‘What will make her happy?’ asked Gabriella, her voice soft with anticipation.
‘Ellie out of her life.’
‘And how do you think she will do that?’
Susanna felt tears spring up behind her eyes. ‘Any way she can. The most devious, calculating, duplicitous way she can devise.’
‘Un-fucking-believable,’ cut in an icy voice.
Startled, Susanna turned, realizing too late that she’d revealed the full extent of her peeling face to the camera. Behind her, Gabriella was grappling with the irritation of the interview being interrupted against what looked like a dramatic turn in the story. She signalled for Paolo to continue filming.
Susanna looked up into the eyes of a woman whom she hadn’t seen in thirty-seven years.
Her mother’s cold, hard gaze made her flinch, and then she spoke.
‘What the hell have you done to your face?’
FORTY-SIX
‘Turn it off!’ shouted Susanna, frantically waving her arms at Paolo until he reluctantly lowered the camera.
‘How much are they paying you for this sordid little tale?’ asked Kathleen.
‘None of your business.’
‘You always would do anything for money.’
Susanna bit back the tears. ‘That is a nasty thing to say. And it’s not true.’
‘Really? Working in some tawdry shop selling clothes?’
‘I had to get a job.’
‘Well, you know why that was.’
‘Yes, because you and Daddy cut me off.’
Kathleen gave Susanna a withering stare. ‘You had your warnings. We said that man was nothing but a cad and we were right. But you still ran off with him. You made your bed, you had to lie in it.’
It was as if it had happened only yesterday, the way her mother was speaking. Susanna was instantly transported back to the young woman she’d been all those years ago, quivering in front of her mother, buckling under the weight of her disapproval. She took a deep breath, tried to regain her composure, then forced herself to look at her.
Kathleen still dressed impeccably but her blonde hair was now all white. She wore it in a different way to what Susanna had been used to – a more age-appropriate bob that showed off her heart-shaped face. But there was something about her mother’s face that shocked Susanna. It was hard, entrenched in bitterness, and for a moment she couldn’t understand why. Then it hit her. Her mother was still angry. Her features had been chiselled over the years by a reaction to something that had happened over three decades ago.
For the first time in her life, Susanna woke up to just how penetrating her mother’s sense of disappointment was. And for a brief second she felt an unexpected flicker of satisfaction, one that withered in fear almost as soon as it had appeared.
‘Why are you here?’ Susanna asked her.
‘Matteo rang me,’ said Kathleen, indicating the door, where Susanna saw him standing, leaning against the frame. On the other side of the room, Gabriella was listening, watching, poised.
‘I think you’d better leave now,’ said Susanna apologetically.
‘But we haven’t finished the interview,’ said Gabriella.
‘Get out of my house,’ said Matteo, holding the door open. Gabriella weighed up arguing it out but, recognizing defeat when she saw it, she gathered up her things and left the room without even a backwards glance, Paolo trailing behind her. Susanna heard Matteo close the front door after them before coming back in.
‘So, are you going to tell me what’s going on here?’ asked Kathleen.
Susanna quivered but held it together. She mustn’t let her mother’s voice, that paralysing tone of disapproval, reduce her to a child again.
‘Well, Abby has spun a load of lies to Ellie and persuaded her to go on the ru—’
‘I know all that,’ snapped Kathleen. ‘I mean, what are you doing to bring my grandchildren back?’
Susanna stared. ‘They’re grown women. Not naughty children. Anyway, the police . . . They’re searching.’
‘And what are you doing?’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Or rather, what have you been doing? To drive them away? Because you have a habit of losing your children, don’t you, Susanna?’
Susanna felt a rush of blood to her head. She glanced up at Matteo, hoping he hadn’t clocked this comment, but he was frowning, looking between the two of them.
‘What did you get in contact with her for?’ Susanna said to him, as she flung her arm towards Kathleen. ‘You had no right bringing her here.’
‘I have every right—’ started Kathleen.
