Her Sister's Lie

by Debbie Howells

  I stared at her. Ten years had passed—it was hardly relevant. I’d been twenty-two when I last saw Nina. After all this time, the people I remembered were nameless faces, passing through. “There wasn’t really anyone who stayed around.”

  Then for a moment, I thought about Summer. Beautiful, strong, free-spirited. But like everyone else, she too had been transient.

  The DI looked up. “One last thing. I’m sorry to have to ask you this, but it would really help us if you could identify your sister’s body.”

  It hadn’t entered my head that I’d have to do that. I stared at her, shocked.

  2

  An air of surrealism had swept over me. It wasn’t just the thought of coming face to face with my sister’s body, inches in front of me. What affected me more was the reality that it was someone whose blood I shared, whom I remembered as being so full of life.

  “Her body has been taken to a chapel of rest.” DI Collins paused, as she wrote something on a piece of paper, then handed it to me. “This is the address. If you call them in the morning, they’ll arrange a time with you.”

  I took it reluctantly, my eyes scanning the address without taking it in. “Could I see her room?”

  * * *

  Back downstairs, I felt shaky. Nina didn’t belong in that dingy bedroom, where the drab furnishings and unmade bed seemed so uncharacteristic of my sister. I hadn’t been prepared for the dark stain, where her blood had soaked into the carpet. The empty vodka bottle and tipped-over glass had sent another ripple of shock through me.

  Now that we were back downstairs, DI Collins had more questions. “Were you aware that your sister had a drinking problem?”

  I shook my head. It was drugs that Nina had relied on to blot out what haunted her, but I didn’t want to tell the DI that. Not unless she asked. “No. Not as such . . . I mean, when we were together, she drank, obviously. We both did . . . A normal amount.”

  Remember the script, Hannah. Sisters look out for each other. Keep each other’s secrets . . .

  “Normal being . . . ?”

  Under the DI’s scrutiny, I felt uncomfortable all of a sudden. “Wine. A bottle or two between us.” Sometimes a bit more, but there was often a party going on, and it had never been a problem in the sense that the DI was implying. Thinking of the empty vodka bottle again, I leaned against the door frame, battling light-headedness, not sure why I felt the need to protect Nina.

  “I better go and get Abe.” DI Collins put down her pen. “Do you have children, Ms. Roscoe?”

  “No.” I frowned. I’d already told her I lived alone. “Where is he?”

  “Outside.” She glanced toward the window. “He hasn’t said much. Poor kid. Imagine him coming home from school and finding his mother like that.”

  “God.” I was shocked. It was the first time I’d thought of it that way. “How long is he supposed to be staying with me? I mean, I live so far away. What about contacting Jude? If he’s nearer, wouldn’t it make sense for Abe to live with him?”

  DI Collins turned to look at me, a frown on her face. “We’re trying to trace him. I thought you understood, Ms. Roscoe. Unless some other family member comes forward, he has nowhere else to go.”

  I felt myself turn ice-cold as the realization slowly sank in. I knew I owed Nina. And I’d thought about keeping Abe for the next few days, or possibly weeks, if it came to it. I’d do it willingly. But I couldn’t take Abe on. She would have known that. Not forever.

  * * *

  DI Collins went outside to get Abe. Alone in the small kitchen, I felt a fleeting moment of panic as the enormity of what lay ahead caught up with me. Surely there was someone else in Abe’s life. The responsibility of caring for him couldn’t be down to me.

  Then I was thinking about Nina again. She’d liked a drink as much as anyone, but it hadn’t made her an alcoholic. Still. there were clues I couldn’t ignore: the state of the house, the fact that her body had been upstairs, with an empty vodka bottle lying on the floor next to it.

  Still reeling from the sight, I watched from the window as DI Collins made her way along the dimly lit path to the communal patch of grass behind Nina’s house, where I could just about make out the silhouetted figure of a boy, his hands thrust in his pockets. After what looked like a brief conversation, the DI turned to come back in. A few seconds later, Abe followed.

  * * *

  “Abe, this is Hannah.” DI Collins was holding the door open as Abe walked into the kitchen.

