The Stolen Sisters: from the bestselling author of The Date and The Sister comes one of the most thrilling, terrifying and shocking psychological thrillers of 2020

by Louise Jensen

  ‘I don’t blame you for wanting revenge, Carly. But this… this isn’t right. Archie…’

  ‘I’m so very sorry but Archie has to now die, Leah. It’s the only way.’

  Chapter Seventy-Five

  Carly

  Now

  Leah doesn’t cry but Carly can feel her onslaught of panic as her mind scrambles for a way she can save her son.

  She can’t.

  It tears Carly apart to see her little sister – the person she has always tried to protect – fall apart. She can almost hear Leah shatter. See pieces of her scatter to the floor.

  ‘Carly…’ she says, her voice a wail. She looks at Carly with mistrust and hurt. She looks at Carly as though she is a monster.

  She isn’t.

  Is she?

  ‘Leah…’ Carly wants to explain. To ease Leah’s pain. ‘I’m sorry I’ve frightened you the past few days with the letters and everything.’ Carly feels such remorse that she’d behaved so badly. ‘It’s as though I wasn’t myself and that’s the problem, don’t you see? I don’t know who I am. Who I would have been if it weren’t for Simon. If I hadn’t been abducted.’

  ‘I know who you are! You’re a good—’

  ‘You don’t even know who you are, Leah.’

  ‘I do.’ Leah grabs at the straw she thinks she is being offered. ‘I’m Archie’s mum. George’s wife. Your sister.’

  ‘Those are all labels. Names don’t define us. Our actions do. Our feelings do. Since Marie got sick in that filthy room, you’ve put yourself in a bubble with your incessant cleaning. Those bloody gloves.’

  Leah raises her hands and stares at them as though she has never seen them before.

  ‘The rituals you carry out. Everything has to be done three times because you should have banged the gate shut three times. You don’t live, not really.’

  ‘I do live—’

  ‘You live in fear. Remember when Archie was born and you wouldn’t take him out of the house. You wouldn’t let him go to toddler groups in case he caught an infection.’

  ‘Yes. But he goes now and—’

  ‘And you worry about him every single second he’s out of your sight, don’t you?’

  Leah’s silence is her agreement.

  ‘But it’s not germs and illness and all those other things you say, is it? Not really. You think someone might take him. Hurt him, because… because you know, Leah. You and I both know that there are bad people out there. The worst people out there. We’ve lived with them, you and I. We’ve loved them. How long do you think it will be before Archie learns the world is not what he thought? When he starts school and the children tease him about you, because the children will find out through their parents who you are.’

  ‘But… but…’

  Leah can’t think of an argument. Carly hopes she is convincing her. It would be so much easier if she agrees to this. They could all just slip away from the world now. Together.

  ‘Look at him.’ Carly strokes Archie’s hair. ‘He’s so innocent. So pure. Remember when we felt like that? Before the day we were snatched? Wouldn’t it be nice if he stayed like that? Stayed asleep? We could join him, you and I. Join Marie. No more fear. No more pain. No more—’

  ‘No!’ Leah shouts. ‘You’re wrong. I know you want to protect him but this isn’t the way. It isn’t. There is good in the world. Kindness. Love. We teach Archie all of those things. We can show him all of those things and he’ll have a good life. A long life.’

  ‘What do you show him, Leah? Really? That you’re always looking over your shoulder. That it isn’t safe to touch anything without your skin being covered. That—’

  Carly is stunned into silence by what happens next.

  Chapter Seventy-Six

  Leah

  Now

  I pull off my gloves and push up my sleeves before rubbing my bare hands over the earth. I smear the dirt over my arms, my face.

  ‘I don’t care about germs, really I don’t. It hasn’t ruined me. It hasn’t ruined us.’ Carly doesn’t respond and so I scoop up handfuls of soil and cram them into my mouth, trying not to retch as the earth clogs my throat. Trying to block out the thought of beetles scurrying down my windpipe, laying their eggs in my stomach, their babies bursting through my skin.

