Tagan's Child Read Online Free PDF Page B

what I needed to keep myself
occupied. I hadn’t told Audrey about Ahran’s visit because I didn’t
want to worry her. I decided I wouldn’t say anything until he had
proved to me that what he’d said was true. I fully intended to tell
Bennie tonight though. I needed to share it with someone.
    It had been a
busy day cleaning and we rewarded ourselves with tea and some
unsold cake. We congratulated ourselves with what we had achieved
and shut up shop safe in the knowledge that everything was spick
and span. I picked Toby up from afterschool club and was regaled
with stories of his school trip to the Natural History Museum. He
flaked out after his bath not even able to stay awake for a story.
I tucked him in and kissed his forehead. We had got through the day
without being attacked by evil, vengeful enemies from far off
places. I began to think that Ahran’s visit had been some kind of
stupid prank.
    I put some
plates in the oven and a bottle of wine in the fridge. It had been
too long since I had seen Bennie. I smiled at the thought of my
best friend. Her name wasn’t actually Bennie it was Cordelia. I
remember the day I met her so clearly, it was at the village
primary school, the same one that Toby now went to. We were both
five. I had been at school for a term and she had just moved into
the village with her parents. She had been a real tomboy and
figured that nobody at school would be any the wiser if she renamed
herself Benjamin. She reasoned that boys had more fun and decided a
name change might make her life more exciting. She was an only
child. Her parents, Edward and Gwen Blythe-Smith, after twenty
three years of trying, had resigned themselves to never being able
to have children and then Bennie came along.
    Mrs
Blythe-Smith became a first time mum at the age of forty eight. It
was a dream come true for her and her husband but it meant that the
first eighteen years of Bennie’s life were suffocated by aging
parents who were over-protective and unrealistic in their
expectations. Bennie had been pretty rebellious in return. She was
nearly expelled from the local grammar school on more than one
occasion. Her father, a successful lawyer, was over the moon when
she got a place on a law degree course at university, finally it
seemed she was taking life more seriously. Unfortunately for her
parents, her time studying law was short lived when an affair with
one of her lecturers brought an end to their dream of Bennie having
a successful career in law. Her parents were less than encouraging
when she enrolled herself onto a photography course, but two years
later she proved them wrong and set herself up as a freelance
photographer. Her lucky break came when she met a producer of BBC
wildlife films at an industry ‘do’ and the rest, as they say, is
history.
    I couldn’t wait
to see her.
    The doorbell
rang. I half-ran to the front door. For a split second, I wondered
whether it was her and that maybe I should check before I opened
it. “Bennie?” I said through the door feeling really silly and not
a little bit paranoid. Damn Ahran Elessar!
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    “It’s me
chick,” Bennie replied.
    I opened the
door. See, there was nothing to worry about. Bennie stood on my
doorstep with a Chinese takeaway in one hand and a bottle of rosé
in the other.
    “The wanderer
returns bearing gifts of alcohol and bucket loads of MSG,” she
said, holding out her arms. I had never been more pleased to see
her.
    “Come in its
freezing,” I said with a grin, shutting the door behind her and
giving her a hug.
    “Steady on
girl, you’ll break a rib,” she said breathlessly.
    Bennie was a
stunner. She had sleek, shiny, jet black hair cut into a blunt bob.
Her recent trip away had given her a golden tan which made her blue
eyes almost luminescent. She looked just like a Russian Bond
girl.
    “You look
fantastic,” I said as I took the food and bottle of wine from
her.
    “You look
pasty,” said Bennie, less