Sleep Sister: A page-turning novel of psychological suspense

by Laura Elliot

‘How is she?’ Greg moved carefully between a stacked aisle of pansies.

  ‘As busy as ever,’ Muriel replied.

  ‘That’s not what I asked.’

  ‘It’s not my place to pass personal comments, Mr Enright.’

  ‘I care about her, Muriel. I can’t help worrying about her.’

  ‘If you’re that worried than stay with her and block your ears when she says she doesn’t need you. You’re not the only one who worries.’

  He watched from the window as Eva parked her van and spoke briefly to Muriel.

  ‘Why are you here, Greg?’ she asked when she entered the cottage.

  ‘We need to talk, Eva.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Us. Divorce. Marriage. Whatever.’

  ‘If you want a divorce I won’t stand in your way.’ Her voice was as expressionless as her face.

  ‘I’m not talking about me.’ He wanted to shake some life into her, rouse her to anger, lift her from a sadness that seemed overwhelming. ‘Do you want to be free to marry this man you love? If that’s it then for Christ’s sake say so.’

  ‘He’s moving to Italy. A one-way ticket.’

  ‘Then go with him. I can’t stand the way we’re living any longer.’

  ‘I don’t love him.’ She drummed her fists off her thighs, her hands moving fast over the rough denim.

  ‘Then what is it? Tell me what’s wrong.’

  ‘You wouldn’t understand. I can’t understand it myself.’

  ‘Let me in, Eva. Nothing can be so bad that it’s beyond understanding. We’ll make sense of it together. Can you hear what I’m saying to you?’

  ‘I don’t know who I am,’ she whispered. ‘I’m lost… I can’t find my way back.’

  He took the book from his briefcase and laid it on the table. She stared at the title and waited, puzzled, as he turned it over to reveal the author’s photograph on the back cover.

  ‘Is that the reason?’ he asked. ‘Did Peter Wallace try to make you his wife?’

  She sat down on a chair and studied the photograph. Her stillness unnerved him. Then, just when it seemed he would be unable to endure another second of silence, she pushed the book away from her. A child’s gesture of rejection, wincing when she heard the thud it made when it hit the floor.

  ‘Tell me if I’m right.’ He forced her to look at him, helplessly reaching towards the woman he had known and loved.

  ‘My mother.’ Her voice trembled on the edge of hysteria. For an instant he thought he had misheard. ‘My murdering dead mother.’

  She reached down and picked up the book, tore the dust jacket from it and crumpled it into a tight ball. ‘It was my mother he loved all the time.’ Still clutching it she began to sob. ‘Can’t you understand why I don’t want to talk about it? Can’t you… Can’t you?’

  But she did talk, faltering at times, stumbling under half-understood facts, and when she mentioned Beth McKeever’s name he was convinced he’d misheard. She repeated the name and he could picture her then, her black hair flailing as she ran through the night with Eva in her arms.

  ‘Your father?’ he asked when Eva fell silent.

  ‘I don’t know if he’s alive or dead. Jess was told he was dead but she thinks Sara was too frightened to reveal his name. The only thing that’s certain is that I’ll never meet my mother now.’ She smoothed out the crumpled dust jacket and stared at the image of a woman whose existence she had never questioned throughout her tranquil childhood.

  A more disturbing understanding dawned on Greg. The story that had evaded him since his first meeting with Beth McKeever at last began to make sense. Albert Grant… His breathing was laboured as he listened to Eva’s hesitant revelations. Could there be a link? The idea was too preposterous to consider, yet the fragments of a story kept slotting together until all he could see was the glitter of revenge in her steadfast green gaze. She had been determined to destroy the politician with a lesser story – but when she’d failed it was Marjory Tyrell who had sacrificed her brother to protect the darker secrets of his past.

  Greg had his big scoop. As an investigative journalist his job was to lift the stones and let the worms wriggle free. This would be the scandal of the century. A story that would keep growing as journalists vied with each other to see who could dig up the grimiest details and the public, addicted to political scandals, would hold out its arm for the mainline hit.

