Someone Who Isn't Me Danuta Kot (best books to read .TXT) 📖

‘Toby!’ The bellow came from the back of the room. Dinah looked up. A scruffy, overweight man was standing behind the bar. This must be Carl Lavery, the man who’d got Curwen into so much trouble. He jerked his thumb towards the queue that had built up while Becca was working on her own.

Toby rolled his eyes at Dinah, and headed back towards the bar. She got up and studied the games machines as she worked out the best way to get into conversation with Becca, once the pub was less busy. She turned over possible opening gambits in her mind. Who’s the lazy sod you’re working with? And suppose he turned out to be her boyfriend? You look a bit busy. And hey, look, you’re selling beer. A straight approach? I think you knew my friend, Andy.

Her gaze stayed on the screen as she thought. The barman hadn’t been joking when he’d said that it was an old one – the graphics were crude and the game-play simple. The screen flickered, showing hordes of attacking aliens, and the high scores of recent players, who apparently included Jonathan Creek, Dag Wentim and Deadpool, scrolled down the screen.

She wasn’t doing anything useful here. Time to go and make friends with Becca. Something was nagging at her as she went across to the bar, but she couldn’t pull it to the front of her mind. She’d just have to wait. It would come to her.

There was a queue waiting to be served, and Becca, as Dinah had observed earlier, seemed to be struggling. Dinah arrived just in time to hear her say, ‘Piss off,’ to some grinning drinker who’d clearly said something out of order.

She waited until there was a lull, then she went up to the bar and asked for some crisps, noticing that Toby had vanished again.

‘What kind?’ The young woman didn’t even look at her, just half turned to ask her question.

‘Plain.’ That was always a safe option. They always had that. ‘You could do with some help behind there.’

‘Yeah.’ Becca slid a packet across the counter, took the money and had the change back in almost one movement. She was with the next customer before Dinah could come up with anything else.

The crisps were cheese and onion.

Dinah stayed and watched as Becca muddled up an order for several different types of beer, and managed a weary smile as the men buying joshed her good-naturedly about her mistakes. She looked tired, and, Dinah noticed as she watched her more carefully, a bit red-eyed.

Someone pushed past her with a brief, ‘’Scuse.’ It was Toby, the barman. He loaded a pile of dirty glasses on the bar. ‘Oh, hey, it’s you. What Fortnite do you play?

‘Battle Royale,’ she said.

‘Cool. I play Creative. We should get together sometime.’

‘Yeah. Maybe.’ Talking to him reminded her of the names on the Space Invaders machine. ‘Who’s Dag Wentim? Is he someone who comes in here?’

‘Who wants to know?’ He was frowning as he looked at her.

‘No one. I’ve heard it before, that’s all. It’s unusual.’

He grinned. ‘It’s not a punter. He’s a superhero. That’s what they do on that machine – superheroes.’

‘So who do you play as?’

His grin widened. ‘Play me and I’ll tell you.’

‘OK. Next time. Your…’ she wasn’t sure what word to use. ‘Your colleague doesn’t look too good. Is she all right?’

He glanced across at the bar. ‘Becca? You heard about the guy they found down the coast, you know, got killed?’

‘I heard something,’ Dinah said cautiously.

‘Yeah, well, he was, you know, seeing her.’

‘Seeing her?’ Dinah cursed herself for the incredulity in her voice. Curwen hadn’t said anything about a relationship.

He gave her an odd look. ‘Yeah. Did you know him or something?’

Think. Fast. ‘I read that he was married,’ she said and shrugged. No big deal. She racked her brains for a way to continue the conversation, but he’d ducked under the serving hatch and was back behind the bar.

More people came in through the door. There wasn’t going to be a quiet time now before closing. She might as well go. She waved at the barman and got a nod in return. If she came back soon, he’d be her best way in, as long as she hadn’t blown it. There was no chance of getting into conversation with Becca tonight, but the evening hadn’t been a complete waste of time She’d found out more than she’d expected. If Andy had been seeing this Becca woman, then the whole thing became important for the investigation. Despite Curwen’s concerns about Andy, Hammond needed to know.

But first, she’d tell Curwen.

Curwen was in the station’s local, drinking with a couple of people off Hammond’s team, Dave Sykes and Karen Innes, talking about the investigation into Andy’s death. ‘Are you getting anywhere?’

Sykes shrugged. ‘You know how it is at the start – everything’s possible so you look at everything. I dunno, it feels like…’ He frowned, searching for words.

‘The boss is doing all the right things,’ Innes said sharply.

‘Come on, Kaz,’ Sykes said. ‘It’s like his heart isn’t in it. He’s just going through the motions. That’s what it feels like to me.’

‘It’s a tough case,’ Innes said. ‘They were lucky. The forensics from the scene turned up nothing. Same with the post-mortem. We’ll get there.’

Curwen wasn’t here to talk; he was here to listen. He looked across at Innes. Once, in the aftermath of a messy RTA that had involved scraping a couple of joyriders off the tarmac, they’d spent the night together. It was something they both pretended hadn’t happened – there was too much rivalry between them to leave space for anything else. In the recent round of promotions, she’d made it to Inspector. Curwen hadn’t, courtesy of Carl Lavery. He knew she wasn’t unhappy about his fuck-up. ‘You reckon?’

‘Of course.’ But she looked worried. Being involved in what was likely to become a high-profile case could be very good for her career, but if it went wrong,