‘And Bob?’
‘He argued with her. But got in his car and drove off. I never told the police. I thought if they knew I was following her, they’d end up accusing me.’
‘You didn’t see anyone?’
‘Only a woman.’
‘What did she look like?’
‘I was too far away to see her face. She drove a green MG and had one of those black and tan terrier-type dogs, the type you see as soft toys that get pushed about on wheels.’
‘A Welsh terrier.’
‘Might have been.’
‘It was,’ I say.
The pieces of the jigsaw were sitting in front of me all the time and I ignored their pattern. Now, they slot into place and I can see the whole picture. I know now who did this to us, who killed my sister and drove a wedge between me and Dad. I’ve been such a fool.
Chapter 68
Edie: June 1998
‘Are you hurt?’ Max asked as he jogged towards her. ‘You shouldn’t let him treat you like that.’
‘Mind your own business,’ Edie said. ‘If you follow me again, I’ll tell Dad who you are. Do you know what he threatened to do to you?’
Max looked down.
‘I only want to make sure you’re safe. That Bob—’
‘Just leave me alone.’
‘Have you finished with him?’ Max asked. ‘Maybe we could go out sometime.’
‘No, we couldn’t.’
‘I wouldn’t ask you to do anything, not like him. Please, Edie, what about the cinema?’
‘I’m going home now. And you’d better not follow me.’
She walked past him, looking back several times to check he hadn’t moved, before she swung off the main path and onto the winding dirt track, leading to the canal.
Chapter 69
Tess: July 2018
I check my phone’s on in my pocket before I knock.
‘I knew you’d come back.’ Becca opens the door. ‘Come in.’
Her face shows no emotion. A fury overwhelms me. I forget my plan and push her into the house. She stumbles to the floor. I haul her up by the armpits, shove her against the wall and place my hands round her throat. Our faces lie an inch apart. I start to press. She’s very thin now and too weak to fight back. I grip her windpipe. Her face is turning purple, her eyes bulge and she’s making rasping noises. How long do I have to press?
Becca’s fingernails scratch ineffectually at the back of my hands. Her rasping becomes more urgent. She’s trying to speak. I want her dead, but if she has something to tell me, something about Edie, I have to hear it, I need to know the truth.
I slacken my grip and Becca starts to slide down the wall.
I grab her arm, drag her into the lounge and throw her into a chair. Her head flies backwards and cracks on its back.
I stand back and check my phone again.
Becca bends forwards, her hands to her throat. She looks up at me with bloodshot eyes.
‘You see why Ray and your dad were so easy to convince,’ she says. Her voice is hoarse and barely audible. ‘You have got it in you, Tess. You could kill.’
‘You, yes. Edie, no.’
Her hands rest on her throat.
‘It wasn’t planned. You have to believe me, it was an accident, a moment of madness.’
‘An accident?’
‘I saw her with that boy and I just knew I had to do something. I didn’t even know what, I think I was only going to talk to her.’ Becca stops and blinks. ‘She wouldn’t listen to me; she was always so stubborn and headstrong. I tried to explain the trouble she could get into, with a boy like that. She didn’t want to know. Just tossed her head and sneered. I lost my temper, pushed her harder than I meant to. She tripped, fell head first into the bridge. It split her forehead open. Blood spurted everywhere and I panicked.’
Chapter 70
Edie: June 1998
A dog barked in the distance. Edie shivered, despite the heat. The usual calm she found walking by the canal, replaced with a sense of unease. She stopped and let her eyes adjust to the shade thrown from overhanging trees, and was able to make out the dense criss-crossing of bushes and brambles on the path. As she picked her way through, the scent of decay rose from dank vegetation and mingled with the flowers’ fragrance in a heady, sickly-sweet mix. Something snapped in the undergrowth behind her. She picked up her pace and glanced back, half expecting to see Max, but thick bushes obscured her view along the track.
The path turned to run parallel with the canal, its surface covered in a thin film of green. She resisted the urge to look back again. It was afternoon, she had taken this route home from school a hundred times. She wasn’t some silly little girl, afraid of her own shadow. There was no one behind her, she was frightening herself. She hurried towards the bridge, its thick iron struts and ornate metalwork a hangover from the city’s industrial past. It was barely used these days. This route didn’t even save time compared to taking the road. Edie just preferred it.
The bushes swayed. An animal, a fox or a dog flashed through the branches then lay still. Something was rustling behind her. No. It was her imagination. She decided to stop by the bridge and fiddle with her shoe. It would give her the chance to look round without being obvious. Propping her foot onto an iron strut and refastening the buckle, she glanced sideways down the track. It was empty. When she’d finished and stood up, she looked across the bridge. There was no one there. Still she remained uneasy. To double-check the path, she leant over to fiddle with the other shoe. She tugged at its strap and again checked around. Butterflies flitted across the shards of light from gaps in the branches, otherwise nothing moved.
Then came a sharp bark, followed by the crack and swish of something rushing through the bushes towards her.
Chapter 71
Tess: July 2018
‘And then blaming me, Becca?’ I say. ‘Making Dad think I’m his daughter’s killer.’
