Sophie Morgan (Book 2): Death in the Family

by Treharne, Helen

  Death in the

  Family

  The sequel to Relative Strangers

  By

  Helen Treharne

  Copyright © 2015 by Helen Treharne. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. Any resemblance to individuals living or dead (or undead) is coincidental. Cover created by Mannish. Image courtesy of © Olaf Speier.

  About the Author

  In addition to being the creator of the developing “Sophie Morgan" series, Helen is an urban poet and social commentator who can frequently be found ranting in the Twitterverse. She knew the degree in Sociology would come in handy some day!

  Helen lives with her husband in South Wales along with three cats, an entrenched tea addiction and an increasing collection of stringed instruments. When she’s not writing she spends her time daytime hours working in communications and PR and volunteers for a feline welfare charity. She also runs a very popular book blog.

  Given she has little downtime, she spends far too much of it watching Supernatural and Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

  Books by the Author

  Sophie Morgan Vampire Series

  #1 Relative Strangers

  #2 Death in the Family

  Urban Poetry

  Poverty, Pills and the ‘Port

  Flash Fiction and Short Stories

  Off The Bench

  All available at Amazon

  Acknowledgements

  As always, the first shout out goes to my husband David for sneaking quietly around my study, bringing mugs of tea at appropriate intervals.

  My appreciation also has to go to my editor, Alison Williams. Working with you was painless! Not only did she help make Death in the Family an even better book than the first one, she didn’t make me cry in the process.

  Thanks too to Helen Rose, my friend, writer and supporter, whose experience in the final proof was invaluable.

  A final thanks has to go to all the other indie writers out there who have given me their ongoing support. Laurie, Jean, Nonnie, Nicholas….there are too many for me to even mention.

  1

  The peachy glow of the February sunrise shone through the bedroom window casting shadows on the wall. Julie Morgan lay in bed for a long while, bathing in the sun that illuminated but did not warm. Spring was attempting an early visit to Bethesda, but the air remained crisp and refreshing. A hint of frost coated the shrubs outside.

  Her home and the village were both still. It was early, but her father had already left for work. The silence was reassuring. The stillness of the cosmos, of her home, of the world outside, embraced her and she felt soothed by the quietness. Everything was exactly as it should be. A long, shallow, cleansing breath parted her lips as she soaked it in.

  Life moved inside Julie, nudging her to get up and begin the day. It wouldn't be long before the baby would be nestled in her bosom. In a few short months, she'd be a mother, no longer a child herself. Everything would be different. It was a sacrifice she welcomed. It would all be worth it - all the pain, even the fact that she was doing this alone. Yes, she could tolerate the torment of his abandoning her, of his never knowing that she was carrying his child. She’d swallowed it down as soon as she'd discovered the joyful news; well, at least when she’d told her parents and realised she wasn't completely alone. They were standing by her. No, no point dwelling on the past, it was all about the future. It was all about her. Everything was going to be pure love.

  Stretching her arms high above her head, she rose from her bed and pushed her swollen feet into her slippers. Her painted toenails peeked through them. She wiggled them, the act prompting an unexpected giggle.

  It took Julie a few minutes to put on clean underwear and pull the loose smock she'd laid out the night before over her head. It wasn't particularly flattering, but she no longer cared; it was comfortable and less restrictive than her school uniform.

  As she ran a brush through her long red hair, she noticed the postman through the window. He loitered for a moment by the garden gate, struggling with the bulging bag of letters. Once his load was adapted to his satisfaction, he moved along; another day without any post for her, no letter from Kasper. Despite a fleeting twinge of disappointment, she had at least stopped waiting for him to turn up in person.

  Six months has passed without sight or sound of Kasper. There had been no contact since he had lain in her arms that fateful night; the night they had slept together, the night she had woken up alone.

  A kaleidoscope of emotions had engulfed her on their meeting - desire, love, belonging, fear, worry, despair, anger. Now she wasn't sure what she felt about him. What she did know was that she had to protect their baby, her baby. But her blood pressure was already dangerously high. It was best to avoid lighting the emotional touch paper, sensible to shut out thoughts of her lost love.

  Her heart, her world, had opened up the night she met Kasper in a dingy little cafe bar in Copenhagen. Drunk on peach schnapps and the freedom of her first overseas adventure, she had thought him the most beautiful creature she'd ever seen.

  Until then, Julie had never left Wales without her parents. Never been abroad, never been in love. That summer she experienced all three - a result of a reciprocal cultural exchange with a Danish student. Birgitte had visited Julie for two weeks at the end of the spring term. Julie was spending four weeks in Copenhagen, a longer period due to it being the summer holidays. The exchange had been coordinated by her school and was intended to broaden her horizons and increase her marketability to universities. It had certainly achieved one of those things.

