Sister Sister

by Sue Fortin

  Out on the landing, Tom presses the button to call the lift. As we wait, I look out of the window and, quite by chance, notice the familiar figure of Leonard walking purposefully towards the hospital with Mum at his side.

  ‘Shit. It’s Mum and Leonard. Looks like they’re heading this way.’

  ‘We’ll take the stairs,’ says Tom. He grabs my hand and, checking for the exit signs, we push open the double doors that lead to the staircase.

  ‘I can’t go too fast. Every step jolts my arm.’ I wince as I clomp onto the next step.

  ‘It’s okay, take your time,’ says Tom, although I can hear the urgency in his voice. It’s only one flight of stairs to the ground floor and once on level ground, I can quicken my pace. Tom feeds his parking card into the machine, pays the charge and then leads me out to his car.

  ‘What happened to your wing mirror?’ I ask as I get in the passenger’s side. The glass is missing and there’s a big scuff on the casing.

  ‘Caught it on the bloody barrier coming in,’ he says getting in beside me. ‘I was a bit preoccupied, worrying if you were okay.’

  Within a few minutes, we’re pulling out of the car park. I glance up at the window to my room and I see Leonard standing there, looking down at us. Tom puts his foot down and, in a flash, we are gone, yet the weight of Leonard’s stare bears down on me, filling the car with menace.

  ‘What will Luke say when he finds out you’ve done a runner?’

  ‘Luke’s gone to his parents. He’s taken the girls with him.’ I rest my head back against the seat, wondering what he told Hannah and reminding myself to call a bit later. The dark clouds look to be settling in for the night and the tops of the trees sway in the strong wind. As we head towards the sea front, the wind feels even stronger, battering the side of the car.

  I pull the sun visor down and look at myself in the vanity mirror. ‘Can we stop at a shop, please?’

  ‘Sure. What do you need?’

  ‘A clean dressing.’ I pick at the tape, which is currently holding my crepe bandage turban together. Eventually, I pick enough to get a good grip between my finger and thumb and manage to prise it away. Then, rather unceremoniously, I unwind the bandage, allowing it to spool like spaghetti in my lap, until it reveals a rectangular dressing of about two by three inches. The middle of the dressing has a dark-red, dried bloodstain.

  ‘Are you sure you should be taking that off?’

  ‘I’ll be fine.’

  Tom draws the car up outside a mini convenience store and runs in to get a clean dressing for me. He returns a few minutes later with a complete first-aid kit. He shrugs. ‘Better safe than sorry. I wasn’t sure what you wanted.’

  I smile. ‘Thanks. No doubt there’s something in here that will be useful.’

  As we near Tom’s apartment, my phone rings. ‘It’s Leonard,’ I say, showing Tom the screen. I go to answer it, but Tom puts his hand over mine.

  ‘Don’t give him any clue as to where you are or what you know. We need to work this all out in our heads before we speak to him. You know what he’s like. Before we know it, he’ll have us convinced we’re the insane ones.’

  ‘Good point.’ I switch the phone to silent. ‘Maybe I should just text to say I’m okay, though. I don’t want them to call the police or anything like that.’

  ‘It’s up to you.’

  I tap out a reply to Leonard saying ‘just gone out with Tom for some fresh air’, with a reassurance that I’ll speak to him later. ‘He was going to sit with Hannah today while the police interviewed her about the accident. Maybe I should speak to him. Just in case.’

  ‘No!’ The force of Tom’s voice startles me. ‘Later. You can do that later.’

  His eyes fix on the road ahead and I sit back in silence, aware that Tom is rather more anxious about it all than he’s letting on. I can see a line of sweat prick above his upper lip. He draws the car into the underground car park and switches off the engine. I can just make out his face in the soft yellow glow from the wall light. He looks at me. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean to snap. Just a bit jumpy about Leonard, that’s all. Let’s get inside. We can talk properly there.’

  I exit the car and follow him over to the lift. I’ve known Tom a long time and his nerves are like steel, so to see him flustered gives me a deep sense of unease.

  We enter the lift and, as I rest my hand against my shoulder bag, I feel the vibration of an incoming text message. For some reason I don’t want Tom to know.