‘An accident too, Tess. I might have confessed or not said anything. But you made it so easy. You came to mine after school that day, you were upset about something Edie had said or done. I don’t know what.’
That last day, when she refused to acknowledge me in the school atrium. I can feel the heat of my rising anger, even now, twenty years later.
‘You were so upset, you could hardly breathe. I thought you were going to pass out. So I gave you a couple of my Valium to calm you down. It sent you to sleep and every time you woke up you refused to talk and became agitated, so I’d give you another tablet.’
It explains why I have barely any recollection of the events surrounding Edie’s death.
‘I told Ray and Vince you said you’d killed her.’
‘And they believed you?’
‘You don’t realise how easy it was to believe, the way you carried on, you were always so angry.’
‘I was a teenager.’
‘You resented me, Ray, anyone who spent time with Edie.’
‘That’s not true. How could they believe any of this?’
Becca grimaces and shifts in her chair.
‘Ray believed me and that was enough for Vince. He was always led by Ray, never trusted his own judgement. A bit like you.’
A smile flickers across her lips and I realise she’s enjoying this.
Edie’s death was no accident.
Chapter 72
Edie: June 1998
The push came from behind and hands drove her forwards, tipping her towards the water. She threw her arms back to regain her balance and hovered on the edge of the canal. Another push, much harder this time. Edie flew forwards. Her head smashed onto the bridge’s metal strut. One hand gripped her shoulder, another held the back of her head and thrust it into the canal, forcing it beneath the water.
Cold, algae-rich water engulfed her scream.
The surface lay inches above her. Her head throbbed, her arms wouldn’t move. Another scream, another lungful of water.
She tried to twist round. The ha
nds held her fast. She managed to half turn. Through the rippling water, blood and algae, she saw a blurred face. Not so blurred as to be unrecognisable. How could it be? She’d known it all her life. The fight left her.
Edie stopped struggling and let water fill her lungs. Blood and sunlight swirled in ornate patterns around her. She watched them form and reform as she drifted into darkness. The head wound felt far away, the pain unconnected with her. She closed her eyes and let her body merge with the dark and cold.
Chapter 73
Tess: July 2018
‘It wasn’t an accident. You didn’t just lose your temper, did you?’ I say.
Becca half closes her eyes.
‘She was just leaning against the bridge that day, half over the canal, as if she were waiting for me, almost an invitation, like she wanted to be killed.’ The smile’s still not disappeared from the corners of her mouth when she opens her eyes again and looks me full in the face. ‘Part of you must have wanted to kill Edie, or it wouldn’t have taken you so long to come back. You did think you might have done it, didn’t you?’
Would I have believed it if Max hadn’t told me the truth?
‘I could never have harmed her,’ I say and I know it’s true. ‘What possible reason could you have had for wanting her dead?’
‘The same one as you,’ Becca says. ‘I was jealous.’
‘Of what?’
She gasps.
‘Are you serious, of what… of what?’ Then she laughs. ‘No, I understand. How could fussy, frumpy Auntie Becca have any feelings worth noting? Do you think I didn’t know how you sniggered and sneered at me? Silly old Becca with her home decoration, where’s she moving to next? What triviality’s going to outrage her about the neighbours this time? Which dowdy clothes will she be wearing? Do you think I actually cared about any of that? Do you think I should just have shrugged my shoulders when my husband’s sleeping with every tart in a ten-mile radius?’
‘This has nothing to do with Edie.’
‘I saw her that day, with her skinny legs and bouncy chest, arguing with that boy, and it was Ray and Gina all over again.’
‘I still don’t understand.’
‘I wanted a baby and then Ray had one with that whore.’
‘Valentina?’
She nods.
‘I pretended not to know and I didn’t mind so much because the little bastard wasn’t right, had something wrong with it, died soon after birth. I felt like she got what she deserved.’
Now is not the time to tell her Ray even lied about that.
‘And then she was so much like your mother.’
‘Valentina?’
‘No, Edie. Keep up, Tess, you always were the slow one.’ She takes a moment to enjoy her barb. ‘But then maybe it’s served you well.’
‘You killed her because she looked like Mum?’
‘Ray and your mother …’
‘I know. But you always cared for us.’
‘Yes, you were like my own children. Until you weren’t children any more.’
‘You mean when Edie got a boyfriend? Why did you marry Ray? You must have known.’
‘I thought he’d forget her. She was no one. She thought she was special because she was at university studying English and could quote poetry. But she was just the daughter of an immigrant on one side and a family of factory workers on the other. Then she married Vince. It was all her own fault. If she’d married someone else, given Ray up, none of this would have happened. You think she was so perfect? She was a scheming little bitch.’
I ram my hands in my pockets to stop myself striking her.
‘She was my mother.’
‘And who’s your father?’
I examine her face, she gives nothing away.
‘You think it’s Ray?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t suppose Gina did, either.’
‘And you hurt Edie to punish him?’
‘No, though it was a good revenge. The truth is I couldn’t stand how she and Ray were so close. Then I thought she was pregnant.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘I couldn’t bear her having a child with Ray.’
