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

Ellis is hovering behind me so I step back to allow him to get nearer to Lucy. But then it hits me like a punch to the gut. Lucy hadn’t said the brakes were soft. She’d said they failed completely. I reach for the chair and sit down, remembering the way Grace had attacked me in the kitchen. Remembering too the pâté, the malicious phone call to the twins’ mother, the carrier bag in the woods… Lucy had nothing to do with them. They were all the work of Grace. She hates me. She wants me out of the way so she can take my place.

‘Jenna?’ Lucy’s voice breaks through my wild thoughts.

‘Sorry, what did you say?’

‘How’s Mum? Who’s looking after her? Not Grace?’

‘No.’ Does Lucy know about the swap? Does she know how much Grace loathes me?

Lucy glances at Ellis then back at me. She does know something, but she doesn’t want to say it in front of Ellis.

‘Mary from next door is with her. She’s fine.’

The curtain moves aside and the nurse reappears but this time she’s accompanied by a policeman in uniform. ‘Ten minutes,’ she says to him as she leaves.

He introduces himself to Lucy as PC Thorn. ‘Your doctor has given me permission to interview you and I’m afraid I need to breathalyse you.’ He looks apologetic. ‘Standard procedure in circumstances like these.’

Lucy frowns. ‘I haven’t been drinking,’ she says.

‘We need to eliminate that possibility in case it goes to court.’

‘Court? Oh God, I hope not.’

The policeman looks at Ellis and me. ‘I’ll just ask her a few questions then you can come back in ten minutes,’ he says.

I want to stay with Lucy but he’s as good as dismissed us. Should I tell him about my suspicions over Grace? I don’t know what to do. I need to talk it over with Lucy first because we can’t drag Mum into this when she’s so frail.

Ellis and I sit in silence in the waiting area with tasteless cups of coffee watching the clock hands as they barely move. As soon as ten minutes has passed, we both jump up and head back to Lucy’s bedside.

The policeman turns to Ellis. ‘We’d like to see Miss Winterbourne at the police station as I’ll be reporting this as possible dangerous driving pending further evidence. We need to take fingerprints, photos and a DNA sample.’ He turns to Lucy. ‘Your DNA sample will be stored in the National DNA Database.’

‘I’m not a dangerous driver! The brakes didn’t work properly. In fact, they didn’t work at all. I’m a sensible driver.’ Lucy’s face has drained of all colour, highlighting the emerging bruises even more.

‘Then you have nothing to fear. We’ll certainly check the brakes and I’ll record everything you’ve said in your statement. Now breathe into this, please.’

I watch the policeman follow his procedures and we’re all relieved when the result is clear. I wonder again if I should say anything about my suspicions of Grace. I don’t want Lucy getting into trouble. I catch her eye and open my mouth but she must be able to read my mind because she gives her head a little shake.

‘Ellis will bring me to the station as soon as I’m discharged from hospital,’ she says. ‘Won’t you, Ellis?’ He nods but looks bewildered by everything.

The policeman is gathering up his things when the consultant arrives. He tells us that the scan shows no abnormalities but they’ll be keeping Lucy in overnight for observation. We all visibly soften with relief – even the policeman, who is clearly uncomfortable with his tasks of questioning and breathalysing Lucy.

I leave the cubicle to call Mum and tell her that Lucy is going to be fine. She cries with relief and talks for a minute or two, but she sounds exhausted.

‘Can you come home soon? I really need to go to bed and I don’t want to burden Mary with helping me.’

‘I’ll leave in a few minutes.’

I kiss Lucy goodbye with a promise to visit her again tomorrow, whether she’s still in hospital or back home, then I call a taxi.

As I approach home I keep a wary lookout for Grace’s car but there’s no sign of it. I ask the driver to take me up the gravel drive and right to the front door. He looks at me as though I’m lazy but I don’t care. I need to be extra vigilant and every shrub or low garden wall is a potential hiding place.

Once I’m indoors I thank Mary and see her to the door, then I double-lock and bolt it. I help Mum into the bathroom then go around the house to check the windows and patio doors are locked. I help Mum into bed and fetch myself a drink and snack to have in my room. I try reading a novel but I’m too distracted and distraught by everything that has happened, and my brain can’t absorb any new information.

I get up and tiptoe to Mum’s bedroom. Her nightlight glow is welcoming, and her breathing is steady and reassuring. I walk around the bed and slip under the duvet, trying not to wake her. She turns over and wraps me in her arms.

‘Jenna,’ she whispers, ‘my beautiful daughter.’

I close my eyes and savour the feel of her close to me.

Chapter 68

Five Days Later | DI Paton

Paton wasn’t in the best of frame of mind when his phone rang. He’d just been to see the victim of a stabbing in hospital and had got back to his car to find a parking ticket. Damn. A minor irritation, though, compared to what the boy he’d just visited had suffered. The poor lad had been stabbed in the stomach while innocently walking along the street with his girlfriend. Paton found it difficult to comprehend the human psyche where one person could cause horrific injuries to another and just walk away.

‘DI Paton,’ he said abruptly as he answered the call, peeling the plastic envelope