Gone Read Online Free PDF Page B

knew that she could be happy again.
    ‘Tell me,’ he said.
    She shrugged and looked at the ground. ‘I’m just sick of it.’
    ‘Of what?’
    ‘All of it. My life. Dad’s so . . . One minute he’s treating me like a five-year-old, checking I’m okay every five minutes. And then he goes all distant as if I don’t exist any more. And I hate school. Everyone thinks they know how I feel but they don’t. None of them do. And I hate being in that house. It smells of her and I hate it . . .’ She realised she was crying and felt ashamed. He’d think she was a baby. She rubbed her face with her sleeve and noticed Diane was still standing there. Why didn’t she just go away? Leave her alone.
    ‘You could come and live with me,’ Lucas said. ‘Fuck the rest of them.’
    Emma looked up, tried to work out if he was taking the piss. But his eyes flashed with something more serious. The same look he’d had when he’d said he wanted to touch her. When she’d let him.
    ‘Lucas,’ Jenny shouted, breaking the spell Emma was under. They both turned and saw Jenny mooning another group of unsuspecting pensioners. Jenny cackled as the little old ladies blushed and Emma couldn’t help but notice that Jenny’s arse was now aimed in Lucas’s direction. She was pathetic.
    Lucas looked at Jenny with revulsion and turned his attention back to Emma. He moved himself closer to her, pushing her against the wall. ‘What do you think?’ Lucas said, his hand on her hip, fingers dipping beneath the waist of her jeans. ‘It’d be just you and me.’ His hand pushed further down and Emma’s heart raced. Someone was going to see.
    ‘Lucas,’ she whispered. ‘Not here.’ She pulled away from him, her face burning despite the bitterness of the wind.
    Lucas’s hand wrapped around her arm and pulled her towards him, before slamming her into the wall. She felt the pain reverberate down her arm. He stared at her for a few moments, his eyes flashing again, and then he dropped his gaze and her arm and walked towards his mates for another can.
    Emma told herself not to cry. Not now, anyway. She took the can Lucas offered her and then looked across the street and saw Diane walking away.

Chapter 9
     
    13 December 2010
     
    Yates’ probation officer had given Freeman the address of the bedsit where he was currently residing. She’d been there before. It was quite the place. Full of delightful young men and run, if she remembered correctly, by a little old woman who was more frightening than the residents.
    She pulled over across the street. Three storeys of faded period-glamour. Much of the street had managed to retain respectability but Yates’ home was verging on an eyesore – the gate was hanging off its hinges, the front door dented, no doubt from when one of the residents had forgotten their key, lager cans littered the windowsills and the one, solitary, dead-or-dying bush at the front. The run-down pub and takeaway less than a minute away only added to the value of the place. If she had to live there she’d probably be out robbing the nearest bank so she could escape it. Sometimes she wondered how anybody could move on and become a good person when they were forced to live like this. But then she’d talk to them and start to think they deserved it.
    She spent a lot of time thinking about that. About punishment, about rehabilitation, about why she’d become a copper in the first place. That all these scumbags were someone’s son, someone’s brother. But in the end there were no answers so she just got on with it. The criminals did their jobs and she did hers. The world keeps turning.
    She’d wondered whether she was doing the right thing by hauling Lucas Yates in so soon. It was hard to pin a murder on someone without a positive ID on the body. But she needed to speak to him, needed to see his face when she asked him about Emma. True, she couldn’t hold him. Not unless he confessed, which was unlikely. But she needed