I Am Watching You(63)
‘OK. But don’t dodge the question, Sarah. This Karl is clearly a nutter and I’m so very sorry this is so frightening for you – what’s going on in Spain, I mean. But to be perfectly honest, I’m just relieved Dad wasn’t involved. And if Anna upped and went off with this guy Karl . . .’
‘She didn’t up and go off with him.’ Sarah lets this hang in the air and feels suddenly exhausted. It is a bit like that feeling when you stand on a bridge and there is this tiny part of you that wants to jump. To join the water. You know that you shouldn’t but you can’t help the feeling. And you know that there is this really important decision to be made in a split second and it is frightening. The consequence. The thin line between one choice and the other. Just like with the bottle and the pills, though she realises now that this did not end it. Solve it. Just made it go on and on and on.
‘At least, I don’t know if she did. Or if he took her, or spiked her drink or whatever, because the point is I didn’t look out for her. We had a bad row, me and Anna. And the truth is I just don’t know what the hell happened.’ Sarah realises as she listens to her own voice, gabbling suddenly, that she just needs an end to this. However awful and shaming and terrible. And her sister – this shrunken and sad version of the sister she has so missed – is her only hope for a full stop.
Lily sits on the end of her bed, her expression changing. A deep frown, then a sort of twitch of the head.
‘You need to tell me, Sarah. Please.’ Fidgeting with the bands around her wrist again, which makes Sarah want to cry for her. For them both.
There is a long pause. A deep breath that Sarah realises must be her own. And . . . jump.
‘We had agreed to stay at the club until about two a.m. and then take a taxi back to the hotel together. I was chatting with Antony to start with and Anna was with Karl. It was OK at first. We felt really grown up. I feel stupid admitting that now, but it’s the truth. But then they both sort of lost interest in us. They seemed to know quite a few people. Just wandered off. Pretty much ignored us.’ Sarah’s voice quietens as she remembers how it felt. How angry she felt. How ashamed and duped at how hard she had tried to make Antony like her on the train . . . How quickly he was off, laughing and flirting with other girls at the club. She had thought when they invited them out that it would be like a double date. She had imagined they would sit, the four of them. Dance. Have fun together. But no . . .
‘I always get it so wrong with boys . . . with men, Lily.’ She is looking up at her sister now. ‘They call me a slag in school.’
‘You are not a slag.’
She can feel tears on her cheeks and closes her eyes, not caring. ‘I just want people to like me.’
She keeps her eyes closed but can hear the creak of the bed as Lily moves to put her arms around her. ‘Shhh. Shhh. Sarah. It’s going to be all right.’
She shakes off the comfort. ‘No. It’s not. Anna came to me at about half past midnight and said that she wanted to go early. She’d had enough. She was tired. Very tipsy. But I was looking for Antony still. I was a bit drunk too, and really cross with him, so I told Anna not to be such a baby. To have another drink and to chill out.’ Sarah wipes her cheek with one hand, the salty taste of the tears now on her lips. ‘That’s why we rowed. She told me she didn’t feel safe anymore and I more or less told her to piss off. To make her own way back.’
‘And that’s when she suggested contacting Dad?’
‘Yeah. She said that maybe we should get him to come to the club and see us back to the hotel. But I said she was being pathetic and if she contacted Dad I would never speak to her again.’
‘Did you tell the police this?’
‘No. Of course not. I lied. I said Anna was the one who didn’t turn up for the taxi later . . .’ Sarah opens her eyes to try to read her sister’s judgement. Lily looks shocked, and Sarah remembers the look of shock on Anna’s face, too. Please. I want to go back to the hotel now. I feel a bit too drunk. Please, Sarah, I’m begging you . . . She is wondering how much worse all their faces will look when they find out what happened on the train. With Antony.
‘Later I couldn’t find her. So I had to take a taxi on my own. I thought she would be back in our room already. Cross with me. I thought I would have the chance to get sober. Say sorry. But when she didn’t come back to the hotel, I was in this incredible panic at first, that maybe she had got in contact with Dad.’
‘Jeez.’
‘I was so confused, Lily. Back then, I didn’t even know if I was wrong to think so badly about Dad. Paranoid. But I started to think – what if Anna did phone his hotel and he came to the club? Met her outside or something. Oh, I don’t know, just mad worries firing round my brain because of the way he is, Lily. But I was too scared to tell the police.’ She looks directly into Lily’s eyes, whose expression says she understands. ‘And then Karl and Antony did a bunk and so I thought it was way more likely to be them. And this finally confirms it. That Karl just took her . . . and God knows what . . .’ Sarah is openly sobbing now.
‘So it is my fault. Either way, I messed up, Lily. I completely let Anna down.’
CHAPTER 39
THE FATHER
‘I’m wondering if you should phone the family doctor. Maybe a sedative or something? To help Barbara calm down?’ Cathy, the family liaison officer, is stroking Barbara’s back as she sits, head between her knees, on a chair at the kitchen table.