Anger.

Chapter Sixty-Nine

Carly

Now

Carly watches as Leah’s confused expression morphs to fear when she sees the glint of the knife Carly is brandishing in her hand.

‘What are you doing?’ Leah’s voice is high.

‘Did you know?’ Carly demands as she bundles Archie onto her lap. He is warm and soft. She loves him so very much.

‘What’s wrong with Archie?’ Leah inches forward, stopping when she sees the blade swish dangerously close to Archie’s beautiful waxy face. ‘Carly!’

‘I gave him one of your sleeping tablets. Answer me.’

‘Answer what?’

‘About Marie. Did. You. Know?’ She shouts now, but it doesn’t really matter what Leah says, Carly knows she won’t believe her.

Chapter Seventy

Leah

Now

‘Marie?’ I repeat. Does Carly know that our sister is dead? It’s the only explanation I can think of that might go some small way to explaining her erratic behaviour but if there’s a chance, however tiny, that she doesn’t know I don’t want to tell her right now. She’s already teetering on the edge, I can’t be the one to push her over. I don’t know why she’s given Archie a sleeping tablet. I don’t know why she’s brandishing a knife. All I know is that the longer I can keep her talking the better. George must have read my text, he’s always glued to his phone. The police have to be on their way.

Don’t they?

Chapter Seventy-One

Carly

Now

‘Marie knew about the abduction,’ Carly says, her voice monotone.

‘I don’t understand. Knew?’

‘Before it happened. Mum was in on it too, apparently. She must have hated us even then.’

When Carly first found out the truth she had believed Marie’s assurances that Leah hadn’t known their parents’ plan, but the more she had thought about it the more she became convinced that was a lie.

Another one.

They were twins. They shared everything.

Leah takes a sharp intake of breath. In the dim, milky light Carly can see her face is the colour of flour. Carly thinks she might have got it wrong. Leah might not have known. She’s always worn her heart on her sleeve. It was Marie who was always the actress. It appears she might have fooled them both.

‘Your dad—’

‘Don’t call him that,’ Leah says sharply.

‘Simon was planning it with Mum. Marie overheard him and Mum talking.’

‘I can’t… I don’t…’

‘It’s true. That was the new angle she was alluding to when she told us about the offer of the TV interview.’

‘No… She was my twin. I would have known. No…’

‘Yes.’

Leah buries her hands in her hair. Carly feels her anguish. Carly has always known how her sisters felt, or she thought she had. She was always the one who wanted to make it better for them but she can’t make this better. No one can. Carly gives Leah a minute. Her heart twists at her sister’s distress. In the silence she hears a scuttling. A burying insect. The memory of the beetles, in her hair, in her mouth returns to her with a punch. So much she has been through because of one man. So much that could have been stopped if Marie had just told the truth.