“Tea?” Despite the heat, it seemed the right beverage to drink. You couldn’t drink vodka at quarter to nine in the morning even if Mum would not be averse to the idea.
“Please.”
I padded out of the room, keen to escape, anxious to be doing something so that I didn’t have to consider what might or might not be happening. Like a virus attacking my nervous central system, all I could think about was my sister, the crash, the fallout, the blame.
I put the kettle on and took the jolly cups and saucers – my mum’s favourite – from the cupboard and went through the motions. Spoonful of sugar for me. Light dash of milk for her. While it brewed, I tried my dad on his mobile. My call went straight to his messaging service, his voice sombre in a way I’d never noticed before. An omen? A scoot around local Gloucestershire news online revealed absolutely nothing. Before I got drawn into what was trending on Twitter, the kettle boiled.
Arranging everything on a tray, the way my mum liked, I took it upstairs.
“I’ve tried your father. No reply,” she said, brittle with frustration.
“Maybe he can’t respond. Could be driving, or at the hospital.”
“Maybe.” She didn’t sound convinced.
We drank in silence. Her hands trembled. God knew what was travelling through her mind although none of it could be good. Eventually she eased back down the bed. Hid beneath the sheets.
I sat and stared off into the distance. For a second time I considered calling Zach. He and Scarlet had never been close, and it was always me who tried to maintain family ties.
“Can I get you anything else?”
She shook her head minutely. “The dog probably needs to go out.”
Only if I scooped him up and forced him, which was precisely what I did. Picking up on the bad news vibe, Mr Lee’s tongue darted out and licked my ear in a sort of ‘sorry you’re feeling sad’ gesture. I gave him a squeeze and carted him downstairs, through the kitchen and conservatory and into heat resembling a fan assisted oven at 220 degrees centigrade. Too long outside and I’d be done to a turn.
I held back in the shade, watched as Mr Lee mooched across the lawn, skirted the vegetable patch and cocked his leg against one of the fruit trees. To the right, a teal-painted wooden bench where Scarlet and I once sat weeks before and prior to the row, the two of us gazing across the rooftops to the Severn valley, cold drinks in our hands after a blistering day at work. Peace between us. She’d seemed distant, I remembered now, not her usual smiley self. When I’d enquired if she was okay, she’d told me she was knackered. To be honest, I hadn’t really bought her answer and wondered if there was something up between her and Nate. Looking back, I wished I’d pressed her because then I’d be able to make better sense of everything. But maybe exhaustion had led to the accident. Maybe it was nothing to do with me. Maybe.
The dog ambled back, cocked his leg again, this time against a flowering shrub on a patio bleached white with heat. I jagged in irritation because the weather felt all wrong. The sun wore a stupid happy-clappy grin on its face. It was way too lovely a day for unfolding events that I couldn’t call, couldn’t predict.
Retreating inside, I ran water into a bowl for Mr Lee.
The house seemed unsettled and empty, like a home in which a warring couple declare they are going their separate ways. Was it possible that we were all over-reacting? Might someone have got mixed up, identified the wrong driver? Was my sister really at home, sunning her rear and snoozing in the sun, while some other poor woman lay trapped in wreckage? Buoyed, I took out my mobile, punched in Scarlet’s number. Nothing. Switched off. Dead.
Steeling myself, I went back upstairs.
“All right?” Mum asked in the way people do when they don’t require a truthful answer.
“Yes.”
“Dog had a drink?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Sorry, you had to leave work.”
“Doesn’t matter. Lenny is managing fine without me.”
“Even so—” She broke off, stirred, eyes flickering toward the doorway, to where Dad stood. Tall and solidly built, there suddenly seemed less of him in that moment. Purple shadows etched upon his face and underneath his eyes gave him the appearance of the gravely ill. As he walked silently towards us, I read all kinds of emotions in his brown eyes. That’s when I knew. Indubitably. And so did my mother. Her hand gripping mine told me so.
