Someone Who Isn't Me by Danuta Kot (romance novel chinese novels .TXT) 📕

see him checking out the bruises on her face. ‘I tripped,’ she said quickly.

He grinned. ‘Good night, was it?’

I was here all evening, you moron. When did I have time to get drunk? But she didn’t say it. What was the point? ‘Where’s Carl?’ she asked, trying to sound casual.

‘He’s in the back. He said to call if it got busy.’

This was what she had hoped for, but her stomach clenched with nervousness. When he was in the pub, Carl kept his keys attached to his belt, but she’d seen him a couple of times when he was working in the back – sorting out the paperwork, he always used to say – with the keys on the table beside him.

Her plan – if you could call it a plan – depended on this. It might be possible – just – to get hold of the keys while they weren’t attached to him, but he might catch her, and she honestly didn’t know how he would react.

She didn’t want to find out.

If she was going to do it, she needed to do it soon. Her mouth felt dry and she could feel her heart pounding. For once, frustratingly, Toby stayed behind the bar instead of wandering off to the games machines. He leaned against the beer taps. ‘I’m moving on,’ he said. ‘This place is dead.’

‘Yeah.’ She didn’t want to engage him in chat. She wanted him to get bored and drift out into the pub.

‘So what’s the news about your mate?’ he said.

‘My mate?’

‘The guy that got – you know.’

You know. Killed. Murdered. That’s why Toby was hanging around. He wanted all the gossip. And she could give him some, if she chose to. Instead, she shrugged. ‘No news.’ But there was something she wanted to know that he might be able to tell her. She wanted to know who was spreading the stories about Andy being a dealer. Was it Johnny Dip? Or had Johnny Dip got it from someone else? ‘Everyone keeps saying he was involved in drugs, but I never saw that. That guy, Johnny Dip. He said—’

‘Who?’

Moron. Toby wouldn’t know who Johnny Dip was. ‘You know, the pirate guy. The biker. Doc.’

‘Doc? Who…? Oh. Yeah. What about him?’

‘He seemed to think Andy was dealing.’

Toby was frowning. ‘I dunno. I’ll tell you something, though. I heard—’

‘Anybody serving here?’ There was a punter at the bar. Toby went over and the man began a long, rambling order with pints and halves. He seemed to have come in with a load of mates.

Now or never. ‘I just need to check on something with Carl, OK?’ Her voice sounded odd in her ears, though Toby didn’t seem to notice. He just nodded acknowledgement, looking distracted as he juggled the different glasses.

Making herself breathe slowly, Becca pushed open the door that led into the back of the pub. There was a small, rather scruffy kitchen where lunchtime food was done. Through the next door was the room Carl called the office, a big room that would have made a comfortable sitting room, but everywhere was piled up with papers, empty boxes and other junk. There was a big wooden table in the middle of the space where Carl was working, and a large, saggy armchair.

Becca stood in the doorway, her legs feeling shaky.

She didn’t have to do this. She could just… leave it. Andy was dead, she couldn’t change anything. She should leave it, leave the pub, leave the supermarket, leave her flat. Move on.

Loser! Waste of space! Pathetic…

‘Carl?’ Her voice came out sounding high, and Carl looked round in surprise.

‘Becca! Did you want something?’ He didn’t look pleased.

She steadied her breathing and stepped into the room ‘Um. Yeah. I…’ The keys were beside him, on the table. A small bunch, a couple of big keys, a car key, and the ones she wanted. Two yales.

‘Look, Becca, can’t it wait? I’m busy.’

She made herself smile. ‘Yeah. Sorry. I’m, I wanted, I’m a bit short this month and I wondered if…’

He’d seen her face now and swivelled round in his chair. ‘What happened to you? Been fighting with the punters again?’ He laughed, and she could see how his belly shook under his shirt. His face looked red.

Heart attack on legs, Kay would have said.

She wanted to glare at him, but forced herself to laugh as well. ‘Yeah. No, I just, you know, tripped on the stairs. Only I…’ She was at the table now and the keys were there, right in front of her.

‘You want a sub?’ Carl was looking at her now, his gaze running up and down her. She knew what Carl was like, so she never dressed up for the pub – no tight tops, kept herself covered. He’d never paid her much of that kind of attention, apart from getting grabby in the cellar that time.

It was getting harder to smile. ‘Yeah, just a few quid, you know, to see me over…’

‘You could do with buying yourself some stuff,’ he said. ‘Show your tits off a bit. The punters like it.’

For a horrible moment, she was back at her mother’s house, hearing His footsteps on the stairs, hiding under the covers, knowing it wouldn’t do any good, but…

‘Yeah. I could.’ She flinched as his hand touched her waist and ran down over her bum and the tops of her legs.

‘You’re a pretty girl, Becca. I could give you a raise. If you want.’

‘Yeah. Maybe.’ Take your fucking hands off me, you… Now. Do it now.

Her hand jerked out and knocked the bunch of keys onto the floor. ‘Sorry! I’m sorry!’ she heard herself babbling.

‘It doesn’t…’

This bit hadn’t been part of the plan, Carl perving on her, but use it. Use it!

She was down on her hands and knees reaching for the keys that lay under the table. He’d be looking at her bum, she knew he would be, as she reached under the table, unclipped the two Yale keys and crawled back out. ‘Sorry,’ she said