Kitabı oku: «Forward Slash», sayfa 2
Amy clicked back to the email program and did a quick search for CupidsWeb. There were no emails from them other than the one that had just arrived.
‘That’s really weird,’ she said. ‘How long has she had this iMac?’ Without waiting for him to answer, she added, ‘Do you know what she did with her other one? Her laptop?’
Gary shook his head. ‘Sold it, probably. She’s into eBay and Gumtree and all that, isn’t she? In fact, I’m sure she did mention that’s what she was going to do.’
It was true, there were a few emails from various online marketplaces saying that Becky had won or sold different items. Amy had coached her on it a couple of years back and since then her sister had made quite a bit of extra cash from flogging her unwanted items.
Amy got up and started roaming around the flat, looking for Becky’s distinctive stripy laptop case. No sign of it on the bookshelves, in the cupboard, on Becky’s desk …
‘Thinking about it, though, if she’s gone away, she probably took it with her,’ Gary said, pushing his hair off his forehead. ‘Want me to look at those eBay emails for you?’
‘Sure,’ Amy called, walking into Becky’s bedroom and looking around. It was so dusty it looked as though Becky had been gone for months, not a day or two. She wasn’t even sure that her sister possessed a vacuum cleaner. All the pictures on the walls were very slightly crooked, too, and Amy shuddered. She had to straighten them all before she did anything else. No wonder she and Becky never thought of sharing a flat – they’d kill each other.
Amy leaned down and peered into the narrow space under the bed frame. Through all the dust bunnies she spotted a corner of the laptop case. ‘Wait, no need – I’ve found it!’ she said, sliding her hand under and dragging it out. She brought it back into the living room and switched it on.
‘Nice one,’ Gary commented. ‘But it’s not going to have anything on it that’s not on the new one, is it? I mean, she hasn’t changed her email address, has she?’
‘No … but …’ Amy sat on the sofa with the laptop open on her knee, logged in and scanned the numerous folders still on Becky’s desktop. ‘Look – she was very good at backing stuff up. Not good at filing anything – in her flat or on her computer – but I bet it’s all here. She used to get really paranoid that the computer would crash and she’d lose all her school reports and lesson plans.’
‘Good thought,’ Gary said as she clicked on a folder called ‘Old Emails Back-Up’. There they all were, with a sub-folder entitled ‘Personal’. Dozens of messages from CupidsWeb dating back two months.
‘I had no idea Becky was into Internet dating,’ Amy said.
‘Didn’t you? Well, everyone does it these days, don’t they? Every unattached person, anyway.’ Gary snorted. ‘Quite a lot of married ones too.’
‘I don’t.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe you don’t need to.’ He looked her up and down and she resisted telling him that her own love life was so nonexistent that she doubted even Internet dating could help her.
She turned back to the screen. ‘Internet dating. I wonder what other secrets she was keeping from me?’
2
Becky
Friday, 3 May
Once I’d given Shaun my mobile number, we texted continuously. His texts were dry and funny, and I felt increasingly excited as the day of the date wore on, checking my phone after each lesson period – and sometimes during, too. I managed to resist the temptation during assembly, thankfully.
The home bell finally rang and I did the minimum amount of tidying up in my classroom before bombing out to the car, to go and get ready. But then, of course, I had to bloody run into Simon Pinto in the staff car park. I literally bumped into him – I just didn’t see him, I was so busy reading Shaun’s latest. Poor little Simon, his home life is appalling and he’s got the sort of face that cries out, ‘Bully me!’ I think I’m the only one he talks to. I’ve tried to get him to tell me who is behind the campaign that finds him curled up, crying, behind the bins every day, but he’s too scared. He’s been crying now, and so I take him back into school and sit him down with a Coke and a stale digestive from the staff room. After half an hour, I know all about his nan’s Alzheimer’s and his dad’s drink problem, but nothing about who gave him the long scratch on his face. I give him a lift home, making a mental note to talk to the head about him tomorrow, and trying not to look at my watch to ascertain whether I’ve still got time to wash my hair before the date.
I do have time to wash my hair, just about, and I straighten it into a sheet of blonde that I then immediately worry looks too artificial. I wish I had naturally curly hair like Amy does. Our hair is the exact same shade of blonde, but she can get away with towel-drying and leaving it to dry into perfect curls, whereas mine is neither one nor the other and has to be coaxed in either direction. It’s a source of continual irritation to me.