‘Oh, shut up, Mother!’ Susanna caught the look of condemnation on her mother’s face and she dropped her gaze.
‘I phoned Kathleen to try and make sense of everything that’s happened,’ said Matteo. ‘I’m worried about Abby. Kathleen offered to come over and I saw no reason to stop her.’
‘It was quite a shock, hearing Matteo talk about the children – what had happened to Ellie when she was young,’ said Kathleen. ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘You’d cut me out of your life.’
‘I don’t mean for solidarity,’ said Kathleen coldly. ‘I mean, so I could have kept an eye on Abby when she and Ellie came to stay with me. If it was Abby we should have been keeping an eye on, of course.’
Susanna made an effort to stay composed. ‘I’m getting a bit tired of this,’ she said. ‘Abby is at fault here. She is the one who’s hurt Ellie before.’
‘So you say. But I’m inclined to think you’re lying.’
‘I’m not.’
‘You want to know why? This isn’t the first time, is it?’
Susanna felt herself grow hot. Her heart was trying to fight its way out of her chest. ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘I think I do. Because Ben left you too, didn’t he, Susanna? Died when he was just eleven months old.’
FORTY-SEVEN
Her mother was waiting for her to speak. She had the same look on her face as when she’d impatiently waited for Susanna to recite her times tables or spell a word or tell the time. It was a look that said she expected Susanna to get it wrong. And when she did, Susanna would shrivel inside under the scornful eyes, the look of contempt.
Susanna didn’t answer her mother at first. Instead she spoke to Matteo.
‘My second child, Ben, died when he was a baby.’
‘He was poisoned,’ said Kathleen, moving to a chair and lowering herself into it.
‘What my mother is saying is true,’ said Susanna, ‘but not as you are probably thinking. It was an accident, a terrible thing to have happened.’
‘He was fed too much salt,’ said Kathleen. ‘His little body couldn’t cope and he had a brain seizure.’
‘It wasn’t my fault.’
‘You were the one who fed him.’
‘The police didn’t ever charge me. I was in the clear – the whole time. You have no right to speak to me like this.’
Kathleen gave her a hard stare. ‘I’m well aware the police didn’t charge you. And at the time I was relieved. For all your faults I couldn’t imagine you’d have done something so awful. But now I hear about what happened to Ellie, I think they should have delved a little deeper.’
‘You’re not being fair.’
‘I’ve had a bit of time to think since Matteo called me. It’s amazing the clarity your mind can get thirty thousand feet up in the air – no distractions, just time to piece together what had been staring me in the face all those years ago but I failed to see. And I came up with a theory. That man you ran off with . . . Danny. He was already sleeping with his new woman when Ben got poorly. Was it your way of keeping him at home? Make his son ill so that he felt guilty for going off with someone else?’
Susanna gasped. She’d forgotten how cruel her mother could be.
‘Susanna,’ said Matteo. ‘Can you explain to me why your mother is saying all this?’
/> Her eyes blazed. ‘My son, my beautiful baby, died from a salt overdose. At the time I was pregnant with Ellie and, like with all my pregnancies, I was terribly sick. I could barely function, let alone look after two young children. I would . . . I’d feed Ben and Abby with ready meals – I had no idea they contained so much salt.’ She started to well up. ‘If I could change it, I would—’
‘Pah!’ said Kathleen, waving a dismissive hand. ‘I’d bet my last pound there was more salt in his body than just from ready meals. You were frightened of being left alone. You’d made a monumental cock-up by getting shacked up with that money-grasping toad and you saw everything slipping away from you.’
‘It’s not true . . .’
‘Stop lying, girl.’
‘You don’t know what you’re saying.’
‘But Danny left you anyway, didn’t he? His new woman’s money was stronger than anything you could do to keep him. Even if it did mean murdering your own child.’
‘I didn’t murder him.’ Susanna was trembling; she rubbed her shaking hands down her sides. This was unbearable, all this pain dragged up again. Everything she’d tried to bury for so long. She closed her eyes. Maybe it’s time to come clean.
