My Sister's Bones

by Nuala Ellwood

  My knee was bleeding badly as I limped toward the remains of the camp, calling out for someone, anyone. But the silence of the dead burned like a gas and rose in smoky plumes from the center of the camp. Body parts were scattered across the smoldering field and an emaciated dog, following the scent of fresh blood, had begun to feast on the remains of the dead. It looked like the end of the world.

  I stood for a moment watching a group of men who had just arrived on the scene. They started sifting through a mound of shredded canvas—all that was left of the tents. Their faces were twisted with exhaustion as they searched for survivors.

  I should have stayed. It was the right thing to do, the decent thing to do, but I knew I had to get out. I’d known it in the moments before the explosion when I heard my mother’s voice. This was not my battle now. I was needed elsewhere. As I stepped across the remains of the clinic I heard a child screaming for its mother, but it wasn’t coming from the camp. It was coming from inside my head, from the place where memory is lodged.

  Something evil was festering in that house. I’d sensed it, heard it, seen it with my own eyes. My poor mother had done the same. And both of us thought we were going mad. I knew as I stood in that field of death that I needed to follow the child’s screams and try to put things right.

  Miraculously Hassan had missed the bomb too. He had been delivering aid to a district on the east side of the city when it hit. He returned and found me dazed and wandering around in circles through the dust. When I saw him walking toward me I thought he was a ghost, and I collapsed in a heap by his feet. He picked me up, put me in his car, and at my insistence drove me to the Turkish border. We arrived at sunset and he took me to a medical center where he urged me to get my leg treated. At the hospital I made Hassan promise me that if anyone asked he would tell them I’d been killed in the blast. I knew I would have to fall off the radar if I had any chance of returning to Herne Bay. I handed him a pile of my things: notes, tape recorders, my press pass, and told him to send them on to Harry and tell him they were found in the ruins. It had to look like I was dead. Poor Hassan stared at me as though I were mad, but when I told him I was doing this to save my family, he asked no more questions. For Hassan, loyalty to friends and family is all. He got me some clothes to wear—traditional Islamic dress—and arranged for a contact of his to smuggle me back through Turkey and on into Europe.

  “For now,” he said as he waved me off, “Kate Rafter is gone. I tell them you’re Rima. I give you my mother’s name. For luck.”

  I stand up and slowly make my way to the station exit, making sure I keep my hood low over my eyes. The place is quiet. Just a smattering of people, mainly tourists, congregate inside the ticket hall. As I pass the newspaper stand I see my photograph staring out at me. I stop and pick up a copy.

  HERNE BAY REPORTER NOW PRESUMED DEAD, screams the headline. It is an odd sensation to read of your own death. My stomach feels hollow as the enormity of what I have done dawns on me.

  I go into the toilet and read the piece. In it Harry is quoted as saying I was the finest foreign correspondent of my generation and even Graham bloody Turner gets a look in, describing me as “Brilliant and brave. A reporter who never lost her nerve.”

  “Bastard,” I mutter to myself as I shove it in the toilet bin and head for the exit. He wasn’t saying that a few weeks ago when he went crying to Harry, saying I was a liability. His testimony could have got me incarcerated and I will never forgive him.

  As I step outside I take a moment to decide what to do. I haven’t thought beyond this moment—arriving in Herne Bay. If I had a key for my mother’s house I could go there to wait and watch but I gave it back to Paul when I left. Part of me wants to go straight around to number 44 and confront Fida and her husband, but is that wise on my own? No, the best thing to do is to find Paul. I have to trust that he won’t tell the police I’m back until we’ve done what we need to do. He’ll probably be at work at this time of day, though, and it’s miles away.

  Instinctively I root around in my pocket for my phone, even though I know it’s not there. I’m lost without it but I had to get rid of it. Though it survived the blast—it was tucked inside my padded waist pouch, along with my bank cards and passport—I knew that if I was to successfully carry out my plan I would have to be untraceable, so I left it in Aleppo, the SIM card crushed under my boot.

