Claire stayed on at a quiet B & B near Moyross and applied for her visa. Then, when it came through, she used up some of the money to book herself a flight. Within days she was on a plane, packed with families, all of them happy and chatting and off on holidays. She sat alone, cut off from the rest of humanity, feeling herself to be so filthy, so disgusting, so used.

The flight was long and tedious, cramped and awful. But as it went on, a sense of calm came over her. She was going where they wouldn’t reach her. Not the Cleavers, not Shauna Everett. She was saying goodbye to all that, starting afresh. She thought then of the country lanes, wide skies and open fields of her home and shuddered with pain and longing.

But this was for the best. She would be safe, and so would her family. Somehow she had to try to forget all that she’d been through, which was easier said than done when every time she closed her eyes she relived Blue’s horrible death and the events that followed. She turned her face to the window and shed quiet heartbroken tears as she thought of the anguish she must surely be bringing on her folks. And Josh. Most of all, she cried over Josh and their lost future together.

When the pilot announced over the tannoy that they were preparing to land at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, she fastened her seat belt and braced herself.

Her new life would begin here, now.

She had to be strong, and start again.

For her, there was no other way.

28

28

When Josh eventually turned up at John Finlay’s pub, he got a surprise. He’d expected a rat-hole of a place, but it was actually not a bad-looking gaff. Nicely done out, hanging baskets all over the front of it and the paintwork neat and clean; clearly, this place had cost John a pretty penny. Outside, on the far edge of the car park, there was a line of lavishly customized Harley-Davidson motorbikes. Josh went over and admired the machines. Then he headed inside and the atmosphere was thick with trouble. Josh could smell it the moment he stepped through the door.

The bar staff looked jumpy, and there was a long-haired group of bikers in denim cut-offs and leathers decorated with either skulls and crossbones or patches on the back identifying where they were from and which club or ‘chapter’ they belonged to. One of them had two Nazi-like SS lightning bolts below the words ‘Filthy Few’. Having come across bikers in the past, Josh knew that this meant the man wearing it had committed murder on behalf of his ‘chapter’.

The bikers were making a lot of noise. Black Sabbath were screaming ‘Sabbra Cadabra’ on the juke. Get a few skinheads in here, Josh thought, and things would really kick off.