by Diane Saxon
It hadn’t worked the way she’d hoped, and Fern was so entangled with the brat, she’d virtually ignored Emily.
She straightened and pushed her spine deep into the corner to ease the ache in her shoulders through sitting hunched over for too long.
Her head thunked back against the wall as she took another slug of wine, letting it swirl around her tongue and mind. She placed the bottle back down by her side and raised her hand so she could gnaw at the delicate skin at the edge of her thumbnail. She pulled her hand back and studied her thumb where she’d stripped the skin from around the nail bed to leave the nail growing through pitted and distorted. A thin sliver of skin stuck out. She pressed her lips to her thumb and took the rag of skin between her teeth to peel it back until it broke off.
Fascinated, Emily chewed the minute piece of skin while she stared at the bloom of blood from the new wound she’d created. As a drop formed, she pressed her thumb to her lips and sucked. The metallic taste of her own blood filled her mouth as her less than focused gaze drifted back to her sister.
She dropped her hand to her side and her knuckles brushed against the cold, metallic handle of the kitchen knife. Unsure how it came to be there, she wrapped her fingers around it and brought it up to her face, her vision wavered as the alcohol took its effect. Her stomach lurched and the bitter taste of acid burned the back of her throat.
Emily slapped her free hand over her mouth as tears welled in her eyes to make her vision fog even more.
It’s too hard, the hoarse voice whispered in her head. You wanted Zak, but he wants his wife.
Emily touched her fingers to the front page of The Shropshire Star with the half-page picture of Zak, Imelda and Joshua. A family portrait of three beautiful people as they laughed into the camera.
Her chest squeezed until she could no longer breathe.
‘Zak.’ Her voice slurred out the word. ‘I love him.’
He doesn’t love you, though.
She traced Zak’s face with her fingertip. ‘But I love him.’
The voice turned spiteful and mean. Did you really think Zak would love you when you returned his child to him?
Emily snivelled without replying. She didn’t bother to cover her ears, she knew the voice would still get through.
You know she’s going to tell on you, don’t you? She can’t hold on any longer.
She peered at her sister through the golden hues of the early-dawn light cutting in through the gap in the curtains to slash across the room.
The sly insistence of the voice threaded through her mind. She’s the one. She makes it so difficult. Everything was fine until she tried to take over. Fine until she insisted you get help. Look what happened last time. They drugged you and I went away.
Emily blinked.
Perhaps she should put them both out of their misery. Just a quick stab to Fern’s jugular and it would all be over. A slash from the inside of her wrist in a straight line to her elbow would ensure she’d bleed out quickly.
She swiped up the bottle and took another long swig before she cradled it to her chest.
Simple, the voice agreed.
Knife in hand, Emily pushed up from the floor and staggered towards Fern’s bed, her slippered feet weaving across the thick carpet pile until she stumbled to a halt, towering above her sister.
She blinked her vision clear, only to have it fog over again. The knife in her raised hand blurred in the glint of the breaking dawn.
She closed her eyes and wavered as the black bloom of clouds descended, swarming behind her eyelids.
The shrill cry of a child shot her eyes wide open and rage whipped through to darken the edges of her vision.
The brat. Dark fury laced the gravelly voice.
Emily spun on her heel to face the bedroom door as the voice murmured its cruel encouragement.
It’s the brat’s fault. Not Fern’s. Not Emily’s.
The cries pierced through her head. It never stopped crying. It needed to stop.
‘Why won’t it stop?’
Alcohol saturation dropped from her like a silken cloak and she strode towards the bedroom door and the source of the ear-piercing screeches as clarity struck her. What was the point of having the child if she could no longer have the father?
The cries escalated and echoed around in her mind.
She gripped the bottle of wine in one hand, the knife in her other.
Filled with glee, the voice encouraged her. You know what you have to do.
Focused, Emily threw open the nursery door and glared at the toddler. She stepped inside and kicked the door shut behind her.
