Ready or Not Read Online Free PDF Page A

Saturday for the first time since they broke up. Now, t hree months after leaving the flat she had once called theirs rather than hers, he suddenly ‘needed’ his records back: the pile of scratched, useless LPs he had left in the corner of their (her) bedroom gathering dust. Kate couldn’t imagine what use they would be to him – he had never listened to them in the two years they had been together; in fact, he didn’t even own a record player to play the things on – but suddenly they were ‘sentimental’ and he wanted them back, sooner rather than later. Perhaps he would try to impress Louise (if that was her name) with his eclectic musical taste.
    Good luck to her, Kate thought bitterly.
    She was sure Stuart still had a key to the flat, although she had demanded he return all copies to her. It would have been far nicer of him, and uncharacteristically thoughtful, if he had just gone round there when she was at work and taken the bloody records, rather than bothering her with a phone call and unnecessarily dredging up a stream of unresolved differences. She would probably never even have noticed that the records were gone and would never have needed to know that he had been back in the flat. Sometimes what you didn’t know really didn’t hurt you.
    It was almost twenty minutes to eight. The couple in the corner were now kissing enthusiastically; unsubtle, full face clashing like rams in combat that made Kate turn her head away and focus on something, anything, outside the window. She had often regretted that it was beyond her police powers to confront couples like this and insist that they save their intimacies for a more appropriate time and place, but she had not yet put the idea into practice and didn’t expect it would be greeted with appreciation from the participants.
                  Kate continued to stare out of the pub window, though still aware of the irritating scene playing out in the corner of the bar. Where was Chris? He wouldn’t have thought twice about confronting the couple, or suggesting they took their foreplay home. If there was one thing Chris could always be relied upon, if not his timekeeping, it was his frankness.
    As s he looked through the window Kate saw a man waiting to cross the road just down the street from the pub. He stood with his back to the buildings, near the edge of the pavement, waiting for the lights to turn red so that he could cross. As he turned to check for traffic he stepped back slightly. There was a little girl standing beside him, a little girl in a dress that looked too thin for this weather, with no coat, only tights and a pair of fluffy boots to keep her warm. The child turned her head: a little mousey haired girl, about six years old, carrying a green rucksack shaped like a frog.
                  Kate stood up swiftly, catching her knee against the table and sending what was left of her drink tipping across the floor. The couple in the corner paused from their flirting long enough to look over at her; the girl smirked and let out a snort before turning her attention back to the boy. Fortunately the glass hadn’t smashed and Kate picked it up and put it back on the table. She raised a hand in an apology to the barman and cursed under her breath.
                  Outside, the cold air bit at her cheeks. The lights had turned red – the beeping noise signalling the green man still sounding in the street – and Kate ran to beat the red, getting a blast of horn from an angry driver clearly too important and impatient to wait an extra few seconds for the passing pedestrians.
                  The man and the little girl walked amongst a small group of people making their way down the street. Kate darted between an old man who had just stepped off a bus and a group of teenagers hanging around outside an off-licence, catching a glimpse of the frog rucksack before it disappeared into the crowd.