Shaun and I meet later in a nice riverside pub I have chosen, a short bus ride from my flat. I wonder if I will recognize him – the clearest of his photographs on the website featured a very large black Labrador, with him cuddled up to it in the background. I’d probably be able to pick the Labrador out of a line-up, but Shaun himself looked distinctly blurry. I could see from the picture, though, that he appeared to have a strong jaw, and he described himself as in the six to six foot four category. Bald, but most of them are. How bad can it be, I thought?
I do recognize him, as soon as I walk into the bar, but mostly because he is the only man there alone, and he is sitting on a bar stool staring fixedly at the door. He jumps up when he sees me, bears down on me and shakes my hand vigorously. He doesn’t look anything like six foot tall, let alone six foot four.
‘Becky! You must be Becky. Lovely to meet you.’ He pauses and gazes into my eyes, dropping his voice by about an octave. ‘You look even more beautiful in the flesh than your picture.’
I am pleased and surprised – unless of course he’s just trying to flatter me. But I think he means it. The photo I’ve got up on the website is, even by my standards, not bad. I look almost sexy, and it’s not often that I’ll admit to that. It was taken by my ex, Harry, when we were on a weekend away in Bournemouth, and right before he clicked the shutter, he told me what he was planning to do to me in bed later, so I have a sort of ‘cat who’s about to get the cream’ grin.
Shaun isn’t too bad himself. Despite our flirty texts, I don’t feel any spark of attraction, but I tell myself not to be too hasty. I scrutinize him while he’s pouring the wine. I hadn’t planned to drink wine tonight, because I have a tendency to guzzle it when I’m nervous – but never mind. He has a good profile, but a slightly petulant mouth. He keeps his lips tight when he talks, and I wonder if it’s because he’s embarrassed about the gap between his front teeth, which I’ve had flashes of. He probably is quite a good-looking man, but even though I’m trying to keep an open mind, I can’t help my heart sinking.
He hands me a glass of wine, steers me onto a bar stool and starts to tell me all about himself.
Two hours later, he’s still telling me all about himself, his motorbike, his planned trip around Canada with ‘the lads’, how many followers he’s got on Twitter. He hasn’t asked me a single question, apart from what I do for a living, which was on my profile, so he ought to have remembered anyway. When I tell him I’m a French teacher, his face lights up:
‘Oh, yes! I was going to be a teacher, I’m great with kids. But then I realized that my skills really lay in business, so I did an MBA …’ blah blah blah.
I switch off, and study the collection of pottery jugs hanging on hooks around the top of the bar. I’m bored, but I don’t want to go home just yet. I’ve had three glasses of wine and soon the bottle is empty. I hope I have more fun than this on Saturday, with my next date. Shaun is doing me a favour by being so completely tedious. Onwards and upwards, I think. There are always more.
‘I’m just going to the little boys’ room,’ says Shaun, standing up. I notice that the top half of his body is a lot longer than the bottom half, and his hips are quite wide. I bet he looks stupid on a motorbike. ‘Can I leave you to order another bottle; the same as we just had? Do you think you can manage that?’
I look sharply at him to see if he’s joking, but no, it appears that he isn’t.
‘Yes, I think I’m quite capable of ordering a bottle of wine, thank you.’ But my sarcasm appears to be lost on him.
‘Blimey, is he always that patronizing?’ asks the woman next to me at the bar, applying a thick layer of lip gloss.
‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I’ve never met him before. But I would imagine so.’
We watch him walking away towards the men’s toilet. ‘And he’s got a big arse,’ she says and, although I know it’s mean, we both laugh.
‘Good luck, anyway,’ says the woman, after she’s paid for her drinks.
‘Thanks. I’ll need it,’ I reply, and she fights her way out of sight through the crush around the bar.
The pub is very full now, and I’m being jostled and bumped by people trying to squeeze around my stool to get to the bar, and Shaun has to speak even louder to be heard. I don’t want to suggest that we go and sit at a table, because that implies more commitment than I’m willing to offer. Plus, if I catch the woman’s eye, I’ll get the giggles. So I allow myself to be jogged and cramped and yammered on at. I notice myself withdraw, like a tortoise, closing down, just nodding occasionally and punctuating his monologue with the odd ‘Really?’ and ‘Oh, right.’
