She gets in and shuts the door behind her. ‘I’m not stalking you,’ she immediately says. ‘That’s my car, there.’ She points to the silver family car parked in the bay directly in front of me. Of course that’s where she’d park and I would park. Of course Poppy and I keep being connected in so many seemingly insignificant ways.
‘We wouldn’t have to talk about us, you know, if you did want to be friends,’ Poppy says. ‘We could talk about the easy subjects – you know, politics, religion, etc . . .’
That does raise a small smile.
‘I have to go and see my sister,’ Poppy says. ‘I haven’t heard from her since . . . since I had to tell them all about Logan. I’m a bit worried about her now. This came at a bad time. It sounded like she was splitting with her boyfriend. They’ve been together for ages and ages.’
‘And you’re telling me all this because?’
She doesn’t reply so I turn to look at her. She’s looking at me with the same expression she had in her beach hut when she asked me to come to see Logan with her. The exact same.
‘You’re joking, right?’
‘I just need someone else there.’
‘Get your husband. I’m sure he’s not writing an article on her, is he?’
‘It kinda has to be you because I think she’d benefit from talking to you.’
‘And how would I benefit from talking to her?’
‘You’ll see that we’re not all psychopaths? She’s the normal one in the family.’
‘Where does she live?’
‘Portslade/Southwick.’
‘If I do this one last thing for you, will you leave me and my family alone after that?’ I turn to her again. ‘Please?’
‘Thing is, I can’t promise you that. I’ll try, is probably the best I can do.’
‘I suppose that’s the best I can hope for,’ I reply sourly. ‘What’s her address?’
poppy
Now
Logan was right about one thing – none of us ever came to Bella’s house.
The last time was when the three of us ended up drinking the afternoon away. Logan and I didn’t even go in, just waited outside for her to finish getting ready. Apart from that, nothing. She met us in town, she met us at Mum and Dad’s and she rarely came to my place. Bella is removed from us, I realise, and I need that to stop. Now that Logan has shown who he is, and that person is a monster, I need to keep Bella close. I need to make sure she doesn’t go off at the deep end, too.
More than anything, I’m horrified that Logan was doing all this and still being a supportive, loving brother to Bella and me, and a fun, devoted uncle to Betina. The snake has the prettiest smile, Tina had once told me. And when I found out about Alain, I’d agreed with her. Not knowing that, all along, my brother was the biggest snake with the prettiest of all the pretty smiles.
Like Mum and Dad’s, Bella’s road is quite narrow when there are cars parked on both sides, but Serena easily manages to slot us into a space outside Bella’s place that I wouldn’t have dreamed of going near.
We knock and ring the doorbell several times and despite that, Bella doesn’t answer. I know she’s in there. Her car is outside and I can feel that the place isn’t empty. In between each ring and knock, I text her and call her. Still no reply, no hint of answering the door.
‘She obviously doesn’t want to talk to you,’ Serena says. ‘Maybe you should come back tomorrow.’
‘No, I need to speak to her. The longer I leave it, the worse it’ll get until it’ll be impossible to connect. She might not want to talk to me right now but . . . I’M NOT GOING AWAY, BELLA CARLISLE,’ I bellow suddenly. ‘I’M GOING TO STAY RIGHT HERE UNTIL YOU TALK TO ME. AND IF THAT MEANS ME SHOUTING LIKE THIS IN THE STREET UNTIL YOU OPEN THE DOOR, THEN THAT’S JUST—’
The door opens a fraction and Bella’s pale face appears in the gap. ‘I don’t want to talk to you,’ she says in a shaky voice. When her eyes alight on Serena, she double-takes and, if possible, even more colour drains from her face. ‘Who else have you brought?’ she asks me.
‘No one. Look, can we come in?’
She sighs with her whole body. And then she steps back and opens the door wider to allow us to enter. Once we are in the corridor, I notice Serena’s discomfort levels shoot up. She didn’t want to be there in the first place and now she looks like she’s about to cut and run. I stay behind the door to stop her legging it before she can talk to Bella and see that not all Carlisles are bad.
‘Are you sure you didn’t bring anyone else?’ Bella asks.
‘Who would I bring?’ I reply. She’s trembling ever so slightly. She looks genuinely shaken. Something has clearly happened to her, although I have no idea what.
‘The police.’
‘Why would I bring the police?’
She sighs dramatically, chews her lip, and then sighs again. ‘He didn’t tell you, did he? I told Logan to tell you.’
‘Tell me what? What’s going on?’ My patience is running out – I came here to reconnect with my sister and show my rival/ friend/nemesis/co-conspirator that we aren’t all crazy. And she isn’t helping on either front.
‘Of course he didn’t, he didn’t tell you.’ She shakes her head. ‘Still trying to protect me. Even though I don’t need him to, he’s still trying to . . . It was me!’ she almost shouts. ‘I did it! I put Logan into a coma by hitting him over the head. It wasn’t Verity. She didn’t give him those blows to his head, I did.’
‘Pardon?’ I reply.
Serena doesn’t say a word, she just stares at my sister.
‘And you might as well come upstairs,’ she adds, her voice proud and defiant, like she’s ready to fight us both if we look at her sideways. She doesn’t give us a chance to ask any more questions or argue, nor does she wait for us to decide if we want to go upstairs, she simply takes the stairs two at a time so we’re forced to follow.
Her large spare bedroom at the back of her house is dark because the blinds are down and there are no other lights on. It takes a few seconds for my eyes to adjust, but once they do, I can make out the figure of a man propped up in the bed. He looks vaguely familiar, like I’ve seen his face in passing on television or something.
‘He wouldn’t let me call a doctor or anything,’ Bella says. ‘I’ve been looking after him as much as I can, but he’s still really ill.’
‘Howie?’ Serena says as she enters the room. She goes straight to him. ‘Howie!’ Even in this low light he looks dreadful; I can see his skin seems to be drained of life and he appears weak and barely able to hold his head up against the pillows. Serena drops to her knees beside him, she puts her hand on his forehead, then moves her fingers to his neck in the same way I learnt to check Betina’s temperature. ‘He hasn’t got a temperature so he probably hasn’t got an infection, but he is not in a good way.’ She pulls her mobile out of her bag. ‘I’m calling an ambulance.’ She is already dialling 999.
‘Please don’t!’ Bella screeches, her hand outstretched to stop her. Howie tries to shake his head but he is so weak he has to move his whole body to do that. ‘No,’ he manages to whisper. ‘No, please.’