by B. A. Paris
At least the terrible pressure of the last ten days is off. Each day seemed so long and yet, as each day came to a close, as each email came in, reminding me that I was one step nearer the end, reminding me that I had let another day slip by without taking action of any kind, I wanted to snatch it back again.
I feel I could sleep tonight, a proper sleep, a dreamless sleep. I haven’t slept in my bed for a week now – I’ve taken to falling asleep on the sofa – so I’m longing to climb into it. Ellen is moving around up there so I’ll have to wait until she’s asleep. I fish a bottle of whisky out of the cupboard and pour myself a glass, a drink to remind myself that I haven’t given in to Layla.
It’s well past midnight by the time I go up. In the bathroom, I have a quick shower and walk into the bedroom. I expect Ellen to be asleep but she’s sitting on the bed, dressed in one of my old shirts, waiting for me. I come to an abrupt halt. I’ve never been shy about being naked in front of Ellen but now, I feel awkward.
‘I thought you’d be asleep,’ I say.
‘I decided to wait up for you.’
‘You shouldn’t have. You’re tired, you need to sleep.’
‘Maybe, but I want to talk to you.’
‘It’s late. Can we talk tomorrow?’
‘No. Tomorrow you’ll be in your office, where you seem to spend all of your time now.’ She looks sadly at me. ‘What’s happened to us, Finn? Why do you never come up to bed until late? If you come up at all.’
‘Because I can’t sleep.’
‘Because of Layla?’
‘Yes, because of Layla. It’s not been easy, these last few weeks, not knowing if she’s going to suddenly turn up.’
‘Do you love me more than you loved Layla?’ she asks, an echo of what Layla asked me in her email all those weeks ago.
‘What kind of question is that?’
‘A perfectly normal one, given the circumstances, given the fact that Layla is my sister.’
‘She always has been, yet you’ve never asked me before.’
‘Because I was too afraid of what the answer would be.’
I grab a T-shirt and some boxers from the drawer. ‘The love I had for Layla was different.’
‘In what way? Better, worse?’
‘Just different. Look, can we have this conversation tomorrow? I’m tired, I want to go to sleep.’
‘When was the last time we had sex, Finn?’ I don’t say anything, because I can’t remember. ‘Shall I tell you when it was? It was before Layla left that Russian doll on the wall, before she came back into our lives.’ She gets off the bed, comes over, takes the clothes from my hand and throws them down. ‘Make love to me, Finn.’
I stare at her, because she has never asked me to make love to her before. Also, I know I’m not going to be able to, not while my head is all over the place. Not while my head is full of Layla.
‘We haven’t had sex for so long.’ Her hands move to the buttons on her shirt and she begins to undo them one by one, her eyes never leaving my face. She lets it slide off her shoulders and onto the floor. ‘Make love to me, Finn. Make love to me like you used to make love to Layla.’
It’s the word Layla that does it, the word Layla that triggers desire in me, that makes me crush her to me, that makes me pick her up in my arms and lie her down on the bed. It’s the word Layla that drives me to make love to her in a way that I never have before, not even that first time, when I had imagined she was Layla. It’s the name that I murmur, the name I cry out, the name that beats in my brain when it’s all over.
And it’s the sound of Ellen crying quietly beside me that brings me back from where I disappeared to.
Burning with shame, I get out of bed, grab the boxers from the floor, and go heavily downstairs to the kitchen. I want to tell Layla that she has won, that I’ve done as she asked, that I’ve killed Ellen, because that’s how it feels. I open the back door and cross the garden to my office. Opening my computer, I see that there’s a message waiting for me, from Layla.
Come to the cottage
When?
Now
Relief washes over me – I have somewhere to go. I can’t stay here, not after what I’ve done. If I leave now, I won’t have to face Ellen. If I go now, Layla will be waiting for me.
Except that my clothes are upstairs, in the bedroom. I cast my mind around, wondering if there are any downstairs that I can wear. But I need my car keys and they’re in the pocket of my jeans.
