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  Bad Blood

  Lily Hayden

  Copyright © 2021 Hayden Woods Creative

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 9798589598193

  Bad Blood by Lily Hayden is published by independent publishers Hayden Woods Creative.

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  The Wedding Day

  Tim was the first to receive the call.

  He had barely slept a wink the night before, and he had left the room quietly to avoid waking the children, taking a walk before heading to the restaurant to breakfast alone. Yesterday when they had checked into the Cedar Vale Hotel and Spa, he had glanced over the menu and had been looking forward to the luxury of an unhurried breakfast, but this morning he found that he had no appetite. He knew that he should go back to the room. He should have waited for Eleanor, and they should be breakfasting as a family, but he just couldn’t bring himself to face her.

  His phone, permanently glued to his side, trilled announcing an incoming call and he jumped in surprise, splashing black tea onto his hand and the white linen tablecloth. He squinted at the screen and seeing a local number that he didn’t recognise instead of the name he had been expecting, he let it go to voicemail.

  Rose was the second to receive the call, but the first to answer it. Her alarm had gone off half an hour before, but she was still a little groggy and hazy and had only just managed to prop herself into a sitting position. She could make out the outline of her sister fast asleep and snoring gently in the bed next to her, and she wished, not for the first time, that she could have afforded a room to herself as she took in the chaos of three people’s belongings in such a small space. Belle had commandeered all the hanging space in the tiny wardrobe for her multiple outfit choices, and Rose’s simple dress for the day was hanging over the door to the en-suite bathroom. There was no kettle in the room, and Rose was dying for a cup of tea.

  She was just sat quietly in bed, thinking these quiet, uncomplicated thoughts to herself when her phone rang, and she glanced at the unknown number curiously. She tried to press the touchscreen to answer, but between her wooziness and the phone’s temperamental condition it took two attempts at pressing down hard to accept the call. She didn’t know the person on the other end, and she listened in confusion to the unfamiliar, gentle voice. It was a short call, no longer than two minutes, but when the caller hung up, Rose stared blankly at the wall in front of her, momentarily struck speechless. She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, but it was only when she heard Belle begin to stir that she finally snapped out of her daze.

  At the same time that Belle was waking up in the very basic room of a Bed & Breakfast on the outskirts of the village she’d grown up in near Gloucester, Will Jones was showering down the corridor. He thought that he could hear Craig talking over the sound of the shower, but he didn’t bother calling out to him.

  He can bloody keep talking, Will thought irritably as he lathered his hair with shampoo.

  The water pressure was pitifully weak and nothing like their power shower at home, but he stayed put, dragging out the time to himself. It was only when he started to shiver as the temperature began to dip from lukewarm to just cold that he turned the shower off to wrap himself in the slightly rough towel. He braced himself for a sarcastic comment from Craig about ignoring him or using all the water, but instead he was sat on the edge of the bed looking as pale as the towel draped around Will’s waist.

  Will felt a jolt of panic as he saw his own phone in Craig’s hand and his mind frantically rewound trying to remember if he’d cleared his search history.

  “What’s the matter?” He asked, suddenly terrified of what might come next.

  Not today of all days, Will pleaded silently.

  “You might want to sit down,” Craig said shakily. “Your phone rang while you were in the shower.”

  “Right,” Will was careful to keep his tone level. The last thing he needed was to upset the apple cart today.

  “It’s your dad,” Craig looked up at him, meeting his eyes for the first time. “Will, he’s dead.”

  Three Months Before

  They all received the invitation on the same day.

  As it was, Tim Jones left his house every day at 6am and was rarely home before 7pm. He was practically unreachable to anyone but his colleagues during that time, immersed in the world of banking. He could be reached in dire emergency by contacting his PA, but this was a number only known to Tim’s wife Eleanor and even this contingency had been forced upon Tim after he had almost missed the birth of his second child. He didn’t look at his personal phone until he was back at the house, and so the missed call from his younger sister went unnoticed.

  *****

  Rose Connors passed the local postwoman as she was walking to the bus stop on her way to work. Rose had lived in the same little suburb outside Cardiff for almost all her adult life, and Jenny had been delivering her mail for years.

  “Good morning,” Rose smiled warmly as she passed her at the entrance to the cul-de-sac.

  “Oh, I’ve got something nice for you today!” Jenny exclaimed.

  Rose had approximately three minutes until the bus pulled up around the corner and she couldn’t afford to miss it, but she couldn’t bear to be rude so she waited politely trying to hide her growing anxiety while Jenny rummaged through her brimming bag. The worst part, Rose thought as she tried to not let her impatience show, was that it would no doubt be another overdue bill; that was all she ever got through the letterbox these days.

  “Oh, here it is,” Jenny declared triumphantly as she withdrew a thick, creamy envelope and handed it to Rose with a flourish.

  Rose peered at the unfamiliar handwritten cursive on the front and turned the envelope over, looking for a clue to who this could be from. She didn’t notice Jenny holding out another more basic envelope with the words “Final Demand” stamped across the front in bold red font.