The bane of her life.
The brat.
30
Tuesday 13 July, 05:05 hrs
As the shaft of dawn sunlight touched her face, Fern roused, and rolled over onto her side. She kicked aside the thin, cotton sheet to let the thick, heavy air at her naked skin. Not that it cooled her in any way. The temperature had soared the previous day and it already threatened to continue its upward spiral.
Angel’s insistent cries nudged at Fern. With a grunt, she rolled out of bed and pushed aside the thick fog that blanketed her brain. She shouldn’t moan. Angel was an excellent sleeper. She’d gone down at ten o’clock the previous night and it was now just past five in the morning. A good long stretch. The light mornings helped Fern to rouse quicker than normal.
It didn’t make her feel any less exhausted. She’d never realised how tiring it was to look after a child on your own. If Emily had been of any use, it would have eased the burden, but she’d never done anything. Their whole lives, Emily had dumped and run. She’d never been able to rely on her.
Fern tugged her thin nightdress down, so it fell in soft drapes to her knees as she stumbled to the door. She pressed her hand against her forehead and took in long draughts of air to fill her lungs with enough oxygen to clear her head while she wrenched open her door and weaved her way across the landing.
She bumped open the door to the nursery.
Horror sent shockwaves pulsing through her to burn her already overheated skin so sweat popped out in beads, which slicked the thin nightdress to her within a heartbeat.
‘Emily! What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
Rather than whip around as Fern had expected her to, her sister took a casual, slow circle to face Fern. A long-bladed carving knife dangled by loose fingers at her side. The carving knife Fern had recently bought from TK Maxx. With a twelve-inch blade, the Sheffield steel was lethal.
‘Fern.’ The slow smile that spread over Emily’s face never reached her stone-cold eyes as she raised the bottle of wine in her other hand and took a deep gulp.
Emily spliced Fern’s heart in two as her sister cocked her head and raised the knife to point it with deadly carelessness straight at her.
‘She won’t shut up, Fern.’ Voice slurred, the knife’s point made an erratic circle in the air.
Fern took a cautious step forward, her voice caught in her sand-dry throat as she held both hands out towards her sister in supplication. ‘Emily. Put the knife down, darling. There’s a good girl. Put the knife down.’
Emily tilted her head on the other side, the vagueness of her stare portrayed her disinterest in Fern’s words as Angel’s cries pitched higher. ‘But she won’t fucking shut up, Fern. No matter what you do. She won’t shut up.’
Her fingers spasmed around the hilt of the knife as she gripped it tighter until her knuckles turned white.
She arched it around and Fern’s breath staggered in her chest as Emily turned and pointed the knife at Angel.
Two more steps brought Fern closer to her sister.
With her own head banging, Fern squinted through the pain and focused on Emily.
Could she make it? If Emily lunged at the child, could Fern get there in time?
‘It’s okay, my darling.’ She kept her voice a soothing lull in the hope that Angel would take comfort in her tone and at least stop crying.
Angel’s soft lips lifted at the corners, her wobbly smile full of desperation while tears trembled at the edge of her eyes.
Addressing her sister, but all the time keeping the soothing tone in her voice for Angel, Fern sidled closer and then closer still, her shuffling footsteps minimal to keep Emily from taking fright.
Fern raised a slow hand, palm upwards. ‘Give me the knife, Emily. Everything’s going to be fine.’ She needed to keep the desperation and fear from her voice.
Emily’s chin dropped while she took a long, slow study of the knife in her hand. She let the wine bottle drop so it hit the floor with a muffled thump and spilled pink liquid out in a silent flow. She opened her fingers, so the shaft of the knife balanced on her palm. She drew in a protracted, shuddering breath and then raised her bleak gaze to Fern’s pleading one. ‘It’s all wrong. We made it all wrong, Fern.’
Fern rolled her lips inwards and took a deep breath. Trust her sister to make it about them, not solely her. Why did she have to drag her into her problems again? Time after time. She only ever came to her when she was in trouble. It wasn’t fair.