‘You’re insane. It wasn’t Ray’s. It was Bob’s. Ray’s our uncle, maybe our father.’
‘It happens,’ she says.
And I think of what Ray told me about Becca, the princess, daddy’s girl, and realise she’s talking about her father now. Their trips abroad after her mother died, not being allowed boyfriends. I wonder if this is why she never had children, if she can’t have children.
‘Why are you with Ray if you believe he’s capable of that?’
She doesn’t answer.
‘Tell me, Becca.’
‘You’re lucky with Vince. He must have worried you were even his, but even after what he thought you’d done to Edie, he loved you. Couldn’t bear the idea of you going to prison; neither could Ray. They moved the body.’
‘You made Dad do that?’
‘I just wanted things to go back to normal.’
‘Normal? You think this is normal?’
‘Who’s to say what’s normal?’
She looks up at me.
‘What are you going to do?’ she asks.
‘I haven’t decided,’ I say. ‘But I have recorded this.’
I hold up my phone. The red button is flashing for record. Becca frowns then bursts out laughing.
‘Oh dear, Tess,’ she says. ‘You’re not getting any quicker, are you?’
For a moment I think of what Dad said, that whoever hurt Edie would hurt me. She’s going to kill me, this thin old woman slumped in her chair. She has a plan, poison, a gun.
‘But have it your way. Call the police if you want,’ she says. ‘Watch Vince go to prison as an accessory after the fact.’
I put the phone back in my pocket.
‘And no one’s locking me up. Cancer,’ she says. ‘I knew straight away. It killed my mother. I didn’t go to the doctor until a couple of months back. I deliberately left it until it was too late. It felt like I deserved it. Whatever Edie did, I was wrong.’
‘She did nothing.’
‘I still hated her. So did you.’
‘I’m glad you’re dying, Becca.’
She doesn’t reply.
‘It’s not just Edie’s life you took away, it’s the lies. Years and years of lies. To me, to Dad, to Ray. Have you thought about how it’s tortured him over the years, thinking one of his daughters killed the other?’
She still says nothing, just stares into space, then her eyes suddenly close in another grimace. Physical pain from her illness or the pain of memory? When she replies her voice is just a whisper.
‘I can’t change the past, Tess, and I don’t have much of a future.’
‘You’ve had twenty years more life than Edie.’
‘Have I?’ she says and begins to laugh, before pain erupts across her face and it turns into a sob.
I look around at the house. Their tenth house in fifteen years. All the china figurines and flounces, their wedding photo in a gilt frame, Ray smiling and Becca looking shy. How little any of this means, it’s all as artificial as the porcelain flowers.
‘So you did all this to keep Ray? What do you think he’ll do when he finds out?’
It’s the first time she’s looked frightened.
‘You can’t tell him, Tess.’
She sobs again.
‘I’m not going to tell him, you are,’ I say.
She looks at me and shakes her head.
‘No.’
‘When I first came in I wanted to kill you. Now I think I’d rather see you live to have Ray hate you as much as I do.’
‘Please don’t, Tess. They’re taking me into a hospice soon. I’ll be all alone without Ray.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re expecting sympathy?’
Her sobs overwhelm her.
‘I never wanted sympathy,’ she says. ‘I only wanted Ray.’
&
nbsp; I turn and leave the room.
‘Tess,’ she calls after me. ‘Tess.’
I don’t look back.
*
Dad paces the lounge as I play the recording. Then stands stock-still.
‘All this time she’s walking around, fussing about which colour cushions she has, playing the devoted auntie, and my Edie’s been lying in that reservoir. And I put her there. I’m going to the police. I’m telling them everything.’
‘You can’t, you’ll go to prison.’
‘I don’t care, Tess. She can’t get away with it.’
‘We have to stay together. Prison would kill you and that would kill me.’
He presses his fists to his forehead.
‘She can’t get away with this.’
He looks at his car keys lying on the coffee table and reaches for them. I dive forwards, snatch them up and stuff them in my pocket.
‘No, Dad.’
‘So that’s it, we all just get on with our lives? We can’t do that. You must hate her, too.’
‘She’s ill. She’ll not last long. She’ll be dead and you’ll be in jail.’
‘Dying in a hospital, surrounded by doctors and nurses, like lots of people who’ve never done any harm.’
He’s right. I wish I believed in God as fervently as Grandpa Len. To believe that Becca would be punished in eternity. But I can only believe in now and there doesn’t seem much justice.
‘Look at what she’s done to us, Tess. What she made me think of you. Aren’t you angry with me, for believing Becca?’
‘I nearly believed it myself.’
‘I never wanted to,’ Dad says. ‘But you were always so angry with her, Tess. Always.’
‘I loved her.’
‘You argued all the time. You didn’t want her to have friends or boyfriends. You used to follow her and go through her stuff. I was worried. I didn’t know what to do. I even spoke to Becca about it.’
‘We were just two kids fighting. We were sisters, it was normal.’
‘And you’ve got a temper, Tess, I remember that girl in primary school having stitches after you attacked her. She was twice the size of you.’
Someone You Know Page 31