by Jackie Walsh
Sipping strong coffee, I feel it travel through my veins. My honest veins. I realize the truth has been in me all along. I’ve always been Louise Johnson. No matter what I was called, no matter who pretended to be my mom, my dad or my brother.
I was always her. Louise, Katie’s sister. The girl in the pink coat.
Slipping off the stool, I turn to Jeff.
‘I’m going to take a shower.’
Jeff nods, lifting the dishes off the counter, readying for action. He must not know what to think. He didn’t expect this drama when he said hello to me the first day we met in the elevator. Giving me his big flirty smile, winning me over straight away. But he’s been in my life, in one shape or form, ever since. I wonder, is he regretting that ‘Hi’ now?
Water washes over my body, refreshing me, and I find myself wondering what Louise is like. Will she be strong? Becca wasn’t. Will she survive this? I hope so. I also hope Danny doesn’t get into trouble, what with little Liam and lovely Joanna. But what if he did kill Katie Collins? What then? Even the idea seems completely bizarre: Danny, a killer. But something inside me argues back. Is it really so unrealistic? Did he not do it before? He said it was an accident, that he was only a little kid himself at the time, he thought he was helping Mom, thought the baby was dead. But what if that’s a lie? What if he didn’t want the new baby there? What if Danny was jealous of Becca, of having to share his adoring mom with this new baby? What if he decided to bury her knowing she was alive? What then?
Chapter Fifty-Two
Jeff holds my hand as we walk in through the sliding doors of the precinct. My nerves are tingling, making me shake all over. But I have to be strong. I have to do this. The cop at the desk tells us to wait while he gets Detective Turner.
Around me people come and go, reporting their life’s dramas, looking for answers, for help. A young man shoves past, eyes wild, anger bubbling in his blood as he rushes outside. I feel strange; this institute of trouble is not where I belong.
I check my cell to see if Danny has called. He texted twice during the night when I was out cold on Jeff’s magic pill.
Her breath is labored
Her breathing is slowing down
What does Danny want from me? Does he expect me to stand by his side and mourn the woman who abducted me? I haven’t thought yet about the funeral, or whether I’ll go. If Dad doesn’t know Mom took me, it makes the decision harder. Maybe I should go for his sake.
After a few minutes of tossing thoughts around in my mind, Detective Turner comes through.
‘Rebecca?’ she says. ‘This way.’
I turn for one last confidence boost from Jeff. He nods.
‘You’ll be okay,’ he says. ‘Just tell her the truth. I’ll be waiting here.’
* * *
Inside the interrogation room Turner fiddles with the usual buttons while notifying me of my rights. Her eyes are frightening. She looks as if she can read my mind, like she knows everything and I’m just an innocent fool. Her confidence is almost edible.
‘Rebecca,’ she says. ‘I called your cell last night but I didn’t get an answer.’
I shrug, unwilling to tell her I saw the call but ignored it. ‘Sorry, I didn’t hear it.’
‘I need to tell you something, something that might upset you.’
It’s a bit late for that; there is nothing she can tell me that can top yesterday.
‘Detective, I came here to tell you something.’ My voice sounds okay to me. Strong. Turner sits back, an inquisitive expression on her face.
Taking a deep breath, I say, ‘I am Katie Collins’ sister.’
That’s it, I’ve said it.
Turner doesn’t move, just holds her stare, says nothing.
‘I found out yesterday for sure,’ I say, ‘but I’ve suspected it over the last few days. I wasn’t aware of this when Katie Collins was killed.’
Glad now that I rehearsed my words with Jeff on the way over in the car, I tell her how I came to the conclusion, how the blood results proved I wasn’t Nancy Wall’s daughter. I tell her about the pink coat that turned up, which I then saw in the photo of the missing child, and the words, Mom’s words, that cracked my identity.
She listens without interruption until I finish. I’m waiting for her to react but she takes her time, carefully filing my story in her head. Eventually she says, ‘Rebecca.’
‘I’m not Rebecca. I’m Louise.’