  When we get upstairs to his apartment, I make my excuses to use the loo, taking my bag and the first-aid kit with me. ‘I’ll just put a new dressing on this cut while I’m at it,’ I call back over my shoulder. I make sure I lock the door and then set about running a bowl of water. I take my phone from my bag and check the message. I’m not surprised to see it’s from Leonard.

  Don’t trust him. Phone me. I need to tell you something important.

  Chapter 28

  ‘You okay in there?’ calls Tom from the other side of the door. I almost drop my phone in panic.

  ‘Yes. Won’t be a moment!’

  I delete the message and shove the phone back into my bag.

  A few minutes later we’re sitting in the living room and Tom is handing me a glass of wine. ‘Thought you could do with something a bit stronger than a cup of tea.’

  ‘Thanks.’ I take the wine. To be honest I’m not really in a wine sort of mood, so I take a sip out of politeness and place it on the table next to me. ‘Where’s your laptop, then?’ I ask, looking around.

  ‘In the spare room. I’ll get it all up and running in a moment.’ Tom sits on the sofa next to me. ‘Are you okay? I mean, really okay?’

  ‘Yeah, sort of. It’s all a bit surreal at the moment. I’m not quite sure what I am.’ I give a laugh that I don’t really mean. ‘I can’t stop thinking about the accident. It just goes round and round in my head. I keep thinking was there something I could have done to avoid it.’

  ‘You mustn’t blame yourself. You didn’t do anything wrong.’

  ‘It all happened so fast.’

  ‘You know, I’ve been thinking about the accident and I hate to be the one to suggest it, but you don’t think Leonard had anything to do with it, do you?’

  ‘He wouldn’t do anything to hurt Hannah,’ I say. ‘It was my fault for driving too fast.’

  ‘Let’s come at it from a different angle.’ Tom looks at me as if there’s a significance to what he’s just said. I shrug, so he continues. ‘What was Leonard doing there? He doesn’t usually turn up at breakfast time, does he?’

  ‘No, that’s true. Mum said he had some paperwork for her to sign but I think now he might have been there to speak to me before the police did.’

  ‘What if he had guessed you’d discovered the truth about Martha pretending to be Alice? What if he didn’t want this information to get out? He might have come to the house to warn Martha. Maybe he wanted to talk to her in private and said to meet him down by the gate …’

  ‘Knowing that I was on my way,’ I finish Tom’s sentence and the thought that Leonard is possibly behind the accident makes me feel sick. ‘But, how could he have timed it so well?’

  ‘Luck, maybe. You’d already said what flight you’d be back on. It doesn’t take a genius to work out timings.’

  ‘This is all conjecture. We’ve no proof. I still find it hard to think he engineered it all.’ I wonder if this is because I don’t want to believe it. ‘He wouldn’t harm Hannah. No way.’

  ‘I’m sure he wouldn’t. It could be just unfortunate that Hannah was there.’

  I think back to the accident that is never far from my mind, although calling it an accident doesn’t seem right now. ‘I’m sure Martha tried to push Hannah out of the way. If it hadn’t been for her, I can’t bear to think what might have happened.’ I feel my leg begin to shake at the thought.

  Tom rests his hand on my thigh to quell the trembling. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you but I’m just
thinking he’s tying up loose ends. Martha could have already got rid of Alice for him.’

  ‘She’s not a bag of rubbish,’ I snap, uncomfortable with the way Tom talks about Alice, as if her fate is a foregone conclusion. One that I’m not prepared to fully consider just yet.

  ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that.’

  ‘It’s okay. Forget it.’ I try to sound gracious. ‘We need to speak to Martha again. She’s the one who holds the key to everything. She can tell us exactly what happened.’

  ‘I don’t think you‘ll be very welcome there. Leave it with me and I’ll speak to her.’

  ‘Okay, thanks.’ I take a sip of the wine, which warms and ever so slightly burns my empty stomach. I think about Tom’s theory and Leonard being involved. It’s hard to accept, but my rational thought process won’t let me rule it out. Head over heart wins every time. Despite this, there’s something nagging me at the back of my mind, something I can’t quite reach and I don’t know what it is.

