My Sister's Bones

by Nuala Ellwood

  “Dangerous?” I stutter. “I . . . I’m not dangerous. Hannah knows that.”

  “Hannah was fucking terrified of you,” he shouts. “And so was I. When she told me about that watch I knew I’d have to step up to the plate, be a responsible adult. That’s when I started making plans to get Hannah out.”

  “Responsible adult?” I yell. “You’re a psychopath.”

  He nods his head, an evil smile creeping across his face.

  “Takes one to know one,” he says. “I tell you what, Sally, you were a lousy wife but you were an even lousier mother.”

  “I just wanted her to be happy,” I say, my voice catching in my throat. “I didn’t want her to get her heart broken. I wanted her to get out and have a better life than me.”

  “Well, that wouldn’t be hard, would it?” he says, his eyes boring into me.

  My heart hurts because he still looks the same: he’s still Paul, the kind man I fell in love with, but it’s like he’s been possessed.

  “It wouldn’t be hard to do better than you,” he says, his voice thick with bitterness. “I mean, the girl didn’t really have much in the way of a role model, did she? A drunken lush and a dotty old woman.”

  “She had her aunt Kate,” I reply. “She got out. Hannah could have too.”

  “Oh yes, Kate,” he says, shaking his head. “I wondered when we’d get back to her. Kate got out of this shithole town because she couldn’t stand you. That’s why she never came home. You think she wanted all her posh London friends to know about you, her drunken mess of a sister? You were an embarrassment. She told me herself . . . just after I fucked her.”

  “What?” I gasp. “No. You’re a liar.”

  But then I remember what he told me about the night Kate broke into the neighbors’ shed. He was with her.

  “Shut up,” he says, snaking his arm around Hannah’s throat. “I don’t want to talk about your dead whore of a sister. That was easy. No, I want you to hear how your daughter enticed me into her bed.”

  He twists the knife in his hands. It is so close to her throat that any slip could end it all. I will him to keep it still but he carries on twisting it back and forth, back and forth. I can’t stand it.

  “You were out,” he says. “God knows where, probably on another bender. I got home from work, tired and hungry, but there was no food in the house. I went upstairs and there she was, slinking around the bedroom in her underwear. And I stood in the doorway and looked at her and I thought, ‘Here’s what I’ve been waiting for, here’s my reward and she’s handing it to me on a plate.’ I deserved it, after suffering for years, having to carry you home from stinking pubs, having to clean you up, having to smell your rancid booze breath in my face, having to fuck your flabby body. So I went inside and I took her hand and I pressed her up against the wall.”

  “Stop it,” I yell, putting my hands over my ears. “Why are you doing this?”

  “What did I say about putting your hands over your ears?” he screams and I bring my hands down to my sides, silently counting in my head, trying to drown his words in numbers.

  One, two, three, four . . .

  “Again and again and again,” he says. “Up against the wall, on the floor, in the kitchen, on your bed . . .”

  Five, six, seven, eight . . .

  “Every time you went out she would look at me with those big blue eyes of hers and I’d be putty . . .”

  Nine, ten, eleven, twelve . . .

  “But then we weren’t very careful, were we, Hannah?”

  I stop counting and look up at him.

  “We had a little accident, or rather she had a little accident.”

  He’s stroking Hannah’s face now with the back of the knife. My stomach lurches.

  “A teenage mum,” he says. “Just like you.”

  My head grows tighter and tighter like there’s a band wrapped around it.

  “Monster.”

  It’s all I manage to get out of my mouth. There are no more words.

  “A little boy,” he says, ignoring my outburst. “A sweet little baby. That’s why I had to get Hannah out. I needed her to be in a safe place, away from you and your drunken moods. God knows what you would have done to her if you’d found out.”

  The anger I’ve been holding in for the last hour pours forth and I leap up, only stopping when I see the knife twitch.

  “What would I have done to her?” I scream. “I would have protected her, I would have taken her away from you. I would have fucking ripped you apart. You’re a psychopath.”

