by Rob Sinclair
We made it back to the house not long after five in the afternoon. Gemma was already back by that point and was in a serious fret about where we’d been. Within minutes Dani made the sensible decision to make an excuse to leave, and promptly she was on her way. I knew she wasn’t finished with me, and I wasn’t finished with her. Not while she was still holding her cards so close to her chest about what she knew of my wife’s murder. And not while O’Brady was still on my back. I’d just have to wait and see what Dani’s next move would be.
With her gone, I was left alone to deal with the children and my irate wife. Just the four of us, our family, in our home – a situation we’d been in countless times before, and yet it felt so awkward now.
‘Why are you staying at your parents anyway?’ I said when Gemma had finally stopped flapping about why we had been out for so long.
‘Because I need them,’ she said. ‘It’s been really tough for me these last few days. I hate staying in this house on my own. It’s so big and creaky. I never could sleep properly when you weren’t around.’
‘I bet they’re loving all this, aren’t they?’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning they’re probably delighted that you’ve kicked me out.’
‘You’re such a prick sometimes. Of course they’re not happy. They don’t want to see any of us unhappy, do they? They’re being kind by letting us stay, that’s all.’
‘Well, there’s a far simpler solution,’ I said. ‘I could come back.’
‘That’s not going to happen,’ Gemma responded without thought.
‘Why not? What the hell have I actually done that’s so terrible in your eyes?’
‘Do you really need to ask that question?’
‘Yes, I really do.’
‘Maybe if you listened more, if you paid attention to me, then you’d already know the answer to that.’
‘Look, I know I haven’t been a great husband to you recently, but we can make this work, I promise. I’ve realised these last days that I really need you, Gemma. I need all of you.’
‘Yeah, it’s always about your needs, isn’t it?’
‘That’s not what I meant at all,’ I said, offended.
‘It doesn’t matter anyway. I’ve already made up my mind.’
Gemma turned away from me. I probably should have taken that as a signal that the conversation was over. Instead, I moved up to her and gently placed my arms around her waist, then kissed her lightly on the neck.
‘Come on, honey,’ I said. ‘This is silly. Let’s just put it behind us.’
Gemma pushed herself out of my grip, spun around and shoved me away from her. I stumbled back two steps and smacked my head on a shelf.
‘You don’t get to touch me!’ she snarled. She walked up to me and pushed me again, but this time, prepared, I held my ground. I could already feel myself becoming enraged, much like I had the last time she’d slapped me, and just like before I wasn’t sure how much abuse I could take before I blew.
‘Touch you?’ I scoffed. ‘I gave you a kiss on the cheek. You’re my wife!’
‘Wife? It doesn’t mean I’m your property.’
‘What? I mean … Look, I’m sorry, I just thought –’
‘I’m not yours anymore. You have to understand that. Can’t we at least try to make this work like adults? You can’t just waltz in here and expect things to be how they were.’
I had nothing to say in response. Gemma continued to rant at me, but I wasn’t really listening. There was nothing I could say or do to rectify the situation. When she finally finished, I opened my mouth to speak, but then movement out of the corner of my eye stopped me in my tracks. We turned to face Chloe. Her face was full of angst and tears were rolling down her cheeks.
‘Sweetie, what’s wrong?’ I said.
I went to kneel down to pick her up, but Gemma barged in front of me and grabbed her. She lifted Chloe up and my daughter buried her head into Gemma’s shoulder.
‘It’s time for you to go,’ Gemma said, glaring at me.
I was mad at her, but I realised I was powerless to do anything. Even before Chloe had walked in, I’d been on a hiding to nothing. I hated everything about the situation, and as much as I’d meant what I’d said about missing Gemma, my animosity toward her was growing steadily.
It was time to cut my losses and leave.
I pecked Chloe on the cheek. She didn’t respond at all. I walked out of the kitchen and found Harry in the lounge. He was quietly watching TV, but I could tell from the look on his face that he too had heard the argument and that I was likely not in his best books either.
‘I’m sorry,’ I said to him. I wanted to say more but I really didn’t know what to say. ‘I enjoyed today, you know.’
‘Yeah, me too,’ he said without looking up from his programme.
‘I’ll be back soon. Say hi to Granny and Granddad for me.’
‘Sure.’
I kissed him on the cheek and then headed for the door.
CHAPTER 34
‘What did you think when your sister revealed that she knew about you and O’Brady?’ she asked.
‘I was worried. I was suspicious. I was already suspicious about Dani suddenly reappearing – since that first time she turned up at my house, when Gemma and I were in the middle of a panic about O’Brady. I questioned her motives then, certainly. But it also felt so familiar for her to be around again, even though when I did stop to think about why, I was wary. I hadn’t seen Dani in years, and whatever ulterior motive she may have had, in many ways it was nice that she was back. More secure.’
‘Tell me more about why the two of you had parted for so long.’
‘Why do you want to know that?’
‘I think it’s relevant to what’s happened to you. To how you dealt with Alice’s death and everything else since.’