  Passport control at the ferry terminal in Calais was brisk and thankfully nobody looked too closely at my name. The headlines described me as “Kate” while my passport reads “Catherine.” Besides, customs officials are primed to look for potential terrorists, not journalists who have faked their own deaths. I’d bought new clothes in the hypermarket and tucked my hair into a thick woolen hat, though the chances of anybody recognizing me on the way back here were slim. Unlike Rachel Hadley, I’ve never been one for splashing my face across my reports and now I am glad of that.

  There’s only one option left—I have to go to their house. Please let Paul be there, I think to myself as I make my way out of the parking lot, keeping my head down. Having to explain all this to a drunken Sally is the last thing I need. The more I can keep her out of this, the better.

  Paul’s car is not in the drive when I get to the house and my heart sinks. I stand on the doorstep and ring the bell, willing Sally to be sober. I’ll have to persuade her to let me use her phone to call Paul. But there’s no reply. I go to ring the bell again then think better of it and make my way around to the side of the house.

  But there’s no sign of Sally as I peer through the conservatory window. The room looks tidier than it was the last time I was here and there are no telltale bottles of wine lying about. Maybe they’ve gone away, I think, and then I panic. They’ll have seen the news. They think I’m dead. What if it’s sent Sally over the edge and she’s done something stupid? My heart races as I pull the door handle. It’s open.

  “Sally,” I call, stepping inside. “Sally, are you there?”

  But the house is silent as I walk into the hallway. I pop my head around the kitchen door. There are two mugs on the table.

  “Sally,” I call again, going upstairs. “Are you up there?”

  I have a knot in my stomach and my mouth is as dry as parchment as I reach the top of the stairs.

  Something is wrong.

  I cross the landing and make my way to her bedroom. The door is open and I step inside. The curtains are closed and the room smells of sweat and stale alcohol. So she is still drinking. But then where is she?

  I go to the window and pull the curtains open, releasing a cascade of dust particles that whirl through the fetid air. I shiver as I look at the room. It’s in a terrible state, with clothes flung on the floor and a plate of congealing toast on top of the chest of drawers. The quilt is all tangled and looks like it hasn’t been washed in months.

  I go back down to the kitchen to call Paul. But as I lift up the receiver I can’t remember his number. Shit. Perhaps it’s written down somewhere. I go to open the kitchen drawer where Sally always used to keep things like that.

  And then I see something on the side. A black object.

  A tape recorder. It’s all battered and damaged. It can’t be . . . I pick it up, my hand shaking.

  There’s a note lying next to it. It’s from Harry. It’s Mum’s tape recorder. I’d tried to find it after the explosion but it had gone. I’d assumed it had been destroyed.

  I look at the tape recorder and the cups on the table. Sally will have listened to it. Paul too. And he, more than anyone, would understand the ramifications. Now it all makes sense: the silence, the deserted house. I know exactly where they are.

  43

  Number 44 is in darkness when I arrive and there’s no sign of Paul and Sally’s car.

  Maybe they walked, I think to myself as I pull my hood over my head and make my way up the driveway. The front door is open and as I stand on the step my stomach lurches.

  “Fida,” I say.

  She is
almost unrecognizable. Her face is bloodied and swollen. She’s been beaten to a pulp.

  “Fida.” I shake her and her eyes open. “What happened? Did your husband do this?”

  She looks up at me and her eyes widen.

  “No,” she gasps. “No. It can’t be . . . I thought you were . . .”

  “It’s okay,” I say in a low voice, crouching next to her so she can hear. “I’ll explain it all later. We need to get you out of here.”

  She’s trying to say something. I lean closer to hear her.

  “Didn’t . . . want . . . to hurt . . . him,” she says, almost choking on the words.

  “Who?” I say quietly. “Who didn’t you want to hurt?”

  She tries to lift her head but it rolls backward.

  “Don’t try to sit up,” I say. “Just take deep breaths.” I notice there’s a coat draped over her. I tuck it in around her more tightly.

