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‘Your brother.’
‘Bobby.’ She sniffed. ‘There. Now you feel sorry for me. I can’t have that.’ Her smile was wobbly.
‘I don’t feel sorry for you.’
‘Yes, you do.’
Alex looked at Lin. If her friend had heard any gossip about her then she was keeping a pretty good poker face about it. Normally Alex didn’t like talking about what Sasha had done to her family – her whole family – and, deliberately, she didn’t easily invite confidences, but Lin was watching her with pain in her eyes and Alex wanted to reach out to her. Could she do it, though? Could she really expose herself and her life to a relative stranger? But Lin was her friend, and you should trust friends, right? She took a deep breath. ‘I don’t feel sorry for you because I know what it’s like to have someone close to you who has mental health problems.’
‘A bit batty, you mean?’
Alex smiled. ‘Something like that. My sister, Sasha, has been very ill over the past few years.’
‘How so?’
‘She suffers – suffered – from severe post-natal depression. These days it would be called post-partum psychosis because she … um …’ Alex’s throat filled up with tears. She swallowed hard. ‘She killed her children. They were twins. Four years old. And she’s been getting treatment in a mental health unit. The judge was very kind to her. During the trial.’ She waited for the gasp of shock and horror from Lin, but none came.
‘That must be so hard for you.’ The hand she had reached out to Lin was now being squeezed, and Lin’s careful tone pulled Alex back from the brink. She was able to tell Lin the story of how Sasha had drowned her twins in the North Sea more than fifteen years earlier, how two people were jailed in connection with their murder. How neither of those two people lived to see Sasha tell the truth. The truth that had only come out two years ago.
‘Was there ever a part of you that over the years thought Sasha had killed her babies?’
Alex didn’t know how to answer that. It was something she had asked herself over and over again. Had she turned a blind eye to what Sasha could be capable of? Had she been lying to herself for years? Alex couldn’t fully answer those questions, which was why the guilt still haunted her however much she told herself she had dealt with it.
‘Look, it was unfair of me to ask you that,’ said Lin.
‘No, it’s perfectly fair but I don’t know the answer. And I feel guilty about that. That and the fact the children were taken from my garden while I was in bed with a man.’
Lin gave a low whistle. ‘Right.’
‘A man who was arrested for their murder but died in prison.’
‘God, woman, it sounds like something off Jeremy Kyle.’ Her friend was obviously trying to lift the atmosphere and Alex liked her for that. Lin stood up. ‘I know what you need.’
‘My bed?’ said Alex, hopefully. All this confessional stuff was exhausting. Yet liberating too. She felt as though some of what she called her cloak of doom had been peeled away from her shoulders.
‘A bit of fresh air. Come on, let’s go to the beach.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. I want to know all about what you were doing today and also what else is on your mind.’
‘What else?’
‘Yep. What else. And my guess is that it’s something to do with that troublesome sister of yours. Either that or a man.’
Alex laughed. ‘What are you? A mind reader?’
‘So it’s a man?’
‘No.’ But talking about Sasha had brought her to the forefront of her mind. A problem she had to solve. She didn’t want to think about it now.
‘Come on.’ Lin grabbed the wine bottle and two clean glasses from the cupboard. ‘Let’s go and blast the cobwebs away.’
‘Hardly blasting,’ grumbled Alex, standing. ‘There’s no wind and it’s quite warm.’
‘All the better, then,’ said Lin. ‘Come on.’
The walk to the prom and down onto the beach took them less than ten minutes. There were still plenty of people around enjoying the unseasonably warm evening. Lin settled down with her back up against the wood of a groyne and pushed the glasses and bottle into the sand. Gulls still wheeled and screamed above them, and the sea whispered on the shingle at the shoreline.
Alex sat. ‘I love the sea. Because it’s always there, coming in, going out. It’s dependable.’
‘Dependable?’
‘You know what I mean. The tide going in and out has been happening for millions of years, and it’ll go on happening. Long after human beings have become extinct. Puts things in perspective somehow.’ She picked up the wine Lin had just poured and took a sip. She looked around in the fading light. It wasn’t far from here that Sasha had waded into the sea with her two babies and just let them – drown. She shivered.
‘Cold?’
‘I’m fine,’ said Alex, putting the memory back in its box.
‘So?’ Lin raised her eyebrows.
Alex picked up a handful of sand and let it trickle through her fingers. ‘So?’
‘Tell me about today first of all. You said it had been interesting?’
‘There’s not much to tell. As I said when I saw you, my old news editor, Bud, asked me to keep an eye on what was happening with the boat where the bodies were found.’
‘Oh yes, keeping the seat warm for some hotshot to come and take all the credit for your hard work.’
Alex laughed. ‘Hardly, Lin. But—’
‘But you quite enjoyed the thrill of the chase and now you want to stay on it?’
‘Something like that.’ Alex paused, trying to marshal her thoughts. ‘I came alive again today. Felt I was doing something, not just writing about, I don’t know, the Aldeburgh Festival or the price of beach huts in Sole Bay. Or even extreme couponing.’
‘Extreme what?’
Alex waved her hand. ‘Never mind. It’s too dull to go into.’
