Читать книгу The Second Sister: The exciting new psychological thriller from Sunday Times bestselling author Claire Kendal - Claire Kendal, Claire Kendal - Страница 15

The park keeper is waiting for us at the black iron gates of the scented garden. Already a Closed to the Public sign is dangling from them. I hang a second sign beside it – Self-Defence Class Taking Place – because I don’t want passers-by to be alarmed by the noises we make. He ushers us in. All the while, I am looking over my shoulder, wondering where Ted is and triple-checking my phone in case I have missed a text from him.

Maybe he isn’t going to turn up. Maybe he is busy with the new woman Sadie thinks he is seeing, though I have been wondering since Saturday if Sadie was lying.

Wishful thinking, you say.

While I clear away beer cans and cigarette butts and decide that this place ought to be renamed the Alcopop Garden, the women mill about in the late autumn sunshine, which has burnt away most of the wetness from the grass since Saturday night’s rain. One woman crouches at the edge of the pond, watching the water lilies and goldfish as if they are the most fascinating things she has ever seen. Another has her nose buried in the climbing roses, her eyes closed as she inhales. The other two sit and whisper together on a wooden bench beneath a wisteria-covered bower.

As I slip my phone into my bag, it buzzes with a text from Ted, who tells me he is waiting at the gate.

Your voice is in my ear. You are too forgiving. Too desperate. Don’t make the same mistakes as me.

‘Do you want to gather over there on the grass?’ I say to the women, gesturing towards the circle of towels I have set up at the far edge of the garden, off to the side and out of the sightline of anyone standing at the gate. ‘I’m going to go and meet Ted so he and I can talk through what we’ll be doing. We’ll start in ten minutes.’

Ted is dressed like a football player this morning and it suits him, with his navy T-shirt untucked over the elastic waistband of his black shorts. I like the way this looks, like a little boy. He is not hiding or covering up, though – his stomach is as flat as it was when we were teenagers.

I say, ‘I missed you Saturday night.’

He blows out air. ‘Sadie’s party. That can’t have been fun.’

‘She broke up with me.’

‘More fun than I would have thought, then. Can’t say I’m sorry. Or surprised.’

‘She said you’re seeing someone. She said that that’s why you didn’t come.’

He exaggerates a backwards stagger, as if I have thrown too much at him. ‘Sadie’s jumping to the wrong conclusions as usual and wanting to fuck things up for us.’ He almost smiles. ‘But did you dislike the idea?’

‘Yes.’ I say this softly. He gives me that melting look of his, so I feel a qualm at breaking the mood. My promise to Luke has taken me over and I am not going to have Ted alone for long – I need to ask him quickly, while I have a chance. ‘You know your friend Mike, who you brought to Dad’s birthday party?’

The melting look goes in an instant. He is as guarded as he would be talking to a drug dealer on the street. He has guessed what is coming. ‘Obviously I know him. Since I brought him.’

‘He was telling me how sorry he was for our family. You know how people get nervous about what to say. He seemed genuinely nice, though, Ted.’

‘He’s a good guy.’

‘I think he really cared, that he was sad for us, sad that we still don’t have answers. Maybe it’s especially uncomfortable for a police officer when he’s off duty and trying to be social.’

‘Christ. That’s why he’s best kept in a room with machines and not let loose on actual human beings.’

‘You’re the one who took him out.’

‘And I am kicking myself for that.’

‘I asked him how he knew about her. He said he was in High Tech Crime when she disappeared. He still is.’

Ted crosses his arms. ‘Making polite conversation, were you?’

‘It got me thinking. He would have worked on her laptop. The police finally returned some of Miranda’s things. My mother swears she hasn’t opened the box yet.’ Ted makes a harrumph of scepticism at this. ‘I know,’ I say. ‘She got Dad to put the box in the attic. He says from the weight and feel of it he doesn’t think the laptop is inside. I wonder if you had any thoughts about why they might have kept it.’

‘None. I’m Serious Crime, Ella, not High Tech, as you well know. Jesus – Luke had to teach me to work my smart phone. You know I’ve never had anything to do with Miranda’s case because of my personal involvement with your family.’

