It was now three thirty and he had half an hour to kill before going home if he didn’t want his mother asking awkward questions. The out-of-town traffic was heavy, vans and trucks nudging slowly towards the ring road, and he fell in beside them, walking in a ripple through their fumes, frowning to himself. Chloe Dow was the most straightforward girl he’d ever known, a girl who hid nothing. Everything about her had been on display – not just her looks but the ambitions she never stopped talking about, the fantasies she’d spun, the gossip she’d peddled. She was stunning – and ordinary. Not the sort of girl to do something strange like go for a run in someone else’s ugly shoes. Not the sort of girl to have secrets. Until now. Frowning, he went past the betting shop, past Burger King, past the long flaking front of the old Whiteways offices, and had just reached the shops when a car came to a halt at the kerb next to him and a familiar voice said, ‘Get in.’ He bent down and peered through the wound-down window.
