by Ruth Heald
I remember how much pain I’d been in when I gave birth. How Ian hadn’t been there because Paula had kept him away. She was behind it all. I feel like I might throw up.
‘You wanted me to be vulnerable, didn’t you? To depend on you so you could become part of my life, so you could live in this house.’
‘Of course. I made sure you had the babies when Ian was away.’
‘What?’
‘Oh Katie, didn’t you realise? That horrible examination I gave you when you thought you hadn’t felt the twins moving. I induced your labour. I inserted a pessary of drugs to get it going. And it worked. I was proud of myself. I learnt how to do it on the internet. I hadn’t even done a vaginal examination before then.’
Her words knock the air out of me. ‘What do you mean? I thought you examined women as part of your job.’
In the darkness I can just about make out Paula’s smirk. ‘You still think I’m a doula?’
‘Aren’t you?’ I recoil in shock.
‘Of course not. I did a bit of nannying in Berlin, but nothing more. I made up being a doula when I saw you were pregnant. I even printed out a certificate in case you wanted to see one. But you never did. You never even checked my references. You trusted me.’
Forty-Seven
‘You’re not a doula?’ I stare at her in disbelief. ‘You’re crazy.’
‘I’m not crazy. I’m damaged. I didn’t have a good start in life. It was inevitable that I’d turn out bad. That’s what my foster parents told me after my sister died. I guess they were right.’
Above me in the house, I hear glass smashing.
The police? But I haven’t rung them. Maybe Amy’s phoned them. But then I remember she’s upstairs, unconscious in the bedroom. Bleeding from the head.
‘Down here!’ I shout as loudly as I can. ‘Down here!’
‘They’ll never hear you.’ Paula says. ‘My mother never used to hear me and my sister when we were locked down here. She used to play the piano in the room above, as if she hadn’t a care in the world.’
What am I going to do? I need to get the twins off Paula. And what about Amy? I need to help her too.
‘What have you done to Amy?’ I ask.
‘Your stupid friend? You care about her, do you?’
‘What did you do to her?’ I remember how Amy thought Paula had pushed her down the stairs.
‘I hit her over the head with the bedside lamp. I’m not sure if I really needed to. She wasn’t any good at guarding your twins. I think she would have slept straight through me taking them away.’ Paula laughs. ‘But I knocked her out anyway, just in case.’
I need to get Amy some help. Now. But I can’t leave my twins.
‘Katie?’ I hear a voice from above me in the house. Ian. But he sounds far away.
‘Here! We’re down here!’ I scream out.
‘Katie?’ The voice sounds like a whisper now, even further away. When I strain my ears I can still hear the rain outside. He won’t be able to hear me above the noise.
‘Ian!’ I scream even louder. My babies scream with me. I remember the night I woke up and thought I could hear my babies crying, but they sounded far away. Paula must have had them down here. I could hear them from the hallway. If only Ian would go into the hallway.
‘Ian!’ I scream again.
‘Katie?’
In the dark, Paula clamps her hand over my mouth. I fight furiously, biting her hand and pulling away, but she lets go of the twins, dropping them onto the mattress, and pushes me down, then lies across me, her hand still over my mouth. I try to shout to Ian but my words are completely muffled by her palm.
But I can hear footsteps. They’re getting closer.
A shadow blocks the doorway at the top of the stairs.
Ian.
Paula jumps off me, but before I can grab my screaming daughters and run away, she has them back in her arms, close to her body.
‘She’s got our babies,’ I call up to Ian. ‘Call the police!’
Then Paula’s hands circle Frances’s neck. ‘The police won’t get here in time.’ She smiles calmly, enjoying every moment of my agony. ‘Get Ian down here where I can see him.’
‘Ian!’ I shriek, as I watch Paula’s hands tighten around Frances’s neck. My throat is raw from my screams.
Ian runs down the stairs towards us, stumbling over the uneven stone, coming to a rapid stop when he sees the candle next to the mattress, sees Paula’s grip on the girls.