‘The way I see it is that there’s no stronger bond than a blood bond. And the bond between twins is the strongest of them all. I think because of that extreme closeness, any indiscretion is magnified.’
‘How do you mean?’
‘I’ve seen it before, not with twins but with family members. My grandma had three brothers who were all very close in age. When I was a kid growing up, I could never tell the difference between any of them; they all looked and acted the same, I thought. They spent the best part of seventy years as the closest of friends, never moving more than a couple of miles from each other, and they did everything together, even in their adult lives. Then, one day, just like that, two of them fell out. The third brother, a bit of a piggy in the middle I suppose, didn’t want to side with either of them, but despite his best efforts, the other two just refused to see each other anymore. This went on for years and years and I only found out later what it was all about.’
‘What was it?’
‘Take a guess. You’re probably thinking it was money problems or they got into a big fist fight or something like that, right?’
‘Well, it sounds like it would need to be something serious, yes. But I’m assuming your point is that it wasn’t?’
‘That’s my point exactly. One called the other stupid. That was it.’
‘In what context?’
‘It shouldn’t matter what the context was.’
‘It probably does have some bearing, though,’ she said. ‘I can imagine a scenario where someone could say those words with a lot of venom and it could be very hurtful.’
‘But I don’t think it was. From what I understand, it was just a flippant comment, a single remark. The story was that the three of them were sitting in the pub watching football and debating a game that’d just finished. I don’t know exactly what led to the comment, but the one brother called the other one stupid. He then refused to back down, and there was no fight or anything, they just went their separate ways at the end of the night. That was the end of it. After that, they didn’t speak again for something like ten years. Not until they were brought back together when the
third brother died.’
‘Do you think perhaps there’s more to the story than that, though?’ she asked. ‘Maybe the pub incident was just the culmination of a number of other events and troubles.’
‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘And I’m sure with me and Dani that was the case too. There aren’t many specific incidents I can really pinpoint, but we’re siblings, twins, so of course we fought every now and then. My point is, though, maybe it’s the closeness that makes those seemingly small events so much more powerful and hurtful.’
‘You feel like your sister hurt you? Or was it the other way around?’
‘It was probably both. Alice and Dani were best friends. That’s how I met Alice in the first place. I think that was always an awkward dynamic for all three of us. It tested our loyalties in different ways.’
‘Did you feel Dani was more loyal to Alice than she was to you? Is that what you’re saying?’
‘In some ways, yes. In others, no.’
‘And what was the impact of that?’
‘At times it made it hard to properly voice my opinion to either of them. It always felt like I was up against two people rather than one.’
‘How did Alice’s death affect your relationship with Dani? You still saw each other after that?’
‘We did to start with. But we were both grieving. Alice’s death affected us both.’
‘So that was the reason you stopped seeing Dani? Because of Alice’s murder?’
‘It wasn’t just that. Things were difficult for a long time. First Alice was killed. Then, two years later, my dad died of a heart attack while he was out doing the gardening, three days short of his sixty-fifth birthday. The year after that, Mum passed too. Those three deaths of immediate family members so close together turned my whole world upside down. Dani’s too. It changed us both. Just look at what’s happened since.’
‘I imagine such a traumatic time may under other circumstances have brought two siblings closer together, though,’ she said. ‘Why wasn’t that the case for the two of you?’
‘You’re right. It should have done. In the aftermath of Alice’s death and then my parents’, that was exactly the case with Gemma. I was closer to her at that point than I’d ever been before, or since, maybe for that very reason – the trauma brought us closer together.’
‘Was that it then? Your sister felt left out because you had Gemma and she had no-one? I think you said Dani was never good friends with Gemma?’
‘No, I don’t think that was it. I think Mum was the big turning point.’
‘In what way?’
‘She was all on her own by the time she was diagnosed. Her deterioration was so rapid that no-one was really sure what to do. I think in the end both Dani and I felt a certain amount of bitterness and anger toward each other. Dani felt that I didn’t support Mum enough in her final weeks.’
‘Did she say that to you?’
‘No. But I could tell.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘Looking back, maybe I could have done more, but I had a wife and two kids to look after as well. And in those last few weeks I felt as though Mum pushed me out, as though I wasn’t needed or wanted anymore. Mum was so delirious by the end; the dementia that set in had taken such a toll that she no longer recognised me. She often thought I was my dad. Other times she thought I was a doctor or even just a stranger. It was me, her only son, sitting next to her, but she would talk away about me – in the third person – complaining that I never came to see her anymore. She was so unfeeling and bitter in the things she said about me. I’ve never felt so hurt, even though I know, or at least I hope, she didn’t really mean it.’
‘Why did that have an effect on your relationship with Dani?’
‘I don’t know. It’s hard to explain. I know it wasn’t Dani’s fault, but it brought home how much more fond of Dani my mum was compared to me.’
‘Did you ever discuss it with her?’
‘Who?’
‘Dani.’
‘No. Never.’
‘You just went your separate ways?’
‘Yeah. After Mum passed we spoke briefly a few times to arrange the funeral. The last time I saw Dani before the day she turned up at my house was when I hugged her and left her by my mother’s grave.’
