Evil for Evil Read Online Free PDF Page A

the whole world. She’d dumped her boyfriend before he could dump her; he hadn’t protested and getting through the day took so much energy she barely noticed he’d gone. And all sorts of things had started crawling out of the woodwork, too, things Christie thought she’d banished long ago. Her coping strategies simply weren’t working any more.
    It didn’t help that she was skint, going without proper food to pay rent for her lousy bedsit, living with the ‘what-if’ terror. She’d been homeless before, until the army took her in; they’d washed their hands of her now.
    The chance encounter with her former CO was a sort of miracle. He’d served with Matt Lovatt in Bosnia and heard his plan of offering a bolt-hole for soldiers needing peaceful R and R.
    ‘A working holiday for as long as you need it,’ he had explained, ‘though the work’s meant to be therapeutic rather than a quid pro quo.’
    Christie wasn’t entirely certain what a quid pro quo was, but she could understand all about a roof over her head and food she didn’t have to pay for. She could hack it, whatever it was like.
    Yet she’d actually considered leaving, the first couple of days. Itwas kind of a weird household, for a start, with odd relationships – a job lot of emotional cripples, though Kerr was the only one who actually had a missing leg. And it was so effing quiet! No music, except sometimes the classical stuff with no proper tune, no banter, no outlet for the aggression constantly bubbling below the surface as Christie was politely grateful and on her best behaviour. The nightmares were worse than ever.
    That second night, sweating and trembling, she went down to the kitchen to escape them. It was July, one o’clock in the morning, and the darkness was lifting already. In the cool grey light she made tea and found a handful of Hobnobs; she was still perpetually hungry, craving the comfort of starch and sugar. When the door opened she jumped guiltily.
    Kerr Brodie limped into the room. He was a thickset man with grizzled grey hair; he smiled a lot but Christie noticed the smile seldom reached his hard grey eyes. He was fully dressed; he obviously hadn’t gone to bed yet. He grinned at her startled movement.
    ‘At ease, soldier. Heard you moving about.’ He sat down at the table. ‘Got the heebie-jeebies, then?’
    The silly term got her on the raw. Digging her nails into her palms, she said, ‘I’m fine.’
    ‘That’ll be right,’ he said sardonically, then took out some keys and threw them across. ‘The major’s orders. These are for the small motor boat. There’s a shack on the island with bedding and blankets. Get across there and yell for a bit. He’ll leave food till you’re ready to come back.’
    Being there alone might just push her over the edge, but she was past caring. She took the keys and went.
    After three strange days when Christie spoke to no one, screamed,cried and hurled rocks into the sea, she felt spent and peaceful. The fourth night, she slept like a baby.
    Back at the farmhouse, she still had bad days, but could believe now that eventually the horrors would recede. With hard physical work she slept more soundly and on bad days she could go to the island and let the murmur of wind and waves which was somehow part of a deep, deep silence wrap itself all about her.
    She seriously owed Matt, and by extension Lissa too, though it was hard to see what she’d contributed. Christie pinned on a big smile now as she approached.
    ‘Hi, Lissa!’
    It was much colder now the sun was only a line of gold down on the horizon, but Lissa didn’t seem to have noticed. She’d pulled her cotton print dress over her bent knees and was clasping them, her blue eyes dreamy. She was small, with a faded prettiness, brown curling hair and fine, pale skin, but her cheekbones were too sharply defined in her thin face.
    She looked round. ‘Isn’t it a perfect evening? And look!’ She reached down to delicate blue