The Babysitter(60)
‘Hercules! Bad girl!’ Mel scolded the dog, dumping her clay and tugging at her collar. But the dog resisted her attempts to heave her away, knocking the cup over and lapping greedily at the dregs. ‘Out. Go on, out!’ She marched the dog to the door, ready to throw her out. She was furious, and no one could accuse her of getting this out of proportion. What if Hercules jumped up to snatch at Poppy’s food? Or, God forbid, she tried to take food from Evie?
That dog really was getting away with too much. Sleeping on Poppy’s bed with Evie only yards away across the landing might even be too risky. But Mark seemed to have this hare-brained idea that Hercules would protect her if they were broken into. The only chance of that would be if the dog licked a burglar to death.
Honestly, if Mark was going to allow her the run of the house the least he could do was train her. If he couldn’t do that, then he should think about rehoming her. Jade had rehomed her cat quickly enough, after all, she thought crossly, retrieving the cup from the floor and finding it was cracked. Muttering, Mel crashed the cup back on to the tray – and then stopped, and breathed, realising her anger was escalating. It was a cup. Not even an expensive cup. God, was she really getting things so out of proportion, again, that she was contemplating letting Hercules go to complete strangers?
She thought of the ease with which Jade had got rid of her cat. Mel still couldn’t help wondering how the animal had disappeared so quickly. Surely she wouldn’t have had the poor thing put down? No, she said friends had taken it.
Feeling more guilty than ever that she’d considered Jade capable of having the cat disposed of in such a way despite her determination to give that particular emotion short shrift, Mel turned to mop up the tray, only to realise the capsule she should have taken was soggy with tea, its powdered contents spewing out.
On the bright side, at least Hercules hadn’t swallowed it. Despairing of herself, Mel shifted the tray out of the way and set about taking her frustration out on her lump of clay. She’d take another tablet when she went in to make dinner, which hopefully wouldn’t turn out to be as disastrous as everything else she attempted to do.
Thirty-Nine
JADE
Oh, you have to be joking! Jade stopped short of the cottage, realising that Dylan’s mother really was talking to the pigs. And not just in a ‘Who’s a pretty porkie?’ sort of way either. She was having a whole fucking conversation with them. Obviously, she was as soft in the head as her drippy son was.
‘Careless farming they said it was, Inky,’ the woman was saying mournfully. ‘Said we’d managed our farm in a way that encouraged floods. I’ve never heard the likes. Killed my Charlie, they did, worked him to death, with their rules and regulations. Left me with nothing. Except our Dylan, of course.’
Sighing forlornly, the woman stopped and gazed off over the fields. Probably contemplating suicide, Jade thought despairingly, if Dylan was all she’d got.
‘I’ll be glad to see the back of the place,’ the woman went on, bending to pick up a metal bucket full of foul-smelling swill to chuck to the beasts.
Ugh, disgusting. Jade screwed up her nose. It was probably the leftovers of the piglets they’d given birth to. Where the hell was Dylan? Realising there was no sign of the man – who was obviously more moronic than she’d suspected, allowing his mother to wander around with the girl not thirty feet away – she stepped quickly forwards. The woman hadn’t got a key, but God forbid she got it into her head to go peering through the windows.
‘Morning, Mrs Jackson,’ Jade said brightly, at which the woman jumped, literally, and whirled around, dropping her bucket in the process.
‘Is Dylan here?’ Jade asked, wearing her sweetest smile.
A hand clutched to her ample chest, Mrs Jackson took several slow breaths and then narrowed her eyes. ‘Why?’ she asked suspiciously.
‘I thought I’d ask him if he fancied going into the village,’ Jade improvised. She wouldn’t be seen dead with him in the village, or anywhere else for that matter.
‘Why?’ the woman repeated.
‘Because we’re friends, Mrs Jackson,’ Jade said patiently.
Mrs Jackson folded her arms and cocked her head to one side. ‘Right. And my Inky’s priming his wings as we speak,’ she said, attempting to be clever, which really didn’t suit someone dressed in crap-covered dungarees and whose personal hygiene was obviously on a par with her son’s. Mind you, Jade could understand her cynicism. Dylan, who only ever attracted the wrong sort of attention, had about as many friends as he had brain cells.
‘He looks out for me, Mrs Jackson,’ Jade explained, less patiently. Evie was asleep in the car. The window was open, so she’d hear her if she cried, but even so, she hadn’t got all bloody day. ‘I feel safe with him when other idiots come sniffing around.’
Mrs Jackson arched an eyebrow at that, obviously trying to work out whether Jade was being sincere.
‘Is he home?’ Jade asked again, growing perturbed now. Surely Dylan hadn’t actually gone off the premises and left the girl on her own?
‘He’s fixing the barn roof,’ the woman said, turning disinterestedly away.
Jade stared at the rude bitch’s back. And then – oh fuck – past her to a movement at the cottage’s upstairs window. The girl was walking around. If she looked out of the window, the woman was bound to spot her.