Lost Souls

47

Katie was making everyone a hot drink when her father returned from speaking to his friend about the grave. She studied his face before he spoke, trying to read how the conversation had gone. She prayed the locals wouldn’t have anything to do with investigating their findings, as she was convinced they were all on Galbraith’s pay roll.

    Mr. Rusk caught the look in his daughter’s worried eyes, and quickly gave her a reassuring hug. “It’s sorted. This is way too big for the Auchdermuir cops to handle. Apparently, there’s a specialist unit near Glasgow that deals with major murder investigations, and anything to do with offences involving groups of children. Two of their team are on the way. Should be with us in a few hours. In the meantime we’ve to sit tight and not touch anything.”

    “That shouldn’t be hard. I don’t want to go anywhere near that hillock again,” Mrs. Rusk said quietly, as she nodded her thanks at Katie, who’d just placed a mug before her.

    “Maybe we should just check we’ve covered the area we dug up sufficiently enough?” Christopher wondered, loudly enough that everyone in the room heard his thoughts.

    “It’s covered Christopher,” MacBlaine answered, as he sipped his drink. “Beside’s if we tamper with it now we might risk destroying vital evidence.”

    “Fair enough vicar,” Christopher agreed half-heartedly. He wanted to go and take another look at the grave before the police came and took over total control.

    “What are we going to do until the cops arrive then?” Jimmy asked, clearly not wanting to just sit there for hours on end.

    “We could all play a game?” Amber suggested hopefully.

    “Yeah, let’s play football out the front. Boys against girls,” Alex eagerly agreed.

    “I doubt anybodies got the energy son,” MacBlaine pointed out. “Us oldies need a bit of time to recover after all that digging.

    Alex’s face clouded over. “I’ve not been able to do anything since we moved here. Some life this is going to be,” he groaned loudly.

    “It won’t always be like this Alex. These are very unusual circumstances. Once the police have sorted things out, everything will be just like it was in London.”

    Alex glared at his mother. He didn’t believe anything would be as it was when they lived in London. Not here. Not in this strange and remote countryside. “It’s boring here,” he said huffily.

    Katie inhaled sharply. “How the heck can you say that you stupid dork? Have you ever had dealings with ghosts and murdered kids before?”

    “It’s all nonsense. The police will just take the bones away, tell us they died from flu or something and that will be that. All the time you lot have wasted will be for nothing,” he said, his voice filled with venom.

    “Only you could say that,” Katie growled in response. “You’re such an idiot sometimes, I wish you were somebody else’s brother.”

    Alex’s face turned purple. The veins on his neck pulsated furiously, and he looked like he was about to explode. “Me too,” he spat. “Why would anyone want to be related to Miss Goody Two Shoes, and her totally grossed out imagination?” he added, as his mouth turned into a snarl.

    Katie couldn’t help herself. She lunged at her brother with both hands tightly clenched into fists of fury. Alex was slow to react, and she landed several blows before he managed to bring his own arms up to protect himself.

    Mr and Mrs. Rusk momentarily were rooted to the spot as they watched the scene unfolding before them. Together, something finally clicked in their subconscious, and they both moved quickly to haul Katie off Alex, before she could inflict any major damage. Although Alex was bigger and stronger, Katie’s attack had taken him by total surprise, and he was taking a beating.