My Perfect Sister

by Penny Batchelor

  She sits down on the bed and takes my hand. ‘You get some sleep. Elaine’s coming round soon and bringing lunch for us. You’ve got to get well, Annie, that man robbed me of one daughter and I’ll move heaven and earth so as to not lose you too.’

  Mother draws me into a hug and, despite the shock of physical intimacy with her, I lean into it with physical and mental weariness.

  Reg had confessed to burying her in the woods. That bastard is the reason we never knew what happened to Gemma and my parents could not find any peace. He ruined my childhood and took away the opportunity for me to ever know my sister properly. With a steely resolve, I decide I’m not going to let anyone hurt Mother ever again. Reg murdered Gemma. How could he have done that? How could he have buried her body that day and kept it a secret for all those years? It’s far too soon for me to decipher my revulsion for him but what I do feel is the blunt force of reality. I’ve spent years assuming that Gemma is dead, being angry at her for spoiling my childhood and us not knowing the truth about why she disappeared. Now I shut my eyes and see the picture of her smiling face in the photograph taken in the park. She was so young. She really is dead, her body a dug-up partially decomposed corpse. How scared must she have been when Reg attacked her? I hope she didn’t suffer. I desperately want to be able to hold her in my arms and tell her I’m sorry I’ve not mourned her, I’m sorry I’ve blamed my problems on her, I’m sorry we never got to be friends as adults and have the bond of confidences that only sisters can share. She might have been married with children by now. Tears start rolling down my face and I’m overwhelmed with more heartbreak than I ever had over the abortion, the break up with Shaun or Gareth’s lies.

  I’ve lost my sister forever. This is not a game of ‘what if’ anymore. She really is gone.

  30

  I take a fortnight to physically and mentally convalesce, gathering strength every day through lots of home-cooked food brought by Aunty Lena, short walks and lots of sleep. Before I caught the flu I never could have imagined that a person could naturally sleep so long.

  Priti found out via the television news that a man had been arrested for murdering Gemma. The day I awoke after my phone had recharged I sent a quick text to reply to her messages and update her with the basic facts. She came as soon as she could to see me and braved the reporters who camped outside our house for a few days after the story broke. Mother and I stayed indoors and didn’t reply to journalists’ pleas for an exclusive interview or chance to tell our side of the story. I’d had my fingers burned with the local rag’s previous slant on the police questioning Toby in prison. That didn’t stop people I’d never heard of selling stories about Gemma to the tabloids, claiming to have known her well and be devastated at the loss of her. After the discovery of her body, Gemma instantly morphed from a troubled teen who may have run away to an angelic helpless victim of a depraved neighbour. Her story spent about a week repeating itself on twenty-four-hour news channels and spawning ‘me too’ tales in magazine and newspaper supplements: sorry real-life stories from other parents whose children had been murdered. Reg’s ex-wife Karen, his son and his son’s family apparently fled abroad to escape press attention only for stories to be printed about them holidaying in luxury in Spain whilst ‘little Gemma’s’ (the phrase had become a tabloid favourite, even though Gemma was sixteen when she was murdered) family’s hearts were shattered in the UK.

  Ian and Jen have been a great help by extending the hand of friendship and explaining the legal side of things to Mother and me. He kept his word and didn’t tell anyone else about the two threatening letters. Our only contact with the press was a public statement we released through Ian. It simply thanked the police and asked for us to be left alone to grieve Gemma in private.

  Ian explained that as Reg is dead Gemma’s case is now closed. By killing himself he escaped a sentence of between fifteen and thirty years in jail – not that far off the time Mother and I served not knowing what had happened to Gemma. Father, of course, went to his grave still in the dark.

  No more threatening letters arrived. The police could not find proof as to who sent the first two. No cut up newspapers were found in Reg’s house amongst his piles of unrecycled junk but that doesn’t mean he didn’t do it: presumably if he did write them he would have had the intelligence to get rid of the detritus, however pissed he was. DI Glass brought Robert Smith in, the most likely suspect, for questioning over the threats but didn’t find enough evidence to charge him. He’s a slippery man who knows how to evade the law. I guess I’ll never know who the sender was, the coward who was too weak to confront me face to face. Still, occasionally my heart beats faster when I see a white envelope arrive in the post and I remember that someone out there meant me harm and is still hiding amongst the shadows in society.

