Familiar Strangers

by Jackie Walsh

  I pour myself a glass of water. ‘What about Dad?’ I say, before gulping down the water.

  Danny sighs, his face slipping back into the comfort of his hands. ‘He never knew.’

  ‘What do you mean, he never knew? Couldn’t he tell?’

  Danny leans back in the chair.

  ‘It was another eight months before Dad came home. You were one by then, and he hadn’t seen you since you were a couple of weeks old, so…’

  ‘So he didn’t notice?’

  ‘Seems not.’

  I’m listening to Danny telling me Dad knew nothing; that he thought I was the same baby he left behind when he went off to Iraq. But the newspapers under his bed have me wondering if maybe he hadn’t figured it out.

  ‘Did you ever talk to Mom about it again?’

  ‘No, never. I was just a kid Becca, I guess I just moved on, didn’t know any different.’

  * * *

  The room is quiet again, both of us exhausted by the truth. Morning light begins to creep into the room. We have been here all night. My head feels like it’s going to explode.

  ‘We have to tell him.’

  ‘I know,’ Danny says.

  ‘And we have to tell him now.’

  ‘It’s going to kill him.’

  ‘I don’t care. I can’t pretend this never happened, that I’m Rebecca Wall, that I’m his real daughter.’

  ‘But you are, Becca. You are his daughter.’

  The sound of glass shattering fills the room as I smash it into the sink. ‘I’m not his fucking daughter, Danny. I’m not your sister, either. Mom took me. She took me. I’m not me.’

  Danny pushes up out of his seat, comes around the table and holds me tight.

  ‘I’m sorry, Becca. I’m so sorry. I should have told you… I wanted to, but then Mom got sick, and, well…’

  ‘Take your hands off me, Danny. You should have told me.’

  Shoving my way out of his grip, I pick up my coat. ‘That’s why you didn’t want me to get tested for the gene, isn’t it? You knew the results would reveal I wasn’t her daughter.’

  I’m shouting this when I hear his cell ringing. Surely he’s not going to answer it? He lifts the phone, checks the ID on the incoming call.

  ‘It’s Dad,’ he says, swiping the answer button.

  Lifting the cell to his ear he says, ‘Dad.’ Then, like the last bomb just dropped onto his shattered world, he turns to me.

  ‘It’s Mom. She’s dying.’

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Nothing is said on the way to Oakridge. Danny, eyes locked on the road, is driving as fast as the car will allow. Sitting by his side, I feel strange, like I shouldn’t be here. This is not my Mom; my Mom isn’t dying. The bundle of bones taunts me. Rebecca Wall, buried at the bottom of the yard. All I can think about is who I am and where I fit in. Am I really the baby in the pink coat with the button missing, the one Katie Collins came looking for?

  Danny’s in shock, driving through tears, his mind eaten by loss. Shifting in my seat, feeling I don’t belong here, I open the window and let the fresh air cool my face.

  The car screeches to a halt outside Oakridge and Danny jumps out of the car. My instinct tells me to stay put. Don’t go inside Becca, don’t say goodbye. But Danny has other plans. Opening the passenger door, he asks me to hurry, then sees the reluctance on my face. Kneeling down, he takes my hand.

  ‘Becca. You have to do this. Hold it together. Please, come inside.’

  But why? I want to shout. She took me Danny, she robbed me of the world I belong to. Why should I go to her But his eyes are pleading with me, begging me to go in and play my part in this, the final act.

  Slowly I get out of the car, into Danny’s embrace. Holding me close, his tears sliding down the side of my neck, he says, ‘It will be all over soon. Do it for Dad,’

  ‘Dad,’ I say, pulling back out of his arms.

  ‘Dad doesn’t know. Remember?’

  ‘Are you sure? How do you know that, Danny?’

  ‘He doesn’t, Becca, believe me. Just hold it together for now.’ Putting his hand on my back, he urges me to walk inside.

  ‘But what about the newspapers under his bed, Danny?’ I say.

  Danny doesn’t answer, too busy hurrying me along. ‘Newspapers about Katie Collins,’ I say.

