Bound By Blood

by Paul J. Teague

  It was only after a chance encounter in the doctor’s surgery one day and a suggestion that she might like to try the village playgroup that Tiffany finally found out the truth: parenting is, by-and-large, a shitstorm of trial and error and no new parent on earth has a clue what they’re doing. In making the discovery, Tiffany had unlocked a wonderful, free therapy where she could laugh and cry at the terrible things her children did and finally realise it wasn’t her fault.

  She looked forward to Thursdays, the day Georgina didn’t have to go to her part-time job and could come to playgroup with her three children. Tiffany had liked Georgina ever since she’d likened the pair of them to two suckling sows, overwhelmed by youngsters and just wanting to lay on the floor and close their eyes while their piglets drained all life and energy from them.

  Georgina had become a trusted friend as they’d progressed through the playgroup, each adding a child every 13 months or so until they both finally drew the line at three. Georgina was fortunate that the children still had the same father, unlike Tiffany. She could relax with her friend because Georgina knew all about her demons: the post-natal depression, the difficult birth which led to a caesarean, and the psychological bullying David subjected her to.

  ‘I’d put a laxative in Joanne’s cornflakes if I were you,’ Georgina said, laughing. ‘He won’t fancy her so much if she’s stuck in the bathroom all day.’

  Tiffany almost spat out her mouthful of tea at the idea. She loved Georgina for helping her to see the funny side of what was going on, even though it was deadly serious.

  ‘How are you coping with Rowan now? He seems such a sweet little thing.’

  She leaned over to look at the baby who was fast asleep in his car seat at Tiffany’s side. They were surrounded by a post-apocalyptic array of toys on a carpet which would have kept a police DNA team employed for months analysing the various body fluids which the toddlers had left on it. Tiffany had once had to stop Jane from sucking on the corner of the carpet. Her only hope was that it would give her child immunity to any global pandemic which may or may not arise in future years.

  ‘Surely David’s settled, now the baby has arrived? I mean, no man’s ever completely happy because of the interruption to normal service in the bedroom—’

  Tiffany almost lost another mouthful of tea.

  ‘But at least it means we can brush them away for a few months and get some respite from their constant demands. But Rowan must have had some positive impact, surely?’

  Tiffany leaned in.

  ‘Can you keep a secret, Georgie?’

  Georgina leaned in closely, mirroring her friend’s posture.

  ‘This is why I love my Thursdays, Tiff,’ she whispered. ‘You’ve always got some decent gossip for me. I don’t know what I expected from motherhood, but it turns out endless shitty nappies and monosyllabic conversations aren’t enough for me. The monosyllabic conversation is referring to my hubby, by the way, I can have a good chat with the kids.’

  ‘Rowan isn’t David’s.’

  Georgina took a melodramatic intake of breath and her eyes looked like they were about to pop out of their sockets.

  ‘You’re teasing me?’

  ‘I can’t prove it yet, but I’m certain of it. Unless David could make me pregnant through the power of thought, it wasn’t him.’

  Georgina gave Tiffany a soft and playful tap on her arm.

  ‘Good for you,’ she said. ‘That dick of a husband of yours has had it coming for a long time. You should have left him ages ago. At least my marriage is just a dull march towards a relationship lobotomy. David is horrible to you; I don’t know how you’ve put up with it for so long.’

  ‘You know why it is, Georgie. It’s not quite as simple as walking away. But I will, once I’ve secured the children’s future.’

  ‘So, who’s the father? And does David suspect?’

  ‘I love you, Georgie, but there’s no way I’m telling you who the father is. I can’t risk that just yet—’

  ‘How long?’

  ‘Since last summer.’

  Georgie gave her a second playful tap.

  ‘You little devil, good for you.’

  ‘It’s as good as over between David and me now. He can barely conceal his contempt of me. Now he’s got Joanne in the house, he’s all for me getting some personal space. It suits me because I can see Br—’

  ‘Nearly slipped up there!’ Georgina ribbed her.