My throat cramped. “Dad?”
In a voice stained with pain, he said, “Scarlet died this morning.”
Chapter 4
Silence, like the split-second before an ancient tree, cut down, hits the earth.
Dad started forward, every step an exercise in agony. Mum, slack-jawed, let go of my hand, gripped and twisted the cotton top sheet through her fingers, a metaphor for a life irrevocably screwed. When Dad reached out and put his arms around her, she let out a deep-throated howl. I slipped off the bed, made way, excluded. Numbed, I couldn’t really take it in.
There were tears. I’d never seen my big tough dad cry. Not when Zach got expelled from school – again – not when he’d OD’d, not when my brother went to rehab that would make most prisons look like recreational facilities, not when Dad walked my sister down the aisle. Not ever. But he cried now.
“There must be some mistake.” Mum’s sobs were dry. Excruciating.
“No, my darling.”
“But—”
“I identified her.”
Mum pulled away. “You did?” She spoke in a small, wondering, vulnerable voice. “Surely, Nate—”
“Too much for the boy. I offered.”
“And you’re sure? You’re certain?”
“She’s gone,” he confirmed tearfully.
Mum wrenched back the sheet. “Then I must I go to her.”
“No, Amanda.”
“I have to see her, Rod.”
Stricken, I held my breath, watched as Dad put his solid hands on Mum’s shoulders, looked into her eyes. Firm. Back in control. All his ex-copper credentials showing through. “We can take flowers once the scene’s secured and preserved.”
Her mouth tightened, ugliness in her expression. “I don’t want to take fucking flowers. I want to see my baby.”
Dad glanced anxiously over his shoulder at me. I wasn’t sure what he was thinking. Maybe he was embarrassed because my mum never swore, and he wasn’t great with the drama. Maybe he feared the miasma of emotions about to break loose. Or maybe he was trying to protect me from what I already knew. My mother could live without any one of us, but not Scarlet.
“Amanda, listen to me. You have to be very brave.”
“I can’t,” she gulped. “I just—”
“You can. You must. For Scarlet.”
“Oh my Christ,” she burst out. “She always said she wanted to donate her organs. We can’t let that happen, Rod.”
“That’s not an issue at the moment.”
I frowned. What did Dad mean?
“But there will be a post-mortem,” he continued.
“No,” she snapped. “You tell him, Molly. Tell him it can’t happen.”
I stared from one to the other, my breath staccato and shallow. “Mum, I wish I could but—”
“Oh, what’s the use?” Ripping herself from dad, she tore out of bed and headed to the bathroom. Naked and unsteady feet crashed against polished wooden floorboards.
“I’m sorry,” I stammered, but the accusing light in her eyes said it all. When she’d needed me most, I’d failed her.
Dad stood up, met my wounded gaze. “She doesn’t mean it, Moll.”
My expression told him that she did.
“Leave her. She’ll —” He was going to say ‘calm down’ but, too late, realised the futility of it.
He sat. I stood. Lost. A hot ember of grief lodged so deep in my chest I thought it would never cool. I didn’t know what to say, or how to feel, other than crashing grief and guilt. I’d never be able to make it up to my sister now.
“Come,” he said, with a sad smile.
I went to him and threw my arms around his neck and rested my cheek against his big wide chest. As he stroked my head the years rolled back, except that Scarlet was no longer there to share them with me. Scarlet was a lonely shadow.
I pulled away, ran a knuckle underneath each eye. “How’s Nate?”
“In bad shape. Went to pieces at the hospital. I left him with his parents. There’s an FLO with him too.” Family Liaison Officer. I was fluent in my dad’s cop lingo.
“And now?”
“There will be an accident investigation followed by an inquest. Standard procedure.”
“What did you mean about organ donation? Scarlet believed in it so much.”
He let out a weary sigh. “I don’t know the RP SIO but, as a former police officer, I might be able to extract some inside information.” I dredged my brain. Dad meant Road Policing Investigating Officer. “It’s a confused picture but I got the impression that the police were holding something back. The fact that they want to prioritise the post-mortem indicates as such.”
