Her Sister's Lie

by Debbie Howells

  I stared at my hands, trying to stop their shaking, then looked up at her. “I know I’ve been drinking too much, but I’ve been cutting down. I really do want to stop.”

  She ignored me. “We’ve spoken to Mr. Dalton. It was interesting. He admitted that he too found it hard to relate to your nephew, but he was more concerned about you. He said something about pictures being moved and a gash on your arm you didn’t remember happening. He also had concerns about your drinking, but said you were adamant you didn’t have a problem.”

  I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t believe Curtis had said all this.

  “Did you make it up—about the paintings? To add weight to your conspiracy theory?”

  I just stared at her. This was insane. I couldn’t speak.

  “Your old band member shed some light on things too.”

  Startled, I looked up at her again. “Apparently, the reason you spent so much time at Nina’s was because you were pregnant. Your bandmate went on to say you drank your way through your pregnancy, and by the time you’d given birth, you had a serious drinking problem. That’s the real reason the band broke up, isn’t it?”

  As she stared at me, the fight went out of me. All these years I’d tried to hide it. Nina had too. Right after the Cry Babies released their hit single, I’d had a fling and got pregnant. “I had morning sickness.”

  DI Collins raised an eyebrow. “Really? Are you sure you don’t mean you were constantly either drunk or hungover?” When I didn’t say anything, she went on. “Who’s Abe’s father?”

  I gasped. “No. No.” My eyes flashed wildly between them. “No . . .” I couldn’t go there. Not ever. They couldn’t make me. It was the worst of the worst. Triggered memories I was so ashamed of.

  “When we first met, you told me Jude was Abe’s half-brother. I assumed they had different fathers, but I was wrong, wasn’t I?”

  Under her gaze, I shrank lower in my chair, conscious of all of them watching me.

  “Abe and Jude didn’t share the same mother, did they, Ms. Roscoe? They have the same father. You slept with your sister’s boyfriend.”

  I opened my mouth to speak, to tell her it wasn’t how it looked, that Nina and Ed had had problems.

  But she didn’t give me a chance. “You owed her for much more than looking after Abe. As well as taking on your child, she’d forgiven your betrayal and given you a roof over your head.”

  I slumped even lower in my chair. Wasn’t that what sisters did for each other?

  DI Collins continued. “You’ve told us at considerable length about your sister’s problems. Her unreliability, how she wasn’t there for her children. Her drinking . . . But these aren’t just your sister’s problems are they, Ms. Roscoe? They’re clearly your problems too. It’s you who’s unreliable, who has a drinking problem. You’ve told us yourself that your sister always did her best for her children—albeit in a limited way. She would never have abandoned her child, would she?”

  I felt myself go numb as I turned toward her.

  “You admit to being at your sister’s house the afternoon she was murdered. Your fingerprints are on the bottle that was found in her room. One of her neighbors says she heard women’s voices shouting.”

  I gasped. “But that proves I didn’t kill her. Nina was dead by the time I got there.”

  She ignored me. “What happened, Ms. Roscoe? Another violent argument like the one in which, all those years ago, you killed Summer?”

  I looked at her, horrified. “It wasn’t me. It was Nina.”

  You didn’t do it, Hannah . . . Keep to the script.

  “Oh, but you did,” she said quietly. “There was a witness. When Summer attacked your sister, this person saw you pull Summer away and shove her across the room.”

  “No! It was Nina who pushed her . . .” This wasn’t right. “It wasn’t me. And no one was there. I know they weren’t . . .” I let my words trail off, suddenly remembering they weren’t true, that Abe could have been there.

  “That’s not what our witness says. It’s no wonder you weren’t in touch with Ms. Tyrell. You and your sister concocted the lie—your sister protecting you again, for reasons I don’t understand—and you let her.