  ‘When I missed my period, I seduced David one night. You’ve never seen a man so scared in his life. But I had to make sure we’d slept together to cover my trail. I can’t risk having to leave the marriage with no voice in what happens to the land and the money.’

  ‘Golly, that means none of the kids are his—’

  ‘Golly?’

  It was Tiffany’s turn to tease now.

  ‘You’ve been around small children for too long. I think you mean to say, fuck me!’

  ‘That’s exactly what I mean,’ Georgina said with a laugh. ‘That’s lovely dear,’ she continued, speaking to her middle child who had just presented her with an Action Man onto which a Barbie head had been transplanted.

  ‘So, if I’m right about Rowan, none of the children are his. David keeps pushing this adoption thing, but he only wants it for control. He’s not interested in the children; it’s the money and land he wants. I’m not giving him that power. Not now I’ve resolved to leave him—’

  ‘My God, you’re actually going to do it?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve got a plan. I must get this power of attorney rescinded first though, then I can walk away. It’s important to protect the interests of the children.’

  ‘I can get you a paternity test done on the quiet if you want one.’

  Tiffany looked at Georgina. She had a straight face.

  ‘How?’

  ‘I have an old school friend at the university. Let’s just say he’s helped me before.’

  It was Tiffany’s eyes which almost burst out of their sockets this time.

  ‘You didn’t?’

  ‘While we’re having this confessional, I may as well get it off my chest. At least it gives you some ammunition if I ever blurt out your story. I’m not proud of it, but I had a quickie at the back of a restaurant with a waiter in between Toby and Anne. It was on a girl’s night out. I’d drunk too much and was overjoyed at being able to go out for the night.’

  ‘What was the result?’

  ‘Have you not noticed Anne likes setting up pretend tables with the plastic crockery set?’

  ‘No? You’re kidding?’

  Georgina burst out laughing.

  ‘I’m teasing you,’ she laughed, ‘All I got from that waiter was a rash which soon cleared up after a course of antibiotics. My kids are from the same father, but I learnt my lesson. No more asking the waiter what’s on the list of specials.’

  Tiffany reached out and hugged Georgina.

  ‘What was that for?’ her friend asked.

  ‘I love you, Georgie; you keep me sane. Whenever I feel like I’m going crazy, I spend a Thursday morning here with you and I realise we’re the sane ones... it’s everybody else who’s mad.’

  ‘I mean it though,’ Georgina said seriously, ‘we can do it on the quiet and at least you’ll know. It will help secure your parental rights over Rowan and put a lid on David’s control over you. What do you think?’

  Tiffany looked into her friend’s face and saw she meant it.

  ‘Let’s do it,’ she replied at last. ‘When I leave David, I need to make sure everything is watertight. If I don’t take care of all the loose ends, I’ll never get away from him. And I simply can’t bring myself to contemplate how awful that life would be.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Charlotte grasped the meaning of what Hollie had just said a second or two before Callie did. She gasped out loud. Hollie was Jane Irwin?

  ‘Are you there with someone? This isn’t some kind of joke is it?’ Hollie asked.

&
nbsp; Her voice was suddenly defensive.

  ‘Don’t tell her it’s me,’ Charlotte warned Callie in a gentle whisper.

  ‘I’m just here with a friend,’ Callie bluffed. ‘It’s okay, I can trust her. You’re telling me we’re sisters?’

  Charlotte wanted to shout out the entire family tree. The two women didn’t grasp the significance of what had just been said. They had been so young when they were taken to their new parents that they were completely oblivious to their former life. But Charlotte understood.

  ‘That’s what the email said,’ Hollie confirmed. ‘It said we’re bound by blood, even though I don’t know it.’

  ‘But you have two parents and can’t remember any other life before them?’ Callie asked.

  ‘No, I can’t. Sometimes I remember snippets, but I just put them down to not remembering things correctly because I was so young. For instance, I have a recurring memory about me and a friend playing in a woodland area with stairs that went up a slope. My mum and dad told me I must have imagined it—’

  ‘Was it walled?’ Callie asked.

  ‘Yes, how did you know?’

