Salt Sisters

by Katherine Graham

  Did people write such lovely tributes for everyone for who died, I wondered? What about unpopular people, or people who had done something bad – did they end up with everlasting digital monuments built in their name, too? Was that what it came down to, when we died – a legacy of likes and shares and emojis and words on a screen?

  Had these people even known Amy that well? There was no way she’d had as many friends as this. These were strangers, intruding on our grief. What should be private was plastered here, permanently, for all to see. Had any of them really known Amy, known her like Rachel or I had? Would they feel differently when they found out what she had done?

  I had allowed myself to get distracted – a quick scroll had turned into me falling head-first into a Facebook hole. Two minutes had become twenty. I clicked on the messages tab.

  Some people had even sent her messages since her death – who did that? Apart from me, of course, but that was different. Amy was my sister, not theirs. My grief was in another league – bizarre behaviour from me was entirely permissible. I was tempted to read these other messages, but figured it could wait. I scrolled down, looking for the messages from Phil.

  They weren’t there.

  At first, I thought it was a slip up, that the vodka had made me bleary and not focused enough. I blinked hard several times to make the screen clearer. I started again from the top, this time looking forensically, message by message. But they really had gone, vanished from the inbox, and I couldn’t find any way of viewing deleted items. Had I imagined them? Hallucinated?

  No, I was certain of what I’d seen. There had been three messages to Amy from Phil Turner, just a week ago – so what had happened to them?

  Chapter Twenty

  Amy was shouting to me. She was trying to tell me something, but the sound of the sea was too loud, overpowering, and I couldn’t hear her above the crashing of the waves. I yelled at her – Speak up! She came closer and put her hands on my shoulders, shaking me. Her eyes were wide, her face contorted with the effort, but still she made no sound.

  The dream started to slip away. I tried to hold on to it – to Amy’s face, to her voice – but it was like trying to grab a handful of sea water.

  My pulse was pounding at my temples. I pulled the duvet tighter around my head, keeping my eyes closed. There was no water by my bed and my mouth felt sandy, but the kitchen was miles away.

  The pounding continued, and I realised that it wasn’t my head – there was someone at the front door. I staggered to the bathroom, sticking my face under the cold tap, taking gulps of cool water and letting it splash over me. I dried my face on the sleeve of my dressing gown as I stepped carefully down the stairs.

  I opened the door to Richard, a dark silhouette against sunlight that was unfeasibly bright. Definitely not the person I wanted to see right now. I squinted, shielding my eyes from the glaring daylight.

  ‘Sorry if I woke you.’ He gave a nervous laugh.

  What time was it, I wondered?

  ‘I brought coffee?’ he added. It sounded like a question.

  I eyed the steaming cups in his hands.

  ‘And I owe you an apology,’ he continued. ‘I was way out of line the other day, and I’m so sorry about… Well, you know.’ He shuffled from foot to foot. ‘Amy’s death hit me harder than I’d realised, but that’s no excuse…’

  The sunlight was hurting my eyes and I willed Richard to stop talking. I did appreciate the apology, though. Besides, I wasn’t exactly blameless – I had been about to kiss him, until he’d blurted out that I reminded him of my dead sister.

  The coffee smelled so good. Wordlessly, I waved him inside.

  We sat at the kitchen table – I didn’t want a replay of our scene on the sofa.

  ‘So, what’s new?’ he asked.

  I prised the lid off my cup, inhaling the cloud of steam. Where to start? ‘Something doesn’t add up, about Phil. Hurting Amy. It… It just doesn’t make sense.’

  A long pause. Eventually, Richard shook his head. ‘I can’t work out what makes them think it was Phil Turner. He hardly seems the sort.’

  A light rain started, the drops on the window blurring the world outside. I took a deep breath. ‘Phil and Amy were having an affair.’

  Richard’s mouth fell open. Shame burned in my chest.

  ‘Yup. Amy and Phil. Something was going on. Or something might have been going on… They had ended things a while back. Maybe. But now I’m not so sure…’ The pressure started to build behind my eyes and I stopped talking, waiting for the threat of tears to pass. Deep breaths.