  He gathered Eva to him, shocked at how thin she’d become. He thought of Albert Grant, his high forehead and fleshy neck, the arrogant sweep of silver hair, his appraising gaze – and tried to equate him to the woman he loved. He imagined her horror as she searched his face for similarities, haunted by the fear that she could have inherited his darkness, the evil within. Greg knew then, with a fixed certainty, that this was the one stone he would never lift. The one story he would never tell.

  Chapter 66

  They climbed together towards the summit of Anaskeagh Head. Below them kittiwakes swooped and turned, skittish birds fanning out above the murmuring caves. Waves crashed upwards. Eva watched them break over the rocks until all that remained of the ferment was the sting of salt on her lips. They continued climbing, dipping and rising with the lie of the path.

  She was tireless in her search. On the way down they found it. Aislin’s Roof. The ground beneath the boulders was mossy and dank. She moved forward. Large putty-coloured fungi mulched beneath her feet. The rank smell of dead vegetation seeped upwards, a curiously private smell that belonged to private places. From her mother’s womb she had been forced into this odorous, brooding landscape. She imagined a child staggering into the reaches of wild ferns, knowing she would never escape the clutches of that dark, dreadful night.

  She fell to her knees, pulled at the grass with her fingers. The rough blades cut deep into her hands. She called her mother’s name – Sara… Sara… Sara. She began to cry. It was Faye’s cry that rose from her lips, a whimpering, bewildered, newborn cry that understood only the spill of light on bare flesh, the flow of wind through the trees, the crashing tide, the call of night creatures, the earth beneath. And pain. A splintering red light filling her head. The cry rose and fell and faded. She touched her forehead. Her hair was limp and damp. No blood. Rising to her feet, she moved away from the shade of Aislin’s Roof. Birds sang and the sun shone above the headland, a molten pulse beating against the waves.

  Her legs trembled as she was forced to a standstill at the edge of a steep rocky shelf. No safe footholds to steady her. Nothing but a sheer slice of granite between her and the drop below.

  The decision came suddenly yet she knew it had been seeding in her mind ever since her meeting with Jess O’Donovan. Her father wasn’t dead. If he was, her mother would still be alive. Somewhere, in the town she glimpsed in the distance, he walked free and unconcerned. A brute who’d forced a child to give birth to his daughter under Aislin’s Roof. She would expose him and make him pay for his crime.

  Greg shook his head when he heard what she intended to do.

  ‘What if this man is repugnant to you?’ His expression was grave, concerned. ‘How will you cope then?’

  She wondered at his hesitation. The fallout from an Elucidate exposé – a marriage break-up, a career destroyed, a nervous breakdown or a heart attack – had never been his concern in the past. Why now, when she needed him, was he so worried about the consequences of exposure?

  ‘I have a mother and father who love me as much as I love them.’ She cut across his arguments. ‘This man, whoever he is, means nothing to me. He’s a brute who murdered my mother.’

  ‘Sara died by her own hand―’

  ‘He murdered her through stealth and secrecy. I’m going to tell her story. Will you help me?’

  He moved ahead, lowering his body until he was secure on the flat plateau of rock. ‘Yes, I’ll help you,’ he said. ‘But let me talk to someone first.’ He held out a hand to Eva and held it tightly as he guided her downwards to safety.

 
; A cormorant nosedived into the waves then swooped upwards, wings outstretched, its body etched like a cross against the firmament.

  Chapter 67

  Greg Enright’s hair had been cut since the last time Beth had seen him. It spiked aggressively in front and the glasses he wore added to the severity of his image. She had never imagined him outside the lens of a camera but now, as they spoke, she realised he was a husband, a troubled one, intent on protecting the woman he loved. They had met secretly in the discreet alcove of a pub in Clasheen where the roads were smooth and the half-finished foundations of an industrial estate scarred the countryside.

  This was a time of revelation. A time of coincidence and discovery. He told her about Faye, nurtured, adored – safe yet gone. She told him about Eva, unwanted, wounded – unsafe yet alive. He took off his glasses and pressed his hand against the tears that sprang to his eyes. Eva, birth daughter of Sara and Albert Grant. Would this last truth wound his wife so deeply that she would never recover?