  “Then recently, sober for the first time in a decade, maybe the burden of lying got to be too much for her. Maybe, like Summer, she wanted Abe to understand, to know the truth. But you were never able to accept responsibility for your mistakes, were you, Ms. Roscoe? That was how you saw Abe—as your biggest mistake. When you accidentally became pregnant, rather than let it ruin your music career, your sister selflessly stepped in and offered to bring Abe up as her own. It was you who cut her out of your life, until out of the blue, she contacted you. But you couldn’t take the risk, could you, especially when you were still hoping to be reunited with Mr. Elliott. If he found out you hadn’t told him about Abe, you believed it would ruin everything.” She paused. “Strange how in spite of your best efforts to arrange everything the way you wanted it, your music career failed, Mr. Elliott left, and Abe’s ended up living with you. There’s a certain irony in that, wouldn’t you say?”

  She was doing it again, twisting everything, until it was wrong, so wrong I didn’t know where to start. I shook my head. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “There’s the small matter of the murder weapon. Your property is being searched as we speak. So far, we’ve found a small statue with what looks like dried blood encrusted on it. Was that what you used, Ms. Roscoe?” Both pairs of eyes were boring into me. “It’s the perfect size—big enough to deliver a fatal blow, but small enough to hide under loose-fitting jeans and a hoodie, so that you could take it home with you and hide it.”

  “No . . .” My heart was racing out of control. They couldn’t believe I’d killed Nina. “It wasn’t me who killed her.” I paused, catching my breath. “You’ve missed something.” Suddenly I realized what it was. “My shed was broken into! About two months ago! Whatever you’ve found, someone must have been planning this! I’ve been set up . . .” It was all falling into place. “You have to believe me! Please . . . Can’t we go over this one more time?” But as I stared at them, slowly it dawned on me. It was too late.

  “So you can change your story yet again?” The DI paused. “You’ve had more than enough time to tell us what happened. We have more than enough evidence against you, including the tapes, which will in due course be examined by a forensic psychologist. Hannah Roscoe, I am charging you with the murder of Nina Tyrell. You have the right to remain silent. You do not have to say anything. But, it may harm your defense if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence. You will be remanded in custody until a court date is set.”

  As she spoke, I felt the blood drain from my face. Shaking, I sat there until a uniformed officer came in and led me away.

  Abe

  From the first night in your house, I’ve watched you, Hannah. Even if you hadn’t given yourself away, there was always a paper trail to the truth about Summer. You thought you’d stumbled across those letters, didn’t you, by accident, when all along, you were intended to read them, in sequence, at the right time. It was carefully planned, Hannah. None of it left to chance.

  There’s one last letter that I was tempted to leave for you to find. A letter dated a year after Summer’s death—imagine reading that, Hannah. Imagine how you would have felt. I was tempted, part of me wanting to watch as you took in the impossible, as fear screamed through your brain, then denial, confusion, guilt, piling in on you, tipping you over the edge. But in the end, I didn’t need to. You were your own undoing. The letter has stayed hidden, at least for now.

  I’ve always known you’re my mother. That you abandoned me, leaving me with your addict sister, that you didn’t want anything to do with me. Neither of you did—not really. You are the reason I was drawn to the night sky—so vast, it reminds the viewer how small people are, confirms the transience of the huma
n condition. People don’t really matter. I don’t matter—not to you or your sister. Nor do you. None of us are important. It might feel like an eternity, but in the grand scheme of things, life is short.

  And some lives are shorter than others.

  You didn’t know when I bunked off school and met up with Jude for the first time in ages. You didn’t know either how, later on, the police asked him to take them to where Nina’s cottage used to be. They wanted to find Summer’s grave. But when they got there, the woods had been bulldozed and a vast housing estate built. Jude grinned. As far as the police were concerned, Summer’s grave was lost forever, somewhere underneath it.

  Jude was a step ahead of them, of course. He hadn’t really taken the police to where the cottage used to be. Instead, he’d done his research into housing estates built in recent years on woodland sites. There had been a couple—Jude had picked the biggest. The police were hardly going to dig up a whole housing estate to look for one grave. They were never going to know he’d lied.