  He sits, eerily calm, watching me. Then he starts to laugh.

  “Here she is, Hannah,” he cries. “Here’s the real Sally. A violent, unhinged old drunk. Here’s what I saved you from.”

  Then he calmly gets to his feet and pushes Hannah back into the chair. Holding the knife in front of him, he steps toward me.

  “You know what, Hannah?” he says, staring into my eyes as I step backward. “I’ve changed my mind. I don’t think it’s mental torture that your mother needs, it’s a bit of roughing up. You always wanted that, didn’t you, Sal? Always felt left out when your dad belted your sister, didn’t you?”

  He grabs my hair with his hands and pounds his fist into my eye. I scream and stagger back. The pain is excruciating.

  “That’s why Kate goaded your old man, isn’t it?” he says, standing over me as I crouch on the floor, my hands shielding my eyes. “Because she liked it when he hit her, didn’t she? She liked it because it meant she got some attention. And you were jealous because you wanted some attention too. But I think a bit of your dad’s violence rubbed off on you. Remember the wine bottle? Kate really liked that one, it got her right on my side.”

  I take my hands away from my face. And as I look at the deep red smears on my palms and taste the metallic blood in my mouth, I see Paul’s face bearing over me that night. Him standing there with the bottle in his hands, me crouched on the floor just like I am now. And it comes back to me. Paul smashing the bottle. Drawing the edges up his arm, laughing all the time.

  It wasn’t me. I didn’t do it.

  “You’re a liar,” I mumble as I stagger to my feet.

  “What’s that?” He steps toward me.

  “I said you’re a liar.”

  “Oh look, Hannah,” he says, a grin spreading across his face. “The little champ’s come back for a second round. What will it be this time, Sal, fists or something stronger?”

  He waves the knife at me and I try to focus on its silver blade. I’m not scared anymore. I can take whatever he wants to dole out if it means keeping Hannah safe. He can kill me, I don’t care, as long as she gets out of here alive.

  41

  I can’t breathe.

  He’s sitting on top of me, one arm holding me down, the other pressing the knife against my throat. I can’t speak, I can only listen to him as he tells me how he plans to kill me.

  “What do you think, Hannah, eh?” he says. “What does Mummy deserve? A cut or something a little slower?”

  I hear whimpering on the far side of the room. It’s little David. I want to call out to him, to reassure him, but Paul seems to sense this and presses harder on my chest. I’m trying to piece it all together, everything he’s told me. Trying to put it into some sort of order in my head. I have to know before I die.

  “What about the phone call?” I say, remembering Hannah’s voice on the line, telling me she was safe. “I spoke to her. She said she was fine.”

  “Oh, yeah,” he says, leaning his face against my cheek. “That was nice, wasn’t it? We had a little day out in London, didn’t we, Han? And I said, I know, let’s phone your mother and tell her that you’re fine. Just a little white lie so she won’t be worried. But you weren’t worried, were you? Any other mother would be, but you? You were happy to see the back of her.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Of course it’s true,” he says with a mocking smile on his lips. “What did you say to me? She
’s a big girl now, she can do what she likes. You fucking disgrace.”

  I don’t respond but I know I have to keep him talking.

  “But Kate?” I go on. “She met her in Brixton. . . . She said she lived there.”

  “Another little day trip,” he says. “I’ve got some old friends there. Nice, wasn’t it, Hannah? Some reporter Aunt Kate turned out to be, eh? Didn’t even see what was right under her nose. Dumb bitch.”

  “And the baby?” I ask. “Did she have him in the hospital?”

  He shakes his head and smiles.

  “Do you think I’m stupid?” he says. “I wasn’t going to risk a hospital with all those do-gooder types. Nah, she had him in here. Fida delivered him.”

  Fida. She knew that Hannah was in here. Why didn’t I listen to her?

  “I believe you two have met,” he says.

  “How . . . how do you know that?”

