The Forgotten Sister

by Caroline Bond

  First published in Great Britain in 2019 by Corvus, an imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd.

  Copyright © Caroline Bond, 2019

  The moral right of Caroline Bond to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities, is entirely coincidental.

  Atlantic Books Ltd considers the quotes included within this text to be covered by the Fair Dealing definition under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, and as subsequently amended. For more information, please contact Atlantic Books Ltd.

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  Trade Paperback ISBN: 978 1 78649 368 2

  E-book ISBN: 978 1 78649 369 9

  Printed in Great Britain.

  Corvus

  An imprint of Atlantic Books Ltd

  Ormond House

  26–27 Boswell Street

  London

  WC1N 3JZ

  www.corvus-books.co.uk

  To Chris, because it’s about time he got a mention!

  THE BEGINNING

  A newborn baby is a vulnerable thing: soft-skulled, thin-skinned, best watched over, for fear of damage.

  But this little girl is alone.

  She sleeps peacefully on the floor, in front of the fire, covered by a slightly grubby shawl. The shawl rises and falls gently in time with her breathing. There’s a thud in the room above, something dropped and cursed over. Footsteps pattern the ceiling. Her eyes flutter open, revealing glossy black pupils that can see very little, only a blur of light and dark. Shadows pass over her like birds across an open sky.

  She’s awake now.

  In the tiny, coral whorls of her ears the sounds upstairs are muffled, soft-edged as if she’s still in a world of water. Her arms and her legs wave, but she no longer floats; dry land is so much harder to navigate. Her feet get caught in the fine mesh of the shawl. She kicks and manages to free them, but she cannot move, she cannot roll over, cannot even turn her head. She is where she is; in a safe place or in harm’s way? She cannot know.

  All she can do is feel.

  She feels the rub of the babygrow against her skin and the pinch of the wound on her belly. She feels the soft nap of the blanket beneath her head and the heat of the fire. And she feels the loss, the absence, the sudden, violent removal from the warm flesh that once folded her in.

  And so she cries.

  Her small, shocked lungs expand as she forces out one startling cry, then another; high, hard, angry yelps that fill the room, pierce the walls and ricochet up the stairs. They proclaim her presence, her needs, her wants, her demands.

  Perhaps she is not so helpless after all.

  But no one comes.

  She stops. Her eyelids squeeze shut. She waits, learning anticipation or disappointment. Then she takes three short, desperate gulps, drawing in the unfamiliar air.

  She tries again, louder this time, more desperate.

  Comfort comes out of nowhere.

  Fingertips brush her cheek. Soothing, tentative, but real enough to break the spiral. She listens to their message. The touch tells her that she is safe and not alone.

  It is enough.

  Prologue

  THE HOUSE phone was ringing, which was unusual. Grace ignored it. She carried on stacking the dishwasher. The people she knew – the people she loved – rang her mobile. It would be a sales call. They had a cheek. Friday nights should be sacrosanct. The answerphone kicked in, mercifully cutting off the noise. She set the dishwasher running.

  Through the kitchen window she could see Tom ambling round the garden, hands in his pockets, head bowed, inspecting his precious lawn. He looked at ease, relaxed – happy even. Grace felt her own shoulders loosen in response. It was still a lovely evening. They should make the most of it. She fetched a bottle of wine and some glasses and slipped on her flip-flops, intending to join her husband. They could sit out, enjoy the warmth, maybe talk things through again, see if they couldn’t come up with a different tack; their current approach plainly wasn’t working. Or perhaps not – perhaps not talking about Cassie was what they needed.

  Grace heard the answerphone stop and reset.

  She pushed open the back door and was about to step out into the fading light when the phone began ringing again. It sounded louder, more insistent. A chill rippled through her. She shouldn’t have ignored it the first time around. It was tempting fate to ignore a ringing phone. She crashed the wine and the glasses down onto the counter and hurried across the kitchen, stumbled and lost a flip-flop. She kicked off the other in frustration. The soles of her feet slapped across the unforgiving hardwood floor. It suddenly felt very important that she reach the phone before the caller gave up. She snatched at the receiver, nearly dropping it in her haste. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Mrs Haines?’

