Blood notes, p.1
Blood Notes, page 1
Blood Notes
Lin Le Versha
This edition produced in Great Britain in 2021
by Hobeck Books Limited, Unit 14, Sugnall Business Centre, Sugnall, Stafford, Staffordshire, ST21 6NF
www.hobeck.net
Copyright © Lin Le Versha 2021
This book is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in this novel are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Lin Le Versha has asserted her right under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All rights reserved. No parts of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the copyright holder.
A CIP catalogue for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978-1-913-793-51-7 (ebook)
ISBN 978-1-913-793-52-4 (pbk)
Cover design by Jayne Mapp Design
https://jaynemapp.wixsite.com
Created with Vellum
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For my children, with love
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Hobeck Books – the home of great stories
Chapter One
Edmund
We move apart and lie side by side on the rumpled sheets. I turn my pillow over. It cools my neck. The August sun knifes through the gap in the dusty maroon curtains that don’t quite reach the sill – the blade slices the dust on the chest of drawers around her old perfume bottles.
She shifts. The bed springs creak.
‘How about a cup of tea?’ I ask.
‘Or we could…’ She touches me – there. I slide away from her. I sit on the side of the bed. She strokes my shoulder. She pulls me back down.
We lie. Silent. A spider spins a thread from the lampshade in the afternoon sunlight. She reaches for my hand. Pulls me towards her. Her finger traces the path left by a bead of sweat on my chest. She leans over, catches it on the tip of her tongue.
Lying back, she sighs. ‘Yes, tea would be lovely.’
I pull on my boxers, reach for my shirt.
‘I’ll stay here for a while. You should be working.’ She pulls the covers up.
I feel her watching as I tug on my trousers. I turn. She yawns, stretches luxuriously. I pick up her faded yellow silk kimono. I hand it to her.
Sitting up, she takes it, covers her breasts. ‘Changed my mind. I’ll get up and make supper. Spaghetti Bolognese?’
‘Yes, please, Mummy.’
Chapter Two
Steph
Derek peed on a rosebush. A prize Queen Elizabeth with the most delicate shell pink blooms. Steph looked around. No one witnessed it. She’d banned Derek from Southwold beach after he’d watered the pale blue handbag of a lady holding a rod for her fisherman boyfriend. How ridiculous – a blue leather handbag on the beach.
‘It’s the streets for you until we have the beach to ourselves again.’
She fled up the road in case someone overheard her and concluded it was she, not her dog, who was barking. It had been a glorious summer – her first in Oakwood. Weeks of endless blue-sky days and barbecues. Suffolk had been more like Portugal or Italy. Even the east wind had moved out for a few weeks in the solid heat. Bees and butterflies had basked in the endless sunshine, but so had the vicious mosquitoes.
‘Ouch! Shitting Henry!’ she gasped, as the mozzy bite on the back of her heel became unbearable. She tugged Derek to a stop and told him to sit. He ignored her. She bent down and dug her nail into the swollen lump, attempting to release the maddening gunge injected there.
‘Oy! Missus! Your dog peed on my statue! Get him off!’
A grumpy-looking man had been dead-heading the yellow roses on a trellis by his front door. He limped towards her, waving his secateurs.
‘I’m so sorry.’
Steph pulled Derek away from the concrete gargoyle-fairy.
‘If you can’t control him, he should be on a short lead.’
Steph dragged Derek away from the other concrete slab, which resembled a squashed rabbit. Two weeks ago, she’d moved into the ground-floor flat of an Edwardian house with a small garden opening onto fields. The moment she saw Derek, a black-and-white collie lurcher, at the RSPCA, she knew she’d found her ideal dog. She’d never trained a dog, and Derek had never been trained. She now kept him on a lead to avoid blue handbag incidents.
A police car siren in the distance pushed images of her leaving do into her head. She re-played the pathetic affair – a few drinks with a few colleagues. After almost thirty years in the police force, it should have been a bigger party. But they don’t celebrate the careers of broken people.
The spiral started. Her stomach heaved. Panic gripped her. She breathed in, counting to seven, held her breath, then let it go. She repeated the technique she had been taught, while concentrating on the number of small panes in a circular gable window. The disrupting images ejected, she breathed out. Oakwood was a new beginning – a fresh start.
