Salt Sisters

by Katherine Graham

  I stirred my soup. I so badly wanted to confide in her. Maybe she knew something that she didn’t realise was important?

  ‘Are you sure Amy didn’t say anything about Mike having money worries? Like, financial problems with the business?’

  She considered this, then frowned and shook her head slowly.

  ‘It’s just that he’s been really weird about Amy’s will, and the whole trust fund thing. I’m starting to think that maybe’ – I choked on the idea – ‘maybe… her death wasn’t an accident. And Mike might have been responsible.’

  Rachel gasped. ‘No.’ She shook her head, her eyes wide. ‘He couldn’t have. No way.’

  I nodded glumly. ‘It’s starting to look that way.’

  ‘I can’t believe that, not from Mike. There must be some mistake.’

  ‘Do not say anything to him,’ I said, sternly. ‘The police are looking into it.’

  ‘But why would they think that?’

  I wanted to tell her, to talk about how the car might have been deliberately damaged, but I couldn’t see how I could without betraying Jake’s confidence. Instead, I shrugged.

  She took my hand in hers.

  ‘I’m sure it was nothing more than a horrible accident. The police are just crossing the t’s and what have you.’ Her eyebrows knotted together in a determined frown. ‘What can I do to help in the meantime?’

  ‘Nothing – not unless you’ve seen Amy’s phone.’

  ‘What for? Don’t the police have it already?’

  ‘Apparently, they already returned it to the family. But if Amy and Mike had been fighting, maybe she told someone, or maybe there’s something on the phone that might help us understand if he did it—’

  ‘Or clear him.’

  I nodded. ‘Or clear him.’

  Rachel leaned back in her chair and let out a long exhalation, folding her hands together in a prayer. ‘I know this is hard,’ she sniffed. ‘It’s been tough for me too – and I only lost my best friend. I can’t imagine what you’re going through, losing your sister and being stuck here. But you need to stay strong. Don’t make it harder on yourself. Focus on the children and your mum, and let the police do their job.’

  I saw myself through her eyes – paranoid, grieving. A hot mess. I hadn’t even showered yet. What must Rachel think of me? What had Jake made of me when I showed up at his office that morning? Clearly, from the outside it didn’t look like I was doing well.

  ‘I know what you need,’ said Rachel, ‘a girls’ night!’

  That did sound appealing. I missed having a social life.

  After Rachel left, I decided to squeeze in a couple of hours of self-care. I ran myself a steaming hot bath, adding Epsom salts and essential oil that I found in the bathroom cupboard, lit a scented candle, and climbed in.

  Had Amy lain here, just like this, when she needed a break? When she had been stressed about Mike’s financial problems? I pushed the image from my mind. If I closed my eyes and took deep breaths, I could almost forget where I was and what I had been looking for.

  That evening, I was washing up after another disaster of a dinner and trying my hardest not to cry, when the doorbell rang. I sighed. Who was it now?

  I was still drying my hands on the tea towel as I opened the door to Richard Pringle. I didn’t do a good job of hiding my surprise, nor my delight that he was holding a bottle of red wine. The kids were scattered in various corners of the house. Perhaps a little social visit could distract me from my misery?

  I led Richard to the kitchen and poured two glasses of wine. He fingered the stem of his glass, glancing down the hall to check that the children were out of earshot.

  ‘We’d normally call parents into the school to talk about this, but I thought under the circumstances, it would be more relaxed for me to see you at home.’

  ‘Oh god. What’s happened?’

  ‘It’s nothing’ – he held up a hand – ‘it’s nothing to panic about. But Betsy is… Well, she’s grieving, and I’m concerned that she’s lashing out. While this is quite normal after such a trauma, we can’t let incidents of violence go unpunished.’

  I pictured the eight-year-old who couldn’t resist a snuggle and had started sucking her thumb again.

  ‘What incidents?’

  ‘She’s had a number of scrapes, since she came back. This afternoon, she slapped a boy’s thigh so hard that she left a handprint. I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but Betsy is now on her final warning before a suspension.’

