Somewhere to Hide (The Estate, Book 1) (32 page)

‘For fuck’s sake. Stop with the questions!’

Austin slammed on the brakes and took a sharp left. He screeched up the narrow street, crashing over speed humps, barely missing parked cars on either side. Becky held onto the door handle as he flew around another bend.

‘Austin! I –’

The look he gave her silenced her immediately. The dark cloud had descended again. She held on for dear life as she waited for it to pass.

A few minutes later, he turned into the car park of the White Lion and drove round to the back. He parked the car with a yank of the handbrake.

‘What have you come here for?’ she asked. ‘I thought we were going to lie out in the sun.’

Austin smiled then, as if none of the past few minutes had happened. He pulled the keys out of the ignition and turned towards her. ‘Come on,’ he said.

Becky scrambled out of the car, running to keep up with him. He pulled back the metal sheeting at one of the boarded up windows. She could see an opening small enough to crawl through. She looked at him incredulously.

‘You live
here
?’

‘Nowt wrong in it.’ He mistook her wide-eyed look for one of disapproval.

‘No, I think it’s cool,’ she replied. ‘It’s probably where I would have ended up if I hadn’t been caught by that copper and sent to Cathy’s.’ She lifted her foot. ‘Give us a leg up.’

Austin clasped his hands together and she stepped onto his palms. One quick push up and she was in. She jumped down onto the seating and then onto the floor. Austin was through after her before her eyes had adjusted to the gloom.

He grabbed her around the waist. ‘Are you scared of the dark?’ he whispered into her ear.

‘Should I be?’

Becky pressed her body against his. He kissed her, pushing her backwards as he did so. She felt her feet slide over the odd beer mat. Before she knew it, her back was against the bar. She hooked one toe behind the trip rail. Austin had his hands inside her top, and then it was over her head and across the floor. She blanked out what it might have landed on – or in.

Suddenly, she heard a noise and stopped. ‘What was that?’

‘Only the rats.’

‘Rats!’ She pushed him away and began to stamp her feet.

Austin grinned. ‘Relax, I’m winding you up. There’s no one here but us.’

His lips found her neck and moved down her chest as she gazed around the room suspiciously. Her eyes were more accustomed to the dimness now: tiny shafts of light coming through some of the smaller windows here and there. The floor was covered in dirty red carpeting. Crushed velvet curtains hung redundant in front of the windows, the stools around the many tables sat as if waiting for opening time and the regulars to troop in. Apart from a layer of dust, Becky reckoned the place would clean up pretty quickly. She wished it would open so that they had more choice on the estate.

She heard another noise.

‘What was that?’

‘I told you. It’s an old building.’ Austin pulled down the zip to his jeans. Becky placed her hand over his as he undid his button.

‘How do you know there’s no one else here?’

 ‘There wasn’t when I left this morning.’

‘But you got in through the window. Couldn’t someone else do the same?’

‘I thought you said the place was cool.’

‘From the
outside
, yes. It gives me the creeps in here, though.’

Austin took her hand. ‘If it makes you feel better, we’ll check the rooms.’ He headed towards a door on the right. ‘Kitchen first: bedroom last.’

After a successful session with the teenagers in The Den, Cathy was clearing the room when her phone rang. Disappointed to see it wasn’t Matt, she grinned when she saw who it was, knowing that she’d be calling to get all the juicy details of her date.

‘Hi, Jose, what’s up?’

‘You don’t know then?’

‘Know what?’

‘You haven’t heard from Matt this morning?’

Cathy checked her watch: it was just gone midday. ‘I texted him earlier but I haven’t had a reply.’

‘Oh.’ Now Josie sounded really confused. ‘Maybe I’d better tell you then.’

‘Tell me what? Is Matt okay?’

‘No, he was beaten up pretty bad last night.’

‘But I was with him last night!’ Cathy’s blood ran cold. ‘He left around quarter to one, I think. Oh, God. How bad is he?’

‘Pretty messed up by the sound of it but he says it’s only superficial. He called in sick this morning, said he’d most probably be off for the rest of this week.’

Cathy leaned on the wall. ‘No wonder he didn’t reply to my text.’ Then another thought struck her. ‘He’s not in hospital, is he?’

‘No, he’s at home.’

‘I’ll ring him now and see if he answers. If he doesn’t, I’ll call around. No, I already have his address. Thanks for letting me know.’

As soon as she cancelled Josie’s call, Cathy rang Matt’s mobile. It went unanswered before finally switching to voicemail.

‘Matt? It’s me, Cathy. Josie’s told me what happened. I hope you’re okay. Give me a quick ring when you get this message, would you?’

Now that she’d been there for two hours, the smell and the dreariness of the disused pub had started to become less eerie to Becky. They were dozing, lying together on the single mattress that Austin called his bed. Naked apart from her shoes, Becky ran the tip of her heel gently up and down his thigh.

‘It’s so cool in here and I love spending time with you.’ She ran a finger up and down his chest. Getting no response, she looked up at him. Austin was staring at the ceiling in a world of his own. She sat up and folded her arms.

‘What’s up now?’ she asked. ‘You’ve gone all moody on me again.’

‘I’m thinking.’

‘About what?’

‘Things.’ He took a drag of his cigarette.

Becky tried again. She swirled a finger further and further down his stomach. But he pushed her hand away. She fell sideways off the mattress onto the dusty floor.

‘What did you do that for?’ Her palm had landed on something dirty but she didn’t know what. She grimaced, rubbing at it carefully.

Austin stood up and pulled on his trousers. ‘It’s all sex with you. I don’t want to do it all the fucking time.’

‘But I thought you liked having sex with me.’ She pouted seductively and, ignoring the stained floor now, walked towards him on all fours.