  Whilst I’m convalescing, Priti entertains me for a weekend with a stash of magazines, nail polishes, DVDs and a bottle of Prosecco that she calls medicinal, although she’s not partaking herself because her big news is that she’s six weeks pregnant. She’d kept that one quiet.

  She says that the baby-to-be pleases her traditionally-minded husband more than her but I can tell that deep down she’s thrilled at this life change. The Priti I know would never have sex without contraception if she didn’t want to be a mother. I keep quiet about my abortion as it’s not the time or the place to tell her. I doubt I ever will now. I’m thrilled about Priti’s news but not sorry that I did what I did. I would have been heavily pregnant by now.

  Priti asks me to be a secular godmother to her child. In the Hindu religion apparently there is no godmother equivalent but they do have a naming ceremony called the Namakarana. She says when she has a baby she’s going to need her friends more than ever and if I’m godmother than I have no excuse not to spend lots of time with her. I strangely find myself looking forward to it, being a significant part of a baby’s life but also having the ability to give him or her back to his or her parents. It’s a new chapter for Priti and for me as well.

  When I’m back to full health and the news story has died down, replaced by a seemingly-endless cycle of political scandals and other victims of heinous crimes, I go back to work. A while later, thanks to Una’s advice, I get a place on an access to healthcare college course which, when I complete it, will mean I can apply to do a degree in nursing. I’m not sure yet what area I’d like to specialise in but, after spending so much time with Mother at the hospital, I’m drawn towards oncology. Mother’s cancer is still at bay, although she still has to have regular check-ups. She’ll never be cancer-free but the tumour thankfully hasn’t grown again or spread.

  The house next door is boarded up. Ian tells us that the garden and internal structure were pulled apart by the police to try to find forensic evidence and ascertain whether he could be linked to any other murder or serious sexual assault crimes. They find nothing. The house, however, is uninhabitable due to Reg’s years of neglect and the police investigations. There’s no one to put everything back in its place. The last thing I heard was that the bank had foreclosed on Reg’s mortgage and planned to auction off the property to a developer.

  It feels ghoulish to stay in this house, particularly when we know Gemma was murdered in the garden here. Mother decides to sell up and make a new start away from the bad memories. Even after the press lost interest we still had the odd person knocking on the door asking if they could look in the garden where the murder had taken place. They’d pretend to offer condolences but really we knew they were treating Gemma’s death as if it were some form of entertainment, akin to visiting a village where a murder TV series was filmed or going round a haunted house at a theme park. Needless to say, no one ever made it across our threshold.

  Before Mother puts the house on the market, we once again bring out the bin bags and cardboard boxes to declutter. A housing charity takes all the furniture from Gemma’s room and I whitewash the walls, turning it into a blank canvas for the next owner.

  Thanks to a slig
htly below its market value asking price, the estate agents quickly find a buyer. It seems that a murder scene isn’t off-putting to purchasers as long as the price is right. Mother makes an offer on a two-bed garden flat near the college, puts my name jointly on the deeds and says I can stay there as long as I want to. I certainly don’t plan to stay forever, but am thankful to remain until I can afford to rent my own place or move in with a friend. We’re rubbing along alright together now – she’s the only family I have left and, at this point, what with everything that has gone on, we need each other.

  And Gareth? He left a few phone messages and even came to the house with a bunch of flowers and a condolence card but we both knew there was no chance of getting back together. With a non-feverish brain I believe him when he said that after our first date it truly was me he was interested in rather than just wanting to find out more about Gemma. I still can’t forgive him for lying to me, though, and for what he did to Gemma, yet with hindsight I rushed in too quickly, moved from Shaun to him to plaster over my loneliness as if being in a relationship could fix my troubles.

