Free Keeping Sam by Joanne Phillips Page A

him. Young and stupid. He swept me off my feet –’
    ‘So he’s a bit of a charmer, is he?’
    ‘Yes, but not in a good way.’ She could see that Marie didn’t get it. ‘Okay, listen to this. Evan had a friend, a guy called Jake. They decided to set up a business together – Evan was always off on some harebrained scheme or other, I don’t think he ever had a real, honest job in his life. So, Jake puts up the money and Evan takes off abroad to buy a load of stock. He’d sourced a place in Estonia, he said, that produced computer parts dirt cheap. Meanwhile, Jake was down at the local ProntoPrint getting sorted with business cards and flyers, and he found a unit on an industrial estate where they could store their stock. They’d even taken on an apprentice from the technical college, all totally above board.’ Kate looked out of the taxi window at the sweeping coastline and allowed her mind to slip backwards. She’d been so hopeful that time, convinced that Evan would come good.
    She should have known better.
    ‘So,’ Marie prompted. ‘What happened?’
    ‘You think you know where this is going,’ Kate continued with a sigh. ‘Someone like Evan, you think he’d just disappear with the money, go on a bender, gamble the lot, something like that.’
    ‘He didn’t?’
    Kate shook her head. ‘Sadly not. What he did was much worse. The electronics were a cover for another deal that Evan was working on. He used them to get “merchandise” into the country – you can imagine what kind of merchandise. Worse still, he used Jake’s name to do the deal, used his passport to travel under, left a trail a mile wide for the authorities. He screwed the Estonian dealers out of their cut, then hot-footed it back to England with the money and the shipment. By the time the police got involved, Evan was nowhere to be found.’
    ‘Oh, dear.’
    ‘Jake, however, was here large as life, with a storage unit full of dodgy electronics absolutely reeking of traces of Class A drugs.’
    ‘Kate! How on earth did you get mixed up with a character like that?’
    ‘I told you,’ Kate said glumly. ‘I was young and impressionable. When I met him I had no idea what he was capable of. And he did have a good side. He was fun, he could be caring – like really, really attentive. And he was very sexy. When Evan looked at you the world seemed to stop turning. It was kind of –’
    ‘Irresistible,’ Marie finished. ‘Yes, I know. Big Tony is just the same.’
    ‘Hardly.’ Kate laughed. ‘Believe me, in the lovable rogue stakes, your Tony wins hands down. There’s not much to love about Evan.’
    Marie fell quiet by her side, and Kate sank into her thoughts again. It was true that he had been irresistible. And very, very charming. And Kate had been so deeply in love that nothing Evan did affected her for the longest time. Until she finally grew up.
    ‘What did you do, Kate, before you had Sam?’ Marie had her purchases gathered up around her legs again; they weren’t far from the promenade.
    ‘I worked in a bar for a while. Did some cleaning. Just anything, really. I’ve never been afraid of hard work,’ she added, wondering why Marie thought it necessary to ask. Probably worried about the rent. ‘Listen,’ Kate said earnestly, ‘I’m serious about this alteration service, about standing on my own two feet. And if it doesn’t work out I’ll get a job. I’ll do anything, work around Sam as soon as he starts nursery. I know the benefits cover my rent for now, but I’m not a freeloader. I never have been.’
    Marie shook her head, but before she could speak the taxi lurched to a halt and all the shopping bags tipped over. Kate dived forward to help repack them, glad to be out of her landlady’s inquisitive gaze. The truth – that she was qualified for nothing and fit for even less – smarted a lot more back here in Corrin Cove than it ever had in the streets of Manchester.
    ***
    By Wednesday Kate was so desperate