The Sister: A psychological thriller with a brilliant twist you won't see coming

by Louise Jensen

  There was a flight of stairs in front of me but I headed down the dark passage and stepped into the room on my left. The living room was larger than I’d expected, and bright despite the low beamed ceiling. Winter sun poured in through the French windows, pooling on the dusty grate of a real fire. Light in the summer and cosy in the winter. I bounced up and down on tiptoes as I looked around. There’d be room for a compact table and chairs as well as a bookcase and a sofa. If we got a sofa bed, Mum would be able to come and stay. I envisaged an old-fashioned sideboard to house my record deck. It was perfect. The garden stretched long and thin, a greenhouse at the bottom.

  ‘My grandparents will love this.’

  ‘There’s a vegetable patch too, somewhere under the snow.’

  The kitchen was opposite the lounge, smaller because it was tucked under the staircase. There was a sink under the window, overlooking a paved patio area and a bird table.

  ‘You can watch the birds when you wash up.’ Dan grinned, held his hands up before I could thump him. ‘Just kidding. I’ll buy some Marigolds.’

  Upstairs housed a large main bedroom, a smaller second bedroom that would be Charlie’s, and a bathroom with a roll-top bath and a small, glass shower cubicle in the corner.

  ‘I can’t imagine owning this. It feels so grown-up.’

  ‘You are all grown up.’ Dan stood behind me and slid his hands up my top. ‘Do you like it?’

  ‘That’s an understatement.’ This was somewhere I could live. Somewhere I could love.

  ‘Thought you would. We can make an offer if you want?’

  I looked around the empty bedroom, imagined lying here on a Sunday morning in bed with Dan for the rest of our lives, reading the papers and eating bacon sandwiches. I was sure he was the one. I recalled Mum’s words.

  ‘Dan. Would you wear a pink tutu for me?’

  ‘What? Why?’

  I took his hands in mine. ‘It’s important. Would you? If I asked?’

  ‘I’d wear anything for you… But not in public, though.’

  I grinned. ‘How soon can we move in?’

  ‘Not for a few weeks, but we can christen the place now.’

  And the wooden floor wasn’t the only thing that was stripped.

  I kissed Dan goodbye on the high street; he wanted to go to the office and phone the vendor. Hopefully they’d accept our offer – I was so excited. My wellies slipped as I ran towards the pocket park and the shortcut home. The skin on my heels would be rubbed raw but I didn’t care. I wanted to get back as quickly as I could, but when I hared around the corner I skidded to a halt. A policeman stood, hands clasped behind his back, at the entrance to the park. Yellow ‘Do Not Cross’ tape was stretched between the gateposts.

  The snow was turning to mush as I stuck to the main roads. Slush splattered over my legs as my booted feet pounded the pavement. My jeans were soaked by the time I turned into our road. There was a police car outside our house. Despite the temperature, I was filled with boiling hot panic as I ran towards the front door. Grandma and Grandad were sitting on the sofa as I burst into the lounge. Two officers stood by the fireplace. I wanted Grandma to tell me off for not taking off my wet boots, for staining the carpets, but instead she stared at her hands in her lap and it was Grandad that spoke.

  ‘Sit down, Grace. We have something to tell you.’

  33

  Now

  The cardboard box sits on the coffee table, small and still. The first time Mittens came home in one, it rocked as she stretched and wriggled inside, eager to break free and explore her new surroundings. Now, her exploration days are over. My eyes sting with tears that I gulp away. I will not break. Not yet, anyway.

  I sprint up the stairs, burst into Anna’s room. It feels different somehow, and as I fling open the wardrobe doors, empty hangers jangle together. The drawers I yank open are bare, apart from the rose-scented lining paper I’d bought especially for her. My mobile rings – Dan. I reject the call, try Anna’s number. Her phone is switched off.

  The gate bangs shut and I race downstairs. I am sitting on the sofa, outwardly calm by the time Dan has unlocked the front door. Inwardly, I want to kill him.

  ‘Grace? Are you OK? Chloe said you looked like you might be sick.’

  I stare at Dan. ‘I am sick. Sick of your lies.’