  Knowing what I do now, I can’t quite figure out what I ever saw in him.

  Not that I’ve turned into a nun. I’ve been on a few dates since with a fellow HCA at work. This time I’m taking things slowly, seeing him about once a week. Who knows what will happen but right now having some fun away from the sluices, IVs and blood pressure monitors suits us both fine.

  At last, Gemma’s body is released by the coroner and we can plan her funeral. It takes place on a rainy day at the crematorium. Neither my family nor Gemma were religious but it feels right to lay her to rest with a Christian service. If anyone deserves the chance for eternal rest in heaven, after what Gemma suffered it is her. We pick a couple of hymns that Gemma would have known from school, ‘All Things Bright and Beautiful’ and ‘Amazing Grace’. Aunty Lena, Den, Mother and I are the chief mourners and we support each other throughout the day. I can’t help but wonder how a God could let a young girl die and her murderer walk free for so many years, but put those thoughts aside for another time. It’s not the first time it has happened and it won’t be the last.

  Aunty Lena, Den and I help Mother write a speech for the vicar detailing Gemma’s short life and what she achieved. I’ve since got to know Fiona quite well and she’s told me lots of lovely stories about Gemma, including when they went to a pop concert in Sheffield and managed to push their way to the front. Fiona’s snippets help me to form a better picture in my mind of my sister. At the pub after the funeral, she takes me aside to tell me how pleased Gemma was to have a little sister and that Gemma had once told her that she sometimes felt guilty for not giving me lots of attention but she was busy with her own life and resented every now and then having to do the childcare. I hold onto the thought tightly. It helps me to know that Gemma had once cared about me. If only Mother had explained her depression to Gemma and I all those years ago, if mental health hadn’t been such a taboo, then maybe Mother and both daughters would have understood each other better.

  Gareth comes to the crematorium and sits at the back, ignored by Fiona after a polite nod of recognition. Mike sends a condolence card apologising for his behaviour but stays away from the funeral. It turns out to be a packed affair. A lot of Gemma’s school friends turn up along with my father’s ex-co-workers, neighbours, DI Glass and a couple of colleagues, plus, I suspect, a few people I don’t recognise who have turned up because of the notoriety of the case and don’t stay for the refreshments afterwards so as not to be caught out. I take a deep breath in shock when I glimpse a confident teenager in black with dark hair swept back in a ponytail walk out of the church. From the back she could be Gemma. I later learn she’s the daughter of one of Gemma’s old schoolmates. If Gemma had lived, would I have been an aunty? Reg cruelly took that possibility away from her and me on that horrific day.

  Toby, of course, still incarcerated in prison, doesn’t come. The courts turn his appeal down. Whether that is because of the letter of the law or the decision was swayed by an online petition to keep him behind bars, organised by a group that supports female victims of domestic violence, I don’t know. Over a hundred thousand people, including me, signed it. The publicity around the solving of Gemma’s disappearance brought Toby’s situation into the mainstream media. The attention that Robert Smith courted backfired on him. I like to think that Gemma’s death may have prevented another woman suffering at Toby’s hands. Certainly I imagine that Jasmine, his ex-wife, will sleep a little easier in her bed knowing he is to stay behind bars where he can’t ever hurt her again. She has moved back to live with family in the Philippines and I hope that brings her peace.

  We still don’t know how or why Reg killed Gemma. Her body was too decomposed to analyse the cause of death but there was evidence of trauma to the ribs. We don’t know whether, and I blanche at thinking this, he sexually assaulted her before or after. The police say there’s no evidence to suggest he did but they can’t rule it out. I clutch on to the belief that if she’d struggled or shouted out then someone in one of the houses nearby would have heard. Practicality-wise if he killed her in our back garden then he would have had a very short window of time to murder her and dispose of the body without being seen or heard from a neighbour’s upstairs window. I want to believe she didn’t suffer.

