It’s hard enough to knock me back onto the floor. I sit there like a toy with the stuffing pulled out, crumpled and vulnerable, in a state of shock.
“Leah.” Tom’s eyes are wide and white. “Are you okay? I’m sorry! I’m so sorry. I was having a nightmare, and I thought you were Isabel. Are you okay? Do you want me to call an ambulance?”
He strokes my hair and puts his hands on my shoulders. All I can think about is how close he is to me, and how pale he seems.
“I’m okay,” I manage, though my face is sore. A bruise will be forming as we speak, and I’m dreading my day at work. “It’s… fine. An accident.”
“It was,” he says. “I’m sorry.” His expression contorts and his brow furrows, his mouth turns down, and there’s moisture on his eyelashes. When his hands ball into fists, I can see that he’s trying very hard not to cry.
“It’s okay, Tom.”
But he leans away from me and rocks back on his heels, bringing his tight fists up to his eyes. He shakes his head and mumbles something incoherent against his wrists.
“Tom, really. Stop. It’s okay. I’m fine. It’s just a bruise.” I’m scared now. He’s withdrawing away from me, tightening up into someone I don’t recognise. He pushes back on his heels and rises. “Hey. I mean it, you know. Everything’s going to be okay.” I climb to my feet in order to close the gap between us.
Tom paces the room, still muttering to himself, his face red and blotchy, a throbbing vein protruding from his neck. He hits himself hard on the temple with one of his screwed-up fists and roars with such ferocity that my first instinct is to back away in fear. But that’s ridiculous, isn’t it? This is my Tom. My sweet, gentle little brother. My son. Pushing my fears aside, I rush to him and put my arms around him, cradling him tightly to stop him hurting himself again.
“She’s not here,” I say. “I won’t let her hurt us again. I promise.”
“You can’t promise that.” His body convulses as the tears finally come. “You don’t know.” More tears, more sobs that wrack through his body. “You don’t know anything.”
“No,” I say. “I can’t. But I swear I’ll do everything I possibly can to stop it happening again.”
As I hold him in my arms, I make a promise to myself. If I ever get the opportunity again, I will kill Isabel Fielding.
*
Covering up the bruise with foundation and concealer reminds me of my mother. While my father would avoid her face as much as possible when he flew into his rages, there were often still a few marks to cover up. Finger marks around her throat. Cigarette burns on her forearms. This is different, though. Tom wasn’t in control. He wasn’t himself. Is that what my mother told herself, too?
I’m angry. My mother’s wedding ring is in the clutches of that murdering bitch, Isabel Fielding. When I was the one she had hurt the most, I could cope with it all. I carry the scars. I have the nightmares. I’m the one on medication, the one who experiences anxiety, the one who can’t deal with birds anymore without hearing her voice in my ear. But I’m not the one she’s hurt the most. That’s Tom. I knew he was traumatised, and I knew he was angry, but I didn’t realise how broken he was until the moment he began pacing that room. Now, everything aches inside me. Now, I see the utter devastation she’s caused my family. Even my mother. My long-dead mother.
I stare at my reflection in the mirror and wonder: What can I do? What can I do to make this right? But the answers aren’t there.
*
George is asleep when I enter his room. I fuss around a little, tidying his magazines, opening the curtains, removing empty cups. When he stirs, he smiles at me.
“Pretty Lizzie,” he says.
I could cry. I’ve reached the point where any kindness shown to me makes me want to break down. It could be the new medication, or maybe I am becoming an emotional wreck.
“Morning,” I say brightly, moving towards his bed in order to chat.
But I immediately see that that was a mistake when his smile fades. “What have you done to yourself?”
Self-consciously, I raise a hand to my cheek. “It was an accident.” Knowing that nothing I say will sound like a successful lie, I’ve decided to be vague. There’s a part of me that can’t stand the idea of making up a lie to tell people, in the same way Mum did. Walking into doors, falling down stairs, tripping on Tom’s toy truck, a swing at the park.
