Blood on the Marsh (DI Susan Holden 3)

‘I wish I could stay here forever.’

People are hard to understand. I didn’t know what to say, so I changed the subject. ‘Do you want to know a secret?’ I said. I was bursting to tell someone, and she was the best person to tell. Except maybe Jaz. But Jaz was always too busy.

‘What secret?’ She looked at me with eyes wide open. They were red, but she had definitely stopped crying.

‘I met my mother today.’

She really did look surprised. I was pleased. ‘What are you talking about?’

‘I met my real mother today. She bought me an ice cream. Her name is Bella.’

‘What do you mean, your real mother? Mum is your mother.’

‘Mum is my adopted mother, you know that. Bella is my real mother.’

Then Vickie said something terrible. Or rather she shouted something terrible, at the top of her voice. ‘Mum is your real mother, you idiot! She is the one that has loved you since you were little.’

‘Bella has always loved me,’ I said. I knew that because she had told me so, while I was eating the ice cream.

But Vickie just shouted at me again, about how ungrateful I was. And then she picked up her rucksack and her coat and said she was going home to tell Mum.

That made me angry. Really, really angry. So I grabbed her. I am much bigger than her, so it was easy to grab her by the upper arms and shake her. ‘It’s a secret,’ I shouted. ‘You mustn’t tell anyone. Bella said it had to remain a secret.’

She tried to break free, but I’m strong, and I held her tight until she stopped struggling.

‘Let me go,’ she whined.

‘Not until you promise to keep it a secret.’

She looked up at me then and I could see that she was scared. ‘I promise,’ she said.

But I didn’t believe her. I couldn’t be sure she wouldn’t tell her mum. Her mum. Not mine. Bella had told me I had to start thinking of her as my mother, and Vickie’s mother as my adopted mother. But we had to keep it a secret for now.

‘Say it again.’

‘I promise,’ she said. ‘David, I really do promise.’

This time I believed her. Almo

st. I gripped her arms even harder, digging my fingers into her flesh, and she started to cry. I pushed my face close up to hers. ‘If you ever tell anyone, I will kill you’, I said, and I snarled as I spoke. I wanted to really, really frighten her. Then I let her go.

‘What are you doing here?’

Bella Sinclair recognized the voice only too well, but she resisted the urge to turn round. She had known that by coming back to Sunnymede she risked the chance of bumping into him, but he held no fears for her. When Fran had helped her get the job, she had been broke and so very glad of it, but now things were different. As jobs went, it wasn’t exactly the be-all and end-all of her life, and if she lost it because of that bastard, then so be it. As she had walked up Fitzroy Close that morning, it had been anger that fuelled her, not fear. She had found herself reciting the conversation she would have if she bumped into him, and she had graphically imagined the scene – her and him having a stand-up row in front of a crowd of fascinated onlookers. Of course, reality rarely lives up to fantasy, but when she heard his voice, she was ready for him.

‘You’re suspended,’ Greenleaf bellowed. ‘You have to leave now!’

She turned round. His face was flushed, but seeing this only strengthened her resolve. ‘I’m so sorry, Mr Greenleaf.’ Her voice was mocking. ‘Have I done something wrong?’

‘What the hell are you doing here?’

Her face and her voice hardened. ‘What the hell does it look like? I’ve come to get some things from my locker.’

‘You know you’re not allowed on the premises!’

‘As it happens, I didn’t. I’ve never been suspended before. But I’ll go as soon as I’ve collected my things.’ She turned her back on him and pulled open the locker door. In fact she had already got what she needed, but that wasn’t the point. She removed a copy of a Susan Shields novel that she had already read twice, and pushed it into the hessian bag she was carrying. She would go when she was ready and not before. Besides, she was aware that she had an audience of at least two. A man and woman were standing several metres away along the corridor beyond Greenleaf, and they were obviously fascinated.

‘You’ll go now, or it’ll be all the worse for you.’