Free The Runaway by Katie Flynn Page B

Neither of the voices she could hear was Caitlin’s. One voice belonged to James, the other to a stranger. Dana was about to replace the receiver when she heard her own name. She continued to listen, feeling her face grow cold with shock. She was eavesdropping, of course, but …
    The conversation finished, the two men replaced their receivers and Dana, after the briefest of pauses, did likewise. Then she brushed away the wretched tears which had begun to form in her eyes. But what to do, what to do? First, she must contact Caitlin, tell her … oh, tell her plainly what she had overheard. She took the telephone receiver off its cradle, then hesitated. No, she needed to talk to her friend in private, and she was not the only person who might pick up a telephone and hear something she was not supposed to know.
    It was an icy cold, rainy January day, but Dana did not even pause to throw a coat around her shoulders before bolting out of the flat. She was halfway down the metal stair when her heel caught and she pitched forward. She had a confused picture of the world turning … then something hit her smartly on the back of the head and darkness descended.
    ‘I wonder if I ought to give Dana a ring,’ Caitlin said as she and James supervised the closing of the restaurant. Jess, the Saturday girl, had just said goodnight to their last customer, and James had gone back into the tea room to turn the Open sign to Closed and to shoot the bolts across. Despite the fact that the conversion of the storeroom was not yet fully completed, the restaurant was doing tremendously well. Of course, as James was so fond of pointing out, the customers, being Liverpudlians, took a lively interest in every change as it was made, and did not hesitate to give their opinion of such changes with great frankness.
    ‘You’ll be purrin’ your perishin’ prices up I’ve no doubt,’ old Mrs Harrow had remarked gloomily earlierin the day. ‘Someone’s gorra pay for them nice new tables and I don’t reckon that winder come cheap.’
    Caitlin had been unable to suppress a guilty grin. The window overlooked the back yard, not a pretty sight with its dustbins, crumbling wall and the door to the jigger hanging by one hinge and in need of fresh paint. According to James and Mr Porter, a nice net curtain would solve the problem of the view, but Caitlin had discussed it with Dana and they had decided that on this issue they would be firm. ‘ Not a net curtain, nor a lace one; we want stained glass,’ Caitlin had said firmly, though she was still rather in awe of Mr Porter and guessed that he would try to overrule her. Indeed, both he and James had blustered when they discovered the price of using stained glass on such a large window, but the girls had been determined.
    ‘A net curtain is an invitation to any customer to lift it up and take a peek,’ Dana had said frostily. ‘As for nailing the curtain to the window frame, that’s downright cheapskate. Folk will think we’ve something to hide.’
    James had chuckled. ‘You’ve got a point,’ he had admitted. ‘So go round to Boyle’s, the glass merchants, and choose the cheapest on offer, and tell him I want it fitted right away, else I might change my mind.’
    So Dana and Caitlin had gone to the glass merchants and chosen some beautiful stained glass, and Dana told Mr Boyle that if he dared to tell Mr Mortimer he could have had frosted glass for a fraction of the price, she would personally murder him.
    Mr Boyle had laughed. ‘I’ve knocked me price down as low as it’ll go, and what you’ve bought is a deal better’n frosted. Don’t you worrit yourself, queen; yourboss’s gettin’ a bargain and he’s well known for likin’ a bargain.’
    Now Caitlin raised her brows as James came towards her and repeated her question. ‘James, I asked you if I ought to give Dana a ring; she’s not rung me at all today. It looks as though the furniture people haven’t arrived … but since we’ve