Just when I think I might actually weep with boredom, my mobile phone beeps in my bag. I fish it out and retrieve the text message, while Shaun continues unabated with his life history. I don’t bother to apologize for looking at the message. I get the feeling that he’d continue talking to the empty bar stool if I wasn’t there. The message is from my friend Katherine, and reads:
Hhello iis tthiis tthhe oownnerr off the sshhopp tthatt ssolldd meee tthee vvibrattor? Hhow ddo uu tturn tthhe ffuccckkinngg thingh oofff?
I snort into my wine, accidentally spitting some out. It lands on the leg of Shaun’s beige chinos, leaving a wet splatter mark, and – finally! – halting him in the middle of a diatribe about his appalling neighbours, who apparently play very loud music until two in the morning every night. Probably to drown out the sound of his voice, I think, and it makes me giggle even more. I can feel something give inside me, like snow melting and shifting, the beginnings of an avalanche of pent-up hysteria.
‘Sorry.’
He doesn’t look amused, and I half expect him to say, ‘If it’s all that funny, Becky Coltman, would you care to share it with the class?’ He almost does: ‘What’s so funny?’
‘Um … Just a silly text from my mate.’ I swallow the laughter hard, and it feels as if my nose is going red from the effort of suppressing it.
‘Let’s see?’
Mutely, my shoulders beginning to shake, I hold out the little screen for him to inspect. He looks at it without expression. ‘Very droll,’ he says in a flat voice. Then something changes in his face, and a lascivious glint pops into his eyes. Ewww, I think, he must be thinking about me with a vibrator.
He leans closer, and whispers into my hair. ‘Have you got one of those?’ he murmurs.
‘One of what?’ I ask brightly, feigning innocence. As a matter of fact, I don’t possess a vibrator; I don’t like them. An ex bought me one once in the last gasp of our relationship, but I was never sure whether it was meant to be for us to use together, to try to rejuvenate our sex lives, or whether it was an acknowledgement that things had got so dire between us in that department that I’d be better off going it alone. I gave it a try, because Kath swears by hers, but I didn’t like it at all. I wrapped it in a Tesco carrier bag and threw it in the outside bin.
‘You know what I mean,’ Shaun replies, his lips brushing my ear. ‘You certainly won’t need one of those when we’re—’
I can’t hold it in any more. I burst out laughing, too loudly, but I can’t help myself. I laugh so hard that I almost fall off the bar stool. The crush at the bar has thinned out a bit, and I see the woman who spoke to me earlier looking over at me and laughing too, with me. I can tell she’s guessed that I’ve reached my limit with Mr Dull, and it makes me even worse. I can’t speak for laughing. I wish that woman were a bloke; she and I would get on like a house on fire. Why can’t I meet a man I’m on the same wavelength with?
‘It’s not that bloody funny,’ says Shaun, looking offended. He waves at the barman, who brings over a bill on a silver tray. ‘Well, I’d better be going. I’ve had a great time, it’s been lovely to meet you. Let’s split this, shall we? Thirty-eight pounds each should do it.’
He must have ordered one of the priciest wines on the menu, knowing he was going to make me pay half, the bastard, I think, tears of mirth streaming down my face. I hadn’t even touched any of the second bottle – I was driving, so I changed to tap water.
I’d never normally do this, but for some reason I just don’t care. I stand up, make a show of peering in my bag and say, ‘Gosh, Shaun, I’m terribly sorry, but I seem to have forgotten my purse. Can I leave you to sort this one out? It’ll be on me next time, honest. Give me a call sometime?’
I peck him on the cheek, grab my coat and rush out before he can say anything, waving at my new friend on the way, still heaving and gulping with hysterics.
The text comes when I’m halfway home, so I pull over and open it. It says, ‘You are an insane bitch and I’ve totally wasted my evening and my money on you.’
What happened to, ‘I had a great time, it was lovely to meet you?’ I wonder, roaring with fresh laughter. I pull out my phone to ring my sister and tell her about it – but then remember that I don’t want her to know I’m Internet dating; she’s so paranoid about it after what happened with her and that freak, even though it was years ago. She’ll get too involved and start insisting that she vets all the guys, even though I keep telling her that she was just unlucky. She wouldn’t understand that although I do want a relationship, I also just want some good old uncomplicated sex … I might tell her, at some point. Just not yet.
3
Amy
Sunday, 21 July
‘Do you think I should call the police?’ Amy asked Gary.
