My Sister

by Michelle Adams

  ‘At the house.’ The first outright lie. I am a good liar, this is known. But to the police? In a missing-person inquiry? For a vulnerable adult. They exchange a glance that makes me uncomfortable because it looks like they know otherwise. Antonio spots it too and turns his attention to me. ‘We did go out for a while that night. For a few drinks. I guess it was all a bit much for both of us.’

  ‘With Mr Guthrie and Mr Waterson.’ Antonio stiffens next to me, and the jealousy in his blood rises. Of course it doesn’t help that I haven’t told him anything about Greg and Matt. That makes it automatically suspicious.

  ‘Yes,’ I say. ‘They were friends of my sister’s,’ I add in an attempt to detach myself from their presence.

  ‘And then you left the following morning?’

  ‘Yes.’ I know what is coming. I can feel it. It is as if I am watching a freight train, the lights glaring in my eyes because I am standing on the tracks. As if it is coming towards me, the horn sounding, yet I am unable to run.

  ‘Right after your father died.’ I nod. ‘How did Eleanor take the news of your father’s passing?’

  ‘She was upset. I would say she didn’t take it very well.’

  ‘When she called you about your mother, would you say that she was upset? Or did she seem calm?’

  ‘She was calm.’

  ‘So it would be reasonable to suggest that she was more upset by your father’s death.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  DC Forrester crosses her arms. ‘So she calls you, calm and seemingly dealing with your mother’s death, and you rush on a flight to get to her because you say you wanted to support her. Yet when your father dies and Eleanor is visibly upset, you take her car and leave. We found it at the airport, a grey Mercedes with the number plate KV58 HGG. Is that correct?’

  ‘I don’t know about the number plate. But yes, I took her car. I wanted to get away.’

  ‘From Eleanor? The sister you went there to support?’

  ‘Excuse me, officer,’ interrupts Antonio. ‘But what has all this got to do with Elle’s disappearance?’

  ‘We are simply trying to establish her mindset,’ says DC McGuire, stepping in. ‘Plus, we found her car with the keys left in the ignition.’ He turns to me. ‘I’m sure you agree that we would need to rule that out as a relevant fact. So you confirm that you took the car?’

  ‘Yes, I did.’

  ‘Well, that saves us about forty-eight hours of CCTV footage,’ he whispers to Forrester.

  ‘And you, Mr Molinaro?’ asks DC Forrester. ‘Where were you when all this was happening?’

  ‘I stayed here. Irini likes to do these things alone. She didn’t want me to meet her family.’

  ‘Why is that, Dr Harringford?’ asks Forrester, looking at me.

  ‘It’s pretty obvious I didn’t have a good relationship with them. You already mentioned that Elle has issues with her mental health.’

  ‘No, in fact we told you there was nothing more than anecdotal reports. I’m sure as a doctor you appreciate that we can’t discuss her medical history with you. But, just for clarity, we’ve checked into her history and there is nothing of any significance reported.’

  ‘But there is, I’m sure of it. Elle told me herself that she spent time in a mental health facility.’

  ‘We are not at liberty to discuss it any further.’

  ‘But it’s important. That’s why I didn’t want her in my life. She was very difficult.’ As soon as I have said, it I realise how awful it sounds when I am trying to sell myself as a supportive sister. ‘I just preferred it when there was a distance. It was better for both of us,’ I lie.

  ‘But still you went there to support her,’ Forrester says, too sarcastic for my liking. ‘And since?’

  ‘We’ve been here. I haven’t been to work, I called in sick. Instead we stayed home. We needed some time together. To reconnect after the time apart.’

  ‘Well, it looks like you’ve been doing a good job.’ DC McGuire smiles as he stands up.

  DC Forrester, the one who seems to be playing the role of bad cop, follows. ‘Try to be available over the next few days. I’m sure we will have more questions.’

  They walk towards the door and I follow, the duvet wrapped around my waist. ‘Oh, just one more thing,’ says Forrester as her partner opens the door. The rain pelts down and wets the doormat. ‘The name Joseph Witherrington. Does it mean anything to you?’