  “Hello.” I shivered in the blast of cold air that hit me. Then as I looked at him, an extraordinary sensation came over me. I’d thought about this moment. Abe was my link to Nina. I knew I should be showing warmth, sympathy, but as I registered his hunched figure and lack of eye contact, there was a hostility about him. Suddenly I felt less sure. “I’m so sorry . . . About your mum.” When he didn’t look up, I glanced at DI Collins, not at all sure I’d said the right thing.

  Abe continued to stare at the floor, moving around a crumpled piece of paper with one of his feet. Everything about him was tight. His pinched face and the clothes that looked too small for him. The jacket he wore that barely stretched across his shoulders.

  “Why don’t you go and pack a few things?” DI Collins spoke gently to him.

  “Can he do that?” I’d blurted it out before I could stop myself, thinking of the crime series I’d watched on television, where nothing could be taken from the scene before forensics had been through everything with a fine-tooth comb.

  “We’re not treating this as a crime scene.” DI Collins looked at Abe, who hadn’t moved. This time she spoke more firmly. “Abe, can you go and pack what you need to take to your aunt’s?”

  As he turned silently and slowly walked toward the stairs, DI Collins looked back at me. “We’ve no reason to believe that this is anything other than a tragic accident. We’ll have to notify the coroner, and they may decide to carry out a postmortem, but from everything I’ve seen, I think it’s unlikely. As soon as we have the death certificate, you can arrange the funeral.”

  “Funeral?” This was all happening too fast. I hadn’t even thought about a funeral.

  Nina’s funeral. My sister’s body in a coffin.

  “Don’t worry about that just now. It’s possible Jude will want to get involved, once he knows what’s happened. Would you object to our passing on your contact details? He may well want to see Abe.”

  I nodded. “Of course.”

  “Also . . .” Breaking off, she glanced upstairs, but there was still no sign of Abe. “It might be a good idea for Abe to talk to a counselor. It’s something to think about—and it’s up to him, of course. But he’s been through a significantly traumatic experience. Once he’s settled in a new school, they may be able to suggest someone.”

  School? Was that down to me too? “What happens about school?” I looked at the DI, hoping she was about to tell me that he’d stay at the same one, but the realization sank in that he wouldn’t be able to. Not if he was going to be living with me.

  DI Collins nodded toward the stairs, where Abe was making his way down. “There’s no need to worry about that for now. Why don’t we talk about it tomorrow?” Her air of calm did nothing to quiet the thoughts rampaging through my head. “He’s had a long, difficult day. Take him home, and we can speak in the morning.” As he came into the kitchen, she paused, frowning. “Just one thing before you go, Abe. Could I ask you if you’ve seen Jude recently? Your brother?”

  Abe looked at the floor again, then shook his head.

  She turned to me. “We’ll try to contact him. He should know what’s happened. If you have any questions, or if you remember anything you think we should know, you can always call me.” DI Collins reached into her pocket, then handed us each a card.

  As I stood there, the sense of panic was back. Was that it? Were we supposed to just leave? What happened about the house? To Nina’s stuff?

  “I’ll lock up,” DI Collins said, just as the doo
rbell rang. “It might be easier for Abe if you give it a few days before you come back to collect the rest of his things. But there’s not really anything else to do tonight. We’ll take care of everything here, and I’ll be in touch tomorrow.”

  * * *

  Carrying his bags, Abe followed me out in silence. In the car, he continued to remain quiet while I tried and failed to draw him out.

  “I’m sorry, the car’s a mess.” I glanced across at him, but he didn’t respond. After a few moments, I tried again. “Do you like dogs? I have a terrier. He’s called Gibson— after my guitar . . . I used to play in a band . . .” Trailing off, when yet again there was no response.

  He clearly wasn’t interested. But he wouldn’t be, I berated myself. How could he think about anything else when he’d just lost his mother? We had that much in common, having lost someone. But it wasn’t Nina I was thinking of. It was Matt, the memory sharper for its brief absence. The lights around me blurred as tears suddenly filled my eyes. Wiping them away, I wished more than ever he was still in my life. Oh Matt . . . why couldn’t you have stayed?

