The Hidden Child: A completely unputdownable mystery thriller inspired by a true crime by Rebecca Griffiths

Author:Rebecca Griffiths [Griffiths, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800198937
Publisher: Bookouture
Published: 2022-02-23T22:00:00+00:00

It was lovely to be outside. To leave the awkwardness in the house behind. The wind had died, and the air was still, not the merest shuffle from the leaves of the trees that huddled around the farmstead. Ronald was aiming for the barn and whistling to his dogs, when something stopped him dead.

Hang on a minute.

What were those grooves on the verge outside the farmhouse? They looked like tyre tracks made by a single wheel. Too fat for a bicycle, he decided, walking over to inspect them. A motorbike… that motorbike?

He could swear the tyre marks hadn’t been there when he came back from his rounds. But they must have been. Otherwise, the dogs would have barked, and he’d have heard the engine.

Ronald scanned the yard, the driveway, as far as he could see beyond the cattle grid. All he saw was the David Brown tractor and his truck, scored with the insult he’d concealed from his brother with several layers of metallic paint.

Nothing else.

Nothing human.

Only the cold caw of a crow; its black shape flung against the evening sky. He shivered from the crawling unease that had slithered under his clothes. Had that bastard been to the farm again? Could he still be here – hiding somewhere, waiting to pounce, to damage?

Living on the fringes of this wilderness without so much as a telephone, it never occurred to him before that the isolation could be a problem. But cut off from the rest of the world, no one would know they were in trouble. There was no way of calling for help. The realisation of this left him feeling horribly exposed.

But he was being stupid, he told himself. Paranoid.

Really? Then why was the gate swinging onto the yard? He swore he hadn’t left it like that.

I’d say ye to sleep with one eye open from now on, Grandad. He listened to the man’s threat play out in his head: the menacing intent that made him afraid. ’Cos otherwise ye’ll nae see me coming.

Ronald recalled the dreadful press of the gun’s muzzle against his temple. It was as clear as the image of that fiend’s mean rat face and the sound of her cackling laugh.

What did they want with him? Why did they keep coming here? His unanswerable questions churned to a darkened sludge as he felt the pinch of danger.

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