by Emma Rowley
“What’s that?”
“Some blogger . . .”
Olivia didn’t give her surname then—later, she used Hayes once married—but I knew. This was my sister, Livvy.
All that time, I had hoped she was OK, wondering how she had been doing without us—without me—but she was fine. More than fine. Like a pilot light switching on, my anger started to burn.
I didn’t do anything for a long time. I was busy, with work, then dealing with Granddad, then Gran, slipping away in their usual quiet ways.
But as the years passed, I only had more questions. The severed ties, my mother’s silence . . . there had to be something more to the story.
And so I started to consider approaching her, seriously. I wrote an e-mail, a practical message about our grandparents’ estate, that I never sent. It wasn’t what I wanted to say. I thought about turning up on her doorstep. Would she fall on my shoulders, crying? Or turn me away? I couldn’t picture either scenario.
In the end, a chance comment from my agent gave me the idea. Whose story do you want to tell next, Nicky?
Chapter 65
NICKY
Olivia has been listening closely. “But you didn’t really think I would let you publish it?”
“No,” I say, “of course not.”
I never planned to publish anything at all: this was for me. I’d show Olivia something bland as a sample chapter, then let the project drop—blaming other commitments. Maybe, if the week went well, I’d tell her who I was . . .
In the meantime, I prepared carefully. I contacted Joey months before I arrived. He wouldn’t e-mail me the photos he had taken over e-mail, would only show me them face-to-face, so I’d send the odd friendly text to keep in with him, before I got the call from “Julia”—Olivia—to say she had a week free.
At the house, I played up my nerves and ignorance about its history, wanting to seem like I posed no threat. Really, as I read through the articles I’d collected one last time, before that session where I’d ask Olivia about the fire, I could have recited chunks by heart.
Of course, I had to ask her about other aspects of her life, too; that was no hardship. I wanted to know everything about her. Still, there were real shocks, from the moment I found that marker in the garden, a grim reminder of the past . . .
The biggest shock of all, of course, was yet to come. I had always wondered why Olivia stayed away from us. I never considered that we were staying away from her.
* * *
That changed everything. If Olivia hadn’t done what she did, everything would be different. I would have my father; my mother, too, perhaps. And a home.
Instead, the bonds tying me to my life seemed as fragile as cobwebs. It was all her fault and she had prospered . . . I couldn’t bear it. It wasn’t fair.
So I thought for a while, in the dead of that night after the dinner party. I added that final passage to my notes, condemning her, and e-mailed my document to Joey. I let it look hurried, rushed—as if I had written it in fear, a security against what might come . . .
But I didn’t have the ending I wanted yet.
I took only what I could carry, my laptop and recorder in my tote bag—I am very careful, but just in case. I left my phone behind, knowing that without it I would be harder to trace. There was nothing on it that mattered.
I let myself out through the dining room, betting correctly that the French windows hadn’t been shut properly after the party. On the terrace, I turned back to look at the house, white against the lightening sky. Then I put a hand to my neck and pulled sharply. Nicky, the necklace read. Even my name wasn’t my own because of her.
Not any longer. I threw it away without looking where it fell.
After that, I walked to the railway station in the village, along the lane in the silence of the early morning, and caught the first train out of there. I paid cash when the guard went by and as I journeyed across the country, I grew surer that I could execute the plan that had come to me. There was symmetry to it, almost.
Olivia had disappeared out of my life. Now I’d do the same to her.
Because I couldn’t prove an old crime. I wasn’t confident anyone would believe me. Instead, I would disappear long enough for them to suspect her of a new one and start to investigate her seriously. I wouldn’t have to stay away forever: just until they discovered what she’d done to our family. I could give a helping hand from afar, if needed, the odd anonymous phone call.
Then once her role in our father’s death was established beyond all doubt, I planned to return, blaming a breakdown, crisis . . . anything. Maybe I could even reveal who I was: explain that the trauma of my discoveries had triggered my disappearance.
After all, I wasn’t the criminal here.
Even my destination fit. When I got to the sea, the cottage was just as it always had been, trapped wasps lying on the windowsills, the unopened bills on the hall floor still addressed to my grandparents. I bought bread, eggs and milk, in the corner shop, then went to ground. I slept, a surprising amount.
It was the perfect place to hide, on the edges of a tourist town. My grandparents had kept themselves to themselves. I hadn’t done anything about transferring the deeds to my name yet, knowing I would only have to sell if my creditors found out about this asset before I was more stable.
And I knew no one would think to check in some dusty police file for the address where my mother had been found by officers all those years before . . .
* * *
It was early on Friday morning that I pulled on a cap and sunglasses to pick up more food, and saw the newspaper outside the shop. A small item had made it to the bottom corner of the front page:
MUMMY BLOGGER MURDER CHARGE
A 36-year-old woman has been charged over the murder of writer Nicky Wilson, missing for a week. Police sources confirmed the suspect as mother-of-one Olivia Hayes, a popular lifestyle “influencer” . . .
She would appear before Mansford magistrates’ court that very day. It was happening, what I’d wanted. Wasn’t it? I felt a shiver of panic. I needed to know more.
