The Stolen Sisters: from the bestselling author of The Date and The Sister comes one of the most thrilling, terrifying and shocking psychological thrillers of 2020

by Louise Jensen

  The doorbell rings. A cardboard box is thrust into George’s arms. He carries it through to the kitchen and slices through the brown tape. His shoulders tighten as he stares at the contents. This will set everything off again when Leah comes home. He can’t pretend he hasn’t seen this. The thought of another row is almost too much to bear.

  They’d fought last night. He says ‘fought’ but there were no raised voices – he didn’t want Archie to hear his parents arguing and he never shouted because Leah was jumpy, easily frightened – but it was there in his body language. The furling and unfurling of his fists despite knowing he’d never use them. In the set of his jaw.

  His anger.

  ‘Show me,’ he had demanded.

  Leah had played with the cuff of her gloves. ‘It’s too sore.’

  ‘You’re lying.’ He knew she was wearing gloves again because she was slipping backwards, not because of some non-existent eczema. Why couldn’t she just be… the word normal sprang to mind. George felt instantly ashamed, and then furious again, and then helpless.

  Why wasn’t he enough for her? Why wasn’t all of this enough for her? A home of her own. A family.

  Her past was horrible and twisted and awful but she’d come through it, and yet it was still with her. In every guarded smile. In every single one of her bloody rituals.

  He had known it was inevitable when the first journalist approached them several weeks ago.

  The anniversary.

  The fucking anniversary.

  He’d be glad when it was all over and they could all move forward with their lives.

  A fresh start.

  George picked up his handset and rang Marie again.

  This time she answered.

  Chapter Ten

  Leah

  Now

  George puts the knife down on the worktop next to the cardboard box and opens his arms just as Archie bowling balls into them. ‘Have you had fun at nursery?’

  ‘Yes! I talked to a real policeman!’

  George raises his eyebrows and I give an almost indiscernible shake of my head. The police were nothing to do with me. Not this time.

  ‘Have you ever met a real policeman, Daddy?’

  There’s a beat before George says, ‘Yes,’ but unlike Archie, there’s no excitement in his voice, just an underlying sadness and regret and again I think about all I have put him through since we have been married. The endless interviews. The detectives. The psychiatrists. The whispers that I should be sectioned despite me being adamant that I knew what I had seen. What I had witnessed.

  Throughout it all he had never left my side, holding my hand. Promising me that he wouldn’t let them take me away. That he could look after me.

  He believed me. He believed in me.

  The lies came later.

  My lies.

  His.

  Last week I found our bank statements and it is all worse than I’d feared.

  ‘We’re fine. We’re managing,’ George had said. ‘I’m working my arse off to get us back on track.’ That much was true, at least. He is always networking, trying to bring in new business. It’s not fair the burden falls to him. Especially when I can’t give him the one thing that he wants.

  Another child.

  He has always been the one desperate for a sibling for Archie. I’ve been reluctant to agree. Truth be told, I’d been horrified when I found out I was pregnant with Archie, as I’d been so careful. George has stopped asking me for another baby. I hope it’s because we can’t afford one right now, because the thought that he might still want a large family – but not want one with me – is almost too much to bear.

  I look at him across the kitchen, my handsome husband with his mop of dark hair and blue eyes that look permanently worried. He is slipping away from me. For a split second I wonder how much money the journalist had offered Marie. What we would have to say to generate enough interest to rocket our bank account from red to black, but I dismiss it instantly.

  There are things I will never tell no matter how high the stakes.

  ‘How’s your morning been?’ I ask George as I lift the box from the worktop. He puts Archie down.

  ‘Go upstairs and wash your hands while Mummy and I make you some lunch.’

  ‘Okay, Daddy. I’ll fly.’ Archie stretches his arms into wings and zooms around the kitchen twice before he thunders upstairs.

  George takes the box from me and puts it back down. ‘What the fuck, Leah?’

