Classic Bestsellers from Josephine Cox: Bumper Collection. Josephine Cox

she planned to drop down the outside shaft to the ground. She was halfway up the ladder when he seized her by the ankle. ‘Thought you could get away from me, did you?’ he panted.

      With superhuman effort, Emily managed to kick him away and jump down to the ground. Racing for the door, she thought she was safe. She even managed to get outside, but Clem was right behind her. ‘Oh no, yer don’t!’ Grabbing her round the waist, he carried her back inside, punching her in the face when she started shouting for help.

      ‘There’s no help,’ he snarled. ‘So you might as well keep still.’

      Having woken from his afternoon nap, Grandad had gone to the window in time to see Emily run from the barn. He saw Jackson come after her and he saw how bravely the lass tried to fight him off.

      Frantic with fear, he knew only too well what Clem had in mind. ‘Dear God Almighty!’ He began shouting, ‘AGGIE!’ When there was no response, he went to the door and opening it, yelled again: ‘AGGIE, FOR CHRISSAKE!’

      Taking the thick woolly jumper from the chairback he pulled it on over his nightshirt, then sliding his feet into his slippers, he started his awkward way down the stairs, calling as he went, ‘AGGIE! DANNY!’ He soon began to realise that he was the only one who could help. With that thought in mind he gathered a superhuman strength.

      He knew well enough where the shotgun was kept, for wasn’t he the one who some years before had built the cupboard to keep it safe?

      While this scene from Hell was being enacted in the dark cathedral of Potts End barn, another man, walking steadily towards the farm, believed himself to be approaching Heaven.

      Some distance away, oblivious to what was going on, Michael Ramsden covered the tracks to the farmhouse. ‘Home at last,’ he breathed. Pausing to view the familiar, beloved landscape he was filled with awe, wondering how he could ever have walked away from such a beautiful place and his precious family.

      Over the past ten years, he had known deprivation and despair; he had rummaged in filth for a bite to eat and thought many a time to end it all. But now, with John Hanley’s help he had regained his health and his self-respect; he had something to live for. I’ve some making up to do now, he thought ashamedly, moving on. A terrible wrong to put right. There was no guarantee that they’d have him back. He dreaded meeting his father’s eye: was the dear old man still alive? And his young daughter was now a mother herself; he, a grandfather. As for Aggie, his wife … mere words were no good to explain the way he felt about her, and about what he had put her through.

      For a moment, Michael was tempted to sit and weep, but the strange peace of the place, and the hope within him, dried his tears. It was time for action. He needed his family. He needed to let them know how much he loved and missed them. As for Clem Jackson, it was more than time he faced him head to head, man to man … time it was all thrashed out, one way or another! He had never been so determined to rid himself and his family of the plague that was Jackson and now, thanks to John, he had the means to do it.

      As he pushed along, head bent and his heart alive with determination, Michael did not spot Aggie at first. But then, as he raised his head he saw her – and emotion clogged his throat. ‘Oh, my God … AGGIE!’ he cried, but no sound came out.

      She was closer to the farm than he was, and now as he called her name again, this time in a quivering cry, she went out of earshot, an urgent purpose in her gait as she pelted towards the back of the farmhouse and out of sight.

      His heart lifting at the sight of his precious woman, Michael also took to his heels and ran after her.

      In the barn, Jackson had Emily at his mercy. ‘Now then, my pretty, let’s ’ave no more trouble from yer.’ He knelt once again, rolled up her skirt, and revelled at the sight of her soft white thighs.

      ‘Don’t seem right that yon fool of a milkman should ’ave this all to himself, let alone striding around my farm as if he owns the bloody place. I’ll set the dog on him, I will,’ he said viciously, and reached forward to fondle her. His mood changed.

      ‘We made a good ’un in that daughter o’ yourn, didn’t we, eh? Growing up fast, she is – looks the image of her mammy. By! I wouldn’t be surprised if one dark night, I didn’t mistake her for you … if you know what I mean?’

      The more Emily struggled, the more he goaded her. Try as she might, she was no match for his brute strength.

      But there was another who was, and that was Aggie who, after talking with Lizzie, had finally seen the truth about Emily, about Cathleen and Clem. Some terrible instinct had made her run back here, had made her run all the way … At that moment, she was standing behind him with the pitchfork at his neck.

      ‘I could so easily run you through from back to front,’ she said in a low, harsh whisper. ‘Mek no mistake, I won’t even hesitate.’ And to prove her intention, she gave her brother a taste of the steel when she jabbed it and pierced his skin. ‘Get up from there!’

      The sound of his sister’s voice put the fear of God in his cowardly heart. His face etched in terror, he slowly got to his feet.

      ‘Over there!’ Another sharp jab in his neck sent him stumbling towards the wall. When he hesitated, he was sent forward with another painful jab of the prongs.

      When flat to the wall he turned round. Emily had clambered up and was crying but nodding to her mam to show that she was all right. Aggie for her part, was again advancing towards him. At the look of murder on her face, he shrank back, cowering like a baby. ‘She wanted me to. She was ready for it,’ he said lamely. ‘Same as before.’

      Standing only inches from him now, with the pitchfork pressed so hard against his bare belly it would have taken only one sharp push to skewer his guts, Aggie knew real cold hatred. Killing him was what she intended. But first, she wanted him to suffer.

      ‘You never learn, do you?’ Aggie’s voice was as hard and unforgiving as her expression. She had never forgotten how he took her against her will, when she was younger even than Emily had been.

      Fuelled with loathing, her eyes bored into his. ‘I was just a girl … your own sister! That night all them years ago, when you crept into my room, drunk as the devil and out of your mind, you took my maidenhead and now I’ve just learned you did the same to my daughter, you evil man, and what’s more, you’ve got our Cathleen lined up too – that innocent young lass. You mean to ruin that same child – your own daughter, damn you! Damn you to Hell!’

      The deep disgust she had borne all these years was etched on her face. ‘Your own sister!’ She shuddered. For what seemed a lifetime she had lived with her own shame and said nothing, because the horror of what her brother had done to her was too awful to speak about. Because of him she had felt tainted and dirty, unfit to share the lives of ordinary, decent people, until she had met her Michael, who had restored her belief in life and in herself. Oh Michael, if only you were here …

      ‘I mean to kill you, Clem,’ Aggie said, and he knew he was lost. His one hope, the dog, was too scared of him to move from the gate where he had ordered it to stay. For the first time in his wasted life, Clem Jackson tried to pray.

      Thankfully, Emily did not hear her mother speak of her own traumatic rape because, having seen Danny striding over the fields, she had limped out of the barn towards him, blood pouring down her face.

      Grandad heard, though. As he entered the barn, shotgun at the ready, he was stunned by what Aggie was saying. And yet he found he already knew! He had always been aware of some tension between his daughter-in-law and that bully-boy brother of hers, ever since the foul creature had bought his way into their lives and taken over the farm. This terrible scene confirmed an old suspicion.

      Shuffling closer, he levelled his gun at Jackson. ‘Move away, Aggie.’ His voice was flat. Lifeless.

      ‘Dad, no!’ Shocked to see her father-in-law there, Aggie stood her ground. ‘Go back to the house. This is between him and me.’

      Seeing his chance, Jackson kicked