Always.
She was furious that again one of the Sinclairs had done something else to try and ruin her. She felt like she was broken.
As angry as she was, she couldn’t just leave Marie. Carly was gentle as she eased her hands into Marie’s armpits and dragged her over to the centre of the room. She walked slowly, collecting cardboard, broken pallets, building a pile over Marie much like the one that had been there before. It was there she left her.
Forever hiding.
Forever safe.
‘Oh Carly,’ Leah said softly. ‘It wasn’t your fault. If you hadn’t given her the money, she’d have found it somehow. Addicts always do. She loved you. Please never doubt that. We all love you. You are our sister and we never thought of you as any different.’
‘Everyone lied to me.’
‘Mum lied to me too.’
‘It’s not the same. Did you know it was only meant to be me?’ Carly hated how small her voice sounded. How needy.
‘What was?’
‘The abduction. Marie was supposed to get me into the alley on my own. Two men to take one girl. One mattress. One blanket. One teddy.’
‘Carly, I didn’t… I can’t imagine…’ There’s a beat. ‘Look, I’m sure it was because you were the oldest…’
But Carly knew it was because she was the least loved. Her fingers played with Archie’s hair. ‘It was only meant to be me,’ she said again sadly. ‘It all has to end. Now.’
Chapter Seventy-Four
Leah
Now
My heart breaks for Carly. Finally I am free from the guilt that it wasn’t my fault – that I likely had shut the gate properly but Marie had opened it again – but instead I am burdened with the knowledge that my dad – Simon – had formulated his plan around Carly as if she didn’t matter. After all his talk about family, about treating the girls the same despite Carly not being his, he didn’t care. The knowing that, after years of thinking otherwise, he had perhaps loved Marie and me doesn’t bring any comfort.
We were sisters. We felt what each other felt. The horror. The burden. The grief. The fear.
‘Everything that has happened the past few days, was it all you?’ I ask Carly – for the first time it occurs to me that Simon wasn’t behind any of it. ‘Did you send me the countdown letters?’
‘Yes. I wrote myself the same letters so you wouldn’t suspect me.’
‘I’d never have suspected you… Was all of it you? The mice? The teddy? The cross around his neck?’
‘Yes,’ she says simply. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t think clearly after Marie had confessed. There was the buzzing in my head. I wasn’t thinking. I just went home and went to bed. The next day when you took us to Marie’s flat and let us in with the spare key, it seemed easier to scribble a note from her in the kitchen, saying that she’d gone on tour. You were in the bedroom. I didn’t think it through, it just happened.’ Carly had always been good at forging handwriting, faking letters from Mum to the school to get herself out of PE. ‘There was this feeling, Leah, that if I called the police they’d blame me for Marie’s death. Everyone would blame me for Marie. You were always the nation’s favourites, the cute pigtailed twins. I was… an awkward teenager. Now I’m an awkward adult. I couldn’t face it all around the anniversary. And…’ Carly wipes the tears from her cheeks with the hand that still grips the knife. ‘I don’t know. I thought you knew. I hated you both for… for being born, I suppose. Ruining Mum’s life. My life. I wished it was just her and me again in our tiny flat, eating chicken nuggets.’
‘I don’t blame you for wanting revenge, Carly. But this… this isn’t right. Archie…’
‘I’m so very sorry but Archie has to now die, Leah. It’s the only way.’
Chapter Seventy-Five
Carly
Now
Leah doesn’t cry but Carly can feel her onslaught of panic as her mind scrambles for a way she can save her son.
She can’t.
It tears Carly apart to see her little sister – the person she has always tried to protect – fall apart. She can almost hear Leah shatter. See pieces of her scatter to the floor.
‘Carly…’ she says, her voice a wail. She looks at Carly with mistrust and hurt. She looks at Carly as though she is a monster.
She isn’t.
Is she?
‘Leah…’ Carly wants to explain. To ease Leah’s pain. ‘I’m sorry I’ve frightened you the past few days with the letters and everything.’ Carly feels such remorse that she’d behaved so badly. ‘It’s as though I wasn’t myself and that’s the problem, don’t you see? I don’t know who I am. Who I would have been if it weren’t for Simon. If I hadn’t been abducted.’
‘I know who you are! You’re a good—’
‘You don’t even know who you are, Leah.’
‘I do.’ Leah grabs at the straw she thinks she is being offered. ‘I’m Archie’s mum. George’s wife. Your sister.’
‘Those are all labels. Names don’t define us. Our actions do. Our feelings do. Since Marie got sick in that filthy room, you’ve put yourself in a bubble with your incessant cleaning. Those bloody gloves.’
Leah raises her hands and stares at them as though she has never seen them before.
‘The rituals you carry out. Everything has to be done three times because you should have banged the gate shut three times. You don’t live, not really.’
‘I do live—’
‘You live in fear. Remember when Archie was born and you wouldn’t take him out of the house. You wouldn’t let him go to toddler groups in case he caught an infection.’
‘Yes. But he goes now and—’
‘And you worry about him every single second he’s out of your sight, don’t you?’
Leah’s silence is her agreement.
‘But it’s not germs and illness and all those other things you say, is it? Not really. You think someone might take him. Hurt him, because… because you know, Leah. You and I both know that there are bad people out there. The worst people out there. We’ve lived with them, you and I. We’ve loved them. How long do you think it will be before Archie learns the world is not what he thought? When he starts school and the children tease him about you, because the children will find out through their parents who you are.’
‘But… but…’
Leah can’t think of an argument. Carly hopes she is convincing her. It would be so much easier if she agrees to this. They could all just slip away from the world now. Together.
‘Look at him.’ Carly strokes Archie’s hair. ‘He’s so innocent. So pure. Remember when we felt like that? Before the day we were snatched? Wouldn’t it be nice if he stayed like that? Stayed asleep? We could join him, you and I. Join Marie. No more fear. No more pain. No more—’
‘No!’ Leah shouts. ‘You’re wrong. I know you want to protect him but this isn’t the way. It isn’t. There is good in the world. Kindness. Love. We teach Archie all of those things. We can show him all of those things and he’ll have a good life. A long life.’