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

longer tendrils around her face. It was tapered neatly into the nape of her neck and shaped round her ears. Earrings, Kay thought. She needed to get her earrings out again. And the colour – it was much brighter than Kay had expected. She’d asked Poppy to get rid of the grey, but Poppy has used foils and colours, making Kay look as though she’d spent a long summer in glorious sunshine. And the red was back. There, among the gold and the brown, highlights reflected the redhead Kay had been most of her life. She gave Poppy her verdict. ‘I love it.’

Poppy’s pink and white face flushed with pleasure, but she tried to look nonchalant. ‘Yeah, well, you’ve got nice hair.’

Kay went back to studying herself in the mirror. It was like finding herself again, the Kay she had been before Matt got so ill, the Kay who liked looking smart and who took pride in the fact she could still turn a head or two when she walked into a room; not a dowdy, defeated woman trudging into old age.

Not that her future – wherever she was going – was that certain. Tania’s House was being investigated for assisting in money laundering, and a large part of its income had been confiscated. A couple of other drugs charities had stepped in to support some of the work, but Tania’s House was broke and Kay’s job ended in a fortnight. Once again, Poppy might be left without support. Kay was trying hard to get her into an NHS-funded rehab programme.

Poppy’s arrest on a murder charge had been a major shock to everyone except Poppy. She’d seemed resigned, almost relieved, as if something she’d dreaded was finally here. Acting on the advice of the solicitor Tania’s House had found for her, she had agreed to turn Queen’s Evidence. The police had made no promises – Kay suspected they were keeping the pressure on Poppy to make sure she didn’t renege – but so far, there had been no attempt to charge her.

It could be a new start for her. It could be a happy outcome, but the cynic in Kay said that Poppy still had too many lessons to learn. If Kay had remained Poppy’s counsellor, she would have helped her learn to take responsibility for her own actions, to understand that she made her own decisions and would have to stand by them – or hang by her thumbs from them some day.

‘I’ve been to see them at college,’ Poppy said. ‘They say I can go back, finish the course.’

‘That’s good. You’re very skilled.’ Kay turned her head again, pleased with what she saw in the mirror.

‘Yeah. Thanks.’ Poppy’s cheeks flushed. ‘My tutor, Mags, she’s really cool. She says she’ll look after me this time, make sure I don’t, you know, get behind and let myself get all mixed up about it.’

‘It’s good you’re getting support, but don’t you think,’ Kay suggested, ‘that’s something you can do for yourself a bit more now?’

Poppy looked panicky. ‘But I don’t know… I kind of think I can, you know, deal, and then… I get scared and I run away from it, and I might… I might get in trouble again.’

‘You ran away last time. It didn’t work, did it?’

‘Only because Alicia—’

‘No. It didn’t work because you put yourself in a bad place and hid from the people who were supporting you. That gave Alicia her chance. Listen, your tutor can help you, but she can’t do anything if you won’t help yourself.’

‘I don’t know how to!’ Poppy’s voice was almost a wail.

‘Poppy, you’re doing it now – you’re facing up to the things you did. You’re helping the police. That’s a start. It’s like everything else. The more you do it, the better you’ll be.’

Poppy turned away, as if she was rejecting what Kay had just said, but as she sorted out her brushes and combs, the vials of chemicals, the scissors and all the other tools of her trade, she seemed to stand a bit taller, as if here, at least, she knew what she was doing.

All Kay could do now was hope she kept that in her sights, and kept on trying to work it out.

Chapter 53

Bridlington

‘Do you like it, then?’ George was beaming with pride. It was two weeks after the events down by the estuary. Becca had stayed with Kay for the duration, coming back briefly for Andy’s funeral which had been… She didn’t know. All she knew was that Andy hadn’t been there.

She’d contacted George, her landlord, the day after it had all kicked off down by the estuary, half expecting him to tell her she was evicted. Instead, he told her he was doing the flat up for her. Someone – Dinah Mason, she suspected – told him kids had trashed the place, and he blamed himself for what had happened. ‘If I’d fixed that lock on the gate,’ he’d said, ‘they wouldn’t have got in. Vandals.’

He was looking after Spice. ‘She’s a right one, that cat of yours,’ he’d said cheerfully. ‘Don’t you worry, she’s fine. And I’ll sort the flat out for you.’

And he had done.

She stood in the middle of the room and turned slowly, looking round. The walls were freshly painted. The old window had been repaired so that it actually fitted and he’d replaced the worktop in the kitchen area. The bathroom had shiny new lino instead of the old, cracked stuff, and clean, white paint on the walls.

She had what was like a brand-new flat. He’d emptied the downstairs kitchen and cleaned it up, cleared up the backyard, put in a new gate that locked, and a new back door with a cat flap.

That was the best news. He’d found Spice shut in the bathroom upstairs and taken care of her. Now, he and Becca were sharing her. During the day, Spice was called Kitty and spent her time in the shop with George, sitting