  ‘See.’ I try to speak but my words are muffled. I swallow hard. Something jagged tears at my throat. I think I’ve swallowed some glass but I don’t care. I lift another palmful and again stuff it inside my mouth. Feeling it coating my teeth, my gums. ‘It’s not too late. It’s never too late. Please, Carly, don’t hurt him.’

  Carly cradles Archie’s head in her lap and pulls off her jumper while I am calculating if I should dive at her during the split second that her face is covered but my moment has passed. She rolls her jumper into a ball and holds it above Archie’s mouth.

  ‘Please.’ My heart is breaking. I scan the distance between us. If I lurch towards her she’ll have time to snatch the knife and plunge it into Archie’s small body. If he has to die, suffocation is the kinder death but I can’t let her do it. I just can’t. ‘Carly, don’t! You love him.’

  ‘Haven’t you been listening? It’s because I love him. The world is too cruel. Too awful. You should never have had a child. You know what can happen to children. We’re vulnerable.’ She begins to rock back and forth. ‘All these years. All these years, Leah, and I thought it was my fault. I haven’t been able to let it go. I haven’t got any friends. I haven’t got a family—’

  ‘We’re your family. Archie. George and me.’

  ‘George has been having an affair, Leah.’

  ‘What? No—’

  ‘Marie told me. See, people are bad. The world is bad. We’re better off somewhere else. Somewhere better.’

  I hesitate. Is she right? I thought I could trust George, but then I trusted my mum. My dad. I trusted my twin. I glance at Archie. He is stirring. Do I really want to put him through all the pain I have felt? Am feeling.

  ‘Carly…’ I swallow hard.

  Chapter Seventy-Seven

  Carly

  Now

  Carly has seen something change in Leah’s expression. She thinks she has convinced her.

  ‘You know I’m right, don’t you?’ Carly asks.

  Chapter Seventy-Eight

  Leah

  Now

  Carly thinks she has convinced me. She knows what it’s like to feel betrayed. To feel fear. But she doesn’t know what it feels like to be a mother. The lengths I would go to in order to protect my boy.

  My fingers skim the earth until they brush against something sharp and pointed. I manoeuvre the shard of glass into my hand.

  From afar, I hear the muffled sound of sirens. If I can just keep her talking.

  ‘Archie is so young. So innocent,’ I say.

  ‘But that’s the point. Don’t you see?’ She pleads with me and I do see. We were just like him once. Trusting. Malleable. Full of hope. But if I admit to understanding her logic, she might think I’m condoning what she’s about to do and I’m not. Despite the world sometimes being a broken, ugly, hateful place, it’s also full of warmth and kindness and laughter. The good outweighs the bad, every single day.

  Again, Archie stirs on her lap. She presses the jumper down over his mouth. I move suddenly, startling her. She scoops up the knife with her other hand and brandishes it. ‘Let him go. It’s kinder this way. You can’t protect him out there… I can’t protect him out there.’ Tears stream down her face.

  I hold the shard tightly in my grip, my palm now sticky with blood. I don’t care about contamination or infection.

  I have to do something. I don’t want to hurt her but I have to shock her into releasing Archie. She loves him completely but I know that deep down she loves me too.

  ‘Carly,’ I say sharply. She raises her eyes to mine.

  I lift the shard. Only once, not three times. There is no time, no need for rituals. I drive it as hard as I can into my stomach. Ther
e’s a pop. A give. A rush of blood.

  The sirens are growing louder. A trace of a smile passes across my lips as I think it isn’t too late for Archie, even if it is too late for me.

  ‘Leah!” I hear Carly scream. She shoves Archie from her lap and scrambles over to me, just as I knew she would. I feel her grasp my hands. She doesn’t go near the torch, but everything darkens all the same.

  I see nothing.

