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

to face and Becca couldn’t hang up on her. ‘OK,’ she agreed. ‘We can go shopping for your kitten, how does that sound?’

Becca sniffed round this suspiciously, looking for catches and hidden hooks. Kay waited patiently until Becca said, ‘Yeah. OK.’

‘Right. Let’s make it Sunday. Are you working that evening?’

‘How do you think I pay for stuff?’ The sharp, touchy response told Kay exactly how on edge Becca was.

‘Becca. I’m not criticising, I just need to know. If you’re working in the evening, I’ll try and get there early, OK?’

‘I might not be. I don’t know.’

‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll still get there early. Hang on – let me give you my new address, so you have it if you need it. Got a pen?’ She waited for confirmation, glad that Becca was repeating it as she spoke, because that meant she was writing it down.

‘Sunk Island…?’ Becca’s voice trailed off. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yeah. I just… I don’t think I can make Sunday. I’ll call you, right?’

This was bad. Becca had done an about turn and was backing off. Kay had no idea what was going on, but something was very wrong. She had to maintain the contact, remind Becca that they trusted each other. ‘We could just have a cup of coffee,’ she suggested, trying to keep the frustration out of her voice. Let me help you, Becca! ‘Maybe go for a walk along the front?’

‘I forgot. I’m doing something.’

There was something Kay had to say while she had the chance. ‘Listen, before you go. This thing you told me about…’ Kay had been thinking about it. ‘Don’t talk to the police until you’ve had some proper advice. I can find someone.’

Becca’s ‘It’s nothing,’ didn’t sound in the least convincing to Kay.

‘Or give me the details, and I can do it.’

‘No.’ That was instant. ‘I said I knew what I was going to do, right? Stop going on about it.’

‘Give me a call and let me know what happens,’ Kay said, making it clear she wasn’t going to drop it.

Becca hung up on another Yeah, yeah. Kay sat at her desk staring into space.

It sounded horribly as though Becca was in trouble again. Kay didn’t like her sudden switch about their meeting – why had she changed her mind? And this story about the police, someone telling lies… Had someone drawn Becca into something criminal? If so, she needed legal advice, and she needed it now.

Kay got out the address list of advisers that Tania’s House used. Could she talk to one of these people? But Becca wasn’t a Tania’s House client, and no legal adviser would talk to Kay in detail if she insisted on keeping the case anonymous. Anyway, she didn’t know enough.

She still had a few contacts in the child services department. Someone might be prepared to talk to her off the record. The trouble was, Becca was an adult now, and Kay had no idea of the nature of the trouble Becca might be in.

She had to get Becca to talk to her. The important thing was that Becca didn’t do anything impulsive, and that was a bit like saying a tennis ball shouldn’t bounce. One way or another, she was going to visit Becca, and soon.

With a sigh, she picked up the phone and called Poppy’s probation officer.

Chapter 32

Bridlington

Becca put her phone down. She’d been wrong to try and involve Kay. Whoever was coming after her – and she still didn’t know who it was – was dangerous. She wasn’t going to put Kay in danger too. She’d done that before, and Kay had almost died.

She looked at the piece of paper she’d scrawled Kay’s new address on. Sunk Island, where Andy had died. She picked up her phone to enter the information, then stopped. Someone had texted her using Andy’s phone after Andy had died. They might be able to read anything she put on her phone. Until she knew for sure if her phone had been hacked, she wasn’t putting anything on there that she didn’t want anyone else to know. She stuck the bit of paper on the wall so she wouldn’t lose it.

After everything she’d heard, what did she really think about Andy? She, herself, without all the stories other people had been pushing at her? And the answers were clear: he wasn’t the kind of man to play around if he had a wife. He wasn’t the kind of man to get involved in drugs. That was how she’d seen him when she knew him. Everything else came from other people, after he’d died. Her and Andy – it had felt like something good, and it had been.

That was what mattered.

There was a sharp sting in her leg. She jumped and looked down. The kitten was climbing up her, digging its little needle claws in. It landed on her lap, looked at her with wild eyes, shot over the back of the chair and across the room, then it was back, trying to climb her leg again.

It was playing, and she found herself laughing at it.

It was good, having a kitten. She’d never had a pet before. It needed a name. She touched its fur, which was a kind of mix of colours, and reminded her of Kay when she was cooking, all the jars of yellow and red and brown, cinna-whatsit and things like that.

Spice. That would be a good name. Spice just fitted, somehow.

She’d told Kay she wasn’t going to do anything about all the stuff that had been happening, but that was just to keep her off her back. She knew exactly what she was going to do. She was going to do what Curwen had asked: go to the pub, find a way to get her hands on those keys, go into that cellar, open the cupboard and get photos of those bags, and what was inside them.

And a plan was forming in her mind. She started work at the pub in