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

by Louise Jensen

  ‘What can we do?’ I ask. ‘We can’t break the wood. There’s no one to hear us scream. I couldn’t pick the lock…’

  ‘Pick the lock?’

  ‘Look.’ I pull the hairgrip from under my pillow.

  Lexie snatches it.

  ‘I’ve already tried.’

  ‘There’s an art. Dagenham Dave taught me.’ The tip of Lexie’s tongue pokes between her teeth as she eases the grip into the lock of her cuff, twists it around.

  ‘Gotcha.’ Lexie opens the cuff, frees her ankle. ‘Even one-handed I’ve still got the knack.’ She grins and, despite myself, I grin back.

  ‘Do mine. Quickly.’

  Lexie leans over, fumbles with the hairgrip. There’s a click and I almost cry with relief as the pressure on my ankle eases.

  ‘Let’s go.’

  But footsteps crash up the stairs and the bedroom door begins to swing open.

  47

  Now

  Lexie’s feet are on the floor but I grab her arm and frown.

  ‘The knife,’ I hiss. ‘We need to wait.’ Lexie nods. She swings her legs back into bed and I drape the quilt over our feet, hoping that Anna doesn’t check the cuffs and chains. My pulse gallops as Anna enters the room. I can feel the tension radiating from Lexie and I pray that she won’t do anything rash. Anna clanks the tray down on the dressing table and picks up the knife with one hand, a bowl with the other.

  ‘Pasta.’ She hands the dish to Lexie, backs away, fetches a second for me.

  My stomach lurches as Parmesan and garlic mingle in my nostrils. The mince is clumped together; grease pools on the surface.

  Anna drags my dressing table stool over to the door and perches on the floral seat. I’d been delighted when I discovered that stool in the little second-hand shop on the high street. I’d spent ages rubbing down the legs and varnishing them, before choosing the fabric from John Lewis to upholster the seat. Now I want to burn it.

  Anna picks up a third bowl and forks pasta into her mouth. ‘Eat,’ she mumbles.

  I pick up the bowl. Swirl spaghetti strands around. Promise myself that if I ever get out of here, I’m never eating pasta again.

  ‘I’m not fucking eating.’ Lexie throws the bowl across the room. It falls before it reaches Anna. Tomato sauce soaks into the smoke-stained carpet.

  ‘You. Just. Can’t. Be. Nice. Can you?’ Anna slams her food down. The dressing-table mirror vibrates. Sweat trickles between my breasts.

  ‘Nice? You’ve chained me to a bed.’

  ‘At least I didn’t give you away.’ Anna’s hand spiders over the knife; her fingers curl around the black handle.

  ‘At last, she gets to the fucking point,’ Lexie says. ‘What do you want? An apology? I’m sorry, all right?’

  ‘I want…’ Anna’s breath judders. ‘I wanted a meal with my mum. And now it’s spoiled.’ She raises the knife. I draw my knees up, ready to spring to Lexie’s defence, but Anna drives the blade into her own thigh, slicing the skin open. Blood stains Charlie’s white shorts crimson. I realise that the scars I’d seen on Anna’s body at the spa must all have been self-inflicted.

  ‘Belle!’

  Anna lifts the knife. Thrusts it down, scraping it across her skin, drawing the perfect cross. Her face is as white as the shorts once were.

  ‘Belle, don’t. I am sorry.’ Lexie’s voice is pleading.

  ‘Why didn’t you love me?’ Anna sounds desperate, and as much as I want to hate her, I can’t help feeling sorry for her.

  ‘I did love you. I do. I thought it was for the best.’ Lexie’s voice wobbles. ‘I thought you’d have a better life.’

  ‘Why give up me and not her? What did I do that was so terrible?’

  Lexie reaches out and takes my hand. Her palm is clammy. ‘I don’t know. I’m sorry. I couldn’t cope with both of you.’

  ‘Nobody could cope with me.’

  ‘Was it your foster parents who were killed?’ I ask.

  ‘Killed?’

  ‘In the car, on the way to the seaside.’

  ‘I made that up so you’d feel sorry for me. There were no foster parents. I was shoved from pillar to post. “Oh Belle’s so disruptive.” “Oh, Belle’s a bad influence.” When I got to twelve, no one wanted me; they wanted the cute ones. I lived in a care home. Oliver fucking Twist. Do you know how depressing those places are? The only thing I had was the photo you left. We looked so happy in it: you, me and Charlie. I slept with it under my pillow every night. I couldn’t understand what had gone wrong.’