‘Okay. But I thought you liked doing those features?’
‘I do. Though—’ She frowned.
‘Today was more exciting.’
‘I think that’s what it is, yes.’
‘So don’t let Heath Maitland take all the glory. Get in there.’
‘Maybe.’ She thought about the tingle of excitement she’d had when she’d spoken to Colin Harper. How she had felt she belonged when she sat at the presser.
‘No “maybe” about it. It’s your story.’
That’s what she liked about Lin – that she was so loyal, so behind her. She looked at her friend and grinned. ‘You seem awfully keen to keep me on this story. You’ll have to talk to Bud.’ A thought suddenly struck her. ‘Heath Maitland. How did you know it was him who came up from London?’
Lin poured them both some more wine. ‘You told me.’
‘Did I?’
Lin nudged her gently. ‘Yes, you did. Over dinner.’ She looked at Alex over the rim of her glass. ‘So tell me how far you’ve got. With your investigating. Sounds so grown-up.’
‘Ha! Not really. And I haven’t got very far at all. I managed to get the addresses of Derek Daley and Roger Fleet. Mind you, I expect Bud knows Daley’s address anyway – and I had a tour around a boat similar to the one Daley and Fleet hired.’
‘Is that it?’
‘Yep. Why, did you think I should have unmasked the killer by now?’
‘Of course,’ Lin laughed. ‘I have every faith in your abilities.’
‘And what were you doing there this morning?’
‘Where?’
‘Down at the staithe?’
‘I told you, heard there was something going on and I wanted to find out what it was. Plus I needed some pictures for my artwork. You know, of all those ducks and geese. And the fisherman for that matter.’
‘And the bird shit?’
‘That too.’
Alex smiled. They looked out over the grey sea.
‘So. What’s on your mind, Alex? I know there’s something.’
Alex sighed deeply and shut her eyes. She knew she was going to have to face this sooner or later. Sooner was probably better. ‘You’re right. It is about Sasha.’
‘Okay. And now you’ve told me all about her, you can tell me what the latest is.’ She leaned across and kissed Alex softly on the cheek. ‘That’s what friends are for.’
Alex opened her eyes. ‘She’s been released from the mental health unit.’
‘Right.’
‘I had an email this morning asking me how she was getting on now she’d been with me for two days. I didn’t know how to reply; well, I haven’t replied, because she’s not with me. She left the unit and could be anywhere.’
Lin sat back. ‘Not with you? You must be frantic. Where could she be?’
‘That’s just it, I know I should be worried, chasing around and I am, but …’ She hugged her knees.
‘You have made some calls?’
‘Yes. But she hasn’t got many friends.’
‘Police?’
Alex shook her head. ‘I haven’t gone down that road yet.’
‘But she’s a vulnerable person—’
‘I know.’ Alex managed to stop herself shouting. She took a deep breath, steadied herself. ‘I’ve tried her phone, left a message.’
‘You need to do more than that.’
Alex felt the tears prick at the back of her eyes. ‘I will. I will. I keep thinking she’ll phone me. Or that she’s gone to stay with someone she met in the unit. That she wanted to have a bit of time to herself. That if I don’t hear anything I will go to the police tomorrow.’
‘Right.’ Lin sounded doubtful.
Alex sighed. She had to go on, tell Lin the truth. She took a deep breath. ‘The thing is, I’ve been dreading having her with me.’
And that dread was why she had pushed the problem of Sasha to the back of her mind. And that in itself was unusual for her. All her life she had been the one caring about her sister, trying to do right by her, shielding her as much as she could. Not that it had done any good in the end. But now she had had several months with Sasha not being her responsibility, and, though she hated to admit it to herself, had enjoyed the freedom that had brought.
‘Okay,’ said Lin, slowly. ‘But you want to have your sister back home with you, don’t you? So you can look after her?’
‘Yes. But—’
‘But what? She’s your sister, Alex. And you need to know where she is.’
Alex blinked at the harshness in Lin’s voice.
‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ said Lin, shaking her head. ‘What am I like? I should know better, what with my brother and his problems.’
‘No, you’re right. But – I don’t know if I’ll be able to cope,’ she whispered. It wasn’t just that. Alex thought she might let Sasha down again. Not be able to look after her properly. Or was it something else entirely – something Alex couldn’t bring herself to think about: that she didn’t want her troubled sister with her?
‘Of course you’ll cope,’ Lin said. ‘She’s your family. If you think you can’t manage, what about your parents?’
Alex shook her head. ‘No. Mum’s got enough to do with Dad and everything, and anyway, Sash says she’s caused them enough grief.’ She laughed, but it was hollow. ‘As if she hasn’t caused me any over the years, sabotaging my life, my relationships.’
‘Your relationships?’
Alex wished she hadn’t said anything. ‘You know.’
‘No?’
‘Well, she married my boyfriend, Jez.’
‘What? She nicked him off you? More fodder for Jeremy Kyle.’
Alex couldn’t help but smile. ‘Not exactly. We had finished with each other. And they did fall in love. Married young. Had the twins shortly after. And that’s when the depression and the self-harming got worse. After the two children died, Sasha needed even more looking after, until it came out she had killed the children herself.’