  “Looks like an invitation,” Jenny said conversationally stuffing the envelope back in her satchel when it became clear Rose hadn’t noticed her outstretched arm. The woman always looked harassed, Jenny decided quickly, there was no point in spoiling her day with the remainder of the mail. It could all wait until she got home. “I’ll pop the rest through your door, lovely. Nothing else interesting.”

  “Thank you,” Rose smiled gratefully as she turned back towards her path.

  She slid the edge of her nail into the seal wiggling it around until the rigid flap started to give, and she could pry the stiff card envelope open. Rose caught a glimpse of a single square of ivory-coloured card, a pattern of scattered leaves across the top that gave way to a line of deeply embossed gold font below.

  ‘Francis & Linda Request the Pleasure of Your Company to Celebrate Their Marriage…’

  Francis?

  Rose wrinkled her nose in confusion. Her father’s full name was Francis, but everyone knew him as Frank, and besides, if he was getting married surely, he’d have told her that he’d met someone. She ripped the rest of the envelope in her haste to find out, drawing to a complete halt to take it all in.

  ‘Francis & Linda Request the Pleasure of Your Company to Celebrate Their Marriage on Saturday 2nd June at St Michael’s Church, Hampton Dale, Nr. Gloucester at 2pm.

  Reception to follow at Bluebell Farm.

  RSVP to Linda Lambe on….’

  Her heart jumped into her mouth in complete surprise as she recognised her father’s address and home telephone number. She had to admit that
she didn’t see her father very often, or speak to him that regularly for that matter, but she’d never even heard of whoever this Linda Lambe was. Surely, he would have mentioned if he’d met someone when she spoke to him at Christmas. She stared at the invitation for a moment before another thought crossed her mind.

  I wonder if the others have been invited, she pondered, but before she could even begin to speculate if they had and what that might mean, she heard the familiar rattle of the bus turning into the stop ahead of her and she had no choice but to stuff the fancy card into her bag, and break into a run for the last two-hundred metres.

  *****

  Will Jones was executing a near-perfect piece of parallel parking outside an empty warehouse in South West London, the location of today’s shoot. Radio One had been playing some classic 90’s pop on his drive to work and he’d had a little karaoke session to get himself in the mood for the day. He turned the volume down, but kept the car running as he spotted his best friend Raya, face barely visible beneath a bright red puffa-coat, darting towards him through the drizzle.

  “Hey buddy,” she wrenched the door open and flopped into the seat, slipping her hood back to reveal a honey-coloured cloud of hair around her pretty face. She reached into her coat to withdraw an ivory-coloured envelope. “This came for you. You need to change your address, Will.”

  He took it from her, barely glancing at the writing on the front, his mind already on the shoot ahead of them. “Yeah, sorry. By the time I get around to telling everyone, I’ll have probably moved again.”

  “I hope you’re joking,” Raya shot him a disapproving look. “Trouble in paradise already?”

  Will looked away sharply and pretended to study the envelope in his hands. “No, of course not. I’ve changed all my bills and stuff; it looks like an invitation so…” He trailed off unsure where he was even going with it and opened the heavy card as a diversion.

  Even without looking at her, he could sense that Raya could tell he was avoiding her question and was warming up for an inquisition, but before he could think of a deflection, his eyes fell on the wording of the invitation making his breath catch in his throat.

  “What’s the matter?” Just as he’d predicted, she’d been gearing up to interrogate him about Craig, but seeing his face pale beneath his year-round tan, she thought better of it.

  “It’s from my dad,” Will said, and to his horror, his eyes welled up with tears.

  *****

  Belle Hudson’s eyes were stinging with fatigue as she returned from the school run. She’d been working nights for the past few months, but her body clock was refusing to sync leaving her permanently exhausted. She stepped over the threshold to her flat, ignoring the clutter of post on the mat. She headed straight to the kitchen to flick the kettle on to boil. She frowned at the absence of the familiar sound of the kettle kicking into life, and her tired eyes followed the wire back to the plug to check it was switched on. It had been working fine when she’d arrived home this morning, and baffled she switched it off then on to try again.

  Nothing.

  She looked around the kitchen, still hazy and disorientated, before her gaze settled on the microwave display, the usual incorrect time missing.

  Bloody Ben, she grimaced in frustration.

  She pushed the clean mug away in irritation heading to the electricity meter to confirm her suspicions. She should have known he was too irresponsible to keep on top of it, she thought annoyed at herself for not reminding him. It wasn’t the first time that he’d messed up, and she groaned aloud in exasperation at the thought of heading back out to the shop when all she wanted to do was fall asleep.

  I should never have agreed to moving in with him, Belle scowled.

  But now she was stuck with him. The rent was too high for her on her current wage, plus there was no way she could keep her job if she was on her own. She had no childcare other than Ben and she was acutely aware that it was impossible to get a job with hours that worked around Toby. It was this, or back on benefits and she was fiercely determined that that wasn’t a route she was willing to go down. As she headed back out, she noticed the ivory envelope sticking out amongst the junk mail and flyers that the postman had shoved through the door. It stood out to her amongst the cheap, bold leaflets and intrigued, she scooped it up off the mat, turning the envelope over in her hands.

