Kim smiled at the expression on her face.
‘I think I fell in love with him that night. We clicked. We made sense together, and he made me feel a way I’d never felt before. I knew I’d met my person.’
‘And your families?’
‘We didn’t say anything for months. We both thought it might fizzle out and we’d have no need to upset our families, but time just strengthened what we felt for each other and we knew we had to stop lying. My mum turned into someone I didn’t even recognise when I told her. Her face hardened, and she ordered me out of the house with just the clothes on my back. I begged her to be reasonable but her last words to me were, “You are no daughter of mine. You are dead.”’
Kim could see the pain in her face at the memory.
‘I started walking, and Martin caught me up. He gave me two bin bags of clothes and told me he never wanted to see me again.’
‘Despite your closeness?’ Kim asked.
‘Yes, I miss him the most. William was worse. I think he takes the feud even more seriously than my mum. He told Martin to burn all my clothes. He has a hot temper, but I thought once he calmed down he’d reach out to me.’ She shrugged. ‘It was a false hope. There was no greater sin I could have committed. I could have broken any law and they would have stood in front of me… but not after fraternising with a Hubbard.’
‘And Eric’s family?’
‘Pretty much the same. Eric told his dad first. He’d always been slightly more reasonable than his mum, but ultimately the response was the same. Now he’ll never get the chance to make it up with him.’
‘Will his mum see him?’
‘Only if he agrees to leave me. Especially after what’s happened.’
‘Does Eric blame you?’
She shook her head. ‘It’s not our fight. We always said that they wouldn’t rest until someone got killed.’
‘You know your mum is going to be charged with murder? She’s openly admitted it.’
‘She’s capable,’ Donna said, shaking her head sadly. ‘I just wish I could do something to help, but no one will answer my calls. Not even Martin.’
‘You know about his health?’
Tears spilled from her eyes as she nodded. ‘I can’t bear the thought that he’s going to… and I can’t even see him.’
Her head fell into her hands as sobs wracked her body. She couldn’t even voice the words.
Kim felt a mixture of sadness and frustration course through her. Families were shattered and broken, children estranged, and now someone was dead.
‘How did the feud get to this, Donna? How did it all start? Does anyone even know any more?’
‘Oh, we all know how it started,’ Donna said, raising her tear-stained face.
‘Tell me,’ Kim said, eager for an answer to the question that had been in her head for days.
‘I will… but you’re never going to believe me.’
Thirty
Penn stared at his lunch as he picked up his phone for the third time. And then put it back down again. The Costa ham and cheese toastie had been toasted in the fires of hell, and each bite threatened to ulcerate his mouth. Yes, he could have taken it back and complained and he’d have been given another one, but he didn’t do things like that. He never complained about anything.
He remembered once in a restaurant when he’d mentioned his steak being overcooked. He’d witnessed the chef being chewed up by an overbearing manager, and he’d felt mortified that the man had been forced to take a public dressing-down on his account. He’d never done it since. He didn’t like making waves, and that was the cause of his current indecision.
There was something amiss in the Chance household. It was more than just a secret KFC bucket that the parents didn’t want to share with the kids. It wasn’t just the fact the parents couldn’t be bothered to educate their kids or that they allowed them to run wild on an estate that saw its fair share of physical and sexual abuse. The place was littered with sex offenders, drug addicts and dealers, and the supervising child wasn’t even into double figures. It was a crime scene waiting to happen. No, what was bothering him was all of those things plus the fact that one of the children had returned home with a fresh injury and neither parent had even asked how it had happened.
With that in mind, he finally picked up his phone again and scrolled down to the contact that could help.
The woman answered on the second ring.
