“The only thing I can think is that it was when I was reaching up to take my credit card back from Becca. I bet if you zoomed out of this picture she’d be there, leaning over the top of you. Without her there, it looks as if I’m stroking your face.”
“Yes! Bastards. God, it just goes to show you can’t take anything at face value, can you? Unbelievable. Of course, the whole world will know that we’re at it now.” I look at James, and we know it’s serious—but it’s also funny, horribly, absurdly funny, and we start to laugh, soft and unbelieving at first, growing in strength and hysteria until there are tears running from our eyes and we’re holding on to the chair backs for support.
“Stop it,” he whispers, checking again for signs of Emily, rubbing his face vigorously to clear his tears. “Stop. God, you’re terrible—this is serious.”
I nod, running a finger beneath my lashes to blot my mascara. “Sorry. I know, I know. Shit—how are we going to convince Emily there’s nothing going on? As if she needs this right now. Bloody hell.”
Having regained his composure, he reaches for the telephone. “We’ll get Becca to speak to her. She’ll vouch for us—it’s all straightforward enough, isn’t it?”
“Emily will still think we planned to meet up, that we’re trying to get one over on her. You know how suspicious she can be.”
“But it was completely innocent,” he says, throwing his hands up as if it was Emily he was speaking to. “Jess, you had no idea I was going to be in there after work, and I had no idea you’d be there talking to Becca about an evening job! The newspaper makes it look like a romantic meal for two—but it was a drink, just one drink, for God’s sake. You’re my sister-in-law. Under the circumstances it would have been more strange if we hadn’t stopped for a drink together.”
He flips through the business cards pinned to the noticeboard until he finds one for Becca’s Café, and he’s poised to dial the number when the phone rings in his hand. “Jeez!” he says, alarmed, and answers it on the second ring.
The previous lightness evaporates instantly, as James’s face freezes, and he presses the speakerphone button on the handset and a woman’s voice is projected into the room.
“James?” Her voice is soft. “James, it’s me.”
She doesn’t say her name, but I know it’s her from the expression on his face and the familiarity of her tone. The one time she rings, and neither liaison officer is here, Cherry having been absent for the past couple of days with a family emergency of his own, and Piper having called to say he wouldn’t be with us until midday. I scan the room, trying to remember where I put my mobile phone, spotting it on the sideboard beside my keys. Should I call someone now, or wait to hear what she has to say?
“Hello, Avril,” James replies, gently, indicating for us to move into the kitchen so as not to alert Emily. I’m shocked by his calm exterior, by the way in which he is able to contain all the questions and emotions that must be rushing up through him right now. “How are you, sweetheart?”
Sweetheart. DCI Jacobs had thought she might make contact, might try to speak to us now that her face is plastered all over the news, and she’d told James to speak to her as he would have done back then, to use the same language, the same way of speaking she would expect of him. So I know that he’s just playing it by the book, but Jesus—sweetheart?
There’s some hesitation before Avril replies, and I think maybe it was too much, this term of endearment, until she speaks again and it’s clear that she’s smiling.
“Isn’t she adorable?” she asks him. “Our Chloe? Isn’t she adorable? I’d forgotten how like you she was, James.”
I can see from the stunned fear in his eyes that he has no idea if she’s talking about the real Chloe or the baby she has taken from us. Frantically, I grab a notepad and scribble the words Just say yes! Robotically, he replies, “Yes, she is. She’s adorable.”
He looks back at me, and I shrug, my mind racing as I try to second-guess what it is she wants, how she wants James to react to her call. Surely the police have put a trace on the telephone line? Didn’t Jacobs say something about that before? I don’t know how these things work, I think, desperate to believe we’re moving closer to Daisy with every passing second. Surely they’ll be able to find her now?
“What have you been up to?” he says lightly, and it’s as though he’s pressed the magic button.
“Oh, James, we’ve been having the most wonderful time! Yesterday, we took a walk at Alum Bay—you know, where they have the colored sands—and afterward we took a bus and ended up having lunch at a lovely little cafe where they played live piano music and let us sit and listen in the comfy seats long after our plates had been cleared away.”
