White Bodies(84)

“I told you not to come, little one. There’s far too much going on, and it would have been better to wait. It’s been difficult . . .”

She pulls me to her and kisses my cheek, not barely brushing it in her usual way, but pressured and long, like she’s missed me, and I’m not sure whether to feel cherished or used.

In any case, I don’t want to pull away. She smells of geranium and of orange, which I suppose is her shower gel or her shampoo, and I bury my face in her neck, to get more of it, as I hug her and say “I’ve hardly slept. . . . It’s making me feel strange, like you’re not real, like this house isn’t real.”

“LA is a little like that—it deals in fantasy.”

“I don’t mean that . . . I think it’s more that you are your fabricated self here, in an unnatural habitat.” Something I could never have said before Liam brought it into the open and made it true.

I look around her dark-wood bedroom, at the table with her makeup on the top, lipsticks and mascaras and foundations untidily scattered, the tops left off; at the bed, which is oddly low, the covers thrown back, the sheets and pillows dented, and at the open glass doors, the balcony beyond, with a view of nothing other than deep, waxy foliage, and the tiniest glimpse of the pool.

“You’re funny, Callie,” she says. “If you’re so tired, why don’t you lie on the bed? Actually, I might join you—I have time before the hair and makeup people arrive, I may as well rest.”

She unbelts her robe, lets it drop to the floor, so that I’m gazing at her naked body; finding myself filled with embarrassment, but unable to look away. Apart from a quick glance that day on the Thames, I haven’t seen her without her clothes since we were children, since we were prepubescent and shared an evening bath, and I’m unable to speak as she crosses the room towards the bed; I’m noticing everything about her as if for the first time, jutting little hips, the soft cupping curve of her breasts, the waxed skin down between her legs. It’s too much to take in, but I want to touch her white, white skin—no little ink spots now, just a few freckles clustered here and there, and the mole on her shoulder.

She gets in, pulling up the sheet, and I take off my shoes and my jeans, and I join her.

“Can I hug you?”

“Of course.” She opens her arms, and I move in, resting my head low on her shoulder, practically on her breast, and for a few blissful seconds I close my eyes and imagine what life would be like if my sister was an innocent person. I wriggle to get comfortable, moving my arm under her back, the other across her stomach, entwining my legs with hers, until we are one amorphous being, and Tilda says, “We’re like the babes in the wood.”

“I know everything.” I stroke her stomach with my finger, and then her bony hip.

“Really?” It’s that tender attitude again. “That’s good. You’re me and I’m you—so I guess it’s important that you know.”

“You didn’t always think that. . . .”

“No—but then I didn’t realize how well my plans would work out.”

“You were lucky.”

“I’m a lucky person, Callie.”

“This is how I understand it . . .” I move my hand up her body, caressing the side of her breast, then stroking her face and her hair. “You got the idea from the Strangers on a Train movie . . . the idea of swapping murders. If you could get someone to kill Felix for you, you’d kill in return.”

She laughs gently, a tiny sparkle of a laugh. “And why would I do such a thing? Why would I want Felix dead? My darling boy.”

“Oh, you never loved Felix. You wanted his money. . . . Your career was foundering—Felicity Shore told me that—you’d been behaving badly in London, like a prima donna, losing jobs, and you were desperate to make a fresh start here, in LA. So you married Felix, made sure you would inherit—”

“I’m proud of you, you know. I always have been, actually. You see things that others don’t. It’s your sensitivity.” She kisses the top of my head, pulls my hair back away from my face, almost roughly.

“But you didn’t mind using me, did you?” I say. “You’re ruthless, Tilda. . . . When I told you about controllingmen.com you saw how to haul me in—you told Charlotte to join up, and to befriend me, to take me further and further into my obsession with dangerous men and vulnerable women. That way, I’d keep quiet about Felix’s death—and you thought I’d be persuaded to kill Luke for Charlotte. You were outsourcing your side of the bargain to stupid me.”

“Oh, you haven’t got that bit quite right.” Now she was whispering. “Charlotte was practically psychopathic—she was keen to kill, she saw it as exciting . . . so I knew that if you didn’t go through with Luke’s murder, she’d do it anyway. There was no real reason for Luke to die, you see, other than Charlotte’s belief that if she and I were both bereaved, sharing a lethal secret, that we’d be bonded together for good. That we’d both have brilliant careers, sharing success; that’s what she wanted. She was a fool, Callie.”

I pull away, so that I can look at her face, and she gives me the sweetest smile.

“Charlotte told you about Belle, and how she was a nurse,” I say, “and you came up with the injections idea.”