She looks down at the file in front of her, her fingers circling the cover.
‘I called you last night because I wanted to meet with you. I know who you are, I’d suspected it all along, but I had to wait until the DNA results came through. The investigation needed some stimulation, so I made the decision to let you know, to see what came of it.’
‘I didn’t kill Katie Collins.’
‘Rebecca – I hope you don’t mind me calling you that for now. Katie Collins came here looking for you. She knew you were her sister. How? I don’t know. She’d been through the process with plenty of girls in the past but this time she was willing to leave her new baby daughter and travel here to find you.’
‘I know all about Katie Collins,’ I say. ‘I’ve been to Algiers, spoken to her husband, seen the walls of the spare room.’
Turner looks surprised by this, but she moves on to the coat.
‘How did the coat show up?’
‘Bert, my neighbor. He gave it to me last week, a few days before he died.’
‘How did he die?’
‘He had a heart attack.’
‘Did he tell you how he came to have the coat?’
‘No, but maybe he saw her arrive home with the baby, took it out of the trash after she threw it out. Maybe he even abducted me with her… I don’t know. He’s dead now, and she’s dying as we speak.’
‘She’s dying, the woman who abducted you?’
‘Yes, they’re all by her bedside now. She got pneumonia a few days ago and has been going downhill ever since.’ I can feel tears at the back of my eyes when I say this, thinking of Mom taking her last breaths. ‘So there’s no one else to ask.’
Turner thinks about this for a minute, staring at the table in front of her.
‘Your father, did he know?’
‘Dad was away with the army at the time. I don’t think he knows anything about it.’
‘Why? Were you supposed to have been born while he was away?’
If I say yes, this could all go away. There would be no need to mention the real Rebecca Wall, tucked under the soil at the back of the yard. But she’ll check. I know she will, she will find out he was still here on the date on my birth certificate.
Looking away from her penetrating gaze, I lower my head. ‘I think there may have been an accident.’
‘An accident?’
‘Yes. I think Mom killed me, got rid of the body, and replaced me while Dad was away.’
Turner stands up. She walks around the room, her fingers twitching as she leans against the wall behind her chair. Her stare is making me feel even more nervous, so I turn my attention to the desk. I know what she’s thinking; this is unbelievable. I’m thinking it too.
‘What makes you think there was an accident, that a baby died?’
‘I have a birth certificate, photos from the hospital. A baby was born.’
‘What age was your brother when this took place?’
I pretend to do the calculation in my head. ‘Three years old, I think.’
‘You think?’
‘He could have been four, depending on what date she abducted me.’
Turner moves back to the table, pulls out the chair and sits down again.
‘Rebecca, somebody killed Katie Collins,’ she says, staring now like she’s trying to hypnotize me. ‘Someone lured her to Treehill Park using an untraceable phone. They had her number, which they probably got from the note. The note she left for you.’
I’m guessing she’s suggesting Danny, so I quickly interrupt. Danny has a
lways been there for me, protecting me. He’s a good man who has had to live with this lie all his life. He was only a baby himself when it all happened, when his mother threatened him with jail if he told the truth. I’m not letting her accuse Danny. It’s my turn to protect him now.
‘She probably left Danny with her mom when she made the journey to take me.’
‘What journey? How do you know she made a journey?’
I’m beginning to lose it. I must remember not to mention any of the details Danny gave me.
‘I just presumed,’ I say. ‘She’s hardly going to abduct the neighbor’s baby, is she?’ I sound cheeky now and I don’t want to, because I need this woman to feel sorry for me. Focus, Becca, Focus.
‘Rebecca,’ Turner says patiently. ‘Whoever killed Katie Collins was probably trying to keep her away from you. It wasn’t your mother, so… who else knew?’
She’s zooming back in on Danny. Staring me down, waiting for me to come to the same conclusion.
‘What about Bert?’ I say.
‘Bert?’
‘The neighbor who gave me the coat. He knew.’ I’m hoping Bert isn’t looking down from heaven right now, cursing me.