He pulled a face. ‘I don’t know. Maybe it’s a bit early? I mean, assuming the email was a wind-up, she could walk in at any moment. She probably will walk in at any moment.’
‘I’m not worried about looking foolish. I think I should—’
‘Call them. Yeah, well, maybe.’
She was seated on Becky’s desk chair, with Gary perched on the edge of the sofa, one leg bouncing back and forth, one of the most pronounced cases of restless leg syndrome she’d ever seen.
‘You can go now,’ she said. His expression made her realize she’d sounded dismissive. ‘I mean, if you need to.’
He checked his watch. ‘I suppose I really ought to get going – I’m playing five-a-side this morning … Will you be all right?’
‘Yes, don’t worry, I’ll be fine.’
‘If you hear anything, let me know, OK?’ He wrote down his mobile number for her on the back of a copy of Heat magazine, ripped it off and handed it to her.
‘Of course. Can you leave me the spare key?’
He gave her the key, went to leave, hesitated in the doorway as though he was about to say something else, then changed his mind. He was an all-right guy, Amy thought, despite his annoying little habits. It was a truism that people in London didn’t get to know their neighbours, and Amy’s main interaction with the people next door to her had been listening to passive-aggressive comments about her noisy bike, so Becky was lucky to have a friend living next door.
So, the police. This would only be the second time in her life she’d called them. In a flash, she was transported back to that moment – the bleak loneliness underpinning the utter panic and disbelief at what had just happened to her at the hands of someone she loved. She hugged herself for comfort and shook the memory away, as she had so many times before.
She was about to look up the number of the local station on the iMac when it struck her that the police might need to examine the computer, and any more activity she did on it could muddy the trail more than she had already. So she looked it up on her phone, then called them.
‘Camberwell Police.’
She took a deep breath. ‘I want to report a missing person.’
She waited while she was put through to somebody who identified himself as Police Constable Ian Norris.
‘How can I help?’
She cleared her throat to unstick the words. ‘I want to report my sister as missing.’
‘Can I take your name please?’
‘Amy Coltman.’
He asked for her address and phone number, which she gave him.
‘And your sister’s name?’
‘Becky … Rebecca Coltman,’ she said, and gave him her sister’s full address and date of birth.
‘How long has your sister been missing?’
‘Well … I haven’t seen her for a couple of weeks, but I got an email from her last night.’
She heard an intake of breath at the other end of the line. ‘Last night?’
‘Yes.’
‘And what did the email say?’
‘I know this sounds silly, and that it was only last night, but she said she was going away – going abroad – and that I shouldn’t try to find her.’
His tone changed entirely. ‘Right.’
Before he could say anything else, Amy said, ‘It’s completely out of character. I can’t believe she would go away like that and ask not to be found.’
‘She’s never done anything like this before?’
‘No. She went backpacking around Asia for her gap year but it was all pre-arranged.’
‘What about work? Have you checked with them?’
‘She’s a teacher. The school broke up for the summer holidays last Wednesday.’
‘Last Wednesday. Right …’ He paused, and she imagined him tapping details into his computer. She imagined him as the kind of bloke who typed with one finger, seeking out each letter as if for the first time.
‘What about friends? Family?’
‘Our parents live in Spain. I haven’t checked to see if they’ve heard from her yet. And I haven’t spoken to any of her friends yet.’ Despite what she’d said to Gary, she felt embarrassed now.
‘And have you been to her address?’ Norris asked.
‘I’m there now.’ Pre-empting his questions, she said, ‘It’s hard to tell if she’s packed up and gone away. But the door wasn’t double-locked. I can’t believe she’d go away without doing that.’
‘You’d be amazed, miss. Some people might as well hang a sign on their front door: “Burglars welcome”. What about her passport?’
‘Oh. I don’t know where she keeps it. Please, Officer Norris, I need you to take this seriously. There’s something … not right about the email. I’m sure something has happened to her.’
‘We take all reports of missing persons seriously, miss, I can assure you. Was there anything in the email that suggested that she planned to harm herself, or that she was being threatened?’
‘No. Let me read it to you.’
Before he could stop her, she read out the email, in a rush.
Norris didn’t respond immediately. Eventually, he said, ‘Here’s what I suggest, Miss Coltman. Why don’t you speak to your mum and dad, call some of your sister’s friends, and have a look for her passport? It sounds very much like Rebecca has gone away of her own volition. People do things that are out of character all the time, believe me.’