  Beth, her heart in turmoil, couldn’t answer him. They shook hands outside the pub then hugged spontaneously, still amazed by the twisted path that had brought them to this moment.

  The bungalow was silent when she returned home. In the bedroom she studied the photographs of Anaskeagh that the young Sara had taken. She spread them fan-like on the bed and lay beside them. Beth had banished her childhood memories – those starry nights on the hill field, the steamy comfort of the O’Donovans’ kitchen, the thrill of riding high on her father’s shoulders, blood sisters with Jess, giggling with Sara in the dip of a horsehair mattress – the happy moments vanquished by the darker memories, which she’d been unable to share until now. The sound of the front door opening roused her. Voices rose. Laughter, arguments; familiar sounds, safe.

  She huddled into Stewart’s arms and tore open the membrane of her childhood terrors. He listened without interrupting her, his incredulity turning to fury, grief and pity as he grasped the enormity of what she was telling him. Finally, she fell silent, hollowed out, knowing that his love, constant and true, would see her through this final stage.

  Would the truth destroy his wife? Greg Enright had asked. She knew the answer now. Secrets and lies had destroyed Sara. The truth would heal her daughter.

  A late-afternoon hush hung over Eva’s Cottage Garden when Beth entered the domed interior. Wooden stands overflowed with bedding plants and heathers. A middle-aged woman directed her to the garden behind the main centre where the land was partitioned into avenues of shrubs and rose bushes, the ground sloping gradually towards a lake.

  The young woman watering the roses was unaware of her presence. An outdoor face, tanned and lightly sprinkled with freckles, her hair, loosely tied in a ponytail, escaping in curly tendrils. She stopped the flow of water when she noticed Beth. Her forehead puckered, as if she had recognised someone familiar yet was unable to name her. Beth gazed into her niece’s blue eyes, so achingly familiar – into the vibrant gaze of what might have been… What should have been. She raised her hand to her lips to stifle an involuntary cry, then allowed the memory of Sara to rest peacefully among the scented flowers.

  ‘Do I know you?’ Eva asked.

  ‘We met once before,’ Beth said softly, tremulously. ‘You won’t remember me, Eva… It was a long, long time ago.’

  Chapter 68

  A sign on the door of the politician’s waiting room told her to enter and take a seat. His reassuring face beamed down on her from an election campaign poster. An independent candidate, soliciting the population of Anaskeagh to cast their number-one vote in his direction. Her father. Albert Harrison-Grant. She had seen his birth certificate, read his life story in newspapers, heard it from the mouth of Beth McKeever. Not easily – nothing about this had been easy – but Eva had pleaded, demanded, insisted on the truth, and Beth had eventually breathed his name, nightmares in her eyes. Eva had seen them, attuned to every expression that flitted over her aunt’s stricken face. But that was another story and, perhaps, Beth would tell it to her another time. Their relationship was still too tender to challenge new truths.

  The queue in the waiting room moved swiftly. Albert Grant must be an efficient administrator, Eva thought. However long his constituents wanted to gripe about their social-welfare benefits, savage dogs or difficult neighbours, they were smoothly ushered in and out with the minimum of delay. She wished the queue would move more slowly… wouldn’t move at all… she wanted to run from this most momentous of meetings, yet she stayed sitting between a skinny man who smelled of cigarettes and a woman whose baby clawed at Eva’s hair with sticky fingers.

  The thin man emerged from the clinic and held the door open for her. She entered a spacious room with a large desk, neatly organised with stacked trays of forms, a telephone and laptop, and, in front of him, a foolscap pad open on a fresh page. He filled his chair, a heavily built man who rose, his hand outstretched, to greet her. His broad smile faltered when he looked at her. Was he seeing a ghost? Eva wondered. A slender wraith who tormented his dreams?

  ‘I don’t think I’ve had the pleasure of making your acquaintance.’ His smile was puzzled as he waved her into a seat in front of his desk. ‘You must be a stranger in our little town.’

  ‘My name is Eva Frawley,’ she said. ‘I’m here to film a documentary.’