The mix of Tudor, Georgian and Dutch-gabled houses led to the High Street. It could be any high street, anywhere. Tesco, Jules and Costa Coffee had replaced the independent shops selling antiques, local pottery and farm produce. She used to drive from Ipswich at the weekends, looking for unusual presents in the little old-fashioned shops. Now she lived here, they’d disappeared.
A midnight blue dress caught her eye in the window of Miranda Modes, where she’d bought her new ‘ensembles’ – the posh saleswoman’s word for outfits. Steph had felt fourteen again under her appraising gaze. She’d emerged with five brightly coloured outfits she would never have chosen by herself, one for each working day. After slobbing around in black tops and jeans for over a year, she could hardly believe the transformation.
She smiled at her reflection in the shop window. Her blonde hair re-shaped into a short, spiky style made her look younger than fifty-three. Her height had always helped her to carry her weight, but now her strict diet had removed her spare tyre and saggy tum. She had a fresh glow and the bags under her green eyes had disappeared. Her doughy skin, developed over the months being housebound, had brightened in the summer sunshine. She would need a second mortgage to pay off her credit card, but it was worth it. Even after a few days, she was enjoying her job as the college receptionist in her new school uniforms.
Derek crouched down low, in attack mode. A tall woman, who appeared to be wearing a long nightdress and walking with a white fluffy cushion on a pink string, floated towards them.
‘Hello, Steph – and what’s your name?’ The woman ruffled Derek behind his ears.
‘Derek. Sorry I don’t…’ said Steph.
‘You won’t know us all yet – I’m Caroline, Head of Art.’
‘Is she a Scottie?’
‘No. Norfolk Terrier, aren’t you, Marlene? Heading for the common?’
Steph smiled and nodded as Caroline chatted on. ‘Such a relief to get out. My partner’s driving me bonkers! Yo u know, Margaret Durrant, music teacher?’
Steph wasn’t sure. Over the last few days, she’d met about a hundred and fifty teachers and members of support staff. She listened carefully for any clues to identify Caroline’s partner.
‘Anyway, Margaret’s had another row with Harriet, her boss.’
‘Really?’
‘Margaret was Director of Music until a year ago when she discovered she had Parkinson’s.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry.’
‘She became part-time and Harriet Weston took over. Marlene! Stop doing that to Derek!’
‘Can we let them off here?’
Liberated, Derek and Marlene bounced off into the dusty bracken, on the trail of some irresistible rabbit or fox smell. They chased around, leaping over a fallen silver birch tree and in and out of the clumps of ferns, the edges rusty with the first signs of autumn.
‘Anyway, the latest row is about changing the timetable for some brilliant cellist.’
Not sure how to react, Steph fixed on a sympathetic smile while nodding in time to Caroline’s complaints. They stood side by side as the dogs dashed through the undergrowth in the watery evening sunshine.
‘Gosh – is that the time? Margaret will moan if I’m late for supper. Lovely to chat. Come on, Marlene – Marlene!’
As Caroline hooked Marlene on her lead and scurried away, Steph realised that what she had thought was a nightdress was an elegant, pink dress in some floaty material. Miranda Modes’ saleswoman would have approved of Caroline’s style.
The day had drained. The sun had disappeared behind the silver birches, leaving a grey-pink smear across the sky. An early start tomorrow. It was the first day of lessons for the students after three days of enrolment. She turned towards home and supper.
Chapter Three
Steph
The porch door was ajar. Convinced she’d left it closed, Steph switched on her mobile phone torch and swung the light around the front garden and into the bin store at the side of the house. She pushed the sharpest key between her fingers; she had nothing else. She froze and listened. Silence. No warning growls or barks from Derek. The wind must have blown it open. She must get a lock put on the shared front door.
She turned the key in her front door lock and pushed. She paused again and listened. All fine. Pleased to be home, Derek bounced over to the dog food cupboard, scampered back and jumped up at her.
‘Down, Derek! Get down!’ She pushed him away, relieved he hadn’t snagged her new green skirt. He sat at her feet looking rejected, waiting for her to get his dinner. Leaning against the door, Steph looked around the elegant Edwardian room in the pale streetlight beyond the bay window. Relieved to be away from her old life and the constant hum of Ipswich traffic but now, stood in the gloom, she felt alone. Very alone.