  I swallow hard. ‘You shouldn’t have—’

  ‘I knew you weren’t coping.’ George tips the box onto its side and out spills bottle after bottle of antibacterial cleaner, hand wash, disinfectant wipes. Disposable gloves.

  ‘I… I am…’ I’m coping because of the contents of the box, not in spite of them.

  ‘You’re not. You haven’t got eczema again at all, have you?’

  I stare miserably at my gloved hands. ‘No.’

  ‘You need help.’

  ‘It’s because of the anniversary.’

  ‘I know.’ His voice is quiet. His expression despairing. ‘I know how difficult it is for you. All of you. But remember the last time? I can’t go through it again, Leah. I’m not putting Archie through it. If you need to go and stay somewhere—’

  ‘A psychiatric hospital? I’m not mad.’

  ‘I’m not saying you are but you need specialist—’

  ‘I’ll ring Francesca. Make an appointment.’

  She had helped before. She was the one who came to the police station and fought for me when they wouldn’t let me go. She explained the truth to them, however implausible it had seemed. My pulse accelerates as I remember the disbelief etched on their faces. The suspicion. She managed to persuade them I was innocent.

  That time, I was innocent.

  ‘George? I said I’ll ring Francesca.’

  ‘Okay.’ There’s such weariness to that one word. He doesn’t follow it with ‘when?’ or ‘call her now’ and I know what he is thinking.

  ‘I know she’s expensive but Marie says we’re due some large royalties. I can cover the cost. Soon the anniversary will have been and gone and everything will be back to normal, I promise.’

  ‘You can’t put a price on mental health,’ he says. ‘Do you want me to come with you?’

  ‘Thanks. I’ll see what she suggests.’ I flash him a smile that he doesn’t return.

  After a silent sandwich – even Archie is subdued, picking up on our tension – George disappears into his study.

  ‘What shall we play with, Archie?’ I ask.

  ‘Are your hands too sore to play trains, Mummy?’ He studies my face.

  My throat swells as he looks at me with concern. ‘I’m never too sore to play with you, Archie.’ Not a direct lie, but not the truth either.

  Archie scampers upstairs, returning minutes later, his thick winter gloves covering his hands.

  ‘Now we’re the same.’

  I blink back tears as I watch him struggle to push the carriages around the track, hating myself, and loving him more.

  It is just Archie and me for dinner. George is heading out again. After we’ve eaten, Archie asks if he can go and watch George get ready. He loves it when George smothers his chin in shaving cream, a Father Christmas beard.

  I settle myself in front of the TV, channel-hopping, trying to find something upbeat – there are far too many crime series on. Channel 4 is halfway through an episode of Come Dine With Me but I watch it all the same.

  My mobile trills its old-fashioned telephone ring. Anxiety cackles in my ear when I see where the call is coming from.

  Why is he ringing me? But I know why.

  For a split second I think about not answering, but I know if I don’t he won’t stop trying. Each time I change my number I text him my new one but he rarely has cause to use it. Now he must have something important to say and he’ll be determined to say it.

  I don’t want to hear it.

  My toes scru
nch inside of my slippers.

  I don’t want to hear it.

  The urge to run away is immense.

  I don’t want to hear it.

  I will myself to think of Archie upstairs.

  Calm yourself.

  I search the room for three things to ground myself with.

  Chocolate-brown cushion with pops of orange flowers.

  Green spider-plant on the windowsill.

  The side lamp with its warming buttery glow.

  Calm.

  My phone falls quiet. I stare at my screen, waiting for the voicemail icon to pop up.

  It doesn’t.

  The ringing starts again, demanding attention. I mute the TV and peel off one of my gloves so I can swipe to accept the call but, rather than imagining germs, it is his words I can feel already crawling over my skin regardless of the fact he hasn’t yet spoken.

  ‘Yes?’ I don’t bother with hello. This is not a social call.

  ‘It’s Graham.’ His Scottish accent is broad although he hasn’t lived there for years.