  Dan puts the Chinese food on the table next to Mittens’s box. Grease seeps through the paper bag and the smell of chow mein sickens me.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘You tell me, Dan.’ I am icy calm.

  He fingers his keys, stares at the carpet, saying nothing.

  I help him out. ‘Chloe told me Anna worked behind the bar at the football club.’

  Dan sits heavily in the armchair and slumps forward, his head in his hands.

  ‘Dan, you knew her before she came?’

  ‘Yes.’ Dan’s voice is so quiet I can barely hear him.

  ‘Sorry, what? I can’t quite hear you?’

  ‘Yes, Grace. I…’

  ‘Is she really Charlie’s sister, or is that another lie?’

  Dan mumbles but I can’t make out his answer.

  ‘Who is she, Dan?’ I snap.

  Dan’s shoulders shake; he presses his palms to his face and I wrench them away, my nails puncturing the thin skin on his wrists.

  ‘Who the fuck is Anna?’

  ‘I’m so sorry, Grace.’ Tears fall but they’re not mine. I rest back on my heels. Not quite believing, not quite understanding. Dan wipes his nose with his sleeve. ‘I’m going to get us a drink.’

  I’m too stunned to protest as he walks to the kitchen, and as he returns with two glasses and a bottle of Merlot it could be just another cosy night in – if it weren’t for the dead cat on the table, of course.

  We sit at opposite ends of the sofa. Dan glugs wine into a glass and I drain it in seconds, thrust it towards Dan for a refill. The silence between us feels suffocating and I wrench my jumper off.

  ‘Start talking.’

  Dan’s hand trembles as he clasps the wine bottle, tops up his glass. I think of that hand touching me. Has he touched Anna? I want to scream.

  ‘It hasn’t been easy for me, you know, the way you fell apart after Charlie.’

  ‘Poor you.’ My words drip with sarcasm.

  ‘Grace, please listen. I had to be strong for you, but I found it difficult to cope when she died. I’d known her as long as you. Longer, even.’

  ‘So it’s my fault for grieving for my best friend, or her fault for dying?’

  ‘Neither.’ He sighs. ‘Do you remember how it was just after she died?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘Really remember? Because you were so doped-up half the time I really don’t think you can. You lay in bed for weeks. Shouted if I came near you, cried if I left you alone. I didn’t know what to do for the best. You stopped cooking, cleaning, you couldn’t even remember how to operate the washing machine.’

  It sounds as though he’s talking about someone else. Is that how it was? Medication and shock team together, making my memory so hazy it’s like straining to make out a shape in the fog. You know something’s there but you’re not entirely sure what it is.

  ‘I’m not blaming you, Grace. I’m not. But I missed Charlie; she was my friend too. I missed you and I didn’t have anyone to talk to.’

  ‘And then you met Anna?’

  Dan nods. ‘She started working behind the bar at the club. She was really friendly, really easy to talk to. I started staying behind after hours and she listened to me. Really listened.’

  My teeth clench as I remember the nights I’d lain awake in bed waiting for Dan to come home.

  ‘So you had an affair.’ I shift in my seat, sit on hands that twitch with anger; my fingers want to claw his face.

  ‘No. It wasn’t like that.’ Dan runs his hands through his hair. ‘We were just friends, but then she started flirting. Making comments.�
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  ‘And you couldn’t resist? You make me sick.’

  ‘It wasn’t like that. You remember when we won the match and I tried to get you to come to the club?’

  ‘Yes.’ It was the day I’d dug the memory box up – how could I forget?

  ‘I was feeling sorry for myself. Chloe and all the other girlfriends were there. I must have drunk too much. I don’t remember. I really don’t. I can only remember odd fragments of the evening. I felt terrible when I realised what I’d done.’

  ‘So terrible, you moved her into our home. Let me believe she was Charlie’s fucking sister.’ White shards of rage slice through me.

  ‘I didn’t want to. I fucking hate her. She blackmailed me. She said she needed somewhere to stay for a couple of nights until her new flat was ready to move into. A week at the most.’

  ‘I don’t believe you.’

