Читать книгу Guilt: The Sunday Times best selling psychological thriller that you need to read in 2018 - Amanda Robson, Amanda Robson - Страница 21

Allowed out of prison for her sister’s funeral. Sitting in the back of a police car, siren blasting.

Three hours up the motorway back to her hometown. Three hours sitting in silence watching juggernauts and cars. The back of the driver’s head. Flies catching on the windscreen. Three hours remembering the feel of her sister’s skin splitting as she stuck the knife in. How her sister’s head jerked backwards and her eyes clouded. A sight she will never forget.

The police car pulls off the motorway onto Tidebury bypass, wrapping her in familiarity. It feels as if her sister is here. As if she hasn’t gone. She imagines her sister with her. The soft sound of her sister’s breath as she rests her head on her shoulder, her tousled hair smelling of musk.

The police car turns left at the roundabout, past Warren Farm onto Southport Road. Right onto Paradise Lane, past their primary school. Tracing the way they used to walk home from school, the wide bend at the corner of the lane, past what was once a private school with sumptuous grounds that has recently evolved into a housing development. Past the end of our close. Her stomach rotates. Left at the crossroads, where in late spring, they always stopped to admire the mass of bluebells. Her stomach is like a stone. Left again at St Peter’s Church.

St Peter’s Church. Attached to their local C of E primary school. The church they attended every term time Wednesday morning, for six years, from the age of five to eleven. Six long, slow years. Time is distorted in youth. Walking from school to church, hand in hand, along Church Path, beneath the dappled shade of chestnut and sycamore. Entering its hallowed hall. The smell of polish and silence. The thumping voice of the vicar. Boredom ameliorated by respect. Sisters together forever, frozen in memory, still holding hands.

The driver parks outside the church; the hearse and the family car arrive and park in front of them. She sees her sister’s mahogany coffin covered in lilies. Her mother unfolds herself from black metal and moves towards the police car. The guard she is cuffed to sidles along the seat and accompanies her out into this cloudy day, the air a cascading mist of dampness, the sky gunmetal black, to match her mood.

Somewhere on the pavement she meets her mother. Her mother manages to take her in her arms without manhandling the guard who stiffly avoids the love-in.

‘So pleased they let you come,’ Mother says in a weak voice.

Although she could stay like this forever, holding on to her mother for comfort, it starts to rain and they move inside. Past elders of the church handing out service sheets. Past sheaths of white roses and lilies. Past burning eyes. The church is almost full as they move to their reserved seats on the front row. Mother on her left, right hand in hers. Flanked on the right by her guard. Her mother squeezes her hand and turns to look at her, but her eyes seem veiled, concussed.

She turns to glance around the church. It is overflowing with people and restrained emotion. So many people – three lines standing at the back. Some people from school she recognises. Many people she doesn’t. She never realised her sister knew so many people. She supposes young death always attracts a big congregation. A tangle of pity and respect.

The organ begins to trumpet. Everybody stands. The organ continues: deep-throated, regal, majestic. Slowly, slowly, her sister is carried down the aisle, wrapped in her mahogany package of death. Slowly, slowly, balanced on the pallbearers’ shoulders, who place her carefully in front of the altar between the choir stalls, and gently move away.

Silence.

The vicar appears like an actor in a surreal play and stands to the left of her sister’s coffin.

‘First, let us sing,’ he announces.

The organ rises with a melodious thumping. They sing her sister’s favourite hymn. They kneel. They pray. Attached to the police officer it is uncomfortable. She closes her eyes to join in, but she cannot concentrate and opens them again. She turns around to look at faces, twisted shut in prayer. The church in ecclesiastical overdrive. All thoughts swirling towards eternity and the death of her sister. So much love. So much energy. The emotions of the people in the church press against her and make her feel wretched.

As she turns her head back to the front, back to the floor, she notices a length of gold braiding. A vicar’s belt. Nestling in the dust at the end of the pew. Gently, she stretches towards it, carefully pulling as far away as possible from the police officer she is attached to. He doesn’t notice. She manages to grab it with her fingers and push it into the pocket of her coat.

Prayers are over. They stand and sing again. They listen to the vicar eulogise. In death, her sister is even more perfect than she was in life. Mother cries. She cries inside. The organ pulsates more grandly than it did at the start and the pallbearers carry her sister away. A sleeping princess, away to the hearse, away to the crematorium where she will burn to ash. Mother will follow and she will be escorted back to Eastwood Park. She’s not even allowed to go to the wake. She walks with her mother behind her sister’s coffin, still shackled to the guard. Head down, the church’s sea of blue carpet drowning her.

Suddenly, she looks up to check her balance. Sebastian. Sitting at the end of a row. Eyes burning angrily into hers. Glowering at her, in a way she has never seen before. Her heart stops. She is frightened. He is trying to kill her with his eyes. To suffocate her. To drown her. She stops walking for a second. The guard has to stop walking too. Stopping to gain the strength to pull her eyes away from him. In the distance of her mind, she sees Theo. Theo’s gentle eyes push Sebastian’s eyes away. Amber eyes melting her pain. Soothing her like honey.