by Heidi Perks
He gives such a small shake of his head I can’t be sure I saw it.
‘Danny, what are you saying exactly?’
‘Stella, I killed her.’ He lowers his voice even further and leans across the table towards me. ‘And I should be punished for it.’
‘But if you didn’t bury—’
‘I know what I did,’ he interrupts me. ‘I know I must have killed her and I need you to make sure they know it too.’
‘Danny, what do you mean, you must have?’ I say.
‘Will you just do that for me?’ Danny cries. He curls his hand into a fist and thumps it against the table. ‘I want to go back to my cell now,’ he calls out, looking about, making me think we are being watched. There are no cameras, no flashing lights, yet it is only a matter of seconds before the door opens and Harwood appears.
‘Danny—’ I start as my brother buries his face in his hands.
‘Please. I just want to go now,’ he mumbles and refuses to look at me as I’m led out of the room.
Chapter Twenty
‘He says he thinks he must have done it,’ I say on the phone to Bonnie after Harwood drops me back at the interview suite. I leap out of the way as a car swerves close to the kerb, sending a puddle splashing towards me.
‘I can’t believe you went to see him. You said you wouldn’t.’
‘No,’ I say, ‘I don’t think I ever did. But that’s not the point. The point is he doesn’t know, Bon. He says he thinks he must have. Not that he did. And not only that, he says he didn’t bury her.’ I don’t bother admitting he didn’t tell me this outright.
‘So why the hell would he confess? Of course he did it, he’s going to say anything to get out of it now. He’s scared.’
‘He’s not trying to get out of it, he wants me to get the police to believe him.’
‘So, what’s the problem?’ she cries out. ‘Tell them that and we can all move on with our lives.’
I sigh as I open my car door and climb in. ‘Bonnie, isn’t there any part of you that wants to believe he might be innocent?’
She laughs. ‘Do you really think I want to live with the fact my brother killed my best friend? Only the odds aren’t exactly stacked in his favour right now, are they? Think back,’ she goes on. ‘Remember all the times he’s done something that wasn’t right—’ Her voice suddenly cuts out and when I look down at my phone I see my battery is dead.
I drive straight to Bonnie’s. She leads me down the hall, but on the way I pass Luke lying on a sofa in the living room. ‘Are you feeling better?’ I ask as I pause in the doorway.
Luke pushes himself up and turns around to look at me. ‘Oh, hey Stella.’ His eyes flick to Bonnie who has stopped beside me, irritation bubbling off her.
‘Come on,’ she snaps as she pulls my arm and drags me through to the back. ‘He’s watching TV, we can sit in here instead.’
‘What does Luke think?’ I ask as she unscrews a bottle of lemonade and pours us both a glass.
Bonnie shrugs. ‘I don’t know,’ she says, handing me a drink. Her hand is shaking, I notice, only slightly but it is there.
‘What’s happened?’
‘We had an argument. Fantastic timing, isn’t it?’ She rolls her eyes and walks over to the sofa, expecting me to follow. ‘My whole life is cracking apart and to top it off my husband and I fall out.’
I sigh as I sit down next to her.
‘I can’t stop thinking of the last time I saw Iona,’ Bonnie says. ‘It plays on a loop in my head.’
I open my mouth to ask her about it but already she’s going on, ‘We used to talk about everything.’ Tears glisten in her eyes, but when she catches me looking she turns away.
‘You saw how close we were,’ she says. ‘I never had a better friend than Iona. I loved her.’
‘I know you were close, Bonnie,’ I say softly, thinking back to how Bonnie always wanted her for herself. I’d once watched, mesmerised by the way their arms moved in sync as they cut their food. The time I’d sat in the seat next to Iona, Bonnie had roughly dragged me out of it. I was never allowed near her Sindy dolls when we were younger, and when she found me trying on her roller boots she’d screamed so loudly Mum had raced in from the bottom of the garden, no doubt expecting to see one of us dead on the floor.
I need to remember that, however callous my sister is being over Danny, Iona was once a good friend so this must be hitting Bonnie doubly hard.