“What did Chloe have?” he asks, and I know that he’s worried. Avril has no idea what Daisy eats—what gets her to sleep, what makes her laugh or cry. Avril is a stranger. I see these thoughts and more flaming across James’s face as he speaks.
“Well, I asked the waitress what she’d recommend, and she knew just what to suggest, because they have lots of young mothers bringing their babies in, apparently. She did a little bowl of butternut squash soup for Chloe—and she loved it! They do a wonderful Italian platter, James—remember the Parma ham in Tuscany?”
This is insane, I think. Is this conversation really happening? I blink at James, trying to encourage him to ask her something useful, something that might give us more clues to where she’s staying. I scribble on the notepad: Can we meet?
“Maybe we could meet there for a coffee?” he says.
And that’s when Avril’s tone changes. It’s as though she knows, and at the same time, it seems as if she doesn’t. As though she thinks she’s still living that old life, that that baby really is Chloe-while at the same time she’s trying not to be caught, knowing she’s doing something wrong.
“That’s why I called you,” she says, her voice harder now. “I want to meet you—but not there. Do you know the Botanic Garden in Ventnor?”
James pauses, pensively rubbing his finger along the side of his nose as I scroll through the contacts on my own mobile phone, preparing to call DC Piper. “Um, I’ve heard of it, but I don’t think I’ve been there. Is that where they grow all the tropical plants?”
“Yes! They have a microclimate, apparently. I’ll meet you there tomorrow. There’s an old hospital tunnel that runs through the cliff beneath the gardens—they have a daily tour there at two p.m. I overheard a group of walkers talking about it in the café yesterday, planning to go, so I know there’ll be a small crowd. Join the tour, and I’ll find you.”
“But how—” James starts, but he’s cut off as the line goes dead.
15
Emily
Emily knows she shouldn’t take any more tablets, having only had her dose a couple of hours earlier, but she can’t help herself, can’t think of anything else to take away the upset of what she’s just seen. Behind the closed door of her bedroom, she knows they won’t disturb her, and she swigs back another couple of pills, washing them down with a gulp of the musty water that sits in a pint glass on her bedside cabinet. God, how she longs for a drink now. When did this happen, she wonders—when did she start fantasizing about chilled white wine before she’s even had her breakfast? She thinks about the way they looked at each other when they realized they were caught on the front of that newspaper; she thinks about the secrets that passed between them and the pathetic way they tried to deny it, tried to say her eyes were lying to her. Well, she’s not wrong, is she? What’s the expression? The camera never lies. Well, it’s right there on the front page, clear as day, James caressing her sister’s face, when they had both said they were elsewhere. For Christ’s sake, Jess had even plated up a meal for James earlier that evening “so you and James can eat together later”! Talk about covering your tracks; it had certainly had her fooled. She’s such an idiot to have trusted her! Until Jess arrived, life was good and calm and predictable, and Emily wants so much to place thi
s all at her feet, to show her how she is to blame for everything bad that has happened. Chloe’s defection, James’s retreat, her own infidelity. Daisy’s disappearance.
She sobs now, allowing her grief for Daisy a rare appearance, and more than anything she wants to blame Jess for that, because, God knows, that’s the worst thing, isn’t it? That’s the very worst thing, and whoever made that happen is the worst person, because that is what’s at the heart of this entire breakdown: the abduction of her child. But try as she might, she cannot blame anyone as much as she blames herself. I made it happen, I made it happen, I made it happen. A loop of images runs through her head, blurring and slurring together as sleep threatens to take her down: Marcus’s mouth on hers; Jess’s grateful smile as she emerges from the mainland ferry; the look on James’s face in that newspaper photograph; the swirling handwriting of the letter in his desk drawer, from “A” with a kiss. It’s me, is her last coherent thought before sleep at last possesses her. It’s all my fault.