  ‘He was concerned about your safety after the body was found in Treehill Park. He said it could have been you. That’s probably what sparked his interest in the story, Becca. Concern for you.’

  ‘And why did you tell me to stay away from Katie Collins? You knew, didn’t you? You knew from the start. Did you take the note, Danny?’

  ‘What note?’

  ‘Did you kill her, Danny?’

  He stops. Steps in front of me.

  ‘No, Becca. I did not kill Katie Collins. And I know nothing about a note.’

  He puts his hand on my arm to lead me into the hospital. I flinch beneath his touch and pull away.

  ‘How can you be so sure Dad doesn’t know?’

  ‘He doesn’t Becca, believe me.’

  ‘Believe you?’ I don’t know what to believe anymore. Maybe Dad does know, and Danny is lying in the hope I’ll keep the peace for the next few mournful days. What’s another lie?

  Sister, my sister. Katie Collins is my sister. Memories flash through my mind like scenes from a movie trailer. The woman in the bar: You look like her. Turner’s eyes fixed on my face the first time she saw me. The blood results, the coat. Bert. I’ve been tossed into the middle of an emotional tornado, thoughts swirling around destroying every memory in its path. I need to get out of here.

  Danny is doing his best to keep me calm. He must be afraid I’ll run away. I want to, I want to get out of here. This is not my mom; this is the woman who abducted me. For some reason my body follows Danny as far as the door. The door I passed through so many times, my heart broken, my happiness on hold. Then I bolt. Run away from Danny as fast as I can. I don’t even know where I’m going.

  When I get out onto the street it’s empty. Which way to go? Streetlights make shadows dance through the oak trees lining the walkway. My heart is racing. What do I do now? Where do I go? I’ve no car, no money. Jeff, I’ll ring Jeff.

  He answers straight away.

  ‘Can you come and get me?’ I say, struggling to make the words audible.

  ‘Where are you, Becca? What’s going on?’

  ‘I’m at the nursing home. Oakridge, out near Braintree.’

  Jeff says he’s on his way.

  Leaning against a wall, I put my phone back in my pocket and rest my head in my hands. Everything is becoming clearer and more muddled at the same time.

  * * *

  I hear footsteps coming towards me. When I look up, Danny is standing there.

  ‘I’m not going inside,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to see her.’

  Danny puts his hand around my shoulders.

  ‘What will I tell Dad?’ he says.

  ‘You can tell him whatever you want and you can stop calling him Dad. He’s not my father.’

  ‘But Becca, his heart is broken.’

  ‘My heart is broken, Danny. My heart.’

  ‘I know, I know.’ He squeezes me tightly and both of us stand in the embrace for a few moments, saying nothing. Then I pull away.

  ‘I’m not going in there, Danny. Jeff is coming to pick me up. You go, you be with him.’

  * * *

  Danny wants to wait with me until Jeff arrives but I tell him to go back inside, that I don’t need him to. Reluctantly he steps away.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘I’m sure.’

  ‘Well, I’ll give you a call if anything happens.’

  It haunts me; my sister is dead, someone killed her.

  ‘Danny,’ I say as he walks away. ‘What were the cops doing at your house?’

  ‘Not now, Becca, I’m…’

  ‘What was in the bag, Danny? What did they take from the house?’r />
  With his hand brushing back his hair, he takes a deep breath, Danny is as drained as I am.

  ‘They took a jacket, Becs, suspicious of what they thought was a blood stain on it. But it wasn’t. I hadn’t worn that jacket in a long time, guess they were covering all their tracks.’

  * * *

  Unable to think straight, I wait by a wall at the end of the road. Burnt by the truth. I don’t feel like I’m not me, that I’m any different to the girl I was last week, and yet I know I am. Everything that has gone before is nothing now, all lies. Did she love me? I know she did. I felt it every day. Saw it in her smile, in the care she gave me, the advice she gave me when I got older. How was she able to do that? Knowing I was someone else’s kid. Knowing she’d stolen me. Was she able to blank out the truth? Put it in some box at the back of her mind that she never opened? She must have, because she didn’t seem to worry about it. Not that I noticed, anyway. She never slipped up. Not once. I see her now, her smile, her bright eyes, her shiny dark hair falling around her shoulders. I feel her kissing my cheek. Good morning, baby.

