Chapter 20
Twenty
Tabitha
As soon as the lunch bell went, Tabitha sneaked through the broken bit of fencing at the back of the field, then she hurried over to the Ferndale shops.
She had to find Abel but she couldn’t be late back, either.
Yes, their thing had been a one-off but she’d once liked Abel, they’d been friends.
What he threatened her with after was unforgivable.
She remembered one of those nights in the past, when she’d been captivated by him, when he told her that he’d been selling a few pills because his mum had thrown him out.
He’d seemed so cool and grown up, and if she’d care to admit, just the right amount of dangerous.
She hated that he’d ended up on the streets and all she tried to do was be there for him.
Her phone lit up but it was just a stupid meme from one of the girls at school.
She tried to call Abel for the fifth time, just in case the dead tone was a temporary thing but it happened again.
He’d obviously got a new phone. All she wanted was for him not to think it was her doing if he should get arrested.
If it was, he’d flip and he could be cruel to those who were against him.
As far as she knew, he’d only told her where he kept them and that was because he’d been high.
As she ran towards the pizza shop, the place where he hung outside, she was surprised to see that none of his friends were hanging around, playing football.
She half expected to see Curtis and she was prepared to give him a dirty look or even tell him what she thought of him.
Her brother was getting into something dark and it had to be because of Creepy Curtis, not Abel or not some card he found in his pocket.
Brian was lying. On spotting a boy in a hoodie walk past, she ran over to him.
She instantly recognised him as one of the gang. ‘Hey, where’s Abel at?’
‘Alright, Tab. Haven’t seen you about for a bit.’
‘Since me and Abe split, I’ve been doing my thing, you know?
’ Even she didn’t know what she was on about.
What exactly was her thing? Her only thing at the moment was spying on her stupid brother, avoiding Abel’s revenge and revising for her exams. She then felt herself cringe inside.
Her and Abel didn’t exactly split because they never really had a relationship, so she had no idea why she said that.
What they had was an awkward one-off. Super cringe.
The boy raised his brows. ‘Whatever.’ He laughed.
‘So, where’s Abe at? I need to speak to him.’
The boy blew out a breath. ‘He got arrested last night. You should have seen it. The pigs chased him around the back of those flats and dragged him away soon after. I heard someone mention a knife and some pills.’
Damn, damn, damn. Had Brian already reported Abel to the police?
She’d be in so much trouble once he caught up with her.
The thought of him carrying out the threat, the one she couldn’t even think about, sent a sick feeling whirling around in her gut.
The boy continued. ‘A woman vanished so I think it might have something to do with that.’ The boy swallowed.
‘It’s one of the ones Abe keeps having a go at. ’
Maybe it wasn’t over the pills. Tabitha glanced over at the shops. There was only one place that Abel had a problem with. ‘The dog parlour and the women who worked there.’
‘Yeah, they keep reporting us to the police and council. I mean, we only play football. He was angry, that’s all.
He wouldn’t really burn the shop down but you know Abe, he lets his big attitude run away with him and gets into trouble.
’ Tabitha knew different. She knew Abel was dangerous when he was angry and he bore a grudge like no one she’d ever met before.
She didn’t want to be in his firing line, least of all for being the person who got him arrested.
At the moment she had no idea if he was arrested because of a missing woman or the pills.
He’d come straight after her as soon as he was bailed.
A chilly gust made Tabitha hug herself over her puffer coat. ‘I’ve got a message for him.’ If it was to do with the missing woman, then he still needed to move his stash or her life wasn’t going to be worth living.
The boy raised his brow and had a quick puff on his vape. The toffee scent was soon carried away by another gust of wind. ‘Okay. What’s that?’
‘He needs to move his stash. I…’ She didn’t want to tell him that her brother might dob Abel in and that she didn’t want him to ruin her life because of it. ‘I was in… err…’ Tesco, school, the corner shop – none of those places seemed right.
‘Spit it out, Tab.’
‘I was at the pub with my aunt and I overheard a conversation from the loo. Two men were talking outside but I couldn’t see who they were, but they were talking about Abe.
They followed him and knew where he kept his stash and they were going to tell the police because he sold a tablet to his son and made him really sick.
’ There, an elaborate lie but it would still result in Abel moving his stash from the library air vent.
‘If they followed him, why didn’t they have it out with him?’
‘Don’t ask me?’ She could kick herself on how stupid all that sounded, and she had the nerve to call Brian stupid. ‘All I know is that someone knows and it could get Abe into trouble. Just tell him to move his stash. Can you do that?’
‘Yes, will do. Can’t have him going down for supply even though he’s barely doing any supplying.’
They both knew that Abe dealt in the bare minimum to pay for food and clothes, and it was never enough.
That’s why he always wore that same old top with the smoking emoji on it.
She almost wanted to kick herself for feeling sorry for him again.
She had to remember he was a huge threat to her. ‘Great. Tell Abe when you see him.’
‘Cool.’ The boy waved and ran off across the road.
Please let his arrest be about a missing woman, not the pills.
If Abel got a whiff of her leading the police to him, those photos would be all over social media and her friends, Aunt Claudia and Brian would see everything.
Sickness churned away inside her. She needed to walk it off before going back to school.
Everything will be okay, she kept repeating to herself.
If those photos were out there, she’d know about them by now.
Tabitha saw some loose police tape flapping in the wind so she jogged towards where it had flown from.
As she ran from the car park, through the little path that led to a road and the woods she saw that a large section had been cordoned off.
She thought of the woman who had disappeared.
Abe was a lot of things but she couldn’t believe for one second that he was involved in that.
A splattering of rain hit her hair. She pulled her hood up, not wanting to go back with a frizzy mass on her head.
As she stared into the woodland, she was sure she saw someone.
That’s when she caught the top of his dyed-blond head of hair.
‘Curtis.’ By the time she’d hurried around the police tape, he’d vanished back amongst the trees.
As she turned back, she saw a police car approaching so she casually started walking away.
‘Excuse me,’ the police officer said as he got out of his car.
She glanced up. ‘Hi,’ she said with a smile as she threw her school bag back over her shoulder.
‘Shouldn’t you be in school?’
‘I’m sixteen, just out to grab some lunch.’
‘Do you take this route often?’
She shrugged. ‘Sometimes.’
‘We’re asking people who regularly take this route if they were around yesterday evening between six and seven when an incident took place. A woman has gone missing and we’re trying to locate her.’
She scrunched up her nose. ‘I was at home then.’
‘Well, thank you for your time.’ He went to stand next to a sign that was appealing for witnesses.
‘Who’s missing?’ she asked.
He pulled up a poster on his tablet. ‘We’re concerned for her welfare. Her name is Mindy Carson.’
The name wasn’t familiar to her but she recognised the brown-haired woman from the pet salon. She held back the shriek she wanted to let out, shrugged and muttered a no before hurrying away.
Another police officer standing outside the salon stared at her.
It was like the police could tell she had something to hide.
A man walked towards the salon door. ‘Sheldon, come back now, you naughty boy.’ The man’s little dog left the lamp post he was peeing up and he scooped it up before entering the shop.
Both he and the other woman who worked there looked like they were gossiping, then they turned to stare at Tabitha.
Were the photos out? She wondered if Abel thought she’d already grassed him up.
As she scarpered away from the salon and the police, she took a deep breath and leaned against the wall, rain hitting her face and smudging her make-up. Her stomach was doing somersaults now.
The woman in the poster was the woman in the video that Brian and Curtis had been watching and Curtis had been lurking in the woods. The woman was missing. What the hell had her brother got himself into?