* * *
The one thing she does feel bad about when it comes to that party at Sammie’s was that Jess hadn’t even wanted to come. If Emily hadn’t pushed her into going, none of that business with Simon would ever have happened, and life would have turned out quite differently. Jess had been complaining of feeling “a bit under the weather” (their mother’s favorite expression) for a few days, and earlier that morning she’d had a light-headed moment in Topshop when she’d had to rest on the bottom step of the stairwell, right in front of everyone. By the time they sat down for lunch at Minxies, she told Emily that she really couldn’t face it, because they’d all be drinking and having a laugh, and she didn’t want to put a downer on Sammie’s birthday if she took another turn for the worse.
“You’ll be fine!” Emily told her. “And anyway, Sammie will be really upset if you don’t come. It’s the end-of-year party, Jess. How can you even think of not going?”
The reality was that she didn’t want to turn up at the party alone, which seemed likely as she’d been trying—unsuccessfully—to contact Simon for the past twenty-four hours. At least with Jess there, she’d have someone to walk in with and to get safely home with afterward. Maybe she could convince her to sort her hair out; it would look so much nicer if she wore it up, or if she used a few products to tame the natural waves that gave it a slightly wild look. Emily was lucky that her own hair was so straight and shiny. She hardly had to do a thing to make it look good.
“It’s going to be a brilliant night—you can’t miss it. Sammie’s mum is away, and everyone’s going to be there, Jess. You can’t not go! Just have a lie-down for a couple of hours, and you’ll feel much better.”
They heard the music before they even reached Sammie’s large detached house in Links Lane. It was a humid summer’s evening, and the sprawling, high-walled yard was already littered with beer cans and spilled bowls of peanuts and limp trails of trodden-on party streamers. Sammie, wrestling a large speaker out through the dining room window, spotted them and came rushing out of the front door to hug them, already gushing in the tipsy way she was inclined to after even the tiniest amount of alcohol.
“Have you seen how many people there are?” she hissed dramatically, but not looking at all unpleased. “I swear there must be three times the number I actually invited.” She took Emily’s budget bottle of cider and Jess’s weak lagers and indicated for them to follow her inside, where there was at least the same number of bodies as there were outside. “Grab a drink,” she instructed them as she returned to sorting the speakers out, and Emily fetched a pair of Bacardi Breezers from the vegetable drawer of the fridge, where she knew Sammie would have hidden them. A cheer rose up from the yard, indicating successful relocation of the speakers, and Emily felt the thrill of anticipation rushing up through her legs, pulsing in time with the bass.
Jess was her usual reticent self, sticking close to Emily’s side as they made their way back out into the yard to seek out their friends and be seen. Emily ran her eyes over her sister, absently noting how pretty she looked, and hoped she’d be able to shake her off when Simon turned up. She had finally managed to speak to him late this afternoon, and he’d promised her he would definitely be there by nine, but it was now after half-past, and there was still no sign of him. He would be with Lizard and Adrian and the other losers he hung around with, downing pints in his local pub before stopping off along the seafront for a pipe or a spliff and whatever it was that Lizard had managed to get his hands on this week. She tried to turn a blind eye to Simon’s “having a bit of a laugh,” but she hated the fact that he’d rather be with them than her. Couldn’t he see that his mates were just hangers-on and users? Lizard and Adrian were invariably broke, while Simon always had a wad of cash in his back pocket to stand the next round or to lend to them, knowing they had no intention of paying him back. His careless abandon with money was legendary. But, of course, his friends, like everyone else, knew that the O’Carrolls were loaded, and for just a few hours at his dad’s haulage yard each week Simon would earn more money than most of them could dream of in a month in their part-time shop or bar jobs. He was generous with Emily too, frequently buying her jewelery and little trinkets, but as much as that pleased her, it wasn’t enough. They’d been going out together for six months now, and in Emily’s mind that was plenty enough time to expect more of him, wasn’t it? Six months was serious, anyone would agree, and surely serious meant arriving at parties together, returning each other’s calls, evenings out without his friends—and making plans for the future. Emily and Simon hadn’t done much of any of those things. The reality was, their relationship pretty much consisted of meeting up when he drunk-texted her at last call, for a late-night fumble in the back of his mum’s Honda, parked on the drive at the back of his family home. She couldn’t remember the last time they actually met up in daylight hours.
