Page 42 of Savage Protector
10
Zayn
She barely mumblesa word to me on the drive from the city centre to our base at Caernbro Ghyll, and when I speak to her, all I get in return is monosyllables.
“I’ll go over to your room in Stirling to pick up your stuff. Can you let me have a list of what’s urgent?”
“Okay.”
“Is there anyone you need to tell? About not attending lectures for a week or so?”
“No.”
“Have you eaten today?”
“Not hungry.”
A whole two words. Wow!
I give up for now. It’s uphill work, and today’s events are a lot to get her head round.
I pull onto the Caernbro Ghyll forecourt at the same time as Jack’s Range Rover. He gets out, gives me a wave, then goes round to the rear passenger door and carefully lifts his two-year-old daughter out of her car seat in the back. His partner, Ruth, hops out of the passenger side and immediately rushes around to greet us.
“Jack said you’d be staying with us for a while. It’s Leila, isn’t it? I’m Ruth, and that little angel is Faith. She’s two.”
“I…I…”
Seems Leila can’t even rustle up so much as one word for Ruth.
“I was just showing Leila her new home,” I interject.
“Temporary home,” Leila mutters, before turning her attention to Jack. “I wonder, could you ask Mr Savage to keep my room open for me? I’ll continue paying the rent…”
“What rent?” he replies. “But I’ll tell him.” He turns to regard me. “I need a chat, in my office, as soon as you’re free.”
“Give me half an hour or so.”
“No need for that,” Ruth interrupts us. “I can show Leila round. You can keep Faith occupied for a while, Jack, can’t you?”
Jack grins and jiggles the toddler on his hip. “We’ll have fun. She can play while we talk. That okay with you, Zee?”
“Sure, as long as I get a go with the music book.” Faith’s favourite toy at the moment is a nursery rhyme board book with a small keyboard attached to it with instructions for how to play the tunes. ‘Baa Baa Black Sheep’ is my speciality.
“We’ll see.” Jack is already striding towards the house while Faith grabs at his shirt collar.
“Wait! I was thinking, maybe…”
Jack halts at the sound of Leila’s voice and turns. “Is there a problem?”
Leila stiffens beside me. “Well, yes.” She chews on her lower lip, clearly far more intimidated by Jack than she was by me. I need to work on that. She continues. “Perhaps. I was thinking, well, after this latest…thing, maybe Ishouldgo to the police. Zayn said that with the video, they’d get years in jail. They couldn’t bother me then, and I’d have no need to trouble you. I could go back home and just get on with things.”
Jack takes the few paces back to where we are standing. “No,” he replies. “No. I don’t think so.”
“But the video…”
“Would implicate us as well as your family.”
“As witnesses. You rescued me. You’d be heroes, not suspects.”
