Read Online Bones in the Nest by Helen Cadbury - Free Book Online Page B

them up and holds them in her damp palm. She turns to see Taheera disappear through the double glass doors of the library. She’s thirsty, incredibly thirsty. Rows of cold drinks will be lined up in the fridge in the newsagent’s. She looks around her and opens the door, pushes the sunglasses back up her slippery nose.
    He’s coming out of an alleyway between the buildings, Mo, the bloke she saw at York Minster. He’s carrying a big folder and heading for the library. He walks straight past her and if he sees her, he doesn’t acknowledge it. That’s good: if the huge sunglasses that cover half her face have hidden her from someone she’s seen recently, then perhaps she’s safe from being recognised by people who haven’t seen her for ten years. She decides she’ll be all right, if she’s quick, and walks the few yards to the shop without turning round.
    Inside it’s cool and gloomy. She finds her way to the fridge, but it’s hard to see with the glasses on, so pushes them on top of her head. She lifts out a small bottle of the cheapest lemonade and goes to the till. There’s a girl in a headscarf who takes her money and gives her the change. Chloe turns away quickly, back towards the door, passing a low shelf of newspapers on her left. Heavy black headlines and the face of a teenage girl in school uniform stare up at her.
    She doesn’t break her stride as she leaves the shop. The sunglasses thump against the bridge of her nose as she runsto the car. She gets in, slams the door shut and presses the cold plastic bottle against her neck. Her hands are trembling.
    When Taheera comes back, Chloe says nothing. She barely notices the young man slipping back up the alleyway. They move off and soon a blast of air from the fans chills the sweat on her legs.
    ‘Thanks for waiting,’ Taheera says cheerfully, as she drives towards the top of the estate, where the road opens out onto the dual carriageway.
    Chloe just wants to get out of there. She doesn’t look at the flats this time, keeps her eyes fixed on the label of her lemonade bottle, scratching it away with her thumbnail. When they reach the motorway, she snatches a look at the speedometer, creeping up past sixty, seventy, still rising as the tiny car hurtles along the inside lane, getting her away from the estate and its towers, the shop, the local paper with the headline she’s been dreading. She wishes they could go even faster.
    ‘Look, um, I hope you don’t think I put you in a difficult position,’ Taheera says, twirling a section of her long black hair in her fingers. ‘I should have explained. It’s a bit difficult between me and my boyfriend. I’d rather you kept it to yourself, do you know what I’m saying?’
    Chloe doesn’t reply.
    ‘I’ve said I’m sorry, Chloe. But nobody needs to know about you being in Doncaster, or about me and him, do they?’
    It sounds like a deal. A deal in which she has no choice. The kind of trade she’s got used to over the years. Another debt to honour and obey.
    ‘OK,’ she says. It sounds hollow in her mouth.
    The little car drifts towards the hard shoulder, until it runs over the catseyes and the tyres set off the ratchet sound designed to wake up sleeping drivers.
    ‘Oops!’ Taheera laughs and straightens up the car.
    ‘He’s on tag, isn’t he?’ Chloe says. She doesn’t care all that much, but she’d like to know the terms of their deal, to work out how much it’s worth.
    A truck swings too close to them. It tries to overtake, gives up and slides back in behind them, as the road rises up over a long bridge. Yellow fields are spread out on each side of a river far below. Chloe feels the nausea of vertigo rising in her throat. She tries not to look over the side.
    ‘He was,’ Taheera finally says. ‘But he’s just had it taken off. How did you know?’
    A sign to York causes them to swerve onto a slip road, a lorry horn blaring behind them. On the smaller road, they drive some way in silence,