Just Like the Other Girls - Claire Douglas Page 0,113

wage. The old woman sounds loaded. If you’d played your cards right you could have been left a fair wedge in her will.’

‘What? Is this just about money to you?’

He sighs. ‘It’s always about money.’

‘Is that why you have a bag of it in the airing cupboard?’

His face darkens. ‘Have you been nosing about my flat?’

‘No. I turned the heating on when I got here and found it.’

‘I do a bit of cash-in-hand work. I’ve not had time to go to the bank.’ The explanation slips off his lips smoothly, but I don’t buy it. He’s been acting shifty for months, when I think of it. Ever since I came back from travelling.

He lowers his voice. ‘I’m just looking out for you. That’s what Mum would want. You need that job. Do you want to do what I do, huh? Lugging washing-machines around all day at that factory? You had a cushy number.’

Maybe he’s right. Maybe I let Courtney drag me into the drama of it all when really there was no basis for me to suspect I was in any danger. The only thing linking Kathryn with Jemima is that passport – and there could be any number of logical explanations as to why she had it. And she hid it because she knew it looked suspicious.

I lean back against the worn sofa. ‘Okay. I’ll ring Elspeth in the morning. Beg for my job back.’

He beams at me, his whole face brightening. ‘That’s great. You’ve made the right decision. I’m going to pop out and get us some beers to celebrate.’

41

The Cuckoo, 1988

Viola still hated Katy, that much was obvious. Since Mittens had gone missing Katy had given up trying to form some kind of friendship with her, and as the years passed she realized they would never be close, that Viola would never be the sister she so desperately wanted. Katy had been with the McKenzies for five years now and she finally felt more secure, less scared that they would send her back to the home. And even though Viola was still nasty and cold towards her it was as though she’d got bored of the pranks. Most of the time she treated Katy to a contemptuous silence.

That was until she met Danny O’Connor.

He was a Gypsy. A Traveller. She was never quite sure what to call them. All she knew was that he hung around with the group of people who parked their caravans on someone else’s land until they were told to move on. Katy had seen him lurking around the newsagent’s on the corner, usually with a mangy dog in tow. He looked out of place on the clean, wide streets of Clifton. But he was handsome – even Katy, at sixteen, could see that – with his long dark hair, olive skin and sparkly blue eyes. Although she daren’t even contemplate having a boyfriend. Elspeth was dead against it and it had been drilled into Viola and herself that she wouldn’t stand for them bringing boys home. That they had to have left school before they even thought about a serious relationship, and even then it had to be with the ‘right kind of boy’. Katy knew that the ‘right kind’ meant someone who’d gone to a good school, and was from a ‘nice family’. Not some Gypsy boy of no fixed abode.

One crisp Saturday in early March, as she walked past the newsagent on her way home from the shops, she saw him talking to a pretty blonde girl in a puffball skirt and over-the-knee socks. With a jolt, she realized it was Viola. And from the way Viola giggled and twirled her hair, she could see that her sister was smitten.

Katy couldn’t help smiling to herself as she scurried past them and let herself into the house. Elspeth would never approve. Oh, no. Elspeth had plans for Viola that included university and law school, not relationships with out-of-work Travellers.

Katy hugged the secret to her chest as the days passed, relishing that she, for once, had something over Viola. She watched from the attic window as Viola sneaked off to meet him whenever she could. Elspeth was still grieving for Huw, and coming to terms with becoming a widow at the young age of forty-seven. Katy had been devastated by Huw’s death. She had come to love her gentle, dependable father. The house seemed vast and empty without him. And even though Elspeth employed a new cook and housekeeper called Aggie, whose