‘Do you think it was Bert?’ she says. When she discovers Bert was an eighty-year-old man who could barely walk and was nursing his dying wife at the time of Katie’s murder, he’ll immediately come off the wanted list.
‘I don’t know what to think. All I know is, I didn’t do it.’
‘So it’s possible it could have been your fake brother or your fake father?’
This conversation is taking a turn for the weird. Turner is trying to break me down, suspects I know more than I’m saying.
‘No, I don’t think it’s possible either of them did it. I’ve known them all my life. They’re not killers and they didn’t know anything about the abduction anyway.’
My voice is getting croaky. The truth, catching in my throat. Danny did know, and he lied to me for twenty-five years about it. But I’m not going to tell her that because I don’t believe Danny killed her. I don’t believe he’d risk all he has; Joanna, Liam, the perfect house, the perfect job. I think he would have allowed Katie find me rather than kill her.
Turner stands up and wanders around the room for a bit before suggesting we call it a day. She’ll want to talk to me again, she says. I’m not to go far. I wish I could, I wish I could get on the next plane out of here and never come back. Maybe I will.
Chapter Fifty-Three
Out in the lobby Jeff stands up when he sees me. His eyes are full of questions, but I’m too exhausted to fill him in right now. I’ll wait until we get home, or out of the building at least.
The sky is completely blue when we step outside, no clouds, they’re all hanging around in my head. Sucking in fresh air I look up at the sky, to where my real mom is, and wonder what she was like.
She wasn’t very attentive to her children if Danny’s story can be believed. But who am I to judge? Maybe she was having a bad day when they passed by. Maybe she was sick, and that’s why she left Katie out on the deck looking after me while she slept. Or maybe she was drunk, I’ll never know now. Everyone who knows is gone. Unless Katie told her husband something about her, what she remembered of her mom before her mom took her life. What she remembers of that day.
Icy shivers run through my body. The woman killed herself and it’s my fault. Well, not my fault exactly, but because of me. It was Nancy Wall’s fault. But then my mother left me out in the yard, toasting in the sun with a heavy woolen coat covering my dehydrating body. She left me unattended. It wouldn’t have happened if she’d been taking better care of me. Jesus, Becca. Stop. I don’t know what I should be thinking, my mind is scrambled.
‘Do you want to go for a coffee?’ Jeff says, nodding towards the Dunkie’s across the street.
‘I think I should ring him,’ I say.
‘Ring who?’
‘Her husband, Thomas Collins. I think I should let him know Katie was right this time, that she finally found her sister. He should know that, shouldn’t he? That she wasn’t mad.’
‘Relax, Becca.’
‘No, I won’t relax. And I want him to hear it from me, not Turner.’ I’m walking at a ferocious pace now, Jeff struggling to keep up. I don’t even know where I’m going. I feel his hand on my arm, pulling me around to face him. I’m looking this way and that, anywhere except at him.
‘Becca, stop it,’
My head is twitching now, uncontrollably, but I can’t stop it. Why can’t I stop it?
‘Becca… Becca.’ Jeff is still calling my name, at least I think it’s Jeff, what is happening to me?
* * *
I wake to shadows of heads hovering amongst the bright light blinding my eyes, the ground hard beneath me. Amongst the voices I hear Jeff’s. He is telling people that I’m okay, that I only fainted, to stand back. Then I see his face. ‘Becca, Becca.’ I fill my lungs, holding in the air, nervous to let it out. ‘Breathe, Becca, breathe.’ Slowly I allow my chest to rise and fall. Pain throbs through my head.
‘Jeff,’ I whisper.
Someone hands him water in a Dunkin’ Donut’s paper cup. Strange I can make out the yellow and pink logo, most things are still quite blurred.
‘Drink this,’ he says.
After a few minutes of Jeff convincing the security man on the nearby door that I don’t need an ambulance, he lifts me to my feet. Then he flags down a taxi and takes me back to his apartment. This is getting familiar, a bit too familiar for Jeff I’d say. But he’s still here, nursing his crumbling friend.
