To Catch a Rabbit by Helen Cadbury

Outside on the pavement, ready to go in opposite directions, she turned to him.
    ‘There’s something I wanted to ask your advice about.’
    ‘Mine?’ he said.
    ‘I started at Donny Central the same time as you, so we’re in the same boat.’
    ‘I wouldn’t say that.’
    ‘Just between the two of us - I’m not sure how to put this - but if you thought something, or someone, wasn’t quite right. Let’s say, someone wasn’t playing it straight, who would you go to?’
    Sean walked up from the bus stop, round the curved crescent of Winston Grove and into Clement Grove. There were lights on in the front rooms and the silver-blue flicker of TV screens. Beyond the Groves, the first block of the Chasebridge flats loomed in the dark.
    There was a woman in a navy tracksuit sitting at the kitchen table with his nan.
    ‘You know Carole, don’t you?’ Maureen said, as she got up to put the kettle on.
    ‘All right?’ Sean greeted the woman. ‘No tea, thanks Nan, I’ll get a beer.’
    ‘Carole’s got some nice T-shirts, only a fiver, all good labels.’
    A few months ago, Sean would have shown more interest. It never would have crossed his mind to ask where things came from. A bargain was a bargain. As he bent down to get his beer from the fridge, he caught sight of Carole reaching for the zip of the holdall on the floor beside her. She closed it quickly.
    ‘Mostly just kiddy sizes. I don’t think I’ve got anything that would fit you.’ She must know what he did for a living.
    ‘I’m going up.’
    Maureen wasn’t thinking straight, letting Carole bring her knock-off gear round here. He’d have to find a time to tell her, but he had stuff to do just now. In his bedroom he hooked his phone up to the computer and uploaded the photos from the conference room. When they were printed, he added them to his flipchart. He sat on the end of the bed and took a long drink from the can. Bloody hell. He’d been out for dinner with Lizzie Morrison. And she’d asked his advice, although he wasn’t sure whether he’d given her the answer she was looking for: keep your head down and your mouth shut. All the same, he couldn’t help wondering who she was talking about.

Chapter Seven

    Max had taken the car to Scotland, so Karen decided to take the train to Doncaster and pick up a hire car when she got there. For half an hour, the flat landscape licked past the window of her carriage and she felt ashamed of how seldom she’d visited Phil and Stacey. It wasn’t all that far. She and Max had driven down after Holly was born, got lost on the smaller roads and argued. It always seemed too much effort after that. This time she’d printed a map from the Internet. She ran her finger along the blue line, tracing her route and trying to memorise the names of the villages between Doncaster and Moorsby-on-Humber. The road zig-zagged into North Lincolnshire, suddenly straightening out for a few miles, along the side of a man-made waterway, then curving round again until it reached the side of the Humber Estuary, whose mouth opened towards the sea like a huge fish.
    She tested the pedals in the hire car and tried to adjust the seat, wishing she’d paid extra for an upgrade. She put her foot on the accelerator and the tiny vehicle lurched out of the station forecourt. The one-way system drew her through the town and out on to a main road that led east, through semi-industrial villages, past farms and warehouses, until finally she came to a signpost telling her that Moorsby-on-Humber was just two more miles. The road began to look familiar and soon she was on the outskirts of the village, passing the pub where Phil had been working last time she came. She had a feeling Stacey worked there now. She rounded a bend and pulled up in front of a row of terraced farm cottages. She cut the engine, pulled on the handbrake and sat still, waiting. Stacey hadn’t told her not to come, but she hadn’t sounded particularly welcoming either. Karen