Chapter Seventy
Leah
Now
‘Marie?’ I repeat. Does Carly know that our sister is dead? It’s the only explanation I can think of that might go some small way to explaining her erratic behaviour but if there’s a chance, however tiny, that she doesn’t know I don’t want to tell her right now. She’s already teetering on the edge, I can’t be the one to push her over. I don’t know why she’s given Archie a sleeping tablet. I don’t know why she’s brandishing a knife. All I know is that the longer I can keep her talking the better. George must have read my text, he’s always glued to his phone. The police have to be on their way.
Don’t they?
Chapter Seventy-One
Carly
Now
‘Marie knew about the abduction,’ Carly says, her voice monotone.
‘I don’t understand. Knew?’
‘Before it happened. Mum was in on it too, apparently. She must have hated us even then.’
When Carly first found out the truth she had believed Marie’s assurances that Leah hadn’t known their parents’ plan, but the more she had thought about it the more she became convinced that was a lie.
Another one.
They were twins. They shared everything.
Leah takes a sharp intake of breath. In the dim, milky light Carly can see her face is the colour of flour. Carly thinks she might have got it wrong. Leah might not have known. She’s always worn her heart on her sleeve. It was Marie who was always the actress. It appears she might have fooled them both.
‘Your dad—’
‘Don’t call him that,’ Leah says sharply.
‘Simon was planning it with Mum. Marie overheard him and Mum talking.’
‘I can’t… I don’t…’
‘It’s true. That was the new angle she was alluding to when she told us about the offer of the TV interview.’
‘No… She was my twin. I would have known. No…’
‘Yes.’
Leah buries her hands in her hair. Carly feels her anguish. Carly has always known how her sisters felt, or she thought she had. She was always the one who wanted to make it better for them but she can’t make this better. No one can. Carly gives Leah a minute. Her heart twists at her sister’s distress. In the silence she hears a scuttling. A burying insect. The memory of the beetles, in her hair, in her mouth returns to her with a punch. So much she has been through because of one man. So much that could have been stopped if Marie had just told the truth.
She feels angry again.
She places her palm flat against Archie’s chest to calm herself. Feels the rise and fall of his rib cage. She grapples for the words to continue. ‘Remember the day before we were snatched when Marie was off school sick? It was because she’d overheard them planning it and she wanted to talk Simon out of it. He… he told her that it wouldn’t be real. It would be like a game. He warned Marie that if it didn’t work we’d all be separated and sent to different homes. He was broke. Remember when she used to say, “This isn’t real. This is just a game. Just pretend.”’
Leah opens her mouth and closes it again. Instead of speaking she nods.
‘She was scared. I get that but…’ Carly’s voice cracks. ‘Our parents betrayed us. Doc and Moustache were the worst kind of people. The world is full of them. But Marie… We were all supposed to have each other’s backs. Sisters. You can’t trust anyone. You really didn’t know, Leah?’
Leah shakes her head violently. ‘I swear, Carly. I swear on Archie’s life.’ Carly believes her but it doesn’t change the way she feels right now.
‘Please.’ Leah stretches out her arms. ‘Please give me Archie. Let’s go home, Carly.’
Carly is torn in a million different pieces. She knows what she’s about to do is the right thing, but it still hurts all the same.
Chapter Seventy-Two
Leah
Now
‘I can’t give you Archie,’ Carly says. ‘He’s too good for this world. Too pure.’
My blood freezes. Ice heavy in my veins. I watch Carly’s hand caress the handle of the knife. Panic bulldozes into me. She wouldn’t, would she? She loves him. She loves me. Marie.
‘Marie.’ All at once my throat is hot and swollen at the thought that has just occurred to me. I’m wrong. I have to be. ‘Marie… is dead.’ The words burn my tongue. I study Carly’s face through my clouded tears. She doesn’t look surprised. ‘I… I found her in the ballroom.’
I fall into silence. So much hinges on Carly’s reaction.
‘I know she’s dead,’ Carly speaks slowly. ‘She’s been dead for days.’
‘How…’ I want to ask how Carly knows that but I’m scared of her answer. I don’t recognize her, this woman with wild, staring eyes and flat robotic voice. She shifts Archie on her lap. The blade is horribly close to his perfect, unblemished skin. What has happened to my sister? Our protector. Marie might have made a mistake by not telling us but she was eight. We were all just children. How can Carly have known that Marie is dead and not tell anyone? To stand shoulder to shoulder with me in the police station, her lips straight and silent, while I tried to report my twin missing. I know Carly’s not coping. I’ve barely seen her this past week. I know she’s been avoiding me but this?
This?
Surely I’m wrong.
I don’t want to ask, but I have to. ‘Carly…’ Just how unbalanced has my sister become? ‘Did you kill Marie?’
Chapter Seventy-Three
Carly
Now
Carly nods her head – yes, I killed Marie – and then she shakes it before nodding it once more. Did she kill her? She really doesn’t know. Something is sandpapering her memories, smoothing away the blunt edge of reality. She pushes her tongue into the gap in her mouth where the tooth that had been knocked out the day they were taken used to sit. Is it her fault? Is it her fault again? She thinks it is.
‘Get your coat. You’re coming with me,’ Carly had told Marie that day in her sister’s flat when she had expected to leave with her forgotten phone but instead was handed the cold, hard truth. Her stepdad had tried to set her up, her alone. Her mum had known. Marie had known. Probably Leah, too, she had thought. The world in which she had always felt unsafe now felt even darker, more dangerous, as though she’d be better off without it. As though the world would be better off without her. All along it had been Leah that Marie had wanted to save. Leah. Not her.
Never her.
‘Where are we going?’ Marie’s face creased with anxiety.
‘To the cashpoint. I’ll give you some money. Not enough, but some, but we’re not doing the TV interview.’ Carly had felt shock and confusion but rising to the surface a deep sense of shame. She’d loved her sister completely. Both her sisters. She was such a fool. She’d give Marie what she had in the bank and then she was cutting her off. Her and Leah.
‘Thanks. Afterwards, can you drop me somewhere?’
‘Where?’