  In the silence, as I did my best to push thoughts of Matt from my head, the knot in my stomach grew tighter. All the time I hadn’t seen Nina, I’d convinced myself there was no other way. But seeing Abe after so long had deeply unsettled me. I tried to put myself into the mind of a fifteen-year-old boy, one who’d come home from school and found his mother’s body, who was driving away from everything he knew with someone who was effectively a stranger. I didn’t know how to interpret the silence that felt almost like animosity toward me, but then I reminded myself again. After what Abe had been through today, I should forgive him anything.

  As we left London behind us, it seemed symbolic that its soft glow had faded to the same steely gray as my life. Now that I had time to think, the ghosts were back, specters of self-pity and loathing, the dark abyss of hopelessness. At my bleakest after Matt left, I’d given them form, acid pitting holes in any pleasure that might have existed, hopelessness a dark mist from which no corner of my life would ever be safe.

  And I was supposed to help a bereaved teenager. I’d no idea how I was going to do that. I drove automatically, not registering the miles passing until a car suddenly pulled out in front of us. Slamming on the brakes, I narrowly avoided hitting it. “Shit. Sorry. Are you all right?” I asked Abe, but hunched in the seat next to me, he didn’t react. Biting back my frustration, I wondered if this was how it was to be: his refusal to speak, while I floundered, unsure how to deal with this stranger of a nephew.

  It wasn’t until an hour later, when I turned off the motorway onto the quiet road on the edge of the New Forest, that Abe spoke. “I have to go back.” He started to reach for his knapsack, pulling it off the floor onto his lap as he unfastened his seat belt.

  “What are you doing?” I panicked. He looked as though he was about to open the door. Whether I wanted it or not, I had a responsibility to look after him. “You can’t go back there, Abe. You’re too young to live on your own.”

  “This is too far away.” He made no attempt to disguise his anger. “You have to stop. I need to get out.”

  “Abe, no . . .” I put my foot on the accelerator. We’d crossed a cattle grid, marking the part of the forest where ponies and cattle wandered freely. I was driving much faster than I usually would through here, but I couldn’t risk him getting out and disappearing into the darkness. “You can’t get out here. There’s nothing for miles.” I paused, then carried on more gently. “The police aren’t going to allow you to live alone.”

  “They don’t have to know.” His voice was full of resentment.

  “They’ll check on you.” My voice was rising. “DI Collins is calling tomorrow. She’ll ask about you. If you’re not with me, she’ll want to know where you are . . .” DI Collins had said she’d be in touch. But I knew what the reality was. There would be no police investigation. Nina’s death was an accident. DI Collins might check up on us for a day or two, but beyond that, we were on our own.

  “I don’t care.” He sounded sullen, but I took it as a sign he’d given in when he let his knapsack slip onto the floor, then slumped back into his seat.

  His outburst had unnerved me. I knew I was out of my depth. My experience of teenagers was limited to the few who came to my house for music lessons. They were bright, motivated, privileged. I had no idea how to deal with reticence and rudeness, let alone grief. But as I drove, I was worrying that once we were home and he was out of the car, if he decided to take off, I wouldn’t be able to stop him.

  “Why not give it tonight?” I said, trying to sound more in control. “We’ll talk to DI Collins tomorrow and see what she says.” It wasn’t the time to repeat what she’d already told me—that as things stood, with Jude’s whereabouts unknown, Abe had nowhere else to go.

  What were you thinking, Nina? You of all people would have known I’m not cut out to raise children.

  Whether it was alcohol or drugs that had been her downfall, suddenly I was angry with her, at her selfishness, her weakness. For letting her addiction get out of hand when she had Abe to think of, for letting him down. We all had our battles. But I’d always known that her air of brightness and dazzling smile distracted from the blankness in her eyes, the empty pit deep inside her. Once, she’d confided in me her belief that she was different from other people. How worthless she felt. It had shaken me to the core, threatening the security I’d always known when I was with her. Later, when I asked her about it, she laughed it off. I was pissed, Hannah. You know what I’m like. Look at my wonderful life . . . And that was that. It was an episode that had faded, then vanished altogether. Looking around at her life, seeing what I wanted to see, I’d believed her, not thinking about it again. Until now.