I didn’t like the sound of this at all. I understood that reports could take a week or so, although initial findings could be disclosed earlier.
Dad continued, as if on autopilot. “Every fatality on British roads is treated as a suspicious death and in this instance there’s two. In the normal course of events, a Collision Officer will identify and preserve records and review witness evidence, and a Vehicle Examiner will check out the vehicles.”
I didn’t speak for a moment. I couldn’t. I tried to absorb the news. Failed. “Dad,” I said gingerly, “When will they find out what happened?” I had to know.
“Sounds like a high-speed collision.”
“You think Scarlet was driving too quickly?”
“Maybe.” He shook his head. “But don’t tell your mother I said that.”
I squeezed his arm; saw a flicker of fear in his eyes. We both knew that my mum would never recover from this. “It might or might not be a factor, but Scarlet wasn’t driving her car.”
“How come?” I said, puzzled.
“Remember that prang she had a month or so ago?”
“Hit a gate-post.” Which was right out of character, I remembered with a twinge of anxiety. Scarlet was a good driver. Smooth. Fluid. Safe. Not like me with my tendency to curb it and poke my nose out too far at junctions.
“The Golf was in for bodywork repairs. She’d rented an off-roader for the week.”
“Maybe she didn’t know how to handle it.”
“A possibility,” he agreed.
“How long had she had it?”
“Three days.” Yes, I remembered now. She was on her way to drop off her car and pick up the courtesy vehicle when I’d picked a fight.
“Surely, she’d take it steady simply because she wasn’t used to driving the vehicle.”
“I have to admit it does seem odd, especially as she was on the wide straight stretch on the Old Gloucester Road, after Hayden.”
I knew my sister’s regular route. The speed limit was 50 mph, but drivers often took it more quickly. Me included.
A hard lump swelled in my throat, making it virtually impossible to swallow. Still the tears wouldn’t come. “Was it really awful, Dad? Seeing Scarlet?”
He glanced away, jaw bracing, his normal dark colouring a pale imitation. When he spoke his voice sounded raspy, dry and old. “I’ve seen many dead bodies, but nothing prepares you for—” He shook his head. Broken.
“Here,” I said, clumsily handing him a tissue. He took it, dabbed his face and blew his nose. “We have to tell Zach.”
“My job,” he said, stoic and uncompromising. A pulse ticked in his neck, his expression reminding me of the bad old days when Zach was in thrall to his druggie friends. He hung out with crazies back then. Dad knew most of them in a professional capacity. It wasn’t so much what Zach was doing to his body, destructive as it was, as what he was doing to our lives, Dad’s especially.
He pulled out his mobile.
“Wouldn’t it be better and kinder done in person?” In any case, Zach never answered his phone and, rarely, if ever returned a call.
Dad opened his mouth to speak then hesitated, whatever he was about to say was interrupted by the sound of a loo flushing and running water.
“Let me tell Zach,” I murmured.
“No, I —’
“I want to, Dad.” I needed to be alone, to think and work out whether I was condemned to a lifetime of guilt. I shuddered to think that Scarlet was so upset by our row that she’d not paid attention on the road. Had I argued with her when she was already at a low ebb? Jesus Christ.
His sad eyes met mine. “Are you sure? You’ve had one hell of a shock.”
“Honestly, I want to help.” And do something of practical use. “It won’t be a problem. Promise.”
He clutched my arm. “Are you okay to drive?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?” His grip on me tightened.
“I am.”
Anxiously, his eyes darted to the en-suite. “I’ll take care of Mum. You go to Zach.”
Chapter 5
My brother lived a simple life in the arse-end of nowhere. It took me forty-five minutes to get there and then another fifteen through winding roads, flanked by high hedges hissing with heat, to reach the commune where Zach had lived for a decade. Thoughts fastened solely on my sister, my eyes clouded at the thought of never hearing her voice, never seeing her smile again. By the time I reached the potholed drive that led to Zach’s home, I was shackled by grief.