  I think for a second before I say, ‘No. I have never heard it before.’

  She smiles. ‘OK, thanks. Try not to worry. We receive more than seven thousand missing-person reports each year. The majority of people turn up safe and well. In fact, some of them even choose to go missing, especially if they feel threatened or at risk.’

  ‘I don’t think anybody threatened Elle,’ I say. They don’t say anything, only snatch a quick glance at one another.

  DC Forrester flashes that same false smile as she did when she arrived. Fixed and set and as unlikeable as mine. ‘Most of them turn up eventually.’

  25

  Antonio is already awake when I surface from a dream about Robert Kneel. He is sitting up in bed with the lamp on. I look at the clock, catch the image of the night sky in the corner of my eye. 3.01 a.m.

  ‘You’re awake,’ I say, stating the obvious as he sits motionless staring at the wall.

  ‘I can’t sleep. I keep thinking about your sister.’ He reaches to the side and picks up a bottle of water. He must have been downstairs to get it, because it wasn’t here when we fell asleep. ‘You were dreaming.’

  ‘How do you know?’ I hold my hand out and he gives me the water.

  ‘You were mumbling, saying a few words.’

  I swallow, use my hand to wipe the drips from my lips. ‘What was I saying?’

  ‘Something about a robber. Robert? I don’t know. It was nonsense. Gibberlish.’

  ‘Gibberish,’ I correct him. He does this every now and again, when he tries to use unfamiliar words. Repeating them like a parrot, and not always correctly. He doesn’t acknowledge the correction or the mistake. I hand the bottle back. ‘What do you think has happened to her?’

  ‘I don’t know. Remember, you never let me meet her.’

  ‘You spoke to her, though.’ He looks surprised, a sharp turn of his head. ‘On the phone, before I came back. What did you think of her? What did she sound like?’

  He takes a breath, as if he is trying to decide. ‘She sounded manic. Excited. I thought maybe it was because you had reconnected, and that your relationship with your father was better. But that doesn’t seem so. Not from your behaviour. So I think maybe she is just crazy.’

  I don’t dispute his conclusions. ‘But where would she go? And why would she go? She has that whole house to live in now.’

  ‘Actually, you have the house.’ He guzzles the water and sets it down. I think about the house being mine, wonder what I’m going to do with it. ‘You never told me anything about her past. About her being ill. You told me she was crazy, but that could mean anything. I didn’t know she was actually ill.’ He looks away from me, his eyes downcast before flickering up to a star-filled sky. The storm has passed and has left behind an image of beauty. Perfectly twinkling stars. Clarity of a diamond. ‘I wish you had told me that before. I wish I had known that she was actually ill.’

  I shrug my shoulders. ‘What difference does it make?’

  He looks down again and picks a little tuft of fluff from his belly button. ‘Nothing, now. But tell me something about your past. It was always off limits before, but I think we have passed that. I need you to tell me something about her. To help me understand.’

  ‘What like?’

  ‘Anything. Your choice.’

  I consider the stories of Margot Wolfe and Robert Kneel, but decide that neither paints me in a good light. So I come up with another, a later one, when I had realised who Elle was. I don’t try to cover myself with the sheets as I sit up, because I am wearing my pyjamas. Ther
e was no more sex after the police left.

  ‘One night, before I went to university, she told me that she was taking me out to celebrate. It had been getting harder to be around her; her thoughts and actions were increasingly erratic. She told me she had never had a sister who was going to university before, which I thought was weird because I was her only sister. But she said we had to mark the occasion. So we went to a pub, smoked cigars and drank ourselves stupid. I was eighteen, couldn’t handle the booze.’ My hip was still dodgy, and I had terrible dress sense, even for 2001. Too much colour, too much denim. Elle was dressed in blue velvet knee-high platform boots, white hot pants and a red latex boob tube, like a human Union Jack. All stolen.