To her further irritation, Jess was already fighting off the boys. Even as they’d walked through the house, Emily could feel the attention she was gathering, as eyes turned toward her, glances that went unreturned. What was it about her? What was it that made people—boys and girls—want to look at her, want to be her friend? She was shy, boring even, and if she knew that someone was paying attention to her, she became even more introverted. Emily, on the other hand, was gregarious. Fun! Why didn’t they all look at her in the same way? She made eye contact, let it be known if she liked someone, let them know if she’d seen them looking. She was no less attractive than Jess—more so, she liked to think, and certainly more approachable. Even now, a pair of lads from their year group had cornered Jess, and Emily could overhear them trying out their adolescent chat and the awkwardness of her responses. Jess was too busy unpinning the smooth bun that Emily had styled for her just an hour earlier, having complained that it was pulling her hair and making her eyes sting.
“So, you’re Emily’s sister? Blimey, I’d never have guessed.” This one was Alex, one of the sporty popular boys Jess always steered clear of. Beyond the yard, the sun was low in the sky, casting a golden glow across the lawn, making halos of their hair. “You’re not twins, are you? You’re not that much like each other.”
Jess shook her hair free, glancing up briefly so as not to appear rude. She took a sip of her drink as she stuffed the hairpins into the patch pocket on the front of her denim skirt. “No, Emily’s older. I only turned seventeen this week.”
“I would’ve said you look older,” she heard the other boy say. Emily didn’t know his name; he was a nobody. It wasn’t even true. Jess looked young for her age, especially now she’d let her hair down like a little girl, so he was clearly only saying it to get in her knickers.
Jess laughed self-consciously and looked over at Emily, silently imploring her to come and save her. She lifted the bottle to her lips again and drained its contents anxiously. At least if she gets a bit pissed, she might lighten up, Emily thought—and then she saw Simon, dropping down from the wall at the end of the yard, tumbling across t
he grass with Adrian and gangly Lizard in a drunken tangle. Emily’s heart juddered, and she lifted her arm and waved as she ran across the lawn to meet him.
He was, predictably, drunk. “Emi-Emi-Emi!” he called out to her, like a football chant. His short-cropped hair was waxed into hard little spikes that stood up at his forehead, giving him a cute, rascally look that somehow conflicted with the large diamond stud he’d recently acquired in his left earlobe. “It’s real,” he’d told her when she’d first seen it last week, frowning her disapproval as he admired his reflection in the rearview mirror of his mum’s car. “I’ll get you a pair, if you like,” he had added, smoothly reclining her seat as he sank his face into her neck, and then she hadn’t minded his earring so much after all. Now, he slipped his hand around her small waist and pulled her against him fiercely so that their hips clashed as he kissed her wetly on the mouth. “How’s the party going?” he whispered conspiratorially as they returned to the crowd, his arm slung possessively around her, her face glowing with the pleasure of being possessed.
The nobody boy was returning from the house with another drink for Jess. Emily wanted to keep walking, to take Simon inside, where they could sit together on one of the big luxurious sofas and kiss and murmur and disappear into their own searing bubble of longing. But Simon resisted, hanging back when they reached Jess, a wide smile splitting his features. He reached into Jess’s group of three, and with his middle finger he flicked her glass bottle like a person flicking an insect.
“Oy-oy, Little Sister,” he said, and Jess looked up at him, startled. “What’s all this?” He nodded toward her beer bottle. “Didn’t have you down as much of a drinker.”
And then the strangest thing. Jess held his gaze, and it was as if they were the only two people in the yard, as Emily and Alex and the other boy all faded into the background, morphing into hazy silhouettes against the glowing sunset sky. And in that split second, Emily knew: her little sister didn’t like Simon.
Little Sister Page 23
