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

  ‘I’ll be with you in fifteen minutes.’ George cuts the call and reaches down to retrieve his boxers from the floor.

  ‘She thinks he’s back. That he sent the letter,’ is all he says.

  ‘Well, she would do. I said—’

  ‘She’s at the police station.’

  He rapidly pulls on his clothes. Going to the police is something neither of them wanted. There are a lot of things neither of them wanted. A lot of things they crave, too.

  How is he ever going to sort this whole mess out?

  It’s slipping out of his control.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Leah

  Now

  At the police station, my breath is wild and out of control. I fight to slow it down. Carly sits rigid beside me. We haven’t spoken to each other since we got here. Since I nearly crashed the car trying to follow him. My hands twist in my lap. Already I cannot wait to rip these gloves off and scrunch them into the bin.

  The foyer is light and bright but I see germs crawling everywhere. The dirt of a thousand crimes. The squalid remnants of scores of criminals marched through in metal cuffs and with steely stares. My chest tightens again. Sometimes I still feel my hands are tied, ankles bound. Eyes and mouth covered.

  I cannot breathe.

  Insects crawling between the layer of skin and denim that clads my thighs. In my ears, scurrying sounds.

  I cannot gulp down air.

  ‘Let’s go,’ whispers Carly but her voice is thin, buried under the scuttling legs that fill my mind. I brush at my arms, as though brushing away creatures, but when I look at the floor it is empty save from the dog-ends and ash despite the large NO SMOKING signs.

  Oh, those warning signs can carry the threat of incomprehensible dangers.

  Behind the desk the officer watches me, a worried expression on his face. ‘You can come through—’

  I shake my head. I cannot answer. The room starts to spin. I’m not going anywhere or saying any more than I already have until George is here.

  Calm yourself.

  Three things. Name three things.

  Orange plastic chairs, tethered to the floor.

  A notice stating abuse will not be tolerated.

  Fluorescent light tubes stretching across the ceiling.

  Calm.

  When George finally arrives I launch myself into his arms. His suit is damp but I don’t care as I press myself against it as though I can melt into him. Meld into one substance. One person. Somebody else. Somebody stronger.

  We are led through to a small room and introduced to PC Godley, who offers us a drink. My throat is dry. I’m desperate for water but I won’t allow myself to drink out of one of their cups. I swallow hard.

  ‘Mrs Morgan, do you have the letter on you?’

  ‘No. But I can bring it in. You can check it for fingerprints—’

  ‘Unfortunately that’s not as simple as it sounds.’ He pulls a face. ‘It’s a question of resources and no crime has been committed.’

  ‘It’s a crime to threaten someone!’

  ‘But four days isn’t an actual threat.’

  ‘It feels like one.’

  ‘Look. I understand this is a difficult time for you. Twenty years is going to bring out the crackpots and true-crime addicts. You know from previous experience it’s not unusual to get letters or ’ave things left on your step. Crank phone calls. I wouldn’t expect anything less with the recent exposure. I bet you’re plagued by journalists at the moment?’

  I nod.

  ‘I wouldn’t put it past one of them to ’ave sent you the letter. Trying to drum up some new angle.’

  ‘But Marie is missing.’

  That’s one irrefutable fact he can’t ignore.

  ‘But you found a notepad, in her house—’

  ‘Flat.’ Hasn’t he been listening?

  ‘Which implies she’s been offered the lead in a play? And this was written in her handwriting?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And it’s not unusual for her to travel and not let you know when she’s going, or where.’

  ‘We’re not as close as we should be.’ Now I feel like I’m on trial – charged with being a terrible sister. ‘But I know something is wrong.’

  ‘I think Miss Sinclair has done the right thing, getting away. You should consider it too until the anniversary is over. No one will likely bother you then.’

  ‘Until the next one,’ I mutter.

  ‘There’s no evidence of anything untoward in Marie’s flat? The front door was secure. No signs of struggle? No signal there’s anything actually wrong. Other than your feeling?’

  ‘I saw him,’ I say quietly.

  Nobody speaks.

  ‘I saw him,’ I say again, louder now. ‘It was the second time and both times he was in a black car.’