  ‘She took me to a club, a dark place lit by strobe lights and happy house music. Anywhere she went she had her hands in the air, pointing and jabbing them to the beat. By four in the morning I was flat. Done. I wasn’t jacked up on pills like everybody else, so I just crashed in the nearest booth. She had been doing drugs all night long, and come eight in the morning, when everybody was leaving, she was still buzzing. Hands in the air like woo-hoo.’ I make the motion with my hands like I am back there, watching Elle lose herself in the music. He smiles sympathetically. ‘The bouncers ended up dragging her out, literally throwing her out of the club, me trailing behind.’

  ‘I was staying with her for the summer, living in a flat she had rented in order to be near me. She slept for a week after that. Woke up sporadically, bursts of mania and depression, one minute crying because they had kicked her out of the club, the next organising nights out that never happened. Even days later she was still angry, screaming that it wasn’t right, that it shouldn’t be like this, that it wasn’t her fault. I put it down to the drugs, found it all kind of wild, you know, like you do when you are just a kid and you think there is only this one crazy person who truly loves you. But I also started to realise that she wasn’t good for me. I knew that if I was going to have a normal future, the life I shared with Elle had to end. I didn’t hate her. Still don’t, even though I sometimes try to convince myself that I do. But neither could I stay. So one day I just sort of slipped away when she was still in bed.’

  ‘Did she follow you?’

  I reach over to the bedside table and take a cigarette. ‘Yes. But I had told her I was going to Leeds University. She went north in search of me, but really I was going to Exeter. It took her a few months to find me.’

  ‘How? What did she do?’

  I light the cigarette and take a long drag. Antonio hates me smoking in bed, yet he takes one too, does the same. ‘She trailed medical school campuses until she found me. Broke down in tears, saying how awful it had been without me. Thanking God that I was all right. She acted like I had gone missing or something. Like it had all been an accident and she was relieved I was OK.’

  ‘And you? What did you do?’ I stub out what is left of my cigarette and slip down into the bed, head warm against the pillow. He does the same, brings the duvet up to cover me. I clutch it and hug it close. Our faces only inches apart, the smell of pesto still on his breath.

  ‘I was grateful that she was back. I felt wanted, needed again. I’d been lonely without her, just like I was as a child in the years when they kept us apart.’ He rests an arm across me and rubs at my shoulder, pulling me towards him. Our faces touch and it feels, in that instant, so good. So warm. Almost like I could tell him everything. ‘I let her stay for a while, until she started sleeping with the boys in my hall. I switched rooms after that, changed my number. But I knew she would find me. I thought about her every day until she did. It became like a game. A game where there were no winners.’

  Antonio reaches over, turns off his light, leaving only the moon to cast shadows on my face. The sound of traffic and voices filters through the window. I remember how that reunion really went, Elle turning up at the university, knife in hand, threatening that if they didn’t bring me to her she would slit her own throat. I should have expected it after what really happened to make me leave. Yes, there were outbursts, episodes of mania, too many drugs. But that wasn’t it. I don’t know why I don’t want to admit it to Antonio. Perhaps I’m just not ready to hear it again. I wrap the duvet over me, turn away. I close my eyes and pray for sleep. But then he asks something else.

  ‘Rini, what were the names of those men you were drinking with? The night before you came home?’

  ‘Erm, Mr Guthrie and Mr Waterson. I think that’s what the police said.’ I try to make it sound casual, like I can’t remember, as if they were barely part of the event.

  ‘Their first names, I mean. You must have known them.’

  ‘Greg and Matt,’ I say quietly. ‘They were friends of Elle’s.’

  He twists away and I feel the pull of the duvet. ‘So it wasn’t Robert, then.’ He sighs, as if relieved, but it could be the sound of his burden I can hear. In the dark, it is impossible to tell.

  26

  I knew that being with Elle was a risk, and I was nervous when I made the decision to stay with her in the weeks leading up to the start of university. I was young, not stupid. I knew that anything good had the potential to unravel in the blink of an eye. But she was so excited to have rented an apartment for us, and I guess I was still hopeful. And desperate. I still craved a sense of kinship, and she told me so often how we belonged together, it was hard not to believe it.