I go back to the house, hoping that Ellen will be asleep. In the moonlight coming through the window I see her curled up on the bed in a foetal position. Layla used to sleep like that and I would unfold her and take her in my arms, hold her body against mine. Layla. No need to banish her from my mind any more. Soon, I will see her. Soon we’ll be together.
I dress quickly, trying to make as little sound as possible. I feel in the pocket of my jeans – my keys are there. I take my mobile from where I left it on the side.
‘Where are you going?’
I freeze. Ellen sits up, turns on her lamp. A soft light bathes the room and red-hot shame floods my body. I want to say something, apologise, tell her how sorry I am. But how can sorry make up for what I did, for making love to her as if I was making love to Layla, for calling out for Layla? I think about turning and leaving without saying anything. But she deserves more than that.
‘Out,’ I say, my voice thick with secrets.
‘To Layla?’
My heart thumps. I don’t want to lie but I can’t tell the truth either.
‘Why do you say that?’
She opens the drawer in her bedside table, scoops something out with both hands. There’s the sound of wood on wood as she throws a pile of little Russian dolls onto the bed.
‘I found these in your office.’
Anger surfaces. ‘You went rooting around in my office?’
‘I wanted to know why you spent so much time in there. What else have you been keeping from me?’
‘Nothing! I kept finding dolls, I didn’t tell you about them because I didn’t want you to worry.’
Her voice rises an octave ‘No, you didn’t tell me about them because you wanted to keep Layla to yourself!’
‘No!’ I yell. ‘It wasn’t like that!’
‘Have you been in contact with her?’ Unable to answer, I start to leave the room. ‘Finn, come back!’ But I’m already running down the stairs. ‘Finn!’ Her voice follows me down to the hall and out of the front door. ‘Don’t go!’
There’s a light on in Mick’s house, from one of the upstairs windows, and I wonder if he heard us arguing. Voices carry at night.
I use the drive to Devon to push my anger aside. There’s hardly anyone on the road, just a lone traveller or two, like me. I drive fast, but not faster than I should. Come to the cottage, Layla had said, which means she’s already there, waiting. When did she arrive? Did she go there as soon as she’d posted the last little doll to me?
It’s just gone three in the morning when I arrive in St Mary’s. I had expected to see a light on in the cottage but it’s in darkness. It doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself, it doesn’t mean she isn’t there. But there is a sense of foreboding as I get out of the car which increases when I see the garden. Even in the darkness I can see that the flowers Thomas so carefully planted are dead, as are the ones in the window-boxes. Another omen. Even to my desperate eye, the cottage looks deserted.
No one opens the front door at the sound of the gate scraping on the ground, no one comes running down the stairs in answer to my heavy knock. It’s then that I realise I don’t have my keys. I’d believed so completely that Layla would be waiting for me that it hadn’t mattered.
I take off my jumper, wrap it round my fist and punch a hole in the kitchen window, snap off the remaining glass and use the light from my mobile to look around the room. Everything looks just as it did last time I was here. I stick my head inside, listen. There’s nothing to tell me anyone is there.
I’m here, at the cottage.
Where are you?
I’m here
Where?
IN SIMONSBRIDGE
FORTY-NINE
Layla
I won. Finally, I won. But it’s a hollow victory. The fight took too much out of me. It was bitter and bloody and now I’m scared I’m going to disappear again, this time forever. I can feel myself getting weaker by the minute. I wait for the voice to tell me what I should do but it remains silent. I’m on my own.
Ellen is here, though. Finn might have chosen me but Ellen is still here. And there’s not enough room for both of us. She needs to disappear.
So I give Finn what he’s been waiting for, a time and a place. I tell him to come to the cottage and I watch him leave. I watch him leave Ellen to come to me.
I am not at the cottage, of course. I am close by, waiting to explain to Ellen why she has to go. It’s not going to be easy because she won’t understand. Of course she won’t, the voice says, suddenly appearing again. All those years ago, you made a bargain with her. You told her that if she could get Finn to love her, she could have him. You told her that as long as she looked after him, you would stay away, you would never come back. So she made herself perfect and got him to love her, she looked after him and cherished him. And how did you repay her? You came back.