  Richard considered it for a second, then shook his head. ‘No way. That’s not true. Don’t you mean Mike was having an affair?’

  His words floored me – did the whole village know?

  Richard saw the look on my face. ‘I don’t mean he was having an affair, I just mean – I could believe it more from him. But not Amy. And Phil Turner!’

  His expression was utter incredulity, his eyebrow twisting up into a question mark.

  A lump rose in my throat. ‘It’s true. I logged into her Facebook and saw messages that Phil had sent her, and I told the police. I swear, they were right there’ – I nodded at my phone – ‘three messages, from Phil, and now they’re gone.’

  Richard’s mouth was pressed into a hard line and his grip tightened on the cup in his hands. ‘She wouldn’t do that. Amy wasn’t like that. She would not do that.’ His knuckles turned white and his eyes were glassy with tears. ‘You got it wrong. There’s got to be some mistake – it can’t be true. You have to tell the police – Amy wouldn’t do that. She would not have an affair with Phil Turner.’ He put down his cup and brought his hands up to his face, taking a long, deep breath.

  I was frozen, unsure of how to handle his reaction. My pulse had quickened.

  Richard went to say something, then stopped, as if he thought better of it. He stood up and shrugged on his jacket. His mouth twisted into something between a sneer and pity. ‘Amy was your sister. Did you even know her at all?’

  I didn’t cry until he had closed the door behind him – I didn’t want him to see how deeply his words had cut.

  How come everyone around here seemed to know Amy better than I did? Richard’s certainty was unnerving. But was he right? There was no other evidence Amy had been having an affair – if it was true, there would surely be some proof somewhere. A receipt, or an email, or a suspicious best friend.

  Could I have imagined the messages from Phil? Perhaps part of me wanted to think the worst about Amy. Or had the messages been about something else - had I somehow got the wrong end of the stick? No, that was impossible. I knew what I had seen, and now they were gone. But would anyone believe me?

  I missed Rachel terribly and really needed a confidante right now. I churned over the painful idea that I’d possibly ruined her marriage – ruined her life – for no reason. I owed her an explanation – when she eventually came home. If she ever came back.

  Richard had made me feel horrible about Amy. My betrayal of my sister was etched across his face and his words rang in my ears. But the messages had been real. I had been meant to see them. Had someone deliberately set me up to frame Phil?

  Mike was at home, alone. From the street, I could see him in his upstairs office, working at his computer. I stood outside, mustering as much bravery as possible before going in.

  The hallway was lined with family pictures: baby photos and holiday snaps and school portraits. Smiling, happy faces. A happy family. Except I no longer knew what was real and what wasn’t. Mike came into the kitchen.

  ‘Were you having an affair?’ I blurted the words out before I lost my nerve.

  ‘What?’ Mike’s incredulity rang hollow to me. ‘Where did you get that from?’

  ‘It doesn’t matter how I know – what matters is whether it was true or not.’ I balled my hands into tight fists. Hold your nerve, Izzy, hold your nerve.

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Mike shook his head a
nd sighed, as if my paranoid sister routine was wearing thin.

  ‘OK, let me put this another way: I know you were having an affair. I’ve seen the proof for myself—’

  ‘What proof?’ he sneered.

  ‘Enough proof to make it impossible to deny! And I know that Amy found out,’ I spat, dealing my trump card. ‘Does this have anything to do with her accident?’

  He turned away from me, looking out of the kitchen window. There was a stack of unwashed dishes in the sink. Even with his back turned, I could see his breathing had become ragged.

  ‘It’s not what you think.’ He turned to face me, holding up his hands in a plea before realising they were shaking. He folded his arms to hide them.

  ‘So tell me what it is, Mike. Explain it to me.’

  ‘It was a mistake!’ He pressed his knuckle to his lips. ‘A stupid, stupid mistake. Yes, Amy knew about it, and we’d moved on.’