‘I know, but—’
‘I expect you’ll get another email in a day or two, or a postcard, saying she’s having a lovely time in Vietnam, wish you were here.’
She could feel him closing down the call, and she tried to hang on. ‘So you’re not going to do anything?’
‘I’m sorry, miss, but if she hadn’t sent the email it would be a different story. The fact is, though, that she did. She has clearly told you where she’s going and what she’s doing.’
‘But what if someone else wrote the email? Or forced her to write it?’
‘There’s no evidence of that, is there?’
‘No, but …’
She hung up, feeling utterly deflated.
As the call had gone on, her conviction that something had happened to Becky had become increasingly weaker. Norris was probably right. Becky had decided to go away. Her wheelie suitcase wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Maybe what she should be worried about was why Becky would do something so uncharacteristic. What had driven her to it?
She rubbed her face, feeling totally confused. More than that, though, she was sick with worry. Had Becky had some kind of breakdown?
She read over the email for the tenth time. And then it struck her. How could she not have seen it before – or maybe that was what had been niggling at her?
I’ve always wanted to visit Vietnam and Cambodia.
When Becky had returned from her gap-year travels, she had made Amy sit through all of her printed photos. Thailand, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines – and Cambodia. She had bemoaned the fact she hadn’t got to visit Vietnam – for some complicated reason Amy couldn’t recall, involving trains and visas and a boy from Oxford – but she had definitely been to Cambodia. She had visited the Killing Fields near – what was it called? – Phnom something. The visit had affected Becky badly. She told Amy she’d had nightmares about it for weeks afterwards, about the families who had been brutally murdered. The children. In fact, it had disturbed her so much that she refused to talk about it further, said she wanted to forget she’d ever been. Now, when she talked about her time in Asia, she would list all the places she’d been, and she would miss out Cambodia.
But she had definitely been there. And even though she didn’t talk about it, or want to remember it, she herself would remember she’d been there. So why would she write, I’ve always wanted to visit Cambodia?
She picked up the phone, ready to call Officer Norris back. But she hesitated. She could hear his exasperated sigh in her head. There were a couple of things she needed to do first.
She went into Becky’s bedroom and looked around. The blinds were open and sunlight poured into the room. She heard a car pull up outside and rushed to the window to look out, hope flaring. It might be Becky coming home in a taxi. But it was a Royal Mail van, parking up behind Amy’s motorbike.
Where would Becky keep her passport? She opened her bedside drawer and found condoms, assorted jewellery, Vaseline, old keys – but no passport. She checked every drawer in the flat, along with the bookshelves, various boxes and chests, every place she could think of where her sister might keep her important documents. There was no sign of it.
Everything she did made her feel conflicted. Half of her wanted evidence that her sister had indeed gone away through her own free will. The other half wanted confirmation that her instincts were correct.
She sat back down at the computer and brought up Becky’s address-book program. She knew a couple of Becky’s friends from work, had met them at a party last year, here at Becky’s flat. Becky’s best friend from work was called Katherine, and Amy had spoken to her at some length about jewellery-making, Katherine’s hobby. Amy had been trying to get her to write a piece for the website. She was the obvious first port of call.
Amy dialled Katherine’s number, hoping she hadn’t gone away on holiday.
She answered after just a few rings. ‘Hello?’
‘Hi – is that Katherine?’
The other woman paused before answering. ‘Yes?’
‘This is Amy – Becky’s sister.’
Katherine’s tone changed. ‘Oh, hello. Is everything all right?’
‘I just wondered if you’d heard from Becky recently?’
‘No, I haven’t spoken to her since Wednesday, when we broke up. You’re making me worry. What’s happened?’
Amy was about to launch into it when she realized it would be much easier face to face, so she could show Katherine the email. Besides, she wanted to get out of the flat. It was making her feel even more antsy than she would otherwise, with every noise in the hallway making her jump; the hope that it was Becky coming back and then the return of the dread and disappointment when it wasn’t.
‘Can I come and see you?’
Katherine agreed, though Amy detected a hint of hesitation in her voice. Tough, she thought, leaving the flat and taking the spare keys with her. As she walked down the stairs, pressing down the helmet on her head en route, a door opened on the ground floor. ‘Er – hello!’ called a man’s voice. ‘Miss Coltman! Could I have a word?’