  In addition to the museums, the galleries and the Little Mermaid, she'd also seen Copenhagen nightlife. It was an exciting world out there, full of potential, full of change; everything was evolving. The exchange had been considerably more reserved when her Danish friend visited Bethesda, the village on the outskirts of the South Wales valleys where Julie was raised. The most exciting places that Julie took her guest were Bethel, the larger industrial town that Bethesda was technically a part of, and Cardiff. Prior to her trip to Denmark, Julie had thought the capital city was exciting. Then she'd been to Copenhagen. It was huge by comparison, and although there was a lot to see, you could walk or cycle everywhere. Plus it was clean - really clean.

  The girls had been in the basement of a student-friendly bar near Vesterbro when she had first met Kasper. Two small glasses of a fruit-flavoured spirit had lubricated her limbs and loosened her inhibitions. She’d danced unfettered by shoes to a Divinyls' track, experiencing nightclubs for the first time, amazed by the freedom and anonymity they afforded. Then Kasper had entered. He was cool and intense, an expensive looking camera draped around his neck. Flashes lit up dingy corners as he took snaps of the scene around him. At first she had pretended not to notice his pale skin, his dense spiked dark hair and enigmatic eyes, but as she had spun and writhed around, their eyes had met and the deal was done.

  Kasper was a photography student at the university, a few years her senior, and took the lead. His nervousness surprised her as he rummaged through coins and notes to buy her a drink. Young men didn't normally approach her. The few she ever came into contact with worked with her father at his hardware shop. Tom, the handyman her parents used for odd jobs, was polite and good looking, but he had never invited her out on a date. They only had to talk to her and her father would shoot th
em a warning glare. Now this mysterious, dark stranger was asking to buy her a drink. Even more staggering, he was nervous. Julie wasn't used to alcohol and opted for coffee - she suspected she'd made a fool of herself already. Kasper opted for coffee too - how cosmopolitan, she thought.

  They sat in a quiet corner, immersed in conversation for the rest of the evening, oblivious to their original companions and the world around them. Birgitte sat patiently; attempting to chat to Kasper's older brother, Kurt, a Ph.D. student who replied to most of her questions monosyllabically.

  But Julie and Kasper didn't care. They were oblivious to the world around them. They didn't hear the band, that came on to replace the music piped through the stereo system behind the bar; nor did they notice when the band began packing and everyone else started leaving. They only heard the other's voice. Sparks flew when their fingers brushed against each other, pinprick jolts down her body. When their lips eventually brushed in a tentative kiss, she felt her body melt, just as night melted into day.

  The weeks that followed their meeting were a hazy montage of snatched moments, hesitant embraces and deep gazes. Kasper took hundreds of photographs of her, consumed by his passion, trying to capture whatever piece of her he could before her imminent departure. She too knew their time together was finite, precious, although she didn't want to think about what it would mean for her to leave him. Julie felt like a child in many ways, but he had awakened feelings in her she didn't want to suppress. She ushered them in. She didn’t want to fight the knowledge that they belonged to each other - to deny the truth that, at only seventeen, she had met the man she was meant to spend the rest of her life with.

  Then, on an uncharacteristically wet night, he had failed to turn up for their date. She and Birgitte had stood huddled under an umbrella for almost an hour before they begrudgingly walked back to the apartment and an evening of playing cards with Birgitte's family.

  When daylight came, she called the number of his family home on the outskirts of the city.

  "Hej," Kurt said brusquely.

  "Kurt?"

  "Yes, Julie?"

  "Oh, yes. Yes, it's me. Is Kasper there please?" she asked.

  "No." His reply was definitive. Its sternness startled her. A startled "oh" escaped her lips without her thinking. It broke the silence, but she didn't know where to go next. Kurt had never spoken more than a few words to her. He had never looked her in the eye. Once he even walked out of the room as soon as he was alone with her. He couldn't stand to be with her for the time it took for Kasper to go to the kitchen and grab them some sodas.

  "Is there anything I can do for you?"

  Flustered and embarrassed, she told him that Kasper had not turned up for their date the previous evening. "I'm sure there's a good reason," she said. "I was just worried something might have happened, or that he might think I was cross at him for forgetting our date or something."

  Kurt took a deep breath before answering. Neither he nor his parents had heard from Kasper, but that wasn't unusual. "You shouldn't worry. He will often disappear for days," Kurt said, adding that Kasper often wandered off without telling anyone his movements. His passion for photography would often take him venturing further afield. "Don't worry Julie; he'll be off with his camera somewhere."

  "Yes, well, could you please tell him that I called when he does show his face? I'm leaving soon and I was hoping to see him again before I go. I'll spend my final few days here worrying if I don't hear from him."

  "Of course," Kurt said, his words uncharacteristically kind. "I'll tell him."

  Julie spent the remainder of the day frantically wondering where Kasper was, whether he was safe and well, or whether he was simply choosing to ignore her. She dragged Birgitte around their favourite spots in the hope of seeing him. They checked in coffee shops, art galleries and walked the length of the harbour. Yet Kasper was nowhere to be seen.

  Then, later that night, Kasper answered her prayers and appeared on Birgitte's doorstep.