  ‘You know Leonard’s always had an evil streak in him,’ says Tom. ‘He’s threatened me in the past. Don’t look so surprised.’

  ‘I just feel we’re talking about two different people. I know he can be harsh at times but I’d never have said evil.’

  ‘It’s different for you, he’s a family friend and all that, but there’s a side to him you haven’t seen. Why do you think he’s been divorced three times?’ Tom leans forward, resting his arms on his knees. ‘I’ve seen him in action when we went out drinking once. It wasn’t long after I’d split up with Isabella and we went to that private members’ club.’

  ‘Vanilla Paradise?’

  ‘Yeah, you know it?’

  ‘It’s the one McMillan owns and sacked that lad from, who is now claiming unfair dismissal.’

  ‘That makes sense. Well, Leonard was a complete bastard to the staff there and got really out of hand with one of the girls who performed a private dance for him. We had to pay off the girl to stop her calling the police. I’ll spare you the details, but Leonard was a complete pig.’

  Somehow I feel I should be surprised or shocked, maybe both, but after the events of the past few weeks, nothing shocks me now. ‘If he has had something to do with Alice’s death, he needs stopping. We can’t let him get away with all this. Show me the files before I drink too much wine and can’t make head nor tail of it all.’

  We go into the second bedroom, which is no more than a box room. I’m not even sure you’d be able to fit a single bed in it. There’s just enough room for a desk and a filing cabinet. Tom switches on the laptop and takes a box from the drawer, which contains several memory sticks.

  ‘I don’t keep anything important on the hard drive itself. Too easily corrupted,’ he explains. Within a few minutes he has logged in and is calling up the files. There are several folders within folders and Tom finally gets to the one he’s after.

  ‘Right, here we go. Here’s a list of the transactions, the dates, description and amount and over here is a list of where I’ve tracked the payments to. They criss-cross numerous accounts and are disguised within other transactions, but if you follow this flow chart I made, you can see that ultimately the payment ends up in an off-shore account, which is then linked to Leonard. Have a look.’

  I follow the flow chart and look through the various documents Tom has copied into the files as supporting evidence. It’s like a spider’s web of transactions and, to be honest, company law is not my area of speciality and after a while I lose track and have to take Tom’s flow chart as gospel.

  ‘Okay, I’m no expert on this type of law but, if you’ve got all the evidence to back this up, then what are we waiting for?’

  ‘I’ve only just put all the pieces of the jigsaw together. I’ve still got to get some sort of proof that the funds end up back with Leonard. Once I’ve got that and spoken to Martha, then there’s nothing to stop us.’

  ‘Do you think Martha will be able to implicate Leonard? Thinking about it, she did try to warn me someone else was involved. She phoned me when I got back into the UK and I had some threatening text messages. They must have been from Leonard. Do you think you’ll be able to persuade Martha to give evidence against Leonard?’

  ‘I don’t know. I suppose it depends how deeply she’s involved.’

  ‘Martha is the weak link. If we can get to her, then we’ve got a case.’ I sit back in the chair and let out a sigh. ‘At least then Mum and Luke will be able to see I wasn’t imagining things where Martha was concerned.’ I look at Tom. He isn’t smiling. In fact, he has an almost sorrowful look on his face. ‘What is it?’

  ‘Nothing.’

  ‘There’s something you’re not telling me. I know that look. What are you holding back?’

  Tom shakes his head and looks down at his hands for a moment before sitting up and clicking out of the files and into another set of files marked ‘pictures’.

  ‘I didn’t want to have to tell you this, but you’re one of my oldest friends, you know how much I care about you.’ He clicks a folder within the main folder.

  ‘What is it?’ I ask again. I have this impending feeling of distress. Tom is about to show me something that I’m going to like least – by far. I brace myself. There can only be one thing.

  Tom clicks a picture icon. The screen flickers for a second and is then filled with an image of Luke and Martha in an embrace. Not just an embrace, but a full-on kiss. The picture has been taken at a distance, but there is no mistaking the subject matter. Martha with her hair pulled back in a ponytail, a pink T-shirt, which I have half a suspicion is one of mine, and a pair of jeans. Luke is wearing his surf T-shirt and a pair of jeans. They are on Brighton seafront, the pier in the distance and pebble beach immediately behind them.