In the tatty Internet café for tourists, I read the few reports. But I knew they couldn’t give more than the barest facts, once she had been charged. So I clicked to the forums, and saw they were full of some post she had made . . . a confession? Some thought so.
I found it on her blog. It was brief, barely an apology, I thought angrily, until I read the final line. She’d signed it Livvy.
I hadn’t heard anyone calling her that, not Josh, not Sabrina. But I must have, when we were little . . . that was the name I knew her by.
* * *
I went back up the narrow streets, and by the time I was at the little stone cottage it was clear to me what I had to do. I took Granddad’s old Rover, still parked in the driveway, and drove as fast as I dared.
In Mansford, I had to get in line to get through the court building security, then it took me minutes to find the right courtroom, I had to fiddle about looking for HAYES on the court lists pinned to a board—I was too late, I had missed her . . .
And then suddenly I turned a corner and saw the suited figures on their phones. “Did the snapper get her in the police van?” “. . . she’s up now, I hear . . .”
No one stopped me as I walked straight in.
Because I couldn’t do it. I thought I could walk away, but I couldn’t. My sister had sent a message to me. And she was sorry—whatever that meant. But if the past was worth anything at all . . . I had one last chance to rewrite our story.
Chapter 66
NICKY
There is a silence, as Olivia absorbs all I’ve said. “You couldn’t have got a new phone from somewhere,” she says mildly. “Ring ahead, maybe?”
“I know. But I thought it might speed things up if they saw me, well, in person. Alive.”
Then I realize she’s cracking a joke. I smile uncertainly, as Olivia looks down at her hands.
“You know, I never even thought
about who you could be until I saw what you had written,” she says quietly. “Even then . . . I don’t think about the past, if I can help it.”
“I understand.” You were in such massive denial, I think pityingly. “I can’t imagine how hard it has been to live with what happened—with what you did that night.” I take a deep breath, knowing that there can be no more secrets between us, if we are to move forward. “When you shot our father.”
She looks at me, searchingly, and opens her mouth like she’s about to say something—then shuts it again. Because really, what can she say?
“We have to face up to things,” I say firmly, but I feel like I am about to jump off a cliff: to be saying this aloud. “I’m sure it must have been a . . . terrible mistake. And I was so angry when I worked it all out—I just wanted to make you suffer. But since then I have had time to think, and I can understand, now, why you and Elsa covered it all up. You were still a child. And you’ve gone through a lot—you’ve paid the price.”
It takes me a lot to say that, to be that generous, but I can actually see her shutting down as she digests my words: her posture stiffening, her expression becoming still more closed-off, if possible.
“We can’t erase the past,” she says carefully. “You told me that. But I am sorrier than I can say.”
It is not enough. And it is too late. But I lean forward to pat her arm. I don’t think either of us are huggers.
“She used to wear that same perfume,” I say, recognizing the fragrance, still lingering despite all she’s been through. “Elsa.”
Olivia looks surprised. “Yes, she did. Shalimar.”
“I knew it was familiar. There’s so much I want to ask you.”
She yawns widely, belatedly putting a hand over her mouth.
“And I need to know,” I continue, trying to keep my voice steady, “about that night. I need to know exactly what happened. I still can’t remember.” You owe me that, I think.
“Of course,” says my sister. I can’t read her at all, if she is even upset at the prospect. “But would you mind if we talked tomorrow? I’m desperate to get out of this tracksuit. And I haven’t slept properly for days. Stay the night. Journalists have been calling my lawyer, too . . . she’s working on a statement. And I’ll pick Bea up in the morning, but for now, all I want to do is sleep.” She is already turning away, getting up.
“Of course,” I say lightly, “whatever you want.”
* * *
I stay there a while longer, trying to sort through the maelstrom of feelings. Some heart-to-heart. I did the right thing, surely, coming back. I know I did.
Yet I feel cheated, confused and, underlying it all, awash with sadness. I don’t know what I expected from her, but more than that. Maybe tomorrow she’ll be different. But I don’t know what to do now, really.
After a while, I start to feel cold: a breeze is making the hairs on my forearms stand up. There must be a door open somewhere: Annie has gone outside. Or maybe that gardener . . . I’d forgotten about Cav.
I walk through to the empty kitchen. On one side is the open bottle of the wine, the condensation puddling around its base.
I steal forward, into the utility room where the door is wide open to the evening—there is someone out there, I register, and my heartbeat accelerates—before the scene resolves itself. “Oh!” I say. “It’s you.”
It is only Olivia, looking out through the brick arch of the kitchen garden to the lawn and the water beyond it. She turns her head at my exclamation.
“Sorry,” I say, “I thought you’d gone up already.”
“I didn’t mean to scare you,” she says. “It was just nice to be outside again.”
“I wondered who was out here,” I say, embarrassed at my overreaction. “I thought it might be Annie.”
She turns fully to face me. “No, it’s only us tonight. I told Annie to have a break, she has a village friend she sometimes stays with . . .”
