Free First and Only by Peter Flannery Page B

endure… this was worse.
    Steve had watched the ambulance
drive away. He had waited until the police arrived with a social worker in
attendance to take a statement from Steve and assess whether remaining in the
family home represented a danger to Sally. He had waited until Christine phoned
to say that Sally was going to be okay. She had a broken nose and a badly
bruised face but there was no serious damage done and her nose would soon be
just as perfect as it always had been.
    ‘Kids mend remarkably well,’
Christine had said.
    ‘ Kids shouldn’t have to
fucking mend! ’ Steve had rebuked himself.
    ‘When can you bring her home?’ he
had asked.
    ‘We’re going to stay at mum’s
tonight,’ said Christine tentatively. ‘Sally doesn’t want to go home just now.’
    ‘ Sally doesn’t want to come
home just now. ’
    The words had echoed in Steve’s
mind as he felt himself shrinking away to nothing. ‘Listen,’ he said at last.
‘I’ll go up to the cottage for a few days. You come home when you’re ready.
Give me a call when Sally is ready to see me.’
    ‘Okay,’ Christine had said.
    Not, ‘ Okay darling’ . Not,
‘ Okay, I love you. See you soon’ … just, ‘Okay’.
     
    Steve had never felt so
miserable, so hopeless, so guilty in his life. He had packed a bag, grabbed the
keys to the cottage and stalked out the front door walking straight into the
florist who was delivering a big bunch of flowers and a large, incredibly cute,
Nemo cuddly toy.
    ‘Delivery for Brennus,’ said the
florist brightly but one look at Steve’s stony expression and the smile faded
from her face.
    ‘ Fucking typical ,’ Steve
fumed to himself. Typical of Paul to think that a bunch of flowers and Sally’s
favourite Disney character could make up for ruining their lives. ‘Just leave
them in the hall,’ Steve had said ungraciously. ‘Close the door when you
leave.’
    And with that he had climbed into
the BMW and driven away. Had he paused to read the note that came with the
flowers he might have been less harsh in his manner; more puzzled perhaps but
certainly less rude. But he did not read the note; he had only assumed that the
flowers were from Paul.
    But they were not.
    If Steve had bothered to read the
note he would have seen that the flowers were, in fact, from him.
     
    And that was that. Steve had
spent the rest of the day talking to bank managers, lawyers and his accountant
trying to see if there was any way out of the hole that had swallowed them.
There was not. It all came down to money. When you had it your options were
limitless, when you did not those options dwindled to zero. Now it was all
about damage control. Retaining the house, salvaging as much of their lives as
possible but this too came down to money. Steve had to find a way of earning
money and earning it fast, and he could think of no way quicker than three
thousand pounds a day for the next five days…
     
    Steve pressed the tears from the
corners of his eyes and tried to get comfortable in his seat. He pulled the
blanket up over his chest and closed his eyes, searching once more for the
oblivion of sleep. For another thirty minutes he fidgeted and wrestled with his
blanket, his body mirroring the churning anxiety within him. And even when his
breathing finally grew deep and regular his blanket refused to lie across his
body and the frown of worry refused to leave his face.
    And as sleep finally brought
relief to Steve, Psimon opened his eyes. He looked across at his sleeping
companion, an unreadable expression in his eyes. Then he reached across and
pulled the blanket up around Steve’s shoulders.
    He envied Steve the refuge of
sleep as he waited in frightened anticipation for what he knew was soon to
come… for the next confession to begin. He waited for the pain and fear of the
latest victim to become so great that it burst, unbidden, into his mind. He
closed his eyes once more. He was tired and the distant sound of the