Blood Loss by Kerena Swan (good beach reads .txt) 📕

I could turn back the clock. If I hadn’t gone to Manchester, my mother would have found me. I’d have met my father and got to know them both as happy, healthy parents.

I see Derek long before he spots me. He leans into the wind with hunched shoulders and scurries like a cockroach looking for somewhere to hide. He glances up and sees me but looks away again and I’m surprised not to receive his usual creepy smile.

‘Crikey. I hardly recognised you with brown hair,’ he says. ‘Where did you disappear to? I haven’t seen you for months.’

He sits on the bench next to me and rubs his hands together. He looks as cold as I feel.

‘Lovely to see you, Derek. How have you been?’ I say.

‘You didn’t tell me I had to pay for the car park. Lucky I spotted the sign as I got to the lake. Someone at the pay machine told me they got fined last week.’ He begins to relax now he’s got his gripes off his chest. ‘Are you still in Milton Keynes?’

‘Not far from here.’

‘Rex has missed you.’ He gives me the smile that makes my skin crawl. ‘Can I have your phone number? It didn’t come up on my mobile.’

No, because I withheld it. ‘I’ll text you later so you’ve got it. I need to talk to you about getting a passport.’

‘What are you running away from?’ he asks, looking sideways at me.

‘I’m planning a holiday.’

‘The police came for you,’ he says bluntly, watching my face.

A huge chasm opens up in front of me and I fear I’m going to fall in, consumed with panic. I try to appear calm but I think I’m going to be sick. I take deep breaths then ask, ‘When?’

‘Back in May. They asked for Trina. The old ID I got for you. Look, Sarah, I don’t want you bringing trouble to my door. The last thing I need is the Old Bill sniffing around. What have you done?’ The pleasant, flirtatious Derek has disappeared to be replaced by a hardened, unsympathetic criminal. ‘I’m doing nothing else for you until you tell me why they brought an E-Fit picture of you.’

‘A what?’

‘Someone must have described you. Quite a good likeness apart from your new hair.’

God, this is terrible. I don’t know what to do. ‘I… don’t know why they’re looking for me.’

‘You’re lying. If I can’t trust you, then I’m not helping you anymore.’

‘Please, Derek. I just need a passport.’ Tears fill my eyes and I clutch his arm in desperation.

His face softens and I see a glimmer of the old, malleable Derek back again. ‘The police must have given up because I haven’t seen them since,’ he says. ‘It’s lucky you left when you did.’

He’s right. If that was four months ago, they would have arrested me by now if they knew where I was. ‘I’m sorry I left without saying anything, but you can see why I had to.’

‘Tell me why and I’ll help you.’

I nod slowly. ‘My boyfriend was violent and I defended myself.’

‘What with?’

‘A knife.’

‘Shit! Did you kill him?’ His eyes are wide with shock.

‘I don’t know. I ran away.’ I wipe at the tears with the back of my hand and stand up. ‘Will you get me a passport now?’

‘It’s not that easy these days. Fake passports are spotted a mile off with all the new technology.’

I pace up and down in front of the bench, looking sightlessly across the lake and grassland. ‘What can I do?’

He frowns and pauses before he answers. ‘I suppose I could get you a fake birth certificate then you could apply for a new passport, but you’d need your mother’s birth certificate as well. Can you get that? Have you still got Rosemary’s papers?’

I open my mouth to tell him Rosemary isn’t my mother, then stop. He doesn’t need to know that. I think of the box file of papers in the Hay Barn. My real mother’s birth certificate might be in there. ‘Yes, that could work. I need it to be in the name of Grace Winterbourne.’

‘I thought you were going by the name of Cavendish now?’

‘No. Grace Winterbourne is who I really am.’

Chapter 60

September | Jenna

‘Jenna?’ Lucy’s voice drifts across the yard and I fight the urge to hide at the back of the tack room. Instead, I step outside but take a riding crop with me. I don’t trust her.

‘Are you feeling better? Mum rang me and said it was a bad attack.’ Her face looks creased with worry but I won’t be taken in.

‘I’m fine.’ I stand stiffly, the crop hanging by my side.

‘What caused it this time?’

‘You tell me. I ate the food you brought us.’

‘It can’t have been that. I checked the ingredient lists.’ Lucy steps nearer then stops when she sees the expression on my face. ‘You can’t think I put peanuts in it?’

She waits for me to say that of course I don’t think that.

I don’t say it. I don’t say anything.

‘My God,’ she says, giving a fair impression of looking stunned. Then her eyes fill with tears. ‘We might not get on as well as some sisters,’ she admits. ‘There are times when I can’t actually stand you. But you’re my only sister and soon you’ll be all I have left of my family. Even if I don’t always like you, I love you, and I’d never, ever hurt you.’

If this is a trick, it’s a good one. Doubt seeps in at the edges of my anger.

‘Mum said you told her I was at the dentist. Is that because you didn’t want me to go to the hospital with you?’

I shrug.

‘You seem to forget all the times when I’ve helped you. I’ve looked after you when you’ve had attacks before, even when it’s involved cancelling my own plans. I’ve missed a friend’s party for you, a theatre trip, a visit to London… It hasn’t just been about your allergy either. I stuck up for