DECOY (Kindle Single) Read Free Page A

then?’
    Charlie’s voice was muffled by the bedclothes that he’d drawn up all snugly around himself as he lay curled up listening. Perched on the edge of his bed, Kate reached over and delicately stroked his hair. It needed cutting. His blond curls were all over the pillow and he was looking up at her, perfectly angelic. He must have heard this story ten thousand times and knew what happened next better than she did. But interrupting her with questions was all part of the ritual they both loved every moment of.
    ‘Then the baby bear was reunited with his family and they all lived happily ever after,’ Kate said without needing to look at the book.
    Charlie nodded and smiled in satisfaction, taking comfort in the fact that the story never changed, and never would. No matter what happened, the baby bear would be safe and happy for all time.
    Kate closed the book and laid it on his bedside table. ‘You go to sleep now,’ she said, kissing his soft round cheek.
    Charlie’s smile fell and he looked pensive. ‘Mummy?’ he whispered.
    ‘Yes, babe?’
    ‘You’ll always read to me, won’t you?’
    ‘Of course I will.’
    ‘I mean … when I can’t see any more?’
    Kate almost choked. She didn’t know what to say. ‘Oh, Charlie—’
    ‘And you’ll tell me what the pictures look like, so I won’t forget them.’
    A tear rolled down Kate’s face and she quickly wiped it. ‘I’m not going to let that happen to you. You need to believe me. All right?’
    ‘All right,’ he said in a small voice, and rolled away from her with his face buried in the pillow.
    Kate turned off the bedside lamp, left the little night-light glowing for him and left the room quickly so he wouldn’t hear her cry.
     
    At five to three the following afternoon, Kate was sitting on the bench nearest the tree-shaded entrance to Florence Park in east Oxford. She was dressed the way she might have for a job interview, with her hair carefully done and a professional-looking but cheap briefcase on her lap. The rest of the money from last night had been paid into the bank earlier that afternoon.
    If it hadn’t been for Hayley, who’d valiantly cried off sick from work to help out with Charlie, none of this running around would have been feasible. Good old Hayley.
    It was another bright day, and the sun was warm. Florence Park was mostly empty, aside from a few strollers, young mothers rolling pushchairs and some studenty types stretched out on the grassy areas. Lost in deep intellectual contemplation, no doubt.
    The woman Kate had arranged to meet appeared at one minute to the hour. She was small and mousy, and looked nervous as she approached. Kate stood, smiled, tried to put the woman at her ease and conceal her own nervousness. Meeting a client in a park this way felt clandestine, even tawdry. Like they were doing a drugs deal, or arranging a murder. But Mrs Susan Tribe had been clear about not wanting Kate to come to her home in nearby Campbell Road in case her husband, a self-employed locksmith, happened to turn up unexpectedly in the middle of the meeting.
    ‘Thanks for agreeing to see me at such short notice,’ Susan Tribe said as they shook hands.
    ‘Why don’t you take a seat,’ Kate said, motioning at the bench as if it was a chair in an office.
    Mrs Tribe perched herself on the bench, glanced about her, then began to spill out the same anxious flurry of information she’d given Kate on the phone. As requested, she’d brought a photo of her husband for recognition purposes, which Kate looked at as her client talked. The photo had been taken on holiday somewhere warm and exotic, white beach and palms in the background. It showed a fortyish, chubby, round-faced man in a colourful T-shirt, grinning at the camera. Faded tats on his chunky forearms. One beefy hand clasped around his wife’s shoulder. His wedding ring was catching the sunlight. Mrs Tribe looked tanned and about a hundred years younger, even though the photo had