  The house was still and quiet, all residents asleep in their beds. Julie was the only one who could not settle, thoughts of Kasper churning around her mind. Despite her exhaustion, sleep would not come.

  It was already dark, but she gazed hopefully out of the window nevertheless.

  If she hadn't been looking out of the small window in the guest bedroom, she wouldn't have even known Kasper was there, pathetic and trembling. Then he collapsed into the refuse bins crowding the entrance of the apartment building, and she knew something was very, very wrong.

  Her host family did not stir as she tiptoed across the landing to the apartment door, carefully manoeuvred the lock and closed the door behind her, allowing it to rest gently on the latch. She raced down three flights of cold, tiled steps and swung the door open with excitement and anxiety. Her heart pounded in her chest. He was here! It was him! Then her heart sank as she became sadly aware of the condition of his clothes, the blood on his shirt, the sweat pouring from his face.

  She ushered the fevered young man into the hallway, pushing him up the stairs in front of her so that, although he stumbled, he couldn't fall backwards and hurt himself. He moaned and collapsed into the front door so she tenderly placed her hand over his mouth and told him to be quiet. With an almost supernatural ability, she navigated him in his stupefied state down the hallway and into the small guest room at the end. It was barely big enough to accommodate her; it contained a single bed and a table just big enough for a small lamp. Her clothes and personal possessions were stored in her suitcase which she had managed to force under the bedstead.

  Kasper stumbled through the door and collapsed onto the dishevelled bed, garbling words which were barely audible. She held him and he calmed. Kasper told her that he had little recollection of the previous twenty-four hours, but he knew it must have been bad. His white shirt was drenched in blood, his eyes blackened and his torso covered with bruises. He'd awoken in a strange place, alone and frightened. When he had heard footsteps coming towards the door, he’d made a dash out of the window, down the fire escape and ran. He’d run until he found himself on her doorstep. He’d left this camera and leather jacket, his two most prized possessions, behind him on the bed in the mysterious room.

  She peeled the sodden clothing from his limbs and welcomed him into her bed and her embrace. Kissing away his tears, she silently vowed to protect him, promised to keep him safe. She absorbed the burning heat from his body into her own and soothed him. They made love in whispers and sowed the seed for a future together, but by morning Kasper had carefully and silently crept out and away.

  Julie never knew when he left her side exactly, where he went or what happened to him. She attempted to find out of course. She rang his parents again, describing the state in which Kasper came to her, told them that he had been attacked, that he was injured. They had made her feel like she was overacting and exaggerating the state Kasper was in. He was probably drunk, they said, a little rattled perhaps. He would often disappear for days, they told her. He was a free spirit and she shouldn't worry.

  When Julie finally left Denmark later that week she left the hope of a future with him behind. Had she been used? Was it all a lie? She found that difficult to believe; it didn't seem like him, it didn't feel like him. But what other explanation was there? The idea of him lying dead in a ditch somewhere filled her with horror. Abandonment was a less disturbing notion.

  If Kasper returned to his family, they made no attempt to contact her. She wrote to them a few times when she first returned home, but they didn't reply. It surprised her. She thought his brother would have been in touch. Then again, she’d also had the impression that Kurt was uncomfortable around her, as if trying to suppress a hidden distaste. When she had discovered she was pregnant shortly after, she considered calling them, but dismissed it.

  Kasper was either dead or happy somewhere else, possibly with someone else. Perhaps one day she would turn a corner and bump into him, or she’d get a letter out of the blue. She w
ouldn't hold her breath till then.

  Until then, all that mattered was the bump - the squirming bundle of joy and hope wriggling its behind into her bladder. She placed a hand on her swollen stomach and rubbed it in a circular motion. Squirm wriggled some more, but soon settled. The urge to urinate subsided as quickly as it arrived.

  She felt glorious, despite the discomfort and despite having to sport the navy smock and support socks. Her school uniform no longer fit her. It was good that her mother was handy with a sewing machine. The headmaster agreed the smock, fashioned in school colours, was an acceptable alternative. Otherwise he would have expelled her. Her father offering to sponsor the next school theatrical production, by donating materials from his hardware shop to build sets, helped a little too. The birth would be over in time for her A-Level exams, although university was off the cards for now. She had promised her parents she would consider applying to Cardiff in a year or so, once things had settled down, but she suspected that it was a promise that all sides knew it was unrealistic to make.

  Her quiet solitude was disrupted by a gentle rap on the bedroom door and the hushed growl of the creaking door brushing over the thick pile carpet.

  "Julie, are you decent?"

  She didn't have time to respond before her mother crossed the room and stood by her side. She placed a cup of steaming tea on the windowsill. The words 'World's Best Daughter' were written in bold lettering on the side.

  They gazed out of the window together at the distant Technicolor landscape. It had been a mild winter with plenty of rain; the leaves remained on the trees and daffodils were already starting to bloom. Crocuses, beaten down by the weather, trumpeted a hopeful hello at the world.