‘I know officially you know nothing, but I also know how all of you talk to each other.’ He almost lets himself smirk but manages to hold it in. ‘I thought maybe Mike said something.’

‘No.’

‘He did. I know you, Ted. I can read your expressions.’

‘You can’t ever let us have a moment, can you?’

‘Yes I can.’

‘You might think you can read my expressions but you can’t read yourself.’

‘I don’t have a moment. Not for this. I need to know yesterday. I won’t have peace until I do. Luke won’t either.’

He shakes his head so vigorously I think of a puppy emerging from the sea. ‘I wish I hadn’t brought Mike to that party.’

‘But you did.’ My hand is on the bare skin of his wrist and I’m not even sure how it got there. The hairs are soft and feathery and dark gold.

‘I saw you talking to him. I knew it would come back to bite me. You should work in Interrogation.’

‘Despite your tone, I will take that as a compliment.’

‘I was nervous going to that party, seeing you after so long. That’s why I brought Mike.’ His face flushes but I don’t take my hand away. ‘You can’t let us be peaceful. You can’t let things calm down enough for us to have a chance.’

My fingers slide up his arm, wrap around hard muscle. ‘What is it they say? You had me at hello – that’s it, isn’t it? The minute you walked into Dad’s party you had me. But the best way to create that kind of chance for us – for Luke – would be to find out what happened to her, to put all this behind us, finally.’

‘That’s more likely to destroy us than help.’

‘Not knowing hasn’t exactly done us wonders, has it?’

‘I can’t go through all of this with you again. I had enough of these arguments – I thought you’d finished with all that.’

‘I never led you to believe that.’

‘Luke is ten years old, Ella. He is a child. He has no understanding.’

‘You know him better than that. How can you look me in the eye if you’re withholding something crucial? That would always be between us.’

‘Mike shouldn’t have opened his mouth. It’ll be a disciplinary for sure. He’d be lucky to escape with just a formal verbal warning.’

‘I won’t let anything come back to Mike.’ My hand makes a broken circle around his bicep, with a very big gap between the end of my thumb and the tips of my other fingers.

‘Don’t.’ He peels my fingers from his arm as if they were leeches. ‘You don’t give a damn about the havoc you leave behind.’ He has never broken physical contact with me before. It’s normally me who breaks it first.

You always warned me about my temper. My bad EKGs, you called them, as if you could see the spikes in my emotions plotted on a graph. Yours are the same, though more frequent.

My EKG must be off the scale right now, fired by the adrenaline that makes me counter-attack. ‘So where were you actually, then, on Saturday night?’

Ted glares at me, refusing to answer, and I have to stop myself from visibly doubling over as an old headline unexpectedly jabs me in the stomach.

Master Joiner Thorne Detained Indefinitely in High-Security Psychiatric Hospital.

I hit Ted from another direction. ‘Since you’re already angry at me, it’s a perfect time to tell you that I am going to try to see Jason Thorne. I wrote to him. Now it’s wait-and-see as to whether he accepts my request to visit, puts me on his list.’

Local Carpenter in Bodies-in-Basement Horror.

‘Have fun with that.’

I cross my arms. ‘He’s a patient, not a prisoner.’

Thorne in Our Side. Families’ Outrage as Suspect Deemed Unfit to Stand Trial.

Ted mirrors me and crosses his arms too. ‘So they say of all the scumbags in that place. You’re not up to seeing Thorne. You never will be.’

I think of the worst of the headlines from eight years ago, when Thorne was first captured.

Evil Sadist Thorne’s Grisly Decorations: Flowers and Vines Carved onto Victims’ Bodies.

That headline made me hyperventilate. It took hours for Dad to calm me down. Mum had to hurry Luke out of the house so he wouldn’t witness my hysteria.

‘There’s no connection between her and Thorne, Ella,’ Dad said. ‘The police would tell us if there was. This story about the carvings is tabloid sensationalism – I’m not sure it’s even physically possible to do that. And they’ve only just arrested him – no real details of what he did have been released by the investigators.’

‘Are you listening to me, Ella?’ Ted is saying. ‘Try to remember what all of this did to you when they first got Thorne. You nearly had a breakdown.’

‘That was eight years ago,’ I say. ‘I’m stronger now.’