  ‘So you said earlier, Leah.’ He turns to Carly. ‘But you didn’t see him, you say, Carly?’

  ‘No,’ Carly says. ‘Sorry.’ I don’t know whether she is apologizing to him or to me. I had clutched Carly’s arm, pointing in horror the second I’d spotted him, but rain was running down the windscreen like soup, stretching the outside world. Everything distorted. By the time my trembling fingers had managed to jab the key into the ignition and swish on the windscreen wipers he had disappeared. Then we had nearly been crushed by that bus when I’d tried to find him.

  ‘I’ve read your notes about the last time he was released. What you claimed ’appened. What the medical professionals recommended for you.’

  I close my eyes. I knew it would come to this. Then, they had believed me at first. They don’t believe me now. With my history, they won’t. It all feels so fruitless. My throat swells hot with frustration.

  ‘Look,’ George says firmly. I slip my hand into his. Grateful he, at least, is on my side. ‘Can you tell us where he’s living, put Leah’s mind at rest that he’s not in the area?’ His questions shatter the faith I had that at least my husband would believe me. I can tell by the way Carly has shifted nervously in her seat since we got here – avoiding eye contact – that I haven’t convinced her either.

  ‘I’m sorry, I can’t share that with you,’ we are told.

  Carly has driven my car home, so she can pick hers up and collect Archie from nursery. George is taking me to work. I hadn’t wanted to go. The thought that he is out there – that he knows my address – makes my stomach spasm with nerves, but PC Godley’s voice echoes loudly in my mind: what the medical professionals recommended for you. I was nearly sectioned. If it wasn’t for George and Francesca fighting my corner, I probably would have been. It seemed awful enough at the time, but then I didn’t have as much to lose. I didn’t have Archie. If creating the illusion of a semblance of normality is what I need to do to keep my life together – my family together – then I will. But I did see him. I know I did.

  Heart FM pelts out cheesy hits but I’m only half-listening until I hear a song so familiar my heart skips a beat.

  ‘5, 6, 7, 8,’ and it’s not just a reminder; it seems like a message from Marie. But what?

  George pulls up outside my office and cuts the engine. The radio is off but the song carries on playing in my head.

  ‘I think it’s the right thing for you to be at work. To take your mind off everything.’

  I don’t answer. In my mind I’m singing and dancing, one of the Sinclair Sisters when we were free. When we were happy.

  George sighs before he gets out of the car. We walk into my office together.

  ‘Hi.’ Tash’s smile freezes and then slips when I don’t return it. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘I’m fine.’ I try to kiss George goodbye but he turns his head so my lips connect to his cheek rather than his lips.

  I head towards my desk, wondering what I’ll tell Tash, if anything – I know she’ll worry. She’s my closest friend, my only friend in the world. I was the youngest here until she joined us four days a week. At the Christmas party we had crossed the line between
colleagues and friends after weeks of making small talk. We’d had watched – with mutual repulsion – as Barry from accounts sucked the face off Janet in sales.

  ‘There must be a huge increase in births in the autumn after all the drunken office hook-ups the winter before,’ Tash had shouted over Kylie Minogue wishing she was lucky. ‘I can’t think of anything worse than having something drooling at your tits.’ She shuddered.

  ‘Babies are—’

  ‘I wasn’t talking about a baby. I was talking about Barry.’

  I’d laughed. It felt loud and unnatural, but good. It felt good.

  ‘I never want kids,’ Tash said unapologetically, not caring about being judged.

  ‘Me neither. Obviously I’ve Archie and he’s a complete joy but I couldn’t go through it again.’

  ‘Why not? Not that I blame you.’

  It was refreshing to meet someone who didn’t want a family. The mums at Archie’s nursery were always obsessing over weaning and potty training and speculating on the perfect time to create a sibling. Tash… well, Tash just didn’t care. Whether it was the alcohol, or the sharing of confidences, I had found myself blurting out, ‘I worry too much that something will happen to him.’

  ‘I think all mums worry about that, don’t they? That’s why I’m never going to reproduce. I’m too selfish.’