  “It’s okay, Fida. I’m going to call an ambulance.”

  “You must believe me,” she whispers. “He made me . . .”

  Her voice falters and I wonder if she’s delirious.

  “He made me do it.”

  Her eyes roll back in her head. I know I need to act fast and get her out of here before her psycho husband comes back. Then I remember I have no phone.

  I scour the hallway. Nothing. I run into the kitchen. Then I see it: an old-fashioned cordless push-button phone on a shelf by the door. I grab it, punch 999, and head back to Fida.

  “Ambulance, please.”

  As I speak to the operator, Fida tugs on my sleeve.

  “Hang on a sec,” I tell her as I give the address to the woman on the other end of the phone.

  I end the call, then turn to Fida. Her injuries are worse than I initially thought. I can see now why she can’t speak properly. Her mouth is all cut and swollen. It must be agony.

  “It’s okay, the ambulance is on its way,” I tell her, praying that it will be fast. “You’re going to be fine.”

  She starts to shake and I put my hand on her arm.

  “Shh,” I whisper. “It’s okay. They’ll look after you in the hospital. I’ll make sure they know about your husband. He won’t find you.”

  “Not okay,” she mumbles. “I . . . he nearly died . . . he’s so tiny, I . . . I’m not a monster.”

  Her words twist inside me. So he’s real. I wasn’t going mad.

  “Fida,” I say, leaning over her. “Tell me. Where is he?”

  Her breath becomes shallow and for a moment I think she is going to pass out, but then she opens her eyes and grips my arm.

  “Sally,” she gasps.

  “Sally? My sister?” I cry. “Is she here?”

  I recognize the coat covering her. It’s Sally’s green puffa.

  “Please, Fida. Where is she?”

  “Sh . . . sh . . . shed.”

  The exertion of getting that final word out is too much and she flops back onto the stairs.

  “Listen, Fida,” I say, jumping to my feet. “The ambulance is on its way. Everything’s going to be fine. I’m going to go and find my sister.”

  I step out into the garden. It is eerily quiet. As I close the back door, my heart thudding, something rustles in the hedge and I freeze.

  “Who’s that?” I call, wishing I had my torch with me. “Sally?”

  Probably just a bird, I tell myself, though my skin prickles as I make my way across the grass.

  Why did Sally come here? She’s usually scared of her own shadow. It’s not like her to go running into danger like this.

  The door is open when I get there and I step inside.

  “Sally?” I call. “Sally, are you there?”

  I hear a muffled sound, like voices speaking underwater.

  “Sally?” I rush forward.

  I don’t see the hole until it’s too late.

  44

  I fall down some steps and land on cold concrete, winded and bruised. What the hell just happened? I slowly push myself to my knees, clutching my ribs. And that is when I see her.

  She is lying on a filthy mattress, tears coursing down her face, and next to her, clinging to her chest, is the boy.

  “Aunt Kate?”

  “Hannah,” I exclaim, holding my hand to my chest to steady myself. “What are you doing here? What the hell is going on?”

  I stumble toward them.

  The boy starts crying too and it’s then I see the rope tied around Hannah’s wrists. I rush to her and begin undoing it.

  “Hannah,” I say, speaking quickly. “What’s going on?”

  I repeat the question but she doesn’t answer. The tears continue to stream down her face.

  I undo the knotted rope and she rubs her wrists. The boy stares up at me, his eyes wide.

  “We heard you when you were in the shed that time,” says Hannah through her tears, holding the boy to her chest. “We thought you were coming to rescue us.”

  “Rescue you?” I say. “You mean you’ve been here all this time?”

  She nods her head.

  “But who’s the boy?” I ask.

  “David’s mine,” she says.

  David.

  I stand frozen to the floor, trying to take it all in. Then I see something glinting in the half-light. My silver pen. It’s lying on the ground by the bed.

  Hannah sees me looking at it.

  “David found it. He brings me presents to cheer me up.”

  I feel numb.

  “He likes sparkly things,” says Hannah.