  ‘I know.’ Although ‘Graham’ still seems too familiar. Chief Inspector McDonald is the name that flashed up on my phone. He’s retired now but I still can’t address him by his Christian name. Whenever I hear his voice I’m that eight-year-old girl once more, frightened and confused. Cowering in the brightness of the police station, the light and noise a stark contrast to the quiet darkness I’d been rescued from. My arms wrapped around my father’s neck – me on one hip, Marie on the other, while Chief Inspector McDonald – Graham – assured us, ‘I’ll find the bastards who did this, I promise,’ and my mother sobbed into a tissue, a bewildered Carly pressed against her side.

  ‘How are you?’ he asks although he’ll know how I am.

  ‘Fine,’ I say but we both know that I’m not.

  We’re so horribly British, that it comes next, the idle chit-chat about the weather.

  ‘It’s brass monkeys out there, I can’t feel my hands,’ he says.

  ‘I know. I couldn’t spread the butter on Archie’s toast this morning because it was solid.’

  We play I’m-colder-than-you tag for a few minutes more.

  ‘Leah.’ I know what’s coming even before he confirms that I am right. There’s no other reason he’d be calling me. Part of me thinks I should say it first, take some control, but my mouth is desert dry, the words stuck to my tongue. I hear his breath in my ear.

  Please don’t tell me.

  The sound of a chair leg scraping against the floor.

  Please don’t tell me.

  The spark of a lighter. A draw on a cigarette.

  Please don’t tell me.

  But then he does. He has to.

  ‘He’s out. He was released yesterday.’

  He doesn’t speak again and I think it’s because I’m screaming but then I realize the sound I’m making is only in my head because I can hear Archie call, ‘Bye Daddy,’ followed by the slam of the front door.

  Graham allows the words to settle for a moment more before he says, ‘Time off for good behaviour.’ He makes a noise that could be a laugh or a snort or something in between because we both know there has never been anything good in his behaviour, but still they keep releasing him.

  He’s out.

  I am gripping the handset so hard my knuckles are white and my fingers ache.

  He’s out.

  Last time he was released he had ignored the condition of his parole stating he couldn’t come anywhere near me, Marie or Carly. It was such a relief when he was arrested again after the police had uncovered what else he had done while he’d had his freedom restored. He’s been gone for a number of years since and, although I knew he wouldn’t be locked up forever, this still feels like a slap in the face but then it proves I was right, wasn’t I? I had seen him this morning as I’d pulled out of the petrol station.

  Twenty years.

  Happy anniversary.

  Without thinking about how rude I am being, I cut the call. My fingers hover between the contacts in my favourite list. I ring Carly first.

  ‘Hey, Leah. What’s up?’ Her voice is thick with tears. It’s been a hard day for us all at Marie’s flat. For a moment I hesitate, not wanting to make her feel any worse.

  ‘He’s out.’ It’s all I need to say.

  She sharply draws a breath.

  ‘Who told you?’ she asks.

  ‘Graham.’

  ‘Not Mum?’

  ‘Of course not.’ Our relationship with our mother is complex. ‘Do you think she knows?’ Would the police be obliged to tell her?

  ‘Dunno. Should I call her?’

  ‘Do you want to?’

  ‘Not really, no.’

  ‘Then don’t. Anyway, there’s nothing she can do and we need to tell Marie first. Speak to you later.’

  I hang up, not waiting to hear her thoughts on his release. Her reaction will be the same as mine: outrage, sadness, fear.

  Marie’s phone rings and rings. I will her to hurry up. Her answer service kicks in. I cut the call and try again with no luck.

  She definitely said she didn’t have any plans that evening, that she was staying in.

  In between bathing Archie and putting him to bed I try her again.

  Still, she doesn’t answer.

  My stomach churns with worry. When I was young I came down with tonsillitis unbeknown to Marie, who suddenly lost her voice, despite not feeling ill.

  Twin instinct, Mum used to call it.

  My thoughts cast back to that room – our prison – when I had thought she was going to die. I knew it then and I know it now.

  Something is wrong.