  ‘Was that who we saw you with in Newcastle?’

  His eyes brimmed with tears. He nodded. ‘It ended ages ago. But she got back in touch. I met her in Newcastle last weekend, to tell her we could never see each other again. I swear, this has nothing to do with what happened to Amy…’

  ‘Who was it, Mike?’ I clenched my jaw.

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Did Amy know who it was?’

  ‘No.’ A beat. ‘No, she didn’t. But we had made our peace…’

  ‘Hannah saw the two of you, Mike. You ran away from your own daughter.’

  ‘I’m sorry!’ He crumpled, legs first, falling to kneel on the floor in front of me. ‘I’m so sorry! Just don’t say anything, please…’

  ‘What’s her name?’

  ‘It’s not important. Please, Izzy. Don’t do this.’

  He was begging. I had to hold my ground.

  ‘Tell me who it was.’ My voice was low and level, unnaturally calm.

  ‘Julie!’ he blurted out.

  The name was familiar. Where had I heard it? I wracked my brain. I had seen it last night. What had I been doing? I closed my eyes, pressing my fingertips to my temples. Julie, Julie. I turned the name over in my mind. There was a Julie who had written a tribute on Amy’s Facebook page. It was one of the poems that I’d taken the time to read, and the name had stayed with me because it had been familiar.

  ‘Julie Knox?’

  ‘What?’ Mike looked up at me from the floor, incredulous and enraged. ‘Who…? How…?’ His jaw dropped, then he caught himself. Pulled it together.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, staring at the floor.

  My vision clouded with thick, acrid anger. I wanted to kick, rain blows, smash something over his head.

  ‘Please though, Izzy, you can’t tell anyone about this. Swear to me that you won’t tell!’

  ‘Why shouldn’t I? Why should I keep your dirty little secret?’

  Mike sobbed on the floor before me.

  ‘Because I don’t want my kids to hate me. I’m the only parent they’ve got left.’

  The car grumbled to a halt outside the police station and I realised that I’d arrived in Alnwick without knowing how I’d got there. I looked over my shoulder, as if the answer was on the street behind me, unable to recall any details of the journey. My head was swimming.

  DCI Bell was waiting at the front desk and silently led me into a meeting room. She flicked a switch and the grey walls were cast in the sickly glow of a fluorescent light. The plastic chairs scraped against the floor as we sat down.

  She listened to my explanation – or lack of – of how the messages from Phil Turner had just vanished. Her face stayed neutral, and I knew that this was not news to her. I wondered how many hours of police time had been spent ascertaining that I’d given them a false lead.

  ‘But I swear, I know what I saw,’ I said. ‘And I think I was set up.’

  DCI Bell held my gaze, offering only a curt nod tin response. Did she think I was a fantasist, a liar, or just a heartbroken sister?

  She listened wordlessly as I told her about the plastic folder that had been hidden away in the attic. I handed it to her and she spread out the credit card statements across the table, looking over the lines that had been highlighted. Only when I told her about seeing Mike in Newcastle last Saturday did her expression finally change.

  ‘This clearly gives us more to consider. I’ll hold on to these’ – she waved the statements – ‘and I’ll be in touch if we need anything else.’

  I stood to leave. I wanted to tell her about Amy’s missing phone, and how I was sure that was important to the case – but so far, my attempts at detective work had caused more problems that they had solved.

  ‘And do please keep this to yourself, Isabelle. We’ll take it from here.’

  I walked back out of the police station with my hands clasped in front of me to hide the shaking. Had I done the right thing?

  I needed to take my mind off things. My meeting with Jennifer was in two days and I had a lot to prepare. It was time to get my secret weapon on-board. I called in to see Mum.

  The concept for Izzy Morton Interiors was simple: a bijou agency that married a modern approach to design with the ancient Chinese art of feng shui, establishing the perfect balance between style and function, harmony and sophistication.

  A broad smile spread across Mum’s face as I explained my idea.

  ‘That sounds wonderful.’

  ‘I’m glad you think so,’ I said, ‘because I’ll need your help.’