  She could tell, instantly, that it wasn’t a call centre. ‘Yes?’ Her breathing echoed back at her through the handset.

  ‘Ah, good. I was having problems leaving a message. I think there’s something wrong with your answerphone.’ Grace wasn’t interested. The woman carried on. ‘Could you confirm your home address and date of birth for me, please?’

  ‘Sorry, but what’s this about?’ Her question came out more sharply than she’d intended, worry taking precedence over politeness.

  ‘If you could just confirm your address and date of birth, please, then I’ll be able to explain.’

  Grace relented and gave her personal details. Balanced on the edge of panic, she looked round their hall, taking in its reassuring ordinariness. Tom appeared at the kitchen door.

  The voice came back on the line. ‘Thank you. I’m sorry to inform you that your daughter’s been brought into A&E at the General Infirmary.’

  Grace took a shallow breath. She’d imagined this phone call often enough over the years, endless nightmarish permutations of dreadful accidents and life-changing injuries, conjured up out of the overwhelming instinct to protect her children. But the reality was different. The reality was worse.

  ‘Mrs Haines? Did you hear me?’

  Grace managed to respond calmly. ‘Yes. Sorry. What’s happened? Is she all right?’ Of course she wasn’t – she was in hospital. ‘I mean, how badly hurt is she?’ Tom raised his hand to his face, obscuring his expression.

  The woman said, ‘I don’t have that information, I’m afraid. I’m just the booking clerk. I’ve been given your contact details and asked to request that you come in.’ There was a pause. The remote soundtrack of other people’s traumas reached down the line and insinuated itself into their home: a child crying, a raised voice, the muted but urgent peal of a siren. ‘Mrs Haines? Are you able to attend?’ There was a touch of impatience in the clerk’s voice now.

  ‘Of course. Yes. We’ll be there as soon as we can.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The line went dead.

  Grace carefully replaced the receiver, delaying, for a moment, the imperative to deal with what the woman had said. She looked at Tom.

  ‘Cassie?’ he said, although he didn’t really need to ask – he already knew.

  Chapter 1

  FOUR MONTHS EARLIER

  RYAN HAD asked Cass
ie to wait for him after her shift finished. Her parents had asked her to come straight home.

  She’d said ‘yes’ to him and lied to them.

  She sat on the wall that separated the hotel from the park, enjoying the last rays of sunshine. This late in the evening it was quiet, only a few solitary dog walkers around. They criss-crossed in and out of the shadows in a complicated pattern of amicable avoidance. It was entertaining to watch – from a safe distance. They were far enough away for Cassie not to feel anxious. No chance of an over-exuberant puppy jumping up at her or some bad-tempered yapper appearing out of nowhere, teeth bared. Cassie didn’t like dogs – any dog – big or small, cute or ugly. She didn’t see the point of them and, more honestly, they scared her, with their unpredictable affection and equally erratic aggression.

  The sun felt good on her face. She closed her eyes and let the warmth seep though her skin. As she basked, her mind turned to Ryan. She wondered, idly, which of the shelters they’d use, probably the one at the top that looked out across the city. Not that they paid much attention to the view. It was a long walk, but the hack up there was worth it, because the top shelter had one distinct benefit: it was private.

  Cassie shifted her position, happy for the time being to wait. It was nice to sit outside; the quiet was soothing, after the noise and hassle of evening service. Cassie hated being a waitress, at the beck and call of fussy diners. But as much as she disliked the work, she enjoyed the money. The job also had the benefit of getting her out of the house and away from the non-stop prying of her parents. Last-minute lunch services and additional evening shifts – there was always a credible cover story, should she need one.

  There was still no sign of Ryan.

