The Sister: A psychological thriller with a brilliant twist you won't see coming Read online

  The Sister

  A psychological thriller with a brilliant twist you won’t see coming

  Louise Jensen

  Contents

  Dedication

  1. Now

  2. Now

  3. Then

  4. Now

  5. Then

  6. Now

  7. Then

  8. Now

  9. Now

  10. Now

  11. Now

  12. Then

  13. Now

  14. Now

  15. Then

  16. Now

  17. Then

  18. Now

  19. Now

  20. Then

  21. Now

  22. Then

  23. Now

  24. Then

  25. Now

  26. Then

  27. Now

  28. Then

  29. Now

  30. Then

  31. Now

  32. Then

  33. Now

  34. Then

  35. Now

  36. Now

  37. Now

  38. Now

  39. Now

  40. Now

  41. Then

  42. Now

  43. Now

  44. Now

  45. Then

  46. Now

  47. Now

  Epilogue

  Letter from Louise

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright

  To Ian Hawley

  Much loved. Deeply missed.

  1

  Now

  Stepping out of my car with heartbreak-heavy legs, I zip my jacket and pull on leather gloves before hefting my spade and bag from the boot: it is time. My wellingtons slip-slide across the squelching mud to the gap in the hedge. It’s been there for as long as I can remember. I shiver as I enter the forest; it’s darker than I’d thought and I take deep breaths of the pine-scented air to steady myself. I fight the urge to go home and come back in the morning, remind myself why I’m here and drive myself forwards.

  My smartphone lights the way as I look out for rabbit holes I might fall down. I take giant steps over fallen limbs of trees I’d once have hurdled. At twenty-five I’m not too old to run, but my load is cumbersome; besides, I’m in no rush to get there, I was never supposed to do this alone.

  I stop and rest the spade handle against my hip, splay my fingers and shake out my pins and needles. There’s a rustling in the bushes and I have a sense of being watched. My heart stutters as two rabbits dart out, bounding away when they see my light. ‘I’m OK,’ I reassure myself, but my voice seems loud and echoey, reminding me how alone I am.

  My rucksack feels tight across my shoulders and I readjust the straps before marching on, snapping twigs underfoot. I’m beginning to think I’ve taken the wrong fork when I reach the clearing with the lightning-struck tree. I wasn’t sure it would still be here, but as I look around it seems nothing has changed – but of course, everything has. Memories of the last time I was here hit me so hard I feel winded. I sink to the ground. The dampness of the leaves and earth seep through my trousers, as the past seeps through to my present.

  ‘Hurry up, birthday girl, you’ll be sixteen at this rate. I’m freezing,’ Charlie had called. She’d been perched on the weathered gate at the edge of the cornfield, plastic bags strewn around her feet, blonde hair gleaming in the weak coral sun. Never patient, Charlie kicked her heels as I trudged towards her, cradling the box that contained our hopes and dreams.

  ‘Come on, Grace.’ She jumped down, scooped up her wares and dashed into the trees. I shifted the box under my arm and tried to keep up, following flashes of her purple coat and wafts of the Impulse body spray she always stole from her mum’s bedroom.

  Branches and brambles grasped at our denim-clad legs, snagged our hair, but we kept going until we burst into the clearing.

  ‘Your red face matches your hair,’ Charlie laughed as I dropped the box and hunched over, resting my hands on my knees as I tried to catch my breath. Despite the cool early evening temperature, sweat beaded on my temples. Charlie upended the carrier bags: snacks, drinks, matches, a trowel and a small present, wrapped in sparkly purple paper with a ‘Fifteen Today’ sticker on it, all scattered over the crumbling earth. Smiling, she handed the gift to me. I sat cross-legged, carefully opening the ends without tearing the paper, and inched the box out. Nestled inside was half a gold heart on a chain engraved with ‘BFF’. Tears pricked my eyes as I looked at Charlie. She tugged the neck of her fleece down, revealing the other half of the heart. I fastened the chain around my throat as Charlie began to dig a hole. Always the Girl Guide, I lit a small fire. It would be even colder when the sun went down, and the evenings were drawing in quickly now. By the time the hole was deep enough, Charlie was breathless, her fingernails caked in dirt.

