As angry as she was, she couldn’t just leave Marie. Carly was gentle as she eased her hands into Marie’s armpits and dragged her over to the centre of the room. She walked slowly, collecting cardboard, broken pallets, building a pile over Marie much like the one that had been there before. It was there she left her.

Forever hiding.

Forever safe.

‘Oh Carly,’ Leah said softly. ‘It wasn’t your fault. If you hadn’t given her the money, she’d have found it somehow. Addicts always do. She loved you. Please never doubt that. We all love you. You are our sister and we never thought of you as any different.’

‘Everyone lied to me.’

‘Mum lied to me too.’

‘It’s not the same. Did you know it was only meant to be me?’ Carly hated how small her voice sounded. How needy.

‘What was?’

‘The abduction. Marie was supposed to get me into the alley on my own. Two men to take one girl. One mattress. One blanket. One teddy.’

‘Carly, I didn’t… I can’t imagine…’ There’s a beat. ‘Look, I’m sure it was because you were the oldest…’

But Carly knew it was because she was the least loved. Her fingers played with Archie’s hair. ‘It was only meant to be me,’ she said again sadly. ‘It all has to end. Now.’

Chapter Seventy-Four

Leah

Now

My heart breaks for Carly. Finally I am free from the guilt that it wasn’t my fault – that I likely had shut the gate properly but Marie had opened it again – but instead I am burdened with the knowledge that my dad – Simon – had formulated his plan around Carly as if she didn’t matter. After all his talk about family, about treating the girls the same despite Carly not being his, he didn’t care. The knowing that, after years of thinking otherwise, he had perhaps loved Marie and me doesn’t bring any comfort.

We were sisters. We felt what each other felt. The horror. The burden. The grief. The fear.

‘Everything that has happened the past few days, was it all you?’ I ask Carly – for the first time it occurs to me that Simon wasn’t behind any of it. ‘Did you send me the countdown letters?’

‘Yes. I wrote myself the same letters so you wouldn’t suspect me.’

‘I’d never have suspected you… Was all of it you? The mice? The teddy? The cross around his neck?’

‘Yes,’ she says simply. ‘I didn’t know what to do. I couldn’t think clearly after Marie had confessed. There was the buzzing in my head. I wasn’t thinking. I just went home and went to bed. The next day when you took us to Marie’s flat and let us in with the spare key, it seemed easier to scribble a note from her in the kitchen, saying that she’d gone on tour. You were in the bedroom. I didn’t think it through, it just happened.’ Carly had always been good at forging handwriting, faking letters from Mum to the school to get herself out of PE. ‘There was this feeling, Leah, that if I called the police they’d blame me for Marie’s death. Everyone would blame me for Marie. You were always the nation’s favourites, the cute pigtailed twins. I was… an awkward teenager. Now I’m an awkward adult. I couldn’t face it all around the anniversary. And…’ Carly wipes the tears from her cheeks with the hand that still grips the knife. ‘I don’t know. I thought you knew. I hated you both for… for being born, I suppose. Ruining Mum’s life. My life. I wished it was just her and me again in our tiny flat, eating chicken nuggets.’