Read Online To Catch a Rabbit by Helen Cadbury - Free Book Online

Johnny?’ She asked Jackie.
    ‘Johnny?’
    ‘A friend of Stacey and Phil’s?’
    ‘Johnny Mackenzie?’ Jackie stopped and looked at Karen. ‘Local lad. He and Stacey used to go out together when they were younger.’
    ‘What does he do? I think Phil was working for him.’
    ‘Bit of an entrepreneur. Got an agency with all foreign types, Poles and that. They clean the posh houses out towards Barton. Some of them do the fruit-and-veg picking.’
    Karen made a mental note to mention this to Jaz. ‘Phil was driving a van. He was doing some sort of delivery job for Mackenzie, I think.’
    ‘Oh yeah? Well, Johnny Mac’s got a lot of little schemes.’
    Karen listened to the squelch of wet ground under her boots. The leather was spattered with chocolate-brown mud, which had reached the hem of her skirt. Her calves ached and her legs longed for tarmac.
    ‘Would you trust him? This Johnny Mackenzie?’
    ‘Would I trust him?’ Jackie’s tone was as flat as the fields. ‘Well, I don’t know really, love. I don’t know.’
    When she got back to the house, the dog whined at the front door while they waited for Stacey to answer. She could hear the sound of the television, a nursery rhyme cranked up high. Behind it, a man’s voice was raised in some kind of argument and then she could hear Stacey calling to Holly to turn the volume down. She rang the bell again. Stacey opened the door with Holly pressed between her legs.
    ‘Stop it, Holly! You’ll trip me up!’
    ‘Marvin!’ She was not much bigger than the dog, this little girl who wrapped her arms round its grubby neck. She smiled up at Karen.
    ‘Remember your Aunty Karen, Holly?’
    Karen let go of the dog’s lead and closed the door behind her. She thought she felt a sudden draught, as if another door had been opened at the back of the house. Holly didn’t show any sign of remembering her, but she took her hand anyway and led her into the front room to show off her toy box.
    It was only later, when they were sitting down to a pizza in front of the TV, that Holly asked where Uncle Johnny had gone.
    ‘Isn’t he having pizza Mummy? Can I give his bit to Marvin?’
    ‘He had to pop out, love.’ She turned to Karen and said quickly, ‘He’s just a neighbour. Everyone’s Uncle or Aunty to her.’
    ‘He’s the guy Phil was working for.’
    ‘So what?’
    ‘For God’s sake, Stacey!’ Karen stood up. The jigsaw piece had just clicked into place. She had a dizzy sensation of filling the room as her plate slipped off the sofa and the pizza landed face down on the purple carpet. Holly started to cry and Marvin rushed in, seizing her chance.
    ‘Can’t you see?’ Karen could hear her voice pitching out of control. ‘He’s probably the last person to see Phil. He could be telling a pack of lies! And you just believe everything he’s said.’
    ‘Nobody asked you to come here!’ Stacey was on her feet too. She scooped Holly up into her arms.
    ‘That’s right.’ It was a man’s voice behind her. ‘So I think you’d better leave.’
    He was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, a small and squarely built man of about thirty, with wind-burned cheeks and reddish hair.
    ‘I know who you are and I want to know where my brother is!’
    ‘You know nothing lady, not a bloody thing. This your bag?’
    He crossed the room in three strides, picked up her handbag and opened the door to the hall in one seamless action.
    Karen looked at Stacey, but she couldn’t see her face, buried in Holly’s hair. She felt hopeless and huge, like Alice in Wonderland, grown too large for the tiny room. She walked to the door and took the bag from Mackenzie’s outstretched hand. When she was level with him, he whispered in her face:
    ‘Ten thousand pounds, that’s what you owe me for that van. Your old feller didn’t look like he had that sort of money, but you do, lady. I take cash or a cheque.’
    On the way out of the village, Karen slowed down outside The Volunteer