  Cassie swivelled round to catch the last of the sun on the other side of her face; as she did so, the kitchen door banged open. Her heart rate quickened, but it wasn’t Ryan. It was Freddie, one of the waiters; nice-looking, nice-smelling, nice manners, with a very nice gym-bunny body to go with it. Cassie watched him open a can and take a long drink, celebrating the end of his shift. The can glinted as he raised it to his lips, providing her with her own, private Diet Coke Break. Ryan couldn’t stand Freddie. He hated his posh voice and his cockiness. Cassie knew that it irritated Ryan that she found Freddie funny, which somehow made her laugh just a little bit louder and longer than was strictly necessary whenever he cracked a joke. It was all part of the new reality that Cassie found herself operating in. She’d thought the physical changes that had happened at high school were the biggie – the periods, the boobs, the mad mood swings that made her want to murder her mum one minute, then climb onto her knee the next – but she’d been wrong. It was learning what to do with her body that was the revelation. And that had really taken off since she’d started working at the hotel and had met Ryan.

  Ryan Samuel Newsome, dark, wiry, sometimes crude, often moody, inked – and wanting more – not a brainbox, not a great talker, or listener for that matter; basically not her type at all. And yet...

  With Ryan, Cassie was discovering that the pathetic hook-ups that used to happen at school were a pale imitation of the real thing. With him, there was the pull and the push of fierce sexual attraction. It was a physical thing, not explained by logic. Addictive, exciting and at times almost scary.

  The pull was fascinating.

  Cassie was very conscious of the power she had over Ryan. She saw how his eyes tracked her in and out of the kitchen: her and no one else, not even Sophie, who was prettier and far slimmer than her. Cassie liked to watch his reactions when she spoke to the other staff, especially Freddie. She loved how she could distract him by the simple act of wearing a black bra underneath her white work shirt – add in a slow stretch, and it was almost cruel. She could feel Ryan’s hunger pulsing through him when he was near her. It was a massive turn-on. In fact, Cassie wondered – sitting there quite happily, on her own, on her wall, in the sun – whether she didn’t actually enjoy the pull more than what came after; whether the chase wasn’t better than being caught. Either way, it was changing the way she felt about herself and everyone else.

  The sun left her face and edged further down her body. The door opened and Ryan finally emerged.

  Time for the push.

  There was the briefest nod of acknowledgement between Freddie and Ryan, then Freddie tossed his can in the bin and walked off, watched by Ryan, who stood perfectly still, as if unable to move until Freddie was out of his orbit. Cassie was just about to shout ‘Hi’, when she suddenly, inexplicably, decided against it. Instead she swung her legs over the wall and dropped down the other side, where she crouched, out of sight, uncertain why she was hiding from him.

  From her secret vantage point she had a clear view of Ryan’s confusion. He looked round, thrown by her not being where she should be. He glanced at his phone. Nope. No text. He scanned the car park, searching for her, obviously thinking that she’d stood him up. Perverse as it was, she stayed hidden, enjoying his uncertainty. He paced away, then turned and walked back, and in that moment she caught sight of the look of raw, furious disappointment on his face. She felt a sudden, sharp, uncomfortable surge of panic. But now she had a problem. She could hardly pop up from behind the wall, like a jack-in-a box; she’d look like a complete idiot. She was trapped. There was no option but for her to shuffle along behind the wall, through the scrubby fringe of grass and the weeds, keeping her eyes peeled for dog crap, doing an awkward kind of bear-crawl, until she finally made it to the gap in the bricks. Once there, she crouched, waiting for the right moment to appear… She could pretend she’d just been for a walk in the park. When Ryan turned away for a second, she stood up.

  When he turned back round and caught sight of her, the darkness in his eyes cleared and he smiled.

  They were breathless by the time they made it to the top of the park and the sky was turning pink. Cassie knew she couldn’t stay long, but she also knew she couldn’t say that to him, not yet. Ryan headed for the shelter and she followed him. They’d used up all their topics of conversation on the way up through the trees, so they sat side-byside looking at the shadows, without talking. The park was virtually empty now, the dog walkers all gone, except for a lone woman in Lycra, who was jogging laps of the bottom path with her Westie skittering along by her side. From a distance they were little more than a splash of neon-pink and a dab of dirty white, tracing circuits in the fading light. The silence that stretched between Cassie and Ryan was taut with expectation.