  Auntie Sue stopped stirring the tea and looked at me. Mum fidgeted with the Tibetan prayer beads around her neck.

  ‘In fact, I was hoping you would agree to be my business partner.’

  Mum couldn’t hide her delight. ‘Sue! Did you hear that? Izzy wants me to be her business partner!’ She clapped her hands in glee.

  ‘That sounds like a lovely idea, Anne,’ Auntie Sue said, smiling at me.

  ‘Silent business partner,’ I quickly clarified, before Mum got too carried away.

  I explained how it would work – I would do the styling, choosing the colours, furnishings and fabrics, and Mum would lead on the positioning of the space. We would accessorise together, and I would source stuff from Hong Kong whenever Adam’s husband Thierry could get me a good deal. I couldn’t wait to tell Adam my plan. I really should call him back, I realised. He had tried to call me again last night and I’d let it ring out.

  The business wouldn’t make me rich or famous, but it would allow me to indulge my creativity and hopefully earn enough to get by. Most importantly, it would mean I could be there for the kids, and give me and Mum a chance to make up for some of the years we had lost.

  I showed Mum my sketches for The Stables and watched her become completely absorbed by the work, drawing diagrams to show me the ideal positioning for a bed, a mirror or a plant, and suggesting accessories that might enhance the energy of a space. Soon, we were sitting in the middle of her living room floor surrounded by pages of our drawings, and for the first time since I’d got home, I saw a weight lifted from Mum’s shoulders and a sparkle in her eyes.

  In that moment, like so many others, I wished Amy was there – a deep longing, a yearning, to see her again and share that kernel of joy. To show her that maybe, just maybe, we would all be OK. Out of habit, I took out my phone and sent her a message.

  Wish you were here. You would be so proud of Mum. Miss you every day xo

  As I watched, the little icon beside the text turned green – delivered.

  I checked back over the messages I’d sent Amy – they had all been delivered. When had that happened? The phone had been switched off when I’d tried calling it, and I remembered that my first message had stayed grey. When had I last checked?

  Amy’s phone had been switched on. But who had it?

  Mike had to have taken it. Maybe there had been something incriminating on it – something he hadn’t wanted the rest of the family to see. Some evidence of his affair with Julie Knox, something that proved Amy had found out
who he had been seeing – perhaps something that had given him a reason to want her dead. A chill ran through me, making me shiver. But where could he have hidden it? I’d already searched the house. Could I have missed something? I could tip off the police, but then I pictured them turning Amy’s home upside-down, going through her stuff, the kids’ stuff. I chewed the ragged edge of a fingernail.

  I needed Jake.

  We arranged to meet on the seafront at Amble. I pulled into the small, sand-swept car park, and he climbed into my passenger seat. It was easier to talk to Jake like that – sitting side-by-side and looking out to sea rather than face-to-face. At least I couldn’t get distracted by him, and I had to admit to myself – I was finding Jake increasingly distracting. But this was most definitely not the time to fall for someone. My sister needed me.

  I showed him the messages I’d sent to Amy that were now mysteriously delivered to a phone that had apparently been lost. We had to work out who might be hiding it. I allowed myself a peek at Jake as he took my phone from me, chewing pensively on his bottom lip.

  Jake explained that the box of Amy’s possessions had been given to Mike two days after the accident. None of it was considered evidence, so the family were free to take it. I filled in the next piece of the puzzle for him – Mike claimed that he had given the unopened box to Mum, who had taken it home with her. By the time I had collected it, the phone was gone.

  ‘So did Mike take the phone before he gave the box to Mum, and lie that he hadn’t gone through it? Or did he go back for the phone after he gave it to her, when he realised what we might find…’

  Jake twisted in his seat to face me.

  ‘Why are we here?’

  I started to stutter, struggling to articulate a sound reason. It was a good question. I looked down at our hands, side by side on the armrest. Our fingers almost touching.

  ‘I know you want to find Amy’s phone, but I don’t see how I can help you with that.’