‘The prodigal son returns.’
‘Paula—’ I’ve never seen Ian panicked before, but as he stares at Paula I can see fear in his eyes. ‘What are you doing with my children?’
‘My nieces, you mean. I’m their auntie.’ Paula is completely calm.
‘Katie said you were my sister. But I didn’t even know I had a sister. You have to believe me.’ Ian stumbles over the words.
Paula laughs as Alice cries in her arms. Under the sound of Alice’s whimpers I can hear the tape still whirring, playing the same haunting lullaby over and over.
‘You really are an accomplished liar, Ian. You know you had two sisters. Twins. Just like yours. Twins must run in our family.’
‘They must,’ Ian says distractedly, and I know he’s thinking what I’m thinking. We have to get the girls away from Paula. I scan the darkness for some kind of weapon. All I can see are the girls’ soft toys and the tape player, the reels still turning. Could I throw it hard enough to knock Paula out, or at least knock her off balance? I try to catch Ian’s eye.
‘Did you know that we were locked down here in the basement when you visited my father?’ Paula continues, her voice cold. ‘Sometimes we heard you, laughing and joking with Dad, while we were down here in the dark and the dirt.’
‘I had no idea.’
‘He preferred you to us. He told us. He’d always wanted a son, and there you were. He didn’t want two girls.’
‘I’m so sorry,’ Ian says. He sounds sincere, as if he’s genuinely moved. ‘I really am.’ He shuffles closer to Paula and I think he might be able to grab our babies. I pray that he does. But she squeezes the twins tightly. Too tightly.
‘After you started coming round, everything changed. You know why we were first locked down here? Because we waved at you. That’s all we did. And that got us locked down here.’
I stare at the picture of the children on the wall, thinking of them shut away down here in the basement. I can’t imagine what Paula suffered, first at the hands of her father and then at the hands of her sister. They both used to beat her up down here.
Ian speaks quietly. ‘What our father did to you – it’s not my fault, Paula. It’s not my babies’ fault either. Let them go. Let them be happy.’ The twins are quiet now, and I’m worried Paula has squeezed them too tightly, forcing the air from their tiny lungs.
‘Do you think they’ll be happy in this house? They should never have been living here in the first place.’ Paula’s voice rises, her anger filling the room. ‘I should have inherited the house.’
‘Is that what this is about? The house?’ Ian takes a step forward.
‘I was the one who suffered in this house. I was the one who lost my sister. I grew up here. I endured that childhood. Why should you inherit it? You never even lived here.’
Ian glances at me and then at the tape player. ‘You’re right,’ he says desperately. ‘The house should have been yours.’
I know what Ian’s doing. He’s trying to distract Paula so I can reach the tape player. It’s our only chance.
‘I was the one who visited Dad when he was ill,’ Paula continues. ‘I went to see him in the care home. Even though I hated him, I did that for him. I thought I’d get my reward when he died. You never even saw him. And yet, despite everything I did for him, you were still his favourite.’
I take a step closer and Paula glances up at me. Her cold eyes meet mine and all I can see is pure, unadulterated hatred. She pulls the twins away, but the cassette player
is almost in reach.
‘Look – you can have the house,’ Ian says. ‘You can have anything. Just give us our girls back.’
Ian meets my eyes. I’m inches from the cassette player. If I just stretch out my fingers, I can grab it.
Paula looks down at the babies, considering Ian’s offer. I take my opportunity, lunging towards the tape player. My fingers grip its cold metal and I lift it into the air. I throw it as hard as I can at Paula.
Forty-Eight
Paula ducks and the cassette player flies past her head, crashing to the floor. The tape doesn’t stop, the reels turning and the piano playing through its speakers.
Paula lifts her head up slowly and meets my eyes. My babies’ screams echo around us.
‘So that’s how you really feel, is it, Katie? After everything I’ve done for you.’