  Maybe I should have gone inside, said my goodbyes, but as I deliberate, Jeff pulls up alongside, distracting me from my weakening resolve. I get in, put on the seatbelt and say nothing. He glances from the road ahead, to me, and back again.

  ‘What’s going on, Becca?’

  I feel drained, unable to answer. All I want to do is sleep and yet I know, deep in my heart, that I’ll never sleep soundly again.

  Chapter Fifty

  By the time we get back to the apartment I’ve told Jeff the whole story. His face, one of true concern, is unfamiliar to me. He suggests I lie down on the bed for a few minutes to rest my head. The minutes turn into hours. When I eventually wake up the room is dark. I stumble out to where Jeff is waiting with a bottle of wine, he beckons me to sit with him at the coffee table.

  ‘It’s true Jeff, all fucking true.’ After emptying my glass in one gulp I grab the bottle and fill it again, all the way to the top.

  ‘What the hell?’ he says.

  ‘What the hell is right.’

  ‘So now there’s two bodies.’

  ‘What?’ Pulling my feet onto the sofa, a cold wave shivers down my spine. It’s not the wine, it’s the past. Katie Collins’ killer is still out there. We let that elephant sit between us on the couch for a while until eventually Jeff says, ‘Do you think it was Danny?’

  ‘Danny?’

  ‘If everything he told you is true, then he’s the only one with anything to hide, the only one Katie Collins posed a threat to.’

  I’m thinking the same.

  ‘Your mom couldn’t have done it,’ Jeff says, ‘so…’

  The wine swimming through my head begins to muddle my thought process.

  ‘So you think Danny is Katie Collins’ killer?’

  ‘Well… I’m just pointing out the obvious,’ Jeff gets up from the couch. ‘Looking at the facts, Becca.’

  ‘But he could be?’ I say, my words sounding slurred.

  ‘I could be, you could be,’ Jeff says.

  After hours of drinking the alcohol has diluted my fear. The magnitude of my identity crisis has reduced to a simmer in my head. I can’t think straight. This is far too much shit for one person to shovel.

  ‘Jeff, what should I do?’

  He sits beside me on the arm of the couch. ‘You’re tired, Becca. Maybe you should sleep, we can talk about this in the morning.’

  Talk about it in the morning? Does the guy think I want to discuss what we’ll have for dinner tomorrow? I know he thinks I’ve drunk too much wine, I saw him lift the bottle a few minutes ago and check what was left, but I can’t switch off, not like that. My world has been—fuck, my cell is ringing.

  ‘Can you get that for me? It’s in my jacket.’

  ‘You’re not gonna like this, Becca,’ he says, holding out my cell.

  Taking the cell, I look at the name flashing on the screen. It’s blurred at first, forcing me to squint and focus. The ring seems to be getting louder and louder but I’m not answering it. The last person I need in my head now is Detective Turner.

  ‘You’re going to have to speak to her at some point,’ Jeff says.

  ‘I know, I know, but I’m not talking to her now.’

  ‘Maybe you should go to the precinct first thing tomorrow and tell her what you know.’

  My head is spinning. I can’t do that; if I do, I implicate Danny. But what if he did kill Katie Collins? Jeff has a point: if Dad doesn’t know about the abduction, Danny is the only one who had something to lose, everything to lose. And what about Bert?

  ‘Bert had something to lose too, he covered the whole thing up as well. He knew about the abduction.’ Bert’s strange relationship with me becomes more understandable now. The man knew all along I had been abducted and had tried in his own way to make it up to me. Spoiling me, soothing his guilt.

  ‘I doubt it was Bert, Becca.’

  He’s right, it’s highly unlikely an old man made his way to Treehill Park late on Saturday night to kill someone, especially with Edith dying by his side. No, it couldn’t have been Bert.

  ‘But what do I tell Turner? I can’t tell her Danny knew about this.’

  ‘You don’t have to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘You can tell her you figured it out yourself, from the blood tests and seeing the coat in the photo in Algiers. What your Mom said. Stuff like that.’

