would volunteer to give evidence against Darren Hill.
'Be nice to get a confession,' mused Chalky.
'Oh yeah, that's going to happen!'
'You never know Jim, stranger things have happened.'
'What, you go and confront Patterson or Darren Hill and they give you the full story?' asked Rob, adding, 'Here lads, I'm going to have some of what Chalky is drinking, I might feel brave enough to tell the wife what I really think of her new hairdo!'
'Come on Rob, nobody's that brave, Chalky is only talking about taking on some violent psychopaths, not your Elsie!'
'Same difference, surely.' quipped Allan.
Chalky laughed along with the rest of them, but persisted,
'You know what they say, “Evil flourishes when good men do nothing”, and that's what is happening here, nobody is willing to stand up to the Hill family.'
'There's a reason for that,' said Rob, 'if you try to take a stand against them, you'll wake in the hospital or find yourself in a prison cell! You just can't win against them.'
Chalky nodded sombrely along with the others, but there was a distance in his eyes as his mind drifted to thoughts of a teenage girl brutally robbed of her future.
Chapter 4
Five-thirty a.m. and Allan Ross reluctantly stirred and silenced the alarm on his side of the bed. He yawned and stretched and scratched before heading towards the bathroom, while on the other side of the bed, Julie slept on, oblivious.
After washing and dressing, Allan practically sleep-walked through his usual routine of toast and coffee for breakfast, making up sandwiches for his packed lunch and filling his flask. As he finished, and rinsed off the dishes, he heard Julie begin to move around upstairs. He would be on his way to work before Julie had the kids up and ready to go to school.
She appeared at the kitchen door, and stepped over to give him a quick peck on the cheek.
'Morning.'
'Morning, pet.'
'Were you planning anything for this evening?' she asked.
'Not at the moment,' he answered, 'Oh wait a minute, Chalky did ask if I would be free tonight, but I can put him off if you want, what did you have in mind?'
'Well, you know Emily, my friend from the gym?'
He thought for a moment then nodded,
'Vaguely, yeah, I've heard the name'
'She's been given a couple of vouchers for a pampering session up at The Bonnyton Hotel, you know, mudpacks, manicures, massage, sauna...... the thing is, her hubby isn't interested in going, reckons it's too girly for him, so she asked if I would like to go with her, keep her company. And it wouldn't cost anything, it's a freebie through her business.'
As he thought for a few seconds, she hurriedly added,
'Of course, if you wanted to come we could just pay for a room for ourselves, maybe you could have a round of golf or something while Emily and I were getting the luxury treatment. Unless you fancied a manicure or something like that for yourself, a chance to get in touch with your feminine side!'
He laughed,
'Thanks, but I think I'll give it a miss. You go ahead, enjoy yourselves. As I said, I may have something on with Chalky anyway.'
'Thanks, pet.'
He gathered his things, gave her a kiss before heading for the door.
'See you tonight, love you.'
'Yeah, see you, love you too.'
And he was gone.
Julie suddenly found her legs were shaking so much she had to sit down. She had never lied to him like this before. Yes, she had perhaps been a little economical with the truth sometimes, the little white lies about the price of shoes and suchlike that oiled the wheels of married life, but this was different. The consequences of being found out were potentially life changing.
Again, a wave of guilt washed over her, the doubts flying around inside her head, until she forced herself to push them away. The time spent with David would help her make up her mind about her future..... their future, if they had one together.
She got to her feet with a fresh sense of determination and went upstairs to shower before she wakened the kids.
Strangely, she hardly gave any thought to Allan's place in this new beginning, despite hardly having made a decision in the last twenty years that didn't involve him. Perhaps that was a sign she was already moving on.
Allan headed towards the Craigends area, where he picked up Jim at his usual spot, Shamir's convenience store at the end of his street. After his usual mumbled 'Morning' by way of greeting, Jim promptly fell asleep in the passenger seat of Allan’s pickup truck. He was not a morning person.
Leaving Craigends, Allan picked up the ring road and began the half hour journey to their current job, which involved blasting rock on a new stretch of road currently under construction. This was a change for them, they were more accustomed to working in a quarry environment, which tended to follow the same routine day after day. As the rock from the previous blast was being crushed and graded by the quarry operator, Allan and Jim would prepare the next section, with Jim operating the machine to drill holes in the rock to a consistent depth in a grid pattern, followed by Allan filling the holes with explosives. Each blast was much the same as the one before, they were familiar with the spacing and the amount of explosives to create the product demanded by the customer. It was almost boringly repetitive.
As long as they didn’t accidentally blow themselves up!
Arriving at the road job, Allan got out and had a stretch, before walking around the area they planned to blast today. This was an altogether more technically demanding task than working in a quarry as it involved dealing with rock outcrops of varying depths. Shallow blasts were notoriously difficult to control, often causing 'flyers', where rocks could be hurtled hundreds of metres in any direction, a particular problem in a location like this with an existing public road to one side of the new road, and a railway to the other.
Allan felt justifiably pleased with the way thing had gone so far, taking real pride in his skill at judging and calculating the drilling and placing of explosives in these variable conditions. He was actually looking forward to his day ahead.
At her desk at the council offices, Julie took a quick glance around before slipping a memory stick into the computer. Her fingers danced over the keyboard, an artist at work. Allan had only ever shown a polite interest in her work in the council’s I.T. department, she could practically see his eyes glaze over if she talked about problems with updating the council’s web site, checking for misuse of the e-mail system, or
