentatively offered hand of comfort, and had stared at him with hatred in her eyes…that
was all that he had left.
    Andy curled up into a ball on the floor his little body
heaving with sobs…he stayed like that for a long time.

CHAPTER 8 - MAGGIE
    Maggie sat at the huge table in her kitchen and stared out
through the enormous French windows that overlooked the garden.
    The Indian summer of a few weeks ago had given way to winter
with a vengeance, and this morning the whole garden was glistening with frosty
tendrils. Maggie though, was oblivious to the beauty of the morning, lost in
her own thoughts as she sipped her morning coffee.
    It had been over a week now since Duncan and Martha had
moved back into the pub. They had been living with her since the fire in July
that had almost killed Martha, but all the repair work had now been done and
Maggie had a sinking feeling that Duncan, for one, was glad to be back in his
own home.
    Maggie loved Duncan with an intensity that she had never
felt before; he was the perfect man…her perfect partner. They hadn’t taken to
each other at all when they had first met, and it had been a big risk for
Maggie going into business with a virtual stranger, but soon mutual respect had
turned into genuine friendship. Soon their friendship had grown into something
special, and she had never felt so easy and relaxed with anyone. But it wasn’t
until she thought she was going to lose him forever that Maggie realised that
she was actually in love with him and that she couldn’t live without him. She
was sure that Duncan felt the same, sometimes she caught him looking at her and
there was a hunger in his eyes that took her breath away, but since his brush
with death earlier in the year he had distanced himself from Maggie, which was
incredibly painful and hard for her to bear. Duncan had suffered terribly at
the hands of Kerry Webb, a deranged psychopath who had tortured and killed
several men both here and in the US, before setting her sights on Duncan.
Luckily he had been rescued before she could kill him, but the torture she had
inflicted on him would scar him for life, not just physically but mentally. He
was still undergoing painful skin graft operations to try and mend his face
which had been ripped open…it was these scars that made him turn his face away
when ever Maggie looked at him…as if he couldn’t bear for her to see his
disfigurement. Shame and insecurity, these were the demons that were trying to
take her man from her, and Maggie was determined that they were not going to
succeed.
    Her thoughts were interrupted by Berta, her Hungarian
cleaner, who bustled into the kitchen carrying mops and a bundle of bedding for
the washing machine.
    ‘Is ok I go now Mrs Wendover?’ she asked as she went through
to the utility room and loaded up the washer. ‘I have doctors…remember I tell
you on Monday?’
    ‘Oh yes…yes of course Berta,’ said Maggie, ‘it’s about time
you got that bloody toe looked at, I’m sure it’s just an in growing toenail…the
doctor will sort it out in a trice.’ Berta had been limping for a couple of
weeks but had fiercely resisted all Maggie’s attempts to get her to the
doctors, obviously it had got too painful to ignore