33 Women: A gripping new thriller about the power of women, and the lengths they will go to when pushed...

by Isabel Ashdown

  Something inside Celine snaps; she feels as though she’s been rejected by a lover, and she knows these feelings are irrational and out of character, and surely borne of grief and confusion, but there it is. Anger rushes from her.

  ‘You knew my sister,’ she growls, pushing her face against the bars. ‘Vanessa Murphy? Do you remember my sister Vanessa?’

  Seed’s serene expression slips, shifting to upset and anger, and, just as Celine thinks she might answer, she turns away.

  ‘I saw her name!’ she calls after her, desperate. ‘I saw Vanessa’s name in the journal!’

  For a second or two, Celine can only watch as Seed glides across the lawn, sky-blue tunic billowing in the breeze, before she disappears inside the building and is gone.

  Head down now, Celine storms through the media mob, refusing their barrage of questions as she catches up with Una on the other side. When several journalists and camera crew fall into step with them, they have no choice but to break into a run, and they escape through an unmade track at the side of Two Cross Farm, on to the river path to jog the mile home to Belle France. Breathless, they stumble over the lawn and in through the patio doors at the back.

  ‘Bloody hell, Celine, I’m too old for this,’ Una gasps, flopping down on the sofa, and, just as Celine herself is about to breathe a sigh of shattered relief, Pip appears in the living room doorway, a small, sad child at either side of her.

  ‘Oh, baby,’ Una says, rising to her feet again, instantly moving towards Pip.

  But Celine finds she can only stare, because there is her little sister, desperate-looking and silent, thin arms wrapped across her chest.

  And her face is black and blue.

  25. BRAMBLE

  Present day, Two Cross Farm

  Thistle and Blossom are out there now, and they’ve turned the hoses on those press hacks and their cameras.

  From Seed’s office window we can hear the shrieks and yells of their objections, as they scuttle away like beetles, cameras no doubt still filming. Those two women have been sent away too, and now Seed is sitting on the sofa behind me, shaking her head, white-faced, the tail end of her turban adrift over one shoulder.

  ‘Tidy yourself up,’ I tell her. ‘Your scarves are coming loose.’

  Without a word, she stands and bends at the waist to unwind the fabric, revealing her close-cropped silver scalp. She was fortunate really, when she threw herself on that fire all those years ago, because, while the flames took off most of her hair in a flash, the burns stopped short of her ears; the main damage was restricted to her neck and jawline, creating a chinstrap of shiny pale pink skin. The hair started to grow back, but by then she had grown so accustomed to covering up with her scarves that the style stuck. I think of the tabloid headlines we saw on Una’s phone screen, describing Seed as our ‘turban-headed leader’, headlines which Celine said were designed to incite cultural hatred. I’m so disconnected from society that I had to ask her what she meant, and she said, ‘They’re appealing to the nationalists. They’re presenting her to the public as though she’s some kind of threat, or at the very least, “not like us”. It’s just the kind of subtle hate-mongering these papers get away with.’

  I liked her, if I’m honest. I liked them both.

  In the kitchen, I locate Regine, instructing her to meet me in Seed’s office so that we might take stock of the morning’s drama, and make contingency plans in anticipation of renewed police interest. As I move to follow her up the stairs, I’m halted by the sound of Fern, bellowing my name from the living room, where she’s wandered from the Elders’ dorm.

  ‘Look at this!’ she’s hollering, her accent growing stronger with volume.

  When I enter the room, she’s standing before the wall of photos, as she so often does, but this time she has her sights on a particular image.

  ‘You let her back in, Bramble?’ she asks, scowling with disapproval. ‘Goes against the Code! Number 12. The Code of – the – the – Banishment?’ Her focus glazes over.

  ‘Banishment is final ?’ I’ve grown used to finishing Fern’s sentences. It’s as though her thoughts and memories are all there, but the route to them is a fast-burning flame which extinguishes before she reaches the end.

  She studies me, confused.

  Slowly losing patience, I tap the frame of the photograph she was interested in, high on the wall, and her face lights up again.

  ‘Yeah, her! She’s back? Why’d you let her back in?’

  ‘Vanessa?’ I ask. ‘Vanessa wasn’t banished, Fern. You remember?’