My breathing is ragged and heavy from the exertion of throwing the tape player.
‘You’ve hurt my daughter,’ I say through tears. ‘I thought you loved my girls. I trusted you.’
‘You don’t know what it’s like to be truly hurt. Hurt the way I was.’
‘I read the newspaper articles, Paula. I read how your father hurt you and how your sister joined in. How she beat you up. I can’t imagine how awful that must have been. Your own twin.’ When I first read the stories I felt sorry for Paula. But not anymore. Not after I realised what she’s been doing to my family. ‘What happened to you was awful. But it’s nothing to do with my daughters.’
‘But it’s everything to do with their father.’ She glares at Ian. ‘My sister died because of you.’
‘What do you mean?’ Ian asks.
‘You might not have known about us when you first started coming round. But you knew at the end. We wrote you a note and put it in your bag. We asked for your help. But you ignored it.’
‘I didn’t. I never received anything.’
‘You did, Ian. You must have. You showed it to your mother and she called my father and told him all about it. And after that the violence got much, much worse.’
‘What? My mother knew about you? She had your note?’ Ian pauses. ‘She must have found it in my bag. I used to pretend I was going to play football when I came to see my father. I’d change afterwards and she’d go through my bag to wash my kit. She must have found it then.’ He pauses. ‘That must be why we moved away so suddenly. She knew I was seeing him.’
But Paula’s not listening anymore. She’s lost in her memories. ‘That was when he started making us fight each other. If you had just helped us, that would never have happened.’
‘Look, Paula,’ I say. ‘You need help. If you just give us the twins, we can get help for you. Help you get over your childhood. Come to terms with everything that’s happened. We don’t have to mention anything that’s happened today.’
‘You think it’s that easy, do you? I’m afraid that’s not how it works. Ian didn’t help us when we were locked down here. And only one of us came out alive. That’s what happens in this basement. One twin lives and one twin dies. Because of Ian. And now your twins are down here too. History repeating itself.’ She laughs. ‘It’s so appropriate, don’t you think? Ian kills my twin, and I kill one of yours?’
I realise that Paula is truly unhinged. She doesn’t have any compassion left in her. It was all beaten out of her as a child.
‘Paula, please,’ I beg. ‘Just let my girls go.’
‘I’m so sorry, Paula,’ Ian says desperately. ‘I truly am. I never heard what happened to your sister. I was in Kent, starting a new life with my mother. I didn’t read the papers. I didn’t even know I had a sister, let alone that she died.’
‘I don’t believe you. You’re a compulsive liar. And your twins are going to pay.’
Paula puts the twins down roughly and I see the slither of a chance to grab them, but before I can reach for them, she picks up the candle and holds it over the old mattress. I can’t come any nearer. If she lets the flame touch the mattress, the whole thing will become a bonfire with my babies on it.
I can’t stop myself. My screams fill the room. ‘Help! Help!’
Paula watches me gleefully, the whites of her eyes shimmering in the candlelight. Seeing her like this, I think she’s actually prepared to kill us all.
I look up at the wall, see the photo of my twins with Frances’s face scratched out. In exactly the same way Paula’s twin’s face is scratched out. As if she was always planning to murder her. As I stare at the flickering candle, I realise that I still don’t know who killed her sister. It wasn’t Ian. I’d assumed it was her violent father. But now the pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together in my mind. Paula’s horrific childhood. Her sister beating her up.
‘You snapped and killed your sister, didn’t you? She was hurting you and you retaliated. You pushed her down the stairs.’
Paula smiles serenely. ‘I wondered when you’d work that out. I pushed her. I had to. It was her or me.’
I stare at her, disbelieving. She’s capable of killing her own flesh and blood. Her twin. And she has no remorse at all.
‘There wasn’t space in the world for both of us. Just like there isn’t space in the world for both of your twins.’
She holds the candle up high, dripping hot wax on the mattress, so close to Frances’s face.
I have to get her on my side, have to pretend to understand her, so she’ll give the girls back to me.