‘You just can’t bear to be left. Can’t stand on your own two feet. Is that why you started on Ellie? You saw her getting a life away from you too? If I’d worked out what happened to Ben, I’d have had those girls taken away from you.’
‘You don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Susanna went to leave the room but her mother shouted after her.
‘I’m going to call the police! Tell them everything.’
Susanna buckled. Turned back to Kathleen. ‘OK, you do that. But first, know what really happened.’
It had the desired effect. Her mother shut up.
‘What do you mean?’ asked Matteo, in the silence that followed.
‘My mother is right,’ said Susanna, her voice cracking. ‘Ben had more salt than in just those ready meals. But it wasn’t me. It was Abby.’
‘You little—’ said Kathleen.
‘No, Mother. It’s true. I have never told anyone this, not in all these years.’ Susanna started to break down. ‘I didn’t see it. I couldn’t stop it, and then it was too late.’
‘Stop what?’ asked Matteo.
‘Abby added salt to Ben’s meals. Over those three days.’
‘She was two years old,’ scoffed Kathleen.
‘It is terrifyingly simple. A teaspoon is enough to kill a child of his age. She was excited at first, at the idea of a baby brother, but when he came along, took up my time, began to crawl, broke her toys, she soon had enough. She would scream at him, and hit him once when he destroyed her Lego.’
Susanna bristled at the sceptical look on her mother’s face. She needs to hear this, she thought. ‘Abby would ask me why I moved the salt cellar off the table when he was old enough to sit with us in his high chair. And I told her. I said it was because salt wasn’t very nice for babies.’ Suddenly Susanna deflated. ‘After he’d died I couldn’t work out how he’d had so much. For years I tormented myself, assuming I’d left the shaker within his reach one time and he’d eaten some. But when I saw Abby putting paracetamol in Ellie’s milk, it all fell into place. She had done it. I’d told her again and again that salt was bad.’ Susanna looked up. ‘But if you’re going to blame anyone, you might as well blame me anyway. I didn’t make her feel she could accept him. I failed her as well as him.’
Susanna glanced at her mother. A new emotion flitted across Kathleen’s face: uncertainty.
‘Call me a bad mother, go ahead. I deserve it. But I am the one who knows my children best. And I’m telling you now, Abby’s never changed. And if you don’t listen to me, then I am convinced Ellie will be harmed. Argue with me all you like but what if you’re wrong? How will you feel then? Because believe me, it’s hell having the death of a child on your conscience.’
FORTY-EIGHT
Around them were fields, miles and miles of green that reached far towards the horizon right to the base of the Pyrenees. The lower slopes of the mountains were covered with evergreens, tiny trees clinging like limpets. There were thousands of them, hiding trails and pathways of the national park. Ellie gazed out of the window, wondering if there were people hidden amongst them. Tourists who’d come to enjoy the great outdoors, ordinary people who had nothing more pressing to do each day than decide where to spend their free time, what pleasures to revel in. Maybe there were people there right now, mountain bikes kicking up soil and dust, a picnic in their panniers. She briefly thought of Fredrik – he seemed like a dream now.
A new track came on the radio. It was the summer hit of the year, an upbeat song with a reggae vibe, and it was played frequently. Ellie thought she must have heard it half a dozen times already that morning. Add that to the quota the day before, and the day before that, and she knew pretty much all the lyrics by heart. A summer anthem that, as all anthems did, would bring back memories. Ellie tried to picture the future but came up with a blank. Would she be back at school, helping disinterested teens with the intricacies of natural global ecosystems? It felt like a lifetime ago that she had been in a classroom – an ordinary life that she could no longer grasp.
The car hummed along. The track finished on the radio. The road ahead still beckoned. On and on and on. There had been very few other cars – only the occasional vehicle had passed them. Most likely kept to the motorways and the trunk roads. Certainly no police had materialized. Ellie had a sense of being utterly lost and alone. No one knew where they were. No one was coming to save her. The chance she’d created, the opportunity she’d offered up, had been squandered. Just think, if Abby had stayed asleep for just ten, fifteen minutes more, they would have been caught. They would be in a police station right now, separated. They’d be being interviewed. She’d be safe.