  Very wrong indeed.

  Chapter Eleven

  Carly

  Then

  Leah released another bloodcurdling scream and, before Carly could react, she tore over to the door, rattling the handle with both hands.

  ‘Come back! Let us out!’

  Marie shouted, ‘Stop it, Leah. You’ll make them cross.’

  Leah turned to Carly, her eyes wide and disbelieving. ‘They… they’ve left us here.’

  ‘It’s okay.’ Carly forced out the lie. ‘I’m going to get us out.’

  ‘How?’ Leah waited for an answer and when she didn’t get one she turned back to the door. Hammering on it with her small fists. ‘Help.’

  ‘Shh.’ Carly grabbed her wrists. ‘Stop that. Give me a second to think.’

  Panic tightened in Carly’s chest, forcing her to draw in deeper breaths. The putrid smell was unbearable. Carly covered her nose with her sleeve while she stalked around the room.

  It was small.

  Oppressive.

  Graffiti scrawled over the walls.

  Ten frantic paces long and six paces wide.

  One locked door.

  One barred window. The tree outside tap-tap-tapping against the metal bars as pain tap-tap-tapped behind Carly’s eyes. She wondered if she had concussion from where she’d banged her head in the van. She’d seen that happen once on Casualty.

  What would happen to the twins if she wasn’t here to protect them?

  Carly pulled at the bars as hard as she could but they were concreted into place. Oddly they weren’t weatherworn or rusty, but shiny and new. It was a slow dawning. Carly realized with horror that they had been fitted recently, either for them or for someone who had been held here before.

  This wasn’t random, it had been planned.

  Why?

  Had they been kidnapped for a ransom? Her stepdad was always featured in newspaper and magazines with his business. He and Mum were often out at work functions – ‘networking’, he called it. Drumming up business. She didn’t fully understand what he did, despite his patience in explaining it. His clients were all companies with money who paid him to build online campaigns to get the public to contribute to fund the manufacturing of new products. It seemed crazy.

  ‘Why can’t the companies just pay for their own stuff?’ Carly h
ad asked.

  ‘Why risk your own money, if someone else is willing to pay? Besides, some of these big names genuinely can’t afford to pay for development in this economy but they can’t admit they’re in the red. If consumers knew there was any sort of risk of the company folding, they’d avoid them like the plague. Too worried about their guarantees being void or not being able to cash in gift vouchers.’

  ‘So it’s tricking them.’

  ‘Not tricking them, no. Creating a buzz is a win-win for everyone. The manufacturers get their product launched with minimal risk, and the consumers feel a real part of something. Everyone gets something out of it.’

  It was confusing but it paid well. Their house was the nicest in their street. If the men demanded money Carly knew her parents would give it to them. That had to be it, didn’t it? But what if it wasn’t?

  The girls had been brought here for a reason.

  Carly just didn’t know what.

  She closed her eyes.

  She didn’t want to know.

  Think.

  Tap-tap-tap, said the tree.

  Hurry-hurry-hurry.

  Carly raced back to the door. Twisted the handle.

  ‘It’s still locked,’ Leah said.

  ‘I know that.’ What Carly didn’t know was what they – what she – was going to do. Panicked, she ran her fingers down the side of the door, feeling for the bump of the hinges. Could she unscrew them somehow and remove the door? There didn’t seem to be screws visible and Carly wondered if the door needed to be open in order to see them. She rattled the handle again.

  Think.

  Desperately, she scanned the room. The mattress took up much of the floor space. Broken glass littered the grubby grey floor; the fluorescent tubes had been wrenched from the ceiling and smashed. There was a heap of rubbish that looked like the bonfire her stepdad had mounded in the garden last year. Carly remembered the strike of the match, the flames that licked higher and higher until the guy the girls had made was alight. His legs, his torso. His face.

  Was that what the men had planned for them?

  She couldn’t breathe. The thought… The thought of being trapped in this room, toxic smoke filling the air, filling their lungs. The relentless heat.