She trails off. But the spike of fear has reminded me of something. And suddenly I have to know what I am dealing with.
I hear myself say: “I know you’re tired . . . but one last thing. Those weird things that happened, while I was here.”
“Weird things?”
“Little things, really. I found a pin in my makeup . . . and the tile that fell off the roof, it could have really hurt me”—her expression is one of polite interest—“then when I was in the cellar, looking around, I heard someone follow me down . . . Do you think it could have been Josh?”
“Josh?” I can hear the ring of skepticism in her voice.
“Well, at first I thought it was Sabrina, but then I learned she didn’t stay over that night. So it can’t have been her. So I wondered, if Josh thought I was finding out too much about your past, before he turned on you—maybe he was trying to scare me off.” What I don’t say: Was it you, Olivia?
How far would you have gone, to keep your secret safe?
She tilts her head thoughtfully. “I suppose it’s possible,” she says. “I didn’t think Josh could betray me in the way he did. But those things you mention could have been accidents. And we’ve had squirrels get in the cellar before—maybe you misheard . . .”
I don’t think they were accidents, or that I misheard anything.
“Well, no harm done,” I say, just as politely.
* * *
After that I go up the stairs, the house big and silent around me. Olivia would be up soon, she said.
There are pajamas on my pillow, a toothbrush still in its packet: Annie must have prepared the room. I didn’t bring anything with me in my mad dash from the cottage. The police will have to give me my suitcase and phone back, there will be people I should contact to let them know I really am OK: my agent, friends. Tomorrow.
As I settle into bed and switch off the lamp, I remember something else—so trivial that I forgot to mention it just now: how the coffee spilled all over me in that first session, after I asked Olivia about our mother.
Could that have been Josh’s handiwork, too? I am trying to picture the moment now, because I am sure it was Josh who had his hand on the cafetière, but wasn’t there someone’s else hand in the frame, too, helping? It’s such a little thing, but something is wrong with this picture, with what Olivia is telling me . . .
I feel a hot tear slide down my cheek. It’s too late. How can we rebuild a relationship after all this?
I turn over, trying to calm myself, but my mind won’t stop remembering new details. She said she never thinks about the past. But footsteps had worn a path right to the stone marker for our father.
Another tear follows, soaking onto my pillow. I did the right thing—didn’t I?
But, I think, but.
I can admit it now that I’m away from Olivia: I didn’t come back just for her. I came back for myself, too. Because I didn’t want to do it to myself, in the end; didn’t want to make myself a ghost in my own life.
But I still don’t trust her. Because she is a killer.
Before I go to sleep, I slip out of bed in the darkness and lock my door.
Chapter 67
NICKY
I can see the tips of the long grass and the clouds in the sky. I am hiding in the meadow, like I always do.
Nicky!
Olivia is calling my name, like she always does. This is the game we play, and I should come out now.
Nicky!
But she sounds angry, and I don’t want to come out yet. It is soft and comfortable, here in the meadow. And there are fireflies dancing in the air above me.
No, not fireflies. Burning embers in the air . . .
I sit up and I see. The meadow is on fire. Flames are licking across the long grass, dancing toward me, as the blue sky blackens.
Now I smell it, too—the thick smoke, bitter and so hot, burning my throat.
Nicky!
Livvy is not angry, she is scared, but I can’t see her, everything is going dark, even as I feel the heat on my skin.
Nicky! she shouts again, but I am Lexy, why is she calling me that. I can’t think. I can’t breathe . . .
I wake up, lifting the damp hair off the back of my neck to cool my skin, as I come back to consciousness.
Then I remember my dream. I was in the field on the other side of the lake, with Olivia. I couldn’t see her, but I knew she was looking for me. And there was a fire. It was so vivid, I can almost smell it still—
“Nicky!”
The doorknob rattles, before a dull thud on the wood, but the door stays shut.
I sit up. I can smell smoke in the air, my eyes are already starting to water. In one headlong movement I am out of my bed and grasping at the key, then—
I freeze, my hand on the metal. I don’t trust her . . .
“Nicky!” Her voice is close to a scream, as I stand there in the dark, my thoughts whirling. Is this a trick? In the cellar I ran, I couldn’t face what was in there with me—but I’ve nowhere to go now—I told Olivia we have to face up to things—
“Nicky!” She starts hammering on the door, shaking it in its frame.
And suddenly, it’s as if the decision’s already made for me. I have to know. I have to know what kind of person she really is. Whatever happens next . . .
* * *
I twist the key and pull the door open—and recoil as the heat hits me from the hallway, but Olivia grabs me by the wrist, surprisingly strong.
“Quick. Come on.” She sounds hoarse, as she pulls me forward. How long has she been trying to wake me? She is muffling her face with something, but it’s all so dark—darker even than it should be at night—thick black smoke all around us, making my eyes stream. And now I can hear that old familiar roar, the crackling of the fire from farther down the corridor.
“We should stay in here and shut the door!” I shout, bumping into the wall, disoriented. I don’t understand why there is so much smoke, it is madness to go through it. “We can’t go down there!”