Blood Sisters(61)



Apart from my sister.

‘Help me, Ali.’ I could almost hear her voice, pleading. ‘You can do it. I know you can.’

I didn’t have to go to Vanessa’s inquest. Instead, said the policewoman, they would read out the statement I’d given at the time. When Mum and David came back, their eyes were red and hollow. ‘That poor girl,’ sobbed Mum. ‘They said she’d died from multiple injuries. Just like Mrs Wright.’

‘It’s the trial that’s important,’ snapped David. ‘But that won’t happen for a while. At least the little bastard didn’t get bail. That’s something, I suppose.’

Meanwhile, there was the funeral. ‘What will people think if you’re not there?’ Mum had said when I pleaded to stay by my sister’s hospital bed instead. So I gave in. Good girl, Alison. If only they knew.

It seemed as if the whole school had turned up; wailing in one wave of grief after another as the coffin came in. Was it really possible that Vanessa, with her made-up face and cheeky smile, was inside that box? Her father was one of the bearers. Agony made his face unrecognizable. An only child. Her parents had nothing now.

All through the service, I wanted to stand up and shout ‘Blame me!’

Afterwards, people quietly sidled up to me with well-meaning questions which failed to disguise their curiosity. ‘How is your sister doing?’

‘Still in an induced coma,’ I told them, one after the other. No more. No less.

‘At least she’s alive,’ spat Vanessa’s mother, who emerged at my side just as the last trail of mourners was leaving. ‘That boy deserves to hang.’

‘Come on, now.’ Vanessa’s father put a burly arm around his wife. ‘You don’t really mean that.’

‘I do.’ She was looking straight at me, her lovely violet eyes appraising me like some kind of lie detector. ‘I’ve always said I’d kill anyone who hurt my daughter. And I would.’

Afterwards, I couldn’t wait to get back to Kitty. ‘I said goodbye to Vanessa for you,’ I said, kneeling down at her bedside, trying to equate this strange body full of wires with my pretty, vivacious, impossible sister.

The nurses had told me to talk to her. ‘People in comas can still hear, you know. There’s medical evidence.’

Was I right, I asked myself, to tell Kitty that Vanessa was dead? But my sister would have to know if she woke up, wouldn’t she? And I had to be there when she did.





48


May 2017


Alison


So I write. Martin – Crispin – watching every word. Every letter. I don’t have to, of course. I could make up another story. But I’m tired of running. It’s all getting too much.

In my usual, careful, even handwriting, I describe how my sister and I were running for school. How we’d missed the bus. How Vanessa was ahead at first and then came back to join us.

Then the bombshell. How my sister and her friend said they knew my secret. Seeing me through the window of the summer house. Having sex with this man standing over me right now.

All the anger I’ve been bottling up over the years suddenly pours out. I throw the pencil down and look right at him. ‘How could you do such a terrible thing?’

For a minute there’s a flicker in his eyes. Remorse? Maybe. Then it’s gone.

‘And don’t even think about calling it rape,’ he snaps. There’s a groan from the bloody mess on the ground next to me. Stefan.

‘He needs help,’ I plead.

‘Keep on writing.’ He raises the stick. It falls on the desk next to my right hand. It misses my fingers by centimetres. As an artist, I’m always worried about my hands. They’re my tools. One of the few ways to escape this world.

Sweat is pouring down Martin’s face. Mine too. He could kill Stefan. And me. Unless I think fast.

Shakily I pick up the pencil again. So I pushed my sister into the road.

‘There’s more,’ he says. ‘Go on.’

My eyes are so wet that I can barely see my own writing now. I pushed her in front of a car coming round the corner. Then I fling my pencil on to the desk.

He says my sentence out loud.

Every word feels like a leaden weight. A poisoned pill.

I am exhausted. Martin’s scars appear to gleam with triumph, or maybe it’s just the sun streaming through the dusty window. ‘So you lied in court. You said you were arguing with your sister and she pulled away. But really you pushed her because you were scared she’d tell about us having sex. If you had told the truth, I might not be behind bars. If you hadn’t pushed your sister into the road, my mother might not have died.’

He is so close now that there is barely breathing space between us. I can see each pore in his skin. Breathe his breath. Inhale his murderous anger.

‘You killed her,’ he spits.

He raises the stick again. I feel strangely calm. If the accident hadn’t happened, Kitty would be dancing and running and walking instead of being in a wheelchair. She might have been a famous artist or a musician. Vanessa would be alive. Her parents would still have a child.

Death will, quite frankly, be a release. I take a hanky out of my pocket and mop the sweat running down my neck.

‘Leave her alone.’

There’s a roar. A choking noise. For a minute, I think that an officer has finally come in to see what is going on. Then I realize. It’s Stefan, miraculously stumbling to his feet.

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