Whatever happened to you, I will not turn from it. Whatever you faced, I will face. I brace myself for the pictures. For the sound of your screams. For tangled hair and frightened eyes. But the pictures do not come. I have now gone forty-eight hours without any.

‘You were falling apart more recently than eight years ago.’

‘I won’t let fear and horror stop me, Ted. I owe her more than that.’

‘Thorne has been compliant as a teddy bear since his arrest. He is a model of good behaviour but you will still be the object of his fantasies. You wouldn’t want to imagine what they are.’

‘I can live with that.’

‘He has refused all visitor requests so far, but I am betting he will accept you.’

‘I hope you’re right.’

‘I hope I’m wrong. You will be entertainment. He will consider you a toy.’

‘I don’t care how he considers me.’

‘There’s no point in letting yourself be Thorne’s wet dream. There was a huge amount of evidence tying Thorne to those three women. There’s nothing physical to connect him to your sister.’

‘Really? Nothing? Those news stories last week saying there’d been phone calls between them are nothing? Those journalists were pretty specific. Phone calls are evidence.’

‘Since when do you believe that tabloid shit?’

‘There were reports that they were looking at Thorne for Miranda when he was first arrested. You know it. We asked the police back then but they wouldn’t admit anything. Now the idea is surfacing again, and with much more detail.’

‘It’s a slow news month.’

‘They’re saying—’

‘Journalists are saying, Ella. The police aren’t saying.’

‘Too right the police aren’t saying. The police never say anything. We learn more from tabloid newspapers than we do from them.’

‘There’s a big difference in those sources. You know that.’

‘The police have probably known all along that she talked to Thorne – we asked them eight years ago and they wouldn’t comment.’

‘You were a basket case eight years ago. Maybe they did confirm it and your dad didn’t tell you. Your parents were trying to protect you then. So was I.’

‘No way. My dad would never lie to me.’

He considers this. ‘Probably true. Your mum would, not your dad.’

‘Anyway, Dad asked them again a few days ago and again he got silence from them. They won’t ever be straight with us.’

‘You’re not being fair.’

‘Do you think I want it to be true?’

‘Of course I don’t.’

‘The tabloids are saying she phoned Thorne from her landline a month before she vanished. That’s more precise than eight years ago. Eight years ago there were just general rumours. If she talked to Thorne, would the police know for sure?’ He doesn’t answer. ‘They have the phone records, don’t they?’ Again nothing. ‘Do you know if she spoke to him?’

‘How many times do I have to tell you? I have no information. I can tell you though that whatever those journalists are saying, the police aren’t behaving as if they think it’s a new breakthrough. They wouldn’t have returned your sister’s things if they thought the case was about to crack open. If there actually is evidence that she talked to Thorne, my guess is they’ve always known and decided it was irrelevant.’

‘Then why wouldn’t they admit it to us, if they knew? What would be the harm in telling us? Why is this new information coming out now?’ I tug his wrist in exasperation. ‘Ted! Can you please answer my questions?’

‘Not if I don’t know the answers.’

‘Do you think a journalist got hold of the phone records?’

‘Not possible.’

‘Well someone told a journalist something. Who else if not the police?’

‘Why now, Ella? Why this moment for this new story?’

‘Shouldn’t you and your buddies be figuring that out?’

‘Not me.’

‘So you keep saying. Whatever the reason, it made me remember something else. A little while before she disappeared she told me she was looking for a carpenter to build bookshelves for her living room. It makes sense that she called Thorne.’ My voice is calmer than my pulse.

‘Then why wasn’t her body in his basement with the others?’

‘Even if Thorne didn’t take her, he may know something. Somebody may have bragged to him. These kinds of people do that.’

‘In movies, maybe. He’s clever. He doesn’t reveal anything he doesn’t want to.’

‘Not that clever. They still found the women.’

‘Okay. Let’s say for argument’s sake that she did talk to Thorne. That doesn’t mean he’s responsible for taking her. You accept that, don’t you? Never assume. If you really want to think about what happened to her, you need to be open-minded.’

‘You’re right. I need to remember that more. I might sleep better if I do.’

‘Good.’ He pulls me into his arms. ‘Don’t go. Don’t visit Thorne.’

‘I still need to try to talk to him, Ted.’