  I carried the memory box over to the hole and placed it in the ground. We’d spent a whole Saturday choosing the contents and decorating the outside of the plastic tub, sticking on pictures from magazines of supermodels and pop stars we wanted to emulate. ‘You can never be too rich or too thin,’ Charlie said. She scooped an armful of dirt and began to cover it.

  ‘Wait!’ I cried. ‘I want to put this in.’ I waved the birthday wrapping paper in the air.

  ‘You can’t now, we’ve already sealed it.’

  ‘I’ll be careful.’ I slowly peeled back the Sellotape and popped off the lid. To my surprise, sitting on top of a stack of photos was a pink envelope that definitely hadn’t been there when we’d filled the box earlier. I glanced at Charlie, who was looking secretive.

  ‘What’s that, Charlie?’ I reached towards the envelope.

  Charlie grabbed my arm. ‘Don’t.’

  I pulled free, rubbing my wrist. ‘What is it?’

  Charlie wouldn’t meet my eye. ‘It’s for us to read when we come back for the box.’

  ‘What does it say?’

  Charlie snatched the wrapping paper from between my fingers and scrunched it inside the box, banging the lid on top. When Charlie didn’t want to talk about something there was little point trying to pursue it. I decided to let it go; I wouldn’t let her furtiveness spoil my birthday.

  ‘Drink?’ I grabbed a cider; it fizzed as I pulled back the ring, and froth spilled over the side of the can. I wiped my hand on my jeans and took a gulp; it warmed my stomach, washing away my unease.

  Charlie packed the earth into the hole and pounded the surface with her trowel until it was flat, before coming to sit by my side.

  The campfire crackled as we leaned against the horizontal tree trunk toasting pink marshmallows on sticks, and it wasn’t until the embers burned out that I realised how late it was.

  ‘We should go. I’m supposed to be home by ten.’

  ‘OK. A pinkie promise we’ll come back and open the box together?’ Charlie proffered her little finger and I curled mine around it before we clinked cans and drank to a promise that we didn’t know would be impossible to keep.

  There is only me now. ‘Charlie,’ I whisper. ‘I wish you were here.’ Charlie’s half-heart, forever on a chain around my neck, spins around as I lean forward, as if it’s searching for its partner, desperate to be whole again. I gently lay down the wreath. The overwhelming panic that has plagued me since Charlie’s death four months ago bubbles to the surface, and I tug my scarf away from my throat so I can breathe a little easier. Am I really to blame? Am I always to blame?

 
Despite the January chill I feel hot, and as I pull off my gloves I think I hear Charlie’s last words echoing through the trees: I did something terrible, Grace. I hope you can forgive me.

  What did she do? It can’t be any worse than what I did, but I am determined to find out what it was. I know I won’t be able to move forwards until I do. I hadn’t been sure where to begin until this morning, when I received a letter in the post in a pink envelope, which triggered a memory of the letter that Charlie hadn’t wanted me to read, hidden in the memory box. Perhaps the letter will hold some kind of clue? It will be a start, anyway. Asking people who knew her hasn’t been getting me anywhere, and besides, I’m the one who knew her best, aren’t I? I was her best friend.

  But can you ever really know someone? Properly know someone?

  I sit back on my heels, remaining motionless for an indeterminable time as the air cools around me. Branches swish and sway as if the trees are whispering their secrets to me, encouraging me to unearth Charlie’s.

  I shake my head, scattering my thoughts, and pull my sleeve down over the heel of my hand before wiping my wet cheeks. Picking up the spade with arms that feel too heavy to be mine, I grip the handle so tightly, rockets of pain shoot through my wrists. I take a deep breath and begin to dig.

  2

  Now

  ‘Mittens?’ I call to our house cat. ‘I’m home.’ Holding the memory box aloft, I squeeze down the hallway into the lounge, without knocking any of my seaside prints from the duck-egg walls. ‘There you are.’ A grey ball of fluff is nestled on the stool of the piano that Dad taught me to play, hoisting me onto the leather stool virtually as soon as I could sit unaided. We’d sit side by side, Dad and I, his huge sausage fingers surprisingly nimble as he navigated chords, while I picked out a melody. I’ll never play again. It’s still too painful to be reminded of the time I had a normal life. A normal family.

