The Chocolate Run Read Online Free PDF Page B

we did it, it was animalistic, greedy. Not the stuff of romantic movies at all.
    Talk-wise, we didn’t. After each time – of which there were eventually five – we lay beside each other breathing heavily, not intentionally touching. Not aching to cuddle up in the safety of each other’s arms and murmur about how we’d been waiting for months for this to happen. We lay on the bed, not speaking. I didn’t talk because the only thing I could think to say was, ‘Never tell anyone I did this. Never tell anyone I was this stupid.’
    He wasn’t simply a shagabout, you see, he was an-out-and-out, dyed-in-indelible-ink, should-probably-carry-his-birth-certificate-to-prove-he-knew-who-his-dad-was bastard. The man was a walking, talking screwing over women machine, which was why Martha and Renée hated him. They’d heard one too many a tale that began, ‘We were sat in the pub and this woman came up to Greg . . .’ and ended, ‘So she chucked a drink in his face/ran out the pub in tears/warned me that he’d never change.’ (I didn’t volunteer the information about Greg’s exploits, they dragged it out of me when I’d received thank you flowers from him for the third week on the trot.) Over the years, as I’d become his friend I became his conquest confidante, his sidekick, too. I’d become the woman who spotted he was chatting up the wrong person and was likely to get a kicking as a result of it, so led him away from danger. The woman who pretended to be his girlfriend to stop someone he’d screwed over thinking she still had a chance. And, naturally, the woman he called when he needed bailing out of things like police stations.
    One May morning two years ago I’d been called to a police station in Harehills to go vouch for Greg and, rather bizarrely, bring him some clothes. I’d been in the police station reception a few minutes when I was shown into an interrogation room and sat at a table, with two officers sat opposite me.
    ‘Miss Salpone,’ the male officer began.
    I didn’t hear him, I was fixated on the tape recorder on the desk beside me. Had been since they led me in. They hadn’t turned it on and a quick glance at my wrists confirmed they hadn’t slapped on handcuffs, but my heart was galloping in my chest. I kept trying to moisten my mouth but couldn’t get saliva to stay in there more than two seconds. I didn’t even flinch at the ‘i’ and ‘s’ being left in my official title. In fact I, Miss Amber Salpone, was one step away from confessing to being the gunman on the grassy knoll the day Kennedy was assassinated.
    ‘Miss Salpone,’ the policeman repeated, to secure my attention, ‘how well do you know Mr Walterson?’
    ‘Erm, quite well. Um, pretty well,’ I’d replied, trying to stop myself counting the hairs coming out of his nostrils, for it’d lead to a tension-relieving comment from my good self. ‘I’ve known him about a year.’
    ‘Any romantic involvement?’ the other officer asked so casually her voice could’ve been arrested on suspicion of withholding evidence, but I didn’t notice.
    ‘Erm, no. I’ve got a boyfriend, Sean. Sean O’Hare,’ I replied, having a sudden need to tell them everything. I was crap under heavy interrogation. Who was I trying to kid? I was crap under light questioning. ‘And Gre— I mean Mr Walterson, is single,’ I added. Very single .
    Suddenly the whole atmosphere in the room shifted and relaxed. Everything – the officers, the furniture, even the dust – seemed to exhale. Again, I was too shaken to notice. I was busy wondering if I should give them Sean’s address so they could check he existed.
    ‘Mr Walterson is being held on suspicion of breaking and entering, and indecent exposure,’ the male police officer explained briskly.
    WHAT?! ‘Greg Walterson?’ I said. ‘ My Greg Walterson?’
    The policeman nodded. ‘He was found naked on the porch roof of a local house—’
    ‘Let me guess,’ I cut in, suddenly seeing