  I feel nothing.

  I am nothing.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Leah

  Now

  George holds my hand, his faced creased with concern. He rubs his thumb over mine. Skin on cotton. I know he’s the one who eased my fingers into clean gloves while I was unconscious. I’d like to say I don’t need them now. That everything I have been through has made me stronger. Resilient. But when George mentioned bringing Archie in to visit me I felt a rush of panic, heat prickling my scalp. As much as I was longing to see my boy, the thought of him here among the germs and the illness and the threat of MRSA sent me teetering to the edge until George pulled me back with his soothing voice and kind words. So while I’d like to say I’m cured, I’m not. I want to be, though, and wanting is always the start of something, isn’t it?

  Disinfectant clogs my throat while the police ask me questions. Endless questions.

  It is difficult to answer them. Through the haze of medication the then merges with the now. We were taken. Archie was taken. It is all a bit of a blur.

  ‘When was the last time you saw Marie?’ PC Godley asks.

  ‘You know when.’ I can’t keep the bitterness out of my voice. ‘I came to the station to tell you she was missing. I knew something was wrong and you dismissed it as a feeling.’

  ‘It’s estimated that Marie’s overdose took place before you reported it, so even if we had located her it would have been too late.’ He looks ashamed. ‘I am sorry, though.’

  ‘Thank you.’ I know it isn’t his fault.

  ‘And where is Carly now?’

  This time it is me who feels ashamed. How could Mum have agreed to Dad arranging Carly’s abduction? Knowing that Marie and I were never supposed to be taken is too awful for me to process. No wonder Carly unravelled the way she did.

  ‘She said she was going away, for a while. It’s all been very traumatic.’

  Whatever happens I will protect her. My sister, the way that in the end she protected me. I knew she wouldn’t let me die. George says when he arrived, at much the same time as the police, she was standing outside, balancing a conscious but groggy Archie on her hip, waving and screaming for help. That image is comforting. She could have left me alone and gone underground, but she didn’t. Our family nearly destroyed her and I hope wherever she is, she can be happy.

  I hope that she’ll come back.

  ‘So tell me again, Leah. Why did you go to Norwood?’

  ‘It all got too much. The letters. The journalists. I thought that if I revisited the place that has never really left me I could begin to put it behind me somehow. I wasn’t thinking straight.’

  ‘So…’ he consults his notes, ‘you threw yourself down the contamination chute?’

  ‘Yes. It’s where it ended before. It was unfortunate there was broken glass. It was such a shock to land on it. I don’t know what I’d have done if Carly hadn’t come and found me.’

  ‘And you think she guessed where you were?’

  ‘Yes. We’re sisters. We have a special bond.’

  ‘And you say she brought Archie along because she was babysitting?’

  ‘Yes. She’d never have left him alone. She loves him.’ That much, at least, is true.

  Thankfully, Archie doesn’t remember anything that happened. Once I’d been taken to the hospital George had called Tash. She’d picked up Archie and had taken him home while I was operated on. The glass had missed my liver by millimetres. I am lucky, I was told.

  ‘Right.’ PC Godley puts away his pen. ‘I suppose we’ll leave it at that then. The owners of the land could prosecute you for trespassing but it’s not something we’ll encourage them to do. Hopefully now the anniversary has been and gone we’ll hear no more from you.’

  I think he’s glad to see the back of me.

  It is the first day I have been out of bed. The pain in my side is sharp and slicing but, with George’s help, I make it to the bathroom and a nurse helps me wash my hair while I tremble and try not to cry at the thought of all those who have used the shower before me. The skin they would have shed. Traces of bacteria. We don’t have to be able to see something to fear it. The invisible is always the worst. Afterwards, my hair is wrapped in a stiff and yellowing towel. The nurse supports my elbow as I shuffle back into the corridor.

  ‘Turn the light off,’ she asks.

  Hesitantly I stretch out my fingers and flick the switch, fighting the urge to repeat it twice more.