  The lounge is gloomy, despite the light from the French doors. Angry clouds scud across the darkened sky outside. I flick on the light. Winter has been harsh this year and I can barely remember the sunflower summer evenings when I’d sit outside with a tall glass of Pimms, ice cubes chinking, until the solar lights glowed and bats flapped across indigo skies.

  The Alfred Meakin plate I keep for special occasions is balanced on a stack of FHM lads’ magazines, dried egg yolk and ketchup masking its floral pattern. A salt pot lays prone on the floor, white granules mounded on the carpet. Dan has eaten.

  I step over a balled-up bath sheet to reach the coffee table, where I slide aside the worn copy of Little Women I’m reading to Mrs Jones next door – despite her milk-bottle glasses she can no longer make out small print. I’ve almost reached the part where Beth dies and it doesn’t matter how many times I’ve read it before, I know it will make me cry. Dried mud crumbles onto the table’s cream-painted surface as I set down the memory box and I brush it onto the floor. Aged pictures of one-hit wonders and supermodels, once glued tight now hang dolefully from the plastic box; I can hardly remember half of them. My fingernail picks at the edge of the tape that seals the lid; it has lost its stickiness and lifts easily. I peel it off and smooth it back, pressing down hard with both thumbs. It doesn’t feel right opening the box without Charlie – not that I have a choice if I want to find out what’s in the pink envelope, and I do. But I feel uncomfortable all the same, as if I’m invading her privacy.

  The cottage is too quiet. I put on a record. Nina Simone is feeling good. I’m glad one of us is. Dan downloads all his music but I find comfort in the old-fashioned things I grew up with, even though Grandad’s more modern than me now, with his Bose SoundDock and Blue-ray Player. I flop onto the brown leather sofa and sink into the squashiness of my mismatched cushions. The vinyl spins round and round, crackling and hissing, demanding attention, much like my memories.

  It doesn’t seem as though it’s been seven years since we moved into the cottage. I had nothing else to worry about then; my life was finally going the way it was supposed to, and I became a little bit obsessed with soft furnishings. Dan had rolled his eyes every time I brought a new cushion home. ‘Dance like no one is watching, another snippet of wisdom stuffed with foam.’ He had snatched it from me and twirled it around the lounge, holding it at arm’s length.

  ‘Nobody wants to watch when you dance,’ I’d told him at the time. He’d tickled me until we sank to the floor, tugging at each other’s clothes until he was on me, in me, and my back burned from the friction of the red swirled carpet we’ve since replaced with a chocolate-brown pile. Afterwards, we snuggled in the multicoloured throws that adorned the back of the sofa, and munched on Hawaiian pizza. I’d told Dan to order a pepperoni – he’s never understood fruit on savoury food but he knew I loved the sweet and salty combination.

  It seems a long time now since we laughed like that. Loved like that. Grief has pushed us apart like repelling magnets: no matter how hard we try to reach each other, there’s a gulf between us that we just can’t bridge.

  Mittens sits up and arches her back, legs rigid, reminding me I have missed yet another yoga class. There’s nothing quite as corrosive as guilt; it eats away at you from the inside out. I should know – remorse is my middle name; I should have been born a Catholic. Mittens leaps off the stool, in the graceful way that only cats can, and with a feed-me-now meow, butts her head against my calves.

  I trail after her into the kitchen. The stench of stale oil hangs in the air, and the sink, shiny and clean when I left it, is now half-full of stagnant water. A saucepan handle rises up like a signpost: wash me. I reach over and crack open the sash window. Icy air filters through from the back garden; snow has been forecast for tomorrow. I flick on the kettle and scoop up two cracked eggshells, their slime oozing over the wooden work surface, and drop them in the overflowing pedal bin. I’ll have to empty it later. I wipe down the work surface and rinse a cup, wishing again that Dan didn’t use a clean one every time he makes a drink. We don’t have a dishwasher – unless you count me, of course, which I’m sure Dan does. Our kitchen is tiny, or, ‘compact but functional’, as Dan would say if this were one of the houses he was trying to sell. We barely have room for cabinets, but I love our pantry, which houses everything we need.