  Life with Aunt Jemima had degenerated into polite confirmation of facts: yes, I have an offer for medical school; no, I don’t need a lift; yes, I’ll be gone sooner rather than later. Not even my academic success could bridge the Elle-sized gap between us. Aunt Jemima knew I’d been seeing her, and that was enough for her to want me at arm’s length. Uncle Marcus had washed his hands of me. I saw Aunt Jemima’s indifference as evidence that they couldn’t wait for me to be gone. In hindsight, I think she was desperate too, out of ideas. She couldn’t fight against the fact that Elle was the only person who demanded my attention, my presence, who went out of her way to get close to me.

  Although leaving had left me with a sense of emptiness, arriving at Elle’s flat was like catharsis. It was my home for the foreseeable future, and a place where I was wanted.

  Elle was all over me like skin for the first few days. She tended to my needs with such enthusiasm that it was as if I was recuperating from a disease or operation – perhaps my surgical excision from the past, her love dressing the wounds left behind. She would stroke my hair when I was tired, nurse me back to health when the hangovers were bad. I suggested we streak my hair pink to match her own, and she cried with joy at the idea. They were debauched days, hedonistic in a way that only youth allows, and for the short time that it remained just the two of us, the best days of my life.

  But there was something that troubled her during this time: I was still a virgin. She couldn’t believe it. The stories she told me about her experiences shocked me almost as much as my unbroken virginity shocked her. She asked me over and over why it had never happened. I answered the same each time: I just didn’t like any of the boys I knew. My answer didn’t satisfy her, though. Probably because it was a lie.

  The truth was that since the incident with Margot Wolfe, I couldn’t bring myself to even think about sex. Margot had been raped because of me. Four times. I had put that drug in her drink, and despite the help and encouragement that Elle gave me to do it, it was impossible to ignore the satisfaction I felt when I saw the first boy guiding her away from the party. Plus, I supposed my virginity was about the only thing I completely controlled, that was mine to keep for myself. It was the only thing about me that wasn’t broken, and I wanted to keep it that way.

  But Elle saw it as a problem to solve, a load to lose. Our days and nights began to revolve around the quest for a man for me to sleep with. Any man. Elle listed her friends: blond men, black hair, olive-skinned. She knew a man from Kenya who would be more than happy to help. Another one from Newcastle. She took me clubbing and talked about me to men she knew, an
d men she didn’t. They would leer over me like I was some sort of product, ripe for the picking, available to the highest bidder. I spurned them all, stayed in the toilets wishing we could go back to those first few days when she’d suffocated me with her love. I could have died like that and been happy.

  On the sixth night out, something changed. I saw a guy watching me. He was quiet and cautious, seemed less interested in Elle and what she had to say than the others, and that felt good. He wanted me, I knew it. Plus there was something about his look, the way he held himself, his shoulders soft, mouth loose. He wasn’t trying, and it was the sexiest thing I’d ever seen.

  He wasn’t the first boy I had liked. Chris Hughes was a tall blond boy in my year, played rugby for the school and ran cross country at county level. I only had to see him and I felt the flutter in my knees, the rush in my stomach that more often than not found its way to my groin. I would go home, find myself wet and swollen, with no clue what to do about it. I knew what desire felt like, and I felt it now as I stole glances at the auburn-haired man propping himself up against the wall. Looking back, I guess he was a bit like Matt.

  But it wasn’t until we arrived back at Elle’s flat that he came close to me. He sat at my side on the box-like 1960s sofa and said hello. I could barely hear him over the music and the sound of Elle making cocktails in the kitchen with two other men she had picked up.

  ‘Hi,’ I answered, but it came out croaky and hoarse. He reached over, slipped a hand around my head and pulled me in for a kiss.

  I pulled back, my body pushed up against the arm of the sofa. But his grip was strong, his eyes wide open, fixed on mine like a missile lock. In my head I was screaming to get up. This could be over in a second; all I had to do was move. I could go to the single bedroom and slip into the musty flannelette sheets to sweat out my sexual frustrations there. But he wasn’t trying to restrain me, and because of that I stayed. When I didn’t move, he took his chance, placed his Jack Daniel’s-coated lips on mine, and I followed his lead.