But that was Finn’s fault, I tell the voice. If he hadn’t decided to marry Ellen, none of this would have happened. Besides, he never loved her, not really, not as he loved me. Ellen knows that. She’ll understand.
And the voice laughs.
FIFTY
Finn
I stare at the message on my phone. Simonsbridge? What is she doing in Simonsbridge? And if she’s in Simonsbridge, why did she make me come to St Mary’s? The truth stares me in the face. She needed me out of the way.
For what? To speak to Ellen? It’s normal, Ellen is her sister, they have things to talk about. But why banish me to St Mary’s, a three-hour drive away? I feel horribly apprehensive. What if there’s some darker purpose in luring me so far away from Simonsbridge?
The image of the doll with the smashed head looms in my mind. I need to get back. I drive faster this time. Layla will have guessed I’m on my way, that I’d drive straight back. My driving borders on the dangerous and I’m conscious that I’m putting my own life at risk. But I’d be a fool to think Layla will be waiting for me in the kitchen, chatting to Ellen over a cup of tea. I shouldn’t have left Ellen alone. I need to call her, warn her.
I pull over, call her mobile. It goes straight to voicemail. I leave a message, asking her if Layla is there, asking her to call me urgently. I send her a text, asking the same things. I wait a couple of minutes in case she replies; then, conscious that I’m wasting time, I drive on.
My worry increases with each mile I drive. I pull in again, call Ellen’s mobile, leave the same message, trying not to yell with frustration at not being able to get hold of her. I stop for a third time; there’s still no response from her. Then, about twenty minutes from the house, my phone beeps, telling me an email has come in. Please let it be Ellen, I pray silently, as I pull to a stop, even though I know she would call or text, not send an email. If it’s from Layla, is it to tell me that she’s on her way to St Mary’s, to wait for her there?
YOU SHOULD HAVE GOT RID OF HER
Dread seeps into my pores. My fingers fumble on my phone as I try Ellen’s number again. Come on, Ellen, answer your phone, please answer your phone! But she doesn’t pick up so I leave a message – if you can, get out of the house. Take your car and drive as far away as you can. Don’t stay in Simonsbridge, don’t trust Layla.
I ram the car into gear and drive as fast as I can towards the house. The street is quiet. There is no unfamiliar car parked in the road, no cars in our drive. Ellen’s car has gone and there’s no sign of her coming out of the house.
Leaping out of the car, I run to the front door and let myself in.
‘Ellen!’ I shout. ‘Are you there?’ I check the kitchen and sitting room. Both are empty, as is her study. I take the stairs two at a time. The bedroom is exactly as I last saw it – the pile of Russian dolls is still on the bed, the shirt she was wearing is still on the floor – except that she’s no longer sitting on the bed. I check the spare bedroom next door; it’s empty. As I turn to go along the landing, I see a lone Russian doll standing halfway along, in the middle of the floor. I pick it up, noting only that it’s exactly like all the others that have appeared over the last few weeks. I check the bedroom at the other end of the house, and the bathroom. Both are empty and there’s no sign of a struggle.
I go back down to the hall, my feet pounding on the stairs. I stand a moment. The only place I haven’t checked is my office. Please let her be there, please let me find her sitting at my desk, unharmed. Unharmed. Am I mad to think that Layla would harm her? Maybe, possibly. But who knows what Layla could do? I should never have trusted her.
My office is empty and there’s no one hiding in the garden. I go back to the house, into the kitchen. I sit down at the table, trying to think what I should do. Where is Ellen? Is she with Layla? Have the two of them been together in this all the time? Have they been stringing me along in some kind of revenge game? Revenge for what? I don’t know, I don’t know. My mind feels as if it’s spiralling out of control.
The other possibility is that Layla has taken Ellen somewhere. But where? Does she even exist? Or is it only someone pretending to be her? My mind goes back to Ruby – where has she been for the last ten days? I reach under the table, searching for Peggy, desperately needing comfort. But she isn’t there.