  As I bend to pick up the pen I see a little pile of marbles next to it and I remember the one I found in Mum’s garden.

  “Mum.”

  That’s Sally’s voice. I turn around. There’s a mound of old blankets in the corner.

  “Is your mum here, Hannah?”

  Her eyes are terrified, looking toward the blankets.

  I run over and start pulling at them. “Oh my God! Sally!”

  She’s been wrapped up, like a child in swaddling. I turn her toward me.

  “Oh, Sally!” Her face is a mess. She’s covered in blood. It’s in her hair, all over her clothes.

  “Jesus, what happened?” I cry as I gently put her in the recovery position. She moans softly.

  “He had a knife,” says Hannah.

  I look up. Hannah is standing above me, just staring at her mother.

  “Who stabbed her?” I ask, trying to keep my voice calm so as not to alarm Sally.

  “Hannah, who stabbed her?” I repeat but she doesn’t answer. She just looks at me with vacant eyes.

  “Mum,” murmurs Sally. “Is that you?”

  Blood is seeping through her sweater from her stomach area. I check her pulse. It’s weak and she’s losing blood fast.

  “We need a cloth to stem the bleeding,” I say to Hannah. “And help . . . we need to get some help.”

  I look up. Hannah is still standing there, motionless.

  “Hannah!” I scream. “You have to go and get help now.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Hannah, please.”

  I feel something brush my skin and I turn and see that Sally has opened her eyes.

  “It’s okay,” I tell her. “We’re going to get you out of here. You’re going to be fine. Just stay with me.” I press the blanket against her stomach wound.

  “Kate,” she whispers. “It can’t be. You’re . . .”

  Her face drains of color and I’m worried that, along with the blood loss, the shock of seeing me could send her into cardiac arrest.

  “It’s okay, Sally,” I say, rubbing her forehead with my fingertips like Mum used to when we were little. “Just keep calm. Breathe in and out, just like this, in and out.”

  Her eyes are wide, like a child’s, and she doesn’t take them off me as together we fight to keep her alive.

  “Hannah, you need to go and tell someone that we need help,” I shout.

  In and out. In and out.

  “That’s it. Good girl, S
ally,” I say. “Everything’s fine.”

  “Paul,” she says suddenly, grabbing my arm. “Paul.”

  “It’s okay,” I say soothingly. “Paul will be here as soon as he can. He’ll be worried about you.”

  She shakes her head and her breath starts to rasp.

  “Shh now,” I say. “Remember, in and out.”

  She grabs my hand.

  “No,” she gasps. “Paul . . .”

  “We’ll call him from the hospital,” I say. “Let’s just concentrate on your breathing. It’s all going to be fine.”

  “No,” she cries, shaking my arm. “Paul did this.”

  “What?”

  “Paul . . .” she says, her voice hoarse and shallow. “He did this . . . kept Hannah . . . raped her when she was just—”

  She lets go of my arm and clutches her chest as though trying to squeeze the words out.

  “The boy,” she gasps. “Paul . . . his dad.”

  Her breath gives out and she slumps back.

  “Sally, come on, we can do this,” I say, trying not to let the shock that is permeating my bones show in my face. “Come on, in and out, in and out.”

  I turn around and look at Hannah. She is sitting on the edge of the mattress now, the boy in her arms. She looks terrified.

  “Is it true?” I say. “What your mum says, is it true? In and out, Sally. Good girl.”

  Hannah nods and it feels like my head is on fire.

  “Where is he, Hannah?” I say, turning my head so Sally can’t hear me. “Where’s Paul?”

  “I don’t know,” she says. “He told me not to try to escape. . . . If he comes back . . .”

  “We need the police,” I say. “You look after your mum. I’ll go and call them.”

  Thump.

  The boy whimpers and Hannah leaps to her feet. There are footsteps overhead.

  “It’s him,” Hannah whispers, her face ashen with fear.

  45

  You’re still alive then,” he snarls. “Christ, you must be stronger than you look.”