‘I hated the way the police were asking about our friendship, trying to pick it apart. I mean, I know it was only a few months …’ Bonnie trails off.
‘What did they ask you?’ I say and she outlines their questions which were similar to the ones Harwood asked me.
Bonnie downs the dregs of her lemonade and shakes her glass as if she’s contemplating a top-up. Her actions are more frantic than usual, though I put it down to the questioning.
‘I didn’t tell them about our argument,’ she says, setting the glass firmly on the side table. ‘It wasn’t important.’ She doesn’t look to me for confirmation so I don’t give any. After all, there were things I kept to myself too. Neither of us, it seems, has been completely honest.
‘It was so stupid,’ she mutters, opening the bottle again and topping up her glass.
I get the impression she wants me to ask her what it was about but when I do, she snaps, ‘I just told you it wasn’t important.’ She glares at me as if goading a reaction, but I just shrug. ‘What did they ask you anyway?’ she says, and almost scornfully adds, ‘You didn’t even know her that well.’
‘That’s what I told them. All I could say was what little I did know.’
‘Which was?’
‘The basics. That she was over as part of her university degree—’
Bonnie laughs suddenly and then says, more quietly, ‘That wasn’t even true.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘She didn’t go to university.’ She studies me carefully, looking pleased that she’s caught me out, but as I stare back at her, incredulous, her expression changes. ‘She just said she did,’ she adds.
‘But …’ My eyes follow Bonnie as she pulls herself off the sofa. ‘I don’t understand. What did she come to the island for, then?’
She shrugs and says, ‘She liked to tell stories. That was just one of them. Anyway, I need the toilet.’
‘Bon,’ I call as she disappears. I wait for her to come back and when she does she asks me if I’ve spoken to Dad. I shake my head, refusing to let her determine the conversation. ‘You didn’t answer my question. Why did she come to the island if it wasn’t for part of a course?’
Bonnie drops on to the sofa, hunching her body stiffly as she stares out of the patio doors. ‘I don’t have a clue why she came.’
Sometimes when people are lying they change positions quickly. Nerves make people fidget. I have learnt to spot the ones whose heads suddenly turn in a different direction. But I also notice the ones who don’t move at all. It means they are preparing themselves for confrontation. And as Bonnie is immobile, my guess is she knows exactly why Iona came to Evergreen.
But maybe it’s not relevant, I think, knowing better than anyone that pushing her will get me nowhere. It’s been a long day, and as I haven’t been home for the last two nights, I tell her I need to go after half an hour. I’m passing the living room when Luke shoots off the sofa and follows me to the door. ‘I’m going to the shop,’ he tells Bonnie, jangling his car keys in one hand. I kiss my sister on the cheek and say I’ll call in the morning, then follow Luke out of the house.
‘What’s happening with you both?’ I ask as we walk to the end of their drive.
Luke glances behind him. ‘She won’t talk to me. She didn’t even tell me about your brother until she’d already been questioned by the police.’
‘You’re kidding?’
He shakes his head. ‘She’s told me I can’t mention it to the boys, which is madness, because at some point they’ll find out and then the
y’ll be furious we’ve kept it from them.’
‘I agree. They should know what’s happening, and preferably before one of their friends says something.’
‘She doesn’t want to talk about Danny, at least not to me.’ He gives me a sideways glance but I shake my head.
‘You’re not the only one.’
‘Yeah, well. She keeps shutting me out and ignoring everything, and to be honest, Stella—’ He breaks off and looks back at the house again. ‘To be honest, I’m sick of trying.’
‘Oh Luke, don’t say that.’
‘It’s true. She’s never wanted me to be there for her. It’s always you.’
I can’t argue with this. Bonnie has often reminded me, ‘Blood is thicker than water.’ The last time she said it was when I sat with her in rehab on the day she’d been released. ‘I’m glad you’re here, Stella,’ she’d said. Her small suitcase was packed and ready by her feet. Her eyes were wide as they gazed up at me like I was the older sister. She looked like a child, I remember, as we both sat there with renewed optimism that this time would be the last we’d see of the place.
