Free ON DEVIL'S BRAE (A Psychological Suspense Thriller) (Dark Minds Mystery Suspense) by Faith Mortimer Page A

person. Daphne Potter would have loathed the woman with her cheap, low-cut tops displaying her large white breasts and her rounded bottom in a pair of lewd skin-tight leggings. As common as muck , she would have said. Such people drop babies one a year, often a different father every time or never even knowing who the father is. They only do it for the social-security benefits. Beats working and they get cheap housing. Little more than prostitutes. Cassandra hated thinking about the analogy, but said nothing to Susan. No, Daphne Potter would never have understood in a million years.
    During Susan’s early visits, she said Stacy Hodges was an almost perfect picture of motherhood, considering the conditions. Her children would play quietly and contentedly at her feet, and Natalie would bring her colouring book for her to see her completed pictures. “That’s lovely, Nat. You’re such a good girl,” she would say with a smile.
    Later, Susan began to watch out for the signs, and she would ask Stacy—when they were alone—about the bruising on Natalie’s arms. Stacy caught on quickly and whined about the conditions in which they lived: how the playground was dangerous and how she and Wayne really cared about their kids. Her eyes were sharp and knowing; despite what Susan’s mother might have said or thought, Stacy Hodges was no fool.
    “You ask Nat,” she said, wheezing between puffs of her cigarette. “That bloody council won’t do nuffink to mend them swings. They’re faulty I tell yer. You ask her, quiet-like. I don’t care. It don’t worry me or her. Ain’t that right, Nat. You’ll tell the truth, eh?
    Susan guessed money was tight for the Hodges. At the end of the week, after all the bills had been paid and money put aside for the ‘catalogue club’, there was little left. No money left over for ‘frills’. Stacy was eager to get her hands on the money Susan had agreed to pay her to use Natalie for her art. Nonchalantly, she asked Stacy whether she ever lost her temper with the children. “Course I bleedin’ well do. Who doesn’t? Yeah, I give ‘em a clip behind the ear now and again. Little bleeders. Nuffink hard but it makes them think twice. No sodding law will tell me I can’t smack my kids.”
    Susan told Cassandra she waited a full minute before her next question. “And Wayne? Does he enjoy having the children around? Does he spend much time with them?”
    “Nah. Not much. He’s got his job on the Underground to worry about. He does shifts, but when he’s here, he’s happy to play with them. He takes them to the playground and throws a ball around. They’re too young to go on their own, and there are often gangs of shifty little bastards from the Toxteth and Anfield areas over here looking for trouble. Yer know, drugs and the like. We don’t want nuffink to do with that lot. He gets cross sometimes, if he’s trying to watch footie on the telly, and yells a bit if they’re making a racket. But he’s not a rough man. Never uses his fists and he loves his kids, I can tell yer. Not like some who come home pissed every night. Wayne’s a right good dad.”
    Susan carried on sketching and skirted around with her questioning a bit, but eventually Stacy said Natalie and Wayne were fine together. “Nah! He’s never hit her, even in a temper when she and Darren are playing up. Nat would tell me. Now, you listen, Lady Sculptor, we’re a happy family. There’s plenty around here that ain’t, though. You ought to go and check ‘em out and not waste my time.”
    But there came the day when Susan noticed the burns and knew something wasn’t right. “Who did this, Natalie?” she asked when they were alone.
    Natalie’s eyes looked bright and feverish. “Nobody did it. Nobody did it, honest.”
    Susan knew she was lying but had no way to prove it.
    “I’m sure she was lying, Cassandra, I just know it. There’s something wrong with that family.”
    Just like there had been something wrong