Amy stopped, surprised, her helmet as far down as her eyebrows. The man was in his forties, and very square – she could clearly see the vest through his blue nylon short-sleeved shirt. His thick brown hairline grew unattractively low on his forehead.
‘Yes?’
‘Yes. I need to talk to you again about the complaints we’ve had about noise levels coming from your … oh! I’m so sorry. I thought you were Miss Coltman.’
He squinted myopically at her and she lifted the helmet clear of her ears again so she could hear him better.
‘I am Miss Coltman – but I’m Amy, not Becky. Becky’s my sister.’
The man laughed in an embarrassed sort of way. ‘I do beg your pardon! You look so alike!’ He thrust out his hand. ‘I’m Damian Fenton, head of the Residents’ Association.’
‘Hi,’ Amy said, shaking it. It was clammy and felt like uncooked dough. ‘People do say we look similar, although I can’t see it, beyond the blonde hair. Have you seen Becky lately? I can’t get hold of her.’
Damian pondered. ‘No, I’m afraid I haven’t. Not since … ooh … must have been last Tuesday? Yes, Tuesday, because that’s bin day, and I had to have a word with her about the fact that she always leaves the tops on when she puts milk containers in her recycling, and they don’t like that. And she has a bit of a naughty habit of putting plastic trays in too, and they really don’t like that, they’re supposed to go in—’
Amy looked at her watch. ‘I’m so sorry, Damian, I don’t mean to cut you off, but I’m late for seeing someone and I really need to get going, otherwise …’ She grimaced conspiratorially at him, having the feeling that unless she said something, he’d be in full flow for hours.
‘Right! No, no, I understand, I could talk till the cows come home, me. I do apologize. When you track your sister down, could you please ask her to pop down and have a word? Many thanks.’
He shot abruptly back into his flat before Amy could say anything else. She made a note of his flat number, thinking that a busybody like him might come in handy at some point.
Five minutes later, she was back on her bike, heading away from Becky’s flat down Herne Hill towards Brockwell Park. Katherine lived at the cheaper end of Norwood Road, the only end where a teacher could afford to buy. When Amy moved to London after leaving university, to take her first lowly job as a marketing executive at a publishing house, Becky had spent several weekends with her sister that included a riotous night out in Brixton and a hungover day at the Lambeth Country Show, the only low point being when she got whiplash on the waltzer. After finishing her PGCE, Becky had managed to get a job in the same part of London. Now she lived in Denmark Hill while Amy was in East Dulwich, off Lordship Lane. Amy couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.
As she waited at the traffic lights on Herne Hill, her mind hopped frantically from the subject of Becky’s whereabouts – the word ‘disappearance’ kept trying to creep in but she was holding it at bay for now – to her To Do list. Site updates, customer emails, talking to a supplier, some pay-per-click ads, an interview with a local magazine …
Even on a normal day it would have been enough to send her spiralling into a mild panic, and she couldn’t help but curse Becky for putting her through this. If you’re happily browsing duty free at this moment while I’m chasing around London looking for you … She didn’t finish the thought. Because, really, that’s what she hoped Becky was doing. What was the alternative?
A white Audi cut her up as the lights changed and she raised her middle finger. Dickhead. She had a theory about people who drove expensive white cars. This theory didn’t stretch much further than thinking they were all dickheads, but they proved her hypothesis again and again.
She rode past the row of shops where, last year, somebody had beaten a woman half to death for no reason. To the right lay the beautiful park with views towards central London, the Gherkin and the Shard glinting in the sunshine. But she didn’t give any of that a thought today. She concentrated on the road ahead.
Katherine’s cottage was easy to find. Amy parked the bike outside and unzipped her leather jacket, expecting to see steam coming off her like a baked potato removed from a microwave.
Katherine opened the door and stepped forward to give Amy a kiss.
‘Would you like a cold drink?’ she asked, wiping her cheek. ‘I was sitting out in the garden. Come through.’
Amy followed her through the cottage, surprised by how messy it was: clothes spilling out of an open hall cupboard, dishes stacked in the sink, a layer of grime on every surface.
She stood on the small, square lawn and waited while Katherine searched for a clean glass. A Kindle lay face down on a metal table beside a packet of cigarettes. Katherine came out and made a big show of dragging a chair, filthy with cobwebs, out of the shed.
Ücretsiz ön izlemeyi tamamladınız.