  ‘It’s true. Remember I lost my phone that night? She took it. She filmed us having sex and threatened to send the clip to everyone in my contacts list. I couldn’t risk you seeing that. My parents. Your grandparents. Your mum. My boss. How would we have survived that? I didn’t want to risk losing you, Grace. Losing everything. I’d have had to leave the village. Find a new job.’

  I lock my fingers together, place my palms over my stomach and lean forward. I feel as though he’s punched me, hard and fast.

  ‘But why… Charlie?’

  ‘I knew you’d let her stay if you thought she had a connection to Charlie, and she does look a little like her. I didn’t know how to explain her otherwise. I’m so ashamed, Grace. I thought she’d disappear after a few days and we’d write her off as a crackpot, resume the search for Charlie’s real family. You weren’t supposed to bond with her. I’d told her about your dad when I thought she was my friend. I never dreamed she’d make up a similar story to get you to like her.’

  ‘I can’t believe you’ve been so cruel. You’ve shared personal things with a complete stranger. And you knew how much it meant to me, finding Charlie’s father.’

  Dan looks pleading. ‘I know. You still can. We still can.’

  ‘There is no “we”. Not any more.’

  ‘Grace, please. I shouldn’t have lied, but I panicked. I did it for you, for us.’

  ‘And were you thinking of us when you fucked her?’

  Dan’s cheeks are wet. ‘Please. It was a one-off.’

  ‘And I’m supposed to believe that? You’ve probably been at it every time I’ve gone out. In our home. IN OUR BED!’

  ‘No! I swear. It was just once. A stupid mistake. I don’t even remember it. If she hadn’t showed me the film, I’d never have believed it happened. We can work through it, can’t we?’

  ‘No.’ My voice is controlled. ‘Maybe we could have done if you’d told me the truth at the time, but you lied, cheated and manipulated me. I bet you both had a good laugh behind my back, didn’t you?’

  ‘No. I hated her being here. When I saw you were getting attached to her, I tried to make her leave but she wouldn’t. It all got so out of control and I didn’t know how to stop it.’

  It’s not only the fact that Anna slept with Dan, blackmailed him, that hurts so much. It’s the lies she told. Letting me think I’d met someone who understood what it felt like to lose your parents at nine. The utter desolation and loss. The misplaced guilt and fear of abandonment. These were things I’d never shared with anyone else. Never thinking anyone else could understand, until I met Anna. We had so much in common, I thought – but it has all been a lie.

  My head suddenly feels like a dead weight and I rest it in my hands.

  ‘Why? Why did she want to stay here? She must have family? Friends?’

  ‘She said not. Maybe she was jealous of how much I love you. I don’t know. She’s twisted. When I suspected she was doing things to hurt you…’

  ‘What things?’ But even as I ask, I count the ways my life has gone wrong since Anna moved in. Stealing my necklace, hacking my emails, the Twitter campaign. Could she have taken my keys and broken into the nursery? I dread to think.

  ‘When she put nut syrup in your coffee, I was really scared.’

  ‘She could have killed me and yet you still let her stay. God, she probably poisoned my fucking soup, Dan. You’re a coward.’

  ‘I know. I didn’t know how to get her out. I didn’t know what she was capable of.’

  ‘I do.’

  Dan raises his head. His eyes – damp and red – meet mine for the first time.

  ‘Look in the box, Dan.’

  ‘What’s in there?’

  ‘Look.’ My voice is steely.

  He kneels before the coffee table, lifts the flaps on the box.

  He gags. ‘Grace…’

  ‘Get out, Dan.’

  ‘But we…’

  ‘Get the fuck out!’ I throw my wine glass as hard as I can at him. It misses his head by inches. Merlot runs like rivulets of blood down the buttermilk wall. Shards of glass embed in the carpet. I worry that Mittens will cut her paws, and then I remember that nothing will hurt her again.

  ‘Get out!’ I spray Dan with saliva and venom as I scream into his face.

  Dan scoops up his keys, walks towards the door, head hung low. I stand at the window and watch his back as he leaves: I want to stab him in it.

