Care For Me: A tense and engrossing psychological thriller for fans of Clare Mackintosh

by Farah Cook

  I then spotted Dr Khan at a wedding in Glasgow. He matched the exact description the girls still gossiped about. Tall, handsome, bearded, with a flirtatious smile. What’s not to like and to chatter about? On further eavesdropping, I learned that the sharif ladki he had married was a drop-out nurse, an Amira Malik from Inverness. At first, I didn’t think much of it. But then I heard that she worked as a carer looking after her mum, Afrah Malik. It was easy putting the pieces together after that.

  Was I emotional? Sure. Did I shed tears of joy? Absolutely not. Anger and resentment spiralled inside me. The old feelings that took me years of self-therapy to get over, resurfaced. I began remembering what had happened on the night of the fire. How Dad gave his life up to save me. How I crawled out at the back and escaped death. Naima’s mum took me in and, once I was gone, presumed dead to the world, I remained dead. I took on a new identity, a new life, which Naima’s dad sorted out for me in the blink of an eye. Naima’s mum taught me the important principles of revenge and how sweet it is when put into practice. No one knows revenge like she does, and so I began to work on my master plan when I discovered that Mum had lived a seemingly idyllic life with the little brat somewhere in Inverness. The problem with a life like that is, it gets mundane. I saw it as my duty to make Mum’s life colourful.

  The first seed of a lie I planted was when I told my circle of people to tell my sister’s ex-husband’s circle of people that I was a caring nurse. An important first step, which I called the initiation stage. Then I googled Dr Haroon Khan from Inverness, and dropped him an email introducing myself as a friend of his family from Glasgow. I never met his family. But he doesn’t know that. The second seed of a lie was to let him casually know that I was looking for work. Could he please get back to me if he heard of any open positions in health care? I sent him various documents. Highly impressive letters of recommendations, all fake, of course, and easy enough for me to forge. All part of my plan, which worked in my favour. He said, ‘She’s the best carer out there.’ And I particularly needed him to say that to Amira.

  He told me about his ex-wife, Amira Malik, who also worked as carer. The third seed of a lie I told him was about the carers support group. ‘Make sure to tell your ex-wife to become a member, Dr Khan. We carers need caring, too.’ I sent him a traceable link to the forum site and sat back watching the online activity patiently. Who joined, who wrote what, who was caring for whom. I did this for months under different names and spoke to a bunch of very depressed and desperate carers. None of them were Amira Malik. I cracked my fingers every day and typed to random people online, scanning for any new members that had joined. Then I saw a new member, who went by the name Nursemira. And bingo. The link I had sent to Dr Khan traced back to an email from amirakhan@onlinewebmail.com.

  I typed a message. ‘Hey love, welcome to the forum, nice seeing a new member join.’ She replied hesitantly, apologising for being new. ‘Don’t worry, so am I. Where are you from?’ She said she lived in the Highlands. Our chat went on and on – I call this the ‘warm-up’ stage. I wanted to gain her trust, and dropped in that my name was Meena Bashir. I told her it felt so impersonal not giving out your real name. There was a long pause before she wrote back. ‘I’m Amira Khan, nice to meet you, Meena.’ I knew that wasn’t true. I knew she was the Amira Malik after she had revealed bits of information about Mum and how it had always just been the two of them and no one else after her dad died at young age. But she didn’t know that I knew who she really was. Just like she didn’t know I wasn’t the real Meena Bashir.

  Meena exists only as a fictional echo. She was the idea of a good girl with a bad side. And I know all about how to create a good girl gone bad. When I was little, Mum nickednamed me Meena, and used to call me Meri Meena all the time. She disapproved of Mona, thought the name was untraditional and brought shame to her Kashmiri heritage. She never called me by my real name. So in her eyes, I remained her innocent little Meena.

  Being someone I am not comes easy to me.

  A while ago, I hired a timid Bangladeshi woman called Meena Bashir to look after Naima’s mum who became my new mum, Sultana. It was easy sorting her visa and papers to get her from Bangladesh to Scotland. Before Naima’s dad died, he taught me all about forging documents. That’s how I stayed alive, not as Mona Malik but as someone else. Mona died after the fire in Glasgow. May she rest in peace.