‘Where else would I be?’ I said. I wasn’t surprised when it was me she’d called to pick her up and take her home. It was always me. Never Luke.
‘Who else would I ask?’ she’d said in return.
I wish I could remind her that blood is thicker than water when it comes to Danny, too.
Luke’s keys jangle loudly in his hand. ‘You know, it was never the case I didn’t want to be there,’ he tells me.
‘I know that,’ I assure him, though I hate the way he talks in the past tense.
He looks down at his feet, kicking a stone away. ‘I think she’s been drinking,’ he says. ‘Of course, I don’t know for sure because she won’t admit it to me and she does a bloody good job of hiding it.’
‘Shit. Shit.’ I look up at the sky. I could see there was something in her actions tonight but I hadn’t wanted to go there.
‘I’m sorry, Stella, but I can’t—’ He shakes his head and I catch a tear glistening in the corner of his eye. ‘I know you don’t need this right now.’
Over the years there have been many occasions when I’ve walked away from my sister with an unsettling sense that things weren’t right. In the early weeks of Bonnie being sober, I was constantly on edge. I knew when she’d snuck in a drink because I could read the signs clearly. Guilt was etched on her face, her fingers jittering with fear that she’d be caught out. As the years passed, and she subsequently stopped drinking, it’s become harder to read, though I’ve never stopped looking.
Any other time I would have been paying more attention.
I slam my front door behind me, furious with myself and even more so with Bonnie. The last thing I need is for all my concentration to be focused on her and I hate that it even crosses my mind that this is why she’s doing it. Danny is the one who needs me right now.
I throw myself on to my bed, lying on my back, and in each direction I look, photos of the past peer back at me.
Me and Mum on the beach, our hair whipped up above our heads in the wind. We are laughing as we look at each other.
Dad and I on the jetty, him crouching down to my height, his checked cap on, our cheeks pressed together, our smiles wide. We both hold an ice-cream and I have a splodge of his on the end of my nose from where he tapped me with it.
In nearly all the pictures Dad is wearing his cap – the one Mum had bought him one birthday and he proclaimed he would never take off. He wore that cap every day as far as I remember. He was wearing it the time I saw him with Iona and somehow this makes his deceit much worse.
I turn away, training my eyes on a different photo that sits on a shelf the other side of the room. This one’s of me and Jill, our arms linked tightly through each other’s to protect a bond we would never break.
I move on quickly, my eyes flicking along the shelf.
Bonnie, Danny and me all lined up stiffly beside each other like we had nothing in common apart from the fact we were siblings.
Next to it, Danny and me hanging out of the treehouse. My face full of laughter at something Mum must have said. Danny’s is a blank as it always was, his eyes staring far into the distance.
I curl on to my side, pulling up my knees and wrapping my arms around them, closing my eyes so I don’t have to look at the pictures any more. Not when they make the walls close in on me until I can’t breathe.
And not for the first time, I envy my sister for having a drug to clutch on to.
The following morning I call Dad because we need to have a conversation about Danny. ‘It’s Stella,’ I say as Olivia picks up.
‘Oh, Stella …’ My name comes out long and painful, like she’s doubled over in shock. ‘The police were here. They want to question your father. Your brother’s been arrested for murder.’
‘I know. That’s why I’m calling.’
‘I told them absolutely no way is he speaking to them, he isn’t well. He’s got dementia,’ she screams like this is something I don’t know. ‘They’re saying they can get a doctor in there and another adult. But not me. They say it should be someone else.’
‘Have you spoken to Dad about it?’ I ask.
‘He’s unclear and so vague. I think he frustrated them.’
‘But what’s he said to you?’
‘Nothing. He’s not talking about it. Every time I try he shuts down, and I don’t know—’ She breaks off, then adds more quietly, ‘I don’t know if he’s doing it on purpose.’
‘Can I speak to him?’
