The Girl You Gave Away: An absolutely gripping psychological thriller

by Jess Ryder

  But the problem of Chloe remains and Jade can’t work out what to do about her. Maybe, she thinks, if she waits patiently, the decision will come to her as naturally as a piece of driftwood landing on the shore. Could this be what she was searching for in her dream – the answer lying on the sand, battered by storms yet still true to itself, waiting to be picked up and acted upon?

  In the meantime, Chloe has to be fed and watered, like a baby. Jade pads into the kitchen and fills the kettle. As it comes to the boil, she wonders vaguely what it must be like to have a real baby, some little creature totally dependent on you for its survival. Hard to imagine having that much responsibility 24/7. Looking after her captive sister might be the closest she ever comes to experiencing it. Jade doesn’t know why she thinks this, because she’s never been properly tested, but she has the feeling she’s infertile. She’s had a lot of sex without taking precautions and never once got pregnant. It’s probably a good thing. If she had a baby, they’d probably take it away and it would have to be adopted. And the painful, miserable cycle would continue, disaster breeding disaster.

  She makes the tea and takes it into the bedroom. Chloe is lying in the foetal position, which seems strangely appropriate.

  ‘Hey, wake up,’ Jade says, setting the mug on the side table. The baby stirs slightly. Jade pulls back the duvet and is weirdly shocked by the sight of Chloe’s bindings, as if she’s not responsible for them. Chloe opens her eyes and stares up at her accusingly.

  ‘Brought you some tea.’ Jade sits on the edge of the bed and reaches for the scarf that is tied around her sister’s mouth. ‘If I take it off, promise you won’t scream the place down?’ Chloe nods. Jade carefully unties the gag. It’s soggy with spittle and looks rather disgusting. She drops it to the floor, then helps the girl sit up, like she’s an invalid.

  ‘Can’t you untie my hands too?’ Chloe asks in a dry, croaky voice. ‘Please? My wrists really hurt.’

  ‘Okay … just for a bit.’ Jade tries to peel off the tape, but it’s stuck fast to itself and she has to go and get the scissors. Chloe winces as the cold metal grazes her skin, but smiles as she’s released.

  ‘Thanks.’ She scratches her wrists madly. Jade passes her the mug and Chloe sips at the edge of it.

  ‘Shall I make you some toast?’

  ‘No thanks. I’m a bit sick of toast, if I’m honest.’

  There’s a long and extremely awkward pause in which Jade sniffs for the familiar smell of Mia’s illness and finds, to her surprise, that it’s disappeared. She stands up and draws the curtains, letting in a grey morning light.

  Chloe drinks her tea, eyes focused on her ankles, which are still tightly strapped together. ‘Please, Jade,’ she says, breaking the silence. ‘We both know this isn’t going to work. Just let me go home.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘’Cos you’ll go to the police and tell them, and I’ll be arrested and get done for abduction or something and then I’ll go to prison, probably one for women with mental health, and it’ll kill me. That’s why.’

  ‘I won’t tell anyone, I promise. I’ll say I ran away on my own, that you had nothing to do with it.’

  ‘You say that now …’

  ‘I know you didn’t mean to hurt me, you just panicked. It’s okay, it’s not your fault, I understand.’

  ‘Yes, but your mum and dad won’t.’

  ‘I won’t tell them!’

  Jade blinks at her. ‘Why would you cover up for me after what I’ve done to you?’

  ‘’Cos we’re sisters.’

  ‘Half-sisters.’

  ‘So what? It doesn’t matter.’ Chloe shuffles forward on her bottom. ‘Just let me go home, Jade. Pretty please?’

  ‘I can’t now … It’s too late.’

  ‘So what’s the plan? Are you going to kill me?’

  Jade is taken aback by this idea. She doesn’t know how to reply, so she summons up a line she’s heard in a thousand TV thrillers, delivering it in a slow, threatening manner. ‘Not unless I have to.’

  Chloe’s eyes widen, but it’s Jade who feels more frightened. Could she actually commit murder? Ever since they left Erin’s house, she’s been wading into ever deeper waters, and the sand beneath her feet has suddenly shelved away.