The woman shifted in her seat and paused for a few seconds before she asked the next question. I didn’t know why, but I felt like she was skirting around something rather than just coming out and asking me directly what she wanted to know.
‘Do you think those intervening years would have been different for you if Dani had been around?’
‘Undoubtedly. But there’s nothing I can do about that now.’
‘Do you think your life would still have turned out like this?’
‘That’s impossible for me to know.’
‘What did Dani’s reappearance mean for what you had planned? This plan of retribution you had thought out. Your sister’s a police officer and she’d already confronted you about Callum O’Brady.’
‘I knew I hadn’t heard the last from Dani on O’Brady. She’d barely even laid the foundation by that point. But, naively, I felt like I was one step ahead. I was already thinking about how I could get my own back on O’Brady. The two-week deadline he’d given me was nearly up, and there was simply no way I could find the money he wanted in time.’
‘So what was your plan?’
‘Initially? Initially my plan was to ward off O’Brady. To buy myself some more time.’
‘Did that work?’
‘Yes, but not how I’d anticipated.’
‘How so?’
‘I said I thought I was one step ahead of my sister. But the truth was, I was already way behind. I just didn’t know it until it was already too late.’
CHAPTER 35
Three days had passed since the first meeting with Cara. I’d been back to the gym the previous day but she wasn’t around. There was a balance I had to find. I wanted to play it cool, but at the same time I was intent on bumping into her again. With Gemma insistent that she didn’t want me and making it difficult for me to see the children, I needed some positivity in my life. Cara seemed like my best option for that.
This time I was in luck. It was Monday evening and I’d rightly assumed she would be there post-work. We gave each other a cursory smile and hello in the gym but otherwise didn’t speak. After we both finished our separate workouts, I quickly changed and made my way outside to wait for her, determined this time to make the moment count.
As I stood waiting, I felt my phone vibrating in my pocket. I took it out and looked at the screen. A mobile number I didn’t recognise. I debated whether or not to answer. Usually I just ignored calls unless I knew for certain who was on the other end. And even when I did know the caller sometimes I didn’t answer. I’ve just never liked talking on phones. Something about not knowing what the other person was doing, the lack of visual or other cues, made a phone conversation too stilted and awkward. If the call was important, the person would leave a message – that was my theory. This time, though, curiosity got the better of me. Immediately I regretted the decision.
‘Where are you?’ Dani asked.
‘Hello, sister.’
‘No games, Ben. Where are you?’
‘Dani, I’m busy,’ I said. ‘What do you want?’
‘I want you to tell me what you were doing last Thursday night.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’m talking about Andrew Dove.’
Everything around me seemed to go deathly silent. I could almost imagine all the other people in the busy square staring over at me, waiting for my response to Dani’s blunt statement.
‘What?’ I said, trying to sound genuinely confused by the name.
‘Oh, come off it. You know who. I’m not an idiot. I remember who Andrew Dove is. I remember what he did to you.’
‘Of course you do. I remember it too. My point is, why on earth are you bringing
his name up? What does he have to do with anything?’
‘Okay, so we’re going to play it like that, are we?’
‘Play what like what?’
Dani let out a long sigh. ‘Last Thursday night Andrew Dove was beaten up not far from his home and hospitalised.’
‘Wow. That’s terrible. I’d like to say I’m shocked, but you know, I don’t really know him and I never liked what I knew of him, so I’m not really that moved right now by your revelation.’
‘Oh, I’m sure you’re not.’
‘But I still don’t know why you brought this up. This is what you wanted to talk to me about?’
Dani began to laugh. I knew she was just mocking me, but I let her get it out.
‘Good one, Ben,’ she said. ‘Seriously, that’s some great acting you’ve got going on there.’
‘Okay, enough now,’ I snapped. ‘What the hell do you want?’
‘It’s time to stop playing about. I know it was you. You need to tell me what happened.’
I didn’t know how Dani knew, but even if it was just to get her off my back so I could get back to looking out for Cara, I decided it was best to admit to what I had done.
Apparently Dove had ended up in hospital with a broken rib and nose and a cracked eye socket. When Dani reeled off the list of injuries that I’d inflicted, I was strangely impressed with myself. I’d never thought I had that in me. And as far as I was concerned, Dove deserved it. It was retribution.
I was relieved to hear that Dove had no idea who had attacked him. He’d told the police that he’d seen little of the attacker. His description of a dark-clothed male of unspecified race and age included nothing unique to identify me. So my problem wasn’t Dove, it seemed, but instead a random witness sighting – not of the attack but of me lurking around Dove’s house in my car.
The witness had come forward to the police after hearing of Dove’s attack and told officers she’d seen a black BMW coupé ‘acting suspiciously’. Such a vague description would have been written off as nonsense or at best coincidence by the police if it hadn’t been for my sister. Dove’s name in the police report had caught her attention, and the description of a car that was identical to mine had told her all she needed to know. The fact that Gemma had confirmed she had no idea where I was that night only cemented Dani’s suspicions.