  Keep to the plan, Hannah. Nothing’s changed . . . Even when things went wrong, we’d agreed what to say. No less, no more—it was in the script. Sisters don’t keep secrets from each other.

  As we drew closer to Burley, then turned onto the road to Bransgore, which I knew every inch of, I was driving on autopilot again, thinking back to a time of dated clothes and people whose names I’d forgotten, drifting around at one of Nina’s parties. The idyllic cottage in the middle of nowhere had been remote—I’d forgotten just how remote. Nina’s children ran wild through the surrounding woods. At seventeen, having just left home, I’d been young and naïve, impressed by how carefree her life seemed, unable to look beyond the façade she presented to the world. Wrapped up in my own life—the band, its success, and then its failure—I believed Nina’s every word, when if I’d been watching more closely, I would have seen the first telltale signs of her downfall.

  But everything was easy with the exquisite torment of hindsight. The irresistible, pointless knowledge that things could have been different, when they weren’t. There was no changing what had already happened, nothing to gain from dwelling on it. There were doors to the past, with its broken hearts and shattered dreams, that should forever remain firmly closed.

  3

  As I drove on, Abe’s anger seemed to have given way to resignation—even if only temporarily. With the resentment and stubbornness he’d displayed, I was expecting it to be short-lived. He didn’t seem like someone who would give up easily, but maybe he was beginning to see how limited his options were. With only a few more miles to go, I felt exhaustion kick in as I drove on. If it had been light, I could have pointed out the low, heather-clad hills and prickly gorse, the mist that often descended here; the ponies and cattle that roamed; the scent of sea air that drifted inland. The sense of space I loved. I felt myself filled with a fleeting optimism that just maybe, if he liked it too, we had a chance.

  “We’re nearly there.” There was no traffic as we came to the narrow lane with a scattering of houses on either side on the outskirts of the village. After passing the small shop, I slowed down and, a few yards further on, turned into a rough, unmade road that meandered between fields until it eventual
ly came to an end in front of a small farmhouse.

  “We’re here.” I switched off the engine and turned to Abe, who hadn’t moved. I hesitated for a moment, then opened the car door. “Shall we go in?”

  As I got out of the car, I glanced up at the sky. It had the rain-washed clarity that only exists after a weather front had blown through. There was no moon tonight, just an intense, indigo blackness that glittered with stars.

  After London and the hours of driving, I savored the silence, feeling it soak into me. It was a silence that had a sound all its own—the faintest whisper of the air moving, the hoot of a distant owl, of my own breath, then my footsteps on the path as I walked toward the front door, followed by the sound of a dog barking as the security light switched on. When I opened it, a small terrier rushed past me, then ran down the path toward Abe. He backed away.

  “He’s friendly, I promise.” I whistled to Gibson. “Here, Gibson . . . Good dog.”

  Abe watched him, a look of suspicion on his face, as Gibson ran back to me, then followed me in.

  The back door led into a small boot room, which housed the boiler and had a row of hooks, on which hung an assortment of jackets and coats. I switched on a light and hung up my jacket, then went through into the kitchen, where I was greeted by the sight of the pile of mail I was saving for Matt and the bottle of wine I’d been about to open before I’d taken the call from DI Collins. As I put my bag on the table, I heard Abe come in behind me. I turned to look at him, but after briefly glancing around, he just stood there, staring at the floor.

  “Would you like something to eat? A sandwich or something? A drink? Tea? Coffee?” I was gabbling, the way I always did when I didn’t know what to do.

  Abe shook his head.

  “You must be tired. Shall I show you your room?” As I spoke, I silently cursed myself. I didn’t want him thinking I was rushing him out of the way, which was what it sounded like; I reminded myself that after everything he’d been through, he needed reassuring, comforting. But he didn’t respond, just stood there, his arms folded, looking awkward.