My Sister's Bones(85)

‘What are you doing?’

He puts his hands on her breasts.

‘Stop it, Paul!’ I yell. ‘Stop it now.’

‘All soft and pert,’ he sneers. ‘Like you must have been once. Shame that when we met you were already damaged goods.’

Hannah has her head down but I can see she’s scared; her shoulders are trembling as his hand goes further down her body.

‘Like that, do you?’ he whispers.

Further and further until I can’t bear it any more. I can’t let this happen.

‘Get your hands off my daughter,’ I scream as I run at him and push Hannah out of his grasp. ‘You sick bastard.’

I try to grab at the knife but he is too strong for me. He seizes my wrists and smashes my face into the wall, once, twice, three times, spitting at me as he yanks me back and forth.

‘Don’t. You. Ever. Learn. Bitch.’

My head flops as he pulls me back and I can taste blood in my mouth again.

‘No, Paul,’ I whimper as he holds my face in his hands and looks into my eyes. His face softens and for a moment I fear he is going to try to kiss me.

The blow comes out of nowhere and I cry out as my head hits the wall again.

‘Stop it!’

I hear Hannah’s voice somewhere on the edge of the room.

‘I’m teaching her a lesson,’ he says as he drags me back. ‘Paying her back for all the times she treated me like a f*cking dog.’

He pulls me towards his chest, his face pressed into mine. I see the blade glistening in front of my face as he tightens his grip and I close my eyes.

‘Run, Hannah,’ I yell. ‘Take David and go and get help.’

‘You don’t get to tell Hannah what to do,’ he says as he pushes the knife into me. ‘She’s mine.’

I stumble to the floor, clutching my stomach with both hands. The room spins. I pull my hands away. They’re covered with blood.

‘What have you done?’ I whimper. He’s sitting on the edge of the bed now, watching me.

‘What I should have done years ago,’ he says. ‘Put you out of your misery.’

Hannah is standing in the middle of the room. She wants to come to me, I can tell, but he’ll kill her too if she tries. I look up at her and smile. I want to reassure her. David must be asleep because he has stopped whimpering.

‘I’m sorry, love,’ says Paul.

He is talking to me. His voice is gentle, soothing, like the person I once knew.

‘You needed to be taught a lesson,’ he says, his voice growing fainter and fainter as I try to stay awake.

I can’t sit up any longer. I have to rest. My body feels empty as my head hits the floor. The room turns to liquid and I find myself swimming in beautiful clear water. I hear someone call my name and I see my mother on the beach. She’s waving her arms frantically, telling me that it’s time to come and have our picnic. I try to call back to her but my voice won’t carry. I feel myself go under.

‘Sally.’

Mum’s voice is frantic now. I see her wading out through the waves. She’s coming to rescue me but she’ll have to be quick; I can’t breathe. The pressure in my lungs is intense, I’m sinking. Then I feel Mum’s hand grab mine and she pulls me out of the water into dazzling light. I hang in the rays of it for a moment, whispering her name.

‘Mum?’

‘Sally.’

I know the voice but it isn’t Mum’s.

‘Sally. Oh my God!’

I paddle up through the darkness, through the thick wall of pain, and as I come to I feel a pair of arms coiling round me.

‘It’s okay,’ she says. ‘We’re going to get you out of here. You’re going to be fine. Just stay with me.’

I open my eyes. She is here. She has come to save me.





PART THREE




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42


Herne Bay

I pull my hood up so it obscures my face as I step off the train and on to the platform. My legs are throbbing where the stitches are beginning to heal and it still hurts to walk on my right knee. There’s a bench by the exit stairs and I go over to it and sit down for a moment, massaging the aching joint.

The Turkish doctor managed to remove most of the shrapnel but he told me there was one sliver that was almost impossible to get to. I didn’t care. I was alive; I could cope with an injured knee. The rest of the camp wasn’t so lucky. The whole of the north-west side was obliterated in the blast. I had been on the southern edge of the camp by the fence, well away from the centre of the explosion. Even so, it had still lifted me off my feet and I was knocked unconscious. I remember coming to and wondering where I was. In those first few moments I was sure that I was dead and I’d somehow emerged in an apocalyptic afterlife. But as I staggered to my feet and looked around I saw that this was real and it was worse than any hell I could ever have imagined.

My knee was bleeding badly as I limped towards the remains of the camp, calling out for someone, anyone. But the silence of the dead burned like a gas and rose in smoky plumes from the centre of the camp. Body parts were scattered across the smouldering field and an emaciated dog, following the scent of fresh blood, had begun to feast on the remains of the dead. It looked like the end of the world.