Respect (Mandasue Heller) by Mandasue Heller Read Free Book Online Page B

face.
    ‘Give us the key, then.’ Ricky held out his hand. ‘I’ll let myself in.’
    ‘My brother’s got it,’ Chantelle lied. ‘But I wouldn’t let you in even if I could,’ she added, recovering some of her sass. ‘I don’t even know you.’
    Ricky put his hand on the wall behind her head and gazed down at her. He could see her chest rising and falling, and could almost smell the fear that he could see in her eyes. He could so easily force her to open the door if he wanted to, and if she genuinely didn’t have the key a swift boot would soon gain him entry. But people in the surrounding flats were starting to go about their daily business and he didn’t need to be clocked pushing his weight around in broad daylight. So, smiling again, he backed up a step.
    ‘Don’t panic, darlin’, I’m just an old mate of your mam’s. When you see her, tell her Ricky’s looking for her, yeah?’
    Eyeing him warily, Chantelle nodded.
    ‘Good girl.’ Ricky winked at her and then strolled away.
    Chantelle leaned heavily back against the door when he’d gone and released a shuddering breath. Her legs felt like jelly and her stomach was in knots. She had been angry but now she was scared. The man had said he was an old friend of her mum’s but she didn’t believe him. There had been something really menacing about the way he had looked at her and Leon, and she had a horrible feeling that it wouldn’t be the last she saw of him.
    When a hot tear trickled slowly down her cheek, she swiped it away with the back of her hand and looked around to see if anyone was watching. Things were difficult enough without letting people see that she was distressed. Telling herself to get a grip, she raised her chin, pushed herself away from the door, and trotted down the stairs to join Leon who was waiting at the bottom.
    Mary popped her head around the corner of the bin cupboards at the exact moment when her son and daughter walked out of the stairwell. She pulled back quickly and took a last drag on her fag before dropping it on the floor and grinding it out with her heel. Then, taking another peek, she saw that the coast was clear and nudged Tracey.
    ‘They’ve gone. Let’s go.’
    Teeth chattering, Tracey dragged her feet as she followed Mary up the stairs and into the flat. Every step hurt because her inner thighs were so badly chafed, and her head was banging from all the boozing and coke-snorting that they’d done over the weekend. It was Mary’s fault; she was the one who had insisted they go back to the grotty hotel with the blokes they had copped off with at the party on Friday night. Tracey had been all for going home when it finished, but Mary had wanted to carry on partying. And it hadn’t mattered that the blokes could barely speak a word of English, or that the one Tracey had got landed with had been a proper munter. Mary’s man was good-looking, and he had drugs in his pocket, so that was as good as marriage material in her eyes.
    But it was one thing spending a raunchy sex-and-drug-fuelled weekend with the guys, and quite something else to run away to Spain with them.
    Sure that it was a joke, Tracey had laughed when the men had invited them last night. But Mary had taken it seriously and was now searching her bedroom for her passport.
    ‘You do know they ain’t gonna be waiting for you when you get to the airport, don’t you?’ Tracey cautioned from the bed as she watched her friend pull everything out of her drawers. ‘If they had money they wouldn’t have been staying in such a shit hotel, so how they gonna afford to buy you a ticket?’
    ‘I’m paying for my own,’ Mary told her, shoving knickers and bras into a bag after finding her passport. ‘I’ve still got the shopping money in my account, and the child benefit goes in on Wednesday.’
    ‘What about the kids?’
    ‘What about ’em?’
    ‘Aren’t you going to tell them?’
    ‘And have our Chan go off on one?’ Mary pulled a face. ‘No