No Going Back by Casey Kelleher (bill gates books recommendations TXT) 📕

handbag, before pulling out the CD in a clear Perspex case, that contained the club’s security footage and waving it triumphantly in Ashley’s face.

Glad to see him visibly relax then that she’d come through for him and managed to steal the copy from the club. Though unfortunately for Ashley the relief was going to be short lived.

‘The police have already seen it!’ she said bluntly, figuring there was no easier way of breaking it to him. ‘They dropped by yesterday afternoon apparently. Just before you called me.’

‘Shit!’ Ashley said, running his hands through his hair then as he paced the room. He should have known that the two detectives at the hospital would have wasted no time in checking out his alibi from the other night. They probably went straight there.

Which meant that they knew he was lying about being attacked by a gang of kids.

‘They weren’t the only ones either, Ashley,’ Kate said carefully, as she broke the really bad news to Ashley. ‘Mia, she works doing promotions and events, said that she’d had someone come by just after they’d left. This guy. And he offered her money to see the footage. A lot of money. And, well, she’s a single mum. She didn’t see any harm in it, seeing as the police had already been and gone.’

‘Who?’ Ashley said, holding his breath. Already anticipating Kate’s answer.

‘He told Mia his name was Carl Rangers,’ Kate raised her eyes knowingly, ‘and I checked him out on the security footage when he entered the club. He’s the guy that turned up at my flat at the crack of dawn yesterday morning, with your father-in-law.’

The two men that had frogmarched Ashley from her flat, straight up to the hospital.

‘No, no, no!’ Ashley said. Shaking his head now, as if the words he’d just heard would physically fall from his ears.

This couldn’t be happening. Because if Carl Rangers was snooping about, it would only be on Pete Baker’s orders. Which meant that they were on to him too, as well as the police. And Pete was already suspicious about Ashley’s involvement with Shelby’s attack the other night. Ashley could tell by the way the man kept glaring at him. And the fact that he’d caught him red handed with Kate hadn’t helped matters in the slightest.

Ashley was on thin ice as it was, it wouldn’t take much digging around for Pete to find out the two men dishing out the kicking to Ashley were the Boland brothers. And then he’d find out about the twenty thousand pounds that Ashley had stupidly borrowed and lost. He’d know that Shelby had been attacked because of him and his greed and stupidity. Pete would kill him.

He glanced at the clock. He only had a few more hours to work out how to get the money back to the Bolands. There was no way that he could ask Pete for help, not now. Things couldn’t get much worse.

‘Ashley, what’s going on?’ Kate asked, worried now. Because Ashley had lied to her too. He’d told her that he’d been attacked by kids, which after seeing the footage herself, she knew now was a lie.

‘Nothing. Trust me, you’re better off not getting involved. The less you know, the better.’

Ashley seemed stressed out and on edge, and she knew a good remedy for that. ‘Well, I’m a big girl, Ashley. Maybe I can help?’

Walking over to him she pressed herself up against his body – but the last thing she expected was for Ashley to physically shrug her off.

‘No. You should go,’ Ashley said, just wanting Kate to leave now. ‘I’ve got a kid now, Kate. I have to think about Shelby and Riley now. I’ve been a complete shit, I need to stop all this. I need to start putting them first.’

He wanted to be alone with his thoughts. He needed to work a way out of this mess.

‘But Riley doesn’t have to change anything, Ashley? We can still work this out. We can still be “us”.’

‘Us?’ Ashley said, narrowing his eyes, not sure what Kate was talking about.

Though he could see by the look in her eyes that she thought their relationship meant something to him.

‘Yes, us, Ashley. We can still be together. And if you and Shelby call it quits, I could help you with Riley. I’ve always fancied being a mum, I’m good with kids. A natural.’

Ashley shook his head, astounded that he always managed to get it so wrong in these kinds of situations with women. He never seemed to realise how clingy and needy they were until it was too late. Why did women always do that? As soon as they started sleeping with him, it was as if suddenly they had the right to start making claims on him. He’d thought Kate was different. He thought she wanted the same as him. No strings. Just a bit of fun.

‘Kate, we fancied each other. We shagged. That was it,’ Ashley said, aware he was taking his temper out on the woman, only he no longer cared. Kate wasn’t taking the hint and he just wanted her gone. Out of his flat, and out of his life. This had all been one big mistake. He should never have gone back with her that night.

‘There is no you and me. There is no us. Now, I think you should leave.’

Glaring at Ashley then as if seeing him for the first time, Kate was only too happy to oblige.

‘You know what, Ashley, get fucked. You can’t just go around treating women like this. You can’t just use us to get what you want and then treat us like we’re nothing,’ Kate said, storming past the man. ‘Because you’ve done it to the wrong woman this time – I’ll teach you a lesson that you won’t forget anytime soon.’

25

‘That’s my father?’ Lucy said, convinced that her nan was fabricating another story. That she must have got it wrong.

That it couldn’t be her father in the E-fit, could