‘What the fuck is this, you cow. I know things about your family, your husband, that you wouldn’t want repeated. I know things that would make these tarts shun you like a leper. So watch your fucking mouth or I promise you, you’ll be getting all those expensive pearly-whites of yours back in an ashtray – and then I’ll fill the “girls” in on all the grisly details about dear sweet Dave and the company he likes to keep.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Philippa, but she looked shaken.

‘No. You don’t, do you. Ignorance is bliss. So keep that poisonous mouth of yours shut, or you’ll be opening a can of worms you’ll wish you hadn’t.’

Shauna let Philippa go, turned and walked out to the BMW. ‘Bye then, Tanya. Bye, Chloe,’ she called warmly, and got into the car with her hands still trembling with rage and her guts knotted with tension.

That bitch.

Shauna knew she was going to have to work very hard with Tanya and Chloe to repair the damage done today. Well, she’d warned Phil now. But she was furious. Maybe a warning wasn’t enough. So when she got home, she phoned the Cleaver farm.

61

61

‘What the fuck’s up with you then?’ asked Bill Cleaver when he came out of the kitchen door and found Jeb standing outside, staring moodily into space.

One of their dogs, a big black Boxer, came sniffing around his leg and Jeb booted it. The dog cried out and slunk away.

‘Nothing,’ he said.

‘Face on you like a cow’s arse,’ said Bill, picking up his stick.

‘I told you, it’s nothing.’

‘You’re not still mooning around over that Shauna bloody Everett, are you? Or Shauna Flynn as she styles herself these days. Christ, she’s been gone over three years now – what the fuck’s wrong with you?’

Jeb eyed his father beadily. The old fart would get a thump around the head if he wasn’t careful. Yeah, Bill ruled the roost here, but Jeb was big enough now to give the cunt a pasting, and he would.

‘Bitch thinks she’s free of us all,’ sniffed Jeb. ‘Lording it in a big house with that Flynn git, she don’t want to know her old pals any more. She’s made that damned plain.’

It hurt him. He could scarcely credit it, but it did. He was soft on the bitch. And that – his own weakness for her – made him angrier still. Now she’d been on the phone to him, asking him to do a job on one of her snooty pals. She was using him. Keeping things on her terms.

‘That’s harsh,’ said Bill.