Where the hell could she be?

Then someone started thumping on the window.

He looked up.

It was Shauna.

19

19

‘You arsehole,’ she said when he wound the window down.

‘What the fuck you doing here?’ asked Josh, his mind spinning. He’d left her at the B & B and he’d been about to go back there, but now here she was, wandering the streets.

‘What am I doing here? What are you doing here, more to the point.’ Shauna’s face drew into thunderous lines. ‘Been back to try and see Claire, have you? Changed your mind, I suppose.’

‘I haven’t seen Claire.’

‘You bloody bastard! You low-life cunt!’ said Shauna, and hit him.

‘Hey!’ Josh raised a hand to fend her off. Unable to strike, Shauna got madder still and kept pummelling at him until he grabbed her wrist. She was so crazy with rage she barely felt the pain of his grip. ‘Stop that!’ said Josh.

Shauna was breathing hard. ‘What the hell have you come back here for, if not to see that little twat?’

‘All right! I came back to talk to her.’ Josh turned haunted eyes toward her. ‘I thought she’d be calmed down by now, that she’d reconsider. But Claire’s missing. I just talked to the muskra and he told me.’

‘What?’ Shauna, eyes averted, started pacing up and down beside the car. ‘What do you mean, missing?’

‘As in, gone. Vanished. That ain’t like Claire. You know it.’

Shauna stopped walking and shook her head. She was furious and offended. He’d fucked her overnight and then come back for the one he truly loved. If she’d felt any shred of guilt at what she and the Cleaver boys had done to Claire, this crushed it once and for all. She was glad they’d marked that bitch’s card now. ‘Look, what probably happened is she was upset when the two of you parted company, and she’s just taken herself off somewhere. She’s sulking.’

Josh thumped a scraped and bloodied fist against his forehead. ‘Oh Christ. I’ve fucked it all up, haven’t I. This is my fault.’

Shauna was staring at him. ‘We got to get out of here,’ she said. ‘We got to put all this shit behind us.’

Josh stared at her like she’d sprouted horns. ‘What? My girl—’

‘Don’t call her that, you fool. She ain’t your girl any more, can’t you see that? She’s cleared out, ain’t you got the message? She’s dumped you, and run off. Come on. Let’s go.’

Shauna stomped around the front of the car and got in the passenger seat, slamming the door after her.

‘You’re a cold-hearted bitch,’ said Josh.

‘Oh shut up. One of us has got to think straight.’

‘This is my fault.’