Finding Margo Read Free Page A

regain her cool. She breathed in deeply and, like a sleepwalker, started to walk again – across the car park, through the playground and the picnic area, up the steps and over the bridge.

CHAPTER 2
    T he small green truck was parked in the shade of a tree a short distance away from the group of big articulated lorries. The paint was flaking off its sides, and the lettering spelling the word ‘Horses’ above the front windscreen was barely visible. Margo had been wandering around the parking area in a dazed state, wondering what to do next. She kept looking over her shoulder expecting to see Alan coming across the footbridge ready to drag her back to the car. The urge to get away was the only thing on her mind now. I have to get a lift quickly, she thought, studying the truck drivers – mostly big, swarthy, unshaven men who were laughing, joking, or snoozing in the shade. She tried to spot the one that looked the least likely to attack her first chance he got. But none of them looked in any way friendly or even particularly appealing. I have to get out of here before Alan finds me, she said to herself, panic rising in her chest. Then she saw the small truck. Margo tightened her grip on her bag and walked toward it. She went around the side, where a young man, his back to her, was drinking deeply from a beer can. He was short and stocky with dark, slicked-back hair. He wore a loose blue shirt and jeans, and he was flicking ash from a cigarette held carelessly in his other hand.
    “ Excusez-moi, monsieur ,” Margo said politely.
    The young man whipped around. “What the fuck...?” Despite the hoarseness, the voice was not male.
    “Oh, sorry,” Margo smiled nervously, “I thought you were—”
    “A fucking French guy?” The young ‘man’ put her cigarette in her mouth, tucked her shirt into her jeans with one hand, revealing an impressive bust, and crushed the beer can with the other.
    “Well yes, but I only saw you from the back and—”
    “I looked French?” The woman shook her head and laughed. “ And you thought I was a man. Jesus, that’s a laugh.” She stubbed out her cigarette against the side of the truck, looking Margo up and down. “You look hot.”
    Margo backed away. “Well, I’m—”
    “You in some kind of trouble?” The woman spoke with a strong Irish accent.
    “No, not really.” Margo laughed nervously. “I was...” She swallowed, trying to think of a likely story, “on this—this bus, and we stopped for a break, and then—then—it just drove off.”
    “That’s a pisser.”
    “Mmm, um, yes.”
    The woman studied her for a moment through narrowing eyes. “So now you’re looking for a lift, is that it?”
    “That’s right.”
    “Where are you going?” the woman asked, folding her arms across her ample bosom. “I mean where was that bus taking you?”
    “To Cannes,” Margo blurted out without thinking. “I mean, no, I mean—” She stopped, feeling both confused and embarrassed. “I want to go to Paris,” she heard herself say.
    “You were on a bus to Cannes, and now you want to go to Paris?” The woman looked at her suspiciously with her small brown eyes. Like currants in a bun, Margo thought.
    “Yes, that’s right,” she replied, trying to sound confident. “I’ve changed my mind about Cannes. I’ve decided to look up a friend in Paris instead.”
    “You don’t say,” the woman muttered ironically. “Why do I have the feeling something really weird is going on here?”
    “Weird?” Margo straightened her shoulders and gazed innocently at the other woman. “I don’t understand what you mean.”
    “Like you’re up to something. Like you’re in some kind of trouble. You haven’t killed anyone, have you?”
    “Not lately, no,” Margo tried to joke.
    “And the police aren’t after you or anything?”
    “No, of course not,” Margo replied with feeling.
    The woman looked at her thoughtfully for a moment. “Know anything about horses?” she