‘Stop acting like a slut and get dressed.’

Sensing the cloud looming over them again, Becky covered her chest with one hand and grabbed her top with the other. What was wrong with him? One minute he would be doing really intimate things with her: the next he’d be looking at her as if she was a pile of shit. It was as if he were two different people.

She dressed quickly and stood up to tuck her T-shirt into her jeans. Daring a quick peep at him, she was glad to see he smiled at her. The nice Austin was back.

‘Let’s get something to eat.’

Becky followed behind him in total confusion but happy that his hand was holding hers at least.

Jess was coming out of the alleyway leading from Stanley Avenue when she noticed Austin’s car coming from the back of the White Lion. At first her hand rose to wave but when she saw who was with him, she dived through an open gate into someone’s front garden until he’d driven past. Then she emerged with a scowl on her face.

That was Becky she’d seen sitting in the passenger seat. She checked her watch. Half past twelve. The cow: she should have been covering for her until one. Which meant that Cathy would be on the war path when she got home.

Wait until she caught up with her.

Cathy drove to Matt’s address, pulling up outside a block of six private flats. She peered up at the one she thought might be Matt’s to see if she could see any sign of life. But there was nothing. She parked her car and pressed the intercom. No reply from flat six.

She pressed it again: still no answer.

She stepped back, shielding her eyes from the glare of the sun and looked up at the window again. But she couldn’t detect anything.

‘Matt?’ she shouted self-consciously. ‘Matt, are you in there?’

Nothing.

She pressed the intercom again, leaving her finger on longer than last time. In desperation, she took out her mobile phone and rung him once more.

Cathy frowned. Since the last time she’d tried, Matt’s mobile phone had been switched off.

‘Maybe he’s having treatment and can’t use his phone,’ Josie said when she called her.

‘But you said he wasn’t at the hospital.’

‘Maybe he was hurting more than he thought and has gone to get checked over?’

‘You can leave phones on in hospitals now.’ Cathy recalled how annoying it was when she’d been visiting Rose. Having to listen to all those stupid ring tones and people telling relatives about their latest bowel movements or the colour of their urine was enough to make anyone ill.

‘In some areas you can,’ Josie replied. ‘But not all of them. I bet he was having treatment when you called and he switched it off when he saw the signs. I know I used to forget to switch mine off and then be really embarrassed when it rang out. Those nurses can dish out evil stares.’

‘But he could have rung me earlier on. I would have been straight up there, wherever ‘there’ is.’

‘I’m sure he’ll get back to you as soon as he can.’ Josie tried to reassure her. ‘He thinks a lot of you.’

Cathy thought of the intimacy they’d shared the night before. She remembered how he hadn’t wanted to leave. Something didn’t add up.  

‘I just want to see that’s he’s okay,’ she said.

And, she added to herself, to get all the details. Had it happened on his way home, or outside his block of flats?

Or had it happened outside her house?

CHAPTER THIRTY

‘What are you playing at?’ Jess flew at Becky the minute she got home that afternoon. ‘You said you’d cover my stint, you cow.’

‘And you shouldn’t ask me to cover for something that you can’t be bothered to do yourself. That’s not what friends are for.’ Becky pushed past her and into the kitchen.

‘Cut the crap. I know who you were with and where you were. I saw you with Austin. Is he more important than our friendship?’

‘I wasn’t with Austin,’ Becky lied.

‘I saw you coming out of the car park of the White Lion.’

‘What?’

‘Gone round the back for a quick one, had you?’

‘You’re only jealous,’ she replied, realising that she may have got away with it. Austin said she was to tell no one that he was squatting there or else they’d move him on.

‘I’m not jealous of you.’ Jess flopped into a chair at the table. ‘What’s happened to us, Becks? We were getting on really well. I can’t believe you wouldn’t cover for me.’

Seeing herself through Jess’s eyes, Becky relented.

‘I’m sorry. I was on my way,’ she admitted, ‘but Austin pulled up beside me when I got to Davy Road. He went all funny when I said I couldn’t see him until after I’d been to the community house.’

‘That’s still no reason to cop out. Cathy’s going to go mad with me.’ Jess folded her arms, knowing she’d got Becky’s attention; she’d learned over the weeks how to get under her skin, make her feel guilty.

‘Sorry,’ Becky muttered.

‘Is he always that intense?’

Becky shrugged, not meeting her eye for fear of giving her inner thoughts away. He
was
always that intense.

‘You’d better hope that Cathy doesn’t give me too much of a hard time when she gets home.’

Becky nodded. ‘I am sorry. I should have thought of you first.’

Jess grinned and on impulse gave her a hug. ‘You and me have got a lot to learn about friendship, but we’ll get there.’

After tossing and turning in bed that night, Cathy switched on the bedroom lamp and propped herself up. It was quarter past midnight. She checked her mobile phone again but the display showed no new messages. She sat up, hugged her knees to her chest and rested her chin on them.

What was going on? Matt still hadn’t contacted her. She’d left him a handful of voice messages, along with half a dozen text messages. She’d even called back to his flat after she’d cooked and dished out something to eat, pushing a note through the letterbox outside the building when she hadn’t got an answer again.

She stared ahead, by this time not knowing what to think. Was he ignoring her because he didn’t like his appearance? She’d seen some bruises in her time so that wouldn’t be a problem. Or was he ignoring her because he was embarrassed at being caught out? That was nothing to be ashamed of on this estate either.

But one thing kept running through her mind repeatedly. Was Matt ignoring her because he’d had his fun? Was that all she was getting? One quick ‘how’s your father’ and ‘I had a great time, thanks’. A one-night stand.