AllFreeNovel
Share Us
chapter 58
We have to move again soon. We’ve already been in one place longer than I’d like. But the child seems happier here and I’m tired of fighting her.
She’s used to me now and she’s accepted her new name – she even calls me Mummy. I trust her enough to let her play on the beach below our new cottage without me and sometimes I take her to a café in the village. She makes friends with the owner’s dog, and now and then the man lets us take him down to the beach with us to frolic in the surf. It’s the only time I see the child smile.
But then one day a woman stares at us a little too hard when we’re in the café, and I’m sure I see her watching us again later, when we’re walking back home. Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I haven’t stayed one step ahead of the police all this time by taking chances.
I’ve got too comfortable here. It’s time to move on.
The girl won’t be pleased when I tell her. Our truce is fragile and she’ll blame me for dragging her somewhere new, just when she’s got settled. But I’m only trying to protect her. She belongs with me. I can’t let them take her away.
I’d rather die.
In the afternoon, while she’s playing on the beach, I start packing. We travel light: a few changes of clothes, some toys, my iPad. It doesn’t take long to fit everything into a holdall. We can be ready to leave first thing tomorrow.
I check the leaflet I got at the café for local bus times to the nearest train station. By nightfall tomorrow, we’ll be hundreds of miles away. It won’t matter then if the woman recognised us.
We’ll be long gone.