  Mittens has so many toys – mice, stuffed fish and tinkly balls – and I put them with her bowls inside the box. Then I gently cover the cat, who will never again feel the cold, with her fleecy paw-print blanket. As I carry the box outside, it feels as though I’m watching myself from high above. I struggle to make an impression in the soil with my fork. The earth is like stone, despite the rain. I thrust the prongs into the ground over and over, and shock waves travel up my arms, jolting my spine. It doesn’t seem long ago that my hands blistered as I replanted the shrubs that I now know Anna deliberately uprooted, or that my shoulders ached as I dug up the memory box. Now I’m burying another box of memories. I blink away images of Mittens softly patting my cheek with her paw, purring as she rubs her face against mine.

  I stab the spade into the earth over and over, wishing I were driving it into Anna. Causing her the same pain she’s caused me. I wonder where she is, whether Dan will see her again, and I wonder why I care. They deserve each other. I drop to my knees and scrape earth away from the hole with both hands. It is deep enough now. I kiss the box and place it under the pear tree.

  ‘Bye, Mittens.’ I throw a handful of earth over the cardboard and mound soil back in the hole. Then I heave my ceramic pot, containing a budding miniature rose, over to the grave. It’s heavier than it looks and the plant rocks back and forth as I inch it forwards. Leaves fall like teardrops onto the earth. Dizzy with exertion, I sit cross-legged on the damp ground. This time, I allow myself to cry.

  And then I hear, from the front of the house, a sharp rap on the front door.

  34

  Then

  Siobhan was dead. She’d been found in the park, track marks in her arm. The police wanted to talk to me as I was the last person she’d called. Grandad drove me to the station and I texted Dan, Charlie, Esmée, with the words I was finding impossible to believe. Dan offered to come and meet me, but I told him I’d call him once I got home. Esmée was devastated and helpless – she was stuck in France. Charlie hadn’t replied by the time we arrived at the station.

  I left Grandad on the hard wooden bench in reception while I was led to an interview room. I had a horrible feeling I’d never see him again. It was hard to fight back tears as I sat in the windowless room, longing to turn back the clock. Could I have saved her? The thought that I might have been able to nestled inside me, as if it belonged there as much as my bones, my kidneys, my lungs. My skin would shed cells, my scalp lose hair, my liver repair itself. My body would refresh and renew in the years to come, but the guilt? I knew that would stay. Forever a part of me.

  The police were kind. Water was fetched, tis
sues passed. The loss I felt was for the girl Siobhan once was, not the one she’d become. The girl who’d beaten me at hopscotch, who’d twirled the skipping rope with Esmée while I jumped in the middle with Charlie. But the tears I shed? They weren’t for Siobhan alone. They were for all of us. For growing up. For growing apart. Our little foursome had splintered and shattered and it would never, could never, be the same again. The days of shaking hands with such force our shoulders hurt –

  ‘Make friends, make friends, never ever break friends’ – were over. Besides, now we were only three.

  The police thought it was an accidental overdose. Jeremy and the rest of the Walking Dead had been brought in for questioning. Jeremy admitted to pressuring Siobhan into stealing the laptop so that he could sell it and buy drugs with the money. Siobhan hadn’t wanted to try heroin, one of the gang said, but Jeremy told her if she didn’t, she couldn’t hang around with them any more. Some friends. Jeremy had wrapped his belt tightly around her arm until the vein protruded, but she’d got hysterical when he’d injected her and they’d all run off and left her. Went to a party, as though she didn’t exist. And now she didn’t.

  I told the police it had been too noisy to hear my phone when Siobhan called and I’d had no idea she was in trouble. I thought I’d go to hell for lying. I probably deserved it.

  It felt like days later that I was escorted back to reception. To Grandad. He held me against his chest; the buttons of his plaid shirt dug into my cheek as I sobbed. He stroked my hair, offering me comfort I didn’t deserve. He’d rung Mum to tell her what was going on and she’d offered to come, but I shook my head. There was nothing she could do.

  We drove home, trudged up the path and pushed open the front door. A white envelope lay on the brown hessian doormat. Please, not another one, not today. I picked it up, turned it over. It wasn’t the same size envelope as before. It wasn’t sent by the same person. My name was written on the front, this time in handwriting I did recognise. I pulled out the paper inside. Seven words were written in Charlie’s looping script: ‘I’m so sorry, Grace. Please forgive me.’