This was clearly a conversation that was not going to reach any sort of satisfactory conclusion soon. I looked around the room at Rebecca and her mother cuddled together in one corner of the sofa, Mark and Joe sitting at the other end, and I smiled to myself. You'd never say that this family had been brutally ripped apart only yesterday. I knew that they would want to talk about the whole thing later, but for now they seemed satisfied just to be together.
I thought about all the firearms in the boot of my car, and stood up reluctantly to leave. I had a few things that needed sorting out tonight, starting with a gun safe. I wasn't going to disarm myself now. Not when Rebecca and her family were so vulnerable. I would need Fergus to acquire some top of the range surveillance equipment, and a few dozen unobtrusive tracking devices. I wasn't going to risk not being able to find my girl again. I smiled at her as she and her mother stood up to say goodnight. She was tired but radiant. I thought about eleven days time and my heart leapt.
"Thank you for rescuing my daughter," Rebecca's mother said.
I nodded. "No problem at all, Mrs Harding. Would you mind if I had a word with Rebecca before I left?"
"Of course."
Rebecca blushed as I took her warm hand and led her outside. The feel of her hand in mine was so right, so real, that I was reluctant to let it go.
"I will fetch you tomorrow and take you to school." I'd been thinking about this business of her staying to finish her A levels. We might need to rethink that decision at some stage. I would speak to Fergus and Marcus when they arrived for the wedding. I smiled. "I will also be fetching you and taking you until you finish your schooling. I will have a study set up in the spare bedroom of the house, and you can work there in the afternoons until your family are all home in the evenings."
"OK." She nodded.
"We will need to go shopping tomorrow afternoon." She looked up at me, her eyebrows raised in surprise. "You need a ring," I explained. She blushed a fiery red in the gloom.
"You will probably also have to invite me over for supper tomorrow night so we can tell your family about us getting married," I continued.
"OK," she said again, and then smiled shyly up at me. God, she was lovely. I wanted to stay there the whole night, her hand in mine, but I had to go. She needed to get back inside to her waiting family, and I needed to empty that boot, and go back to my empty house. I had been so used to being alone that I'd never realised what loneliness is. I would miss her for those few hours before the morning.