‘I’m sorry, Jeff.’
‘Don’t be sorry. It’s not your fault you fainted. You’re under a lot of stress, it’s a lot to take in.’
‘I know, but you’re so good, Jeff, thanks.’
‘Don’t worry about it, you’ll get me back someday,’ he says, trying to make a joke of things.
After a few minutes of attempting to keep my thoughts away from reality, I dip back in.
‘What should I do, Jeff? What would you do?’
Jeff rests his arm across the back of the couch and tells me that I shouldn’t be wondering what I should do. Just let the reality soak into my mind without trying to fight it. He says I should just get through the next few days absorbing the truth, and then think about what I want to do.
He laughs. ‘It’s not like you can Google the answer, Becca.’
So I lie on Jeff’s couch, numb from head to toe, fear tightening my skin. If Jeff wasn’t here to hold my hand, I’d be in the nuthouse by now. I might yet be. Everything seems to be going from bad to worse. I don’t think Turner believes I killed Katie, though I can’t say for sure. It’s hard to read professionals, they’re so practiced at maintaining an unreadable face.
Danny, on the other hand, seems to be sliding under her microscope. I hope he didn’t fucking do it.
I sleep for almost two hours, and then I’m woken by the familiar call of the outside world beeping in my ear. Picking up my cell from the floor I see Danny’s name flashing. For a moment I think about not answering, but then I take the call.
His voice is completely unrecognizable, whimpering between sobs and pleading.
‘Please, Becca. Please come and say goodbye.’
‘Danny.’ I feel his pain. Poor Danny. His spirit is on the verge of collapse.
‘The doctor says there’s only a couple of hours left, Becca. Pease come, I don’t want you to regret staying away.’
He has no idea where my head’s at. What makes him think I’ve anything to regret?
‘How’s Dad?’ I say.
‘Not good, he keeps asking where you are. I told him you’re down with food poisoning, that you’re puking all the time, but he doesn’t believe me. He knows something’s up. Please, Becca,’ his voice is pleading.
I’m torn, ripped, sliced down the middle. If Dad doesn’t know what’s going on he must be completely confused as to why I’m not there. Why his daught
er, who spent so much time with her sick mother, isn’t coming in to say goodbye, to be there with him, with her brother, with her mom.
Oh, Jesus, it’s not easy being Louise.
‘I’ll think about it,’ I say, then hang up.
‘He wants you to go in and see her?’ Jeff says from behind the kitchen island.
‘I hope you’re not thinking of cooking, I can’t eat anything.’
Closing the door on the refrigerator, he walks back to the couch.
‘What do you think you should do?’ he says.
My head drops into my hands. ‘What would you do?’ I ask.
‘Don’t know. Would I want to say goodbye? Not really. Would I want to be there? Not really. Would I regret it later in life? Maybe, maybe not… It’s up to you, Becca.’
‘It’s Dad I’m worried about. What must he think?’
‘Don’t worry about him. He’ll understand when he finds out the truth. This is about you, you and your mom, if we can still call her that.’
He’s right. This decision is about me, not Danny or Dad. I’m sick of spending my life trying to please other people. No, I’m doing this for me. I’m going to see her.
Chapter Fifty-Four
The room pulses with sadness when I open the door. Curtains pulled, candles flickering. A large vase of fresh lilies sits on the cabinet amongst all the lying photos. Danny is standing at the end of the bed, just standing there, completely still, hands wrapped around the metal bar. He glances up to see who has entered and when he sees it’s me, he smiles a little. His eyes brighten as he lets out a sigh of relief.
If he thinks I’m here to play happy families, he can think again.
Dad gets up from the chair by the side of the bed. His face is white like a ghost’s, his burnt eyes blinking, making sure it’s me he is looking at.
‘Becca,’ he says. He hugs me, squeezing tightly, afraid I might float away if he lets go. After a few seconds he whispers, ‘Are you feeling better?’ I nod.