‘You were just a child. No one could blame you. Not after what you’d been through. Of course you snapped. Your sister was violent towards you. Again and again. No one could cope with that. Of course you pushed her.’
Paula laughs as she plays with the candle, hot wax dripping so close to my babies. ‘You still believe that my sister abused me?’
I frown. ‘I read the psychiatric reports. They explained what had happened to you when you were young. How your sister used to hurt you. How it affected you later on when you went into foster care.’
‘Yes, well, that’s what I told the psychiatrists. They lapped it up. It was exactly what they wanted to hear. Poor little me. Abused by my father and my twin. With a dead sister to boot. I became quite in demand in medical circles. Lots of them wanted to do case studies on me. Analyse how such an awful childhood had affected me.’
‘So you made it all up?’
‘It happened. Just not the way I said. Think about it logically. There are two sisters. One of them is stronger and cleverer than the other. One tortures the other. Which one do you think would end up dead at the bottom of the stairs? The weaker one, or the stronger one?’
‘What are you saying?’
‘The weaker twin doesn’t end up alive. She dies. I was the stronger sister, and I survived. I was the one who tortured my sister.’
23
The fight is over. She has won. I’m bloody and bruised on the basement floor and Dad is finally satisfied. Every bone in my body hurts.
‘Well done,’ he says to her. ‘Well done, Paula!’
I haven’t fought back, and she is uninjured, her pretty face unblemished.
Dad starts up the basement steps and my sister follows him. I crawl up behind them. I want to get to Mum. I hope she’ll help me. I can’t stay down in the basement on my own, not like this.
When we get to the top of the stairs, I stand shakily.
‘What are you doing?’ my sister asks angrily.
Dad turns. ‘Didn’t you hear me? Whoever wins the fight gets to leave the basement. You have to stay.’
He turns to my sister. ‘Make her go back down.’
‘Go back down the steps,’ Paula says to me. ‘Please.’
I can barely see, barely stand up. But I need to get out of the basement.
My father is losing patience. ‘OK then, if she won’t go back down, then you’ll both have to stay down there.’
‘No!’ my sister says.
And then she turns and I see her hands flying towards me. She pushes me with all her might.
I fall backward. I feel my head crack against the first stone step, see my legs above me, tumbling over me.
And then nothing.
Forty-Nine
Ian stares at Paula incredulously. ‘You were abusing your twin? And then you killed her?’
She nods. ‘She didn’t deserve to live. She was too weak.’
Ian chokes back tears. ‘She was my sister.’
‘Don’t pretend to care now. You never even met her.’
‘Sabrina was right, wasn’t she? It was you who pushed her down the escalator. You killed my sister and then you murdered my baby.’ He stumbles over the words, shocked.
Paula laughs. ‘I didn’t want you to have a baby. I didn’t want you to be happy. You didn’t deserve it.’
Ian looks like he might throw up. I see fury in his eyes. He takes a step towards Paula and she holds up Alice’s toy caterpillar next to the flame of the candle. The flame laps towards it, but it doesn’t catch.
‘What do you want, Paula?’ I ask desperately. ‘We’ll give you anything you want. Ian’s said you can have the house.’
Paula smiles serenely. ‘I’m not in the mood to negotiate,’ she says. ‘I’m enjoying this far too much.’
‘Paula, please.’
‘OK,’ she says. ‘Seeing as you’re being so nice to me all of a sudden, maybe I can cut you a deal.’
‘What?’ My heart leaps. ‘Anything you want.’
‘I’ll have the house. Ian will take it off the market and sign it over to me. You won’t tell anyone what happened here.’
‘You’ll give us the twins?’ I reach out my arms, but she places the candle over the twins once more. Wax drips onto the mattress beside them.
‘I’ll give you one twin,’ she says, smiling. ‘I’ll let you choose which twin comes out alive. And after we’re done, you can tell the police it was all a terrible accident.’