  My heart sank. There was me thinking I was making progress with the kids. Richard read my thoughts.

  ‘It must be so hard - I can only imagine what you’re all going through. And whatever you need, I’m here to support you. We’re all feeling your loss.’

  I winced, aching for my sister. ‘You and Amy were close, right? You spent a lot of time with her?’

  He nodded sadly. ‘We were good friends. I miss her a lot.’

  ‘And Mike?’

  Richard looked unsure. ‘Not so much. It’s Amy that I’m closest to. Was closest to…’

  ‘Was everything OK between them?’

  He frowned. ‘You’re asking me if everything was OK between your sister and her husband? Like, if they had relationship problems, or money worries or something?’

  So he did know something. I leaned in. ‘Tell me everything.’

  ‘It’s nothing like that…’ He waved his hands in denial. ‘I don’t know anything. I just always got the impression…’ He hesitated, his voice softening. ‘This is bad, but…’

  I stiffened, willing him to continue. The clock ticked loudly on the wall.

  ‘I always felt like Amy could have done better than Mike.’

  ‘What do you mean—’

  The phone rang behind me, making me jump. ‘Hold that thought,’ I said to Richard as I stood to answer it.

  ‘Izzy?’ Mike sounded far away.

  ‘Mike, hi.’ I watched as Richard stiffened at the mention of Mike’s name. ‘Where are you? When are you coming home?’

  Richard stood, moving his chair carefully so as to not make any sound. I gestured to him to sit back down.

  ‘Sorry, but I’ve been held up for a couple more days. I’ll be home on Sunday evening. Can I speak to the kids?’

  Richard was shrugging on his coat.

  ‘What? But you said… Actually, now’s not a great time. Could you call back in five minutes?’

  Stay, I mouthed to Richard. But he waved his hand, tapping his watch and miming that he had to go. Shaking his head as he inched towards the hallway. I’d missed my chance and knew that I might not get another.

  I sighed. ‘Never mind. Let me get them for you.’

  What had Richard been about to tell me?

  It rained all of Saturday and each of my attempts to entertain the kids fell flat. Lucas moped, not wanting to do anything, but Betsy was angry, even lashing out at me a couple of times. Hannah stayed glued to her phone.

  Lucas sidled up to me at the stove. ‘What’s for dinner?’

  I took a deep breath and forced myself to smile. ‘I’m making lasagne.’

  We had invited Mum and Auntie Sue over, and lasagne had seemed to me like a simple way of feeding six of us.

  ‘Will you put broccoli in it?’

  ‘No, of course I won’t – don’t worry, silly.’ I ruffled his blond hair.

  ‘Mummy always puts broccoli in lasagne,’ he said in a small voice.

  I was about to answer back when a memory started to form. It was so long ago that I had almost forgotten, but suddenly I could see me and Amy, in the days not long after Mum left, sitting in the kitchen eating dinner. Amy had made jacket potatoes… but with a secret ingredient. She had beamed as she told me what she’d added. What was it?

  ‘Marmite!’ I yelled, as the memory hit me like sunlight bursting through clouds, making Lucas jump. ‘That’s how she did jacket potatoes!’

  It was one of the ‘Amy Specialities’ that she’d
invented after Mum left and before Auntie Sue swooped in. I had completely forgotten her fondness for putting a twist on recipes, like adding broccoli to lasagne.

  Suddenly I could picture her, aged thirteen, proudly presenting a shepherd’s pie made with banana mixed into the mashed potato. I had asked her what had inspired it. She’d replied that we had bananas left over that she didn’t want to waste and there were no grown-ups to stop us. I heard Amy speaking to me from across the years and I traced her words in my mind.

  ‘Who says you can’t put bananas in shepherd’s pie…’ I mumbled.

  ‘Exactly!’ Lucas clapped his hands. ‘That’s exactly what Mum says!’

  Perhaps I’d assumed she had outgrown her penchant for experimental cooking. At some point she must surely have decided it was safer to stick to the recipe books? But judging by Lucas’s enthusiasm, it was a tradition Amy had not only continued but had passed on to her kids.