  Meena Bashir is my new cover up, a stolen identity I am using to execute my plan. We’ll get to that later. I wanted to give Meena Bashir all the qualities Mona Malik never had. Sweet, gentle and kind-hearted. Meena Bashir is understanding and helpful, a real true friend in need. Meena Bashir has a father who suffers from dementia and whom she tenderly and selflessly cares for. That makes her likeable. I typed in, ‘Nice meeting you, Amira. What a beautiful name.’ I call this the ‘forging a friendship’ stage. I asked her several questions, and she didn’t hold back, like most carers in the chat forum, when it came to sharing her years of frustration our mother had caused her. Mum’s stubbornness – her behaviour didn’t seem to have changed. I pitied my baby sister and mirrored my own frustration back: ‘My dad pees in his bed. He leaves a mess everywhere. He doesn’t listen. He is so forgetful.’ All the usual tropes I had picked up during my months of activity chatting to hundreds of carers. I call this the ‘initial research’ stage.

  I would glance over my plan and tick off the boxes on my to-do-list.

  Step one: Before I set up my account – becoming Meena Bashir in the support group for carers – I will test my skills chatting to other carers to get as much information I can about patients with dementia. Speak to carers. Gather information. Tick.

  Step two: pick the perfect name. Something innocent, yet catchy. How about Thelonelymouse? Most of the carers are lonely, depressed and suffer from mental health issues of their own. The name Thelonelymouse instantly evokes sympathy and I have had hundreds of carers reach out to me. Tick

  Step three: once identified, make contact and establish a long-term friendship to gain Amira’s trust. It wasn’t difficult to gain the little brat’s trust. She was always so vulnerable. Tick.

  As I sit here in the comfort of my chair, I glance over my master plan and it almost seems too easy. Amira will practically walk into my trap. She has no idea what’s coming. All I have to do is lean back and watch the mistakes she is about to make.

  Chapter 38

  AMIRA

  Tuesday, 24 December 2019

  I wake at the crack of dawn and find myself cold to the bone. Dry blood peels off my forehead, where the split wound aches. Quickly, I try to orientate myself. I’ve crashed Nadia’s car into a ditch. A dead deer lays sprawled on the bonnet, its wide eyes glaring right at me. I switch the windshields off to stop the awful scraping sound. I search for my phone and find it on the passenger seat. Every muscle in my body aches and is stiffened by the freezing temperature. A frigid cold. I grab my phone and push open the door.

  ‘Come on, come on.’ I need a signal. Nothing. I have two energy bars left before my phone runs out of battery. I start off slowly towards the care home. The road is dark – only a faint light from the sky is visible, the rest is overshadowed by the wind-blown trees dressed in snow. I have to keep moving. I have to get to Mum. I fiddle with my phone, swiping the broken screen. Still no signal. I can’t even reach 999.

  The road seems never-ending. Barren and desolate; no one is out here. There’s no hope of any seeing any car either. People are home, safe with their families celebrating the holidays with their loved ones. Something is out there in the dark – a four-legged creature moving, rustling through the woods. It’s a deer. I don’t just see one. I see another and another. Two more join, then three. I must have hit may head harder than I thought. There’s a large flock, probably hundreds of them now, and more keep coming with each blink of my eyes. I tuck my hands into my pockets, my ears touching my shoulders. I start to run as fast as I can and skid across the icy road.

  The snow keeps fal
ling and falling. I turn around and see no deer in sight. But I keep running. I don’t stop till I reach Ravenswood Lodge.

  I walk up the winding road and pass through the arched branches. The white trail up the hill leads to the house. I hear the tides slap against the cliffs, and then slowly ripple back to the bay. My breath forms plumes of smoke curling against the distant belt of trees. I go past the black gates, reach a deserted garden. No one is in sight. There is not even light in the windows, except for one – coming from the tower.

  ‘Hello? Can you hear me?’

  There’s movement behind the curtain. Somebody is inside the house. I reach the front stoop and climb the stairs to the main door and press the bell, but there’s no answer. I call again. ‘Open the door, if you can hear me.’ Where is everyone? I stand outside like a ghost and ring the bell again. Still no answer. Did I miss something? I check my phone. 24th December. Of course. The care home is closed. It’s shut down for two days over the holidays. Panic surges through me. Where is Mum?

