Someone Who Isn't Me, Danuta Kot [good books to read for adults TXT] 📗

she could cooperate. She had no legal status with Becca and this woman could send her away and tell her nothing. ‘I’m worried about my foster-daughter, Becca Armitage. She texted me earlier – after midnight – to say she was coming to see me and was on her way. I know she got here – her bike’s parked in the road. I need to know where she is now.’

The detective’s face shut down into professional blankness. Oh, God. Had they got Becca locked up again? Did Kay need to prioritise getting Becca some legal help?

‘We need to know the same thing,’ DC Mason said. ‘We didn’t know she had a connection with Sunk Island until this evening. We found the texts to you on her phone. She dropped it near her flat.’

That explained why Becca hadn’t contacted her. Briefly, Kay felt relief, then came back to the realisation that though Becca had made it here, she was missing. ‘Then why are you here?’

‘Mrs McKinnon, I can’t say—’

‘Is Becca in trouble? With the police?’ Kay asked bluntly. ‘Has she been arrested?’

Dinah Mason shook her head. ‘I wish she had been, then at least we’d know she was safe. We don’t know where she is. If she came here, she isn’t here now.’

‘Tell me what happened,’ Kay said. ‘I might— I know Becca very well. If there’s anything that might help her…’

She listened with growing alarm as DC Mason told her about Becca’s involvement with some investigation going on at the pub where she worked, the attack on her flat. ‘We searched it,’ Dinah Mason told her. ‘Someone had trashed the place, but we found illegal drugs. More than just for personal use. We already have some evidence of Becca’s links with the local drugs gangs – she has connections with the kids they use.’

Kay felt a red-hot surge of rage. She wanted to bang tables, barge through doors in search of the people who were doing it again, blaming Becca when she was in danger, missing on Sunk Island in the dark, in the middle of the night. She had to make this woman listen. To find Becca, she had to get this woman on her side. ‘Listen to me. Becca is missing. She was here when whatever happened, happened. She does not do drugs. You have to stop thinking about that and concentrate on finding her, or…’ She could hear her voice rising and forced herself to calm down. ‘I am telling you now. Becca is in danger.’

DC Mason nodded, and with the same, infuriating calm, said, ‘This is why I need you to answer some questions, Ms McKinnon. Can you tell me where you were this evening?’ she asked again.

Kay opened her mouth to tell DC Mason she wasn’t answering anything until she knew about Becca, then changed her mind. Maybe, just maybe, Kay knew something that would be useful. DC Mason’s face changed as soon as she mentioned Tania’s House. Did this mean they were now on the same side? Or were they now implacably opposed?

‘You work for Tania’s House?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK. And you’ve been staying here, at this house, since…?’

‘Less than a week. Listen! Becca—’

‘Ms McKinnon, we are looking for Becca. I need this information to help find her. Do you know anything about the previous owner?’

Kay stepped hard on her frustration and fear. She didn’t know if this Mason woman was sincere, or if she was just collecting evidence to use against Becca, but there was nothing she could usefully do apart from cooperate. She explained about Hettie Laithwaite, and looked across towards the gate, to where Catherine Ford was still observing. ‘That woman there is a neighbour,’ she said. ‘She knows more about it than I do, but as far as I know, Mrs Laithwaite was infirm for the last few months of her life and was cared for by her family.’

‘Her family? Where are they now?’

‘I don’t know.’ Kay frowned, trying to remember. ‘The neighbour said they visited. A lot. They were in and out all the time.’ She looked at the other woman, realising. ‘It wasn’t family, was it?’

Mason shook her head. ‘I’m only just getting up to speed on this myself, Mrs McKinnon, but whoever came to visit the old lady, I don’t think it was her family.’

Cars in the night. Strange people in the area. A dead man found near the estuary.

It was all coming together in a picture she really didn’t want to see.

And Becca was missing.

Chapter 44

Becca struggled and thrashed around, banging herself against the hard, enclosed walls. She couldn’t straighten up. She couldn’t sit up, she couldn’t breathe…

Stop. She had to stop. She swallowed hard, acid burning in her throat. Breathe. In through her nose. Out. In. She wanted to open her mouth wide and take great gulps of air and each time she tried she couldn’t and the panic threatened to take her over again.

Remember.

In the dark.

Her stepfather was coming up the stairs and she wanted to run away, hide in the cupboard, hide under the bed… But He liked that. He enjoyed the chase. The only escape was into herself. Right down inside her head, far away, No Becca here! No Becca here!

She repeated the words to herself over and over and gradually her breathing slowed and her heart stopped trying to hammer its way out of her chest. It was OK. It was OK. She’d be here for a while, but as long as she didn’t panic, as long as she just…

The man had gone. She was alone with Alicia. If it came to a fight, Becca would win. She’d have to.

With your arms and legs tied?

They were going to dump the car. That’s what Alicia had said. They’d dump the car and leave her. So why was her heart still thumping in fear, why was she still on the edge of losing it?

She heard the engine start, and the car bumped along an uneven surface then turned left. Becca forced herself to