  The police open a review of the handling of Gemma’s case to see what lessons can be learned. Their records show that Reg was interviewed a day after Gemma’s disappearance but nothing suspicious was found to follow up on. Father had told the police that Reg hardly had anything to do with Gemma and she had never been to his house alone. One thing that first police interview did record was the officer’s recollection that Reg smelt of alcohol. Could he have been blind drunk the day before and killed Gemma in a fit of anger? Had he made a sexual move on her and she’d turned him down? Or, despite him saying it was a moment of madness, was he a psychopath, planning the murder in advance and seizing his chance when he found her alone in the garden? In the initial interview in 1989, he told the police he’d been working from home doing paperwork until mid-afternoon when he went, for his job as a sales representative, to visit two clients about forty miles away and ate dinner at a pub in between the appointments. His wife confirmed he was asleep when she got back with their son after they spent the evening with her mother to celebrate her birthday. The publican and two clients confirmed Reg’s alibi. When he confessed to murder, all those years later, Reg changed his statement to say that after he killed Gemma he wrapped her body in an old carpet, parked his car at the end of the snicket behind our houses then carried the bundle to the boot of his Ford Sierra estate. He went on to say that he buried her in woodlands sometime that evening after his second business meeting then drove home, had a shower, put what he’d been wearing in the washing machine along with some other clothes and drank brandy to help him sleep.

  Sleep? How could anyone sleep after doing what he did?

  I go about once a week to put flowers on Gemma’s grave. It’s a quiet time, me telling her what I’ve been up to in the week and imagining the replies a big sister would give.

  If only she could answer me back.

  31

  2020

  The flat seems strangely cold and quiet as I turn the key and walk in. It’s been a while since I was last here and the rooms have gained a fusty, unused odour. Priti follows behind me – her son Anuj is having a daddy day – and together we’re laden with cardboard boxes, sticky tape, bin bags and a plethora of cleaning products.

  Firstly I go into the lounge and draw the curtains wide open to let the light in and watch it reveal dust dancing in the air. One beam of sunshine highlights the embroidery hoop on the sofa with its half-finished pattern of colourful cross stitches. I can make out a nurse’s uniform and the word ‘congratulations’ at the top. Mum had kept her present to me, a tapestry to mark my promotion to clinical nurse specialist in oncology, a secret when she was alive. It was on t
he sofa when Craig and I found her that evening we were invited round for tea, the evening when she didn’t answer the door and I used my own key to let us in, expecting her to be in the loo or listening to the radio and not dead on the floor thanks to a massive stroke. She hadn’t had a chance to squirrel the cross stitch away – hadn’t known that she’d embroidered her last ever stitch.

  Craig is coming to help later after his shift but this afternoon it feels right that it’s just Priti and I sorting out Mum’s clothes and personal possessions. She bequeathed the flat to me. Craig and I are yet to decide whether to move in ourselves when the notice on our rented one-bedder expires or sell it and buy somewhere else. Financially it makes sense to live here but right now my mind is playing tricks, imagining Mum has just popped out to the shops, is having a bath or will walk in and offer a cup of tea and a packet of digestives. It feels too soon, too raw to jump in and take what was hers, even though legally it is mine. I miss her so, something the younger me would have laughed out loud to hear.

  We decide to start in Mum’s bedroom. I pull the clothes out of the drawers and wardrobes whilst Priti chooses whether to send them to a charity shop or, for those garments well past their prime, to take them to a fabric recycling centre. I recognise many of the outfits having seen Mum most days after I moved out and into the nurses’ home and then, a while later, in with Craig. The exception are the clothes from the past, from the ‘lost years’ as we called them, when I was in Leeds.

  ‘Oh I like this!’ exclaims Priti as she pulls out a red and orange blended silk (fake probably) scarf. She wraps it round her neck jauntily in a fashion I’d never have thought of. Since Anuj arrived, Priti hasn’t had much spare money to treat herself what with giving up her job (‘What a relief! Thank God for reproduction, I’ll never have to enter a call centre again!’ she beamed) to look after him full time. After he started school, she carved out a niche online as a British Asian fashion and lifestyle influencer, although as yet her income is in the hundreds and not the millions, not that that has put a dampener on her business ambitions.