  Jude’s found a job, and he’s been renting a room in a mate’s flat, with room for me if I want it. It’s an option, but it isn’t what I’ve had in mind. There’s another option, one I can’t quite picture yet, out there in front of me, shrouded in mist.

  From behind the locked door of your cell, I wonder if you even think about what’s happened to me? If you’ll find out that Erin asked me to stay on with her. I almost believed she wanted me there. Almost . . . I let myself imagine how that would feel, being wanted by someone, but only for a minute. You’ve ruined that for me, Hannah. No one’s wanted me before. Why would anyone want me now?

  Instead, I talked to Jude. He gets it. “You know, after everything that has happened, it would be good to make a clean break . . .”

  Erin looked disappointed when I told her, but she nodded. She understood; maybe she was relieved, even. But I didn’t want to get to know her. It’s easier not to have people in your life. You let people in, they ask questions, about your plans, where you’re going. This way, I don’t have to explain myself to anyone.

  Before I left, DI Collins stopped by to talk to me, about being called as a witness when your case goes to court. But I don’t have to stand up in front of everyone, she told me. I can be questioned via a video link from another room. Think of it like this, Hannah. Mother. Chances are you’ll never see me again.

  I didn’t say much to her, just gave her Jude’s address, telling her I was moving. I thought of your house briefly. If you’re sentenced, as you almost certainly will be, what will happen to it? Will it stand there empty for years? Have you thought about what will happen to it when you die? I even thought about staying there for as long as you were being held by the police, maybe with Jude, the two of us breaking in. You have no idea how easy it is to break in to your house, Hannah. No one would have known we were there. It was Jude who persuaded me against it. And he was right. It will be better to move away from all the people around here. When the press gets hold of your story, they’ll all know what’s happened, gossiping behind their closed doors and windows, in the village shop, in the pub. Far better to disappear.

  After I packed my stuff, it was Erin who drove me to the station. For the first time in my fifteen years, I knew what it was like to feel in control of my life. At last, I can make my own decisions, plan my future. Watching the fields and houses flash past, it seemed like no time before I was at the station, where Jude was waiting.

  Jude’s immensely proud of his little Vauxhall Corsa, zigzagging it through the streets, until he pulled up and parked outside his house. He helped me carry my stuff inside—then straight out again through a door at the back of the house, where there was another car.

  You can’t be too careful, Jude explained. So, just in case, he’d borrowed the car from a mate who owed him—he didn’t say what for. After loading it up, he threw me a beany hat, telling me to pull it down over my face. Then we were driving.

  The journey that had passed so quickly on the train took much longer going the other way. Jude took no chances, taking the back roads, talking constantly about not wanting to be picked up by the cameras on the motorway, about how it was cool, wasn’t it, that he was old enough to be my guardian. But then he started to talk more seriously.

  If I wanted, I could have a new name, he told me. Jude had paperwork—a birth certificate—it was one of the advantages of being inside, he joked. You made useful contacts. I could disappear forever, or become Aidan—not too different, just in case he slipped up. Abe sounded a bit like Ade . . . Aidan Rodgers.

  I don’t have to decide, not yet. And it wasn’t much farther, Jude assured me. I shivered, feeling a sense of déjà vu as we drove through countryside I didn’t recognize but that somehow looked familiar, while Jude kept talking. It would be worth it. He might have lied to the police—we both had. It was necessary. But there will be no more lies; we agreed on that. Going forward, we’ll be straight with each other.

  As the roads got quieter, a sense of calm came over me. Jude was edgy, excited, telling me how I’d done the right thing, leaving the letters for you to see, then handing them to the police when I did. It might have been years ago, but you did something terrible when you abandoned me. You should have known what my life would be like, and you turned your back on me. And now you deserve to pay. Thanks to me, there’s little doubt that you’re guilty.