Like Ellen, she has disappeared.
FIFTY-ONE
Layla
Ellen wouldn’t listen. She was stronger than I expected her to be. I thought the knowledge that she had lost Finn, that he had chosen me over her, would weaken her and she would go quietly. But it seemed to give her new resolve; as I had already seen, she was tenacious when it came to Finn. She wasn’t going to let me walk back into his life that easily. If she couldn’t have him, she was determined that I wouldn’t either. I tried to explain to her that Finn had made his choice, that it was me he wanted, that he had never stopped loving me. But no matter how hard I tried to persuade her, she refused to leave. Go! I screamed. Go! But she wouldn’t.
I could feel my mind splintering, fragmenting, sapping the little strength I had left. Ellen wouldn’t stop shouting at me, telling me I had to leave, that I should disappear back to my hiding place, back to the place where I had sought refuge all those years before. But the thought of going back to being a nothing person terrified me. If I could just hang on until Finn came back, it would be alright. He would save me and banish Ellen forever.
If only he had done what I’d asked, if only he had got rid of Ellen. I sent him a message telling him as much. But Ellen saw and was angry. Again, she tried to make me leave and when I refused, we began to struggle. All I could think of was Finn, about how he would come back to find he had lost everything. Part of me felt he deserved to. He should have brought me back while he had the chance. But the other part of me knew that my expectations had been too high. He didn’t know my story. I should have told him the truth right from the beginning.
Now it’s too late. Finn can spend hours, days, months, looking for me but he’ll never find me. Not unless I give him some sort of clue, not unless I start him off on the right track. I have a Russian doll in my pocket and as Ellen begins to overpower me, I put it where Finn will find it. Ultimately, it will lead him to the truth about the Russian dolls. And if he discovers the truth about the Russian dolls, he’ll know the truth about me.
And maybe, just maybe, he’ll know where to find me.
PART THREE
&n
bsp; FIFTY-TWO
Finn
It hits me hard, Peggy being gone too. Again, I try Ellen’s mobile, and again it goes through to her voicemail. Who else can I call? Tony, I should call him. I’ll tell him everything, come clean about the emails from Layla, tell him Ellen has disappeared. The word thuds into my head. Disappeared. Ellen has disappeared, just as Layla had. I sit down heavily on a chair. One woman in my life having vanished is suspect enough; for it to have happened to another would be damning. There are still those who believed that I killed Layla and disposed of her body somewhere. I have no proof that she’s back. All I have are Russian dolls that could have been left by anybody, emails that could have been written by anybody. Nobody has actually seen Layla, not even me.
Fear numbs me. I can’t phone Tony, not until I’ve thought everything through. In the end, I decide to phone Harry, not Tony. I know Tony believed from the start that I didn’t have anything to do with Layla’s disappearance but even he might begin to have doubts when I tell him that Ellen has gone missing too. She might not be missing, she might have left with Layla of her own accord. But if that were the case, surely she would answer her phone? I know Ellen; she wouldn’t be so cruel as to not answer my messages if she heard them.
Harry will know what to do. He knows as much as Tony does and once he knows the whole story, he’ll be able to advise me. I check the time; it’s just gone seven. He’s usually up at this time. I dial his number. Unbelievably, I get the international ringtone. Harry has gone abroad and hasn’t told me? I wait impatiently but he doesn’t pick up, so I leave a message asking him to phone me, trying not to sound as panicked as I feel. I pace the kitchen, waiting, waiting, and when he hasn’t called within twenty minutes, I call him again. But when he still doesn’t get back to me I begin to get a really bad feeling because I’ve never known Harry to be inaccessible before, even when he’s abroad. If ever he can’t talk, because he’s in a meeting, or in bed with a woman, he always triggers a standard ‘I’m currently unavailable’ text. I try a third time, and a fourth. It’s eight in the morning now and it suddenly occurs to me that it probably isn’t eight in the morning wherever he is in the world. So I try his office number, to find out where he is, how long he’s gone for, but nobody answers, because it’s too early.