  “I was following her. Knew she was up to no good. I saw her through the window,” he sneers. “Thankfully, you did the job for me. Scared her off.”

  I go cold. She had been so close to telling me. If I had let her, then none of this would be happening.

  “She shouldn’t have done that,” he goes on. “I told her to keep her mouth shut but she disobeyed me. Still, she won’t be doing much talking for a while.”

  “You did that to her?” I say, thinking of Fida lying on the stairs. Why didn’t I go straight next door and call an ambulance?

  “She’s a clever girl,” he says. “Too clever for her own good. But she slipped up; thought I wouldn’t find out that she’d called the office and asked the dozy receptionist for my home address. Silly girl. But dirty as hell in bed. She’s a bit like Hannah, the product of a broken home. A war zone. And, like Hannah, I rescued her. You could say I’m a bit like Saint Kate in that respect, eh?”

  “You are nothing like my sister,” I whisper.

  “What’s that?” he says. “Come on. I want to hear you.”

  “I said you’re nothing like my sister.”

  “Well, no, I suppose I’m not cos I’m alive and she’s dead. You seem to have that effect on people, don’t you, Sal? Your dad, your mum, Kate, all gone.”

  “Mum loved you,” I say. “She would be devastated if she knew.”

  “Can I tell you a secret?” He spits the words out and I can taste his breath. “Hannah, I’m going to tell your mother our little secret.”

  Hannah doesn’t respond. He’s broken her. My lovely feisty, argumentative girl has gone. She’s just a shell. The old Hannah would be fighting her way out of here. Instead she’s just watching, letting this go on and on.

  “Okay, I’ll tell her,” he says, brushing the knife across my face like a feather. “Your mum dealt with it stoically. Better than I expected.”

  “Dealt with what?” I ask. “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about your mother,” he says, returning the knife to my throat. “Your darling mother who you hated. Mouthy old girl she was, just like you. She thought the sun shone out of my behind for a time but then she started sticking her nose into my business, thought she could play games with me. Talking into her machine day and night like she was fucking Miss Marple.”

  I hear my mother’s voice on the tape recorder as I close my eyes.

  Tiny little thing, can’t be much more than three or four, in the house next door.

  “Mum knew?” I whisper. “She knew about David?”

  “She saw him in the garden a couple of times,” he says as he adjusts his weight so his elbows dig into my stomach. “But who’d believe her? Most people thought she was off her rocker anyway. And so I did the kind thing and booked her into that care home.”

  “What? Mum didn’t have dementia?”

  “No,” he says. “But I had a bit of fun letting her think she did. I started moving things around, made her think she was losing it. Christ, she thought her dead kid had come back to haunt her. By the time I made that call she was practically begging to be put away.”

  He shakes his head and laughs.

  “You need help,” I whisper. “You’re not well.”

  “That’s rich, coming from a bloated alcoholic,” he says. “Yeah, that’s very good, Sal.”

  “Why did you do it?” My chest is so tight now it feels like my heart will burst out of it. “Why our lovely Hannah?”

  “She wasn’t our lovely Hannah,” he says, a smile creeping across his face. “She was the result of a quick fumble between you and some spotty teenager.”

  “She was an innocent young girl, Paul.”

  “Innocent, that’s a laugh,” he says. “She’s a little slag, like her mother. You’ll spread your legs for anyone, won’t you, Han?”

  He lifts himself off me and walks over to where Hannah is sitting with David.

  “Move,” he says to the boy, pushing him away. David doesn’t make a fuss, just sits down on the floor. His obedience is chilling.

  “As I was saying,” he continues. “She was a proper little slag.”

  I look up. Paul has his arm around Hannah’s throat. He’s pulled her off the bed and is leading her toward me.

  “What are you doing?”

  He puts his hands on her breasts.

  “Stop it, Paul!” I yell. “Stop it now.”

  “All soft and pert,” he sneers. “Like you must have been once. Shame that when we met you were already damaged goods.”