She kept the resentment deep inside, reluctant to let Emily see it shimmering through her eyes. ‘That’s okay, Emily. We can make it right again.’
Damn her. It wasn’t we. There was no we about it.
Annoyance at her sister festered within, whirling around in a ball of heat in her stomach. She could kill her. If she was the one holding the knife, she probably would. Emily. A pain in the backside. The most demanding personality.
Acceptance of her own mistakes had never come easily to Emily. She refused to face them and placed the blame anywhere but at her own front doorstep.
Fern ground her teeth as she waited while her sister contemplated matters.
Emily’s grip tightened and she circled the blade around in a lazy circle as though it was a sword she clutched. ‘I watched you while you were sleeping, you know.’
Fern’s blood ran cold through her veins, not enough to stop the sweat popping out all over her skin at her sister’s words.
She stared at the glint of sunlight as it sparked from the knife in her sister’s hand.
The mere thought of someone watching her at her most vulnerable. Asleep. Defenceless.
She drew in a deep breath through her nose, her nostrils flaring as she struggled to control the situation. She’d had it tough with Emily in the past, but never this dangerous. Never this complex.
A bitter smile crossed Emily’s features as her fingers loosened again as though the knife was too heavy to hold. ‘I thought to myself how much easier it would be if neither of us were here. How simple life would become without us.’
Again, the us. But Fern didn’t want to be a part of the us. She yearned to be her own person, no longer connected to Emily. No longer responsible for her actions. No longer blamed for her deeds as she had been their entire lives. Emily always held her accountable.
Indignation stabbed little arrows into Fern’s heart to harden it against her sister.
The knife in Emily’s hand, no longer a threat, Fern stepped into her sister’s space, her patience at an end. ‘Give me the fucking knife, Emily.’
Emily’s thick eyebrows shot up her forehead and a crooked smile crossed her face. ‘Why, Fern. You must be pissed off. You never swear.’ She snorted out a bitter laugh. ‘Miss goody-two-shoes.’
The fury broke loose. After so long, so many years of putting up with her, the fine thread of Fern’s empathy and patience unravelled fibre by fibre until the snap of it vibrated through her mind. She stormed at Emily, four long strides. Heat flooded her face until she thought her head would explode. ‘Give me the fucking knife!’ White saliva flew in droplets from her lips to splatter over Emily’s chubby cheeks.
The initial pop followed by the cold slide of the knife into her flesh took her more than a full moment to register. Her head rolled forward until her chin almost touched her breastbone. Fern drew in one hard, gasping breath and held it there as she stared at the knife protruding from her belly, her own hand wrapped around the hilt.
Fern sank to her knees by the side of the cot and coughed out small, wheezy sobs. ‘You’ve killed me.’ She raised the lead weight of her head as black curtains flapped in the periphery of her vision. ‘Emily. What have you done? You’ve killed me.’ Through the tunnel of her vision, she caught the flitting movement of a shadow and turned her head. ‘Emily. Help me.’
But Emily was gone.
31
Tuesday 13 July, 05:45 hrs
Fern curled in on herself, the foetal position came naturally, her spine bowed downwards as she lowered her head towards her knees.
Each little sip of air burned her lungs as she reached out bloodstained fingers, stretching them towards the child.
Her Angel.
What would become of her little darling? Would Angel be safe now Emily was gone?
Tears sprang to her eyes and through the mist she stared at Angel.
With shaky fingers, she grasped at the rails of the cot to pull herself closer. Her fingernails scraped along the pale wood as the dark curtains fluttered to close down her vision, so she loosened her grip.
Devoid of energy as her mind turned numb, she let her hands fall away to flop palm upward at her side onto the pale cream carpet. Crimson streaked her skin, and for the first time in weeks, the heat that had pulsed through her body, slicking her skin with sweat, ebbed away to bring a welcome coolness that soon turned to an uncomfortable ice.