“I hope that wasn’t a fella,” he says again, his voice stern, like he’s about to give me a life lecture. “There’s no one on God’s green earth worth getting bruises over. Mark my words.”
“I know. Don’t worry, it isn’t like that.”
“Oh,” he says. “It never is.”
As I sit next to him listening to his words of wisdom, I feel utterly guilty about knowing what his mother went through when he doesn’t know himself. But it isn’t my place to tell him. I can’t. As much as I want to.
“I met your Susie the other day.” A change of subject might help things along. “She’s lovely. Reminds me of you.”
“Is that right? Oh, no. Susie takes after her mother.”
“Got your eyes, though.”
He laughs. “Ah, you might be right about that.”
“Susie remembers people talking about the Pierces, so I’m going to research that. But it made me think. We’ve not talked properly about your mother yet. I know it must be hard to think back to that time, but do you remember anyone being around your mum? Anyone suspicious or threatening?”
“Ooh, now. It was a long time ago,” he says. He coughs a little and pushes himself up against the pillow slightly. I had a chat with the nurse before coming in, and I know he’s still a little delicate, but the worst of his bug is over and he’s tired but better than he was. “There’s not much I remember at all.”
“What do you remember? Maybe talking about it will jog something.”
“She was pretty; I remember that. Brown hair, like yours. Blue eyes. Always wore a dress and stockings, as ladies did back then. And she slept in her rollers. The lipstick she wore was red, but it wasn’t a strong red. It was subtle. I used to be able to smell her perfume whenever I thought about it, but it’s gone now. So is her face, I think. I have to rely on photographs for that, and not many survived the fire.
“Now, what was she doing the day of the fire? She made breakfast in the morning. I fought with Abby about who would get the last piece of toast because I was hungry. She told us to cut it in half and share. We did it, but we weren’t happy about it. Oh, yes, and she burnt her hand on the kettle. That wasn’t like her; she was a very careful woman. She burnt her hand because she was absent-minded that morning. Not much like herself. Now I think about it, she’d been funny for a few days. She forgot to pick Abby up from her swimming lesson. I had to remind her, and we ran all the way down Rose Street to the baths to collect her. The teacher gave her such a telling-off that she was in tears all the way home. And…” George’s eyes glaze over, as though he’s somewhere very far away. “The phone calls.”
“Phone calls?”
“Yes. Well, I never. I’d forgotten all about them. I was home from school for a few days. This was about a week before the fire. I had tonsillitis. Abby was fine, so she went to school, but I was laid up on the sofa, listening to the radio. We had a telephone in the hallway, on one of those little tables you don’t see much anymore. I was trying to listen to the radio, but the blasted telephone kept going. Every time, my mother would rush into the hall and snatch up that phone. Then I’d hear her saying things like, ‘stop calling here’, ‘leave me alone’, ‘leave us alone’. Honestly, I thought it was the mortgage people or the tax man, or one of the other things my father would complain about at dinner. But now that I think about it, I’m not sure.”
“It sounds like someone was harassing your mother,” I say.
“You might be right. But I can’t think of anyone who would want to hurt Mum.” George pauses and frowns. “Whoever it was probably started the fire.
They’re the murderer.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
ISABEL
I suspect that this might be true for you, Leah. I suspected it the first time I met you, and it’s something we have in common. We don’t have many friends, do we? We’re not the social butterfly type. We’re more the kind that sit in a room at night and think about darkness. My darkness is different from yours, though. I accept that. You seem to me like a self-flagellator, someone who is in a constant state of guilt. What’s shame to you? Tuesday night? Monday morning? A sprinkle of social embarrassment with your cornflakes? Did you cry at school when you got a bad mark? Did you feel guilty about letting Mummy and Daddy down?
I know you did.