  ‘Because I have the same memory. I assumed I was with a friend too. But was that you? How can it have been you?’

  Charlotte could see Callie was getting upset again, and Hollie’s voice was faltering on the end of the line.

  ‘Did your parents ever tell you that you were adopted?’ Callie asked.

  ‘No,’ Hollie replied. ‘I’m an only child and it’s all I’ve ever known. I love my mum and dad, they’ve been so good to me—’

  ‘Have you challenged them about being adopted yet?’

  ‘No, not yet. How can I do that to them? They’d be heartbroken if I was wrong. I wanted to find out more first. Do you think it’s real? Do you believe we’re really sisters?’

  Charlotte waved at Callie to get her attention.

  ‘Mute the call,’ she mouthed.

  ‘One minute, Hollie, I just need to mute you. I won’t be long—’

  Callie pressed the button and nodded to Charlotte.

  ‘We have to meet her,’ Charlotte began.

  ‘We?’ Callie asked.

  ‘Well, you at first. I want to talk to Hollie, but we need to tread carefully. Don’t tell her I’m coming, please, or it’ll all get difficult—’

  ‘What’s been going on between you?’

  ‘I’ll tell you later,’ Charlotte promised, ‘but let’s just say I reckon we’re all being played here. Ask Hollie if she’ll meet us at The Old Bell in Lancaster. It’s nice and central there; I don’t know if she has a car. We’d better not join her on the campus, I’d prefer to meet on neutral ground.’

  ‘I feel like there’s something you’re not telling me, Charlotte.’

  ‘I’ll tell you after you finish your call. Don’t keep Hollie on hold too long. The Old Bell is in a place called Bashful Alley. I used to go there with my husband when we were students. It’s a tea shop.’

  Callie unmuted the call and made the arrangements. Once she’d ended the conversation, she sat there staring at Charlotte for a while, then burst into tears again.

  Charlotte put an arm around her. ‘It’s a lot to deal with in one day. Don’t worry about it; it’s understandable if you’re overwhelmed by it all.’

  It was like speaking to one of her own children; there wasn’t that much of an age difference. If Olli and Lucia had been adopted, would she have told them? She probably would, but only when the children were older and able to decide whether they wanted to search for their birth parents. She’d always imagined how painful it would be for an adoptive parent to reveal the truth to their child. It was an impossible situation all round.

  There was also a thorny issue which she couldn’t bear to think about: if the children had disappeared beneath the police radar in 2000, had their adoption even been legal? Charlotte had no intention of opening that can of worms. There would be plenty of time for somebody else to raise those questions later.

  ‘Surely your parents are the people who brought you up and loved you?’ Lucia had suggested when they’d discussed the subject at the kitchen table one day. Charlotte knew it wasn’t as simple as that.

  Callie pushed her once again to explain why there were bad feelings between her and Hollie. Charlotte told her everything except that her husband was being held captive. She hadn’t even told her own children, so she wasn’t about to share it with Callie.

  ‘Why would she have tried to contact your husband?’ Callie asked.

  ‘Well, I’m not sure Hollie was acting on her own. When we had our little tussle in the library, she was angry with me. As I told you earlier, I suspect something is amiss here, it doesn’t feel right.’

  Callie started scrolling through her phone apps, opening her emails and searching through them.

  ‘The email address they used could be anybody’s. Look.’

  She held up the device and Charlotte peered at it. She was right. It was easy enough; Lucia had recently taught her how to create disposable emails to sign up for free gifts from a website. The email address disappeared after 24 hours and she avoided all the follow-up marketing afterwards. Charlotte didn’t even know about it until Lucia showed her how it worked. It was highly probable that the email to Callie was untraceable.

  Callie shook her head.

  ‘How come you’ve found out all this information about me, Charlotte, when the police seem clueless?’

  ‘Well, we couldn’t have got the DNA confirmation without the police. The other information came in snippets from a variety of sources. At some point I’m guessing Hollie needs to do a DNA test, just to be certain. I wonder what happened to your brother, Rowan?’

