Free Blood Tracks by Paula Rawsthorne Page A

that he kept investigating her dad’s death. Eventually, he stopped answering her calls. She didn’t see her friends, and even a visit from her running coach had failed to persuade Gina to return to the club. Her mum’s frequent bribes of outings and tickets to gigs were rejected and, as her sixteenth birthday approached, Gina became increasingly anxious. Her mum tried desperately to persuade her to invite all her friends over but Gina refused, mumbling, “I don’t want to do anything. Becky and the girls wouldn’t want to come anyway. We don’t hang around together any more.”
    “But that’s because you don’t go out, Gina. I’m sure that they’d love to celebrate with you,” her mum replied brightly.
    “No, Mum. Please stop going on about my birthday,” she pleaded. “I’ve got nothing to celebrate.”
    When the day arrived, Gina was woken up by her mum and Danny singing “Happy Birthday”. Danny dive-bombed her bed and handed her a large rectangular present, wrapped in newspaper.
    “Come on.” He shook her. “Open it up. It’s a massive bar of chocolate. It cost me all my pocket money, so you might want to share it with me.”
    “Happy birthday, love,” her mum said, kissing her cheek. She handed Gina a small box. Gina sat up and faked a smile for them. She opened the box and stared at the watch. “It’s a special one for runners,” her mum explained. “It’s got a stopwatch and all these other things that I don’t understand, but they’ll tell you how you’re doing when you run.”
    Gina didn’t respond.
    Her mum smiled tensely. “I thought it would be good for when you start running again.”
    Gina’s face crumpled. She covered her eyes with her hands as tears started to trickle down her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I can’t do this without Dad.”
    Her mum rubbed her back. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
    “But it’s not. I want Dad here too, baking me one of his rock-hard birthday cakes, leaving work early to pick me up from school and taking us all out for pizza. I want him to embarrass me like he always did by getting the whole restaurant to sing ‘Happy Birthday’. I want to go and choose a movie with him and let him talk me into renting an old film that he knows I’ll love. I want us all to sit on the sofa and eat popcorn until we feel sick. I want him to make his speech about the day I was born as me and Danny throw popcorn at him and tell him to sit down and, at the end of today, I want to be able to hug him and kiss him goodnight and thank him for another great birthday.”
    The bedroom was filled with the sound of frantic gasping. Gina looked up and saw Danny, shaking with crying.
    “Come here, Danny,” Gina said, feeling guilty for upsetting him. She stretched an arm towards him, but her brother just turned and ran out of the room.
    A few days later Gina was the only one in. She sat cross-legged on her bed and looked over at the collage of photographs which dominated the wall. The fifty photos had become nearly eighty, as she’d hunted out more and more images of her father to add to it.
    “Every day that I don’t find out what happened to you, I feel like I’m letting you down, Dad,” she said bitterly.
    She felt under her mattress and pulled out her notebook. Its cover had become tatty and frayed. She flicked through page after page of information, thoughts, interviews and timelines. The further on she flicked, the more scrawled and chaotic the writing on the page appeared – words became illegible, ink smudges obscured information and deep pen lines scoured through pages as her frustration and distress grew.
    Gina gently rocked back and forth, her eyes closed, her fingertips massaging her aching temples. “Think, Gina, think. Who can help you find answers?”
    The doorbell rang, interrupting her thoughts. She ignored it. She didn’t want to see anyone, but then it rang again.
    Ding dong! Ding dong!
    Whoever was at the door wasn’t going to give