‘It’s okay, Angel.’ Her voice croaked from her parched throat. ‘Everything will be okay. Emily’s gone. She can’t hurt you now.’
Dazed, she rolled into a tight ball, her forehead touched the floor before she keeled over sideways. The burn in her side turned to a dull throb.
She drew her hand in to wrap it around the hilt of the knife. If she could pull it out, it might just help.
Fern’s eyes slipped shut and the grasp she had on the knife loosened, while blood pumped a lazy pool to join the thinner, paler colour of wine and spread across the carpet.
There was nothing more she could do.
Emily had killed her.
32
Tuesday 13 July, 06:55 hrs
Jenna tapped Harvey Hopkins’ name into the computer and hovered her fingers over the keys. Somehow it didn’t feel right. He’d seemed like a genuine man and if a minor misdemeanour came up on the system, she’d always be looking at him.
She stroked the keys and then backspaced to delete his name from the search engine just as her phone rang.
She swiped it up. ‘DS Morgan.’
‘Sarg.’
Jenna recognised Morris King’s melodic voice immediately and, with a sigh of pleasure, sank her chin onto her hand as her insides melted in anticipation of his next words. ‘Yes, Morris.’
At the stuttered pause, Jenna realised she’d unintentionally dipped her voice to intimate. She whipped her head up and slapped her hand down on the desk in front of her. Damn, but it had been another long night with barely a wink of sleep again. The welcome coolness of the air con had made her comfortable but the soft purr of it had filtered through her mind to compete with the squeal of tinnitus caused by her desperate sadness.
Her heart felt as though it had been wrenched apart by the missing child and her inability to do anything to influence that situation except to keep looking. The clues were there. They just needed to piece them together.
She shot upright in her chair and kicked an element of authority into her voice, only grateful Mason and Ryan were in the main office and hadn’t witnessed her slip. ‘Go ahead, Morris.’
‘Umm. Thank you. I think.’ He pulled in a breath. ‘I’ve a lady on the line, Sarg, a Mrs Hanson. I’d normally pass it onto uniform, but… there’s something here, Sarg. I think you should listen to her.’ If Morris had joined the police force,
he’d have made an excellent detective, his powers of observation mixed nicely with instinct often flagged up situations most of their operators would never notice. He gave her no reason to doubt his hunch now.
‘Okay, Morris. Thank you. Put her through.’ She waited for the connecting click. ‘Mrs Hanson?’
‘Yes. Hello.’
Voice younger than she expected, Jenna pressed the phone closer to her ear as she leaned to her right so she could peer along the length of the main office and pinpoint her two sidekicks.
One hand deep in his trouser pocket, the other clutching a takeout cup of coffee, Ryan fidgeted as his skinny frame hovered over Mason’s desk, avid concentration written all over his face. Sickened at the sight of the energy that pulsed off him at that time of the morning, Jenna let out a sigh.
By contrast, Mason was kicked back in his chair, his broad shoulders resting against the wall behind him. If the chair wasn’t on wheels, he’d have had it on two feet, tipped back. Which was precisely why health and safety no longer allowed them to have four-legged chairs and they had five-footed wheelies instead. Not that it made them any safer when officers decided to have their occasional wheelie chair races across the threadbare carpet tiles.
‘What can I do for you, Mrs Hanson?’
Nerves skittered through the young voice, so it rose and fell in soft squeaks. ‘I’ve never done this before.’
Jenna came upright and reached for a pen in her desk drawer. ‘Take your time, Mrs Hanson.’
‘I don’t normally tell on people. It’s just, well, you know…’ She blew out a gusty breath that vibrated in Jenna’s ear, so she held the phone away.
‘I’m sure you’re not telling on anyone. Sometimes, you just need to check that things are right. What is it you don’t feel is right, Mrs Hanson?’
‘My neighbour, there’s been a lot of unusual noise lately.’