‘No,’ she says, a little too sharply, but then she goes on. ‘As I said, he’s not well. He hasn’t got up yet. He’s drained.’ We fall into a silence before Olivia says, ‘If your brother – if he did what he says he has, then David must have known. He’d have known, wouldn’t he?’
‘I don’t know,’ I say, though I’m also sure he must have. ‘But I think there’s a chance Danny didn’t do it.’
‘I don’t know what else to do,’ Olivia goes on like she hasn’t heard me, and I realise it’s the first time I’ve heard a side of her that needs reassurance from me, that’s willing to show a weakness.
Were it over anything else I would have revelled in the moment, but I find myself telling her everything will be okay, asking her to get Dad to call me as soon as he’s up to it.
I hang up but I can’t settle. It’s Friday and I’m due in the office late morning for my rearranged clients that I’d pushed to the end of the week.
But there are too many things I can’t seem to straighten in my head. I pace back and forth in my kitchen, making breakfast, forgetting what I’m doing midway through a task. I worry what good I’ll be to my clients, since my mind keeps lingering on what Bonnie told me. Iona liked to make up stories.
I have begun to consider that if Iona didn’t come to Evergreen to study, she must have come for something else important.
Eventually I make the decision to drive to Dad’s when I finish work. We need to have a conversation face-to-face, because he’s the only one who can give me the missing jigsaw pieces.
Evergreen Island
23 August 1993
Maria would not give up. Despite Iona’s deflection, she would make it her business to know more about the girl. Even then she knew that finding out what Iona was doing on their island would be paramount to keeping her family safe.
But towards the end of August she was still seeking a glimmer of insight. Her day had started by wandering along the harbour on the mainland, people-watching, looking at the expensive yachts and perusing the shops. She had gone to the mainland alone and been lost in her thoughts when she spotted Iona dipping into a clothes shop on one of the backstreets. She had another girl in tow, but from where she stood Maria couldn’t see who it was. It was funny that her first thought strayed to Bonnie as she wondered what her daughter was doing without her friend.
Despite Danny’s suggestion that Bonnie wasn’t happy in her
company, her daughter had slunk into the girl’s shadow again, though the friendship did seem more lopsided than when it had started.
Maria found herself strolling to the shop, creeping into the corner of it, where she hovered, surprised to see Iona having an intense discussion with Tess Carlton. Her hiding, eavesdropping, was a ridiculous charade and if the girls spotted her she’d have to pretend she’d been there all along, but she couldn’t help listening to snatches of their conversation over the music.
‘I’m so glad we’re good friends,’ Iona said, linking her arm through the young girl’s as she yanked clothes on their hangers along the rail. ‘Isn’t it nice to have someone to talk to about everything?’
Maria felt herself bristle as Tess simpered with joy. She’d watched the same gestures sprinkle like confetti over Bonnie.
‘You can tell they haven’t a clue what to do with him,’ Iona went on.
Maria’s hands started to tingle and her cheeks burned. ‘He completely creeps me out, to be honest. I can’t bear the way he looks at me over the table. I feel sorry for Bonnie, I really do, but—’ Iona broke off. ‘I suppose you can’t always choose your family, can you?’ she said boldly.
Maria felt the blood draining from her.
‘It was so funny what happened in the cave, wasn’t it?’ Iona went on.
‘I don’t know, he looked really upset,’ Tess replied.
‘Yes, well,’ Iona brushed her off. ‘I think he deserved to be taught a lesson, though I’m not sure it’s worked. Every time I look around, he’s there, and it always makes me so nervous when I suddenly catch him, like he’s creeping up on me.’
Tess didn’t answer.
‘Anyway, much more important than that. When were you going to tell me you were leaving the island?’
Maria froze, as it appeared had Tess. ‘What do you mean?’ she asked.
‘Your house is for sale. Didn’t you know?’
Maria imagined Tess shaking her head. Susan had only recently confirmed it to her best friend – how the hell had Iona heard? It was clear Susan hadn’t wanted to talk about it, which was why they’d not put a board outside the house.