Parking up on a patch of scrub, the ground rutted and dry from two months of hot weather without rain, a kaleidoscope of images clattered through my mind. Scarlet pale and clammy with shock. Scarlet bleeding. Scarlet dying.
Eventually, I forced myself to get out of the van towards what was effectively a scattering of ramshackle dwellings surrounded by vegetable patches, washing lines and pens with livestock.
Gareth, a skinny silent man from the Rhondda, was adjusting a halter on one of his horses. He supplemented his meagre living with woodcarvings and strange sculptures made from scrap metal. Nearby, two small children grubbed around in a makeshift sandpit. Think gypsy encampment meets Glastonbury on an unusually dry day and you get the picture. In front of the largest hovel, a raised piece of decking on which sat benches and old easy chairs with sagging bottoms, two semi-naked women sunbathed in the obliterating heat while Zach lay stretched out in a deckchair, legs apart, narrow feet bare. Clean for years and embracing abstinence with the same zeal with which he’d smoked crack cocaine, he looked reasonably healthy. If you didn’t know it, you’d never cotton on that he’d once been a hair’s breadth away from death.
He wore baggy shorts and a tie-dyed vest that exposed muscles rope-hard from manual labour. His weathered olive-skin looked as if it had been dipped in creosote. Like me, he had a wide brow, although his eyes were blue, like Scarlet’s. A hybrid variety, he had Mum’s pert nose and Dad’s full mouth. Beneath his dreads, his eyes were shut tight against the sun; they popped open at my approach, a loose smile spreading across his face that vanished the second he caught my mangled expression.
“Sis,” he said, climbing out of the chair. “Something wrong?”
“Is Tanya around?” Tanya was Zach’s long-suffering girlfriend. I thought it best if she were there too. As much as anyone had a steadying influence on my brother, she did.
“Craft market in Ludlow,” he said. “Selling cards and shit.”
“Right,” I said uncertainly.
“So, what is it? You look like someone tramped over your grave.” The smile attempted on his face, packed up and retreated.
“It’s Scarlet,” I said bleakly.
At the mention of her name, he started. “What’s she done? Look, if she’s said something—”
“Done?”
He blinked. “You’re making me nervous. I meant what’s h
appened?”
Whether it was the compressed heat or emotional overload, I caught that uniquely chilling vibe only a sibling can identify. Zach’s was no ordinary slip of the tongue. I thought back to before the argument, sitting in the garden at Mum and Dad’s, Scarlet preoccupied. Did Zach know something I didn’t?
“Moll,” he said. “For Chrissakes, tell me.”
When I did, he made a sound, half groan and half exhalation. Brain fried a long time ago; his emotional responses were complex at the best of times.
A woman, with a flat nose and cracked lips, stirred. “Man,” she said. “That’s bad.”
“Real bad,” the other drawled, raising her head, turning over, in preparation to flash-fry her back.
Expecting a shedload of questions, I waited for Zach to fill in the gathering silence. But Zach wasn’t like other people. Hands cupping his elbows, he stood mute, blinking rapidly from the sun or distress, or both.
Unsolicited, I gave him a précis of what Dad told me. “I want you to come home,” I said.
“Nah,” he said. “I’m all right.”
“You’re all right?” I was accustomed to my brother wittering on about his guilt, bad vibes and not wishing to further upset ‘the folks’, but what had started out as distance and separation, over the years had taken on the shape of a feud, the reason for its existence long forgotten by both parties. In the present tragic circumstances, it was pointless, ridiculous and a waste of energy, which is what I told him.
“I didn’t mean it the way you twisted it,” Zach said petulantly.
“They need you, Zach. Hell, I need you.” Why couldn’t he see it the way I saw it?
“Aw Molly, don’t look at me like that.”
Her Sister's Secret Page 2