  ‘May I ask who will be the subject of this documentary?’ No longer smiling, he stroked a finger across his chin and regarded her thoughtfully. ‘If you’ve come to ask questions about those slanderous allegations that were made against me, I must remind you that the matter is now in the hands of my legal team. Any further attempt to accuse me—’

  ‘The documentary is about me.’ She cut across his bluster. ‘I’ve come to Anaskeagh to search for my roots.’

  ‘My apologies, Ms Frawley. Usually it’s American tourists who are on that trail. If you give me the name of your family I’ll do everything I can to assist you.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Eva said. ‘My problem is that I don’t have a name. I was the baby who was born on Anaskeagh Head, and my father has never come forward to claim me.’

  She heard a clock ticking on the wall behind him, the door of the waiting room opening then closing, and his hard, explosive gasp as he pushed himself to his feet and walked to the window.

  ‘I’m afraid no one in this town can help you,’ he said eventually, his back to her. ‘That tragedy happened so long ago and, although every effort was made to contact the unfortunate mother, we failed―’

  ‘I’ve traced my mother,’ Eva interrupted him. ‘She’ll be part of my documentary.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ He was unable to hide his shock when he faced her.

  ‘My mother told me all about that terrible night.’

  ‘That’s not poss—’ He cleared his throat, his Adam’s apple jolting. ‘Who is your mother?’

  ‘I promised her confidentiality until the documentary is aired,’ Eva replied. ‘But we both hope you’ll participate in the filming.’

  ‘Why on earth should you think that?’

  ‘You were the voice of the people at that time. I’m sure you must have some memories you’d like to share.’

  ‘All I remember is the appalling publicity that was visited on our town in the aftermath of that tragedy. I’ve no intention of revisiting that time or participating in your documentary, Ms Frawley.’ He sat down again, legs crossed, one swinging over the other. A nervous habit Eva recognised. This man was a biological detail in her life, but this fact would never bind or bond her to him. Blood was not thicker than water, she thought. Not in this case. She wondered if he was trembling inside, as she was, his monstrous past escaping from whatever murky hole it occupied in his memory.

  ‘I’m afraid I can’t assist you any further.’ He stood, their meeting over. He did not offer her his hand. ‘It was a pleasure meeting you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ve many constituents waiting to see me.’

  She held his gaze until he looked down at
his desk. His hands were trembling, she noticed. He folded his arms across his chest and waited for her to leave. In that instant, as Eva’s biological father dismissed her, Steve, the father she adored, had never seemed so near, the image of him so vivid, so strengthening, that she was able to speak with chilling composure.

  ‘Thank you for your time, Mr Grant. Tracing one’s roots can be a joyful experience, but it can also be a horrendous ordeal if the person we long to meet fills us with revulsion. My mother’s story is harrowing but she will tell the truth so that the man who raped her can be brought to justice. She was only a child, you see, innocent and terrified. Now she’s ready to talk – and the world is ready to listen.’

  Chapter 69

  Beth was at home when her uncle phoned. He wanted to see her in his clinic immediately. The waiting room was empty, magazines scattered, the faint whiff of perspiration still lingering in the air. When she entered he tried to lock the door. The key fell between them with a clang. He pushed Beth aside when she bent to pick it up.

  ‘I can manage,’ he said. ‘I can manage.’

  ‘Locking the door won’t keep the past from being exposed,’ she said when the lock clicked. ‘I wondered how long it would take you to contact me.’

  ‘I want to know what game you’re playing,’ he said.

  ‘Wrong question, Albert. I don’t play games.’

  ‘That young woman… It’s all your doing. You’re determined to destroy me. It won’t work. You’re a vicious liar, but you won’t get away with it. Just you listen to me for a change―’

  ‘No, Albert, you listen to me. I came here tonight to talk to you about my childhood. I believed I was a victim but I’m not. I’m a survivor who stayed silent for too long. Not any more. I want you to know how it was… Your touch always on my skin, your shadow walking behind me. And how, when I was no longer around to abuse, you took my sister’s innocence – Sara’s sweet, lovely innocence – and you destroyed her.’