  ‘Oh, Belle,’ Lexie says. ‘I’ve fucked up. I know. But this isn’t the answer, keeping us here.’

  ‘It was the only thing I could think of to make you listen. For years, the only thing that kept me going was the thought that when I turned eighteen I could find you, Mum. We could find Charlie together. But Charlie was with you all along. You kept her. Having a great time, while I…’

  ‘I wasn’t having a great time. I gave you up because I was depressed…’

  ‘Were you still depressed eighteen years later? Why didn’t you answer my letters?’

  ‘It was a shock.’

  ‘I hated you then, wanted to hurt you, make you suffer, make…’

  ‘Why didn’t you?’ I interject. ‘You broke contact for six years. Why?’

  ‘Because I stopped needing her. I had a family of my own. People who loved me.’

  ‘You have a family?’

  ‘I married a boy from the home, Sam. We were so happy. We got a flat. Not a council one, either. Ground floor, with a garden. I made a little rockery, planted some herbs.’ Anna stares into the distance as though she can see something we can’t. ‘Sam wanted a pond with some fish in, but I really wanted a kitten. He brought one home from work one day. He always let me have my own way. She was black with white feet. We called her Socks. He never did get a pond, was afraid she’d eat the fish.’

  ‘Sam sounds nice.’ I keep my tone soft.

  ‘He was. We were saving up for our own house. The flat wasn’t big enough, not with Lucas.’ Anna closes her eyes.

  ‘Lucas?’ Lexie grips my fingers so tightly I’m afraid my bones might snap.

  ‘We had so many baby toys. There was barely room to move. I couldn’t stop buying him things. Sam told me off. We were supposed to be saving, but I loved Lucas so much. I wanted him to have all the things I’d never had.’

  ‘What happened, Anna? Where’s Lucas?’ I am cold. I already know the answer. Lexie presses against me. I can feel her trembling.

  ‘We’d been swimming.’ Anna’s voice is small and tight. ‘He loved the water. I’d sit him in his orange duck ring and he’d kick his legs and giggle like mad. He fell asleep on the bus on the way home. I carried him up to bed. Switched the monitor on. I thought I shut his door. Went downstairs to do the ironing, but I was tired. I was always tired. I lay on the sofa and closed my eyes. Didn’t wake up till Sam came home. I panicked when I saw how late it was. Lucas never napped for longer than an hour.’ Anna pauses and I hold my breath. ‘I ran to his room. He was so still. My beautiful boy. Socks was purring in the cot next to him. Sam was screaming that the cat shouldn’t be in the nursery. He scooped Lucas from the cot – he was so floppy – and breathed into his mouth, but…’ Anna is rigid. Panting. ‘They took him away. I didn’t want them to take him away.’

  Lexie covers her mouth with her hands, but she can’t contain her anguished cry.

  ‘It was my fault. I should have been more careful. Sam left me.’ Anna’s body convulses as she wails. ‘Everyone leaves me. I just wanted my mum. I just needed my mum.’

  The knife drops onto the carpet as Anna covers her face with her palms. Rocks backwards and forwards, keening like an injured animal.

  ‘Oh, my poor baby girl.’ Lexie slips from the bed. Drops to her knees in front of Anna, wrenches off her sling and wraps Anna in her arms. ‘I’m here, Belle, I’m here.’

  ‘Mummy.
’

  ‘Shh. It wasn’t your fault. It was probably genetic – there’s a disease, a genetic disease. Charlie had it; you could have had it, passed it on. There’s nothing you could have done.’

  ‘Genetic? So it’s your fault? YOU KILLED MY BABY!’ Anna screams, pushes her weight forwards and Lexie topples backwards.

  I feel suspended, like the marionette I used to own: strings tight, unable to move without direction. Lexie screams and I remember Dan’s words. You can do anything. I throw back the covers, jump out of bed. I land awkwardly and pain rips through my left ankle – the one I twisted during the race against Charlie – and I’m splayed on the floor. My ankle burns and for a moment, I’m back in that day. Charlie on the ground. The fear. The panic.