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Erin

  May 2020

  The vodka lingered on my lips and played on my tongue. I washed it around my gums, letting the liquid pool in the secret dark corners of my mouth. Something was telling me not to swallow the poison, but I couldn’t let it go. It was an exquisite taste, unfamiliar yet pungent with memory.

  I was drawn back to that hot, sweet night long ago, when Holly and Asha and I were dancing in the park to the sounds of Acacia Drive. The very first mouthful, gulped from a plastic bottle I’d thought contained only water. The vodka tingling in my body, the possessive touch of Dean’s hand around my waist, the thrill of his mouth exploring mine, the rough bark against my back as he leant me against the tree. It was as if I’d drunk a magic potion. My brain made false but unbreakable connections between alcohol and pleasure, alcohol and freedom, alcohol and power. I drank to recapture that first moment, and when the spell stopped working, I assumed it was because I wasn’t drinking enough.

  My name’s Erin and I’m an alcoholic.

  The vodka slid down my throat like a serpent and slithered around my system. I was almost knocked over by the wave of euphoria that followed, and before I knew it, my hand was round the neck of the bottle and I was pouring another shot.

  It was eight years since my last relapse, although that had been more of a slip – half a glass of champagne at a party to celebrate buying the nursery business. Somebody had thrust it at me, not knowing I didn’t drink. I’d raised the glass to my lips out of politeness, intending to pretend, but then a sudden feeling of invincibility came over me and I took a sip. The bubbles shot up my nose and I coughed, like a kid choking on their first cigarette.

  ‘Please don’t get a taste for champagne,’ Tom joked, ‘or you’ll ruin us.’

  I laughed along with him, but his words struck home. For me, they had an entirely different meaning. Once his back was turned, I put the glass down, went to the bathroom and tried to make myself sick. He had unwittingly saved me from myself – he was my good angel, my lucky charm.

  My alcoholism was another secret that I’d kept from him. Another failure I’d covered up. I’d been sober for a year when we met, having finally turned to Alcoholics Anonymous for help. I would never have gone there if hadn’t been for Asha and Holly. They said they’d cut me off unless I sorted myself out. I couldn’t bear to lose them – they were the last friends standing.

  Even though I’d been living by myself since I was sixteen, I was far from independent. I was surviving on benefits and part-time casual work – babysitting, washing-up, cleaning toilets in a primary school, even the traditional burger-flipping in McDonald’s. I found it hard to stick to jobs – either I got the sack or I stormed out.

  Holly and Asha were studying for their A levels, but we saw each other a lot at weekends. I entertained them with my various adventures – the drunken escapades, the sackings and the showdowns, the disastrous romances, the financial precariousness. I was the walking, talking example of what could happen if you didn’t work hard and stick to the rules. My recklessness legitimised their caution. I’m sure they achieved better grades because of it.

  I felt abandoned when they went to university – Asha to Southampton, Holly to Bristol. I was stuck in a grotty bedsit on the bad side of Camford, with no hope of ever getting out.

  As soon as I turned eighteen, I started working in bars. I even did a shift at the Craven Arms, dumping crates of empty beer bottles in the very yard where I’d lost my virginity some four years earlier. That was a very low moment; it felt like a reckoning. I walked out there and then and never went back.

  It was no surprise that working in pubs made the drinking
worse. At the end of the evening shift, I’d hang around with the other young bar staff, many of whom had a drink problem of their own. After we’d cleaned up and balanced the till, we’d sit around smoking weed and getting pissed on our tips, sometimes until three a.m. I could sink pints with the best of them, but vodka was my poison of choice.

  I was so hung-over in the mornings, I struggled to get back to work the next day, especially if I was on split shifts. My head permanently ached and my breath tasted sour. I looked awful – pasty and spotty, rolls of fat poking over the top of my jeans.

  When Asha and Holly came home for the holidays, they looked at me with fresh eyes and found me wanting. They’d made new friends, intelligent, lively people with ambitions and ideas. I was a loser, an embarrassment. Even if I’d been able to afford to visit them at uni, they wouldn’t have wanted me to come.