‘I need to pee,’ said Abby, wriggling in her seat.
Ellie glanced down at the map. It was a little easier to read now; the blurring had abated. There were no towns or villages for miles.
‘Layby?’ she suggested.
A mile or so on, there was a stopping point. Abby pulled the car in and turned off the engine.
‘Won’t be a moment,’ she said and jumped out. She ran around the car and behind some brush that made a natural cover. Ellie looked in the wing mirror – she could just see the top of Abby’s head as she squatted.
In a minute she’ll be back, she’ll get in the car again. We’ll drive off, covering more miles – until what? Ellie hated the not knowing; it made her restless. She found it hard to understand her sister would want to hurt her – but she found it equally hard to dismiss her mother’s warnings. The most difficult thing of all was grappling with the idea that her sister had a gun. That cold weapon in her handbag. She tried to reason why Abby might have it. Bears? Ridiculous. Safety? They were in Europe, for God’s sake, not Colombia. Ellie couldn’t equate the person she thought she knew with this person with a gun. Before now, if she’d seen her sister with a gun, she’d have thought she didn’t know her at all.
Which, now she thought about it, she didn’t. Not really. And here she was, going along for the ride like a total idiot. Waiting for her sister to show her cards. In the mirror Abby was pulling her shorts back up.
No one is going to rescue me. Ellie got a surge of adrenaline, suddenly furious at being at Abby’s beck and call. She turned to the back seat. This couldn’t carry on. The not knowing was driving her insane. She pulled Abby’s old blue bag towards her, unzipped it. She felt the cold metal in her hands. Then she stepped out of the car and lifted the weapon, just as Abby was walking back towards her.
Abby stopped dead. Ellie looked at her sister, saw fear and confusion spreading across her face. She glanced down at the gun, wondered if she was holding it right. She wasn’t sure if she really meant to point it at Abby, but what else could she do?
For a moment, neither of them spoke. Then Ellie thought – as
she had the upper hand, so to speak – that she’d start.
‘I found this,’ she said, waving the gun, noting Abby flinch as she did so. ‘What’s it for?’
‘Jesus, Ellie, put it down.’ Abby raised her hands, palms outwards in a calming motion. Then she started to walk towards her, which annoyed Ellie. Her sister was so bloody dismissive.
‘Stop!’ she instructed. ‘Do not move. Do not treat me like an idiot.’
Abby folded her arms, which irritated Ellie further. She raised the gun higher and Abby’s face fell instantly.
Good, thought Ellie. Now you know what it feels like to wonder what’s going to happen. For a brief moment Ellie wondered why she hadn’t just asked Abby about the gun, but then in her newfound clarity realized Abby could have simply lied.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Abby.
‘I just want to know the truth,’ said Ellie. ‘Why are you driving miles with me, with a gun in your bag?’
‘This is silly . . .’ Abby had begun to walk towards her again.
‘I mean it,’ said Ellie, realizing too late the fear had now transferred from Abby and settled within herself. Is that what guns did?
‘Put it down.’
‘Tell me,’ said Ellie, raising her voice. ‘What are you doing with this? What’s the big secret you’re keeping from me?’ She aimed this time, properly. Closed one eye and felt the trigger under her finger.
FORTY-NINE
‘Ellie, don’t do this,’ pleaded Abby.
‘For once, Abby, not everything is going your way. I am sick and tired of being treated like a lesser individual, the one who can’t compete with her oh-so-brilliant sister. You are going to tell me what’s going on here.’
‘You know,’ said Abby.
‘Was it you?’
Her sister was confused. ‘Was what me?’
Ellie made sure she kept the gun raised. ‘Was it you who poisoned me when we were children?’
The look on Abby’s face seemed genuine enough. It was one of total and utter shock.
Sisters Page 17