  I hear screams coming from the tower. Somebody shouts, ‘Help me. Please help me.’

  It’s Mum’s voice. She is in danger.

  I lift one of the flower pots at the front of the house and throw it through the window, smashing it into pieces. I climb through carefully. I am inside the house; my feet crunch on the broken window glass. It’s silent. I press against the floorboards, my weight releasing the sound of old creaking wood as I walk into the hallway. Outside, the snowstorm plays hide-and seek. The wind batters the windows, slipping a bitter sea breeze under the quivering doors.

  I walk up the staircase and stop in the middle to pull out my phone, which has reception again. I answer the incoming call from Haroon. There’s panic in his voice.

  ‘Where are you? I am worried sick about you, and so is Shaf.’

  ‘I’m OK, don’t worry about me. I’m at the care home. I need you to drive up here as soon as you can.’

  ‘What’s going on, Mira? Didn’t you get any of my messages?’

  ‘I had no reception. Listen, something bizarre is going on. I heard Mum screaming for help. No one is here all the staff and patients are gone and—’

  ‘Mira, I can’t. I am at the hospital. Nadia went into labour last night. I sent you a message about your sister, Mona. I made some enquires and Mira, the police never recovered a body. There’s a grave next to your father in Glasgow, but it’s empty—’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Your father was friends with a wealthy Pashtun family. I don’t know them, but a friend of a friend of my relatives in Glasgow knew their daughter, Naima. She lives somewhere in America now, married to—’

  ‘Get to the point, Haroon.’

  ‘They had just one daughter who went to the same school as your sister. I believe they were friends. After the fire, the Pashtun family adopted a girl said to be from Pakistan. She was fourteen years old. The same age your sister was when she was presumed dead.’

  ‘What are you saying? That she’s alive, and all this time lived with this Pashtun family as their daughter?’

  ‘Yes,’ he sighs heavily. ‘It sounds crazy I know, but—’

  ‘Haroon, that’s nuts.’ Or is it? The diary entries. Mona was close the Pashtun family. She defied Mum, just so she could be with Naima, who she admired. But why would she do that? Why refuse your own mother and pretend to be dead? What did Mum do that was so terrible that my sister chose to fake her death for more than thirty years?’

  ‘You won’t believe what’s next. I got hold of a picture of the girl the Pashtuns adopted and sent to boarding school. It’s a school picture. But I wanted to see if I could spot any similarities between her and you. And Mira, she is a spitting image of you. Mona didn’t die. She is alive. I am sending you the photo right now. See for yourself. Do you recognise her?’

  I hold back the phone. A picture comes through. But I can barely see it through my cracked screen. ‘Haroon? Are you there? Hello? Answer me.’

  ‘Mira, did you get it? Yes, I am still here. Have you seen the photo?’

  ‘No, my screen is cracked.’

  ‘Mona changed her name and goes by—’

  My phone dies on him. Fuck.

  ‘Help! Somebody help me get out of here.’ I hear a faint voice.

  ‘Mum?’ I rush up the stairs, and swing open the door to her room. My mouth falls open. The walls all have the same writing in different neon colours. I know what you did.

  ‘Mum, what the hell did you do?’

  I hear her loud screams and turn up towards the tower.

  The staircase is dark, there’s not a flicker of light. I hold tight against the railing, pulling myself up in all my heaviness as if I were a sinking anchor. In the long corridor, there are doors to my right and doors to my left. One at the far end squeaks open and a tall lanky shadow steps out in the vein of a yellow pool of light. My heartbeat quickens. I want to believe someone is there and that I am not imagining things again. After the car crash, I feel dizzy. Disoriented. The tiredness makes my frustration boil over. I rub my eyes, hot and dry. Someone is definitely there. I stand in the dark hallway holding my breath and listen to the sound from the tower. It is a rising cry coming from Mum’s weak voice.

  ‘Help me!’

  For a moment, I completely freeze. I want to shout, I am coming, but there’s a lump in my throat, lodged with fear. I am unable to speak. I shiver, feeling goose pimples grow on my arms.