  And then I’m clutching the drawers, hoisting myself to my feet, lurching towards Anna. Her hand curves over the knife, her fingers clasp the handle, and I hurl myself forward, grab her wrist. The blade slashes my thigh and I feel the pressure but don’t feel any pain, am surprised to see a crimson line stain my pale pink pyjama bottoms. I get hold of the knife handle over Anna’s fingers and don’t let go, but I step back as it swishes through the air again.

  ‘It’s OK, sweetie.’ Lexie clings on to Anna like a baby monkey with its arms wrapped around its mother’s neck. ‘Mummy’s here.’

  ‘Mummy.’ Anna’s fingers slacken and sobs wrench through her body. I whisk the knife away. Stumble downstairs to find a phone.

  Epilogue

  Five months later

  I close my eyes and let my fingers glide over the keys as I practise Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight Sonata’. It was one of Dad’s favourites. The doorbell rings before I’ve quite reached the end and I close the lid of the piano, hauling myself to my feet.

  ‘Morning. Want this straight in your car?’ Lexie rattles the old crisp box she’s holding.

  ‘Please. Mine’s already in there.’ I point the remote at my new Honda, listening for the click as the boot opens.

  My new neighbours are climbing in their car and I wave: she’s a paramedic and he’s a policeman. I find that reassuring, although I hope to never need them in a professional capacity. Mrs Jones lives with her daughter now, but I visit her often.

  My bag’s in the lounge, and as I pick it up, I stroke the black and white kitten curled on my warm piano stool.

  ‘Bye, Moppet. I’ll be back later. Be good.’

  I sling my things on the passenger seat. Turn to face Lexie.

  ‘You gonna be all right on your own?’ she asks.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Belle asked after you yesterday.’

  ‘How was she?’

  Lexie visits the unit frequently, but I don’t want to see her. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

  I’m trying to forgive Lexie. She’s having counselling, has stopped drinking, is trying to make amends for the past. To be a good mum. I try to push away the part of me that thinks how very differently things might have turned out if she hadn’t sent those notes. If Charlie hadn’t left. You can’t live in the past, Grandma says, and I’ve realised that’s where I’ve spent most of my time. Wishing things were different. Blaming myself. Thinking I might die jolted me into the present, and that’s where I’m trying to stay. I have a lot to live for.

  ‘She’s groggy. She’s on a new medication, but she spoke to the psychologist yesterday instead of ignoring her. It’s a start.’

  I want to reassure Lexie. To tell her that Belle will be fine, but the words stick in my throat. I know how grief can twist and change a person, leave invisible rocks of guilt to shoulder. I can’t begin to imagine the horror of losing a child.

  I place my hands over my stomach, inhale sharply.

  ‘You OK?’ Lexie asks.

  ‘He’s kicking.’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Yep. Had another scan yesterday. It’s definitely a boy.’

  ‘Bet Dan’s pleased.’

  I nod. I never thought I’d see Dan again after he came to Esmée’s flat, but when the nausea that flooded my body didn’t ease, the doctor thought it might be more than anxiety, and he was right. I shift my weight as an elbow or foot jabs me again. Dan was thrilled when I told him. He proposed at once, has proposed weekly ever since, but I’m content to be on my own for now. Living alone has bought a freedom, a peace, that I hadn’t envisaged. I’ve shed the all-consuming feeling of loss that’s cloaked me for over half my life and I’m happy. I’m not sure if Dan and I will ever be an ‘us’ again, if too much water has passed under the bridge – but we’re friends, and committed to being the best parents we can be, and that’s a start.

  ‘We’ve picked a name.’

  ‘Do tell.’

  ‘Charlie.’

  Lexie nods, blinks back tears. Squeezes my arm. ‘Safe trip.’

  I climb into my car. Stretch the seatbelt across my ever-growing bump.

  The motorway is quiet and my satnav tells me I’ll be there in another hour. I click on the radio. ELO’s ‘Mr. Blue Sky’ rumbles out of the speakers and I smile as I think fondly of my dad and crank up the volume. I warble along. ‘It’s a beautiful new day, hey, hey.’

  I think I’m here. I turn down a dirt track, bump the car towards a farmhouse, pull up behind a Volvo estate. A black and white dog sniffs my ankles, wags his tail. I pop open the boot.

  ‘You must be Grace.’ Familiar green eyes lock onto mine.