  Belle Jones.

  She frowned, puzzled at seeing her old name in swirly, fancy print on the front.

  Who would write to me at this address that knows me as that?

  The image of her brothers and sister popped into her head, and she felt a burst of excitement as she tore the envelope open. Her eyes frantically raced over the words and the excitement disappeared as her stomach filled with dread.

  Rose

  Rose’s day started just like all her other days; her bladder woke up at 6am and pinged emergency signals to her brain. For a few hazy moments, it was a stand-off between the warm, cosy cocoon of her bed and the pressing urgency to pee. It crossed her mind that one day her wakeup-pee schedule would fall out of sync and she would have to resort to those massive incontinence pads that they sold alongside boxes of tampons in Asda. She was only forty, yet this seemed suddenly inevitable, just like death.

  She pondered these cheerful thoughts as she attended to the call of nature, wishing her bladder could just wait until her alarm went off. Once out of bed, she was wide awake as always, so there was no point even trying to slip back between the sheets until the scheduled alarm. The house, icy-cold for nine-tenths of the year, took forever to warm up, so she wrapped herself in a scruffy, purple robe to wander down to the kitchen for a morning cup of tea. Since her youngest son had moved away to study in September, she’d been at a loss of how to fill her spare time and sleeping had become the only comfort from the loneliness of her empty-nest.

  Well, almost my only comfort, she thought glancing at the half-empty Supermarket-Value Gin bottle on the side. Rose quickly stashed it back in the cupboard under the sink. Out of sight, out of mind.

  She ignored the uncomfortable gnawing feeling in the pit of her stomach that was made up of half-guilt, half the contents of her liquid supper swishing around undigested and turned her mind to the day ahead as she pottered around, tidying utensils that weren’t out of place just for something to do.

  Three weeks ago, she had started a new, full-time job as a Sales Executive, which she had soon realised was just a fancy name for pushy Tele-Sales. Despite her very valid reservations about the role, it was actually a welcome distraction from the constant state of melancholy since Jack had jumped ship to join the big, bad world. He was the younger of her two sons; his older brother Tom was in his final year of a Psychology degree in Manchester with no signs of planning to return to Cardiff when he graduated. On one hand, she was almost ablaze with maternal pride that they were both in University and on the other, she was despondent that her role as a mother now seemed redundant. There was another ugly sliver of emotion that she tried to ignore recognising it as bitter envy. As proud as she was of her offspring, it was a stark reminder that she had given up on her own dreams in order to be their mother, dropping out of her teaching course at nineteen when she fell pregnant with Tom.

  She’d launched herself fully into motherhood, shelving any aspirations in exchange for nappies, bottles, and Mummy groups. Her then-husband Phil had been more than happy for her to be a stay-at-home-mother for the best part of the boys’ lives, content with her handling the housework and the school runs, the constant activities and the attitude while he climbed the ranks from newly-qualified teacher to Head of Department at Wakefield Comprehensive school and continued with his pre-children hobbies of bi-weekly football matches and nights down the pub. In fact, he had positively encouraged it, discouraging her from going back to finish her course. He certainly showed no signs of resentment when she was the one getting up at 6am on a Sunday morning to drive the boys to football tournaments up-and-down the country or stripping b
edding and handing out sick bowls at 3am during bouts of childhood illness while he snored blissfully on the sofa after one too many beers with his mates. After Jack had started secondary school, Phil began to make little snide comments about Rose getting a job, but by then the only positions she was remotely qualified for were ones Phil considered beneath their socio-economic status.

  “You can’t work there!” She could remember him snarling at her applications to shops and factories. “People will think we’re having money troubles!”

  The memory brought a flush of shame to her cheeks at the way she’d let Phil dictate to her. The truth was they bloody well were having financial difficulties, thanks to Phil and his desperate need to keep up with the Joneses. She shook her head, chasing away the bitter memories of Phil and his controlling, manipulative ways.

  To think, I’d been devastated when he left me. Arsehole.

  She studied herself in the hallway mirror as she walked past, cup of tea in hand. There was no way she could stretch out another day without washing her hair. Unfortunately, dry shampoo was a luxury these days, just like keeping the heating on and running a car, so reluctantly she headed to the shower. Halfway through the tedious task of blow-drying it, she gave up trying to coerce the grey-streaked tangles into some semblance of a presentable ‘do and clipped it all up into an unflattering bun at the back of her head. She regarded her sallow, puffy skin and the thin lines that were webbing out from the corners of her eyes and her mouth in the mirror.

  Oh, what’s the point in even trying?

  She pulled on the first items of clothing from her wardrobe, passed the point of caring, and headed out to the bus stop for the twenty-minute trip, alighting at the business park just outside of the town centre. The journey was already growing familiar, and she usually spent the twenty minutes leafing through the notes she’d made from training and testing herself ready for the daily recap quiz, but today she couldn’t think of anything other than her father’s upcoming nuptials.