  It was Cassie who made the first move. She owed him that much. She put her hand on his thigh. They both looked at it. She waited, enjoying the tension beneath her fingertips. Then, without a word, she slid her hand down his leg towards his knee, enjoying the feel of his muscles flexing in response to her touch. Ryan’s breath quickened. Then, achingly slowly, she trailed her fingers along the inside of his thigh, back up towards his crotch. Ryan put his hand over hers and guided it higher.

  There was no need for conversation for the next hour as the purple sky turned black.

  Chapter 2

  TOM LET himself into the house and threw his keys in the bowl. He was on domestic duties for the evening, Grace was away in Reading with work. The house was quiet, which was a change, but a welcome one. Cassie was out, working a midweek shift at the hotel, with their permission, which meant it would be a nice, chilled-out evening, without the drama that his eldest child had a tendency to generate of late. The fact that Ryan would be hanging about at the hotel, ogling Cassie while she worked, was, however, quite a high price to be pay for an evening of peace. Tom was bemused as to why his bright, articulate, opinionated daughter was so enthralled by a lump of such exceptionally average masculinity. The couple of times Ryan had called round to pick up Cassie, Tom had been so underwhelmed he’d thought she was joking – that she might be parading Ryan in front of him as a warning rather than as an actual boyfriend – but apparently not. The lad seemed to have some sort of hold over her, though Christ knew what. Sex, probab
ly. Damn it, she was only seventeen, and she was his daughter. It was too soon. Tom hated the thought of it. In truth, he hated the very existence of Ryan, and the thousands of others like him, lying in wait for both his daughters.

  Tom could feel himself tensing up. No, not tonight. Cassie was coming straight home after her shift, she’d promised; she’d have no time to be getting up to anything. He was going to take Grace’s advice and let it be. She was sure Cassie’s infatuation with Ryan would run its natural course. He hoped his wife was right.

  He hung up his jacket and eased his feet out of his shoes, divesting himself of a tedious day at work, and of his anxiety about Cassie. Tonight he was determined to focus on his youngest daughter. Poor, easy-going, ‘never a drama – never mind a crisis’ Erin, who risked being forgotten, by virtue of being so low-maintenance. He assumed Erin was in her bedroom, doing her homework, as she so often was. He headed upstairs, hoping that he’d be able to lure her away from her books for a few hours, get her down to talk to him, maybe even help him prepare the meal, but when he reached the landing he paused. Her door was ajar, but her desk was empty. He was just about to shout ‘Hi’ when he caught sight of the soles of her bare feet at the end of her bed. He peeped into her room. She was lying on her side, completely still, her cheek resting on the open pages of one of her school books, fast asleep. Tom backed away from her room, leaving her to nap.

  In the bedroom he dug out a pair of shorts and one of his comfy old T-shirts, a Grace ‘favourite’, the Chicago Bulls one with the peeling logo. As he pulled it over his head he started thinking about what to cook and whether he wanted a beer or a glass of wine. He had every intention of going downstairs once he’d changed, but instead, on a whim, he found himself heading up to Cassie’s room, taking care to avoid the creaky stairs.

  Cassie’s ‘den’ was on the third floor. It extended from the front to the back of the house, a luxury of space and light. It was one of the reasons they’d bought the house ten years ago, plenty of square footage for their family to grow up in – happily. Tom didn’t venture up to Cassie’s room very often these days, mindful as he was of respecting her growing need for privacy and separation, but he was familiar with every stick of cursed-over flat-pack furniture in it. The Ikea vibe was strong, lots of funky Scandi storage solutions, grey paint and the obligatory swinging light bulbs, but in amongst the assertion of modernity and borrowed identity there were crumbs from the past: the row of children’s books on the shelves, the dusty teddy on the top of the wardrobe, the plastic hippo on the bedside table.