  Hannah has her head down but I can see she’s scared; her shoulders are trembling as his hand goes farther down her body.

  “Like that, do you?” he whispers.

  Farther and farther until I can’t bear it anymore. I can’t let this happen.

  “Get your hands off my daughter,” I scream as I run at him and push Hannah out of his grasp. “You sick bastard.”

  I try to grab at the knife but he is too strong for me. He seizes my wrists and smashes my face into the wall, once, twice, three times, spitting at me as he yanks me back and forth.

  “Don’t. You. Ever. Learn. Bitch.”

  My head flops as he pulls me back and I can taste blood in my mouth again.

  “No, Paul,” I whimper as he holds my face in his hands and looks into my eyes. His face softens and for a moment I fear he is going to try to kiss me.

  The blow comes out of nowhere and I cry out as my head hits the wall again.

  “Stop it!”

  I hear Hannah’s voice somewhere on the edge of the room.

  “I’m teaching her a lesson,” he says as he drags me back. “Paying her back for all the times she treated me like a fucking dog.”

  He pulls me toward his chest, his face pressed into mine. I see the blade glistening in front of my face as he tightens his grip and I close my eyes.

  “Run, Hannah,” I yell. “Take David and go and get help.”

  “You don’t get to tell Hannah what to do,” he says as he pushes the knife into me. “She’s mine.”

  I stumble to the floor, clutching my stomach with both hands. The room spins. I pull my hands away. They’re covered with blood.

  “What have you done?” I whimper. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed now, watching me.

  “What I should have done years ago,” he says. “Put you out of your misery.”

  Hannah is standing in the middle of the room. She wants to come to me, I can tell, but he’ll kill her too if she tries. I look up at her and smile. I want to reassure her. David must be asleep because he has stopped whimpering.

  “I’m sorry, love,” says Paul.

  He is talking to me. His voice is gentle, soothing, like the person I once knew.

  “You needed to be taught a lesson,” he says, his voice growing fainter and fainter as I try to stay awake.

  I can’t sit up any longer. I have to rest. My body feels empty as my head hits the floor. The room turns to liquid and I find myself swimming in beautiful clear water. I hear someone call my name and I see my mother on the beach. She’s waving her a
rms frantically, telling me that it’s time to come and have our picnic. I try to call back to her but my voice won’t carry. I feel myself go under.

  “Sally.”

  Mum’s voice is frantic now. I see her wading out through the waves. She’s coming to rescue me but she’ll have to be quick; I can’t breathe. The pressure in my lungs is intense, I’m sinking. Then I feel Mum’s hand grab mine and she pulls me out of the water into dazzling light. I hang in the rays of it for a moment, whispering her name.

  “Mum?”

  “Sally.”

  I know the voice but it isn’t Mum’s.

  “Sally. Oh my God!”

  I paddle up through the darkness, through the thick wall of pain, and as I come to I feel a pair of arms coiling around me.

  “It’s okay,” she says. “We’re going to get you out of here. You’re going to be fine. Just stay with me.”

  I open my eyes. She is here. She has come to save me.

  PART THREE

  42

  Herne Bay

  I pull my hood up so it obscures my face as I step off the train and onto the platform. My legs are throbbing where the stitches are beginning to heal and it still hurts to walk on my right knee. There’s a bench by the exit stairs and I go over to it and sit down for a moment, massaging the aching joint.

  The Turkish doctor managed to remove most of the shrapnel but he told me there was one sliver that was almost impossible to get to. I didn’t care. I was alive; I could cope with an injured knee. The rest of the camp wasn’t so lucky. The whole of the northwest side was obliterated in the blast. I had been on the southern edge of the camp by the fence, well away from the center of the explosion. Even so, it had still lifted me off my feet and I was knocked unconscious. I remember coming to and wondering where I was. In those first few moments I was sure that I was dead and I’d somehow emerged in an apocalyptic afterlife. But as I staggered to my feet and looked around I saw that this was real and it was worse than any hell I could ever have imagined.