  ‘They don’t worry as much as me. But that’s what being thrown into the back of a van and kidnapped does to you. It makes you paranoid.’ My voice had been breezy, high with vodka but my palms were sweating. I didn’t usually share but there was something about Tash I wanted to emulate. Her directness. Her fearlessness.

  ‘Yeah, don’t you just hate it when that happens at the end of a good night out? I reckon Janet’s heading that way with Barry. What does he drive?’ She’d cupped her hands around her mouth. ‘Run, Janet, run!’ Then turned to me, laughter dying on her lips as she studied my face. ‘Fuck. You’re not serious, are you? Kidnapped?’

  I’d nodded. Took another swig of my drink. My eyes stung with tears. ‘I don’t know why I said that. I don’t usually tell anyone.’

  ‘Well… No… It’s not really a conversation opener.’

  ‘You really didn’t know?’ I had asked. Tash had shaken her head. ‘You can’t have grown up around here then. I’m the cautionary tale. The one parents wheel out to stop their kids breaking curfew. Running riot.’

  ‘No, I’m not from here. I moved because I wanted to leave home and couldn’t afford city rent. Anyway…’

  I’d waited for her to say she was going to the loo, to the bar, to mingle – anything except stay here with me. But instead she’d asked, ‘Do you want to talk about it?’

  ‘No.’ I drank deeply once more. ‘I was eight.’

  ‘Fuck’ was all she said and that was refreshing. No false sympathy or platitudes. Just… fuck. It pretty much summed everything up.

  ‘But I can’t tell you anything else.’

  ‘Of course. You don’t have to.’ Tash had drained her glass and pulled a hip flask from her bag.

  ‘I was with my sisters. It was my fault, really. I hadn’t shut the garden gate properly and our dog ran out. We chased him and there were two men and…’ I inhaled deeply through my nose.

  ‘Van?’

  ‘Van.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘So… I have… issues.’ Then the music changed to S Club 7. Opening up had made me feel lighter. Wanting to reach for the stars. ‘Dance?’ I’d asked her.

  ‘Yep.’ Tash had stood and smoothed down her impossibly short skirt. ‘Leah. What you’ve been through, it’s—’

  ‘Shitty?’

  ‘Shitty. But—’

  ‘Honestly, Tash. No more tonight.’ Even then I’d known there would be other times. That she would become somebody I could talk to. A friend.

  ‘Okay. But remember. However bad things have been – get – it could be worse.’ She’d jerked her head towards Barry flailing his arms in the centre of the dance floor; an octopus being electrocuted.

  ‘Yeah. At least I’m not Janet,’ I’d said.

  Over the past three years I’ve seen Tash frequently out of work. She’s met both Marie and Carly.

  ‘They don’t have families of their own?’ she had asked beforehand.

  ‘No. It makes me really sad not be an aunt,’ I’d shared. ‘But I think the stress if Marie or Carly fell pregnant would drive me crazy. The thought of them going into hospital, putting themselves at risk. Not to mention the endless anxiety the thought of trying to protect another life would bring.’

  ‘It makes you really ill, doesn’t it? The worry?’ She had understood I didn’t experience concern in the way other people might. My fears are crushing. They have broken me before now. If it weren’t for George…

  We talk for hours, often at my house, because her flat is poky and cold. She and George get on well, although he generally disappears after dinner to ‘leave you girls to your gossip’. But she hasn’t come round these past few weeks.

  I miss her.

  I settle myself at my desk, squirting the surface with antibacterial cleaner and wiping it slowly, before cleaning my phone, although nobody uses the handset but me. When I’ve finished I cross the room to toss the cloth into the bin. Through the door I can see out into the reception area. George is still here, huddled by the door with Tash. They are both exchanging whispers, wearing the same harried expressions as though they are facing a mirror, not each other.

  Hesitantly I step forward. Oddly it feels like I am intruding even though I know they are talking in hushed tones about me.

  ‘We can’t tell her. Not yet,’ George says. ‘She’s too fragile.’

  ‘It’s so hard keeping secrets – I feel like a total bitch,’ Tash says.

  ‘You’re anything but.’ Briefly George lays his palm on her cheek.