  There were so many things we’d had to learn that year. With no parents and no money, we had been forced to take a crash course in adulting. It had been in the days before you could ask the internet how to do stuff, so we had worked everything out for ourselves – from operating the washing machine to lighting the fire and paying the phone bill.

  We had been afraid of anyone finding out that Mum had gone and had been convinced that social services would come and take us away, with me still six months away from my sixteenth birthday. I’d been sure that Mum would come back soon, and we just had to hold on for another day. That was what I used to tell Amy – just another day – but mostly, I was convincing myself.

  We simply told everyone that she was sick. Somehow, Mrs Wheeler had figured out that there was more to it, but she allowed us the dignity of maintaining the pretence. Once a week, she would bring a home-cooked meal boxed up in Tupperware and tell us to pass her regards to our mother. Other people had known too – I could tell from the way they looked at us. But as long as we were clean, healthy and going to school each day, nobody seemed to think there was any need to raise an alarm.

  Auntie Sue was horrified when she eventually got there. Fed up with her calls to her sister going unanswered and her nieces making increasingly crap excuses for their mother’s inability to come to the phone, she got in her car and drove down from Aberdeen. We tried to pretend Mum was out for the evening, but she knew straight away that something wasn’t right. There was no discussion – shortly afterwards, she simply moved all of her stuff in.

  It had been such a relief to me to finally have an adult around again, if only to have some authority assume the decision-making. I hadn’t realised how exhausted I had been until the weekend after Auntie Sue arrived, when I slept for almost two days straight. It had been four months since Mum had left, but when you’re drowning, any time at all is eternity and finally, here was our lifeboat.

  Auntie Sue had allowed us to keep the routine we had grown used to, assuring us that we’d been doing remarkably well and that she could learn a thing or two from us – like Amy’s recipes. That’s why Amy had kept on cooking.

  And now here was Lucas, sharing his mother’s passion for throwing out the rules of the recipe book. If he wanted to keep on cooking, I would encourage it.

  I offered him the spoon and he took a taste from the mixture in the pan, knotting his eyebrows in concentration.

  ‘You know what this needs? A good dollop of honey!’

  I sent a message to my sister:

  Banana in shepherd’s pie. You were one in a million xo

  Chapter Ten

  It was quite possibly the longest weekend of my life. I found myself wishing for a crisis at work, something with one of the clients that they would absolutely need my urgent help with, but nothing came. The hours dragged by so slowly that I could practically see the minutes and seconds stretching out in front of me. By the time Sunday afternoon rolled around, I was convinced there must be something wrong with the clock.

  I went for a quick run after lunch to clear my head. The tide was out, so I ran along the sand, imagining that I could just keep going, leaving my problems behind and seeing where the beach led me.

  A stitch in my side forced me to stop. I got my breath back, greedily gulping the crisp, salty air. I’d forgotten how relaxing it was to simply watch the sea. It was a reassuring presence, and just being so close to the water made me feel calmer.

  How was I going to tackle Mike about my suspicions without accusing him of something horrific? I played out the conversation in my head, watching as the white foam lapped greedily at the sand.

  I was making dinner with Lucas when we heard a car pull up out front.

  ‘Dad’s home!’ he yelled to his sisters.

  Betsy and Lucas jumped onto Mike in the hallway while Hannah hung back, leaning shyly against the radiator. As Mike swooped his eldest daughter into a hug and kissed the top of her head, I saw that he had tears in his eyes. It was clear he had missed them.

  He came towards me, and his arms widened reflexively. Was he about to hug me, too? I mumbled a hello and he caught himself, looking down at his feet, gluing his hands back to his sides. I busied myself at the stove.

  ‘So, did everyone behave for Auntie Izzy?’ He ruffled Lucas’s hair.

  ‘They were as good as gold,’ I replied.

  Mike peered over to see what we were cooking. Lucas had reminded me of Amy’s egg and mushroom pie, another classic I was pleased to see she had kept up.

  ‘I’m thinking of handing over all responsibility for cooking to Lucas,’ I said.

  Lucas beamed.