  ‘The email didn’t say anything about a brother,’ Callie replied. ‘It’s weird enough to discover I have a sister. I believed I was an only child, just as Hollie did.’

  ‘I wonder if that’s why your parents adopted you,’ Charlotte mused. ‘If they were unable to conceive, it would make sense. They must have been desperate for you, so it’s no wonder you were loved so much.’

  ‘I feel like everything we’re doing here is betraying my mum and dad.’ Callie began to cry again. ‘I love them both, and I don’t ever want to lose them. But I have to know who I am. Tiffany recognised me straight away, and even Hollie remembers playing in the wooded area.’

  ‘You’re not betraying your mum and dad,’ Charlotte replied. ‘It doesn’t mean you love them any less. Tiffany is your birth mother, and it looks like Hollie may be your sister. You all have a right to find out about your past. And poor Tiffany... I can’t even begin to imagine what she’s endured since you disappeared.’

  Charlotte’s phone rang and Nigel’s name appeared on the screen.

  ‘I need to get this,’ she said.

  ‘Hi Charlotte, where are you?’

  ‘Do you really want to know?’ she replied.

  ‘Yes, and I want to apologise for not having your back earlier. Teddy told me about what you did for Reagan and I just wanted to give you my support in whatever you’re doing. I’m just so worried about you; you seem to attract trouble wherever you go. It’s hard to keep track of you—’

  ‘Nigel, it’s fine, I get it.’

  Charlotte was pleased for the apology; she’d been surprised at Nigel’s response earlier.

  ‘I’m so close now, Nigel. This is going to be an amazing news story. I can’t tell you any of it yet, but I’ll share it with you as soon as I can. We’ve been together on this all along.’

  ‘Okay, thank you. I’ve been feeling bad all morning about what I said.’

  ‘Do you think DI Comfort is trustworthy?’ Charlotte asked.

  ‘Why?’ Nigel asked. ‘He’s been around for years, and he seems like a nice guy. I only have a professional relationship with him, but I’d say he’s respected locally, yes. Why, what do you want to know?’

  ‘Because I need to know who I can trust,’ she replied.

  ‘Well cont
rary to my earlier flakiness, you can rely on me,’ Nigel said. ‘I’m not so daft as to expect you to keep out of trouble, but if you need me, just call. I’ll be ready and waiting whenever you need me, Charlotte.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Charlotte wanted to go back to the industrial unit where she suspected Will was being held, but the telephone conversation with Hollie Wickes had lit another fire in her and she was desperate to find out more about Hollie’s experiences with the mystery sender of the emails. Besides, it wasn’t dark yet, she had to wait until nightfall before returning to the industrial estate.

  She decided to prioritise Hollie first, while she still had an advantage over Vinnie Mace. He wouldn’t yet know how she’d fared after the jet-ski incident. But his ignorance wouldn’t last forever; Fabian Armstrong seemed to have considerable resources at his fingertips.

  ‘We should get going,’ Charlotte said to Callie, who’d been in a world of her own while she was making her call to Nigel. ‘It won’t take Hollie long to hop on a bus and get to the town centre; we mustn’t miss her. Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m stunned by all of this, Charlotte. I just met my birth mother, and only five minutes ago I finished speaking to a woman who claims to be my birth sister. I’ve been completely oblivious to all of this for the past twenty years. It just seems... unbelievable, it’s the only word for it. I assume if I was born as Callie Irwin and none of us drowned in the bay as they suspected, there must be two more people from the past wandering around out there.’

  By Charlotte’s reckoning, there were potentially more than that, but she couldn’t risk overwhelming Callie. Besides, she had a big request for the arranged meeting in Lancaster and she needed her new companion to keep a steady mind.

  ‘Let’s walk back to the car,’ she said. ‘We can chat on the journey.’

  As they returned to the parked vehicle, Charlotte remembered there was a pay phone in the square where she’d caught the bus on her previous impromptu visit. She clicked open the central locking and asked Callie to wait for her while she made a call. She had some change in her pocket, and it was high time she checked in with Kate Summers while she had the opportunity to make an untraceable call.