  ‘If you don’t stop drinking, Dean will have won, you’ll have let him destroy you,’ Asha said. She gave me the details of the local AA group, when and where they met.

  ‘It’s either this or you’re on your own,’ Holly added. ‘We love you, Erin, but not at any price.’

  The first few times, they accompanied me to the church hall to make sure I went in. Without their support, I would never have kept going, would never have made it to my first sober week, month, year …

  Meeting Tom was the final miracle. I hadn’t touched a drop of booze in over twelve months and I looked and felt so much better. I was almost a different person. I stayed away from pubs and had taken a job as a nursery carer. It was going well and I was studying for qualifications on day release.

  It didn’t take long for Tom to notice that I never drank alcohol. Embarrassed to tell him the real reason, I said I didn’t like the taste, that I thought I might even be allergic. I kept the lie going, along with all the others. Lying was fast becoming a way of life.

  We moved in together. There was always booze in the house – wine in the rack, beer in the fridge, spirits in the sideboard – but although I was an alcoholic, I never felt the need to touch it. That Erin was long gone; there wasn’t a trace of her left. I didn’t relapse because I’d turned my life around. I’d found a wonderful husband who’d given me two beautiful children. I was even a modestly successful businesswoman. I was happier than I’d ever dreamed possible. I’d had no idea how quickly it could all be taken away from me.

  Now I filled the glass again, swallowing the fiery liquid until it burnt my throat. The initial rush of excitement had evaporated and I was left with a deep well of self-hatred. I wasn’t happy now. I was in utter despair.

  I finished the vodka and went back to the drinks cabinet to see what else I could punish myself with. I found a small bottle of gin – we kept it for Tom’s mum, who liked a G and T when she came over for Sunday lunch. She’d always approved of me, I thought, letting out an ironic laugh as I poured a large measure and knocked it back. The unfamiliar metallic taste made me retch, but I carried on. I was going deeper and deeper into myself, heading relentlessly to the very bottom of my soul.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about Jade. I’d always felt secretly ashamed of my past, but the only person I thought I’d damaged was myself. Over the years, I’d imagined her with her new family, wondering how she was getting on at school, if she was clever or good at sports, what career path she’d chosen, whether she was married, whether I might even be a grandmother … It had truly never occurred to me that my binge drinking might have done her permanent, irrevocable harm.

  The realisation of what I’d done hit me like a truck. I reached for the bottle again and poured myself another glass. When that was finished, I would go back to the cabinet and keep going until there wasn’t a drop left in the house. Alcohol had damaged my baby girl, and now it was only right that it should kill me …

  * * *

  I don’t remember what happened next, only that I must have blacked out, because when Tom found me a few hours later, I was lying face down on the carpet, splayed out like a dead body. I even still had my coat on.

  He managed to pick me up and put me on the sofa, then slapped me gently around the face and urged me to wake up. I could vaguely hear him telling somebody else to make me a strong coffee.

  ‘Erin!’ he said. ‘Talk to me. What’s this about?’

  ‘Go away, please,’ I begged. ‘Leave me alone.’

  ‘This is not like you.’

  ‘Oh yes it is,’ I slurred. ‘M’name’s Erin ’n’ I’m an alcoholic.’

  ‘Don’t be daft.’

  ‘It’s true,’ said a woman’s voice.

  ‘What?’ Tom turned around sharply.

  I opened my heavy eyelids and tried to focus. ‘Holly? Is that you?’

  ‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Good God, Erin, look at the state of you. There’s vomit all over the rug; it’s a wonder you didn’t choke on it. Ugh, it’s disgusting.’ She bent down and rolled the rug into a ball, then went off in the direction of the kitchen.

  ‘Sorry, sorry,’ I groaned.

  Tom sat down on the edge of the sofa. ‘What did she mean, it’s true? Erin? What’s going on? Talk to me.’

  I tried to sit up, but my head was swimming. ‘I’m an alcoholic. Sober for twenty years, two months, something days … lost count.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

  I almost laughed. ‘Same reasons I didn’t tell you about Jade. Guilt. Shame. Fear you wouldn’t want me …’

  He sighed. ‘Jesus Christ. Look at you. What a bloody mess …’

  I cocked my head in the direction of the kitchen. ‘Why’s she here? Why are you here? You don’t live here any more. You left me. Everyone’s left me.’

