Humber Boy B by Ruth Dugdall Page A

were presumably practising ahead of their winter holiday. These skiers ploughed their way across the path of the children and people just having fun. At the bottom he stood, brushed the faux-snow from his thighs and shouted up to her, “Go on, Cate! I will catch you!”
    She sat on the bouncy tyre, feeling how little control she had over its movements, how quickly it would slide once she pushed off from the flat section at the top. But this had been her idea, and Olivier was waiting.
    She closed her eyes as the tyre slipped over the edge, then screamed as she gave in to fun, bumping down the snowy slope at a speed that took her breath and left her laughing hysterically in a heap at the foot of the hill, looking up at Olivier.
    “Okay, Cate, so I have done as you ask and made a fool of myself along with a million school kids. Now can we get a drink?”
    The ski lodge was three months ahead of itself with black and silver Christmas tinsel twisted around the dark wood railings that segregated the coffee drinkers from those eating lunch, but all the tables were the same fake mahogany, the wood all painted black around the windows which were covered with black slatted blinds.
    “We can pretend we’re in the French Alps,” Cate said, knowing that beyond the windows was the car park and the other side was the docks. But with the dim lighting they could be anywhere, if not for Michael Bublé being piped from the speakers and the crowd being obviously British from their Hollister hoodies, ruddy faces and copious drinking of cappuccinos.
    “I just have to drive two hours to ski from Luxembourg. The Vosges Mountains are beautiful and the restaurants, I promise, absolutely nothing like this.”
    “Snob,” Cate teased, then drank her sparkling water quickly, thirsty from the physical exercise. “I know this isn’t exactly Switzerland but what I like about it is that it doesn’t feel like Ipswich. I could be miles away.”
    Olivier watched her keenly. “Indeed, travel of any kind can be good for the soul.” He reached and touched her hand. “Thank you, Cate. This trip has been good for mine.”
    This time when she arrived home to an empty house, Cate didn’t feel sad, she was too elated. She ran a deep bath, adding oils that would soothe her aching muscles. Before she stepped into the steamy water she poured herself a glass of wine and found the paperback novel she had bought in the summer but never got around to reading. It was a light romance, and she simply hadn’t been in the mood before.
    She settled in the water, sipped her drink and opened the book. And not once did she think about work.

24
    Ben
    Who will find me first?
    This is my waking thought.
    Which I suppose is progress, because on other mornings I’ve woken up thinking I’m late, that any minute a prison officer will fling open my cell door and haul me from bed, shout at me that breakfast is being dished up and do I think this is a bloody hotel? Or, on bad mornings, I’ve woken in a cold sweat thinking it’s shower day.
    That was when they used to get me. The new kid who wanted to mark himself out as tough, the gang leader who sniffed out my weakness, prisoners who knew enough to see that I don’t fit in any box that says ‘burglar’ or ‘junkie’ or even ‘nonce’. They knew I was none of those things, but they didn’t know what I was, so they got me, in the shower, when the staff were turning a blind eye, when the sound of the water hitting the tiles covered up my cries. “Tell us what you did, freak. Tell us before we drown you like the rat you are.”
    At least I don’t have to worry about that any more.
    But when I was crumpled on the shower floor, blood leaking from my ear or nose, I knew someone would come to help. Eventually. Even if it was a prison officer who was well aware of who I was and let me know that, they still had to escort me to the medical wing, they still had to keep me alive.
    Who will protect me now I’m free?
    I’m an