The Girl in the Rug Read Online Free PDF Page A

gone.
    Andy tried to get his breath back, Lucy was crying in a heap
on the floor next to him, he reached over and helped to pull her to her feet.
    ‘Come on Luce,’ he said putting an arm round her, and on
shaky legs the two children walked the short distance back to their flat. Lucy
had stopped crying now but every now and then a shudder ran through her little
body. Once safe inside Andy’s own tears fell…Amish, that kind old man was dead.
He dashed the tears away angrily, he couldn’t think about that now, with any
luck the police wouldn’t know where to find him, but if they did he had to make
sure that Lucy didn’t tell them anything, one wrong word and they would have
‘Nellie’ to deal with and he was far scarier that the police.
    ‘Nellie’, real name Elliot Dentch, wasn’t a man that you
crossed lightly. Andy had known it was him as soon as he had started speaking
to Amish, he had a very distinctive drawling accent…just the thought of it was
making Andy’s skin crawl. The other man known as ‘Turk’ was Nellie’s sidekick,
his creature really; following him everywhere…exacting awful vengeance on
anyone that Nellie felt deserved it.
    Nellie had at one time been a customer of Andy’s mum; Andy
had hated it whenever he had come to the flat. He seemed to enjoy humiliating
his mum, especially in front of Andy and Lucy. He remembered one time when he
had demanded that Kathy wash his feet.
    Mum had just laughed at him, ‘I don’t think so love…you’ve
got a wife to do that for you. Now if you wanted me to polish up your knob…’
she had got no further before Nellie had smashed his fist into the side of her
head.
    ‘Wash my fucking feet you fucking whore,’ he had hissed at
her, pulling out a wicked looking knife which he held to her throat, forcing
her down towards the floor.
    ‘Lick ’em clean you dirty bint…that’s all you’re good for.’
Terrified, Mum had silently knelt on the floor in front of him, removing his
shoes and socks with trembling fingers and proceeded to lick his feet.
    Nellie had sat back in the chair and looked over at the two
horrified children.
    ‘That’s your mum that is,’ he’d said with a sneer, ‘dirty
rotten whore.’
    Other times he had just been in the living room with mum and
they hadn’t seen him until he was leaving, but Andy had hated the way he looked
at Lucy if ever he caught sight of her.
    ‘Give you fifty for ‘er,’ he’d said to Mum one day stroking
Lucy’s hair.
    Mum had laughed nervously and told Lucy to get to her room,
but the incident had scared Andy to death.
    All of this was going through his head as they huddled in
the kitchen, trying to keep warm and stop shaking. Thank goodness Mum was
asleep in the living room, they both needed some time to get over this without
having to deal with her as well. Then Andy remembered something and his face
broke into a smile.
    He pulled out two very squashed meat samosas from inside his
coat. ‘Good thing I hid these though,’ he said handing one to Lucy.

CHAPTER 6 - HELEN
    ‘Oh blast,’ said Helen, as a very gaudy Mini nipped into the
space that she had been edging towards for the last few minutes. She had been
driving round and round the streets outside Riddlestone junior school for the
last fifteen minutes. Maya had been forced to stay late for a staff meeting and
Helen had volunteered to pick her up. Unfortunately it seemed there was some
sort of football match going on at the school as well, and she had got caught
up amongst the dedicated footy mums, all either dropping off or picking up
their future David Beckhams or Stephen Gerrards. Helen spotted a blue hatchback
pulling out of a space up ahead.
    ‘Right…you’re mine,’ she said under her breath speeding
forward purposefully and nipping into the space seconds before a harassed
looking woman in a huge people carrier, who threw her hands up in disgust and mouthed
something extremely rude at Helen. Helen ignored her, locked up her