We don’t have many friends. But my reason is quite simple: once I get to know them, I inevitably want to kill them. Some may call this “a shame”. However, I see it as an opportunity.
That opportunity arose last night in a motel that takes cash payments, somewhere outside Watford. We were close to a main road, and the constant hum of traffic was giving me a headache. I stared at Chloe, and I realised we’d reached the point of repetition when things stop being interesting. Visiting your mother was a lot of fun, but since then, it had been little more than drug deals, drug use, sleeping in cars, and cheeseburgers. I’d finished with my room service burger, and I felt sick.
I looked at Chloe, and I felt sick.
We were watching television together for the first time—this was our first motel stay. It was some sort of soap opera I remember the inmates of Crowmont Hospital watching religiously. All the women loved it and gathered round to watch insignificant people with Mancunian accents wail and flail over cheating husbands and wives. I was bored.
The soap finished, and the adverts came on and then the news. Chloe was a little worse for wear at this point, having injected herself with what I can only assume was heroin. There was a temptation to try it myself, I have to admit, but I’d seen the track marks on the arms of the people at Crowmont. I’d seen the destruction marks. I’d also seen Chloe lose control of herself after taking it, and I’m not one to lose control. I’m one to take it.
As Chloe sank into her high, I leaned against the headboard of the bed and watched the news with interest. I’ve been following the murder of Alison Finlay and am fascinated by what the police think. But up to this point, I’d done this by stealing newspapers and reading them while Chloe was asleep, then throwing them away before she saw a picture of old muggins here within its pages. Chloe is not one to take interest in the headlines. She cares more about drugs and burgers than she does the most wanted woman in Britain.
But what I should have thought about, which I failed to do, was the fact that I am the news. The news is all about me, because there’s nothing else of interest in this shithole of a country. So, as Chloe lay there with her eyes half-open in drug-addled bliss, a photograph of me popped up on the screen.
Oh, shit.
Well, even geniuses have a bad day.
I switched the channel over as quickly as possible, but Chloe turned to me and her face attempted to frown, though it was still relaxed from all the heroin.
It was at that moment, Leah, that I realised what I would do about my boredom.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
There’s a moment just before the dawn when I could swear that my dreams are real. Here is my father, sitting in a chair, laughing at the woman I’ve become. There is Isabel, sharpening her knife, her eyes quick and intelligent, waiting. And there is Tom, naked, bathed in blood, his hands outstretched towards me. And then there is the body of the woman, #justiceforalison etched on her body. She’s changing, and her hands aren’t hands, they’re claws. Bird claws. I wake, and I think—did I do this?
Am I responsible?
The magpie beats its wings.
No. It’s my heart. My heart is racing.
Since I changed medication, I’ve found that I sleep through the night in my own bed, but my dreams are more vivid than ever. Some of the anxiety has lifted, but I’m groggier, clumsier, like I’m only 80% of myself. Perhaps I leave the other 20% in my dreams.
It’s Saturday, and I have a day when neither I nor Tom needs to work. When I stumble downstairs, he has a pot of coffee waiting.
“Want one?”
I eye this creature with suspicion. What kind of teenage boy offers someone coffee? Perhaps the teenage boy I used to live with until an angry and bitter monster took up camp.
“Sure.”
“Sleep okay?” he asks.
“Apart from the nightmares, yes,” I reply.
Tom places the coffee on the table. “Honesty for once. Maybe those new pills are working.”
I take a sip of coffee. “You know I never lie to you.”
“Lying is still lying if it’s by omission.” He shrugs.
Ah, the angry, bitter monster is definitely still in there.
“Is everything okay?” I ask.
Tom takes a sip of his coffee and regards me with hooded eyes. “It’s just refreshing for you to admit that you have nightmares. You always seem to think that you have to make everything okay. That you have to protect me all the time.”
I think about reaching out and taking his hand. At one time I would have, but now I hesitate. Are we past that? “Of course I want to protect you. That’s what… That’s what big sisters do.”