  Mike opened a bottle of wine, and over dinner, told the kids about his trip. He’d brought back nothing more exciting than liquorice sweets and Dutch wafer biscuits, but the kids seemed thrilled with their airport-bought souvenirs. He looked like he’d aged ten years since Amy’s death. There were bags under his eyes and crows’ feet stretching towards his temples, and I could have sworn he had more grey hairs. I could probably say the same for me.

  As we cleared up, I got ready to say my piece. I’d built up the courage during my run along the beach – now I just needed to get Mike alone. I made sure the kids were out of earshot and took a deep breath. He was standing at the sink with his back to me.

  ‘Listen, Mike – we need to talk about the findings from the coroner’s office. Amy’s blood tests and the problems with the car…’

  He stopped washing, hesitated, then started again. ‘I was going to tell you all, I was just waiting until they’d finished the report. It’s not final yet, you know. No point upsetting everyone in the meantime.’

  He didn’t ask me how I’d found out.

  ‘Don’t you think it’s strange that there were drugs in Amy’s system, stuff that would have slowed down her response times if taken with alcohol? Medication that we can’t find a prescription for?’

  ‘I’m sure they’ll work it out. There has to be some explanation.’ He kept his back to me.

  ‘And her front wheel was loose. Possibly damaged on purpose. What if her death wasn’t an accident?’

  There, I’d said it. Mike stopped washing and slowly twisted the cloth to squeeze out the water. He said nothing.

  For all Mike knew, the police had spoken to me. It was time to get creative with how much I knew. ‘They’re worried Amy might have been upset about something. Can you think of any reason why she was distressed?’

  He turned to face me, his lips pressed together, transforming his mouth into a small white line. ‘She wasn’t worried about anything, I told the police that already.’

  ‘They think that she could have been stressed about money.’ I kept my eyes on him. ‘They seem to think that the two of you were having financial difficulties. Are they on to something…?’

  Mike’s hands balled into fists at his sides. ‘The business hasn’t been doing great, but nothing to worry about.’

  ‘Did Amy know you were in trouble?’

  ‘I wouldn’t call it “trouble”. I don’t know what the
police said, not that they have any right to share my company’s financial performance with my wife’s family, but it’s just a short-term cash-flow issue, really – it’s not a big deal.’ His face was getting red and he exhaled, a hiss of steam, as he eased himself into a chair.

  ‘How much are you talking about?’

  ‘Excuse me? Do you really think that’s any of your business?’

  ‘It is my business when my sister has died in mysterious circumstances and lo and behold, there’s a huge insurance payout that nobody knew about—’

  ‘How dare you!’ Mike slammed his fist on the table. ‘How dare you speak to me like that in my own home!’

  ‘What are you hiding, Mike? What are you worried they’ll find out about?’

  His eyes narrowed and his fists balled so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

  I held his gaze, my arms crossed tightly in front of my chest to hide my shaking hands. My breath was coming in short, sharp gulps and it took all my strength to hold my stance.

  For a moment, I thought he was going to hit me. Then he crumbled into tears, burying his face in his hands.

  ‘Mike, stop – the kids will hear,’ I said, edging cautiously towards him.

  ‘I’m sorry, Izzy, I’m sorry about everything,’ he sobbed.

  I desperately wanted him to quiet down. I needed for us to not be interrupted. ‘What is it, Mike? What have you got to be sorry about?’

  He sat back and took a deep breath.

  ‘There have been some problems,’ he said, in a shaky voice. ‘I owe some investors, but I have nothing left to give them. After what happened with Amy, I figured I could at least use the insurance to settle our debts and get the business back on track, but when I realised that she’d tied up the money, I freaked out. I’m sorry. I’m trying my best to fix it.’

  ‘But why did you guys have such a big insurance policy in the first place?’

  ‘A few years back, I took a couple of gambles and lost. I messed up. At one point, we even had to remortgage the house… When Amy found out what I’d done, she hit the roof. I got to a low point, Izzy. Really low. Amy was worried that something might happen to me, or that I might do something stupid. Like, really stupid.’ He collapsed, sobbing into his hands.