  I dip my hand inside the tea caddy; it connects with the cool metal at the bottom. The light inside the fridge illuminates almost empty shelves as I open the door. What can I make out of half a tub of goat’s cheese and a shrivelled red pepper? Dan will come home after football and expect dinner to be waiting. Actually, that’s unfair, he never asks me to cook; it’s just assumed that I will. I always do. I push away the memory of the time we no longer talk about. The time when I could barely remember my own name, let alone how to operate an oven. I’m coping now. I really am.

  I scrawl ‘tea bags’ onto the never-ending shopping list that’s stuck to the fridge door by the ‘STOP’ magnet, the one with the picture of the pig on it. Dan bought the magnet for me last year – to support me, he said, as I gave up on yet another diet. The glossy magazines I pore over don’t help. Telling me on one page I’m the average size for a UK woman, that size fourteen is not fat, and yet on the next page printing photos of emaciated models, all jutting collarbones and hollow cheeks. I keep the magnet as a constant reminder that I should lose ten pounds. I never do.

  Mittens weaves between my ankles, urging me to pick up her empty bowl. There is one pouch of cat food left in the cupboard. I scrape it into her dish and measure out biscuits while she mews impatiently.

  I watch Mittens eating unselfconsciously, in the way that animals do. She’s been such a comfort to me since Charlie died. I’ve taken more solace from her silence than I have from Dan’s clumsy words. I hadn’t intended to get a pet, but three years ago Grandma’s neighbour’s cat had a litter of six and I went to take some photos to show at the pre-school where I work. The kittens were adorable, and when the smallest one climbed onto my lap and fell asleep I was easily swayed into taking her
home. I carried her out to my second-hand Fiesta. She sat on the passenger seat in a Walkers crisps box lined with a faded pink blanket, and squinted in the never-before-seen sun. I drove home slower than usual, parked in the potholed lane outside my cottage and shook my tingling hands. My nails had carved crescents into my palms and I remember shaking my head at myself. I looked after thirty-six four-year-old children every day. A kitten should have been a breeze.

  Once inside, I studied her as she padded fearlessly around her new home. What could I call her? As a child I had been obsessed with Beatrix Potter. Dad had read me a story every night before bed, giving all the animals accents. I’d loved hearing the antics of Tom Kitten and his sisters Moppet and Mittens. The kitten’s paws were lighter than the rest of her. Mittens seemed the perfect name; a connection to Dad.

  The first time we let her out, she was nearly run over by the dustbin lorry. She’d been so scared, she wouldn’t go out again. We’d tried to encourage her into the garden, but she got so distressed each time that the vet said to leave her, she’d go out when she was ready – but she never was.

  I can’t imagine what the cottage would be like without her now. I watch as she finishes her dinner and laps water with her darting pink tongue, before slinking out of the kitchen.

  The kettle splutters and steams and clicks itself off, and I follow Mittens to the lounge. We sit side by side on the sofa, staring at the box. I wonder whether she remembers coming home in one.

  ‘Don’t worry, nothing living is in there,’ I reassure her. But that’s a lie. My memories are alive and harder to contain than a wriggling kitten.

  I chew my thumbnail, half expecting Charlie to pop out with a: ‘Surprise! You didn’t really think I’d leave you?’ Loneliness engulfs me. I am one step away from tears most of the time and I don’t feel strong enough to confront the memories that I’ve stuffed away. Afraid that if I begin to remember I won’t be able to stop, and there are things I don’t want to think about. Not now. Not ever.

  The cottage is a mess; I’ll clean instead. I always find cleaning therapeutic, often grateful for the opportunity to absorb myself in something other than my own thoughts. I abandon the box and start in the kitchen, roll up my sleeves and squirt washing-up liquid into the sink, twist on the hot tap. While the water rises and froths I wipe grease from the hob. When the bowl is full I plunge my hands in the water, jerk them out and flick the tap to cold to soothe my burning skin.