  ‘Oh, yes—’ she says sadly, trailing off again. ‘Vanessa’s buried in the garden.’

  I rub her back, and shake my head with a smile, concealing the clench of horror I feel at her confused words. ‘No, she’s not, silly. She went away, didn’t she? We never saw her again.’

  I adjust my spectacles and lean in to inspect the photograph, and as I stare at the image, for a split-second I wonder if I’m going the way of Fern too, because it’s suddenly clear that there really is a strong resemblance between Vanessa and our recent visitor.

  Unhooking the picture from the wall, I escort Fern back to the Elders’ dorm, and return to Seed’s office, my mind a-whirr. The atmosphere in the upper room is thick with trepidation, and for a moment I stand in the doorway, taking in the sight of my two fellow Founding Sisters, poised on the brink of what feels like our undoing.

  ‘I don’t know quite how to say this,’ I announce, at last. Regine and Seed look up expectantly, and I cast a backward glance into the hallway to be sure we’re not overheard. ‘It’s something Fern just said, and you might think it’s nonsense …’ I hold up the picture.

  Seed, already pale to the point of translucency, merely nods. ‘Celine is her sister. She just told me at the gate. She’s Vanessa Murphy’s sister.’

  Regine reaches out for the photograph, nodding sagely as she too recognises the family resemblance. ‘And how much, exactly, does this Celine Murphy know?’

  ‘She located Vanessa’s name in the journal,’ Seed replies. ‘And – and they’ve worked out that Susan was a Founding Sister.’

  Regine shakes her head, as though Seed and I have somehow betrayed this information. ‘And the baby? What do they know of the child?’

  ‘Which one?’ I ask, and it’s a genuine question, but Regine tuts and shakes her head again, as Seed covers her face with her hands, stifling a sob.

  ‘Nothing, as far as I can tell,’ I reply, feeling panic rising again at the mention of that child. ‘Even if they do work it out, Dr Kathy is dead now – there’s not a thing they can do to harm us. We have nothing to fear!’

  Regine turns fierce eyes on me. ‘Jeez, Brenda, sometimes you can be so dumb. You think we won’t be implicated, with everything we’ve managed to conceal all these years? With the secrets buried in our house and gardens? There is everything to fear!’

  Beside me, Seed’s hands drop limply to her lap. ‘They’re closing in, aren’t they, Bramble?’ she murmurs. ‘It’s just a matter of time.’

  26. CELINE

  Present day

  ‘I swear, it was an accident,’ Pip insists as Celine passes her a gin and tonic, prepared just the way Delilah would have liked it, served in an expensive cut-glass tumbler with ice and a slice of lemon. ‘I can tell by your face that you don’t believe me, Celine, but it’s the truth.’

  They sit on the facing sofas in the afternoon sunlight, the only distant sound that of Harry in the back garden, as he runs the lawnmower across the grass in soothing stripes. Vaguely, Celine wonders if Dave Aston has caught up with him yet – and when they will get any news on that threatening note Dave took away for examination. Pip, of course, is unaware of any of it, and there is no doubt she’ll be furious when she discovers she’s been kept in the dark. Part of Celine believes the note is just some hollow threat from the women at Two Cross Farm; the smaller, more insistent part tells her it’s Jem, back after all these years, to wreak further damage o
n her and her family.

  She stares at her sister, Pip, at her bruised face, and sighs. ‘Is it the truth, really?’

  Pip takes a sip of her drink, unblinking.

  They are alone, Una having taken the children into town for pizza, to give the sisters some space, and despite Pip’s protestations Celine’s not about to give up interrogating her about her injuries. She’s still reeling from the morning’s drama, and from the indisputable confirmation that Vanessa was definitely a resident at Two Cross Farm. But she can’t dump that on Pip now.

  ‘You know I’ve never liked him,’ Celine says. ‘Stefan. I’ve never trusted him.’

  ‘Well, this is the first I’ve heard of it,’ Pip replies, clenching her jaw. She has a wide, bloody graze above one eyebrow, and a dark green-blue bruise spreading across her cheekbone and blooming into black at the eye socket. ‘You told me you thought he was handsome.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Pip. Ted Bundy was handsome. Didn’t stop him being a psychopath, did it?’

  ‘Stefan is not a psychopath.’

  Celine bites down on the inside of her cheek.