  Small steps.

  I am settled in the day room with George. A dark brown tea sits on the table before me. It’s in my own mug, which George has brought in. He looks tired. His jeans hang loose on his hips. Stubble shadows his chin.

  I have something to tell him.

  ‘The doctor has suggested that I don’t come home when I’m discharged. That I admit myself to Mulberry.’ I like that they give it a one-word name. It doesn’t sound like the psychiatric unit it is. ‘The staff are experienced in compulsive OCD and panic disorder and can help me deal with… with the root cause. I think I need… I want to get better. Be better. I don’t know if I should go. I’ll miss Archie… and you. I’ll miss you.’ My words tumble out. ‘I know it hasn’t been easy for you, George, and you deserve a wife who’s… who’s…’ Tears well and before I can swallow them down and speak again, George has reached for my hand.

  ‘Never doubt that I love you.’ He doesn’t smile as he says this; dread curdles as I wait for the but. And when it comes it is hard and painful. A double betrayal. I had pushed Carly’s revelation about George’s affair to the back of my mind. Not wanting to believe it, but George says:

  ‘I’ve been having an affair… with Francesca.’

  It’s true. I’ve been betrayed by two of the people I trusted most in the world. Betrayed by two of the people I trust most in the world again. Perhaps it’s not as shocking as the deceit of my parents, but all the same I feel an overwhelming sadness. This isn’t only George’s fault though. What have we done to each other? Simon – I never call him Dad – has shaped our lives, is still shaping our lives. It has to stop.

  ‘Is it over?’ I ask.

  ‘Yes.’ This time he looks me directly in the eye.

  ‘Why?’ I wonder if he’s giving her up for Archie’s sake.

  ‘Because… You.’ He tries to take my hand but I bend my fingers so he can’t hold them. ‘You are everything to me and when… when you started slipping backwards again all I could remember was the rituals, the panic, the OCD, and I forgot,’ he says simply. ‘I forgot how good we can be together and how much I love you.’

  ‘Do you love her?’ It’s the only other thing I need to know right now.

  ‘I thought I did.’ He looks stricken as he says this but I am glad he has. If he had just taken comfort in another body without caring I think it would hurt more. The fact I wasn’t enough for him – that anyone else could have done. Knowing he had real feelings makes it at least understandable if not forgivable.

  ‘And now?’

  ‘What I feel for Francesca is… something. But it’s not even close to love. Leah, when I saw you carried out of the tunnel, barely conscious and bleeding…’ He takes a moment to compose himself. ‘During the hours I sat in the waiting room while you were in surgery, I had so much time to contemplate life without you. The future looked so bleak but the future I kept imagining – if the worst did happen and you didn’t make it – was always me and Archie. Never with her.’ He reaches for my hand again and this time I let him take it, although when he squeezes I don’t squeeze back.

>   ‘I don’t know what to say to you. It’s such a lot to process.’

  ‘I know, but I can promise you, Leah, that I know I’ve been an idiot and nothing like this will ever happen again. You and Archie—’

  ‘I’m going to go to Mulberry and we can sort the rest out when I’m back.’ I don’t say home. I can’t. Home suddenly feels house-of-cards precarious. On the brink of collapse.

  He nods. There is nothing more to say yet. The difficult conversations will come later. He presses his lips against mine. They are dry and his breath smells of coffee. He walks away and my heart is breaking.

  It feels like the end and the beginning of something all at once.

  Chapter Eighty

  Leah

  Now

  My clothes are as dark as my mood as I reluctantly dress for Marie’s funeral. Today I am burying my twin; the other half of me who I had always thought, despite her drinking, to be lighter, happier. I hadn’t known then her endless what happened made us into the people we are today and it wasn’t as bad as we thought, was it? wasn’t the outlook of a more optimistic person than me, but a desperate need to be absolved of blame, freed from the terrible guilt she carried.