‘I don’t want you near him.’ I can feel him gulp into the top of my head. ‘I want to protect you. Why won’t you let me?’

My anger has blown away. I disentangle myself from Ted as gently as I can. I touch his cheek lightly. ‘I need to be able to protect myself. You know that.’ Despite my speaking with what I thought was tenderness, he looks as if I have struck him.

‘It’s all I have ever wanted to do, protect you. Since the first time I saw you.’

His words take me back twenty-six years, to the day we met.

We were four years old and it was our first day of school. I fell in love with Ted during playtime for punching a boy who’d been teasing me about the birthmark on the underside of my chin.

I stood beneath the climbing frame beside my brand-new friend Sadie, but she was slowly moving away to watch the excitement from a safe distance. I was covering my face with my hand, blinking back tears as the boy jeered at me, laughing with some of the others. ‘Look at the baby crying. Bet she still wears nappies.’

‘Leave her alone,’ Ted said. That was the first time I ever heard his voice. Even then it was calm but forceful, the policeman’s tone already there.

But the bully boy didn’t leave me alone. ‘She’s a witch,’ the boy said. ‘It’s a witch’s mark.’ Looking back now, it was rather poetic for a child’s taunt. I later learned his father was some sort of writer, so maybe they talked like that all the time at home. But I didn’t think it was very poetic then. ‘Let’s see it again.’ The boy made a lunge towards me and I jumped back. ‘Take your hand away, witch.’

The boy moved again, reaching towards me. That was a mistake. His fingers only managed to brush my wrist before Ted grabbed the boy’s arm and hit at his face. I don’t know if Ted’s childlike blows really sent the boy to the ground, or if the boy threw himself there to try to get Ted in trouble. But there was no mistaking the blood and tears and snot smeared over the boy’s nose and mouth.

Ted ignored the boy’s screams and sobs, coming from somewhere near our feet. He touched my hand and said, ‘Don’t cover it up.’

It was only a few seconds before a teacher was at Ted’s side to scrape the mean boy up and drag him and Ted off to the headmaster. Ted looked over his shoulder as he moved, and I only vaguely noticed that Sadie had returned to my side to put her arm around me. All I could think about was Ted, and how glad I was that he could see me take my hand away from my chin.

That night, when you asked about my first day of school, I told you about Ted and the boy and my birthmark. ‘Your magic is in it,’ you said, kissing it.

The birthmark has faded now. It is almost invisible. A mottled pink shadow the size and shape of a small strawberry.

When it first started to diminish, not long after Ted’s fight with the boy, I worried that my magic would dwindle away too.

‘The magic goes more deeply inside you,’ you said. ‘It grows more powerful because it’s hidden so nobody knows it’s there. It’s your secret weapon.’

Remembering this, it strikes me that Ted has now been in my life for longer than you. So has Sadie.

I try to reassure him. ‘There are guards everywhere in that hospital, Ted. Nurses. Syringes full of tranquillisers. Thorne must be drugged up to his eyeballs anyway as part of his daily routine, to keep him sluggish and slow and harmless.’

‘Nothing can make Jason Thorne harmless. You know better.’

‘They wouldn’t let him have a visitor if they didn’t think it was safe. They are constantly assessing him.’

‘There’s a gulf between what counts as safe behaviour for Thorne and safe behaviour for ordinary people.’

‘He will need a long record of good behaviour before they let anyone near him. Not a few hours or days. I’m talking years of observing and treating him – they’ll be confident that he’s capable of civilised interaction. They know what they are doing.’

‘Nice to see you put your faith in authority figures when it suits you.’ He slings his bag over a shoulder. ‘Luke will be hurt if you get his hopes up.’ He starts to walk away but then he halts and turns. ‘Have you thought about what it would do to him if something happened to you? There are real dangers.’ He squeezes his eyes shut, then opens them with a jerk of his head, as if he does not really want to. ‘The women are waiting. This conversation is over.’

‘This conversation has only just begun.’

‘You need to stop stirring things.’

‘Stirring things is exactly what I want to do. It’s what I should have done long ago. The ten-year timer is about to go off.’ I push past him, determined to have the last word. If he has anything further to say, it will have to be to my retreating back.