The Sister: A psychological thriller with a brilliant twist you won't see coming (26 page)

T
he stench
in the room is acrid and sour: vomit mingled with urine. Stale sweat clings to my skin and pyjamas and I wish I could reach the window to gulp in fresh air. The rain drums against the panes and I’m desperate to be outside, to feel the drops splatter onto my upturned face, trickle down my neck. My grandparents will welcome the downpour. Grandma was worried the dry spell was lasting too long, and it’s almost time for Grandad to plant the bulbs; the earth will be nice and soft if he’s well enough to do it today. I wonder how they are, if I’ll ever see them again. I feel light-headed and I clutch the duvet to quash the sensation that I’m floating away.

The bed in the spare room creaks. Anna’s footsteps march across the landing and the bathroom door squeaks as she pushes it open. My heart rate doubles. I haven’t cleared up the mess from last night yet and I daren’t risk making her angrier. I quickly sit up, lowering my feet to the floor. My body aches like it did when I first started yoga, and my movements are jerky as I shuffle to the bucket. My quad muscles quake as I squat and wee. I push the bucket as far from the bed as I can reach, pick up the roll of black sacks and tear one off. I slide the tray into the sack and tie the neck. I consider tossing it across the room but tuck it under the bed instead. It’s not heavy, but I may be able to hit Anna with it, surprise her somehow, and wrestle the key from her. I take this idea and bundle it with all the other straws I’ve clutched at.

My muscles tense as the door swings open.

‘Morning.’ Anna smiles. ‘Sleep well?’

I bite back my sarcasm. ‘I’ve been thinking. How about we go to Charlie’s grave today? You and me. Or we can take Lexie, if you want to. It’s unfair that…’

‘That sounds great,’ Anna beams.

‘Really?’

‘No,’ she snaps.

I flop back onto my pillow. ‘How about a cup of tea at least?’ I could throw it in her face, I think.

Anna’s eyes narrow. She picks up the bucket and leaves without a word; the toilet flushes and her footsteps thunder down the stairs. Much as I hate the bucket, I panic that she might not bring it back. I close my eyes and strain to hear what she’s doing. Water gushes through the pipes as the kitchen taps are turned on. I feel like Spiderman with my heightened senses. Anna returns wearing my Cath Kidston apron, one hand clasped around a plastic cup, the other carrying the bucket. I pick at a piece of stray cotton trailing from the seam of the duvet and watch her out of the corner of my eye. How’s she going to get the tea to me without a tray? She walks slowly towards the bed. Adrenaline courses through my body. I place my palms on the mattress and shift my weight slightly, angle my legs, getting ready to kick her as hard as I can. She stops. Puts down the bucket. Places a hand in the apron pocket and pulls out my paring knife. Its blade glints, and bile rises in my throat.

‘Just in case you get any funny ideas.’ She puts my tea on the bedside table and backs away, her eyes locked onto mine.

I break her gaze and pick up the cup, but I can’t suppress the violent shaking of my hand and beige liquid slops onto my thigh.

‘It’s cold.’ I sip the tea to double-check. It’s a risk drinking anything she’s given me, but I’m so thirsty now, I gulp it down.

‘Of course. Do you think I’m stupid?’

‘No. You’re upset. Understandably so. Let me go, Anna. I won’t tell anyone. The decorators will be here tomorrow, anyway.’ I’m whining like one of the toddlers I look after at Little Acorns when they get over-tired, but I can’t help it.

‘Don’t worry, Grace.’ Anna runs a finger along the spine of the knife, taking a step towards me. ‘It will be over very soon.’

The walls feel like they’re closing in on me, the ceiling coming down. There’s not enough air in the bedroom. When Charlie died, all I wanted was to be with her, but now I’m so scared I’m going to die, I realise how much I want to live.

And then the doorbell chimes.

* * *

A
nna strides from the room
, slamming the door behind her, and I kneel on my bed and scream and scream until I feel I’m about to faint. Two sets of footsteps thud up the stairs and I’m giddy with relief that I’ve been heard, that I’ll be saved. I put my hands on my hips and lean forwards, panting as though I’ve run a marathon.

The door bursts open and Lexie is framed in the doorway, arm in a sling, cheek swollen and bruised. She looks small and frail. Thin bare legs poking out of a once-white hospital gown. Anna is shadowed behind her.

‘Grace.’ Lexie limps towards me. Freezes as she notices the chain running from my ankle to the bedstead. ‘Belle, what the fuck are you doing? Let her go.’

‘Not until we’ve talked. You owe me some answers,
Mum
.’

‘We’ll talk when you haven’t got Grace chained up like a bleedin’ animal.’

‘Oh, poor Grace. Everyone just loves her don’t they?’

‘She’s done nothing to you.’

‘She wouldn’t introduce me to you. You were supposed to get to know me through her, get to like me, and then I’d have told you who I really am. We’d have been a real family, but no. Grace wanted to keep you all to herself.’