  I take one hesitant step backwards, and the shadow steps forward. This person is real and not a fabrication of my imagination. Suddenly, I can’t seem to quell the unease rising inside me. I clearly see the shadow now slowly stepping towards me. I grab the door handle to my right and wrench it to open, but it’s locked. The shadow stops, and I feel glowing eyes through the dark burning at me. It is silent and cold, and the curtains behind me billow. The wind sweeps in from the open window, slashing ice against my back. It is as though I’m back in the local church, in the Carers Support Group, in the corridor where a shadow stood watching me, just as I am being watched now. I open the door handle to my left, which is also locked. Shit. I am trapped in this house and my fear takes over.

  I’m caught up in a new but familiar feeling as I was on the Bridge of Oich, surrounded by the fog, when I heard the scraping noise of nails grinding the rail of the bridge. I hear it clearly again and see threadlike bare arms stretched out. It is that same aggravating sound of nails scraping against the wall. My sweaty hands press against my thighs. A tight blow of energy pulses through me. My stomach flips over as tension rises inside of me. I sense an air of stress in the void. All sort of emotions tumble inside me and I lose my sense of place just for a second before I realise where I am again.

  A cold shiver peels down my spine. I am inside Ravenswood Lodge Care Home. No one is here except for me, Mum and the shadow standing across from me at the other end of the hallway. My pulse is thumping, my thoughts shooting off with a mixture of paranoia and superstitions about the house, its ghostly stories, which Diya shared with me. I am looking at no ghost. The person glaring at me is real and not some woman in white haunting the house and its visitors. Plumes of breath circle around the figure whose long bony fingers stretch out at me through the shiny blackness. My limbs go stiff as the person gets closer.

  ‘Who is there?’ I call out.

  As it approaches, I see the shadow becomes visible, taking the shape of a woman with long dark hair flaring in the wind. I hear the sound of creaking leather and stand face to face with her. She looks right at me and an unkind smile appears on her lips. I move back, grab the curtains, pull them to one side. A stream of daylight casts light on her face.

  I take in her features. The crown of her head. A set of rising brows. Her nose, a fine line, with a glinting silver ring around the nostril. She throws back her hair that slides down her back. She gives me a curious glimpse, eyes glittering. There’s a pinched look on her pale face. A long silence wraps around us as our gazes deepen. She
is taller than me, slim and bony. My heart beats hard inside my chest like it’s going to explode anytime now and tear out of my skin.

  ‘Hello, little brat,’ she says in a cold distant voice. ‘We finally meet again.’

  Suddenly I hear Haroon’s voice saying:

  Mona didn’t die. She is alive.

  My breath catches in my throat as I stare at the woman.

  What is Mum’s carer Zahra Akram doing here?

  Chapter 39

  AFRAH

  Saturday, 15th August 1992

  I go through the checklist again, eyeing the groceries on the kitchen counter. Yoghurt and cucumber for the raita. Food colouring – yellow, green and red – for the sweet chawal. And almonds. I’d have to peel them. I thought I asked him to get me peeled ones. Mrs Singh gets hers from the shop, why can’t I? I won’t go upstairs and wake him. Let him have his nap before they arrive. What else did he get? Raisins. Coconut, poppy seeds. Chillies and curcumin powder. Garam masala. Where are the cumin seeds and bay leaves? I need all the ingredients if I am to cook the perfect chawal and korma. Mona loves Korma. I’ll make an extra-large portion. I pull out the diced chicken breast from the fridge.

  My eyes shift and I put the list down. The minute hand pacing away on the clock. The guests will soon be here, and no sign of Meena. Where has that ladki gone? I flatten the pleats of my sari. This won’t do. I go upstairs and quickly change into the wool shalwar kameez, a new set Mother sent from Pakistan. Although we’re in mid-July, it’s too cold to wear cotton. It shouldn’t itch. It wouldn’t. Saeeda Begum wore wool last Sunday when I saw her in masjid. First time I set foot in Glasgow Central Mosque and already they’re asking when I will send my children to the Muslim school. Let them ask, Nadeem said. It’s what they do.

  Saeeda Begum kept asking me about Sultana, of course, the Durrani family know about our fall out with the Pashtuns. Gossip spreads fast in our community. Let them talk. I’ll cook a dinner for them to remember. From the pantry, I reach for the crate of yellow mangoes Mother sent, along with the spices and namkeen. A refreshing lassi goes well served with the sweet chawal. The Durrani family have one son. A handsome boy Mona’s age.