by A J Waines
She stroked the bag, a dreamy look on her face.
‘Richard’s brother, Greg, caused the crash, by the way,’ she added with a sigh. ‘He was after Max’s violin. He took my viola, too, because he thought it might be valuable, but of course, in itself, it wasn’t. He didn’t know about the hidden fortune.’
I was still trying to process what she was telling me when I felt something cold against my neck. I swallowed hard as she ran the point of a blade down to my throat.
‘Rosie, stop…’
She must have had it in the bag.
‘This is how we can be joined together, Sam,’ she said. ‘Just two little cuts – I’ve seen people do it in films – then we let our blood run together. It won’t hurt – well, maybe just a bit.’
I lay still, frigid with fear.
‘Rosie, don’t, this is dangerous.’
‘Lovely skin,’ she cooed. ‘Where do you think we should be joined, Sam? You choose.’ She pressed the point into the skin behind my ear. ‘Here?’
‘Rosie, you’re hurting…’
‘Yes, I know. But love does hurt sometimes, doesn’t it? Here?’ She ran the blade flat across my cheek.
How many seconds before she broke the skin? Rosie was in a bubble of her own; deranged, capable of anything.
That’s when I heard the sirens.
Chapter 50
Sam
Rosie scrabbled onto her knees in front of me, the knife under my chin – it trembled as she started to shake. She’d heard the sirens too.
I had to act quickly. Think.
I was no match for her physically with my damaged ankle and swimming vision and I’d only make things worse if I tried to fight back. Instead, I needed to call on all my experience with disturbed patients to forge my way out of this, before the sounds of rescuers in the building made her panic.
There had to be something; a clue tucked away in her childhood, on that day her life was turned upside down when she was seven, perhaps.
I took a chance. ‘I need to ask you something,’ I said, trying to keep my voice even.
‘What?’ The knife was tickling my throat.
‘On that terrible day…your father could easily have turned the air rifle on you, like you said…’
‘I know. Maybe he ran out of pellets.’
‘No. I looked at the reports online and there were pellets left. The report said the rifle was capable of firing twenty shots, one after another.’
‘So, there were five pellets left…’
‘That’s what it said.’
‘Hmmm…’ She was breathing into my face.
The sirens were suddenly deafening, then they stopped.
I had a sudden flash of inspiration. ‘You said your father didn’t love you, but did it ever occur to you that he loved you too much to take you with him?’
She drew her face away from mine. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, if he’d taken you with him, you would never have had the chance grow up or enjoy a life of your own. Taking you with him meant condemning you to everlasting darkness and he didn’t want that.’
She examined my face, taking in what I’d just said.
‘He had five shots left and he couldn’t bring himself to rob you of your life,’ I said. ‘He couldn’t take away your chance of happiness. He couldn’t do it to you.’
‘Because…because…’
‘Because he loved you. Because he couldn’t bear to make you suffer.’
‘But…I thought it was because he didn’t want me enough to take me with him.’ She spoke slowly, examining her words as they came out.
‘No. That’s how a seven-year-old would understand it. You saw it as pure rejection back then, but in his own way, in the only way he knew, your father was protecting you.’
‘So, you’re saying he stopped firing because he wanted to save me?’
‘Exactly.’
Her face quivered with doubt while she considered it.
In the next moment something lit up behind her eyes. Suddenly the whole world wasn’t the way she’d thought it was.
She stifled a sob. Then she gave herself up to it, letting everything out with an ear-splitting howl, like an animal. Her body shook in spasms as she clung to me, wailing helplessly.
‘It’s okay,’ I whispered as I wrapped my arms around her. The knife was still in her grasp. I could hear the thuds and shouts in the corridors getting closer.
‘So, he loved me…’ she gasped. ‘That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, he did love you in his own way. And he couldn’t bear to pull the trigger to end your life.’
‘Oh, God – I never realised…’
Sometimes therapy was like that. Life-changing breakthroughs could burst out into the light in the blink of an eye, smashing open lifelong misconceptions.
Rosie wept again, grieving for all that could have been, drowning in the realisation that for years she’d seen every memory of her childhood through a distorted mirror.
I closed my eyes, worn down and weary, contemplating the hours she’d spent feeling hurt as a result of the far-reaching damage her father’s actions had caused.
As she finally relaxed, still leaning against me, the knife slithered to the floor. I kicked it under the waste basket and waited for the door to open.
Outside, I pulled away from the paramedic as she tried to wrap me in a blanket and make me sit down. Miranda’s charred body was being trundled away on a trolley and I needed to be by her side. There was a mask over her mouth and a paramedic was taking her pulse.
‘But she’s…she’s…’ I said.
I needed to tell them they were wasting their time. I wanted them to leave her in peace.
‘We’re doing all we can,’ said one of medics, with a sympathetic smile.
‘I know…but it’s too late…’ I gripped the edge of the stretcher as they lifted her up into the ambulance. Miranda was just a shell now, her eyes were closed, her body having shut out the rest of the world forever.
‘Please…leave her alone…she’s gone…let her be.’
