One of the Girls(86)

80

Eleanor

The night thrummed with heat and the low drone of insects. Eleanor could feel the pinch of salt streaking her bare legs, the fading warmth of the stone terrace beneath her soles.

She stared at her brother. Strange, Ed, right here, in this setting. He didn’t seem to fit, like he was in the wrong place with his shiny leather shoes and pressed shirt, when they were all barefoot, shoulders tanned. It was the first time Eleanor had felt, I belong; it’s you who doesn’t.

‘Tell them, Eleanor. You know me.’

You know me.

Oh yes, she knew Ed.

She knew that on her first day at senior school, she’d waved to Ed in the corridor and he’d blanked her. ‘Who was that?’ a red-haired boy had asked, and Ed had shrugged and said, ‘Just some retard.’

She knew at fifteen, when Ed had been upset about a disagreement with their parents and she’d made him a hot chocolate – just the way he liked it, with freshly whipped cream and chocolate grated over the top. She’d carried it into his bedroom and he’d slung a cushion at her, sloshing scalding milk down her front. ‘I’m not a child! A hot chocolate won’t fix shit!’

But she also knew that when she had her first series of sculptures accepted into a gallery, he’d been the one to congratulate her, arriving on her doorstep with a bottle of champagne. ‘Proud of you, little sis.’

She knew that when she’d lost Sam, he’d cleared his diary and hadn’t left her side for forty-eight hours.

She knew that, four months later, he’d looked at her, sitting in her pyjamas at midday, and his lips had curled as he said, ‘Frankly, this is just indulgent now.’

She knew that Ed could be charming, loving, and generous – but he could also be cruel, hot-tempered, jealous.

He was deeply flawed.

But he was her brother.

He stared at her, eyes shining. ‘Come on, Eleanor.’

It was a trial and she’d been brought forward as a character witness. The night held them close. She could feel the damp fabric of Lexi’s red wrap still draped over her forearm. Could feel the others close to her, watching, waiting.

Ed said, ‘I would never have done that to Ana.’

Eleanor wanted, more than anything, for her brother’s claim to be true.





81

Bella

Bella watched Eleanor’s gaze fall to the ground, the smallest downturn of her shoulders. Cowed. That was the word. Before her brother, straight-talking, spiky Eleanor Tollock looked cowed.

Ana’s lips were pressed together, her expression mask-still. That account of hers – Ed’s house party, the locked door, the description of his cold, brutal behaviour – there was an echo to it. She knew where she’d heard a whisper of it before: from Cynthia, who’d recognised him from the lap-dancing club.

Ed was wearing a controlled expression, but there was a hint of smugness in the upturn of his lips. He thought he was going to get away with it. Bella stepped forward. ‘Ana’s telling the truth.’

Ed looked her up and down. ‘It would suit you to believe the worst, wouldn’t it?’

‘What suits me is seeing my friends happy. But look at Lexi – she doesn’t look very happy right now, does she? And Ana – she’s trembling like a leaf. And what about Eleanor? My guess is she’s afraid of you.’

He laughed. ‘Have you met my sister? She’s scared of no one.’ He stepped towards Bella, voice lowered so the others couldn’t hear. ‘You’d do well to mind your own business, Nurse Rossi.’

‘There’s no need to whisper,’ she said, ‘because Eleanor knows I was the nurse who gave Sam the wrong medication. I made a mistake. A mistake with terrible, terrible consequences. I’ve got to work out a way to live with that mistake without letting it eat me alive. And I’ve not got that figured out just yet. But you do not get to hold that mistake over me like a threat. Not anymore’.

There was silence on the terrace.

Bella could feel every pair of eyes trained on her. Her chest heaved with the suffocating weight of her guilt and grief. But beneath that, there was another sensation, just the lightest hint of relief that she was finally being honest.

‘Wait—’ Eleanor said, brow dipping. She looked at Ed. Her voice was a whisper. ‘You knew Bella was the nurse?’

His expression faltered. ‘Well, I did all the paperwork, dealt with the hospital for you. So yes, I recognised her name.’

‘You encouraged me to go on the hen weekend, telling me it would do me good, when you knew all along I would be out here with her?’

‘I thought you needed a holiday.’ His tone was calm and level – the tone of an older brother who knows best. ‘You needed a break after losing Sam. I was trying to look out for you. You know how much I care about you.’

Bella arched her brow. ‘If it hadn’t been for you and your fucking antics on the stag do – Sam would never even have been in hospital.’

Eleanor went very still. ‘What?’

‘If Sam hadn’t hurt his shoulder on the stag that night, he wouldn’t have been admitted,’ Bella said.

Eleanor was staring at her blankly. ‘Sam hurt his shoulder after the stag. He fell down the hotel stairs the morning after.’