  ‘Stop feeling sorry for yourself and sober up. I can’t have a sensible conversation with you like this.’

  He stood up again and went away, presumably to help Holly. They started talking quietly in the kitchen, but I couldn’t make out their words above the sound of the kettle boiling. I drew my knees up to my chest and wrapped myself into a ball. For the second time in as many days, I found myself weeping uncontrollably, and buried my face to muffle the noise. The alcohol was sweating through my pores. I had forgotten the stink of it, forgotten how wretched it made me feel.

  After a few minutes, they came back into the room. Holly put a mug of black coffee on the table and urged me to drink it down. Then they both sat on the sofa. I was dimly aware that they were sitting close to each other, their legs almost touching.

  ‘Any more news from the police?’ Tom asked. I shook my head – it felt like somebody was throwing rocks around inside it. ‘What about Jade’s father? Was he the right man?’

  ‘Yes … but he didn’t know where she was.’

  ‘Didn’t know his own daughter’s address? That’s ridiculous.’

  ‘He thought she was living with us,’ I replied, although I no longer knew who ‘us’ was.

  ‘We spent the whole day combing the area,’ Holly said. There was criticism in her tone, implying that I’d wasted the time staring at the bottom of a glass.

  ‘We?’

  ‘Tom asked me to help. We couldn’t just sit there doing nothing.’

  ‘Right …’ I said, feeling increasingly bewildered. Holly was my friend, my shoulder to cry on, my mast to cling to in a storm. Why had she rushed to the aid of my husband? I couldn’t even remember telling her that Chloe had run away.

  ‘Is something going on?’ I said. ‘Between the two of you, I mean.’

  Holly opened her mouth to reply, but Tom patted her thigh and said, ‘Not now.’

  ‘Why are you both here?’ I repeated. My brain was starting to reboot and I didn’t like the thoughts it was giving me.

  ‘We were passing and we thought we’d check in, that’s all,’ Tom said quickly. ‘In case Chloe had turned up. We thought maybe—’

  ‘What’s all this we?’

  ‘Nothing. It doesn’t matter, Erin. I’m not talking about it with you now; you’re pissed.’

  ‘I�
��m all right. Stone-cold fucking sober, actually.’

  ‘No you’re not.’

  I sat up straighter and glared at them. ‘Something’s going on, isn’t it? I can tell by the way you’re behaving. You’re having sex.’

  Tom threw me an irritated glance. ‘Don’t be silly. We’re friends, that’s all. Holly and I have known each other since university, you know that.’

  ‘I introduced the two of you, remember?’ Holly added.

  ‘Yes, I know … and you had the hugest crush on him.’

  ‘That’s so not true,’ she said, her cheeks flushing pink.

  Tom grimaced. ‘Please don’t, Erin, this is getting ugly.’

  But I couldn’t stop. ‘Were you jealous, Holly? Is that why your marriage didn’t work out? Because you were secretly in love with my husband?’

  ‘Don’t talk to me about secrets,’ she swiped back.

  Asha’s dark hints bubbled up to the surface. I hadn’t understood what she meant before, but now it seemed obvious.

  ‘Asha told me you had a double life.’

  ‘I’m stopping this stupid conversation now,’ said Tom. ‘It’s not the time. We should be concentrating on finding Chloe.’ He stood up and pulled Holly to her feet. ‘Come on. Let’s go. I want to talk to the police and I need to call Oli, see if he’s heard from her.’

  ‘Will one of you tell me the truth?’ I shouted as they walked out of the room together. But I already knew the truth. It had been written all over their faces.

  The front door slammed and I let out a groan so primal it reminded me of giving birth. I rolled off the sofa and staggered towards the dining table. The debris of my drinking session was still there. The vodka bottle was empty and I seemed to have drunk some liqueur too. Only a small amount of gin was left. My lips stung as I finished it off, then with a scream I hurled the bottle at the wall. It ricocheted off the frame of a family photo and hit the sideboard, shattering into pieces.