  But I knew all of that. And you are guilty—as hell. Of leaving me in the hands of your alcoholic, drug addict sister, not giving any thought to what lay ahead for me, of only thinking about yourself. I had no qualms about feeding you the letters the way I did, then doing the same to the police. That last letter was a stroke of genius, but you’ve no idea about how good I am at forging handwriting, about the years of faking your sister’s signature, when she passed out. No one will ever be able to tell.

  In the same way, I forged the suicide note, sitting beside your sister’s body, needing the police to see that her killer was erratic and naïve. It was after I’d hidden it—intentionally not too well, that I called the police. Then later, when I met you, I knew how perfect it was. You fitted the profile perfectly.

  It was me who swapped your paintings around and generally fucked with your head, but you’ve had it coming to you for years. Not that it took much. You were unhinged before I got there.

  It was so easy, so instinctive, to play to your fears, your neuroses—to manipulate you. You didn’t know that from the beginning, a process had been set in motion, at the end of which there’d be justice. You deserved no sympathy. I had no hesitation about cutting your arm that night. You were so drunk, you didn’t feel me press the glass into your skin, cutting deeper until the blood started to flow. The next day you didn’t remember anything.

  I’d even planned to kill Gibson, but presumably someone else got there first—probably that woman who’d been hanging around. I saw her once or twice—she was almost as mad as you. I’d planned to strangle the dog. I thought many times about how I’d do it. I’d have been doing the dog a favor. There’s no place for Gibson where you’re going.

  Those nights I stood outside, I was doing so much more than watching the stars. I was running through every detail of what lay ahead, each step discussed with Jude, dispassionately, painstakingly. I felt no guilt about what I was doing. It was simply a means to a better end, ridding the world of two broken human beings whom everyone was better off without.

  I’d known for some time that I had to start looking out for myself. Remember that awful night when you attacked Summer? I was four years old, Hannah. It was the most vivid memory of my childhood, after which things went from bad to worse. All your sister’s money had been spent on drink and drugs. There was never enough food, but you wouldn’t want to know about that. Or how I was saved when we moved to London and I went to school, where I got at least one square meal. Otherwise, I would have starved.

  Right now, for the first time, I have a chance to put it all behind me. Maybe I’ll take a ne
w name. Coming here is a fresh start. And if it doesn’t work out, I’ll deal with it whatever way I have to.

  And now we’re almost there . . . Jude is turning up a narrow road, flanked on either side by the dark trunks of tall pines, their branches tangled overhead. The little car bumps along it for what must be at least a mile before the trees start to thin out, then eventually, up ahead, clear.

  A brick and timber cottage comes into view. In front, two large pots are planted with brightly colored tulips. Slowing right down, Jude stops to one side of it. As I sit there, looking around, my head is filled with memories. Not all are good. That’s thanks to you, Mother.

  Then Jude switches the engine off. For a moment, neither of us move.

  “Don’t worry, dude.” Jude nudges my elbow. “It won’t be like that. You’ll see.”

  After what I’ve survived, the cottage in the woods doesn’t worry me. This can’t be worse than what’s already happened. As I get out of the car and stand there breathing in the pine-scented air, I have a sudden sense of coming home. Then as I look up, I see a ghost.

  Summer

  Your three musketeers, Mother . . .

  If only you’d known.

  But the only way was your way. Lies layered on more lies. You taught us well.

  I can remember when it wasn’t like that. For a while, when it was just you, me, and Jude, there were days when your magic was like a shimmering cloud, woven around us, enthralling us, protecting us. Then Hannah moved in, casting her blackness, pulling you in to her dysfunctional world, demanding you all to herself.

  Poor Hannah, who the music industry ate up and spat out. So talented . . . Talented at dragging everyone she met into her madness. But you were bonded by the abuse you’d suffered. Hannah was you, and you were Hannah, born to parents who didn’t love you, who starved you and hurt you, until they broke you.

  And then you buried it, Mother, your blank, blind eyes hiding your pain, only seeing what you wanted to see, just as you buried the truth in your lies. And Hannah did the same.