  ‘Where did you get this?’ I demand, the anger rolling inside me, building up higher and higher. The pressure so tight, I think my chest might burst.

  ‘I took it,’ says Tom. ‘I followed her for a few days – after you first told me you were suspicious of her. I thought I’d be able to put your mind at rest. But turns out …’ He nods towards the screen.

  ‘I can’t believe it. After everything that’s happened. Luke was making me feel like I was the jealous one, like I had some sort of problem and was overreacting.’ I look at the picture again. I want to smash the screen with my fist. I jump up from the chair and march out to the living room, searching for my handbag, where my phone is.

  Tom follows me and before I have a chance to call Luke, he takes the phone from my hand. ‘Not now. Leave it for a while. You’re angry and upset.’

  ‘Too fucking right I am!’

  ‘Which is exactly why you shouldn’t confront him now. Come and sit down. Have some more wine.’ Tom coaxes me over to the sofa and places my glass in my hand. ‘I’m sorry you had to find out like this, but I thought it was best coming from me.’

  I nod and shake my head at the same time, trying to dismiss the image of Luke and Martha kissing. How could he do this to me? ‘Oh, God, Tom, what an awful mess everything is,’ I say at last. My shoulders sag as the energy seeps out of me. ‘I’m tired of all this. I don’t know how much more I can take.’

  Tom puts his arm around me, careful not to squash my plastered arm. ‘It’s okay. I’m here for you. Always have been. Always will be.’ I rest my head on his shoulder. Even my neck seems to have lost the ability to hold my head up. ‘That’s it, just relax.’

  We stay like that for several minutes as I take comfort in the warmth of his arms. ‘You’re a good friend,’ I mumble into his jumper.

  ‘Have you ever wondered about us?’ he says. ‘What would have happened between us if you hadn’t called it off?’

  ‘Oh, Tom. Let’s not go there,’ I say softly. ‘Too much water under the bridge since then.’

  ‘But have you never wondered?’

  I sit up. ‘Not for a long time,’ I say.

  Tom nods thoughtfully. After a moment, he leans forwards and picks up the wine bo
ttle. ‘Ah, empty!’ He stands up. ‘I’ll go grab us another from the off-license across the road. Won’t be a minute.’

  ‘No, it’s okay, Tom. I shouldn’t really. I ought to go back. It was silly of me to run away like that. I need to face up to everything. I’ve got the police interviewing me tomorrow.’

  But he isn’t listening and is out the door before I’ve even finished speaking. I pick up my glass and loll back into the sofa, momentarily forgetting about my bad arm. It jars and I jump with the sharpness of the pain, in the process spilling red wine down my top. ‘Oh, for goodness sake.’

  I go into the kitchen and sponge the stain out as much as I can, resigning myself to the fact that the top is probably ruined. As I leave the kitchen, the screen saver of the laptop in the second bedroom catches my eye, as an image of James Bond marches across the screen and turns to fire his gun. I smile to myself. Typical Tom. He loves his computers and is such a geek at times. I’m sure he’d have made a great spy.

  I wander into the room and tap the screen to have another look at the figures and spreadsheets Tom showed me earlier. It’s a hollow gesture as I know I still won’t be able to make any more sense of them. My head feels a bit fuzzy and I stumble slightly, my thigh knocking the chair, which, in turn, spins around and the arm catches the box of memory sticks. It falls to the floor, spilling the contents across the carpet.

  ‘Bugger!’ I kneel and collect them up. As I pick the last one up, the sticky label on the side catches my eye.

  Martha Phone Call 0.2

  I look at the others and they are labelled with Photos 0.1, 0.2 and 0.3. Work files A-L, Work files M-Z, Personal 0.1, 0.2.

  I drop all of them into the box, except for the one marked with Martha’s name.

  With a shaking hand, I slide the memory stick into the free USB.

  I feel sick and I’m not sure if this is from nerves or from the wine.