I wanted to drag her body into my arms, but I had no strength left. They would take her away and from this moment on, for the rest of my life, I’d be without her.
It seemed impossible. Not my sister. Not after all she’d been through. All that sparky, crazy, adorable spirit that made Miranda such a huge part of my life.
I grabbed hold of the door to the ambulance. It was all I could do not to sink to the ground in a crumpled heap.
Then came the most miraculous words I’d ever heard.
‘Stand back. Her pulse is weak, but she’s alive.’
‘What?’ I stared in amazement, flooded with disbelief and elation at what I’d thought was my sister’s lifeless face. ‘But she…she wasn’t…’
‘Come on…climb in,’ the woman said, giving me a hand up. ‘She was so heavily sedated that she probably couldn’t respond when you found her.’
My hand was over my mouth. I couldn’t utter a word. Beside her in the ambulance, I cried my heart out. I really thought I’d lost her.
As Miranda was wheeled away to begin her recovery, I was being checked over in A&E. I didn’t have concussion, just a throbbing bruise on the back of my head, a few cuts on my face from the broken window and a nasty cough from the fumes, for a few days.
Over the next few days, Con and I took turns to sit by Miranda’s bedside in intensive care. We watched her damaged body writhe and squirm as the sores and blisters raged under their dressings. Her eyes stayed shut, while machines helped her breathe. There were problems with her respiratory system, thermal damage and pulmonary irritation, but the doctors were optimistic about her recovery.
During those hours, my hurt pride and resentment about my sister being with Con melted away for good. What really mattered was that Miranda had the chance to live her life to the full and be happy – and I was grateful beyond belief that I had her back. It was clear Con really care
d about her and I had to admit they appeared to share more of a connection than he and I ever did.
She didn’t stir for hours at a time. Then, on the third day, she suddenly let out a faraway moan. After that she muttered in her sleep, whispering funny little phrases such as ‘sequin feathers’ and ‘fountain lady’. She was coming back.
Part of me wanted her to stay where she was, in some dreamy promised land. I knew that as soon as she woke up she’d feel terrible pain. All the same, I felt blessed that I was there when she opened her eyes. She asked me what time it was, then said, ‘I could murder a sausage roll.’
Chapter 51
Sam
I’ll never know how it happened, but when the fire officer had finally helped me up from the floor of the gents’ toilet at the Arts Project, Rosie was nowhere in sight. Only the cats and dogs canvas bag was left lying on the floor. She’d managed to slip away from the scene of the crime once again.
The police had called me in that same day. They’d assured me Rosie’s time was up. They were convinced that the new evidence put her well and truly in the frame for Erica’s death. The scuffs on the stairs matched damage to a pair of Rosie’s boots and a local window cleaner had come forward to say he’d thought Rosie was Erica’s home help, as he’d seen her let herself into the house more than once. It was all there, it just needed piecing together.
The police assured me Rosie couldn’t go far. In her rush to get away, she’d left her credit cards, her phone and another mobile I recognised as Miranda’s in the canvas bag. Rosie only had what she was carrying in her pockets. They’d launched a ‘manhunt’, confident she’d be in custody in a matter of hours. They promised to ring me the moment they brought her in.
If Rosie went back to her flat in Streatham the police would stop her, they said. She didn’t even have the keys to get in – they were also in the bag, next to a set of my old ones.
Still inside the bag, too, was the smashed viola and the rare stamp. She hadn’t even taken those precious things with her.
I couldn’t work out whether Rosie had left the bag with me for safekeeping or abandoned it for good. She must have known the police would be closing in on her. They were now keen to question her about Greg’s death, too. It was the end of the line for her.
Nevertheless, hours turned into days and still I didn’t get the call.
If I’d learnt anything from this experience, it was that sometimes, with the best will in the world, you can’t save everyone. Likewise, even the best psychologist in the world can’t always predict what people will do.
I finally needed to come to terms with this where Joanne was concerned, as well as with Rosie. I wasn’t a mind-reader and could only do what I thought was right in any given circumstances. Perhaps, too, I had to learn this same lesson on a deeper level with Miranda.
One thing was certain, I needed to be kinder to myself. Grant myself some slack. I had to grasp that sometimes my best would never be enough.
Once Miranda was discharged from hospital, I returned to my flat feeling like I was coming home from a gruelling expedition through the desert. My bones ached; I was knackered from spending hours in a plastic hospital chair, propping my eyelids open at Miranda’s bedside, and I was emotionally wrung out.
I thought I’d lost my sister.
With indentations still visible on my neck from Rosie’s knife, I’d been lucky to get out in one piece, myself.
When I let myself in, I stood with the door ajar and listened. Rosie had only ever had my old keys, so she couldn’t possibly be inside, but even so, with Rosie, you could never be entirely certain.
I waited a while, heard nothing, then shut the door. I dropped my bag on the sofa and went straight to bed. I crawled under the duvet without undressing, but sleep didn’t come. Instead, I lay staring at the map of cracks on the ceiling, mulling over the pieces of the puzzle that had snapped into place, following my interview with the police.