She flipped the brass toggle switch and cosy islands of light from her copper Art Deco table lamps transformed the room. Her mood lifted. This house must have been amazing as one home and now, converted into two decent sized flats, she was pleased she’d bought the one with the garden. When the upstairs flat sold, she hoped she’d have quiet neighbours.
Steph walked around the room, towards the open-plan kitchen. Her hands stroked the dark mahogany dado rail and reached out to the past where Edwardian maids had dusted. The builders had painted the walls on either side with an inoffensive shade of beige recommended by house-porn TV programmes – Cappuccino Foam? Goose Feather? She’d pick up a paint chart tomorrow and choose a colour to make it hers, perhaps a gentle grey to highlight the veins in the marble fireplace. At last, the flat felt like home and for the first time in ages she felt relaxed, re-assured.
Steph stopped and sniffed. What was that smell? Perfume? After-shave? She must be imagining things. Stretching her spine, she took a deep breath, opened the dog food cupboard and served Derek’s supper. A floorboard creaked. Must do something about that.
The floorboard creaked again. This time she was standing still. It came from upstairs. Must be the estate agent showing someone around the flat. Silence again. She listened. No cocky estate agent chatter, no striding around admiring original features.
Silence. Footsteps on the oak staircase. Footsteps scraped towards her door. She held her breath. The door handle turned; the door opened – she hadn’t locked it! A figure filled the doorway. Steph grabbed a knife from the knife block and gripped it, ready to act.
‘Hello, Steph, long time no-see.’ He strolled into the room and owned it.
‘Carter! What the fuck are you doing? You scared the shit out of me!’ She slid the knife on the kitchen island behind her back, hoping he hadn’t noticed. He had. He smirked.
Derek bounded up to investigate and Carter chucked a handful of dog treats across the floor. Derek scampered off to hoover them up. Some guard dog! How did Carter know she had a dog?
‘What are you doing here? How d’you know I’d moved?’
He said nothing, taking his time scanning the room before staring her out.
‘How d’you get in? It’s right out of order! Get out now!’ Shaken and shocked, she tried to appear strong and in control, but she heard her voice quivering a little.
He ignored her. ‘Nice flat. Didn’t get an invite to your leaving do.’
‘What do you want?’
‘Just a chat.’
‘What!’
‘About your little mate, Sam.’ He reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a photograph of a boy in his late teens in blue overalls, standing at a workbench and holding a spanner. He was grinning, confident and looking happy in his own skin.
‘Who’s that?’
Carter ignored her. He held the photograph in both hands and pushed it towards her. Steph inspected it and shook her head.
‘You remember, Sam Odawale. Soon be earning shitloads. All because of you.’
He indicated she should take the picture, but she turned away. It had nothing to do with her. Carter stepped to the side and thrust the photograph at her once again.
‘What? Whoever that is, I’m pleased he’s doing well. Now piss–’
‘Rather than being in the nick, you mean? Smoking spice and enjoying the showers.’
All the usual clichés. But then Carter only had three brain cells. What was she doing joining in? She wanted him out.
‘If you don’t go – I will – I’ll call it in!’
‘Don’t think you will somehow.’
‘Will you get out!’ She moved towards the door and held it open. He stood still, stubborn. Her training nudged her. Change tack, de-escalate, get on his side. ‘Look, Carter it’s me, remember? What’s wrong with you?’
‘Nothing’s wrong with me. I need you to do a little favour for me, like you did for him.’ He leaned over her to slam the door, held her shoulders and pinned her back against it, leering into her face. She tried to avoid inhaling his rank breath.
‘No idea what you’re going on about.’
Carter smiled at her and winked and waited. Without warning, he let go of her and prowled around the room, examining her pictures, picking up her few ornaments. Steph felt invaded and had to get him out. Could she reach the knife on the island? As she edged towards it, Carter swivelled round, beat her to it, swept his hand across the worktop and the knife clattered to the floor. He grinned and moved so close she was forced to breath in his cologne, which failed to disguise the sickly smell of his sweat. Steph backed into the bay. Shuttered light from the street outside threw bars across her face. Carter leaned in further and whispered, ‘You thought no one knew. Well, I do, and now you can help me.’