“I don’t need it,” he says, and he sounds tired. “I want you to treat me like an adult.”
My breath catches in my throat. “I thought I was.”
“Did you?”
“Yes.”
Tom lets out a hollow laugh. “Huh.”
“Yeah, I guess I made a bad job of that.” My shoulders drop in disappointment. I sip on the coffee and hold in a sigh. “Are we okay?”
“Sure.”
He says it too quickly, like he’s holding back. I squint, but I can’t figure out if he truly is okay, or whether he’s simply placating me.
“Hey, want to help me with something today?” I ask. “You know my friend George at the home? And how I’m doing some research to try to establish what happened to his sister in the forties?”
“Yeah.”
“I need to track down more information about his mother’s ex-husband. I know we’re not supposed to create Facebook accounts, but I could create a false one under a different name and a stock photo and ask for more information. Join some local groups. What do you think? You’re better at this stuff than I am. Will you help me? I had a go at it myself a while ago, but I don’t think I did a very good job.”
“Okay, but only until I have to go meet the others at the pub later. There’s a burger and a pint deal.”
“Nice. Can I come?”
He regards me, horrified.
“Only kidding!”
He almost laughs. Almost.
*
We create a profile page for a lady called Evelyn, and choose the most natural-looking stock image for a woman in her eighties that we can find. I even create a new email address to ensure that nothing can be traced back to either Lizzie or Leah. It’s like I’ve been split into three. First, I was Leah. Then I was Lizzie and Leah. Now I’m Lizzie, Leah and Evelyn. Which of us is the better woman? My money is on Evelyn.
After doing some research, Tom adds me to a few groups. We find a group for the local school, and a group for local history. There’s another group for making friends and keeping in touch. Then I go through several profiles and add those people as friends, hoping they’ll add me back without trying to research poor old Evelyn, who of course doesn’t exist. But whatever we can do to find Simon Blackthorn is worth doing, and even better than all that, it means I get to spend some time with Tom.
“Look at this,” Tom says. I left the computer to pour another cup of coffee. The wooziness from these new drugs is hard to kick. I move back and lean over the computer. “This person has the same last name. She’s friends with several people called Blackthorn, and there are some photos on her page of
her relatives. Look: this is a scanned photo of a black-and-white picture taken long ago. Under the photo, she’s put Blackthorn as the caption.”
“Rita Blackthorn. What if she’s his granddaughter or something? Add her as a friend.”
Tom clicks on the “add friend” button, and we both stay staring at it as though she’ll add us back immediately.
“Good thing she had her settings to public. Who does that these days?”
“Trusting people,” I say. “People who haven’t been attacked by a psychopath?”
“We’re joking about it now?” Tom raises an eyebrow. “I guess that means something is healing.”
“Yeah, maybe you’re right. Or maybe it’s this new medication making me weird.”
“I think you were pretty weird already.”
“Good point.” I smile and sip my coffee. “Do you think we’re going to find out what happened to George’s sister? How amazing would that be?”
Tom cocks his head to the right and regards me with a strange expression on his face. The mid-morning sun catches his birthmark, turning it even more vermillion than ever. “Why do you do this? How do you do this?”
“Do what?”
“You know… find a cause and fight for it. And I’m not just talking about Isabel. Remember Gavin, that druggy artist boyfriend of yours? You almost dropped out of your A-Levels, working two jobs to support his habit. You thought you could fix him, didn’t you? Why do you keep trying to fix everyone else except us?”
“That’s not true!” Though I try to keep a friendly smile on my face, the words sting like lemon on a cut. “Fixing both of us is… is almost all I think about. This is my distraction so I don’t drive myself crazy. Again.”
“You’re running away. Escaping. Getting lost in business that isn’t yours.”
“That’s not fair. He asked for my help.”
Two For Joy (Isabel Fielding Book 2) Page 10