Bad Girl Read Online Free

they’d met, at Connolly’s. A Saturday afternoon, just before Christmas. The café warm and steamy, busy with shoppers, with frazzled mums and tetchy kids, and teenage girls like her and Moira with time to spare and nothing much to do with it. He’d come in with another bloke and sat down at the next table. She hadn’t been able to stop looking at him.
    It was his eyes she had noticed first, a dreamy shade halfway between green and blue with long, dark lashes. Incredible eyes. Then his mouth, wide and sensual, with even white teeth. Dark brown hair flopping over his brow. It had only been a few minutes before they’d got talking, although it was another hour before she’d discovered that he was a cop. Usually she could sniff out the filth without even trying. Enough of them came into the Fox, trying to mingle with the crowd, to eavesdrop on the local villains. But she’d never have clocked Alan Beck, not in a thousand years. He was too stylish, too cool, too breathtakingly gorgeous. Anyway, by the time she found out the truth, it was way too late. Her heart was never going to listen to her head.
    Feeling the rain seeping under her collar, Lynsey shivered and lifted her face. What now? She had to make some decisions, and fast. She wanted to confront him, but Farleigh Wood was miles away. Perhaps it would be better to go round to Moira’s, stay there for the night and… and then what? She couldn’t go crawling back to her dad’s. She’d rather die than do that. He’d almost killed her just for sleeping with a copper. What would he do when he found out she was pregnant?
    Wearily, she got to her feet. At least Moira would provide a shoulder to cry on, although Lynsey would also have to endure the lifted eyebrows and the inevitable I told you so . Moira had never liked Alan, never trusted him. Lynsey had put it down to jealousy, but perhaps her best friend had been right all along. Perhaps? She shook her head. What was she thinking? There was no perhaps about it. But even now, she acknowledged wryly, there was a part of her that still refused to believe in the betrayal.
    She trailed back along the high street with her shoulders hunched and her hands deep in her pockets. She was almost at the turning for Silverstone Street when a car drove quickly past, its wheels sending up a spray of water from the puddles in the gutter. Lynsey tried to jump out of the way, but she was too late. As the motor disappeared from view, she gazed dolefully down at her wet legs and stockings.
    ‘For God’s sake,’ she muttered, wondering if the night could get any worse.
    It was at that very moment that she saw the black cab approaching. On impulse she put out her arm and flagged it down. After clambering into the back, she leaned forward and said, ‘Farleigh Wood. Twenty-four Camberley Road.’
    The cabbie didn’t move. She could see him staring at her in his mirror. ‘That’s quite a way.’
    ‘I’ve got money,’ she said, glaring back at him. She grabbed her purse from her bag, took out the handful of notes that Tommy had given her and waved them at him. ‘See?’
    Satisfied, the cabbie gave a shrug and pulled away from the kerb.
    Lynsey sat back and huddled into the corner, gazing blindly out at the street. Whatever the truth was, she had to know it. Good or bad, she couldn’t wait until tomorrow.

3
    It was three quarters of an hour before the cab got to Chingford and another ten minutes before it finally reached the leafy suburb of Farleigh Wood and began to wind through the back streets. Lynsey had spent the journey in a state of agitation, desperate to get there but terrified of what she might discover when she did. Now, as the moment drew closer, her fear increased, her pulse starting to race, her heart thrashing against her ribs.
    How would Alan react when she turned up out of the blue? Not well, she imagined. He’d be less than pleased to be exposed as the lying love rat he was. She remembered the first time they’d