I’d told them what I knew about the stamp and the smashed viola Rosie had left behind and it linked up to their interview with Karl Hinds after the crash. They told me that when the police raided the Hinds’ property in 2001 and Mick Blain had made a run for it, Karl was the first one to get to him on the forecourt after he fell from the drainpipe. In his dying breath, Mick had muttered something about Rosie and a ‘fortune under the bridge’. Karl didn’t have a clue what it meant at the time, but during the quartet’s second visit, something must have clicked.
It made sense. During one of my sessions with Rosie, I remembered that she’d mentioned Karl asking the quartet if they were each playing the same instruments, during the second visit, as they’d had in 2001. He wanted to make sure Rosie had the same viola.
Karl also admitted to the police that he’d made a call to one of his associates about Rosie’s ‘fortune’. That must have been the phone conversation Rosie remembered hearing the day of the crash. It was the stamp Karl was after when he followed the van, that afternoon. Only it plunged into the lake before he could get his hands on it.
I pulled the duvet up tightly under my chin and followed one of the cracks from the light fitting all the way to the wall, trying to figure out where Rosie might be and what she was up to.
Who would she turn to? How long would it be before the police caught up with her?
Chapter 52
Rosie
Dear Sam
I’m at London Bridge Tube station, near St Luke’s Hospital, because I have a journey to make. I had to come here. It’s the only station that has any proper connection to you. I need to write this letter, then I’ll leave you alone, I promise.
Memories are fickle, don’t you think? Greg accused me of being in on the plan to crash the van from the start, so he could get his hands on the violin amidst the mayhem, but hand on heart, I can’t remember any plan. He had a map in my handwriting, but I could have drawn it afterwards. I can’t believe I had a hand in it. I’d never have risked all our lives, never have risked losing my viola in order to steal Max’s violin. Besides, I would never have come to you – to get my memories back, would I – if I’d been involved?
Although, I hate to admit it, but his story kind of makes sense. I won’t believe a word of it, though, unless I get those memories back – the ones of the conversations I’m supposed to have had with Greg. Only you’re not there to help me with that, are you? So I don’t see how I’ll ever really know.
Anyway, Greg paid the ultimate price. You might have heard he was stabbed and I’m afraid to say I was the one who did it. I know it wasn’t my place to pay him back, but he really did ask for it. You wouldn’t have liked him.
The police have stopped looking for Richard now. I meant to tell you. I think he’s lost forever. Strange, isn’t it?
Now, to the real reason I’m writing to you.
I tried very hard to be the sort of person I thought you’d like, Sam - the kind of person you’d want as a sister or best friend, but I can see it wasn’t enough. You don’t feel the same way. I know that now. To you, I was only ever a patient. I wanted so much for us to be together, for you to be my soul-sister, and now I know that isn’t going to happen.
I’m sorry for the way things ended. I didn’t mean to frighten you – but everything was going so wrong. Erica once said I was like two sides of a coin; I could flip between loving a person to hating them in no time at all. I think I know what she means – I’m a bit like my dad, don’t you think? What happened to Erica was a terrible shame – she caught me unawares and I’m afraid I panicked. It was unfortunate, I admit, but I wasn’t attached to her like I am to you. I’m sorry I had to keep it from you. I wanted to tell you about it, but I knew it would only have come between us.
Sorry for the other things too. I didn’t set out to hurt Miranda, I just wanted her out of the picture so we could be together.
When you revealed the truth to me about my dad, you gave me the BEST gift I’ve ever had in my life. Did you know that? What you said about him makes the
world of difference. It means I can forgive you, in the end, for not wanting to be my friend. It means I can forgive my dad and let go of all the rage and hurt I’ve felt, thinking he didn’t want me.
Knowing my father actually LOVED me, after all – it changes everything. I thought he didn’t love me enough to take me with him when he died but, like you said, he loved me TOO MUCH to want to end my life. Wow – what a revelation! I didn’t know therapy could be so powerful. I can never thank you enough for that.
Anyway, my gift to you is inside the canvas bag. Who would have thought there were two mysteries to solve at the Lakes – the violin Greg stole and the stamp Mick Blain would have come back for, if he hadn’t fallen to his death? You can sell the stamp, keep it or give it to the police – whatever you like. I don’t mind. It’s yours.
I’ve thought about what to do next, long and hard. My first thought was to go and find Mum and Dad. That’s why I came to the station. I was going to wait for a train so I could make that special, final journey to see if they’d have me – second time around. To see if we could start again.
But I’ve changed my mind. I’m going to do the right thing, instead, and hand myself in to the police. I’ve told them I’m on my way.
That’s where you come in.
I’ve told them you’ll vouch for me. I think once they know the whole story, they’ll understand. I didn’t set out to hurt anyone, after all. You know that, don’t you?
The police will want to be in touch with you soon, no doubt, so you can explain everything. I know you’ll do your best to make them see that I’m a good person.
I know I can count on you, Sam.
I will love you always.