Read Online Where There is Evil by Sandra Brown - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Sandra Brown
Ads: Link
walk a
five-minute journey, one year on from Moira’s disappearance. Although it was dark, it was not late, just around teatime. Near the high school, a young man suddenly leaped out at me. I was
knocked off my feet and I landed on my back. My hood slid down over my eyes and I could not get a good look at him, but I was overcome by two things: a horrible smell of Woodbines, and an
excruciating pain after his hand shot under my skirt. I was gasping for air, while he muttered obscenities, and already I could feel a giant bump forming on the back of my skull where it had hit
the ground. A sense of outrage shot through me and I let out a yell. A light came on in the porch of a big house, and the man ran off, but not before aiming a savage kick at me.
Despite the noise, no one appeared. Shakily, I got to my feet and picked up my battered parcel. My uncle opened his door to a small, dishevelled girl, scraped and bruised, with blood tricking
down over one knee-high school stocking. It was a good half-hour before they could calm me down with the obligatory cup of tea.
‘You’ll be OK, Sandra,’ my aunt murmured soothingly, after I had blurted out what had happened. ‘Your uncle Archie will walk back with you and make sure he isn’t
still about, and he’ll speak to your mum.’
We duly went home together, passing the police station, and my uncle and mother spoke in whispers as I got ready for bed. I waited for my mother to ask me what had happened. Instead, she gave me
a cuddle, a hot-water bottle, and reminded me to say my prayers. She assured me that we would talk about everything later, when I felt better, then gave me a quick goodnight kiss. Adult voices
droned as I drifted into sleep.
I was sent to school the next day as if nothing untoward had occurred. I was too humiliated to mention it to any of my chums, and my mother did not discuss it with me. What should have been
reported by her as an indecent assault on a child was swept under the carpet, as if by not confronting it my mother could convince herself that her child remained untouched.
When my father returned from his long absence, his attitude towards me had taken a turn for the worse. While he had been gone I had grown, and I had my tenth birthday just after he reappeared. I
withdrew again and, though I was not a naughty child, the beatings started, ostensibly ‘to knock the cheek’ out of me. My mother kept us as separate as possible. As she had gathered
some self-esteem from the way she had coped during his absence, she asserted herself more than she had before and several times she intervened when he beat me black and blue.
‘They may have beaten you up where you were,’ she yelled at him once, in front of me, ‘but don’t you lift a finger to my weans without good reason!’
I noticed the antagonistic looks that passed between them with satisfaction.
‘Keep out of his way, Sandra! Don’t annoy him or give him cheek,’ she hissed at me, and mostly I complied with this, but she could not always be around. I wouldn’t answer
my father when he used endearments, I refused to kiss him goodnight, and I ignored his rules in preference to my mother’s, which we had got used to during his absence. I would even curl my
lip in contempt at him and not bother to disguise it, which caused dreadful ructions.
One beating he gave me was so bad that I ran away, my lip split from a blow which, uncharacteristically, had been delivered to my face, where others might notice it. I wandered for hours, left
Dunbeth Park when the gate was locked at sunset, and trailed around the streets till dawn found me almost back home, sitting on the stone steps of the town hall. I must have nodded off, for the
next thing I remember is a kindly policeman with a torch picking me up and carrying me round the corner to the station. There he examined my face, made me a cup of Cadbury’s hot chocolate and
asked what ailed me.
I dissolved into tears. ‘My dad’s a
five-minute journey, one year on from Moira’s disappearance. Although it was dark, it was not late, just around teatime. Near the high school, a young man suddenly leaped out at me. I was
knocked off my feet and I landed on my back. My hood slid down over my eyes and I could not get a good look at him, but I was overcome by two things: a horrible smell of Woodbines, and an
excruciating pain after his hand shot under my skirt. I was gasping for air, while he muttered obscenities, and already I could feel a giant bump forming on the back of my skull where it had hit
the ground. A sense of outrage shot through me and I let out a yell. A light came on in the porch of a big house, and the man ran off, but not before aiming a savage kick at me.
Despite the noise, no one appeared. Shakily, I got to my feet and picked up my battered parcel. My uncle opened his door to a small, dishevelled girl, scraped and bruised, with blood tricking
down over one knee-high school stocking. It was a good half-hour before they could calm me down with the obligatory cup of tea.
‘You’ll be OK, Sandra,’ my aunt murmured soothingly, after I had blurted out what had happened. ‘Your uncle Archie will walk back with you and make sure he isn’t
still about, and he’ll speak to your mum.’
We duly went home together, passing the police station, and my uncle and mother spoke in whispers as I got ready for bed. I waited for my mother to ask me what had happened. Instead, she gave me
a cuddle, a hot-water bottle, and reminded me to say my prayers. She assured me that we would talk about everything later, when I felt better, then gave me a quick goodnight kiss. Adult voices
droned as I drifted into sleep.
I was sent to school the next day as if nothing untoward had occurred. I was too humiliated to mention it to any of my chums, and my mother did not discuss it with me. What should have been
reported by her as an indecent assault on a child was swept under the carpet, as if by not confronting it my mother could convince herself that her child remained untouched.
When my father returned from his long absence, his attitude towards me had taken a turn for the worse. While he had been gone I had grown, and I had my tenth birthday just after he reappeared. I
withdrew again and, though I was not a naughty child, the beatings started, ostensibly ‘to knock the cheek’ out of me. My mother kept us as separate as possible. As she had gathered
some self-esteem from the way she had coped during his absence, she asserted herself more than she had before and several times she intervened when he beat me black and blue.
‘They may have beaten you up where you were,’ she yelled at him once, in front of me, ‘but don’t you lift a finger to my weans without good reason!’
I noticed the antagonistic looks that passed between them with satisfaction.
‘Keep out of his way, Sandra! Don’t annoy him or give him cheek,’ she hissed at me, and mostly I complied with this, but she could not always be around. I wouldn’t answer
my father when he used endearments, I refused to kiss him goodnight, and I ignored his rules in preference to my mother’s, which we had got used to during his absence. I would even curl my
lip in contempt at him and not bother to disguise it, which caused dreadful ructions.
One beating he gave me was so bad that I ran away, my lip split from a blow which, uncharacteristically, had been delivered to my face, where others might notice it. I wandered for hours, left
Dunbeth Park when the gate was locked at sunset, and trailed around the streets till dawn found me almost back home, sitting on the stone steps of the town hall. I must have nodded off, for the
next thing I remember is a kindly policeman with a torch picking me up and carrying me round the corner to the station. There he examined my face, made me a cup of Cadbury’s hot chocolate and
asked what ailed me.
I dissolved into tears. ‘My dad’s a
Similar Books