  His hair is grey and he has a beard, but the resemblance to Charlie is startling.

  ‘Paul Lawson.’ I smile.

  I’d kept up with the social media postings and just when I was beginning to give up hope of ever finding him, I had a reply. Lexie was livid at first, but finally conceded he had a right to know about his daughters and spent hours on the phone to him, trying to explain. He was furious, of course; devastated when he learned about Charlie, about Lucas. He’s coming to meet Anna – Belle, I need to get used to calling her that – next week. But today, I’m here for Charlie.

  Paul carries the boxes from the car, places them on a large farmhouse table. I pull off my jumper – the room is Aga-warm – and unpack piles of photos and videos, produce a Tupperware containing a cake.

  ‘My grandma made it,’ I explain. ‘As it would be Charlie’s twenty-sixth birthday today.’

  I’d brought Grandad’s old video recorder with me just in case Paul didn’t have one, but there’s one in the kitchen, a pile of Monty Python videos stacked next to it.

  Paul slots in a tape. It whirrs and crackles and the screen goes snowy before an image appears, hazy at first but becoming clearer. It is of the school talent show. Charlie is on stage in a silver sparkly leotard, pink tights and purple leg warmers. She discos her way around the stage, high-kicking and shimmying her flat chest for all she’s worth.

  ‘She wasn’t shy, then!’

  ‘Not in the least. It was supposed to be a duo, but I was quaking behind the curtain. She won.’

  The screen goes blue for a moment and then cuts to Charlie and me on the beach, building a giant speedboat out of sand.

  ‘She always came on holiday with us,’ I tell Paul. ‘She was happy.’

  We laugh and cry in equal measure through birthdays and Christmases, Easter egg hunts and picnics, and when there is nothing else to watch, I light the candles on the cake and we sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to the girl who wanted nothing more than her father at her side as she blew the candles out. As it is, he blows them out for her, his eyes glistening.

  We found him, Charlie. We found him.

  Letter from Louise

  Hello,

  I can’t thank you enough for reading The Sister, my debut novel. It’s both exhilarating and terrifying to send my first book out into the world and I’m really grateful you chose to spend precious time with Grace and Charlie.

  The Sister began life as part of a challenge at a writers’ group, where I was given ten minutes and three words and the bare bones of Chapter One was born. Driv
ing home, my mind was full of questions: What was Grace’s secret? How did Charlie die? What was in the pink envelope?

  That night, sleep wouldn’t come as Grace stamped her feet and demanded her story be told, and the following day, stifling yawns, I tentatively put pen to paper, exploring the aftermath of Lexie’s lie.

  I’d love to hear your thoughts. Did you end up feeling sympathy for Anna? Compassion for Lexie? Should Grace give Dan a second chance?

  I’m horribly embarrassed to mention reviews but they’re so important, so if you’ve enjoyed The Sister, it really would mean the world to me if you could leave a review.

  You can also connect with me via my blog where I regularly post flash fiction and insights into a writer’s life.

  Finally, I do so hope you join me for book two. If you’d like to find out more, do join my mailing list:

  Louise Jensen email sign-up link

  Love,

  Louise xx

  @Fab_fiction

  fabricatingfiction

  www.louisejensen.co.uk

  Acknowledgments

  I’ve so many people to thank, it’s difficult to know where to start. Firstly a massive, massive shout out to the whole Bookouture team, especially Lydia Vassar-Smith my editor, for believing in me enough to give me this chance, Natasha Hodgson, and the other Bookouture authors who are such a fabulous support network.

  Louise Walters, my mentor via the fabulous WoMentoring Project, whose encouragement gave me the confidence to try and write a novel.

  The Wordpress blogging community who have critiqued with kindness and allowed me to develop as a writer, in particular Lyn Churchyard (you know why!).

  Mick Rodden from the Northants Fire Service for his valuable input into the fire and hospital scenes. Any mistakes are entirely my own.

  Andrew Lockhart for his words of wisdom, Gary Tipping for keeping me calm at the last hurdle and Jane Isaac for always being on the end of the phone to answer my frantic questions.

  Thanks to my early readers Leah Gee, Ceri Wickens, Michele Harris, and Karen Coles, and to Lee Harris for his proofreading skills. Thanks cuz!

  Mick Wynn, with whom I bounced around many an idea. I actually think he ended up reading my manuscript far more times than me.