‘It wasn’t like that…’

‘Shut up.’ Anna steps towards me. ‘I wanted to like you, Grace. I really did. I tried to be nice, but you kept pissing me off. The more I listened to your stories about how much you loved Charlie, the more I hated you. Everyone loves Charlie. Everyone loves Grace. Who the fuck loves
me
? But’ – her mouth twists into a smile – ‘I’m prepared to give you a second chance. Charlie isn’t here any more, but we can still be a family of three, can’t we?’

‘No.’ Lexie’s voice is cold and hard. ‘Let her go or I’ll call the police.’

‘Go ahead. By the time you hobble to the nearest phone, I’ll be long gone, and Grace?’ She pulls my paring knife from the apron pocket, swishes its stainless steel blade through the air. ‘Grace might still be here. Well, some of her might. Now get on the bed.’ Anna thrusts the knife towards Lexie, as though prodding cattle. Lexie stands firm, but as the blade jabs into her shoulder, droplets of blood soak through her gown and she stumbles backwards.

‘Anna, you’re hurting her.’ I try to reach Lexie but the chain is too short.

‘I’m hurting her… That’s rich.’

Lexie clambers on the bed next to me. Anna grasps her left leg, opens the other cuff and snaps it around Lexie’s ankle.

‘What do you want, Belle?’

‘I want to spend some quality time with my mother. Is that too much to ask? I’m going to cook a nice meal, then we can all sit down and get to know each other properly.’

Anna slams the bedroom door on her way out.

‘You’re bleeding.’ I reach out my hand but Lexie swats it away.

‘I’m fine.’

The crimson stain spreads, and as I watch it, the contents of the room swirl and merge together until my peripheral vision disappears. There’s a roaring in my ears as though I’m listening to waves in a shell.

‘Breathe, Grace.’ Lexie rubs my back in small circular movements. ‘You’re only breathing in. Breathe out.’

I huff out air, hiss it back in again. I can hear Lexie murmuring, feel the warmth of her hand on my spine, and gradually my body stops jerking. My sight is restored.

‘OK?’ Lexie squeezes me tightly with her arm.

‘Yes.’

‘Good.’ She lets me go. ‘No offence, but you stink.’ She shuffles away.

I flop back onto my pillow and Lexie tugs at the chain, pushes against the bedstead with her one good arm.

‘I’ve already tried that.’

Lexie sprawls on her back. Kicks off her shoes and places the soles of her feet against the carved wood. I shuffle down the bed, place my feet next to hers.

‘Ready?’ she asks.

‘On three.’

We push and kick until my thighs ache too much to move, and scream until my ears ring. There isn’t so much as a hairline crack in the wood.

‘Fuck.’ Lexie rubs her feet. ‘How the hell do we get out of this?’

I look into her eyes and see my own fear reflected back at me.

‘I don’t know.’

S
ix days after Charlie died
, the morning sky was grey and black like an angry bruise. Mist shrouded the church spire that was usually visible from my window. Everything seemed muted somehow, dampened down. Even the birds were uncharacteristically quiet. Charlie had taken the sunshine with her. Dan brought me tea I couldn’t taste and toast I couldn’t swallow. I should have been dressing in party clothes – it was Charlie’s twenty-fifth birthday – but instead, I wore black to attend her funeral. The shift dress I’d worn the Christmas before had been snug when I’d bought it, but now zipped up with ease; the material skimmed my body rather than clinging to it. I’d barely eaten a thing since Charlie died. Dan wore his interview suit and a borrowed black tie: a little boy dressed up.

A taxi took us to Charlie’s house; we were both too shaky to drive. As there was no other family, it had been decided that we’d ride in the funeral car with Lexie. Mum and Oliver had driven down. They’d meet us at the crematorium with Grandma and Grandad. I pushed open the door to what had once been my second home and followed the clouds of cigarette smoke. Lexie sat at the kitchen table, one arm crossed in front of her, the other holding a cigarette, her eyes fixed on an overflowing ashtray. I touched her shoulder. She slapped my hand away. I glared at Dan.
Say something
.

‘I’ll make some tea,’ he said.

While the kettle boiled, I ran hot water into the slimy washing-up bowl and began to scrub the dirty mugs and plates that covered every surface. I filled the silence with sloshing water and clinking china. Dan carried the milk over to me, holding it up so I could smell it. I sniffed and wrinkled my nose. He tipped it down the sink, congealing yellow lumps that I prodded down the plughole with a teaspoon. He made steaming cups of black tea that nobody drank. I dried up whilst Dan emptied the stinking bin and stacked the wine bottles and lager cans outside the back door for recycling.

There was nothing left to do but wait. The three of us sat around the kitchen table, silent and avoiding eye contact. It was a relief when there was a rap at the door. Dan jumped up to answer it and Lexie’s eyes bore into mine. She was bristling. Her anger engulfed my sadness.

‘I need some air,’ I told her and joined Dan in the narrow hallway, clinging on to the back of his belt while he talked to the driver, so that I wouldn’t float away in a bubble of grief.