  ‘This was not intentional. I told you, I fell down the front steps – Marnie across the road saw the whole thing. I’ll phone her if you like!’

  ‘But how did the accident happen, Pip? You said you were on your way out of the house with the kids – that Stefan didn’t want you to go.’

  Pip takes a long slow sip of her drink, and reaches out to place it on the coffee table, rearranging the coaster so it’s symmetrical to the edge. She sighs softly, giving in a little. ‘He can sometimes be a bit – I don’t know, he likes things a certain way.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘He likes us to be there when he gets home. Don’t get me wrong, I like it too, but sometimes I need a bit of space. I mean, he’s supported me ever since I stopped work to have the children – you know, he pays for everything? All the bills, the food.’

  ‘That’s because you’re not earning anything – because you’re too busy bringing up his children and cooking his meals and cleaning his house! For fuck’s sake, Pip, he’s not doing you a favour, you know? You’re married – you put in your share when you were working, and now you’re putting in your share looking after the family. I hope he’s not controlling your finances.’

  ‘You’re twisting it, Celine. He’s never done that – he’s just better at managing those things. He always gives me money when I ask.’

  Celine’s jaw drops. ‘You have to ask him for money?’

  ‘Well, yes,’ Pip says, but her eyes show that she’s just lost conviction in her own words, like a person diving from a board, their confidence failing at the last second. ‘The bank account’s in his name. He’s the main earner, after all. There’s a separate account for housekeeping, but that gets used up by the end of every month.’

  ‘What about your own account – you must have one too, from when you were earning?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s empty now.’

  Celine drops her head against the sofa back and breathes deeply. When she looks up again, there are tears streaking down her little sister’s face; she hasn’t seen her this upset in years.

  ‘He was trying to stop me from leaving,’ she says quietly. ‘He doesn’t really like me spending time with you, and he thinks we’ve had more than enough time together to sort things out down here.’

  ‘You told him we’re waiting for the coroner to release Mum’s body? And, anyway, why doesn’t he like you spending time with me? I’m your sister. I’m your only family.’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s just never really, well, encouraged it.’

  Things start to fall into place for Celine, and she recalls all those times she’d phoned Pip in the early days of her relationship with Stefan. More often than not he’d tell her Pip was out, or working late, or when she was pregnant, that she was tired or ‘resting’. It had gradually become more and more complicated meeting up, and, though they’d catch up on the phone or via text every once in a while, the gap between them had widened to the point at which they were only speaking a few times a year.

  ‘How did he try to stop you leaving, Pip?’

  ‘He’d been sulking since the night before, when I’d told him we were going back down to Arundel, and then in the morning he announced that he wasn’t going in to work, he wasn’t feeling well. He said if I was any kind of a wife I’d stay and look after him, but I knew he wasn’t really ill. I told him you and Una still needed my help sorting the funeral and the house. And then he said that if I were a decent mother I wouldn’t be dragging our kids along with me – so I suggested that I leave them with him.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘He went ballistic. He picked up my suitcase and threw it down the hall; smashed a great hole in the plasterwork. The girls were screaming for him to stop, and he was punching the doors, threatening to block my access to the housekeeping account so I’d have absolutely no money at all. And then he stopped in his tracks – as if none of that had just happened – and suggested he drive us all down here, that we should kiss and make up and make a little holiday of it.’ She studies her hands a moment, before looking up again. ‘I couldn’t let that happen.’

  Celine sits forward in her seat, listening intently. ‘Why not? Why not bring him here, Pip?’

  Pip’s focus is beyond Celine, out through the patio windows to where the gardener is raking up grass cuttings. ‘Because,’ she says slowly, returning her gaze to Celine’s, ‘he doesn’t know about all this. Mum’s money. He doesn’t know about it, and I don’t want him to find out.’

  Celine blinks at her.

  ‘I’d stopped talking to Mum years before I met Stefan, and when we got together he urged me to keep it that way, especially when he heard how she’d left us as teenagers. He knew River Terrace was in Mum’s name, but all the time we were able to live there rent-free he never asked any questions. That’s Stefan all over. If he likes the way things are, he’s no trouble at all. But—’

  ‘But if you challenge his authority, he’s a bully.’ Celine stares at her sister, until she finally looks up.