  ‘If we’re not careful, she’ll guess,’ Tash says.

  I hurry back to my desk, feeling sick. Again, PC Godley’s words boom: what the medical professionals recommended for you. Are they planning an intervention in case I relapse? The thought of who they might make me see. Of where they might take me is terrifying.

  When my best friend comes and takes her seat opposite me I turn my face to the wall to avoid her questions. So I don’t ask any of my own.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Carly

  Then

  It was morning. The girls had been imprisoned for an entire night. Through the window Carly watched as dawn brushed its pink-and-orange fingers over the sky. The world was so beautiful, she had never realized. She wondered whether she would ever get to enjoy it again. Tears leaked from behind her eyes. She didn’t wipe them away, not wanting to disturb the twins, who were still sleeping. Her heart hurt as she gazed at their pale faces. Their small hands, dark purple bruises staining their skin. Carly’s own hands throbbed from banging them against the door. Her head pounded, gums ached where she’d dislodged a tooth. Her knees were sore, the cut on her cheek raw. Every single muscle in her body was as hard as one of Bruno’s bones. The twins had taken up most of the room on the mattress and all night Carly had balanced on the edge, fearful of toppling onto the hard, dirty floor. The blanket wasn’t quite large enough to stretch over them all. Carly had tucked it around the shoulders of the twins and lay shivering, not only with cold but with terror.

  What were they going to do?

  Think.

  The sun rose higher, pushing through the bars and creating stripes on the drab floor as it burst thought the pastel colours, painting the sky a cornflower blue. The clown on the back of the door grinned.

  ‘I fucking hate clowns,’ Carly muttered.

  ‘You said the “F” word,’ Leah whispered.

  ‘I fucking hate him too,’ Marie said.

  ‘I didn’t know you were both awake.’ Carly was mortified. She already thought she’d be blamed for getting them into this mess. If the twins started swearing at eight years old she’d be in even more trou
ble. She rose to her feet. Stalked around the room again and again. Ten paces long, turn. Six paces wide, turn.

  Think.

  Panic clutched at Carly as she inhaled the stifling air. They couldn’t stay in here another day. Another night.

  Ten paces, turn. Six paces, turn.

  Let-us-out. Let-us-out. Let-us-out.

  The words were inside Carly’s head, inside her mouth, inside the room.

  ‘Let us out. Let us out. Let us out,’ she yelled as she pelted towards the door. All three sisters began thumping to be free again. Screaming. Fists pounding against the clown’s face. His nose. His mouth. His eyes.

  It didn’t take long before they tired. Weak from lack of food. From the surges of adrenaline that rushed through their veins before ebbing away.

  ‘My tummy hurts.’ Leah slunk back to the mattress.

  ‘Mine too,’ Marie joined her twin.

  ‘It’s because we’re hungry.’ Carly dully made her way over to the box. Snaps and Coke for breakfast. They were running low on food. Surely the men would come back today. The thought was terrifying and reassuring in equal measure. She was sure they’d find out why they had been snatched but did she really want to know? There was a cruelty to Moustache she could sense. He was like Stephen at school who bullied the younger kids, stealing their lunch and their branded sports kit. Punching them in the stomach for fun. Stephen’s friends hung around him because they were intimidated. Was that why Doc was with Moustache? She thought he had a gentle side. The softness of the blanket, the teddy bear with his fluffy coat and rounded tummy, which made him ‘totally cuddleable’, according to Leah.

  If Doc came on his own they might have a chance. She could, perhaps, talk him into letting them go. Carly had watched her mum persuade Dad to do things he didn’t want to do with the right words, a smile. You twist me round your little finger, he would say. Could she do that to Doc?

  If he comes without Moustache.

  If.

  If.

  If.

  In the meantime, Carly scanned the room again; they were stuck. Trapped. Again, panic swooped low, clutching Carly around the throat. There wasn’t enough air in the room. She had to get them out. Her feet tingled as she clumped around the room. Examining every single millimetre of the wall for the umpteenth time. Running her hands over the cold, slimy surface, feeling for something under the graffiti. A hidden exit. A loose brick.