The gleaming hearse contained the oak coffin and flowers: Charlie’s name in white carnations. Grandad had helped organise things with Lexie. I suspected he’d contributed financially too; she’d never been good with money. Lexie got in the car first, then Dan, then me. I stared out of the window as we made our slow journey to say goodbye to someone who had been so full of life I still couldn’t quite believe she was gone. I watched the people in the street talking, laughing. It seemed inexplicable that their lives remained unaffected. This was just another ordinary day for them. I envied them.

The sky was an iron-grey shroud of anger, full of weeping clouds. A large crowd, mainly dressed in black, waited outside the oak double doors of the chapel, dabbing eyes and blowing noses. Wreaths were studied and cards were read. Everyone looked as dazed as I felt.

We waited in the car until everyone had gone inside and then the funeral director came to escort us in. I hadn’t cried by this stage. It all seemed so surreal. We made our sombre walk into the crematorium as Eva Cassidy promised blue skies. ‘Somewhere Over The Rainbow’ was Lexie’s choice; Charlie would have made a face – ‘What’s wrong with a bit of Madonna?’

We sat on wooden benches designed to make bottoms as numb as hearts. At the front of the chapel, crimson velvet curtains trimmed with gold hung behind the plinth where Charlie’s coffin sat. On top of the coffin was a silver-framed photo of a laughing Charlie on Cromer beach. I remembered Grandad taking it.

A middle-aged man who’d clearly never met Charlie led the service. Generic words such as ‘warm’, ‘funny’, and ‘kind’ were bandied around, and then it was my turn. My jelly legs somehow carried me to the lectern and I faced row after row of eyes bright with tears. I cleared my throat. ‘Charlie was my best friend,’ I began. I recounted the day we’d met; how she’d filled Dan’s jam sandwiches with ketchup. There was tentative laughter at this point. I described how I knew from that moment that she’d be one of the most important people in my life.

‘Why then?’ Lexie’s voice rasped through the crematorium, sounding as though she hadn’t stopped chain-smoking since Charlie died.

My mouth hung open, my words ripped from me.

‘Why?’ Lexie stood now, her voice louder. Her face dark and twisted.

‘Why?’ I repeated. Not understanding what she was asking of me.

The congregation’s gaze flicked between Lexie and me as though they were watching a macabre game of tennis.

‘Why did you kill her?’

Lexie stared at me with such hatred that I stumbled backwards. Dan rushed to my side. I’d twisted the same ankle I’d hurt at the race, but it wasn’t the pain that was making me cry.

‘Lexie, it’s understandable you’re upset today.’ Grandad stepped in, his voice even and calm.

‘I’m upset every day because that fucking bitch killed my daughter. Killed Siobhan. It’s her fault. Everything’s her fault.’

‘I didn’t. I don’t understand…’ My eyes darted wildly around, searching for an answer.

‘Siobhan’s death was ruled an accidental overdose. Hardly Grace’s fault.’ Dan’s hand felt scorching hot as he rested it against my spine. ‘And I can’t see how you can possibly blame Grace for Charlie.’

‘If Charlie hadn’t left…’

‘Why did she leave, Lexie? She’s your daughter – enlighten us.’ Dan’s voice got louder and Grandad placed a hand on his arm.

‘It’s not the time or the place, son. Lexie, do you want to come outside with me and get some air?’

‘I don’t want some fucking air; I want my fucking daughter back.’ Lexie fell to her knees, keening.

The funeral director smiled at us, although his eyes were cold. ‘I think you should go.’

People fidgeted in their seats, straining their necks for a better view.

I was shaking with shock. Dan supported me like I was ninety, one arm around my waist, the other gripping my elbow as I limped towards the door.

‘I’ll never forgive you, Grace,’ Lexie screeched behind me.

Outside, I clung to Dan’s arm.

‘I’ll fetch the car.’ Grandad dashed over to the car park while Dan rubbed my back. Mum, Oliver and Grandma huddled together, too stunned to speak.

By the time we got home, I’d used up all the tissues in my bag. My throat was raw and my eyes felt gritty.

‘What about the wake?’

‘Do you want to go?’ asked Grandad.

‘No,’ my voice was hoarse. ‘But Charlie—’

‘Charlie loved you. She’d understand.’

I climbed out of the car and stood on legs that didn’t quite feel like mine.

‘Are you coming in?’ I asked.

‘I think we should go to the pub and check on Lexie,’ Grandad replied.

‘Fuck Lexie.’ Dan’s voice was hard.

‘She has no one else,’ Grandad said. ‘But we’ll stay if you want us to?’

I shook my head. Grandad did a three-point turn. Oliver’s car followed.

‘We’ll come back and see you before we head back to Devon,’ Mum called out the window.

We stood in the hallway, not quite sure what to do.

‘Tea?’ Dan asked.

‘Something stronger.’ I wanted to drink myself numb. I unzipped my dress that smelled like the chapel and cloaked myself in a fleecy throw. Even though it was twenty degrees, I was chilled.

Dan handed me a vodka and Coke and we sat side by side on the sofa and toasted the girl who would now forever remain twenty-four.