  ‘But…’

  ‘Becca, you’d be better off sleeping now and we’ll talk about this in the morning.’

  ‘But I can’t sleep. I won’t even be able to close my eyes with all this shit flying around in my head and I already slept for hours this afternoon.’

  ‘Hold on a minute.’

  Jeff leaves and goes to the bathroom. When I try to stand the rooms spins in front of me, forcing me to sit back down again. I remember that I haven’t told Jeff about the newspapers under Dad’s bed, that I suspect he might have been aware I was abducted too. And if he did know? That would make him a suspect too.

  Jeff returns with a pill, handing it to me.

  ‘Take this,’ he says.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘It’s a sleeping pill. My sister’s. Apparently the perfect life can keep you awake as well.’

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Jesus, my head is thumping. Lifting it off the pillow has taken all my energy. Then I hear it, the loud crash in my head. Yesterday’s nightmare. It slams into me, sending me into total hysteria. Jumping out of the bed, I run to the bathroom. I’m going to be sick. Sitting by the toilet bowl, I curl up into a ball. What am I going to do?

  Outside I hear Jeff clattering dishes. The smell of cooking wafts in, sending my stomach summersaulting. I’m nervous, helpless, each memory from the day before queuing up to unnerve me, weakening me more. I pull myself into a standing position and look in the mirror. I don’t look like me anymore. Dark rings below red eyes dominate my shrinking face. My hair sticks like rat’s tails to my neck. Splashing water on my face, I try to feel its coolness against my skin, but I’m numb. Am I dead? I am dead. Becca Wall is dead. The person I’m looking at is Louise Johnson.

  I hear Jeff at the door, asking if I’m okay, but words won’t leave my mouth when I open it. I reach for the door handle and press. Jeff is standing there, his face as pale as my own.

  ‘Are you okay?’ he says. Still I don’t answer, walking past him out into the small hallway that leads to the main room.

  I push the door open and drag myself to one of the stools by the kitchen island. I feel heavier, like someone has injected lead into my body while I slept. I grab a glass of orange juice from the counter, sipping it to refresh my mouth. Slowly I feel my body beginning to respond.

  ‘I’m okay,’ I say.

  ‘I’ve made some frittata,’ Jeff says and I sit there wondering what the hell frittata is. Have I forgotten? Did I ever know? Does Louise know? I force a miserable
smile.

  ‘Thanks, Jeff.’

  The room feels like it’s closing in. It’s clear neither of us wants to start the conversation. So we sit there, me breaking pieces off the frittata slice, pushing it around the plate, Jeff managing to eat half of his.

  After about ten minutes Jeff pushes his plate away and leans on the counter.

  ‘Becca,’ he says, eyes heavy, the shadow of a beard wrapped around his chin, his hair a mess. ‘I think you should go straight to the cops. Call Turner and tell her you want to speak to her. She needs to know you’re a victim here; that you’re only finding out the truth, that you knew nothing about Katie Collins being your sister before now.’

  For some reason it all seems futile; I don’t have the same interest anymore. Everything is wrong. I’m living in a world full of deception, a world where everyone I cared about has lied to me. Why should I bother?

  ‘You need to move on this, Becca, get to her before she gets to you. As things stand, the only thing between you being a victim or a suspect is the alibi from that guy in the office, and that only covers you for half of Saturday night. They will try to prove that you still had time to get to Treehill Park.’

  His words are like tissue paper floating on the ocean, they are having no impact on me. He doesn’t realize I don’t care anymore.

  ‘Are you listening to me? This is your life. As bad as it seems now, it will get a lot worse if you’re arrested for murder. You need to pull yourself together. This is not the time to check out. It’s time to take action.’

  Reality slowly seeps through my body, wakening me up to the facts. Jeff is doing his best to convince me I need to do something before something is done to me.

  ‘You’re the one who was wronged here, Becca. Do something about it.’

  My eyes meet his. He’s right, I need to take action.

  I need to talk to Turner.

  The room tightens around me, squeezing my soul. It’s harder than I could have imagined, this living with the truth. A lot harder than living a lie.