  ‘He didn’t mean this to happen,’ Pip says. ‘The taxi driver had texted to say she was along the street waiting, and I had the bags and Olive on the doorstep, but when I tried to take Beebee from Stefan he wouldn’t let go. Beebee was howling, and I lost my cool, and I didn’t know what else to do, so I slapped him – just to make him give her up. He dropped her all right, but he also made a grab for me and I dodged him. I tripped over the door frame. I fell backwards, down the front steps, and that’s how I got this,’ she says, cautiously touching her grazed forehead. ‘Tripping over my own bloody feet.’

  ‘No. You got that because a six-foot-one man tried to assault you, in front of your children. Pip, you’ve got to stop protecting him! You have to phone the police.’

  Pip closes her eyes, releasing an exasperated breath. ‘You know what, Celine? I don’t have to do anything. And, right now, I just want to go to bed.’

  Celine finds she cannot answer.

  ‘Can you and Una sort the girls out for me? I – I’ve just had enough of today, OK?’ Pip takes a weary slug of her drink, and stomps the glass down on its coaster, so that its unfinished contents slop over the edge. ‘I’ll be fine,’ she says, and she heads upstairs.

  Celine is left alone, watching the gardener pack up his mower in the afternoon sun, wondering where she went so wrong. First Vanessa, and now Pip. Maybe Seed and those other women have had the right idea all along. Maybe a life without men is the only way forward.

  By early evening Una has returned with the girls, and after she’s bathed them, and Celine has read Miffy’s House at least three times, they give in to sleep. When she gets back downstairs, Celine finds Una at the kitchen table, a freshly opened bottle of wine in front of her, and she fetches two glasses and pours their drinks.

  ‘You don’t usually drink so much,’ Una says, observing the large measures.

  �
�Neither do you,’ Celine replies, closing the kitchen door so as not to disturb the others, pulling out the chair opposite. ‘These are unusual circumstances.’

  ‘I phoned Dave Aston while I was out with the girls,’ Una says. ‘No real update yet. The note’s being analysed as we speak, and Dave says one of the local officers will be stopping by to have a chat with the gardener tomorrow morning.’

  Celine is acutely aware that they’re both actively avoiding mentioning Jem Falmer’s name, both of them too hopeful that the letter is going to turn out to be from him.

  ‘What did Dave have to say about the press leak?’

  ‘Nothing I can repeat in polite company,’ Una says. ‘But he was pretty pleased to hear we got confirmation of Vanessa and Susan Green’s residency there. That reminds me: will you email him those photos you took of the journal? He wants to cross-check the names with those other missing women from 1976. I think he’s also hoping the handwriting might be a match with our letter.’

  Celine picks up her phone and forwards the images to Dave Aston’s number. When she’s finished, she pushes it to one side and takes a weary slug of wine. ‘This thing with Pip is a disaster, Una. I’m really worried about her.’

  Una nods, and listens as Celine fills her in on the details of Pip’s confrontation with Stefan, sharing her fears for her sister’s safety.

  ‘We’re all so messed up, Una,’ she says, pouring a second glass and kicking her shoes off beneath the table. ‘You know what Delilah was like: she put men before us every time. If Pip ends up putting Stefan’s needs before the girls’, I don’t think I could ever forgive her.’

  Una doesn’t disagree.

  ‘It’s insane. Here we are all these years after Delilah buggered off, sitting around the kitchen table in her palace of a house, and her legacy lives on. Vanessa chose a man who abused her – maybe even murdered her – and Pip found herself a man who it turns out has been controlling her every move for God knows how long. And me?’ She laughs bitterly. ‘I’m a thirty-six-year-old professional woman, and I’ve never had a relationship that’s lasted longer than a month or two. You know why? Because, even when I really like a bloke, I don’t know how to give him the real stuff inside of me – the soft stuff, the kind stuff. I swear, Una, the minute they even hint at feeling something close to the L-word I turn into a cow – I drive them away. Pip says I’m scared of showing my feelings – but maybe I just know they’re going to turn out to be hopeless bastards in the long run, because that’s what happened with all Mum’s men. So, I bail out early. How screwed-up is that?’ Celine realises she’s barely stopped for a breath; that her second glass of wine is empty, and her sentences are starting to slur.